Viewpoint: Introverts and Extraverts in the Time of COVID-19
As working remotely has become a new workplace norm for many employees and employers, many social effects may start becoming more clear. Read this blog post to learn more about considerations to ease interactions regarding introverts and extroverts in the workplace.
If you're working from home during the coronavirus pandemic, you and your co-workers maybe starting to feel the social effects of remote working. You may be on a plethora of video and phone calls throughout the day. Do some people's communication and manners rub you the wrong way? Here are a few considerations that can ease your interactions.
Extraverts
Extraverts are people who get energized by being around other people. They seek out opportunities to engage others and thrive when working with others, at least compared to introverts. In a more extreme form, they may be uncomfortable being alone for any length of time.
In the time of COVID-19, extraverts are deprived of the physical presence of their colleagues. There are no cubicles or offices to visit, informal chats in the coffee areas or regular meetings in a conference room. They are missing the interactions big and small that really get them going. Being deprived of those built-in connections with others is a real loss for extraverts. They will probably prefer video meetings over phone calls, which they prefer to text (e-mail, chat or Slack) for that dose of connection.
Living alone during this time can be a real hardship. While sheltering-in-place, they may have no in-person contact with other people, unless they go to a store or walk a dog. They are deprived of something that, for them, is emotionally akin to food. Video chats and phone calls are unlikely to provide the same energy lift.
Extraverts who live with others have the advantage of the physical presence of others, but depending on who those people are (e.g., children, sick relative, or roommate or partner who is out of work or having a hard time), the lift may be offset by juggling the demands of work and the demands of home.
Introverts
Introverts are energized by being alone. That's how they recharge. In the workplace, they seek out quiet places to work alone: the empty conference room, a quiet office. Interacting with people all day, as in a typical workplace, can be exhausting.
In the time of COVID-19, introverts may initially find that working from home is a relief, a reprieve from the more frequent interactions in a typical workplace, particularly an open-plan office. However, working from home has new challenges for introverts. Video calls can feel intrusive; there's too much eye contact. If they have large screens or laptops, other people are simply too big, or there are too many of them. It can feel overwhelming.
Introverts who live with others during this time may find that challenging. It can be hard to get real alone time, particularly if they are on numerous video calls, or they live in a space that doesn't provide much opportunity to be alone. Commuting time, which may have allowed some alone time with or without strangers, is gone. Now, when introverts live with others, and space is tight or children sprawl throughout the home, there may be no room of one's own.
Introverts enjoy some limited types of social interaction, but once they've had enough social time, they're ready to leave. Now, circumstances may require that they continue to engage—such as a day full of video meetings for work. It's worth noting that introversion is different from shyness, in which conflicted individuals want social interaction but also are anxious about such interactions. Introverts have no such conflict.
For introverts, phone calls may be preferred to video calls, and communicating via text may be preferred to phone calls, when that makes sense for the task at hand. Introverts may want to turn off their cameras on video calls.
Most people are neither extremely introverted nor extraverted. They are somewhere in between.
Solutions
Given we're in this for the long haul—a marathon, not a sprint—we need solutions, which start with encouraging employees to develop self-awareness. What is the type and range of optimal communication with colleagues and partners given the demands of the job, their level of introversion/extraversion and their current living situation? Would they be better off with some of the contact via phone calls rather than video? Phone calls rather than e-mail or Slack? Perhaps extraverts can seek out other extraverts?
The cramped spaces most employees are working and living in also mean that we're not moving in the way we would at work. Most of us are sitting (or standing) in the same place with much more constrained movements while we're on our computers. Most of us don't have to walk far to get our coffee or lunch. We're not walking to the conference room. It's as if we're chained to our workstations at home. For both introverts and extraverts, I've been encouraging people to vary where they work within their homes, depending on what's available; to move their "workstation" around: a bed, a chair, a different chair, or standing up. The uniformity of the experience at their workstations can itself make the day seem unending and amplify either the social deprivation for the extravert or the social intrusiveness for the introvert.
Stela Lupushor, management consultant and founder of Reframe Work, urges managers to "help employees to realize that identity switching can also be taxing on the emotional state." When working in the office, the commute time allowed us to switch from our "work" persona to "home" persona. That switching now happens every single time an employee's child walks by his or her workstation or the dog barks, and it can deplete the employee's emotional equilibrium faster. Sheer awareness of this fact can help employees develop coping strategies, such as scheduling breaks, "off limits" hours and time for nonwork activities.
Encourage employees to pace themselves. It's wonderful that workplaces are creating virtual social hours, but, like their physical counterparts, make sure it's OK for employees not to attend, or to show up for a little while and leave early. Feeling pressure to attend and stay the whole time will use up the introverts' bandwidth for social engagement.
Judy Heyboer, executive coach, HR consultant and former CHRO for Genentech, noted, "There is no 'one-size-fits-all' approach that works for managing in a crisis. Knowing your people's behavioral style is essential to crafting an approach that optimizes both comfort and productivity." Managers can help by first being aware of their own introversion/extroversion level and recognizing that direct reports will have different levels. An introvert manager may prefer written communication or phone, but some direct reports may want to check in by video. An extravert manager may want a lot of video meetings, but some direct reports aren't enthusiastic about it. A mix is probably best, but managers should check in with their direct reports and specifically ask about preferences for different types of meetings or information flow. Encourage managers to be sensitive to what their team members prefer.
Video may be the preferred modality for team meetings, but make the meetings count. Encourage the meeting leaders to be thoughtful about agendas. Make sure agendas are distributed in advance—and that those expected to attend have a reason to be there, they know why they are there, and they know how they are expected to contribute.
Long Haul
Tunji Oki, Ph.D., industrial/organizational psychologist at Google, noted, "with the influx of stress that extraverts and introverts are facing during this time due to work-related adjustments or personal situations, and the inability for employees to take true vacations, managers should be more transparent about allowing their employees to take paid 'mental health' days as needed to maintain their productivity level."
As we must prepare for sheltering-in-place to last for weeks in this phase, and likely again in the autumn, we have to experiment in order to do this better. And we have to communicate with each other.
SOURCE: Rosenberg, R. (30 April 2020) "Viewpoint: Introverts and Extraverts in the Time of COVID-19' (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/viewpoint-introverts-and-extraverts-in-the-time-of-covid-19.aspx
Taking Walks with the Kids Is One Perk of Working Remotely; Handling Their Meltdowns Is Not
Although many employees are now enjoying the perks that come with working remotely, such as saving time on their daily commutes, there are also downsides that may come with it. Read this blog post to learn more.
Time with kids. Time with pets. Time to exercise. Time to cook. Time to sleep in.
These are among the perks that employees appreciate while having to work from home during the coronavirus pandemic, according to the results of a recent survey.
But there are downsides, too: trying to work while overseeing kids' schooling, for instance, or being distracted by children so stressed-out by quarantine that they frequently cry or act out.
"The level of remote employees reporting enjoying the extra time they have as a result of not commuting one to two hours a day was an intense theme," said Paul White, Ph.D., a psychologist in Wichita, Kan., who writes on relationships in the workplace and who conducted the survey with Natalie Hamrick, Ph.D., a research psychologist.
By that, White said, he means that the vast majority of respondents indicated that not having to commute was one of the things they most appreciated about being forced to work from home.
"We wanted to learn about newly remote employees—those who were forced to work remotely," said White, who is co-author of four books, including The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace (Northfield Press, 2014). "With the millions of new remote workers—who face different challenges than traditional remote workers—we thought it would be wise to explore the experiences, perceptions, reactions and coping mechanisms of this group of workers … for the purpose of providing guidance to leaders, supervisors and HR professionals in understanding their new remote employees and how best to support them."
From more than 1,200 applicants, White chose 50 people representing different ages, genders, geographies and living situations. Most participants had been working remotely less than two weeks when the study began. They were asked to fill out an online questionnaire once a week for four weeks, answering questions about their concerns, the challenges they faced, their anxiety level, what they were anxious about, what coping behaviors they were using, the feelings they were experiencing and the positive aspects of working from home.
Anxiety Levels
Respondents tended to report a moderate amount of anxiety—about their health and the health of their relatives and about the impact of the pandemic globally and on the economy.
The levels of stress and anxiety were fairly consistent across the respondents' ages, genders, family situations, living arrangements and geography, which surprised White.
"I thought maybe that living in an urban setting rather than a rural one might feel more stressful," he said. "But there was no difference between participants in those groups as to anxiety, stress or positive reports. Same thing for whether you lived alone or not, or had kids or not."
Managing Kids
Respondents who had children reported that their biggest challenges when working from home were things like "working while overseeing my children's schooling" and handling cooped-up children who were experiencing "lots of crying and meltdowns."
"Employers and employees alike must recognize that working from home naturally involves surrounding noises like animals and children," said Michael Masset, chief human resources officer at ITWP, a digital market research company based in Wilton, Conn. "We are all human and having to deal with more than we have before. Child care and schooling have been disrupted. Companies must maintain structure for employees but also provide flexibility where necessary—not only because it's the right thing to do but because it will ultimately lead to greater productivity."
The Upside to Working at Home
One thing that surprised White was the number of people who said not having to commute was the most positive aspect of working from home.
"The intensity of [the reply] and the breadth of it were unexpected," he said, noting that "not commuting" was an answer to an open-ended question, not a choice on a list of answers. "It was [about] … more time with family, lunch with the wife, walks with my kids, time for exercising. It populated the majority of the positive things they were mentioning."
Should managers worry that employees who report having more time for exercising, cooking or playing with kids might be less productive than they were at the workplace?
Mercer partner and business segment leader Adam Pressman says the consultancy is "hearing from both employers and employees that there are two sides to this coin."
"On one hand, employees that work from home do report they have extra time in their day due to less travel and no commute," he said. "However, we are also hearing concerns about maintaining work/life balance and managing burnout. With everyone working at home, e-mail traffic has increased and the amount of time on Zoom and conference calls has increased as well. And for employees who are parents with children now being forced to do online learning, it can be a challenge to keep up with both work and family needs.
"We encourage employers to be empathetic during this time and allow people to find a work structure and approach that works for them."
Alex Konankykhin is the CEO of TransparentBusiness, a New York City-based workforce management and coordination software company. While it's a leader's duty to worry about employee performance, he said, good managers know who their solid performers are. That probably isn't going to change when those employees work at home, even if they are "in their jammies," he noted.
"Managers know that [some] employees may give in to the temptation to take advantage of the lack of transparency into their work and enjoy Netflix marathons, moonlight for other companies, work on a personal pet project or spend time on domestic matters," Konankykhin said. But, he added, "every manager knows [which of his or her] workers are dedicated employees. And often, when working at home, [they put in] more hours than they used to in the office, due to the time saved on the daily commute and due to the higher comfort level of working at home."
SOURCE: Wilkie, D. (06 May 2020) "Taking Walks with the Kids Is One Perk of Working Remotely; Handling Their Meltdowns Is Not" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/people-managers/pages/newly-remote-workers-coronavirus-.aspx
Virus impact may extend to 57 million U.S. jobs
Did you know: the coronavirus pandemic has caused more than 26 million employees to file for unemployment. As the coronavirus continues to spread, many employees are still at a loss for jobs. Read this blog post to learn more.
The coronavirus pandemic will hurt 57 million U.S. workers, more than double the number of jobless claims so far, once furloughs and reduced hours and pay are included, according to McKinsey.
The more than 26 million people who have filed unemployment claims in the past five weeks provide only a partial picture of workforce dislocations, with tens of millions more facing additional risks, according to a report by economists including Susan Lund at the McKinsey Global Institute, the think tank arm of the consultancy.
The earliest wave of unemployment claims in mid-March disproportionately hit the food service, entertainment and hotel industries. The disruption has since moved into categories including retail, business services, manufacturing and non-essential health care.
There’s significant overlap between workers who are vulnerable because of the virus and those whose jobs were already at risk from automation, providing a challenge for the U.S. to train at-risk employees for more sustainable job opportunities.
Low-wage, part-time and minority workers are the most likely to be hurt by the pandemic, with 74% of at-risk jobs paying less than $40,000 a year, according to McKinsey’s analysis. But the number of full-time and white-collar positions being affected is rising, with 16% of vulnerable workers making more than $70,000 a year.
“It’s really the people who are generally lowest paid, less educated and least prepared to weather a spell of unemployment that are most at risk,” Lund said in a phone interview.
Education is the strongest demographic predictor of vulnerability, with people who don’t have bachelor’s degrees twice as likely to hold such jobs.
Companies can help by reducing hours and temporarily furloughing workers rather than firing them, McKinsey said. They also should offer greater flexibility to parents working from home and find ways to reconfigure office spaces to prevent a new virus outbreak. State workforce agencies can help provide training and education opportunities for the unemployed, McKinsey said.
SOURCE: Martin, E. (01 May 2020) "Virus impact may extend to 57 million U.S. jobs" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/articles/virus-impact-may-extend-to-57-million-u-s-jobs
Employees clock in more downtime when working from home
Did you know: since many employees have started working remotely due to the coronavirus, there has been an average of two hours of downtime, a day. Read this blog post to learn more.
Since stay-at-home and shutdown orders were enforced amid the coronavirus fallout, hundreds of businesses in the U.S. have turned to working from home to reduce exposure. But as the remote workforce expands, employers and employees have been faced with a new set of challenges — one of them being more downtime.
Remote employees average two hours of downtime per day, which is 20 minutes more per day than on-site employees, according to a new Paychex study, where 1,000 remote and on-site employees were surveyed about their daily downtime at work.
The transition to remote work has been beneficial to some workers, who have reported increased productivity due to fewer in-office distractions. When asked about the biggest reasons they decided to work remotely, 79% of remote workers responded with increased productivity and better focus, according to a study by Owl Labs, a video conferencing technology company.
But other employees may be negatively affected due to supervisors being unable to physically monitor downtime, says Joey Morris, a project manager at Paychex.
“The two most popular reasons for downtime were that employees completed work too quickly and that the availability of work was inconsistent,” Morris says. “Interestingly, nearly one in three employees said they chose to make downtime during their workday, making this the third most popular reason.”
The study found three hours of down time a day was considered too much, leading to boredom and other negative effects. Workers are more likely to leave a job due to excessive downtime than to be terminated for it, Morris says.
“This kind of excessive downtime was related to lower rates of job satisfaction, salary satisfaction, and employee retention,” he says. “More than one in 10 employees said too much downtime was responsible for leaving or being let go from a position.”
However, downtime can have some benefits, too. Thirty one percent of employees said they chose to make downtime during the day, and 23% said their work wasn’t urgent. Thirteen percent said they could ask for more work, but chose not to.
Taking breaks at work is important to make employees feel more engaged and productive, according to a survey from Tork, as North American workers who take a lunch break every day scored higher on a wide range of engagement metrics, including job satisfaction, efficiency, and likelihood to recommend their company to others.
The top ways in which employees spend their downtime at work are browsing the internet, socializing with co-workers, texting or messaging, eating food and browsing social media, according to the Paychex study.
While employers may want to reduce downtime and increase employee efficiency, results from the study indicate it is important to maintain a balance, Morris says. Having too little downtime was nearly as bad for employee satisfaction as having too much.
“Efficient management of employee time is not only important to a business' bottom line, but it is also important to employee satisfaction,” he says. ”Employees want to feel engaged when they come to work and there is an understanding that stagnation in any position can negatively influence one's career trajectory.”
SOURCE: Nedlund, E. (1 May 2020) "Employees clock in more downtime when working from home" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/news/employees-clock-in-more-downtime-when-working-from-home
Bots Help Government Tackle COVID-19 Challenges
As many are fighting the battle with various programming software applications, at this time it is helping various agencies with coronavirus data collection. Read this blog post to learn more.
The war against the coronavirus is being fought with science, social distancing, health care … and bots, software applications that run repetitive tasks over the Internet. Public-sector agencies are programming bots to speed the collection and analysis of data about coronavirus infection rates, transform paper-based procurement processes into digital ones, and help employees conduct business when in-person contact is no longer an option.
Robotic Process Automation in the Public Sector
Federal agencies are deploying robotic process automation (RPA) to overcome process or administrative hurdles. The General Services Administration (GSA) used the technology—which automates manual, repetitive tasks through the use of bots—to help track the spread of COVID‑19 in counties across the United States where the GSA has buildings.
Jim Walker, director of public-sector services for UiPath, a New York-based RPA platform provider, said the GSA used bots to gather and update COVID-19 infection data when agency employees became overwhelmed as infection counts rapidly rose. Walker said the GSA has trained about 50 of its employees in the use of RPA to create bots for the agency.
In another case, a government agency in Ireland used RPA to help process the burgeoning number of unemployment benefit claims. When laid-off workers submit an unemployment claim, a bot conducts optical character recognition on data and determines where a person has been employed. When employment and benefits eligibility are confirmed, the bot can deposit benefit funds directly into employee bank accounts.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) deployed a bot to check on employees working from home. "Previously, the CMS would send out e-mails to confirm the health and welfare of its remote workers but would receive many thousands of e-mails a day in return," Walker said. "A small CMS team was tasked with reviewing those e-mails and creating regular status reports, but it became hard to keep up."
CMS deployed a bot that automatically checks the databases employees regularly access to perform their work. If an employee hasn't logged on for a specified period of time, the bot triggers a welfare check, Walker said.
Creating and Deploying Bots
Experts say RPA platforms can often be quickly installed. Because many basic RPA bots are of the "no-code" or "low-code" variety—meaning they require little or no software coding skills but rather, they function in drag-and-drop fashion—they often can be created, tested and rolled out in a matter of weeks, depending on the use case.
But experts say RPA platforms still require enterprise-grade security protections and the oversight of a designated team to manage bot development and deployment across the organization.
"If the automation challenge is COVID‑19-related, you don't have months or in some cases even weeks to get automation in place," said Keith Nelson, senior director of public-sector services for Automation Anywhere, an RPA platform provider in Arlington, Va. "Organizations often need immediate relief. In the case of HR, once a bot is created, users often simply have to send an e‑mail with a specified subject line to a certain address to activate it. In many cases, there's no need for any coding."
Automation Anywhere recently partnered with Microsoft to create a bot to help process COVID‑19 case forms for the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. Nelson said the initiative was in response to a directive from the World Health Organization to collect clinical data and case forms for coronavirus patients to identify infection trends more quickly.
Expanding Uses of RPA
Some government agencies have turned to bots to help them with onboarding. In this use, RPA can be programmed to verify a candidate's information, fill in and process new-hire forms, transfer that information into HR databases, send required paperwork to new hires, and help provision equipment such as laptops.
HR and IT functions are using automation for such tasks as creating and distributing remote-working agreements for employees, and transforming emergency funding requests from paper to digital formats.
"Many government agencies didn't have work-from-home agreements or support response agreements until COVID‑19 hit," said Steve Witt, director of public sector for Nintex, a Seattle-based automation and process management company. "Many procurement and other processes had been conducted on paper before, where people would sign forms and hand them off to HR or to a manager."
HR functions are also using no-code automation platforms to quickly create digital forms for such tasks as tracking essential employees coming to and leaving work. For example, to track exposure and risk to employees, the forms might sit on a kiosk at a reception desk and request details about where employees have recently traveled.
"If HR needs to quickly build out a digital form, they can do it without requiring support from IT," Witt said. "That's helpful during the COVID crisis because IT is often scrambling to keep up with the technical-support demands of employees now working from home."
Companies are using RPA with popular collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams, and there are concerns that RPA will replace HR or IT jobs after the COVID‑19 crisis begins to recede. Experts say that, to date, the technology more often has replaced tasks, not entire jobs.
"A government employee might have 50 things to do every day but can only get to 40 of them," Walker said. "If you can automate those 10 tasks with bots, you haven't taken a job away but rather helped that worker do his or her job more efficiently."
SOURCE: Zielinski, D. (27 April 2020) "Bots Help Government Tackle COVID-19 Challenges" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/technology/pages/bots-help-government-tackle-covid19-challenges.aspx
Viewpoint: How to Lead in a Crisis
As many leaders have been faced with uncertainty during the trying times the coronavirus pandemic brought upon them, it's important for them to lead with the advantage that the uncertainty can bring. Read this blog post to learn more.
Despite a host of warnings about the impending COVID-19 crisis, it caught most of us by surprise. I recall attending the regular leadership team meetings of a few of my clients the week of March 9, and by March 15, the world had changed. It was no longer a potential crisis; it was a full-on global pandemic where new terms such as "social distancing" and "flattening the curve" became part of our lexicon. A spectrum of responses emerged, from reactive chaos to deploying well-practiced business continuity modes.
The challenge that leaders face in a crisis is that their organizations aren't typically set up to operate with such uncertainty. Leaders create visions, plans and metrics to attempt to control their environments and minimize uncertainty as best they can. In a crisis many leaders default to what they know how to do in order to reduce frustration and quell their own and others' fears. This default mode is simply not productive and rather than reduce uncertainty and anxiety, it increases both.
Today all organizations are faced with a new normal—uncertainty and inability to control the environments in which they operate. We know the pandemic will end but it won't truly be over until a vaccine is available. We know the curve will eventually flatten but projections seem to change hourly. We know people will get back to work but we don't know whether social distancing will continue to influence the economy. We know that remote work is possible on a broad scale but it's not clear if this will work long-term.
Ralph Stacey and Douglas Griffin's definition of a leader is one that lends itself to today's environment: "One recognized as a leader has a greater capacity to live with the anxiety of not knowing and not being in control. The leader is recognized as having the courage to carry on interacting productively and creatively despite not knowing." This definition certainly applies to today's environment of tremendous uncertainty and great anxiety. Clearly there is much we don't know about what the future will hold. It is also clear that leadership today requires an ability to embrace uncertainty and interact productively.
While it's a relatively small sample size, we have been amazed by the approaches our clients have taken to navigate their way through these challenging times. None have had an easy time, and some were certainly more prepared than others, but most have quickly overcome their natural tendency to control and shifted to doing their best to operate in crisis mode. In each case a few important themes emerged for how to embrace the uncertainty – humility, transparency, engagement, focus and patience.
Positive humility. In their own ways, each CEO acknowledged their fear about the unknown and that they didn't have all the answers, but they exuded a sense of calmness and confidence in their organizations to work smart and hard to get through the crisis. By reinforcing and modeling positive humility CEOs have established a tone for their leadership teams to cascade throughout their organizations.
Transparency. CEOs and their leadership teams are proactively communicating difficult information openly and being clear when they don't have answers to important questions. For example, they are not promising that no jobs will be lost but they are committing to pursuing all avenues necessary such as the SBA CARES Loans to secure jobs as long as possible.
Engagement. When in doubt these organizations are doing their best to negotiate clear expectations (i.e., daily check-in sessions with supervisors) and over-communicate (i.e., using email, internal web site and supervisors to reinforce that hourly workers will be paid weekly). They are also encouraging managers and staff to use multiple channels to remain in contact both formally and informally (i.e., Virtual Team Meetings, Virtual happy hours, random watercooler calls).
Focus. After a short period of getting their remote offices working, CEOs and their leadership teams redoubled their efforts to ensure their organizations remained focused on the core mission (i.e., executing loans, building interiors, registering / renewing members). They also reinforced that today's plans would likely change tomorrow and that learning from mistakes and helping employees and customers manage uncertainty is a big part of their jobs.
Patience. In a crisis adults often revert to overdone strengths – people who are naturally decisive might become arrogant or people who tend to be naturally empathetic might become overly protective. These CEOs and their leadership teams recognize this tendency to revert. They are working hard to have patience with each other by giving space, not overreacting themselves and providing gentle feedback.
These are extremely challenging times and despite efforts by the smartest scientists, economists and business leaders in the world, there is no clear path to when things will get back to normal. Ambiguity is a daily obstacle for most business leaders, but today we are dealing with ambiguity on steroids. It is not easy but we are so encouraged to see so many CEOs and their leadership teams embrace the ambiguity to help their organizations get to the other side of this crazy time.
Jack McGuinness is co-founder and managing partner of Relationship Impact, a consulting firm focused on helping great leaders build great leadership teams.
This article is excerpted from www.ChiefExecutive.net with permission from Chief Executive. C 2020. All rights reserved.
SOURCE: McGuinness, J. (20 April 2020) "Viewpoint: How to Lead in a Crisis" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/employee-relations/Pages/Viewpoint-How-to-Lead-in-a-Crisis-Coronavirus.aspx
Guidance Clarifies COVID-19 Diagnostic Testing Mandate
As many know, on March 18, 2020, the president had signed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), which ultimately includes a requirement that health plans cover COVID-19 testing. Read this blog post for frequently asked questions and their answers provided from SHRM.
The Departments of Labor, Health & Human Services, and the Treasury recently issued a set of frequently asked questions (FAQs) that provide guidance to group health plan sponsors on various issues related to implementation of the COVID-19 diagnostic testing mandate.
Background
On March 18, 2020, the president signed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), which includes a requirement for group health plans to cover COVID-19 diagnostic testing—including the cost of office, urgent care, ER and telehealth visits in order to receive testing—without cost-sharing or prior authorization. The following week, he signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), which expands the COVID-19 diagnostic testing mandate provisions.
Departments' FAQs
The Departments of Labor, Health & Human Services, and the Treasury (the departments) issued a set of FAQs on April 11 that provide guidance to group health plan sponsors on various issues related to the implementation of COVID-19 diagnostic testing requirements. The departments anticipate releasing additional guidance in the future.
The FAQs address the following issues.
Which group health plans are subject to the mandate?
Most group health plans are subject to the mandate. This includes grandfathered plans under the Affordable Care Act, non-federal governmental plans, and church plans. The mandate does not apply to retiree-only plans or to excepted benefits, such as dental, vision, and most EAPs.
When are plans first required to comply and for how long?
Plans are required to cover items and services relating to COVID-19 diagnostic testing that were furnished on and after March 18, 2020, and to continue to do so through the end of the public health emergency. Unless extended or terminated earlier, the public health emergency related to COVID-19 will end on June 16, 2020.
What types of testing must be covered?
The guidance clarifies that in addition to tests that determine whether an individual has the virus based on the presence of COVID-19 virus genetic material in the body, a group health plan must also cover serological testing to detect COVID-19 antibodies. All tests must be either: (1) authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), (2) under review by the FDA, (3) developed and authorized by a state, or (4) determined appropriate by the Secretary of Health & Human Services.
What items and services must be covered in full during a visit?
Health plans "must cover items and services furnished to an individual, during visits that result in an order for, or administration of, a COVID-19 diagnostic test." The FAQs clarify that if the attending provider determines that other tests, such as influenza or blood tests, should be performed during a visit to help determine whether COVID-19 diagnostic testing should be conducted, "and the visit results in an order for, or administration of, COVID-19 diagnostic testing," the plan must cover those services in full.
If COVID-19 diagnostic testing is not ordered or administered as a result of the visit, full coverage for these services is not required.
Can a plan impose any cost-sharing, prior authorization, or medical management requirements for COVID-19 testing?
No.
Does the requirement to cover COVID-19 diagnostic testing without cost-sharing apply to out-of-network providers?
Yes. This requirement applies to out-of-network providers, including HMOs that otherwise do not cover non-emergency out-of-network services. Out-of-network providers would be reimbursed based on the cash price listed by the provider on a public website or the amount negotiated by the plan with the provider.
Under what circumstances are services considered to be furnished during a visit?
The FFCRA requires plans to cover COVID-19 diagnostic testing services during office visits including in-person and telehealth visits, as well as urgent care centers and emergency rooms. The guidance defines the term "visit" broadly "to include both traditional and non-traditional care settings in which a COVID-19 diagnostic test … is ordered or administered."
While the guidance does not require group health plans to include a benefit with a telehealth provider, any services offered by a provider through a telehealth visit or other remote visit for COVID-19 diagnostic testing must be covered in full.
What participant communication requirements apply?
The ACA requires group health plans to provide participants with at least 60 days' advance notice of a material modification to information contained in a Summary of Benefits and Coverage (SBC). The FAQ states that the departments will not enforce this advance notice requirement to the enhanced coverage of items or services related to the diagnosis or treatment of COVID-19. The non-enforcement policy will also apply to the addition or expansion of telehealth and other remote care services. However, plans "must provide notice of the changes as soon as reasonably practical." The guidance notes that the departments would continue to take enforcement action against a plan that attempts to offset the cost of the COVID-19 diagnostic testing requirement by eliminating or limiting benefits or increasing cost-sharing on other services.
The non-enforcement policy applies during the public health emergency period. If the benefit changes are continued beyond the public health emergency period, then plans will be required to update plan documents and terms of coverage.
Employers should communicate the coverage changes to participants as soon as possible. Using updated SBCs for this communication is an option for employers, but not required.
What about SMMs?
Unlike the SBC requirements, unless there is a material reduction in benefits, a group health plan does not have to issue a statement of material modification (SMM) for a change until 210 days after the close of the plan year in which the change was adopted. Nevertheless, sponsors may want to consider providing notice of the changes in the form of an SMM.
Can an employer offer benefits for COVID-19 diagnostic testing under an EAP or onsite medical clinic that constitute an excepted benefit without impacting its excepted benefit status?
Yes, diagnostic testing coverage can be provided without impacting the excepted benefit status of the EAP or onsite medical clinic.
While the guidance strongly encourages plan sponsors to promote the use of telehealth services, similar relief was not provided for telehealth benefits. Some employers are considering offering a standalone telehealth benefit to employees who are not eligible for medical coverage, or who have waived coverage. However, a standalone telehealth benefit would not satisfy the ACA market reform requirements unless it qualifies as an excepted benefit.
Use of onsite medical clinics to provide testing could be part of an employer's return-to-work program.
In Closing
The FAQs provide important guidance for employers on implementation of the diagnostic testing requirements and include actions employers need to take to communicate these provisions to employees.
Richard Stover, FSA, MAAA, is a principal at HR advisory firm Buck. Leslye Laderman, JD, LLM, is a principal in the firm's Knowledge Resource Center. This article originally appeared in the April 15, 2020 issue of Buck's For Your Information. © 2020 Buck Global LLC. All rights reserved. Republished with permission.
SOURCE: Stover, R.; Laderman, L. (21 April 2020) "Guidance Clarifies COVID-19 Diagnostic Testing Mandate" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/benefits/pages/guidance-clarifies-coronavirus-diagnostic-testing-mandate.aspx
What Happens When Employers Violate Shelter-in-Place Orders?
During the coronavirus pandemic, many states are allowing only essential businesses to stay open to the public, while other businesses are on a shelter-in-place order. Read this blog post to learn more.
In many states, only essential businesses can stay open to the public and only critical staff can remain at the worksite during the coronavirus pandemic. So what happens when employers ignore the rules? In some jurisdictions, employers can face civil or criminal penalties.
Officials in some states, including California, Georgia and New York, are asking people to report businesses that are violating shelter-in-place orders.
"Each and every one of us is called to work together and cooperate with emergency responders and public officials who are working hard to keep all New Yorkers safe," said New York Attorney General Letitia James.
We've rounded up articles and resources from SHRM Online and other trusted media outlets on shelter-in-place orders.
What Is an Essential Business?
To help combat the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, many state and local governments are issuing stay-at-home or shelter-in-place orders that only permit "essential" businesses to remain open. The distinction between "essential" and "nonessential" businesses isn't the same in each location, so employers need to review the specific orders that apply to their operations. Generally, essential businesses include health care, first responders, food production and delivery, medical supply, public utilities, communications and information technology, grocery stores, and gas stations. Nonessential businesses typically must allow employees to work remotely, close for a period of time or reduce their operations to certain activities that are necessary to preserve the business.
State and Local Coronavirus Decrees Raise Questions
Gray areas in state orders call for careful introspection and decision-making by businesses. Should they find a way to stay open to pay workers and maintain customers, or close for a less tangible public good—helping to prevent the spread of COVID-19? "Those are extremely difficult decisions to make and not the sort of thing most HR professionals were having to deal with five months ago," said Jackie Ford, a partner at Vorys, a labor and employment law firm in Houston, which issued its own citywide shelter-in-place rules on March 24. "It's a whole new skill set."
Civil and Criminal Penalties May Apply
Employers must follow shelter-in-place orders or they could face civil or criminal penalties. In Michigan, for example, violating the state's order is a criminal misdemeanor and businesses that don't comply can be fined and possibly shut down.
States with Shelter-in-Place Orders
Many state and local governments are implementing strict measures, but the duration of the orders vary. For instance, Alabama's order is in place until April 30, Virginia's expires June 10 and California's is effective until further notice. Here's a chart that shows which states have ordered nonessential businesses to close and where public officials have encouraged or mandated residents to stay at home.
Michigan Extends Retaliation Protections Amid COVID-19 Outbreak
Some states are also addressing coronavirus-related issues in their antiretaliation rules. For instance, on April 3, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued an executive order prohibiting employers from discharging, disciplining or otherwise retaliating against an employee for staying home from work because the employee tests positive for COVID-19, displays principal symptoms of COVID-19, or has had close contact with an individual who has tested positive or has symptoms.
Showing Compassion May Minimize Risk of Employee Claims
Care, show compassion, connect, communicate and be flexible—these are COVID-19's HR lessons. Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., SHRM-SCP, president and CEO of SHRM, summed things up as follows: "Every workplace operates under a set of guiding principles, whether overtly expressed or more subtly embedded in the culture. This is the moment to examine the principles that define you as an employer and a corporate citizen, and ensure they are ones you want to uphold and are prepared to live. Employees will rest easier knowing that you are operating under a strong value system that doesn't waver in good times or bad."
SOURCE: Nagele-Piazza, L. (13 April 2020 "What Happens When Employers Violate Shelter-in-Place Orders?" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/state-and-local-updates/pages/when-employers-violate-shelter-in-place-orders.aspx
COVID-19 Changes Internships, Apprenticeships
As the coronavirus pandemic has put a restriction on many plans, it's also raised concerns for organizations with internship and apprenticeship programs for early career development opportunities. Read this blog post from SHRM to learn more.
Travel restrictions and social-distancing mandates prompted by COVID-19 are causing organizations to rethink their approach to apprenticeships and internships, which typically involve hands-on, in-person participation.
The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) is seeing a steady push toward moving internships online or limiting them in size and duration. A quick unscientific poll it conducted April 3 with 130 of its employer members provided insight on how members are adapting their programs:
- 35 percent are making no changes to their program.
- 35 percent are reducing the length of internships by delaying the start date.
- 29 percent are moving to a virtual program.
- 20 percent are moving events such as end-of-program presentations online.
- 15 percent are reducing the number of interns.
Some organizations are considering micro-internships that condense a 10-to-12-week internship into a one-to-two-week experience later in the summer, said Bruce Soltys, head of talent acquisition sourcing strategy at The Travelers Companies based in Hartford, Conn. It has a 450-person internship program at 25 locations throughout the U.S.
He was among speakers at a panel discussion on internships that NACE hosted April 2.
"Companies might put a little bit more of an emphasis on training and development where [interns] are really focused on the learning and development piece and not so much on a personal project," Soltys said.
"From a change management perspective, we've presented the case to our senior leaders to say, 'If we have to go down this path from a virtual-work standpoint, the main question is, can this work be done virtually?' I think a lot of managers are not comfortable with the notion of interns doing the work virtually because [interns] are so new to the organization."
SAS, a computer software company outside of Raleigh, N.C., has a seven-figure investment in its internship program, said Kayla Woitkowski, a university recruiter leader for SAS who spoke on the NACE panel. Her employer is "making sure that any internship that does go virtual … the students have valuable work" to perform.
She has found, based on phone conversations with other employers, that organizations are taking one of three stances toward internships in light of COVID-19:
- Turning their internship program into a virtual one, ensuring that any work interns have been hired to perform can be done remotely.
- Canceling internships.
- Pushing back start dates.
As organizations wrestle with what to do with their internship programs, it's important that they keep in contact with the students they selected, said David Ong, panel moderator and senior director of corporate recruiting at Maximus. The Washington, D.C.-based company is a health and human services provider for state, federal and local governments.
The organization met with all interns and program associates as a group to assure them that they would keep them up-to-date on the program's status.
"It is also just a chance to keep them engaged," Ong said. "A lot of these students have [other] options."
Online tools can be an internship program's friend, according to Renato Profico, CEO of Doodle, a Zurich-based online scheduling tool.
"They can translate culture into a digital setting to make interns and new hires feel included," said Profico, who has personally invited every employee to a 15-minute virtual coffee meeting over the next few weeks. "These little things are important at a time when employee engagement and retention could dip significantly."
Apprenticeships
Changes prompted by COVID-19 will likely cause companies to be more pragmatic in how they view the role of apprenticeships, said Jennifer Carlson. She is the co-founder and executive director of Apprenti, which operates in 12 states as a fully paid technology apprenticeship program for minorities, veterans and women.
"COVID-19 is going to force companies to be more deliberate and probably see apprenticeships as an equitable pipeline, equivalent with all their talent acquisition pipelines," Carlson said. "Not all jobs in the science, technology, engineering and math fields, for example, require a college degree.
"You can take people from nontraditional [areas] and train them and create a second pipeline [for talent] using apprenticeships."
One such example is the Youth Technology Apprenticeship Camp (YTAC) in Charlotte, N.C., a major technology workforce site in the U.S. Last year, for example, home-improvement company Lowe's announced the creation of a 2,000-employee global tech hub in Charlotte.
The demand for employees with tech skills "is off the charts for these companies," said Tariq Scott Bokhari, Charlotte city councilman and founder of the Carolina Fintech Hub. The Fintech Hub created YTAC and partnered with the city of Charlotte, the Charlotte Executive Leadership Council, the Bank of America Foundation and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.
Apprentices are high-school seniors who earn a credential after completing the four-week program. Those performing above a certain threshold are guaranteed acceptance into the local Workforce Investment Network training program. After successfully completing six months of training, participants are guaranteed a job as a full stack developer with a starting salary of $55,000.
The pandemic prompted a format change to the apprenticeship: It will be entirely virtual. Participants meet in small virtual breakout groups to work on their project, participate in labs, hackathons and livestream competitions and attend virtual training.
Bokhari thinks the altered format will continue in some way after the pandemic is over. With the virtual setup, overhead costs are lower, so more students can be accommodated. It also mirrors what he thinks will be the new reality for work.
"I think things will change forever after this, but it will probably be some mixture of physical and virtual [format]. We want this experience … to mimic the real-life workforce environment. I think the real-life workforce environment is going to change."
SOURCE: Gurchiek, K. (13 April 2020) "COVID-19 Changes Internships, Apprenticeships" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/organizational-and-employee-development/Pages/COVID19-Causes-Changes-to-Internships-Apprenticeships.aspx
Strategies for making layoffs a last resort during a crisis
Did you know: 6.6 million Americans have applied for unemployment due to the coronavirus pandemic. Many businesses are looking for other alternatives than automatically laying off their employees. Read this blog post to learn more.
In uncertain times business leaders can be faced with an impossible choice, keep every employee or keep their business afloat.
More than 6.6 million Americans have applied for unemployment, according to the Labor Department and there have been over 10 million jobless claims, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic keeping people in their homes and out of work. It is likely that businesses will make further cuts as the latest PwC survey suggests 44% of CFOs expect furloughs and 16% expect layoffs.
The unfortunate reality for many small businesses is that there typically isn’t an alternative to layoffs, but larger organizations have more options.
“There are several firms in the U.S. right now, including our own, that have publicly said layoffs are a last resort,” says Bhushan Sethi, PwC’s global people and organization leader. “What they are looking to do is be creative with the different levers you can pull around the workforce.”
Sethi in a recent interview shared ways in which employers can make layoffs a last resort in times of unpredictability.
How can businesses avoid layoffs during a crisis?
There’s looking at compressed work schedules, reducing costs in other areas, including real estate or business travel. There are other benefits employers may be offering that are not relevant like a car allowance or a travel allowance. Even before COVID-19 we’ve seen clients take a look at a compressed work schedule. Employers need to understand what it means if they offer a compressed work week, whether it is 40 hours across four days or in some areas it might mean one week on, one week off. So the compressed work weeks can take on different forms. Changing the pay would be next, and looking at the areas of your firm that have significant costs and looking at where value is created. What that could mean is changing the mix of pay at the executive level. Certain companies have come out and froze or capped executive pay or said executives won’t take bonuses. So there’s different levers on the compressed work schedules and on the pay models and then there are other kinds of cost control measures you can take.
How are employers designing benefits during this time?
In our CFO survey we saw that 56% of them were also looking at other benefits, specifically things like paid time off and sick leave. A number of them are saying “how do I design benefits around what my people want?” At PwC we said we’re going to give an emergency child care allowance to people who need it for $2,200. We’re seeing this shift around what you can offer your employees from a benefits perspective that might be very relevant to them. I’ve seen other clients say “well if there is a small piece of equipment that will help you with remote working like investing in a different shaped chair or something like that,” it seems trivial but it's really important to people’s experience right now.
How can employers reassure their remaining staff when they have to make staffing cuts?
It’s still an opportunity for firms to start planning beyond just today’s business. You’ve got to project out maybe 12 months and say what will my revenue and my profitability be, based on some assumptions being made around the business. The more you can get employers to actually think about kind of financial impact then you can walk it back and say okay, I‘ve got to ask about the costs I need to manage and how can I be creative by not just looking at payroll and salary and benefits, but how can I think about other levers I can pull? Can I offer sabbaticals to people? Can I do compressed schedules? Can there be job sharing in certain key rolls? Looking at all the different levers around it is going to be important because then you may actually get to a decision that is more beneficial for your employees, for society, and your business because you won’t be in the process of having to lay off a significant amount of people and cause reputational damage to the business.
SOURCE; Shiavo, A. (13 April 2020) "Strategies for making layoffs a last resort during a crisis" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/news/strategies-for-making-layoffs-a-last-resort-during-a-crisis