No primary care doc, no problem: How millennials are changing healthcare
Do you have a primary care physician? Forty-five percent of 18- to 29-year-olds reported that they do not have a primary care physician. Read this blog post from Employee Benefit News to learn more.
Millennials, and Generation Z behind them, are changing the way they access healthcare. In fact, 45% of 18- to 29-year-olds say they don’t have a primary care physician. Instead, they’re opting for on-demand healthcare.
Traditionally, individuals and families see primary care physicians several times a year and build relationships with their doctors over time. Visiting the same primary care physician when an illness strikes, or for an annual wellness checkup, can help the doctor notice changes in a patient’s health and catch issues before they become more serious (and costly).
But for millennials, having a primary care physician isn’t necessarily a priority.
That’s in part because they seem to prefer on-demand healthcare options, such as urgent care, drug store clinics and telemedicine services, which are easily accessible and typically include shorter wait times. The number of urgent care centers reflects the trend — they’re projected to grow by 5.8% in 2018, according to the Urgent Care Association.
Then there is employers’ shift away from health maintenance organizations, which often required that each employee choose a primary care doctor at the start of the plan. HMOs also require a referral from the primary care physician to see specialists. Recent research shows that most often, employers offer preferred provider organizations (84%), while 40% offer consumer-directed health plans and 35% offer HMOs.
Finally, physician shortages are leading to longer wait times for appointments. The U.S. population continues to grow and age, which may lead to a shortage of 120,000 primary and specialty doctors by 2030, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
For employers, it’s important to understand the reasons behind the shift to on-demand healthcare and educate employees to ensure they can get appropriate medical attention when they need it.
One crucial part of this education is helping employees understand when they should visit urgent care versus the emergency room, and reminding them that telemedicine is available. More than 95% of large employers and just over one-third of small- and mid-size employers offer telemedicine benefits. But adoption rates among employees remain low — only 20% of large employers report utilization rates above 8%, according to the National Business Group on Health.
Ensure your employees know that the service is available throughout the year and help them understand the cost if any is associated with the service. You may consider offering $0 copays for telemedicine visits to encourage employee use.
Encourage employees to get a wellness visit each year to help uncover health issues and take steps to prevent others. One way to do this without forcing employees to wait for an appointment or commit to a doctor is to bring the service in-house. Increasingly, large employers are adding this service to help employees stay healthy. In fact, one-third of employers with more than 5,000 employees and 16% of employers with 500-4,999 employees now have onsite clinics. Another 8% of midsize employers plan to add clinics in 2019.
Providing health assessments as part of a health and wellness program is another way to get employees, especially money conscious millennials, in front of a doctor. Younger workers are likely to embrace incentives or premium discounts that are tied to a physician visit.
Direct primary care is yet another employer option to provide easy-to-access primary care. With direct primary care, employers partner with primary care physicians to offer a designated doctor for their employees. The benefit for employees is more face time with a doctor and the opportunity to get personalized care.
Importantly, employees who have known chronic issues should see a primary care doctor regularly to help monitor and manage their condition.
The trend toward seeking on-demand healthcare at alternative sites isn’t likely to reverse direction any time soon. Instead, it’s up to employers to understand why it’s happening and educate employees of all ages on their options for care.
SOURCE: Milne, J. (7 January 2019) "No primary care doc, no problem: How millennials are changing healthcare" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/opinion/no-primary-care-doc-no-problem-how-millennials-are-changing-healthcare?brief=00000152-14a5-d1cc-a5fa-7cff48fe0001
Artificial intelligence enthusiasm outpacing adoption
A new survey by the RELX Group reports that adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning is lagging among key decision makers. Read this blog post from Employee Benefit News to learn more.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning have become essential for organizations to stay competitive. But adoption is lagging even among key decision-makers championing change.
That is the finding of a new survey by the RELX Group, a global provider of information and analytics. The company surveyed 1,000 U.S.-based senior executives across government, healthcare, insurance, legal, science/medical and banking in September 2018, and found that 88% agree that AI and machine learning will help their businesses be more competitive.
While the value of the technologies is clear to executives, only 56% of organizations use machine learning or AI. In addition, only 18% of those surveyed plan to increase investment in these technologies.
“Organizations [that] can successfully use emerging technologies such as AI and machine learning to provide their customers with better products and advanced analytics can emerge as the leaders of the future,” said Kumsal Bayazit, chairman of RELX Group’s Technology Forum.
“While awareness of these technologies and their benefits is higher than ever before, endorsement from key decision makers has not been enough to spark matching levels of adoption,” Bayazit said.
The study showed that AI and machine learning are making their mark, with 69% of those surveyed saying the technologies have had a positive impact on their industry. Machine learning and AI are helping solve challenges by automating decision processes (cited by 40%); improving customer retention (36 percent); and detecting fraud, waste and abuse (33%).
SOURCE: Violino, B. (2 January 2019) "Artificial intelligence enthusiasm outpacing adoption" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/news/artificial-intelligence-enthusiasm-outpacing-adoption?feed=00000152-a2fb-d118-ab57-b3ff6e310000
When every day is bring-your-kid-to-work day
Canopy, a software developer, has adopted many family-friendly employee benefits, including a benefit that allows employees to bring their newborns to work up until they are about 6 months old. Continue reading this blog post to learn more.
When recent college graduate Hanna Arntz first interviewed for a job at Canopy, a Utah-based startup that develops practice management software for accounting firms, the recruiter asked her about her long-term career goals. Arntz wasn’t sure about what she wanted, but she was sure of one thing: She wanted to be a mom.
The recruiter told Arntz that Canopy was developing benefits for pregnant and working mothers. Arntz was interested, and accepted a position at the company in 2017. She is now a talent acquisition manager, a role that allowed her to witness the company’s development of family-friendly benefits firsthand.
“We had a lot of focus groups for parents within Canopy to understand what parents need in the workforce and how to retain them, particularly mothers,” she says.
Canopy now offers 10 weeks of maternity leave, plus a two-week ramp period where parents can work part-time to readjust to work. The company also offers two weeks of paternity leave. In addition to these policies, Canopy has an unusual offering: It allows parents to bring their newborns into work every day up until they are about 6-months-old.
Canopy CEO Kurt Avarell says many of the employees on the more than 300-person team have children, and there is a level of understanding when new parents bring their little ones to work. The company also welcomes older children into their office from time to time.
“Pretty much any day is a bring-your-kid-to-work day,” he says. “It’s pretty typical to have kids in the office.”
Arntz gave birth to her son, Jude, seven months ago. After taking maternity leave, she returned to the office with her newborn. Initially, she was nervous about bringing him to work.
“I was worried he was going to be crying in meetings,” she says. “There was so much anxiety around that.”
Since she has returned to work, though, colleagues have not treated her any differently, she says. Balancing her work with taking care of her son can be tough, she admits, but the company has been supportive.
“Even if the baby was crying and I was bouncing him, they’d still be looking at me in the eye and engaging me in conversation,” she says.
Employers like Canopy are beginning to recognize the value of adding family-friendly benefits with many beefing up paid parental leave, breast milk shipping, and free babysitting services. For example, dozens of companies including Bristol-Myers Squibb, CVS Health, Dollar General, Eataly and General Mills made changes to their paid parental leave benefits in 2018. Meanwhile, Home Depot, Trip Adviser, Vox Media and Pinterest added breast milk shipping benefits, and Starbucks began offering subsidized child care as a benefit.
In addition to its maternity and paternity leave benefits, Canopy has a flexible paid time off policy that allows new parents to work from home. The company also has separate mothers’ and fathers’ rooms in the office and provides new parents with a gift of diapers, clothes, baby care products and gift cards.
Avarell says offering family-focused benefits is a good way to retain employees because it shows workers that they are supported at home and in the office. It’s a part of Canopy’s culture that he hopes to maintain long-term.
As for Arntz, the benefits have played an integral part of her staying at the company.
“The company has invested in me for a reason,” she says. “They want to retain me.”
SOURCE: Hroncich, C. (7 January 2019) "When every day is bring-your-kid-to-work day" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/news/when-every-day-is-bring-your-kid-to-work-day?brief=00000152-14a5-d1cc-a5fa-7cff48fe0001
Why it might be time to say goodbye to exit interviews
Do you still take part in the practice of asking departing workers to sit down for a final interview? Many companies, large and small, are ending the practice of exit interviews. Read on to learn more.
The exit interview is a long-time staple of HR departments. But an increasing number of companies large and small are ending the practice of asking departing workers to sit down for a final interview.
The concept seems sound. You can take the opportunity to hear unvarnished opinions about what your company or team does well and what it needs to improve on, and then take that back to management and implement changes that’ll help attract and retain great talent.
In practice, however, the process is often uncomfortable and many HR pros report that the folks who are interested in talking are often the ones who complained the most while on the payroll. The litany of gripes and rehashed personality clashes rarely adds much to the organization’s insight into building a better workplace.
If you can’t say anything nice…
Most of the rest, if they even will agree to an exit interview – and you can’t make them do that, of course – are going to be very careful to say only positive or neutral things about their experience at your organization. That helps to prevent bridge burning for them, in case they ever want to come back or they run into a colleague at a job interview later in their career. But for your team, the result is likely the same as with the complainer in the first example: A one-sided, probably inaccurate picture of what you are doing right and how you can improve in areas that need work.
Finally, much of the work your HR team does to schedule an interview as workers are packing up their personal stuff is likely to be wasted. Advice on employee-focused employment websites and other social media leans heavily towards “How to Avoid the Exit Interview.” Suggested tactics range from saying you can’t spare the time because you don’t want to leave your soon-to-be-ex colleagues hanging to asking to schedule after the leave date and then just ghosting the phone call altogether.
It’s still worthwhile to do a formal review to close out individual projects and to debrief contractors as they wrap up, but it’s probably time to say goodbye to the “tell us what you really think” sessions with employees who have decided to move on.
SOURCE: McElgunn, T. (27 December 2018) "Why it might be time to say goodbye to exit interviews" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.hrmorning.com/why-it-might-be-time-to-say-goodbye-to-exit-interviews/
5 ways employers can boost employee engagement
Are you looking for ways to boost employee engagement this year? According to Work Institute, employers could prevent 77 percent of turnover by improving the employee experience. Read this blog post to learn more.
With it being a new year, employers are in a unique position. Unemployment is at its lowest rate since 1969, leaving HR managers with a dearth of qualified candidates to fill open positions.
But filling current openings isn’t the only challenge HR teams face: An estimated 42 million employees will leave their jobs in 2019 in search of workplaces that better meet their needs and expectations. Turnover that significant leaves employers with only one option — focus on improving the employee experience to increase employee retention and satisfaction.
The good news is that employers could prevent 77% of that turnover, according to a study from Work Institute.
Beyond competitive pay and benefits, how do employers create an exceptional experience for their employees? By offering engaging programs, resource groups and events that enhance employee connections and develop a more thriving workplace culture.
We predict that successful companies will use a combination of the following five trends to increase employee satisfaction and improve retention in 2019.
1. Make employee experience technology easy to use
In addition, a poor user experience also can negatively color an employee’s opinion of the organization as a whole, making them more likely to leave.
Consumer-grade interfaces on user-friendly platforms are critical for encouraging employees to participate in workplace groups and programs. When companies invest in employee groups and programs, they expect to see ROI in the form of increased engagement and satisfaction. The key to success is making participation easy.
2. Keep employee experience programs consistent across the organization
For example, wellness programs help improve employee health, satisfaction and engagement. But a lunchtime yoga series offered at company headquarters may make work-from-home employees feel left out.
3. Give employees more control over benefit spending
Giving employees this autonomy not only increases the likelihood that they’ll participate, but it also makes it easy for HR teams to distribute benefits fairly across the entire organization.
4. Streamline data to accurately track employee engagement
Having participation metrics readily available makes it easy for HR teams to see which programs are working and which aren’t resonating with employees. They’re also able to deliver that information to the C-suite and make the case for additional funding where needed.
5. Devote more funding to employee resource groups
Making ERGs a priority when allocating funds for the year will pay off, but only if they’re handled the right way. Using an automated platform to manage ERGs, promote events, track participation and encourage feedback saves HR teams both time and resources, giving them the opportunity to devote more time to improving the employee experience.
E-Verify Is Down. What Do Employers Do Now?
Are you questioning what you should do now that E-Verify, the federal government's electronic employment verification system, has expired? Read this blog post from SHRM to learn more.
What are employers supposed to do now that E-Verify—the federal government's electronic employment verification system—has expired?
Funding and congressional authorization for the program ran out Dec. 22, 2018, as the government went into a partial shutdown after Congress and the White House could not agree on how to fund some agencies, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which administers the system, for fiscal year 2019.
E-Verify compares information from an employee's Form I-9 to DHS and Social Security Administration (SSA) records to confirm employment eligibility. Employers enrolled in the program are required to use the system to run checks on new workers within three days of hiring them.
During the government shutdown, employers will not be able to enroll in E-Verify, initiate queries, access cases or resolve tentative non-confirmations (TNCs) with affected workers.
All employers remain subject to Form I-9 obligations, however. "Remember that the government shutdown has nothing to do with an employer's responsibilities to complete the Form I-9 [in a timely manner]," said Dawn Lurie, senior counsel in the Washington, D.C., office of Seyfarth Shaw. "Specifically, employees are required to complete Section 1 of the I-9 on or before the first day of employment, and employers must complete Section 2 of the I-9 no later than the third business day after an employee begins work for pay."
No Cause for Alarm
Lurie advised employers not to panic while E-Verify is down. "Employers will not be penalized as a result of the E-Verify operations shutdown," she said. "Employers will not be penalized for any delays in creating E-Verify cases. However, employers are reminded that they must continue to complete I-9s in compliance with the law, and when E-Verify becomes available, create cases in the system."
To minimize the burden on both employers and employees, DHS announced that:
- The three-day rule for creating E-Verify cases is suspended for cases affected by the unavailability of the service. "Normally, the employer enters information from the I-9 into E-Verify within three days of hire, but that won't be possible while the system is unavailable," said Montserrat Miller, a partner in the Atlanta office of Arnall Golden Gregory. "DHS will provide a window of time to submit those held cases once service resumes."
- The time period during which employees may resolve TNCs will be extended. The number of days E-Verify is unavailable will not count toward the days the employee has to begin the process of resolving a TNC. "Employers can't take any adverse action against a worker with a pending TNC regardless, shutdown or not," Miller said. Currently, an employee who chooses to contest a TNC must visit an SSA field office or call DHS within eight federal government working days to begin resolving it. This period will have to be extended because of the shutdown, she added.
- Additional guidance regarding the three-day rule and time period to resolve TNC deadlines will be provided once operations resume.
Amy Peck, an immigration attorney with Jackson Lewis in Omaha, Neb., advised employers to keep track of all new hires with completed I-9s for whom there are no E-Verify queries due to the shutdown. She also recommended attaching a memo in a master E-Verify file tracking the days that the program was unavailable. "I've seen the discrepancy come up years later during an audit," she said.
"Once the system is back up, work with counsel on how much time employees have to resolve their TNCs," Peck said. "Someone receiving a TNC the day before the shutdown is a different case than somebody who had 10 days to resolve their TNC when the shutdown occurred. Those circumstances should be considered on a case-by-case basis."
Federal contractors with a federal acquisition regulation E-Verify clause should contact their government contracting officers to extend deadlines. "Federal contractors have a particular concern because nobody is supposed to be working who has not been verified through the system," Peck said. "People can be hired, but whether they are allowed to work on the contract before being run through E-Verify is a critical consideration that should be discussed with counsel."
Prepare for the Resumption of Service
Miller said employers should monitor the shutdown. "When it is over, log in to the system and see what instructions there are for creating and submitting queries," she advised. "There is an obligation to create those queries if you are enrolled in the program, even if enrolled voluntarily."
The backlog created as a result of the shutdown might have a significant impact on employers that process many E-Verify cases and specifically on the HR staff and other team members in charge of the process.
"Not all employers will be able to push all their cases through at once when the shutdown ends," Miller said. "If everyone did that, the system would crash. DHS will provide instructions on how to submit queries. Employers will be asked why the query is being submitted after the required three days. In the past, 'Government Shutdown' was one of the options in the drop-down menu."
Peck reminded employers that the loss of E-Verify does not mean there is a prohibition against hiring. "Companies should continue to hire as they need," she said.
SOURCE: Maurer, R. (3 January 2019) "E-Verify Is Down. What Do Employers Do Now?" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/Pages/EVerify-Outage-What-Do-Employers-HR-Do.aspx
The do’s and don’ts of ADA accommodations: 3 new rulings
More than 25,000 ADA charges were filed by the EEOC in the past year, despite employers best compliance efforts. Continue reading this blog post to learn more.
Employers are facing more disability discrimination lawsuits than ever – despite their best compliance efforts.
In the past year alone, over 25,000 ADA charges were filed by the EEOC.
The right way to accommodate
One area that’s often a point of contention? The accommodation process. Workers and employers can have a very different idea of how a disability should be accommodated.
And while each disability needs to be evaluated on a case by case basis, several recent court rulings shed further light on employers’ ADA accommodation responsibilities.
1. In Brumley v. United Parcel Service, a court ruled that ADA accommodations don’t necessarily have to be given to employees immediately.
Melissa Brumley delivered packages for UPS when she hurt her back lifting a heavy box from her truck.
She took leave to heal, and her doctor said when she returned to work she could no longer lift packages or drive. Since these were two essential functions of her job, Brumley’s manager put her on leave while waiting on more information from her doctor.
After beginning the interactive process and considering a reassignment, Brumley’s doctor cleared her to go back to her old job, and UPS ended the process.
But Brumley sued the company for failing to accommodate her during those weeks she was on leave, which resulted in loss of pay.
A district court ruled in favor of UPS, and on appeal, the 6th Circuit agreed. It said just because the company didn’t accommodate the employee immediately didn’t mean it violated the ADA.
UPS began the interactive process and only stopped once Brumley was cleared to go back to her old job without an accommodation.
The key things the company did? Beginning the process and requesting additional info from Brumley’s doctor – this showed the court a good faith effort to comply with the ADA.
2. In Sharbono v. Northern States Power, a court ruled a company that failed to find an accommodation didn’t fail to fulfill its ADA duties.
After a foot injury, James Sharbono wasn’t able to wear the steel-toed boots required by his company’s safety procedures.
HR worked with Sharbono and suggested several accommodations, such as altering his boots and getting a custom pair made, but none worked out. Sharbono was forced to retire, and he sued for ADA violation.
But the 8th Circuit ruled the company acted in good faith. It worked with Sharbono and suggested several accommodations. It was only after exhausting all options that Sharbono was forced to retire. The court said the company fulfilled its ADA responsibilities, despite finding no accommodation for Sharbono.
3. In Stokes v. Nielsen, a court decided companies can be required to make accommodations that cover more than just essential job functions.
Jacqueline Stokes had impaired vision and received multiple accommodations that allowed her to do her job. Stokes then requested special meeting handouts, printed in large letters, that she could read beforehand.
Despite many promises from HR, Stokes never received her requested handouts. She sued, claiming to be denied a reasonable accommodation under the ADA.
While the company argued it gave Stokes everything she needed to do her job, therefore fulfilling its ADA responsibilities, the Fifth Circuit disagreed.
“Our circuit has explicitly rejected the requirement that requested modifications must be necessary to perform essential job functions to constitute a reasonable accommodation,” it said. And Stokes’ request was deemed reasonable.
This case shows if an employee makes a reasonable request for their job, it’s easier to just grant it.
SOURCE: Mucha, R. (4 January 2019) "The do’s and don’ts of ADA accommodations: 3 new rulings" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.hrmorning.com/the-dos-and-donts-of-ada-accommodations-3-new-rulings/
Call today, work tomorrow: The future of hiring?
A recent article from the Wall Street Journal states that more and more employees are being hired without a formal face-to-face interview. Continue reading to learn more about the future of hiring.
You just called a prospective candidate with a job offer, and they accepted. Pretty standard procedure — except you won’t meet the new hire until their first day of work.
In a hot job market, more workers are being hired without ever doing a formal face-to-face interview, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal. Hiring agencies and HR professionals are hearing more and more about hiring sight unseen, and the reviews are mixed. Agencies say it’s a fast and more efficient way to hire, while some HR professionals argue there’s no substitute for human interaction.
“We basically advertised jobs as call today, work tomorrow,” says Tim Gates, senior regional vice president of Adecco Staffing, which recently filled 15 openings without a formal in-person interview. “It makes it convenient for everybody involved.”
Adecco Staffing uses a digital hiring platform to prescreen candidates before setting up phone interviews. Applicants who ace the 20-minute phone conversation will likely be placed at a job site contracting Adecco. Gates says the practice gives his staffing agency a competitive edge by hiring people before they accept another position. He also believes this fast, straightforward approach is more attractive to job seekers seeking immediate employment.
Adecco hires sight unseen for entry level, manufacturing and specialized positions — like graphic design. They’re not alone. Susan Trettner, founder and director of direct hire placement firm Talent Direct 360, works with industries across the board but often hires workers for engineering, IT, HR, sales and marketing roles. Trettner says hiring without meeting a candidate is becoming more commonplace, especially for retail and e-commerce employers who have to hire large numbers of workers.
“Making a hiring determination over the phone is acceptable, and I think a lot of companies are doing that,” she says.
During the holidays, for example, retailers may not have the time to interview hundreds of candidates for a position, Trettner says. But, she adds, many companies that hire employees without meeting in person often have a “game plan” for onboarding that gets workers quickly up to speed on what they will be doing on the job. Making the hiring process more efficient is better for everyone, she says.
“It all comes down to filling the positions so they can remain productive,” she says.
Trettner says she would consider hiring workers without meeting them, but at the end of the day, it’s up to the employer client. If a client, for example, needs 300 new workers in a short period of time, Trettner says she would suggest they consider expediting the hiring process a bit to help save money and time.
“I open them up to anything I think is efficient,” she adds.
Some organizations would rather take extra time choosing candidates. Kathleen Sheridan, associate director of global staffing for Harvard Business Publishing, says she knows from 20 years of experience that phone interviews can’t tell you everything about a person. She once sat down with three candidates for a sales position; they all performed well during a phone interview, but completely fumbled while answering questions during a sit-down meeting. None of them were hired, Sheridan said.
“You can come across as a completely different person over the phone,” Sheridan says. “As cumbersome as interview process can be, the value of bringing people in and allowing them to see you is worth it.”
As someone who works with people on a daily basis, Sheridan says she would be distrustful of any job offer from someone she’s never met. She says higher-level executives at Harvard Business Publishing will travel out of the country to meet with prospective hires.
“A decision to join a company is emotional as well as very practical. I think you need to give people a chance to check their emotional response and get a feel for the culture and vibe,” Sheridan says. “I would ask myself, ‘what is it about your organization that you would deny me the opportunity to meet the people who are in the headquarters of this company that I’m going to represent?’”
Peg Buchenroth, HR director of employment agency Addison Group, says most of her clients request in-person interviews for job placements in the IT, engineering, healthcare and finance accounting industries. She says it’s unlikely to change.
“It’s maybe more common in the seasonal retail industry for the holiday season. For our types of positions, there’s no reason not to interview when we have the ability to do Skype interviews,” Buchenroth says.
SOURCE: Webster, K. (5 December 2018) "Call today, work tomorrow: The future of hiring?" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/news/call-today-work-tomorrow-the-future-of-hiring?brief=00000152-14a7-d1cc-a5fa-7cffccf00000
The Importance of Working For A Boss Who Supports You
Do you work for a boss who supports you? Trust and commitment are at the core of any professional relationship, and employees who work for a boss that supports them is crucial to professional and company success. Continue reading to learn more.
Employers seek loyalty and dedication from their employees but sometimes fail to return their half of the equation, leaving millennial workers feeling left behind and unsupported. Professional relationships are built on trust and commitment, and working for a boss that supports you is vital to professional and company success.
Employees who believe their company cares for them perform better. What value does an employer place on you as an employee? Are you there to get the job done and go home? Are you paid fairly, well-trained and confident in your job security? Do you work under good job conditions? Do you receive constructive feedback, or do you feel demeaned or invisible?
When millennial employees feel supported by their boss, their happiness on the job soars — and so does company success. Building a healthy relationship involves the efforts of both parties — boss and employee — and the result not only improves company success, but also the quality of policies, feedback and work culture.
Investing In A Relationship With Your Boss
When you’re first hired, you should get to know your company’s culture and closely watch your boss as you learn the ropes. It’s best to clarify any questions you have instead of going rogue on a project and ending up with a failed proposal for a valuable client.
Regardless of your boss’s communication style, speaking up on timely matters before consequences are out of your control builds trust and establishes healthy communication. Getting to know your boss begins with knowing how they move through the business day, including their moods, how they prefer to communicate and their style of leadership:
- Mood: Perhaps your boss needs their cup of coffee to start the day. If you see other employees scurry away before the boss drains that cup of coffee, bide your time, too.
- Communication: The boss’s communication style is also influenced by their mood. Don’t wait too late to break important news. In-depth topics may be scheduled for a meeting through a phone call or email to check in and show you respect your boss’s time. In return, your time will be respected, too.
Some professionals are more emotionally reinforcing that others. Some might appear cold, but in reality, prefer to use hard data to solidify the endpoint as an analytical style. If you’re more focused on interpersonal relationships, that’s your strength, but you must also learn and respect your boss’s communication style.
- Leadership: What kind of leader is the boss? Various communication styles best fit an organization depending on its goals and culture, but provide both advantages and disadvantages. Autocratic leaders assume total authority on decision-making without input or challenge from others. Participative leaders value the democratic input of team members, but final decisions remain with the boss.
Autocratic leaders may be best equipped to handle emergency decisions over participative leaders, depending on the situation and information received.
While the boss wields a position of power over employees, it’s important that leaders don’t hold that over their employees’ heads. In the case of dissatisfaction at work, millennial employees don’t carry the sole blame. Respect is mutually earned, and ultimately a healthy relationship between leaders and employees betters the company and the budding careers of millennials.
A Healthy Relationship With Leaders Betters The Company
A Gallup report reveals that millennial career happiness is down while disengagement at work climbs — 71% of millennials aren’t engaged on the job and half of all employed plan on leaving within a year. What is the cause? Bosses carry the responsibility for 70% of employee engagement variances. Meanwhile, engaged bosses are 59% more prone to having and retaining engaged employees.
The supportive behaviors of these managers to engage their employees included being accessible for discussion, motivating by strengths over weaknesses and helping to set goals. According to the Gallup report, the primary determiner of employee retention and engagement are those in leadership positions. The boss is poised to affect employee happiness, satisfaction, productivity and performance directly.
The same report reveals that only 21% of millennial employees meet weekly with their boss and 17% receive meaningful feedback. The most positive engagement booster was in managers who focused on employee strengths. In the end, one out of every two employees will leave a job to get away from their boss when unsupported.
Millennials are taking the workforce by storm — one-third of those employed are millennials, and soon those numbers will take the lead. Millennials are important to companies as technology continues to shift and grow, and they are passionate about offering their talents to their employers. It’s vital that millennials have access to bosses who offer support and engage their staff through meaningful feedback, accessibility and help with goal-setting.
In return, millennial happiness and job satisfaction soar, positively impacting productivity, performance, policy and work culture. A healthy relationship between boss and employee is vital to company success and the growth of millennial careers as the workforce continues to age. Bosses shouldn’t be the reason that millennial employees leave. They should be the reason millennials stay and thrive in the workplace, pushing it toward greater success.
SOURCE: Landrum, S. (8 December 2018) "The Importance of Working For A Boss Who Supports You" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahlandrum/2017/12/08/the-importance-of-working-for-a-boss-that-supports-you/1?
How to retain good employees? Make them feel valued.
Training industry reports that U.S. companies spend $161 billion on training development every year. Read this blog post to learn how you can make employees feel valued.
Trucking as an industry is not known as being woman-friendly, but Volvo Truck wants to change this and recently completed a landmark Women in Leadership experience for selected women employees.
For Volvo, retaining female employees is a strategic objective and demonstrating the potential for women to advance and move into leadership roles is key to keeping women in the company. The six-month Women in Leadership program demonstrated that the company valued the participants, just by inviting them to the program.
“Being nominated was like winning something,” said Volvo employee Tyletha Hubbard. “It felt good to know that I was considered a key talent in the organization.”
All people like to be recognized as valuable to their organizations. This principle holds for men, women, ethnic minorities and people of different generations who appreciate employer-provided training and development. What better way to show an employee that they are needed and that they have a place to grow and move up?
Training and development is big business. Training Industry reports that US companies spend $161 billion on it annually. But it’s also a cost-effective benefit to provide your employees. Classroom programs can reach dozens at a time for a flat fee. And then you can add back the valued gained from having a more effective workforce.
Training can address the hard skills of the job or the soft skills of interpersonal relations and emotional intelligence.
In the benefits industry, you’re constantly explaining complicated products that are often fraught with emotion and stress, e.g. health insurance. Presenting benefits plans to clients in a competitive bid is a high-wire act for most salespeople. So, training that focuses on presentation skills, public speaking and body language can give your firm a competitive edge, while building a more confident workforce.
When starting up a training initiative, presentation skills are a great “101” course to include. Most people don’t get it in school and most people need a lot of help with it. Not only does learning about presentation skills and interpersonal communication help people sell better, but it also helps them “read” other people better and interact more effectively with coworkers.
Presentation skills training is a cornerstone for further development. People who have better interpersonal communications tend to do better in higher level training and, generally, better outcomes in all of their work experiences.
Team building, decision making and leadership development are learning experiences that can also “show the love” from the organization to the employee, while also improving the performance of the firm. The term “learning organization” has become a positive goal for many companies, as a means of becoming more effective through better employee engagement and opening new opportunities within the company.
At Volvo, there is a practice of allowing employees to move laterally from department to department in order to learn new skills and keep work interesting. Its Women in Leadership program encouraged staff to think and talk about what job they might want to try doing next. The policy invites workers to be open about their goals and understand that there’s always a place for them. Contrast this with feeling like you’re in a dead-end job.
And this is where HR and training can team up.
A recent study by Right Management revealed that, when asked, 68 percent of employees say they really want to talk about their careers with company management. There’s even an HR term for it: career conversations. But these conversations are not happening very much.
According to the Right Management white paper, “Only 16 percent of employees indicate that they have ongoing career conversations with their managers and about their career.”
It turns out most people get their career conversations from managers, colleagues and family. When a promising young manager starts wondering about where her career is going, she might seek out advice from her workmates of parents, but not human resources.
Why not integrate career conversations with training? It’s a golden opportunity for your human resources team. Most training engagements include personality assessments and feedback that help participants better understand themselves and others. Also, training often concludes with some sort of “what’s next” discussion or action plan about how to use what’s been learned.
A career conversation that follows such focused introspection will be better informed and will benefit from the afterglow of learning.
It’s well documented that financial compensation isn’t always the main factor that keeps people from leaving a company. Andrew Chamberlain, an economist with Glassdoor recently wrote about this in Harvard Business Review.
“One of the most striking results we’ve found is that, across all income levels, the top predictor of workplace satisfaction is not pay: It is the culture and values of the organization, followed closely by the quality of senior leadership and the career opportunities at the company,” writes Chamberlain. “Among the six workplace factors we examined, compensation and benefits were consistently rated among the least important factors of workplace happiness.”
Not feeling valued by management can become an incentive to exit even if it means taking less money in the next job.
Training, development, continual learning experiences and career conversations are proven cost-effective ways to show employees that they are unique individuals who are needed by the organization.
SOURCE: Warrick, D. (29 November 2018) "How to retain good employees? Make them feel valued." (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitspro.com/2018/11/29/how-to-retain-good-employees-make-them-feel-valued/