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
Don't Be Silent: Expert Tips to Defuse Workplace Tensions
During the crazy times that society is facing, workplaces are beginning to see tensions due to it. Read this blog post for tips on diffusing tension in the workplace.
In these days of high emotion and polarization, it's hard to know how or even whether to address the feelings of anger, despair or frustration that may be percolating among employees at the workplace. But it would be a mistake for company leaders and managers to stay silent, said Eric Ellis, a longtime consultant on diversity and inclusion.
Today's crises have frayed nerves and opened wounds.
"None of us is unaffected by this," said Ellis, president and chief executive officer of Integrity Development Corporation in Cincinnati and a speaker at the 2020 SHRM Talent conference. He advised employers to have a plan for managers to de-escalate conflict and build common ground. "If we don't prepare our people to have this conversation, we're leaving ourselves open to micro-explosions."
What is called for is empathetic support, with conversations guided by the "core values that companies adopt and post but are at times challenged to live," he said.
"A neutral leadership style is not very helpful during a crisis. Organizational leaders must assess their personal beliefs and feelings first and then expand beyond them. The most effective leaders find ways to support employees who have perspectives that differ from their own."
Ellis, who has consulted with businesses, advocacy groups and law enforcement organizations across the country, said HR professionals can play a crucial role in maintaining a respectful workplace.
"The kind of people-centered sensitivity needed at this time, in many ways, is baked into their training and professional DNA," he said.
To help provide a framework for opening and guiding productive conversations, Ellis offered the following tips:
Start with yourself. A good place to begin is by acknowledging your personal biases as well as what's taking place in our country and demonstrating empathy for those experiencing hurt, anger, sadness or disappointment.
Recognize different perspectives. People come to the workplace with a variety of perspectives on the ongoing unrest. Ellis suggested that these perspectives fall into four broad categories:
Justice requires action. Strong supporters of the protesters. They may have personal experience with injustice or are closely affiliated with people who directly experienced unfair and/or heavy-handed policing.
Nonviolent protest supporters. General supporter of protest but uncomfortable with rioting, looting and violence.
Don't protest; a few bad apples. People who believe George Floyd's death was wrong but not worthy of this response. They generally believe that every organization has a few people who abuse power or are negligent.
Loyal to the system. People who generally side with law enforcement and believe these protests demonstrate the need for more control, law and order.
Ellis recommends that leaders lean their support closer to the perspectives of those employees in the first or second categories, to align with the tradition of supporting peaceful protests for civil rights in this country, and also to acknowledge the well-documented history and ongoing examples of racial injustice, which is reflected in intense acts of solidarity with protestors from around the world. However, he added, leaders should remember the importance of being inclusive and protecting the rights of employees with beliefs closer to the third or fourth categories. No one should feel disrespected, blamed or harmed in the workplace due to their personal perspective, he said.
Teach empathetic listening and de-escalation skills to your entire workforce. People need these critical skills to communicate effectively with their co-workers, even when they disagree.
Empathetic listening requires people to avoid engaging in point-counterpoint debates. They need to display open body language. The listener begins by paraphrasing comments shared with him or her, beginning with a tentative opening such as "Let me see if I'm understanding what you're saying." This is followed by a summary of both the content of the message shared and the feelings expressed. The final step is to check for accuracy, to ensure that the listener accurately restated the message shared by the co-worker. Employees can engage in empathetic listening even when they disagree with the perspective shared by their co-worker.
Arrange for company-sponsored listening sessions. It can be helpful to provide employees with a safe forum to express their feelings and concerns with their co-workers. It may be necessary to engage external experts experienced at successfully facilitating these types of conversations. The ultimate objective is to provide solutions that improve employees' ability to effectively manage their feelings and anxiety in order to reduce the impact on their emotional health and workplace effectiveness.
Provide counseling support. Make sure to have counseling resources available for employees who may need assistance with their mental and emotional well-being as a result of stress and anxiety related to these massive national and global issues.
Strengthen inclusion efforts, don't pause them. Strengthen current commitment and engagement efforts with inclusion strategies versus pausing them. All companies should take a hard look at their own culture to ensure that they are strategically working to create workplaces that are fair and inclusive of diverse employees in general and racially diverse employees specifically. If an organization conducts a legitimate assessment, it will include the identification of several areas where bias has limited the opportunities available for employees of different racial backgrounds and other diverse characteristics and traits.
SOURCE: Cleeland, N. (07 June 2020) "Don't Be Silent: Expert Tips to Defuse Workplace Tensions" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/dont-be-silent-expert-tips-to-defuse-workplace-tensions.aspx
Antibody Testing for COVID-19 in the Workplace
Many employers have heard of various workplaces testing for antibodies in regards to COVID-19. As businesses are wanting employees to feel confident in returning to the office, there are still various unanswered questions in regards to the testing. Read this blog post to learn more.
Many companies are considering offering their employees antibody (Ab) testing for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. While businesses want employees to be confident about returning to work, and the government wants better estimates of infection rates, there are still many questions about the value, reliability and usefulness of the testing.
The Basics of Antibody Testing
Ab testing uses a blood sample to look for antibodies the immune system develops to fight SARS-CoV-2. The test may show the presence of antibodies, an indicator of a likely past SARS-CoV-2 infection. Negative results indicate that a past infection is not likely. Neither result confirms whether the individual is currently infected (asymptomatic or otherwise), and Ab tests should not be used to diagnose whether someone is presently infected with COVID-19.
It typically takes 10-18 days following infection for the body to produce enough antibodies to be detected. A positive result does not indicate whether the detected antibodies can provide any protection or immunity against becoming infected again.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has so far barred test producers from selling the tests to the public. Ab tests for SARS-CoV-2 must be administered by a federally approved health care provider or research group. For more information, see this guidance on the World Health Organization website, as well as this information from the FDA.
What Are Antibodies?
The presence of antibodies to any virus confirms past exposure to that virus or the receipt of a vaccine for it. The body remembers that exposure and will recognize the virus if exposed again. Antibodies take time to develop into their role as the body's biological memory of past infections. Because many of us have not been exposed to this new coronavirus, our immune systems have no memory of it.
Those who may have antibodies for SARS-CoV-2 may not necessarily be able to fight off a second infection. To do that, the body needs sufficient numbers of antibodies, and they need to be effective. The degree to which people with coronavirus antibodies are protected from getting COVID-19 a second or third time is still unknown. Broad use of Ab tests and clinical follow-up will provide these answers. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "we do not know yet if having antibodies to the virus that causes COVID-19 can protect someone from getting infected again or, if they do, how long this protection might last. Scientists are conducting research to answer those questions."
If the antibodies are effective in causing immunity, we must also determine how long they might last in the body. Other coronavirus antibodies tend to last a few years. Those for the common cold can last only a few weeks or months. After the SARS coronavirus outbreak in 2003, one study found that only 9 percent of people had antibodies six years after getting sick.
Next Steps for Employers
Currently, there are many reasons why employers might hesitate to pursue Ab testing for employees. Ab tests only look backward, and most people will already know if they had COVID-19. Some physicians insist that test results offer little guidance on how or when to reopen workplaces, and organizations shouldn't modify policies or procedures based on test results. They argue that safety procedures should remain the same regardless of Ab test results. Unfortunately, testing may make things worse, as some people who test positive for having antibodies may relax social distancing and sanitizing in the belief that they are now immune.
Knowing what to do with the test results is the primary dilemma. Encouraging blood draws and testing among employees may not be a compelling pursuit for companies until we know what to do with the results. Major questions remain:
- Quantity. We don't know the degree to which people infected by the coronavirus develop antibodies. Some may never develop antibodies. Figuring that out requires longer-term studies of who gets reinfected.
- Effectiveness. We don't know the degree to which the antibodies provide immunity and protection.
- Consistency. We don't know how consistently these antibodies provide protection from person to person.
If Ab testing in the workplace is used, it should be accompanied by a clear explanation of what the results might indicate about the employee's past health and what they do not indicate about the employee's present and future health status.
SOURCE: Musselman, K. (29 May 2020) "Antibody Testing for COVID-19 in the Workplace" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/risk-management/pages/antibody-testing-for-covid-19-in-the-workplace-.aspx
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
5 Ways to Demonstrate Your Value — Remotely
When working remotely for an extended amount of time, many employees can feel as if they are not visible to the organization. Read this blog post for helpful tips on how to show value, while working remotely.
With unemployment levels at the highest since the Great Depression, many individuals don’t have the privilege of working, and those who do feel nervous about how long they’ll have that opportunity.
If you fall into the latter category, I can appreciate your very legitimate concern. Many companies are struggling to bring in revenue, let alone turn a profit. And with remote working arrangements, you don’t have the visibility with your colleagues and managers that you normally would. When you were in the office, you might have had informal interactions with these individuals multiple times a day. Now, if you don’t have a meeting on their calendar, you may wonder if they remember your presence — and more importantly, your importance to the organization.
I can’t guarantee that your position is secure, and there will certainly be factors outside your control. But there are ways that you can make yourself and your accomplishments more visible to your organization, even when you’re not in the same building. The following suggestions are five concrete steps that you can focus on right here, right now, to increase your odds of thriving in your job during this tumultuous time and demonstrating your value while working remotely.
Do Your Work
Getting your work done is always a good idea. But especially in times where businesses and organizations are having to make hard decisions about who to keep, doing your work — and doing your work well — is essential.
As a time management coach, I’ve been working with clients throughout this time of uncertainty. (Thankfully, I was already remote!) And the sense I am getting is that there was a grace period in March and part of April as individuals were adjusting to working from home. Managers were more forgiving if there was a dip in productivity or missteps here and there. But now that it’s been multiple months of remote work, higher standards of output are returning. If you haven’t done so already, put a system in place for keeping track of your tasks and ticking them off, even if your schedule is modified because you have other responsibilities at home.
Tell Others
I don’t recommend that you give yourself a shout out at every single meeting, and I definitely don’t advise that you take undue credit for others’ work. But if you have accomplished something significant, share it. That could look like covering a few highlights of your work with your boss each week, either in your one-on-one or through email. Or speaking up in a meeting to share about what your team is doing. Or even giving a presentation on some best practices that could help other colleagues in a similar role. Focus on not only what you did but how it produced positive results for your organization. This is not bragging but simply informing others about how, even though they might not see you working, you’re getting great things accomplished. And this gives you increased visibility across the organization as people understand the role that you fill and the value you add.
Help Your Boss
Although you don’t want to overload yourself with extra work to the extent that you burn out or can’t keep your commitments, look for ways to make your boss’s life easier. For instance, turn in your work early so your manager has extra time to review it before a meeting, or be extra prepared in your one-on-one meetings so they are as concise and effective as possible. These little things help reduce the pressure on your boss, so they are not worried about whether you’ll deliver and if you’re on top of your work. And if you have extra capacity, offer to help with extra assignments or take work completely off of your manager’s plate. This shows that you’re not only someone who gets their work done but also someone who takes initiative. Although your immediate supervisor doesn’t always have a say in layoff decisions, if they do, they’ll put in a good word for you if you’re making things easier for them.
Play Nicely
With my clients, one of their least favorite ways to spend their time is in brokering arguments between people on their team. It drains energy, and they generally consider it a waste of time.
Spread Positivity
One very unfortunate outcome of this season is that it’s brought out some very anti-social behavior in people. Many people’s response to their own fear is controlling others. I’ve seen more vicious online behavior and more people yelling at strangers in public in the last two months than I’ve seen in my entire life. And since the biggest subject on most people’s minds and on all media coverage is Covid-19 — an anxiety-producing topic for most — the air has been tainted with the stench of negativity.
As a bonus, if you can be humorous, do so. Laughter and positive energy draw teams together and make people feel good about being around you. While doing good work and being a positive presence doesn’t guarantee your position will make the cut as you face layoffs, it does increase your odds because you’re demonstrating your value to the organization and the people around you.
Much of what happens with the job market and your particular job will be out of your hands. You can’t control what businesses are considered essential or not, nor can you control organizational changes and headcount. And there are many factors in place that determine the market demand for your work. However, if you follow the five pieces of advice above, you will do what you can to make the most impact and get credit for it within your current role. And you’ll make a positive impression in the process.
SOURCE: Saunders, E. (01 June 2020) "5 Ways to Demonstrate Your Value — Remotely" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2020/06/5-ways-to-demonstrate-your-value-remotely
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
COVID-19 will disrupt many established workplace trends
Over the past few months, the coronavirus pandemic has altered almost every aspect of how people around the world live their lives and do their jobs. In the months to come, it will continue to disrupt and transform routines. Sooner or later, though, the emergency will end. Lots of things will go back to the way they were before January 2020. Some won’t.
So much has already been written and said about the latter group of possibilities that I hesitate to add to the cacophony. But it may lend some structure to the discussion to sort the changes to come into three broad categories.
The first involves pre-existing trends that are being accelerated by the pandemic. The second involves trends that have been reversed by the pandemic. Then there’s … everything else.
Perhaps the most obvious case of a trend being accelerated by the pandemic is working from home. Doing so was actually more common back when tens of millions of Americans still lived on farms, shopkeepers lived above their stores and women sewed garments at home for piecework rates. But since 2000, which is around when broadband internet access began to become widely available, white-collar workers have driven a rise in the percentage of American workers who say they usually do their jobs from home, from 3.3% to 5.3%.
The percentage is a lot higher than that right now! Only 29% of employed Americans said they could work from home in a 2017-2018 Bureau of Labor Statistics survey. But given that those who can’t work remotely have been laid off or furloughed in huge numbers since March, nearly half of those who now have jobs in the U.S. have likely been doing them from home, estimates Adam Ozimek of the online labor marketplace Upwork.
My guess is that many of these people will be eager to return to the office when the pandemic is over. But large office buildings may not go back to full-scale operation for quite a while, and by the time they do many employers will have rethought their office-space needs, many workers will have rethought their commutes and many organizations small and large will have discovered new ways to collaborate from afar, with all sorts of consequences for office dynamics, business travel, commercial real estate and maybe even the shape of urban growth.
This growing freedom to work from somewhere other than the office will be empowering and liberating for some. But working remotely is for the most part a privilege of the affluent and educated, and some of the other trends getting a boost from COVID-19 don’t seem all that favorable for workers. For example, industry after industry in the U.S. has been growing more concentrated since 2000, and new-business formation has been on the decline a lot longer than that.
Yes, young companies gained a little ground in 2015 and 2016. But a new data series from the Census Bureau indicates that the formation of new businesses with hiring plans is down 32% since mid-March versus the same period last year, so that resurgence is over for now. Any economic downturn is going to favor strong companies over weak ones, but the particulars of this one seem to favor the giants even more than usual. Big tech companies are strengthening their grip as the pandemic progresses, and the fact that the five biggest such companies in the U.S. — Microsoft, Apple, Amazon.com, Alphabet and Facebook — account for more than 20% of the value of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and nearly 50% of the Nasdaq Composite Index explains a lot about the resilience of the stock market amid economic calamity. Buyout firms that target troubled companies have also been seeing big stock-market gains. Consolidation is accelerating, and while conditions for those employed by giant, profitable companies in technology and some other sectors can be pretty great, the overall bargaining power of workers suffers.
Another workplace trend of long standing is increased automation. Fears of a rapid, massive displacement of humans by robots haven’t yet been realized, but machines have been taking over human tasks for centuries, and the pandemic seems likely to accelerate this process, especially for jobs that involve people performing physical labor in close proximity to one another — from meatpacking plants to Amazon warehouses to, perhaps, commercial kitchens. The need for distancing will eventually abate, but once companies invest in machines that do some or all of the work, those machines are unlikely to go away. There’s also been a rush to enlist 3-D printers to solve temporary supply-chain problems that will likely lead to their permanent, often-labor-replacing use. Such innovations can drive the productivity growth that improves living standards, not to mention displace jobs that are objectively awful, so this isn’t all bad news. But short-term it again reduces workers’ bargaining power.
So much for trends that are being accelerated. The most dramatic reversal so far has been the end to the long rise of employment in leisure and hospitality. The sector, which includes restaurants, hotels, casinos, museums, gyms, sports teams and, of course, bowling alleys, accounted for almost a quarter of U.S. payroll job growth over the course of the just-ended expansion — and lost almost half of its jobs between March and April.
The damage to the industry is severe and will persist for quite a while. If government efforts to keep these businesses on life support falter, it could take many years to repair. But once the threat of the coronavirus has passed, or receded into the background of seasonal respiratory ailments, almost everyone is going to want to hang out with friends, go to restaurants, sports events and shows, and travel again. The upward trend will surely resume; the big question is just where the starting point will be.
A lot of the biggest questions about the post-coronavirus work environment will be answered by political action or the lack thereof. Will the failures of the mostly job-based U.S. health-insurance system in a job-destroying pandemic lead to major reforms? Will the greater toll the pandemic has exacted on the disadvantaged encourage efforts to reduce economic inequality? Will the safety net be reformed to address the effects of automation? Will renewed antitrust enforcement counter the trend toward consolidation? Or do I have the direction of change all wrong here, and what we should really expect is more government dysfunction and maybe some tax cuts? I DON’T KNOW! And nobody else does, either. Predicting what might happen seems far less useful than working to bring about the change you want to see.
SOURCE: Fox, J. (15 May 2020) "COVID-19 will disrupt many established workplace trends" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/articles/covid-19-wont-change-everything-for-workers-right
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