Top 4 HR trends to watch this year

How can HR professionals better engage employees, improve an organization's brand, and maximize productivity and profitability? Their success will rely on HR departments staying nimble and leveraging technological advances to help reshape workplace practices. Here are four HR trends to watch this year:


HR professionals can no longer rest on their laurels. They are now looking to implement innovative strategies to better engage employees, improve the company’s brand both internally and externally, maximize productivity and increase the organization’s profitability.

So how can HR professionals go about making this happen? The success of HR will largely be based on staying nimble, evolving their organization’s policies and leveraging technological advances to ultimately reshape their workplace practices.

With that in mind, here are the top HR trends that will take center stage:

The gig economy and the importance of flexibility. The gig economy, which is comprised of individuals with short-term or temporary engagements with a company, is substantially important to employers. Here, workers are seeking increased flexibility and control over their work environments. Since many questions remain unanswered regarding worker classification issues and the application of existing laws in the gig economy, look for the Department of Labor to issue an opinion letter or guidance in 2019 detailing how a company may compliantly work within the gig economy and not run afoul of existing independent contractors.

Flexibility also is important for all employees — not just for the gig economy. While telecommuting and remote positions are not new, they are being emphasized again to better engage employees and increase retention metrics.

The tech effect on future of HR. The strategic and consistent use of workforce data analytics to predict and improve a company’s performance has exploded over the last several years, with additional momentum expected in 2019. While most HR professionals rely on metrics for basic recruiting and turnover rates, more in-depth analytics and trend spotting has become the norm.

Once trends are identified in, for example, turnover rates, an HR professional should have the tools to dive into the data and analyze root causes, such as the need for manager training, review of compensation strategies or a change in the company’s culture. Using predictive analytics in the HR space is helping companies make better informed, dynamic and wiser decisions based on historical data, as well as placing HR on the level of other data-driven company departments, such as finance and marketing.

The collection of this enormous amount of data also poses challenges and potential risks to companies, including negative perceptions among employees about how their data is being used, employee privacy laws and potential security breaches. Strong and comprehensive security policies, protocols and controls are necessary to ensure employers are keeping their employees’ data safe. In 2019, a steady flow of communications to employees regarding advanced security and usage policies is key to prevent data misuse or misunderstanding regarding how information is collected and used.

Artificial intelligence also will continue to be a significant focus driving improvement in the HR arena. Determining which data to collect, analyze and protect will provide opportunities for AI to assume a larger role in HR. Also, in some large organizations, AI already is being used for more than just automating repetitive HR tasks, such as onboarding new employees. The future of AI for most companies will include creating more personalized employee experiences as well as supporting critical decisions. From analyzing performance data to eliminating biases when screening candidates, AI will continue to be a pivotal HR tool.

Strategies for successful recruitment. Running an effective talent pipeline should be the objective of all hiring endeavors. Pipelining is consistently gaining traction as a recruitment tool for new employees. The concept employs marketing concepts to ensure that companies have a diverse group of strong recruits waiting to be hired. Pipelining reduces time to hire and leads to better quality candidates.

Health, wellness and adequate employee training. Another area of importance is multi-faceted wellness programs, which focus on an employee’s total well-being, from nutrition to financial wellness. These programs often include a comprehensive employee assistance program, training and activities during worktime. The training can focus on anything from physical health to development of employees’ knowledge base and technology-focused education. A greater emphasis also is being placed on workplace communication coaching, such as collaboration and negotiation, which are critical to success in the workplace.

Continued training and heightened prevention of sexual harassment and discrimination will be another trend this year. Organizations big and small must ensure that compliant policies are in place and employees are trained on the policies. Several states including California, New York, Connecticut and Maine already mandate that private employers must provide harassment training to workers, and the number of states requiring this training is expected to increase in the coming years.

SOURCE: Seltzer, M. (03 January 2020) "Top 4 HR trends to watch this year" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/opinion/top-4-hr-trends-to-watch-this-year


Are You Pushing Yourself Too Hard at Work?

Different seasons can bring in long hours, extensive work, and multiple deadlines that require a lot of attention. Are you pushing yourself too hard? It is important to know the difference between a temporary work crunch and an everyday "norm". Read this blog post for a few key signs of pushing too hard at work.


We all have intense periods at work where multiple deadlines converge, an important deal is closing, or a busy season lasts for a few months. During these times, we may work more intensely or longer hours, but we know that the situation is temporary, and we are able to keep work in perspective. Conversely, approximately 10% of Americans are considered workaholics, defined as having a “stable tendency to compulsively and excessively work.” Whether you are in the midst of a temporary work crunch, or if working all the time is your version of “normal,” there are some key signs that you are pushing yourself too hard. These include:

You aren’t taking time off.  Consistently putting off vacations (including working over major holidays), regularly working all weekend, or dismissing the idea of an occasional day off is a sign that you are burning the candle from both ends. While only 23% of Americans take their full vacation time allotted, studies of elite athletes show that rest periods are precisely what helps them to perform at full throttle when needed, and the same is true for the rest of us. While extended vacations are helpful, smaller breaks, such as taking the weekend to recharge, carving out personal time in the evening, or having an occasional day off can also be an important part of having sufficient downtime to restore your energy and counter the drain of being “always on.”

You deprioritize personal relationships. When we focus exclusively on work for extended periods, it often comes at the expense of our personal relationships. During 2018, 76% of US workers said that workplace stress affected their personal relationships, with workaholics being twice as likely to get divorced. Not taking time to connect with friends and family can also be detrimental to our health. Research shows that strong social relationships are positively correlated to lifespan and that a lack of social relationships has the same effect as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. If you are not taking time outside of work to connect socially with others and have become increasingly isolated, such that social invitations have dried up because others assume you are not available, chances are you are too focused on work.

You’re unable to be fully present outside of work. Another sign you are pushing yourself too hard is that when you do leave the office and take time to be with the people you care about, you are not able to mentally turn work off and be present with them. In 2017, 66% of Americans reported working while on vacation. Jeff, a former client of mine who is a senior partner at his law firm, has never gone on vacation without his laptop. In addition, after making a point to spend time on the weekends to connect with his daughter, he confessed to constantly thinking about work and admitted that he couldn’t help but compulsively check email on his phone every few minutes. While it’s normal to think about work periodically, it becomes a problem when we’re not able to manage our urge to give into work-related distractions, slowly eroding our most important relationships. In his book, Indistractable, author Nir Eyal points out that these distractions make the people we care about “residual beneficiaries” of our attention, meaning they get what is left over, which typically not very much.

You’re neglecting personal care. This is not the occasional skipping a shower when working from home in your sweatpants. Failing to get sufficient sleep, missing meals or existing on a diet of coffee and energy bars, or abandoning exercise or personal hygiene for extended periods are all indications that you are in an unhealthy pattern of behavior. In particular, when we sacrifice sleep for work, we are effectively working against ourselves, as sleep deprivation is shown to impair higher-level cognitive functions including judgment, critical thinking, decision making, and organization. Likewise, skipping exercise puts us at a further disadvantage. Exercise has been shown to lower stress, improve mood and energy levels, and enhance cognitive function, such as memory, concentration, learning, mental stamina, and creativity. As a former investment banker who worked 80- to 100-hour weeks during more intense periods, taking breaks to exercise, eat, and even nap in one of the sleeping rooms provided onsite was critical to maintaining my health, stamina, and productivity.

You see your value as a person completely defined by work. Failure to see a broader perspective, both in terms of how you see your value as a person as well as how you see the importance of work relative to the rest of your life, can be a sign that you are pushing yourself too hard. This myopia is usually driven by deeply held limiting beliefs that create a contracted worldview. Elisa, the head of engineering at a tech company, pushed herself and her team incredibly hard. Her behavior was driven by a belief that “My value is what I produce.” To broaden her perspective, she asked others she respected about what they valued about her, as well as how they valued themselves. She was able to see not only that people valued her for other things like being a good friend, parent, or thought partner, but also that they defined their own value more broadly than their work. Sometimes, it takes a big life event, like the birth of a child or the death of a colleague or loved one, to shake someone out of this restricted perspective. Another way to broaden your perspective in the absence of these events is to have interests outside of work, which can be a good reminder that work isn’t everything.

While we all need to shift into high gear from time to time, keeping work in perspective with the rest of our lives, and taking care of ourselves and our relationships are key to achieving long-term success, both personally and professionally.

SOURCE: Zucker, R. (03 January 2020) "Are You Pushing Yourself Too Hard at Work?" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2020/01/are-you-pushing-yourself-too-hard-at-work


Fresh Brew with Scott Langhorne

Welcome to Fresh Brew, where we explore the delicious coffees, teas, and snacks of some of our employees! You can look forward to our Fresh Brew blog post on the first Friday of every month.

“Pay close attention to detail.”

Scott Langhorne is an Account Manager at Saxon.

Scott joined the team at Saxon Financial Services after working in customer service. His favorite catchphrase, a quote from the movie Friday Night Lights, is, “Clear eyes, full heart, can’t lose.”

Scott enjoys helping out his family and friends with any projects they need doing. He also enjoys traveling with his wife. His most memorable trip was when they traveled to Switzerland and Portugal.

In his free time, Scott enjoys playing golf during the warmer months. He also enjoys spending time with his wife and their dog, Bosley.

Bud Light

Scott enjoys drinking Bud Light. His favorite local spot to grab is favorite brew is wherever friends and family are.

Wings

Scott’s favorite snack to accompany his favorite brew are wings.

Give It A Try & Share It!


How to prevent employees from taking advantage of unlimited PTO

Attracting and retaining is becoming more difficult. Because of this companies are now offering competitive benefits to bring that talent to their company. Companies have added unlimited paid time off, along with work from home policies to their benefits offering. Read this blog post to learn how to prevent employees from taking advantage of new benefits being put in place.


In the quest to attract and retain top talent, more companies are offering competitive benefits including unlimited paid time off and generous work from home policies. But what if you have workers who abuse the policy?

To prevent workers from taking advantage, it’s critical that companies set proper guidelines, says Jonathan Wasserstrum, CEO and founder of Squarefoot, a commercial real estate company, which offers its staff unlimited personal time off. At his company, people were utilizing the policy from “all ends of the spectrum,” which led him to reassess how they monitored and encouraged time off.

“The war for talent is so strong right now, and when an employee is looking to make a decision, you don’t want to disqualify yourself because you don’t offer this benefit,” he says. “But people don’t use the amount of vacation days intended. You get some people who underutilize and over utilize. The bad spoils the good, and that's not the intent of unlimited policy.”

Unlimited paid time off is becoming a more popular benefit, especially in the tech space. According to Indeed, 65% of companies mentioned “unlimited PTO” in their job postings, and companies like General Electric and Kronos offer the benefit to employees.

While the standard time off has typically been two to four weeks, 55% of employees do not use all of their paid time off, according to the U.S. Travel Association. To level the playing field among his employees, Wasserstrum says he established guidelines that made unlimited PTO flexible, but still within reason.

“There are top performers who work a lot, and you don't want them to burn out. On the other end of the spectrum, there are those who take advantage of policy,” he says. “We frame it as flexible and not unlimited. The intent is for everyone to use it as time away from the office — it helps you refresh — so we encourage you to take anywhere from two to four weeks.”

Paid time off has a multitude of benefits, including increased employee morale and a better sense of work-life balance. And today’s workforce is in desperate need of time away from the office. According to Deloitte, 77% of employees say they have experienced burnout, and 70% say their employer does not do enough to prevent or mitigate work stress.

“Work-life balance looks very different now than it used to,” Wasserstrum says. “If I'm on vacation 20 years ago, you really can't get in touch with me. Now, everyone is 24/7 on, so you have to set the boundaries as an employer.”

In addition to more paid time off, more people are also reaping the benefits of remote work. According to a Gallup poll, 43% of the workforce works remotely some or all of the time, but employers like IBM, Aetna and Yahoo have pulled back on those policies and required workers to be on site instead, according to the Society of Human Resource Managers.

"[Managers] may have realized how blind and invisible remote workers are and they don't know what's going on at the remote location — what work that person is doing or what distractions they may have to deal with,” Judith Olson, a distance-work expert and professor at the University of California Irvine, told SHRM.

With more employees weighing the benefits of workplace policies, time off is still the top benefit employees look for. Metlife found 72% named unlimited paid time off as their most desired benefit, ahead of wellness plans and retirement programs.

While it may put companies at an advantage, PTO and other flexible work policies are just one part of the overall picture of a company’s workplace culture, Wasserstrum says.

“If you're winning people based on benefits, they're coming to you for the wrong reasons,” he says. “But every company looks and feels different from the inside and has a company culture that shouldn’t be one size fits all. This works for us and the work-life balance experience we want people to have.”

SOURCE: Place, A. (17 Decemeber 2019) "How to prevent employees from taking advantage of unlimited PTO" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/news/how-to-prevent-employees-from-taking-advantage-of-unlimited-pto


10 Quick Tips for Avoiding Distractions at Work

The number of notifications that the average employee gets interrupted by each day is between 50 and 60. With more than half of the interruptions being unimportant, these distractions are reducing the productivity rate of their work. Read this blog for tips on how to avoid distractions at work.


In a world of push notifications, email, instant messaging, and shrinking office space, we’re becoming increasingly distracted at work. The average employee is getting interrupted 50 to 60 times per day, and about 80% of these interruptions are unimportant. As a result, people are spending little time in what psychologists call “the flow state,” a space where people are up to five times more productive, according to research from McKinsey.

The constant distractions are not only leaving people less productive, but also more stressed than ever, with a lack of control over one’s work being cited as a major contributor to workplace stress, according to the American Institute of Stress. So, how do we avoid distractions in the office in order to take control of our days, do our best work, and improve our emotional well-being?

1. Practice Asynchronous Communication

When you get an email, it’s actually OK to think: “I’ll get to this when it suits me.”

Aside from the benefit of giving people more time for uninterrupted focus, asynchronous communication predisposes people to better decision-making by increasing the amount of time we have to respond to a request. When you’re on a phone call or video chat, you’re making real-time decisions, whereas if you’re communicating via email, you have more time to think about your response.

In order to practice this successfully, we must do away with the arbitrary “urgency” that still plagues workplaces the world over, almost a century after Dwight D. Eisenhower, who, quoting Dr. J. Roscoe Miller, president of Northwestern University, said: “I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.” This “Eisenhower Principle” is said to be how the former president prioritized his own workload.

To optimize an asynchronous message and to avoid a lot of follow-up emails, include the following in your initial request:

  • Sufficient details
  • Clear action item(s)
  • A due date
  • A path of recourse if the recipient is unable to meet your requirements

2. Batch Check Everything

“Just quickly checking” anything, even for one-tenth of a second, can add up to a 40% productivity loss over the course of a day, and it can take us 23 minutes to get back into the zone after task switching.

Rather than sporadically checking things throughout the day, we should batch check email, instant messages, social media, and even text messages, at predetermined times.

If you struggle with self-control, tools like Gmail’s Inbox Pause plugin enable you to pause your inbox once you’ve checked it and only unpause it when you’re ready. Blocksite and the Freedom app also allow you to block access to specific websites and apps during specified intervals.

3. Do Not Disturb

If you’re reading this and thinking: “But I work in an open-plan office, and it’s impossible to avoid interruptions,” try using a signaling mechanism to let your team know that you’re in the zone (or trying to get there) and that they shouldn’t disturb you unless it’s legitimately urgent. This could be as simple as a pair of headphones.

4. Avoid Calendar Tetris

In today’s workplace, it’s a widely accepted norm that others can book time in your calendar, usually at the expense of your own priorities.

Basecamp CEO, Jason Fried, told me on an episode of the Future Squared podcast that at Basecamp, you can’t book time in someone’s calendar without first getting buy-in. This means that most meetings just don’t happen because the would-be meeting organizer usually opts for a phone call or an instant message instead.

Alternatively, consider blocking out meeting-free zones on your calendar, or using a meeting scheduling tool such as Calendly so that people book meetings with you only during scheduled windows, leaving the rest of the day free for focus, and ensuring that you avoid the email tennis matches that scheduling meetings often degenerates into.

5. Close the Loop on Meetings

Instead of risking follow-up interruptions and a meeting to discuss the previous meeting, ensure that you leave each meeting with actionable next steps, clearly assigned responsibilities, and due dates.

6. Stop Using “Reply All”

Reply All, used as a mechanism to share accountability, only adds unnecessary chatter to people’s inboxes and headspace. Take more ownership over your decisions and only email people who need to be informed.

7. Use Third Spaces

As Sue Shellenbarger wrote for The Wall Street Journal, “All of this social engineering (open-plan offices) has created endless distractions that draw employees’ eyes away from their own screens. Visual noise, the activity or movement around the edges of an employee’s field of vision, can erode concentration and disrupt analytical thinking or creativity.”

If you’re struggling with open-plan offices, then try to incorporate more third-space work into your day for critical thinking; try to find a quiet space in the office, a serviced office, or negotiate some time to work from home.

8. Turn off Push Notifications

The average executive receives 46 push notifications per day. To avoid our Pavlovian impulses to respond on cue, simply turn off your push notifications. Find out how here.

9. Use Airplane Mode

You can also use airplane mode to limit text message and phone call interruptions during certain times of day. If the idea of doing this gives you anxiety, you can always exempt specific numbers, such as those of loved ones or valued and important business associates. You can set “Do Not Disturb” mode on an iPhone to allow your designated “favorite” contacts to get through, while silencing other calls or messages.

10. Limit Layers of Approval

While harder to implement, becoming a “minimum viable bureaucracy” — stripping away unnecessary layers of approvals required to get trivial and not-so-consequential things done — means that there will be less paperwork to move around, which means fewer interruptions for people.

Awareness Is Key

Environmental changes aside, human beings evolved to conserve energy in order to stand a shot at surviving on the savannah. As such, we are predisposed to picking the lowest hanging fruit or doing the easiest thing first — think checking email instead of working on that presentation. Becoming more aware of our tendencies to pick the low hanging fruit, getting distracted by low-value activities, is step one towards changing our behaviors.

Organizations that build a culture around minimizing distractions will enjoy the compounding benefit of a focused workforce and will leave their people feeling less stressed and ultimately more fulfilled.

SOURCE: Glaveski, S. (18 December 2019) "10 Quick Tips for Avoiding Distractions at Work" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2019/12/10-quick-tips-for-avoiding-distractions-at-work?ab=hero-subleft-2"


How to Motivate Your Team During Crunch Time

Keeping teams excited and enthusiastic during busy times of the year is a struggle that most HR departments and employers experience. Whether it's a nearing deadline or seasonal ends, it's important to make sure that teams stay motivated. Read this blog to learn how to keep motivation within teams.


There are times when work ramps up and you need all hands on deck. Ideally, you want people to jump into the work excited and enthusiastic rather than dreading what’s coming. So, what can you do to rally the troops when the team’s workload is particularly heavy? How do you talk about the project or time period so that people don’t feel daunted? And, how do you keep an eye on stress levels while still motivating people to get through the crunch?

What the Experts Say
Whether it’s a seasonal crunch time or a particularly demanding project with a tight deadline, it can be hard to keep people focused and motivated when they’re overloaded. The fact is, “most people already have a lot on their plate,” says Lisa Lai, a business advisor and coach. And so when you ask your team for more, “it can leave people feeling overwhelmed and inadequate.” On top of this, as the pace of work increases and our always-on technology serves as a tether to the office, intense periods are becoming more prevalent, says Ethan Bernstein, a professor of leadership and organizational behavior at Harvard Business School. “There is a greater quantity of crunch times and more of the work that we get done happens during a crunch,” he says. This has critical implications for you, the boss. By “focusing your attention on your employees” and projecting a calm, confident presence, you can make these times easier for the people on your team, Bernstein says. Here’s how.

Project positive energy
For starters, says Lai, “check your own emotional energy as a manager.” If you’re feeling beleaguered, worried, anxious, or frustrated about a project “there’s no way you can show up in front of your team” and be a confident guiding force. To lead, you need to be “engaged, motivated” and “emotionally bought in.” Start by “reflecting on why the work matters.” Figure out “why this project is relevant and who benefits from it,” she says. Remember, too, that crunch times can be useful learning opportunities. Yes, critical, time-sensitive projects are often tense, but “you want peaks and valleys,” says Bernstein. “Peaks — when everyone is engaged and motivated at the same time — are good” for team morale and drive. But they should not be the status quo. “There is a value to intermittency,” he says. If your team is in a constant crunch, employees “are not operating at an [optimal] level of productivity and effectiveness.”

Express empathy
Once you’ve personally connected to the work and its purpose, “convey that message to your team,” says Lai. “Don’t just say, ‘Here are the deliverables. Here’s the deadline.’” Instead, “develop the story” around why the project has meaning and what the ultimate goal is. “Define what success looks like.” Be upfront with your team and acknowledge the “burden and sacrifices” involved, such as late nights and weekends at the office. Express empathy and be vulnerable, adds Lai. “Say: ‘This is going to be hard. I am feeling it, too.’” Convey solidarity in the spirit of, “we are in this together,” says Bernstein. “We have to grind this out as one team.” And try not to dwell on the negatives. Tell your reports that, “there are going to be parts of this that are going to be fun, too.” Maintaining team camaraderie is a priority. That way, “it doesn’t have to hurt so much.”

Think about milestones
Next, consider breaking up the work into manageable chunks so that the overall deliverable isn’t so intimidating. Lai recommends, “creating meaningful arcs” to the project based on the work that matters most. Setting short-term targets for each phase directs the team’s focus, creates accountability, and helps to bring them closer to the end goal. “Say: ‘We will take a breath after each one. We will evaluate and make sure we’re on the right track. If we need to change course, we will do that.’” Milestones ought to help the team feel good about the incremental progress it’s making, so make sure you’re instituting them for the right reasons. “Don’t have all these mini crunches for the purpose of micromanaging,” says Bernstein. It’s also important to consider how multiple deadlines may affect the pace of your team’s work. If you give a team a defined amount of time to do a task, research shows that the team will work at a different speed before and after the midpoint. “The rubber meets the road” the closer a deadline looms, Bernstein says.

Offer autonomy
Allow the team to structure their workdays in ways that maximize their productivity. Crunch times are not the time for politics around face time or HR rules about working from home to get in the way,” Lai says. Let your employees play a role in defining the team and how they work together. “If they have a voice, they are more likely to lean into the work,” she says. “You want people to participate and feel involved in the process.” While they should be in charge, do what you can to clear the way for them. For example, says Bernstein, it’s helpful to clear the decks so employees can concentrate on the task at hand. You have the power to “take away distractions” and “make the crunch time relieving in some respects,” he says.

Be judicious with incentives
Rewards and incentives can be a key motivational tool. Lai suggests deploying them throughout the projected timeline, not just when it ends. “You need moments of celebration,” she says. “That’s how you create sustained engagement.” Think about ways to recognize your team’s hard work: a Friday afternoon off perhaps, or an all-office ice cream social. And yet, warns Bernstein, “extrinsic rewards have some downsides.” If, for instance, you tell your team that everyone gets the morning off after you reach a deadline, “you’re only incenting the completion of the work rather than the quality of it,” he says. Instead, he recommends “placing intrinsic rewards front and center.” Focus on how the project represents a “good developmental opportunity for team members,” and the reasons why “working closely together” will benefit the team in the long run.

Watch for red flags
You can often judge whether or not your direct report is anxious by the expression on their face or the way they talk. “You have an ability to read people, so use it,” says Bernstein. If you see that an employee is struggling, reach out. Don’t “keep plowing forward” at all costs, says Lai. “The biggest red flag is when people stop talking,” she says. “When your team goes quiet,” it’s an indication that employees “are feeling lost or overwhelmed.” Talk to your team. “Ask them: What’s going well and what is not going well? What do we need to pivot on? What roadblocks need to be removed?”

Be present and grateful
One final piece of advice: “be accessible,” says Bernstein. Lai concurs: “Even if you do all the other things right, if you disappear behind closed doors,” your leadership will be “an epic failure.” You need to be consistently available. Let your employees know you have their backs. “Walk the floor and talk to people. Ask: ‘Who needs help?’” Your colleagues “will value that you are present,” she adds. It goes without saying that you need to express gratitude for the sacrifices they’re making. Regularly say “thank you” and find small ways to show you appreciate what they’re putting in. And Lai adds: “it never hurts to bring donuts.”

Principles to Remember

Do

Check your own emotional energy. You can’t motivate your team if you’re not engaged and excited about the project.
Break up the work into manageable chunks so that the overall deliverable isn’t so intimidating. Milestones can focus the team.
Encourage your team members to structure their workdays in ways that maximize their productivity.

Don’t

Be dishonest or sugarcoat matters. Acknowledge to your team the burden and sacrifices involved.
Ignore obvious problems. If you see that an employee is struggling, reach out. Ask: What roadblocks need to be removed?
Disappear behind closed doors. You need to be accessible and visible to your team.
Case Study #1: Project enthusiasm and communicate why the work matters
Syed Irfan Ajmal, a digital marketing entrepreneur based in Pakistan, has had a lot of experience motivating teams during crunch times.

To “do it right,” he says, “you’ve got to know your team well. You have to know what excites them, what scares them, and what their deepest desires and biggest challenges are.”

In January 2013, Syed partnered with another entrepreneur — Yasir Hussain Sheikh — on a technology startup. The two of them assembled a small team of eight people to create and license a specialized spatial intelligence product.

The product, inspired by CNN’s “Magic Wall,” was to help TV hosts demonstrate the results of Pakistan’s elections using maps and data visualization on a multi-touch screen.

The pressure was intense — the elections were being held in May and so the team only had a few months to deliver. “We had an extremely short time period to work with,” says Syed. “If we failed to build and license the product by March 2013, all our work would have been futile.”

Syed and Yasir were worried about hitting the looming deadline, but they knew they needed to project positive energy to their team. Together, they reflected on what success would do for their startup and mean for Pakistan. They thought about their goals and their purpose. “What we were trying to accomplish had never been done in the country before,” recalls Syed.

When they communicated the significance of the product to their team, “everything changed for the better,” he says.

“My partner was very good at motivating the team by sharing his vision about what completing this project on time would mean for everyone,” he says. “Yasir’s passion was contagious, and did wonders for everyone’s energy and enthusiasm.”

Syed wasn’t bashful in laying out the sacrifices involved. “I didn’t use any scare tactics, but I told everyone that this project required us to work day and night,” he says. “I think the team appreciated my honesty.”

He and his business partner also tried to foster camaraderie and collaboration by dividing their small team into even smaller sub-teams, where each member’s skills complemented those of others. That way, each team member had a say in how the work would be accomplished. “Yasir and I were always available to provide instant and constructive feedback,” he says.

Ultimately, the team prevailed and was proud of their accomplishment. “We were successful and we witnessed our product being used on national TV.”

Case Study #2: Think about ways to be helpful to your team and say thank you
Carl Ryden, co-founder and CEO of PrecisionLender, an AI-powered software company for commercial banks, says that the most important thing to bear in mind when motivating staff during an intense period is that the “crunch has to be anomalous.”

“People can’t pedal as hard as they can all day, every day,” he says. “It has to be temporary. [Employees] need to trust that this isn’t the norm and that [they work] for an organization that respects work-life balance.”

Recently, his company — which is based in North Carolina, needed to launch the first release of its intelligent virtual assistant, Andi, within its application. “We had a deadline that we had to meet,” says Carl. As the deadline drew closer, it became clear that “there was still a lot of work that needed to get done and that many of our developers were going to have to work on the weekends to do it.”

Carl knew that the team was stressed — and he wanted to help in any way that he could. “I wanted to show solidarity but I also wanted to get out of their way and let them do their jobs,” he says.

Carl says that if he stayed at the office alongside his team, “it would have seemed like [he] was there in a supervisory role” in need of constant “status reports.” Instead, he decided to give his team autonomy. “I said, ‘I trust you to get this done. And I want to make sure you have everything you need. What can I take off your plates to let you focus your attention?”

“I didn’t want to make things worse.”

The team appreciated his vote of confidence. Once it was over — “the team got it done on time and it turned out to be a great success” — Carl made sure to express his gratitude. “I said thank you, individually and collectively, to the team,” he says. “I wanted to acknowledge their great work.”

SOURCE: Knight, R. (18 December 2019) "How to Motivate Your Team During Crunch Time" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2019/12/how-to-motivate-your-team-during-crunch-time?ab=hero-subleft-3


Employers ban vaping as its reputation goes up in smoke

Vaping and e-cigarettes are being used to cut out, cut back or completely quit traditional tobacco. With vaping becoming more common in the workplace, employers are realizing that the same policies in effect for traditional cigarettes are not in effect for e-cigarettes. Read this blog post to learn why employers are implementing vaping policies.


Reports on the health concerns associated with vaping and e-cigarettes are mixed. While some say the products are less harmful than traditional cigarettes, others link them to serious health consequences such as lung disease, noted Julie Stich, vice president of content at the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans (IFEBP).

Given the popularity and risk associated with vaping, it's made an impact on employers. "Vaping and the use of e-cigarettes pose many of the same risks of cigarette smoking to employees and the workplace," Haynes and Boone Partner Jason Habinsky said in an email to HR Dive. What's more, workers who choose to use e-cigarette products can put those who share their space at risk as well.

A lack of vaping policies
Vaping has been around for a little while now, said attorney Marissa Mastroianni, an associate at Cole Schotz, but a lot of employers still haven't created policies.

Stich concurred, noting that only 46% of U.S. employers in a recent IFEBP wellness survey reported having a vaping policy, with a "large chunk" of respondents say they weren't sure if they did.

But this may soon change. A recent increase in vaping-related illnesses, combined with a warning from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has driven some employers to take a second look at their policies, said Kerry Sylvester, director of product management, wellbeing solutions at HealthAdvocate. In the absence of specific vaping-related laws, company culture and priorities are driving policy. "Many larger employers including Target and Wal-Mart are leading the way by including vaping in their workplace tobacco policies, and many smaller employers are following their example," she said.

Mastroianni concurred: "There is a trend that employers have been adding vaping to their no-smoking policies," she said. This is a good thing, according to Habinsky. "[I]t is important that employers review all policies which regulate smoking or other health and safety considerations and modify the scope of such policies to include vaping and e-cigarettes," he said.

For employers that lack policies putting boundaries on vaping, the first step is to consider any applicable local laws, Mastroianni said. New York and New Jersey, for example, have adopted vaping laws relating to smoke-free workplaces and smoking in public areas. "If a law like that exists in your jurisdiction, you need to comply," said Mastroianni.

Stich noted that laws in some areas may treat vaping differently than smoking, and employers need to be aware of this (she cited a list of current vaping laws here). Additionally, employers will need to note that vaping and e-cigarette use "may also be prohibited in certain industries and work environments where health and safety may be at risk," said Habinsky.

Competing priorities
When no specific law applies, however, employers have more flexibility. This is the point at which priorities begin to compete.

"Vaping has been viewed as a substitute for traditional tobacco use both for recreational users as well as by individuals who are trying to cut back or quit smoking," said Sylvester, speaking to HR Dive via email. "Employers want to support employees who are trying to make positive changes in their health by quitting smoking, but must consider the needs of their entire workforce."

Employees who want to sit at their desks and vape may say they're not bothering co-workers, but this is not necessarily true, said Stich. "There can be a residual odor and co-workers can find this annoying."

Annoyance is not the only thing e-cigarette users may inflict on coworkers. "Vaping can pose challenges for individuals with scent sensitivities, not to mention the concerns related to secondhand exposure to vaping aerosol," said Sylvester. And, unlike traditional cigarettes, "[a]n e-cigarette can also malfunction or even explode, causing harm to individuals in the workplace," said Habinsky.

Productivity concerns also factor in. "[E]mployers must also consider the positive or negative impacts on productivity by allowing employees to take vaping breaks away from their workspace versus vaping at their desks," said Sylvester.

Once employers have updated or created vaping policies, it's up to them to make sure employees know about the changes. "Employers should also update any related employee training to include a discussion of such prohibitions," said Habinsky. "Employers should also examine any wellness policies and employee education to ensure the inclusion of such use."

A call employers need to make
"While supporting employees who want to quit tobacco is a priority, employers must decide if allowing the use of nicotine products that are not [Food and Drug Administration-]approved is beneficial in the short and long term," said Sylvester. It's worth noting that "the jury is still out" as to whether vaping and e-cigarettes actually do help people stop smoking regular cigarettes, Stich said.

"It's kind of tough at the moment," said Mastroianni, and it's an area with a lot of nuance. "On the one hand, you want clear air for employees to work and to protect against inhaling secondhand smoke. On the other hand, a lot of people do use vaping and e-cigarettes as a way to stop smoking actual cigarettes."

Ultimately, said Mastroianni, "employers need to make a judgment call and decide, 'what's better for us?'"

SOURCE: Carsen, J. (13 December 2019) "Employers ban vaping as its reputation goes up in smoke" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.hrdive.com/news/employers-ban-vaping-as-its-reputation-goes-up-in-smoke/568941/


Wacky interview questions may help employers hire the best workers

More and more employers are asking unconventional interview questions in efforts to get to know candidates better. While traditional interview questions are a great way to open an interview, unconventional questions help a hiring manager dig deeper. Read this article for more on how unconventional questions may help hire the best workers.


The job prospect has aced all the standard interview questions, but off-the-wall questions may be the best trick employers can use to glean insight into how a hot prospect thinks.

Imagine that a candidate has skillfully answered what his top strengths and some weaknesses are. Now consider asking: "Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck, or 100 duck-sized horses?" Or, what would that candidate do if she found a penguin in the freezer? Could she guess how many basketballs would fit inside the interview room?

While traditional interview questions are a great way of opening the interview and making a candidate feel comfortable, unconventional questions can move the interview beyond a rote Q&A session to an authentic conversation that can help a hiring manager learn more about a candidate.

These questions may sound like they are from some wacky game show. But they are real interview questions being asked by today’s employers. These questions aim to dig deeper and get to know the candidates better.

These questions are intended to surface information related to a candidate’s ability to problem-solve and understanding their motivations. Unusual job interview questions typically don’t have any right or wrong answers. These questions are an opportunity for candidates to demonstrate that they can think fast on their feet, show poise under stress, think outside the box, and reveal more of their personality.

This can also be a great way to assess culture fit. A question that asks a candidate “if they could be any animal, what would it be and why?” can provide insight into a job seeker’s personality and thought process. Understanding these attributes is key to determining whether or not a candidate would mesh well with company culture.

Unconventional questions don’t have to be completely off the wall. Instead of asking a candidate about their greatest weakness, hiring managers should consider asking things like, “what did you learn about yourself in your previous role?” and “what challenges did you face in this role and how did you overcome them?” Answers to these questions provide the hiring manager with visibility into how a candidate learns from different situations, as well as their ability to problem-solve.

Enhancing candidate experience is another good reason to ask unusual interview questions. Repeating the same questions through several rounds of interviews is not only tedious for the candidate, but it does not reflect well on the employer brand. Changing questions up will make the process more engaging and valuable for both the candidate and the hiring manager.

An unconventional approach to interview questions should not be overused nor should these types of questions be asked for the sole purpose of throwing a candidate off guard. Each question should be aimed at gaining a clear understanding of a candidate’s work style, values and motivations to determine if they are a good organizational fit.

While interview questions like "how would you sell hot cocoa in Florida?" or “if you were on an island and could only bring three things, what would you bring?” are certainly unconventional, hiring managers are now using this approach to elicit natural, unrehearsed responses that reveal more about candidates from how they think and how they react under stress, to their personality and what motivates them. Digging deeper and getting to know candidates with unconventional interview questions provides valuable insights that can help hiring managers make the best hires for their organization.

SOURCE: Blanco, M. (13 December 2019) "Wacky interview questions may help employers hire the best workers" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/opinion/wacky-interview-questions-may-help-employers-hire-the-best-workers


9 things HR needs to know to curb bullying at work

Bullying doesn't stop after middle school, high school or college. A national survey by the Workplace Bullying Institute found that 19 percent of employees are bullied. Read this blog post to learn more about bullying in the workplace.


When people think of bullying, they may envision the stereotypical middle school setting, where a mild-mannered teen is shoved into a locker, ostracized or, nowadays, trolled on social media. But bullying doesn't stop after middle school; it continues into adulthood and shows up in the workplace on a disturbingly frequent basis.

According to the Workplace Bullying Institute's (WBI) 2017 National Survey, 19% of U.S. employees are bullied, and another 19% witness it. All told, the survey says that 60.3 million Americans are affected by this behavior in the workplace.

WBI's definition of workplace bullying is "repeated, health-harming mistreatment of one or more persons by one or more perpetrators." It includes threats, humiliation, intimidation, work sabotage and verbal abuse, WBI Director Gary Namie told HR Dive.

Not illegal — just expensive

Bullying and harassment share similar traits of severe or pervasive and unwelcome conduct that creates a hostile work environment. Although harassment is against the law, bullying is not, Heather Becker, partner at Laner Muchin, told HR Dive in an email. "The difference would be that bullying can happen to anyone for any reason. Technically, unlawful harassment is conduct that occurs because of an individual's protected characteristic, such as gender, race, national origin," she said. Bills that would prohibit workplace bullying have been introduced in at least 30 states but none have been made law.

But even if bullying is not unlawful, it comes with a cost. Individuals who are the targets of repeated abusive behaviors can begin to have physical and psychological issues related to high anxiety, depression and stress, Kim Shambrook, vice president, Safety Education, Training and Services for the National Safety Council, told HR Dive.

"As we as a country and society look at total wellness, it's definitely becoming a big issue. People who experience stress at work have other symptoms. They can't sleep; don't want to go to work. There are all sorts of residual effects," she said.

Those effects can impact the employer, she explained. Whether an employee is directly affected or even affected as a witness, the damage can decrease workplace safety and employee morale and increase absenteeism and turnover, Shambrook said.

What HR needs to know

1. Bullying is complicated — even for the aggressor

There's a continuum of abrasive behavior, Linda Beitz, owner of Solutions Through Dialogue, told HR Dive. At one end of the spectrum are people who are slightly annoying but don't cause stress to others. At the far end of the continuum are the rare people with aberrant behavior. Most issues are found in people in the middle of the spectrum, who cause organizational stress to co-workers, sufficient to interrupt organizational functioning, she said.

"They're people who have a desire to achieve results and think that they are motivating people, utilizing abrasive behaviors," Beitz said. She suggested using people-first language of a "human being with abrasive behaviors" instead of the word "bully," which perpetuates labeling and name-calling. But that doesn't mean the behaviors should be tolerated, she added.

2. A bullying situation says more about the organization than it does the individuals

Certain company cultures are ripe for bullying, Namie said. "It's the establishment of a competitive environment, but not healthy competition, where you could end up with a win-win. We set up a zero-sum competitive world. [For example,] 'I must obliterate you in order for me to enjoy success,'" he explained. In this winner-takes-all scenario, the majority who don't win are demoralized while the single individual is artificially pumped up, he said.

3. A lack of consequences reinforces bullying

When the bully also is a valued employee, there is a systematic, historical problem of organizational leaders failing to address behavior, mainly out of fear and conflict avoidance, Namie said. When a person with aggressive behavior is promoted and praised, neither they nor the organization demonstrates concern for the wellbeing of the other employees, he said.

4. HR cannot stop bullying

This change must come from the top. HR can ensure policies and procedures are established and communicated, but consistently implementing the policies, regardless of the employees involved, requires action from senior leadership, Namie said. HR, for its part, can try to convince senior leaders that the financial cost of bullying — from payouts, absenteeism, presenteeism, health issues, medical expenses, workers' compensation, safety, turnover and productivity — are not worth ignoring abusive behavior.

5. Any reports of bullying — no matter how seemingly minor, must be investigated

Don't turn a blind eye, Shambrook said. "Any report of bullying should be taken seriously." This includes conducting a thorough investigation. "If someone is found to be engaging [in aggressive behavior], there has to be a consequence, and it has to be spelled out in the policy."

6. Everyone needs training to recognize and address bullying

Front-line supervisors, senior leaders and the employee population need to know what to do when they experience or witness bullying. Leaders need to be trained in emotional intelligence, Beitz said; encourage people to speak up to create a healthier organization, Shambrook added, and ensure employees know where to turn to do so.

7. Improvement is possible

Abrasive employees who are motivated to change can develop new skills, Beitz said. If they are open to feedback and the recognition that their behavior isn't useful — and that there are negative consequences for continuing that behavior — they may be willing to learn new methods. "It's a four-step process: First, waking them up to how they are showing up as a leader or manager. Second, helping them to see the impact that their behavior is having on others. Third, equipping them with an understanding of what might be driving their behavior, and developing their capacity to accurately read the emotions that others are feeling as a result of their actions. And, fourth, helping them to develop new strategies to get the results they are looking for without causing distress in co-workers and the organization," she said.

8. Targets need support

Unfortunately, most people who are targeted (65%, according to WBI) lose their jobs through no fault of their own, Namie said. They might be fired, reassigned or (somewhat) voluntarily resign. Providing support for the person targeted is critical, Shambrook added. It is vital to encourage the person to use available employee assistance programs, keep them updated on progress, let them know when the issue is resolved and check on them afterward.

9. The "eggshell skull" rule applies

Do not ignore a complaint under the assumption that an employee is overly sensitive. Even if abusive behavior damages one person but not others, the organization is still responsible for that individual who is affected. The eggshell skull rule says that damages aren't any less because one person may be more susceptible to injury.

Workplace bullying can be entrenched in a culture, and it takes a full-scale approach to stop it, but ignoring or minimizing the behaviors or delaying consequences is detrimental to everyone in the organization.

"You don't pay attention to it until it touches your life," Namie said, "but we can't wait until everyone has been personally bullied in order to make it stop."

SOURCE: DeLoatch, P. (7 October 2019) "9 things HR needs to know to curb bullying at work" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.hrdive.com/news/9-things-hr-needs-to-know-to-curb-bullying-at-work/563639/


DOL updates FLSA regular rate rule

With the New Year right around the corner, it's important to know what rules are being updated. The U.S. Department of Labor has updated the "regular rate of pay" to calculate overtime pay. This standard is used to calculate overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Read this blog post for more information on this final rule.


The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has issued a final rule updating the "regular rate of pay" standard used to calculate overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), according to a notice to be published in the Federal Register Dec. 13.

In the rule, DOL clarifies when certain employer benefits may be excluded when calculating overtime pay for a non-exempt employee, including bona fide meal periods, reimbursements, certain benefit plan contributions, state and local scheduling law payments and more. The rule also clarifies how employers may determine whether a bonus is discretionary or nondiscretionary.

The rule will take effect Jan. 12, 2020.

The rule will likely result in employers taking a closer look at their benefits packages, Susan Harthill, partner at Morgan Lewis, told HR Dive in an emailed statement.

A number of employer advocates that submitted comments on DOL’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), including the Society for Human Resource Management, supported excluding employee benefits like gym memberships, tuition assistance and adoption and surrogacy services from regular rate calculations. Gym memberships and tuition assistance are generally excludable, according to DOL, but the agency said only some forms of adoption assistance would be excludable and that most surrogacy assistance payments would not be​.

Employers also inquired about public transportation and childcare subsidies. In the final rule, DOL said public transportation benefits would not be excludable, noting that the agency "has long acknowledged that employer-provided parking spaces are excludable from the regular rate but commuter subsidies are not." But it did add clarifying language around childcare, saying that while "routinely-provided childcare" must be included in the regular rate, emergency childcare services — if those services are not provided as compensation for hours of employment and are not tied to the quantity or quality of work performed — may be excluded.

DOL also offered additional details about its treatment of tuition reimbursement and education-related benefits. As it stated in the NPRM, the agency said that as long as tuition programs are offered to employees regardless of hours worked or services rendered are "contingent merely on one’s being an employee," such programs qualify as "other similar payments" excludable from the regular rate. This includes payment for an employee's current coursework, online coursework, payment for an employee’s family member’s tuition and certain student-loan repayment plans, DOL said.

HR teams should respond by performing audits of the pay codes for benefits that would be impacted, Tammy McCutchen, shareholder at Littler Mendelson, told HR Dive in an interview: "This is a good time to get your calculations correct." McCutchen suggested that employers conduct audits first before deciding whether to expand benefits options in light of the rule. She added that it's an employer's responsibility to notify payroll providers of any changes to exemptions.

Employers also will need to check state laws and consult with counsel ahead of implementing changes to employees' regular rates, as those laws may differ from DOL's new rule, Harthill said. Moreover, "[t]his is an interpretive rule and it remains to be seen whether courts will defer to DOL's interpretation of the rule or if any resultant exclusions are challenged," she added.

SOURCE: Golden, R. (12 December 2019) "DOL updates FLSA regular rate rule" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.hrdive.com/news/dol-updates-flsa-regular-rate-rule/568954/