SHRM: Employers Consider Safety Precautions for Return to Workplace
As employers begin to look at what lies ahead in regards to returning to the workplace, they also have to begin looking at what precautions they need to consider in order to keep the workplace safe for everyone involved. Read this blog post to learn more.
Nearly half of organizations surveyed have not announced a return-to-work date as COVID-19 restrictions ease in some parts of the country, but a majority of HR professionals think setting even a tentative date is a good idea.
The findings from new Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) research released June 9 illustrate how U.S. employers are considering a phased return of employees, staggered start and stop times, health precautions, and physical changes to their worksites.
Setting a return date is a good idea, two-thirds of HR professionals said, because it eases job-security concerns among staff, especially for those in physical and service industries such as health care, retail and education. Employers that have established a date prefer employees to return on or before June 30, according to more than three-fourths of HR professionals.
Much of what an organization decides to do depends on its size and industry.
Large employers—those with 500 or more employees—were less likely to have announced a return date. This was especially true in knowledge industries. However, organizations in those industries—finance, consulting, engineering and administrative services companies—also were more likely to let employees continue to work from home and determine when they want to return to the worksite.
Industries where the work is more physical—construction, manufacturing and transportation—were more likely to have already reopened their physical locations and to implement an alternating work schedule.
Other strategies include:
- Staggering the start and stop of employees' workdays as well as break times so as to reduce the number of workers in one location at the same time (75 percent).
- Reducing the number of customers permitted on site at one time and taking measures such as counting the number of people as they enter (78 percent).
- Limiting the number of employees or customers on site at one time (81 percent).
The research is based on a SHRM survey that collected responses May 13-20 from a random sampling of 1,087 SHRM members working in HR. Academicians, students, consultants, people who are self-employed or retired, and HR professionals who were furloughed or laid off were excluded from the sample.
“This research gives a glimpse into how COVID-19 has changed the world of work, and what workplaces will look like once we return,” said Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., SHRM-SCP, SHRM's president and CEO. “Workers should expect to see more masks, fewer handshakes, marked floors, more barriers, and greater flexibility—especially when it comes to remote work.”
Among employers implementing a phased-return plan, one-third intend to do so by specific departments or functions. Others are first bringing back employees with lower health risks or those in leadership positions. The length of the phased return also varies, from two weeks to more than three months.
"Getting back to work takes a lot of work," Taylor noted, "and HR professionals have played an essential role in drawing up plans that drive organizations forward and protect public health.”
SOURCE: Gurchiek, K. (09 June 2020) "SHRM: Employers Consider Safety Precautions for Return to Workplace" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-news/pages/shrm-employers-consider-safety-precautions-for-return-to-workplace.aspx
Companies prioritize learning and development in the wake of coronavirus crisis
In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, many employees are still working remotely, which may cause a lack of learning and development in their careers. Many companies are now prioritizing their employees learning and development. Read this blog post to learn more.
As the coronavirus pandemic creates uncertainty within the workforce, more employers are investing in learning and development as they seek to keep their remote employees engaged and promote strong mental health. Indeed, 66% of learning and development professionals say that their roles within their organizations have grown substantially in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, according to a recent LinkedIn Learning report.
Of the 864 development professionals and 3,155 workplace learners — employees who interact with learning content provided by their employers — surveyed, 68% of learning and development professionals say employers have been placing a larger emphasis on launching learning programs designed to teach employees new skills with an eye on boosting internal mobility.
“The appetite for learning coupled with the fact that the needs of remote employees have shifted, has created a spotlight on L&D to develop and deliver the sorts of engaging and relevant learning experiences that employees want and need during this challenging time,” says Mike Derezin, vice president of LinkedIn Learning.
To that end, companies are investing in technologies including virtual instructor-led training (VILT) — live training done digitally, and online learning — recorded digital learning content. The report found that 66% of learning and development professionals expect to spend more on VILT than they did last year, with 60% saying the same for online learning. Furthermore, the report says that developing the right mix of VILT and online learning — blended online learning — will be essential going forward.
“Blended online learning is especially beneficial for employees during a time where they feel isolated because it’s a form of social learning,” Derezin says.
The LinkedIn Learning platform has seen a 301% rise in enrollment and a 153% increase in courses shared between members and their networks in March and April, compared to January and February of this year.
“We’re also seeing instructors engaging more, and companies tapping subject matter experts to create learning moments. What’s more, social learning drives up learner engagement and helps learners remember content,” he says.
About 75% of the professionals surveyed by LinkedIn expect social learning, including online learning groups, to increase over time and play a large role in their organizations.
Employers are placing strong emphasis on reskilling the workforce. Since the coronavirus hit the U.S., nearly 43 million Americans have filed for unemployment, having lost their jobs when businesses were forced to close down in an effort to promote social distancing.
“Employers are still focused on keeping high-value employees, even when faced with the task of moving them into new positions as a result of changing business dynamics,” Derezin says.
One employer that took this approach was tech retailer Verizon. When the company had to close down some of its retail locations it allowed many of those employees to apply transferable skills to other areas of the business. Verizon gave employees a choice of career paths and then implemented personalized learning, with the goal of enabling these workers to close any skills gaps before moving on to new roles.
“By offering online tools and training, Verizon was able to help brick-and-mortar employees work from home and contribute in roles like customer service,” he says.
The LinkedIn research also shows that 69% of learning and development professionals feel responsible for their employees’ mental health and well-being. Over the last several years, employers have become more focused on supporting employee mental health as it is a strong attraction and retention tool, and as employers realize that supporting employees is about work-life integration, rather than work-life balance.
PayPal has had success with practices that support employee mental health, like holding more frequent all-hands meetings, promoting company-wide access to its executives, and conducting weekly wellness surveys.
As employers and employees navigate the new normal of the workplace, managers are expected to become more active in curating content that will help build up the skills of their workforce. In March and April managers were spending twice the amount of time on learning and development than they did in January and February.
“With the rise of AI, remote work, and widening skills gaps, the value of an always-on learning culture has never been more clear,” Derezin says. “By supporting learners in the moments that matter to their present and future careers, you’ll not only have happier employees, but retain them.”
SOURCE: Del Rowe, S. (05 June 2020) "Companies prioritize learning and development in the wake of coronavirus crisis" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/news/companies-prioritizing-learning-and-development-in-the-wake-of-coronavirus-crisis
What Your Youngest Employees Need Most Right Now
During the trying times that the coronavirus has placed upon the workforce, it seems to be creating a bigger unknown difficulty in younger employees. Read this blog post to learn more.
The long-term toll of the coronavirus is unknown, but its effects on our health care system and the economy have already been catastrophic. And while the immediate concerns of skyrocketing unemployment and a stalled economy must be addressed today, employers also need to begin considering how to rebuild for the employees returning to the workforce — or entering it for the first time.
This includes Gen Z, the youngest members of the workforce and those currently in secondary school or college. Many who were just beginning their career journey have been furloughed or fired. Those in school were suddenly confined to their homes. Collectively, they are experiencing the greatest national trauma since the Great Depression and World War II.
Ultimately, for the workforce to be equipped to move forward and thrive, employers will need to address the fallout resulting from Covid-19 on their youngest — and future — employees.
How Events Shape Generations
As the Pew Research Center notes, looking at world events and other formative experiences through a generational lens helps provide an understanding of how people’s views of the world are shaped. Young people who grew up during the Great Depression and defended and supported the nation in World War II were coined “The Greatest Generation.” Once past the traumas of these extraordinarily difficult years, this generation shared characteristics that included a patriotism manifested by reverence for American ideals, a belief in the wisdom of government, and a frugality born of severe want.
For Millennials, the horror of 9/11 and the global economic crisis that began in 2007 were calamitous events that were life-altering for their generation. As many were sitting in classrooms, word of airplanes crashing into buildings spread through their school; frightened teachers, family members, and friends were unable to offer their usual reassurance that everything would be okay. The chaos that followed became the touchstone for a future where potential terrorist attacks were an ever-present theme in the way Millennials interacted with the world around them.
As they later began to make their way into the workplace, the economy collapsed. Job offers were rescinded, full-time opportunities became part-time without benefits, and many new hires were the first fired. A generation with an undeserved reputation for disloyalty had to change jobs frequently simply to keep up with basic bills and crushing student debt. Together, these experiences contributed to a profile of a generation more likely to seek order in their world and meaning in their work.
Today, even as the coronavirus has been merciless in its impact on people of all ages, the long-term effects on the Gen Z cohort of adolescents are likely to be particularly severe.
For the rest of their lives, the time the world stopped will be seared in Gen Z’s collective memory, a generation-defining moment that instilled deep fears about their uncertain future. Overnight, they lost their daily interactions with the teachers who trained them, coaches who mentored them, clubs that fulfilled them, and friends who sustained them through the painful ordeals of youth. Milestones such as proms, plays, athletics, and the ritual of graduation can be crucial to social and emotional development, each experience serving as a rite of passage to the next stage of life. These lifecycle markers of adolescence that were nervously anticipated and excitedly shared swiftly vanished.
How Companies Can Support Gen Z Employees
It will be years before sufficient data exist to quantify the full impacts of this experience on Gen Z. Existing research, however, can help employers learn what they should expect and how they can best manage their Gen Z employees, today and in the future.
Research in three areas offers a good start for this analysis: skill development, stress management, and building emotional intelligence.
Skill development. Gen Z’s learning has been disrupted in a way that schools were unequipped to manage. Some converted course work to online formats, often implemented by teachers and professors untrained for such a platform. Others minimized direct instruction, urging students or (depending on the grade level) parents to turn to independent projects and digital resources.
In most instances, learning has been attempted in the presence of entire families similarly house-bound and juggling multiple responsibilities — environments that are not conducive to instruction without any preparation. Grades have been converted to pass/fail, tests have been abandoned, and deadlines extended.
These options may be right for the moment, but likely will have costs. Research shows that Gen Zers already experience a difficult cultural transition between college and the professional world that can leave them feeling disoriented and confused. Now that their structured learning has been upended, employers and employees may need to develop greater patience with Gen Z’s adjustment to the professional world and a greater focus on intergenerational mentoring and support.
Employers should consider thoughtfully designed programs to ease Gen Z’s transition by, for example, rethinking orientation programs, early assignments, and mentoring focusing on the development of expertise. For example, orientation programs generally consist of a short-term introduction to manuals, computer systems, and other basics of the workplace. A more comprehensive approach could extend orientation throughout the first-year work experience, offer rotations throughout the organization, and include programs to help new hires integrate into the culture of the workplace. Programming can also address substantive job requirements, offer strategic career support, and provide training on the organization’s goals and objectives, allowing employees to appreciate where they fit and why they matter.
Mentoring, too, can be a powerful way to leverage generational diversity. Research demonstrates that, properly coached, new professionals will develop faster because their learning has been enhanced and guided. To maximize the opportunity for a successful mentorship program, employers should ensure managers understand the benefits of strengthened intergenerational relationships, dispel negative perceptions that could weaken engagement, and provide the needed time and resources. One way to accomplish such buy-in is by including reverse mentoring programs where young employees help senior workers improve their skills in technology and social media. For members of Gen Z, such mutually-supportive relationships can enhance their expertise and ease their transition into the workplace, offering employers the added bonus of a stronger multigenerational culture.
Of course, the most significant and potentially enduring adjustment that workplaces had to make during this pandemic has been the implementation of remote working arrangements. The sudden shift was forced on employers by a crisis, but workplace experts have long advocated for greater flexibility based on changing gender and age demographics, globalized businesses, and technology improvements. As businesses begin to rethink how they open their doors, they should also consider building new transition and learning opportunities into the culture of flexibility that younger workers are seeking.
Stress management. For more than a decade, researchers have noted an alarming trend: Gen Z reports higher levels of anxiety and depression than other generations. Studies also tell us that childhood exposure to significant stress can impact brain development and affect mental and social development. If Gen Z’s baseline already shows high levels of stress, what will the impacts of this pandemic be when it comes to their work and careers?
Most companies are aware that unaddressed employee stress and anxiety can also result in absenteeism, turnover, and lowered productivity. Recent data estimate that the annual cost of job stress to U.S. businesses exceeds $300 billion. But too few firms have developed effective programs to help their employees with mental health struggles. In fact, studies shown that an effective stress management policy operates at the employee, workplace, and organizational levels. In particular, organizational approaches lead to more sustainable results than interventions solely directed to individuals.
Further, because Gen Zers are starting their careers with higher levels of anxiety exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, employers can adapt existing research and best practices to create customized programs for young workers. This could include early-career affinity groups that encourage open conversation in a supportive environment. In addition, coaching interventions can boost an individual’s confidence in their ability to succeed and reduce anxiety, helping to keep minor performance challenges from becoming career-damaging incidents.
Emotional intelligence. Research demonstrates that emotional intelligence, consisting of self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills, is a critical element of effective leadership — and can be taught and learned. Employees who develop emotional intelligence can provide a foundation for a respectful work environment and a talent pool of future managers. This area of research offers both challenges and opportunities for Gen Z employers.
In having to cope with a shut-down of life as they knew it at such a young age, many Gen Zers have experienced a massive interruption in their ability to discover what motivates and fulfills them. Because of this, they’ll need more time in their young adult years to undertake this self-exploration. Employers can help fill this gap by offering programming that helps build emotional intelligence from the outset of their careers — not several years down the road. One note: I would recommend eliminating the phrase “soft skills,” a term that actually denigrates the importance of training and development in these important areas.
Employers are likely to benefit from the likelihood that Gen Z enters the workplace with a greater level of empathy and adaptability, qualities that are critical components of emotional intelligence. Having experienced both the significant disruption to their own lives and the pain and sorrow felt by friends and loved ones who suffered during the pandemic, Gen Zers are likely to be vigilant to the emotions of others at work.
Companies have the opportunity to help members of Gen Z become the Next Great Generation of leaders. Having been tested at a very young age, they will bring a special blend of resiliency and humanity to the workplace. Employers can take advantage of these unique formative experiences by providing structured support to their younger employees that will smooth their transition and ensure their place as valued members of the workforce.
SOURCE: Rikleen, L. (03 June 2020) "What Your Youngest Employees Need Most Right Now" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2020/06/what-your-youngest-employees-need-most-right-now
People Analytics Guide Return-to-Work Choices
With many workplaces beginning to return to work, many leaders are using analytic tools to make decisions regarding staff easier. Read this blog post to learn more.
Human resources leaders are turning to people analytics tools to help make difficult decisions as their staffs return to the workplace and face a damaged economy. Whether it's figuring out how to keep workers safe, making decisions on furloughs and layoffs, or ensuring the right number of employees are in the right roles, these technologies collect, blend and analyze people data to guide HR leaders in their "what if" scenario planning.
Research shows the use of people analytics software was on the rise even before the coronavirus crisis hit. Now experts say many HR leaders are doubling down on the use of those tools.
Platforms Integrate Data
People analytics platforms fall into a number of categories. One group can help users integrate and analyze the diverse data sets related to COVID-19 and the composition of their workforces. They help answer questions like which people in key roles can go back to the workplace and which should continue working remotely; assist in developing first- and second-level succession plans in case workers get sick or need to step away to assist family members; and help align workforce planning with shifting business strategy and uncertain revenue forecasts.
AON is one vendor with an analytics tool that helps HR leaders think through workforce costs amid COVID-19. The London-based company's Talent Modeler platform can help determine the impact of shift reductions or help leaders choose from a range of options such as furloughs, attrition, pay cuts or layoffs.
Experts say sophisticated people analytics also can help leaders evaluate alternatives to layoffs, such as hiring or promotion freezes, shortened work schedules, or reducing costs like real estate expenses.
Nicholas Garbis, vice president of people analytics strategy for One Model, a people analytics provider with offices in Austin, Texas, has seen an evolution among HR leaders he's spoken to throughout the COVID-19 outbreak. As organizations begin their return-to-work planning—which largely entails addressing employee fear of COVID-19 infection as well as monitoring the reopening of child care centers—more are now planning for the "what if" scenarios that will arise this summer, he said.
This coming phase requires HR leaders to have better data and insight into the state of their current workforce and how it may need to change in the short term. "You need to be able to accurately assess your capacity, starting with the kind of workforce gaps that may have emerged from early March to now," Garbis said. "What talent have you lost, for example, to furloughs, layoffs or health issues?"
One Model's analytics platform collects and blends diverse forms of people data into a unified model to help surface these kinds of insights. HR should examine the state of "talent segments" in the organization as well as gauge potential coronavirus risks, Garbis said, then create a short-term strategic plan to define future workforce needs.
"HR business partners should be consulting with business leaders right now to say, 'This is the mix of people and roles you have now. What might you need your workforce to look like in six to 12 months?' " he said. "You want to ensure you're growing where you're supposed to grow and shrinking where you want to shrink."
People analytics also can help redeploy employees to areas experiencing increased demand. Ian Cook, vice president of people solutions for Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada-based Visier, said a financial services company he knows was considering furloughing employees in one area of its business until it experienced a spike in another area—life insurance sales. "That allowed them to move some front-line customer service people over to selling life insurance policies," Cook said.
In another case a regional bank used analytics to decide to move a call center to shift work and parallel work teams with physical distancing, said Bhushan Sethi, joint global leader, people and organization for PwC, a research and consulting firm in New York City.
"The goal was to help manage call center capacity and infection risk," Sethi said. "Almost 50 percent of CFOs in a recent PwC survey said they would have to implement some form of shift work when they bring people back to the workplace."
Employee Coaching Analytics
Employee coaching tools can give managers and employees feedback on how their communication or management styles have changed as a result of remote working arrangements. One vendor in the space is Cultivate, which creates reports that give employees a summary of their digital behaviors at home.
"These analytics could show managers, for example, how responsive they've been to certain employees in the work-from-home setting or how much overall time they've spent with certain workers," said Stacia Garr, co-founder and principal analyst of RedThread Research, a human capital research and advisory firm in Woodside, Calif.
Measuring Inclusion During Remote Work
This category of analytics can help HR understand how remote work is impacting leadership development, performance-based promotions or the inclusion of diverse employee populations. Some experts believe, for example, that a remote working environment can make it easier for implicit or unconscious bias to take root.
"We know that people's networks have contracted as a result of remote work, and there also can be less insight into employee performance," Garr said. "When we aren't seeing each other in person as often and aren't as aware of what others are doing or thinking, it can open the door to unconscious bias and stereotyping."
Organizational network analysis technology can track employees' connections to give HR a better understanding of how remote workers are interacting during COVID-19, Garr said. "The tools can give you an indication of who is being included in conversations, who is on e-mail threads and who is being invited to meetings. It can help you see if people across the organization are being included on an equal basis." Some of these vendors include TrustSphere, Polinode, Innovisor and OrgAnalytix.
Employee Surveying and Sentiment Analysis
Many companies are deploying employee listening tools to stay abreast of how workers are feeling at home and to gauge their sentiment on returning to the workplace. Platforms like Qualtrics, Yva, Perceptyx and Limeade offer such survey tools, some of which include artificial intelligence capabilities to make it easier to compile and analyze survey results.
"Organizations are using these surveys to measure employee feelings about a return to the workplace, with the understanding that not everyone is of the same mind about that return," Garr said. Such surveys sometimes ask employees to register their preferences for a return to the workplace. Might they want to work certain shifts or travel into the office on certain days, for example, and work other days at home?
COVID-Specific Employee Health and Safety Tracking
Some people analytics have adapted to allow HR leaders to merge publicly available COVID-19 data with their internal people data to assist in workforce planning. Visier integrates COVID-19 data sources and automated analysis to help users make more-informed decisions related to staffing.
Visier's database allows leaders to see which of their employees are in areas most impacted by the coronavirus and helps to manage business continuity challenges.
"We've layered the latest COVID-19 case data into the application so business users can see by geography how deeply the virus has gone into their populations and can view projections from the University of Washington model about peaks and changes in various states," said Visier's Cook.
SOURCE: Zielinski, D. (22 May 2020) "People Analytics Guide Return-to-Work Choices" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/technology/pages/people-analytics-guide-return-to-work-choices-coronavirus.aspx
How to Monitor Your Employees — While Respecting Their Privacy
A recent survey found that 55 percent of millennials that had partaken in the survey plan to leave employers that prioritize profits over people. Read this blog post to learn more.
Even before Covid-19 sent an unprecedented number of people to work from home, employers were ramping up their efforts to monitor employee productivity. A 2018 Gartner report revealed that of 239 large corporations, 50% were monitoring the content of employee emails and social media accounts, along with who they met with and how they utilized their workspaces. A year later an Accenture survey of C-suite executives reported that 62% of their organizations were leveraging new tools to collect data on their employees.
These statistics were gathered before the coronavirus pandemic, which has made working from home a necessity for thousands of companies. With that transition having happened so rapidly, employers are left wondering how much work is actually going on. The fear of productivity losses, mingling with the horror of massively declining revenues, has encouraged many leaders to ramp up their employee monitoring efforts.
There is no shortage of digital tools for employee monitoring — or, as privacy advocates put it, “corporate surveillance.” Multiple services enable stealth monitoring, live video feeds, keyboard tracking, optical character recognition, keystroke recording, or location tracking. One such company, Hubstaff, implements random screen capture that can be customized for each person and set to report “once, twice, or three times per 10 minutes,” if managers so wish. Another company, Teramind, captures all keyboard activity and records “all information to comprehensive logs [that] can be used to formulate a base of user-based behavior analytics.”
Despite the easy availability of options, however, monitoring comes with real risk to the companies that pursue it. Surveillance threatens to erode trust between employers and employees. Accenture found that 52% of employees believe that mishandling of data damages trust — and only 30% of the C-suite executives who were polled reported themselves as “confident” that the data would always be used responsibly. Employees who are now subject to new levels of surveillance report being both “incredibly stressed out” by the constant monitoring and also afraid to speak up, a recipe for not only dissatisfaction but also burnout, both of which — ironically — decrease productivity. Worse, monitoring can invite a backlash: In October of 2019 Google employees went public about spy tools allegedly created to suppress internal dissent.
Tempting as it may be to implement monitoring in the service of protecting productivity, it also stands in stark contrast to recent trends in the corporate world. Many organizations have committed to fostering a better employee experience, with a particular focus on diversity and inclusion. There are not only strong ethical reasons for having one’s eye on that ball, but good bottom line reasons as well. The Deloitte Global Millennial Survey from 2019 found that 55% of millennials plan to leave employers that prioritize profits over people. Retention — which should be a priority for all companies, given the high expense of making and onboarding new hires — becomes difficult and costly for companies that don’t reflect those values. Given the risk of alienating employees coupled with the possibility of error and misapplication of these tools, it is quite likely that, for many, the juice just isn’t worth the squeeze.
Even so, some companies will still find it worth the tradeoffs. Justified fear of a collapsing economy reasonably drives employers to monitor their employees to ensure they are being productive and efficient. Indeed, they may even have ethically admirable aims in doing so, such as for the sake of their employees’ health and the health of the country as a whole. Furthermore, if the tools are deployed with the goal of discovering which employees are in need of additional help — more on this below — that may be all the more reason to monitor. But if your business concludes that it ought to monitor employees (for whatever reason), it is important to do so in a way that maximally respects its employees.
Here are six recommendations on how to walk this tightrope.
1. Choose your metrics carefully by involving all relevant stakeholders.
Applying numbers to things is easy, as is making quick judgments based on numeric scores spit out by a piece of software. This leads to both unnecessary surveillance and ill-formed decisions. It’s simply too easy to react to information that, in practice, is irrelevant to productivity, efficiency, and revenue. If you insist on monitoring employees, make sure what you’re tracking is relevant and necessary. Simply monitoring the quantity of emails written or read, for instance, is not a reliable indicator of productivity.
If you want the right metrics, then engage all of the relevant stakeholders in the process to determine those metrics, from hiring managers to supervisors to those who are actually being monitored. With regards to employee engagement it is especially important to reach both experienced and new employees, and that they are able to deliver their input in a setting where there is no fear of reprisal. For instance, they can be in discussion with a supervisor — but preferably not their direct supervisor, who has the authority to fire or promote them.
2. Be transparent with your employees about what you’re monitoring and why.
Part and parcel of respecting someone is that you take the time to openly and honestly communicate with them. Tell your employees what you’re monitoring and why. Give them the opportunity to offer feedback. Share the results of the monitoring with them and, crucially, provide a system by which they can appeal decisions about their career influenced by the data collected.
Transparency increases employee acceptance rates. Gartner found that only 30% of employees were comfortable with their employer monitoring their email. But in the same study, when an employer shared that they would be monitoring and explained why, more than 50% of workers reported being comfortable with it.
3. Offer carrots as well as sticks.
Monitoring or surveillance software is implicitly tied to overseers who are bent on compliance and submission. Oppressive governments, for example, tie surveillance with threats of fines and imprisonment. But you don’t need to pursue monitoring as a method of oppression. You would do better to think about it as a tool by which you can figure out how to help your employees be more productive or reward them for their hustle. That means thinking about what kinds of carrots can be used to motivate and boost relevant numbers, not just sticks to discourage inefficiencies.
4. Accept that very good workers will not always be able to do very good work all the time — especially under present circumstances.
These are unique times and it would be wrong — both ethically and factually — to make decisions about who is and who is not a good employee or a hard worker based on performance under these conditions. Some very hard-working and talented employees may be stretched extraordinarily thin due to a lack of school and child care options, for instance. These are people you want to keep because, in the long run, they provide a tremendous amount of value. Ensure that your supervisors take the time to talk to their supervisees when the numbers aren’t what you want them to be. And again, that conversation should reflect an understanding of the employee’s situation and focus on creative solutions, not threats.
5. Monitor your own systems to ensure that people of color and other vulnerable groups are not disproportionately affected.
Central to any company’s diversity and inclusion effort is a commitment to eliminating any discrimination against traditionally marginalized populations. Precisely because they have been marginalized, those populations tend to occupy more junior roles in an organization — and junior roles often suffer the most scrutiny. This means that there is a risk of disproportionately surveilling the very groups a company’s inclusivity efforts are designed to protect, which invites significant ethical, reputational, and legal risks.
If employee monitoring is being used, it is important that the most junior people are not surveilled to a greater extent than their managers, or at least not to an extent that places special burdens on them. For instance, it would be particularly troublesome if very junior employees received a level of surveillance — say, sentiment analysis or keyboard logging — that only slightly more senior people did not. A policy that says, “This is how we monitor all employees” raises fewer ethical red flags than a policy that says, “This is how we monitor most employees, except for the most junior ones, who undergo a great deal more surveillance.” Equal application of the law, in other words, legitimately blunts the force of charges of discrimination.
6. Decrease monitoring when and where you can.
The impulse to monitor is understandable, especially in these times. But as people return to their offices — and even as some continue to work from home — look for places to pull back monitoring efforts where things are going well. This communicates trust to employees. It also corrects for the tendency to acquire more control than necessary when circumstances are not as severe as they once were.
At the end of the day, your employees are your most valuable assets. They possess institutional knowledge and skills others do not. You’ve invested time and money in them and they are very expensive to replace. Treating them with respect is not only something they deserve — it’s crucial for a company’s retention efforts. If your company does choose to move ahead with surveillance software in this climate, you need to remind yourself that you are not the police. You should be monitoring employees not with a raised baton, but with an outstretched hand.
SOURCE: Blackman, R. (28 May 2020) "How to Monitor Your Employees — While Respecting Their Privacy" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2020/05/how-to-monitor-your-employees-while-respecting-their-privacy
How COVID-19 has changed the recruiting tech stack
The rapid shift to telework for many office-based employers is not only forcing companies to conduct recruiting virtually, but also making them reconsider every aspect of their talent acquisition strategies. After implementing additional technology solutions amid the pandemic, experts suggest that some changes will be permanent.
While the talent acquisition function tends to lead technology adoption among HR groups, interviews were still commonly held face-to-face at some point in the process and deliberation over candidates often took place in in-person meetings. But recruiting leaders may find that digital processes offer new advantages and end up keeping them even when they return to their offices.
Improving the function
While many organizations scrambled to put together online fixes for manual or in-person processes during the pandemic, improvement took a back seat to maintaining continuity. Now that change is not so rapid, business leaders are focusing on how to improve in these conditions.
Recruiting is no different. Existing technology solutions can address strategic imperatives that were top of mind before the pandemic, such as workforce data, candidate experience or recruiter productivity. More importantly, these technologies can still be deployed while everyone is working from home.
"I think as you start to look at how things like machine learning can be applied, there's a lot of opportunities," Mark Brandau, a research principal, global industry analyst at Forrester, told HR Dive. "The ones I gravitate to are things that automate the process."
Scheduling, communicating with candidates and optimizing job board spend — the same way marketers do with online ad spend — represent the "low-hanging fruit" when it comes to recruiting technology, Brandau said. The tools are usually simple to use and do not depend on the technical maturity of the organization for adoption or implementation.
Having every single recruiting activity occurring within some sort of technology also allows for better data collection. While organizations are trying to collect as much as possible, it's a challenge to validate data entered by people and also can be subjective, such as a hiring manager's perception of a candidate after a first-round in-person interview.
"Something we suspected before the pandemic is organizations don't have a lot of necessary data to make adaptive forward decisions," Brandau said. "That includes candidate data and [talent] market data."
Having better data by having more widespread technology will allow talent acquisition leaders to be more informed about the metrics that matter and how they can improve the function's effectiveness. Efficiency gains, like being able to immediately schedule an interview, can improve the candidate experience and save recruiters time.
"They either want to automate [sourcing and screening] more because of high volume or they want to find better quality candidates," Brandau said. "So they're focused on automation and quality of time" to improve the caliber of candidates entering the funnel and their experience.
Expanding into onboarding
In a pre-pandemic interview process, once a candidate accepts a job offer, after the initial excitement from both parties subsides, there is often a hand-off to a different colleague to manage the onboarding process. Today, with remote work as the norm and more automation coming, there is an opportunity for talent acquisition to bolster, if not completely own, onboarding.
"Once a client understands and gets wind of what's possible with onboarding, especially as a part of a bigger HCM transformation, when you tie in learning and procurement and other things that can happen and goals within onboarding," Brandau said, "they start to light up because they see it way more transformative beyond talent acquisition."
Being able to seamlessly move into value-add onboarding activities without the possibility of a clunky handoff can pay off in many ways. It can boost a new employee's preparedness and excitement. It can also serve as an extension of a company's brand, Brandau said, noting the connections between candidate experience, employment branding and the overall branding of a company. Tactically, onboarding automation can include signaling procurement for a new computer or other supplies a new hire may need.
Organizational leaders often are interested in automating the first steps of onboarding to support a new employees' alignment with organizational goals and maximize the experience of their first 90 days, including what training they may need. "So there's a lot of there's a lot of immediate benefit, as opposed to longer term benefit, when you think about ROI and visibility and brand reinforcement, that's why they gravitate that way," he added.
Finding new sourcing channels
Another opportunity for remote recruiting teams is expanding the geography and scope of sourcing channels. When recruiters no longer need to travel to career fairs and instead interact with prospective employees virtually, they can speak to more candidates. And when candidates don't need to play email tag to schedule an interview, they move the process more efficiently.
SOURCE: Kidwai, A. (14 May 2020) "How COVID-19 has changed the recruiting tech stack" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.hrdive.com/news/how-covid-19-has-changed-the-recruiting-tech-stack/577953/
Work from home forever? Businesses are divided on that
With many businesses working remotely still due to the coronavirus, many businesses are debating on if working from home will become permanently and are even divided on that decision. Read this blog post to learn more.
The work-from-home movement is gaining steam in Silicon Valley as a flurry of companies — big and small — are embracing remote-working policies beyond the pandemic. But even as some executives extol its virtues, other tech leaders aren’t so sure, opening a growing divide inside the industry over the future of work. It’s a worthy debate.
On Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced his company will start allowing some existing employees to work from home permanently. He said Facebook will also “aggressively open up remote hiring” for engineering talent in areas it doesn’t have an office, saying as much as 50% of the company’s employees could eventually work remotely within 10 years. In similar fashion, Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke said his e-commerce software company will allow its employees to work from home indefinitely, adding he expects that most of his staff will work remotely going forward. The days of “office centricity is over,” the executive posted on social media. The two companies join Twitter, which said last week it will let employees work from home as standard practice as well.
Not everyone in technology is on board. Take-Two Interactive Software CEO Strauss Zelnick said on an investor call this week that he believes sustained strong productivity will get more difficult the longer people are forced to work from home, adding that “there is no substitute for in-person collaboration and connection.” That follows comments from Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya Nadella, who expressed concern in an interview with the New York Times last week that early positive remote-work productivity metrics may mask underlying deficiencies, in terms of managing and mentoring employees. He also raised worries about potential burnout and mental-health issues. “Maybe we are burning some of the social capital we built up in this phase where we are all working remote. What’s the measure for that?” he asked.
There’s something to be said for this pushback. Sure, there are many pluses to offering off-site work flexibility — including better employee retention and the ability to hire from a more diverse talent base in other geographies — but corporations should realize the work-from-home trend isn’t a panacea. In fact, there are significant drawbacks and challenges that shouldn’t be overlooked.
As Zelnick pointed out, there are unquantifiable benefits derived from being in the same physical location. Scheduled videoconferencing meetings don’t engender the same spontaneous creativity compared to the many back-and-forth brief conversations during a typical day at an office. And nothing beats face-to-face interactions for building the relationships and trust required to persuade your colleagues on big decisions.
It’s notable that even as Facebook projects confidence and forward-looking thought leadership in its charge toward its new work-from-home culture, it is implementing the change slowly. Zuckerberg said only the company’s senior engineers with strong performance reviews will be initially allowed to apply for remote-work flexibility, adding it will be a measured transition before extending the policy to non-engineers.
To be frank, it wouldn’t surprise me to see many of these companies slow down their transitions to remote working. After all, the world is only a few months into this massive remote-work experiment. The initial productivity benefits may dissipate and significant negative consequences may well appear over time. Best not to rush into any drastic decisions.
SOURCE: Kim, T. (26 May 2020) "Work from home forever? Businesses are divided on that" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/articles/work-from-home-forever-businesses-are-divided-on-that
How to Be a 'Favorite Boss'
When managing employees during the crazy times that COVID-19 has brought upon many workplaces, many business professionals are finding new and innovative ways to get the job done. Read this blog post to learn more.
COVID-19 has certainly rocked our world as human resource professionals, but the opportunities we have before us as we navigate a global pandemic are innumerable. Think about it: We're managing employees' anxiety while moving toward a new remote business model that focuses on accountability and productivity. We're finding new and more effective ways of communicating when we don't have the benefit of MBWA (Management by Walking Around). We're strengthening our team and creating a deeper sense of trust and camaraderie. And we're building bullets for our resumes and LinkedIn profiles: remote learning, delegation, and virtual accountability and performance delivery. In other words, our entire business worldview has been turned upside down, yet we're still finding new and innovative ways of getting the job done—in some cases, even better than in the past.
"When you find yourself at a point of pure creation, you'll be amazed at what you're able to accomplish," said Kim Congdon, global vice president, human resources and talent management for Herbalife Nutrition in Torrance, Calif. "The obstacles you've faced before melt away, and you have an opportunity to reinvent yourself, your relationship to your team and your leadership brand."
To keep yourself motivated and growing in the right direction, ask yourself this question: "How do I become someone's favorite boss, and what might that look like in the COVID-19 era?"
Favorite Boss Characteristics
When you ask people about their favorite boss, their eyes light up and they say things like:
- She always made me feel like she had my back.
- He challenged me to do things I didn't think I was capable of.
- She made me feel included, she appreciated my input, and I felt like I could almost do no wrong when working with her. My confidence soared.
"What you realize when hearing these types of descriptions," Congdon said, "is that when people describe their favorite boss, they talk about who that person is, not necessarily what that person did. It's the [boss's] character, encouragement, and personal concern and involvement that makes them someone's favorite boss." So the next question to ask yourself, especially in times of emergency, should be "Who am I, and who do I choose to be in this work relationship and during this challenge?"
Applying the Favorite Boss Standard to COVID-19
In addition to maintaining open communication, building a stronger team as we work remotely, and producing and measuring performance results, what other challenges are we facing right now? The list is long:
- Loss of safety and security.
- Loss of control due to unpredictable events.
- Lack of emotional and social support (and feelings of loneliness and isolation).
- Loss of loved ones.
- Overwork, exhaustion and lack of self-care.
"We're not expected to turn into psychologists overnight," said Steve Axel, executive coach and transition coach for senior leaders in San Diego, "but many of these and other concerns are very real for certain people. Your role isn't to diagnose anything—you're not the appropriate resource for that. But you are responsible for helping people help themselves. Leading with empathy, always having a listening ear, and being careful not to make anyone feel judged for their fears or anxieties will go a long way in helping people come to terms with so many unknowns and their natural reactions to them."
You need to not only manage performance but also demonstrate the soft skills of listening, empathy and concern for your employees as they make their way through the crisis. Here's what your communication and leadership strategy might focus on during the pandemic:
- Communicate organizational resources, like your employee assistance program, or local resources such as pastoral care and social services.
- Be a calming influence for your team by introducing moments of pause or meditation.
- Form "battle buddy" relationships. Pair up remote team members and ensure that people have each other's backs at all times.
- Help people change their perspective so they'll change their perception of current events. Talk about how this too shall pass. Encourage people to think about where we will be one to five years from now when we look back on this time. How can your team use this period to develop their careers and skills?
- Share recovery stories. Discuss prior generations and how they came to terms with seemingly insurmountable challenges—from the two world wars to the civil rights battles of the 1960s to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"The point is, it's not business as usual," Axel said. "For some it may be, but for others who need more guidance, structure and direction, be there for them. Be present. Exercise mindfulness. And most important, come from observation rather than judgment. No one wants to be judged, especially if they don't feel particularly in control of their lives or feelings right now. Your gentle guidance, concern and empathetic ear will help them find themselves again. That's what a coach does—not give answers but help people come to their own solutions in their own time."
Favorite Bosses Also Push Productivity and Achievement
"We've got a job to do, work to be performed, and goals to meet in terms of performance and productivity," Congdon said. "'Favorite bosses know how to motivate and engage their people to perform at their best because nothing builds confidence and self-esteem like knowing that you're hitting it out of the park performance-wise."
To that end, follow some of these best practices when leading your team, either remotely or in return-to-work mode:
- Create a shared document where everyone on the team can document their weekly progress, roadblocks and achievements. Use it for celebration and recognition.
- Assign different staff members to lead weekly staff meetings and make them responsible for the agenda and follow-up items.
- Schedule weekly or biweekly one-on-one meetings to check in on individuals' physical and mental well-being.
- Schedule quarterly progress meetings on annual goals, roadblocks and achievements.
- Ensure that remote workers' work/life balance needs are being met (e.g., by not working all hours of the night) and that nonexempt employees adhere strictly to wage and hour guidelines for meal and rest periods as well as overtime.
Now, more than ever, people are looking to leaders in business to respond quickly and proactively. This is the time to lean in, lead through the changes coming your way, show compassion for others, exercise the selflessness necessary to coach and mentor, and ensure high levels of individual and team performance. Help your employees process their physical and mental reactions stemming from fear and uncertainty and focus on work/life balance, productivity and shared achievements. You can use COVID-19 to redefine your leadership and communication style so that others look to you as that special boss; that individual who taught them how to lead, pivot and bend through a pandemic; and that leader who had their backs and encouraged them to discover their personal best through challenging times.
SOURCE: Falcone, P. (22 May 2020) "How to Be a 'Favorite Boss" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/organizational-and-employee-development/pages/how-to-be-a-favorite-boss.aspx
AI helps applicants hone their soft skills
Due to the coronavirus causing many job losses, many are searching for a new place of employment. In competing markets, job candidates may now have to tune their skills and artificial intelligence can help. Read this blog post to learn more.
As millions of workers look for new positions due to the coronavirus pandemic, artificial intelligence can help job candidates fine-tune their interview skills and stand out from the crowd.
HR tech and recruiting company, CareerArc, launched a new interview assessment tool that uses artificial intelligence to highlight candidates’ soft skills, like organization and creativity. The feature, released this week as part of CareerArc Outplacement, helps job seekers learn how to market those traits on their resumes and LinkedIn profiles — which makes it easier for employers to identify the best candidates for open positions, CareerArc executives say.
“The most important thing job seekers can do right now is to use this time to make themselves more marketable, and our coaches are on standby seven days a week to help do just that,” says Yair Riemer, president of career transition services at CareerArc. “With this new assessment, our career coaches can better counsel job seekers to emphasize their unique strengths, while building the confidence they need to find their next opportunity as quickly as possible.”
Since March, more than 22 million people in the United States have been left unemployed in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Job seekers are increasingly turning to placement services — Riemer says 99% of CareerArc’s clients are currently unemployed.
The CareerArc assessment starts with having a user record and upload three videos of themselves responding to common interview questions. The software uses psychometric technology, pioneered by experts at University of Southern California and Purdue University, to analyze facial expressions to determine a candidate’s soft skills. Riemer says the software can determine whether a candidate is organized, creative, a formal or informal speaker and whether they communicate assertively or are more laid back.
“Soft skills are harder to learn, and it’s important they align with the job description because they definitely impact job performance,” Riemer says. “Having candidates who are self-aware of how their traits fit the role means [employers] will find someone who can meaningfully contribute to the company.”
Once they have an assessment of their traits, CareerArc places users with one of their career coaches to help decipher the results. The coaches also help candidates use the results to tweak their online presence and application materials.
“Most people don’t know how to highlight or market soft skills; resumes typically focus on hard skills,” Riemer says. “But our coaches are able to pick out keywords that grab the attention of recruiters and employers to help our candidates get noticed. Candidates will also come away more confident, with the skills to talk about their personal strengths.”
Going forward, Riemer says he’d like to extend the software to employers and recruiters so they can use it as part of their candidate evaluation process. He also sees potential for employers to offer the program to their employees as a means of improving their intrapersonal skills as they seek advancement opportunities within the company. CareerArc plans to hear from employers before pursuing either idea.
In the meantime, CareerArc plans to monitor the program’s results as job seekers continue to navigate the COVID-19 crisis.
“With the current job market, job seekers need tools and insights that will help them stand out from the crowd,” CareerArc CEO Robin D. Richards says.
SOURCE: Webster, K. (06 May 2020) "AI helps applicants hone their soft skills" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/news/ai-helps-applicants-home-in-on-their-soft-skills
Meal program provides healthy lunches to remote workers
The coronavirus pandemic has placed many disruptions in the day-to-day lives of employees, which has caused both mental and physical challenges. Research has shown that more people are now snacking or eating more now, due to the quarantine brought upon many. Read this blog post to learn more.
Disruptions from the coronavirus have infiltrated the daily lives of employees, causing challenges to both our mental and physical well-being. Focusing on proper nutrition is on the back burner for many.
Twenty-seven percent of people reported snacking more during coronavirus, and 15% said they are eating more often than usual, according to a study by the International Food Information Council. Forty-two percent have been relying more on pre-packaged foods than in the previous month, despite believing they are a less healthy option.
“The quality of fuel we put in our body ultimately controls the output,” says Michael Wystrach, CEO of Freshly, a meal subscription service. “So how well our brain functions, how our emotions and hormones are released, how productive we are, it really does start with diet.”
The coronavirus has exacerbated the challenge of accessing healthy food for many across the United States. While there has been a skyrocketing demand for groceries and grocery delivery services during the pandemic, 37 million Americans are considered “food insecure,” meaning they lack access to affordable and nutritious food options.
To address those concerns, Freshly created a new meal service called Freshly for Business to provide healthy and affordable meals for employees working remotely. The program allows employers to offer free or subsidized meal plans consisting of up to 12 meals per week. Employers including PwC and KPMG, among others, are partnering with Freshly, which costs an average of $8 per meal per employee.
“We used our platform to solve the needs of customers who are saying, we have a lot of employees working at home who are working hard but are strained and have a lot of challenges on their plates,” Wystrach says. “Employers wanted to provide them a benefit of healthy food by signing up a few dozen to thousands of employees very quickly.”
Lack of proper nutrition can have devastating and expensive consequences: In the U.S., 40% of adults are obese, and 90% of overweight individuals have prediabetes or Type 2 diabetes, a condition often caused by poor diet. According to the American Diabetes Association, the cost of medical expenditures and lost productivity due to diagnosed diabetes was $327.2 billion in 2017, the most recent data available.
“Type 2 diabetes is the fastest growing disease in America, and it’s principally caused by poor diet. It takes a huge toll on employers and employees,” Wystrach says. “One of the challenges now is the traditional lunch hour is gone and convenience is the pinnacle. But we make poor decisions when we rely on convenience with our food.”
Providing food in the workplace is a much desired benefit, with 73% of employees saying they want healthy cafeteria and snack options at work, according to a survey by Quantum Workplace and Limeade. However, just 32% provided free snacks and food, and only 17% had an onsite cafeteria available for workers, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.
As employers begin considering their return-to-work strategies and how they will make their offices safe and their benefits supportive of the health and well-being of their employees, providing meal options should be a major consideration, Wystrach says.
“Especially as we think about social distancing, the less you’re sending your employees out, the safer everyone is,” he says. “Employers will also be thinking about healthcare costs post-COVID. How do they keep overall healthcare costs down? It’s really in everyone’s benefit to provide benefits that promote health and wellness.”
Meal offerings and proper nutrition are a win-win for employers and their workers, Wystrach says.
“Health and happiness ultimately creates a more productive employee,” he says. “When you’re trying to find a win-win for everyone, it drives productivity, it creates happy employees, and it reduces cost over time. There will continue to be a focus on benefits that provide that.”
SOURCE: Place, A. (12 May 2020) "Meal program provides healthy lunches to remote workers" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/news/meal-program-provides-healthy-lunches-to-remote-workers