Andie Burjek – Page 27

August 2, 2018June 29, 2023

Is Organizational Turnover Contagious?

People hate it when other people cough or sneeze near them. The reason is simple. We don’t want to catch whatever you have!

We’re quick to say “no” to other people’s physical maladies. We’re much less quick to say no to what researchers have labeled emotional contagion.

What is emotional contagion? It’s the phenomenon of having one person’s emotions and related behaviors directly trigger similar emotions and behaviors in other people. Studies show we pick up cognitive baggage from others without even knowing it — both the positive and negative variety.

People routinely “catch” each other’s feelings when working together in groups. It’s not surprising that this influences your employees’ moods. What’s more surprising is that it significantly influences their judgment and business decisions as well, usually without anyone having a clue about what’s going on.

One area that’s routinely viewed as a negative form of emotional contagion is employee turnover. You know the drill. Someone announces they are leaving and all of a sudden there’s a rush to the door. People ask, “What’s wrong?” and “Should I be moving on too?” This is never more noticeable than in our current peak economic cycle.

Bringing is us back to: Is turnover contagious?

Of course it is. But instead of viewing it as a bad thing, let’s view this organizational form of a head cold as an opportunity. Here are five reasons why emotional contagion in the form of turnover (or employees thinking about leaving) is a good thing for your company and your team of managers:

A single employee announcing their intent to leave causes you to take stock of your team. If you believe turnover is contagious, then you surely are taking stock of who might be next to be on the market. Taking stock is good; it forces you to stack rank those on your team.
Taking stock of your team allows you to think about your salary cap. In sports, a salary cap is the maximum amount of money a team can spend on players. You have a cap as well. It’s called your salary budget. Taking stock of your team when someone announces they are leaving causes you to consider different ways to allocate money to those who remain, and that’s healthy.
Some people may need to leave, but contagious turnover is not kind. Let’s face it: If you have 10 people on your team and one leaves, everyone gets a bit of the emotional contagion of contagious turnover. Too bad the ones you’d like to see leave are immune to coming down with the turnover bug. Turnover forces you to think about who you’d like to see leave, but you understand that they probably won’t.
The threat of contagious turnover should cause you to do the reorg you’ve been thinking about. Note that I spelled reorg with a small “r,” because I’m not talking about layoffs, I’m talking about a refresh of responsibilities and who does what as a part of your team. Sometimes a refresh of work is all that’s required to get people through the head cold that is contagious turnover. Think of this as a team shot of vitamin C that you administer when you hear the first sneeze.
Turnover is a call for you to talk to the people who matter most on your team. Should you talk to everyone? Sure, but a lot those folks can be covered in a group setting talking about the change. For your highest performers, the people you can’t live without, you need to have a one on one, address the turnover and rapidly move to talking about them. Give them new assignments and money if you are so moved to make them feel the love.

Did someone mention money? As a manager of people, salary compression, inequality and other bad things are present in every organization to some degree. Those confounding variables often conspire when turnover happens to limit your ability to use money as a tool to stop the bleeding.

My experience is that money as a tool is more available when turnover is a problem than most managers think. For best results, make addressing compression and inequality part of the plan related to how you want to use money to solidify your team in an environment suddenly riddled with turnover.

Turnover is contagious. But turnover is also a gift, a call to action for you to wake up as a manager and start moving cheese, money and other items to interrupt the pattern and avoid being the victim.

Feed the cold and starve the fever, people.

August 1, 2018September 2, 2019

Overcoming 4 Barriers in Communicating High-Value Health Plans to Employees

health care education, health literacy, stethoscope and book

Once a promising benefit design to reduce unnecessary health care spending, the consumer-driven health plan (CDHP) has had in improving consumer decision-making and employer cost savings. In theory, CDHPs encourage consumers to “shop” for health care by paying close attention to cost and quality tradeoffs. In fact, evidence shows that the exact opposite is true. Instead CDHPs have caused consumers to skip both necessary and unnecessary care due to the out-of-pocket costs they face prior to meeting their annual deductible.

To manage cost without sacrificing quality or access, more employers are thinking carefully about how to combine health care payment and delivery reform, benefit design and provider network design, such as in an accountable care organization model. ACOs, which feature a network of health care providers that have responsibilities to coordinate care and manage the cost of care, along with incentives and disincentives to do so effectively, now cover more than 10 percent of the U.S. population.

Employers, other health care purchasers and payers are investing in these efforts by building benefit and provider network designs that encourage consumers to use ACOs. However, to get consumers to select these benefit options, purchasers and payers face some barriers.

Also read: How Employers Can Get More Involved With Maternity Care

Cognitive biases are pervasive in every aspect of decision-making, and health care is no exception. Understanding the obstacles consumers must overcome to make informed choices about insurance products and health care providers can help employers design and implement effective benefits offerings and communications strategies.

First Barrier: Health Care Complexity

A deciding factor in whether consumers choose to take action the way we want them to is whether they understand what they are being asked to do. But according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, there is strong evidence that workers lack the ability to successfully navigate the complex and technical nature of health care. Moreover, a Consumer Health Mindset study found only 40 percent of consumers know where to go to figure out the price of a health service they need or want. Research also shows most adults have a low level of health literacy, lacking the ability to process, understand and act on health information to make appropriate choices.

Learn from employees. As a result, employers must learn what employees care about and where they struggle in their health care experience. What motivates employees to enroll in a particular plan — such as cost or convenience — or prevents them from enrolling may not be obvious.

Second Barrier: Apathy, Inertia and Status Quo

There is an implicit bias toward the status quo when making decisions. This predisposition prevents consumers from carefully considering cost and quality tradeoffs or researching them prior to the moment of decision (in cases where information is available). Change can be uncomfortable and even upsetting.

A large tech company, for example, learned that the primary reason employees chose not to enroll in their new ACO plan was that it was easier to stay in the plan they already knew. Along with deciding whether to enroll in a new plan option, consumers were weighing whether the change, and potential losses from it (e.g., losing access to a key medical provider), were greater than the potential benefits (e.g., ability to access a provider after hours or virtually).

Design the easy choice. For consumers to make a change, the benefits must clearly outweigh the risks. When employers design programs that make it hard for employees to say “no” to enrolling and that inspire confidence that they made the right choice, employees may be more likely to select them. This could mean, for example, offering coverage levels comparable to those in existing plans and/or lower premiums.

Require active enrollment. Requiring active participation during annual enrollment and defaulting those who do not participate into the new plan can be very effective. Employers that include space in benefits communications for employees to write down in concrete terms the action they plan to take and how to do it can also increase active enrollment’s effectiveness. However, employers should use active enrollment sparingly, so it retains its power when they must drive action.

Also read: Employers are Key to Reform in Our New Health Care World

Third Barrier: Established Providers Are Not in the Network

Consumers value their relationship with their doctor with 89 percent saying it’s important. They want to be able to continue seeing the same familiar person who administers their care and may be unwilling to change providers.

One large company asked its employees who didn’t enroll in a new ACO plan, “What would it take to enroll?” Over 60 percent of respondents answered, “my doctor needs to be in-network.”

Make it easy to see who is in the new network. The survey also revealed the main reason employees do not change plans is uncertainty around whether their current providers are in the new network. Therefore, it is critical to provide robust provider-search tools that help employees quickly and easily determine if they can keep their current provider. Communications to employees should boldly promote such tools.

Fourth Barrier: Information Overload

With so many competing sources of information — employers, health plans, doctors, commercials and more — it can be hard for consumers to know what to do and whom to trust. As choices increase, the likelihood that someone will take action decreases.

Also read: When Your Workday Is Interrupted Again and Again…

Think like a marketer. Borrow a page from the consumer marketing playbook and develop multi-channel communication campaigns that are targeted and fully-branded, with simplicity at the core. Personal stories can make communications more relatable and compelling. If a plan has been around at least one year, testimonials from current enrollees can help. If it’s the initial launch phase, quotes from leadership about why they’re choosing the new plan can also help.

Changing deeply ingrained behaviors requires persistent nudging and smart design. To do this, employers need to communicate effectively about the new plans to draw employees’ attention to them while simultaneously shifting their focus from the numerous barriers to enrollment.

It takes effort, but by leveraging these best practices, employers can successfully drive enrollment into high-value health plans.

Suzanne Delbanco is the executive director at Catalyst for Payment Reform, and Lindsay Kohler is a senior consultant at Benz Communications. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

July 23, 2018July 23, 2018

Gift Cards Cook Holiday Turkey’s Goose as Employee Incentive

Cash isn’t always king. Employees can feel the love when they receive noncash rewards from their employer.

The 2017 “Trends Study” from the Incentive Research Foundation found that 70 percent of U.S. businesses used gift card programs and 60 percent gave merchandise as some form of reward to their employees. The report also found that U.S. businesses spent $24 billion annually on gift cards.

Noncash rewards such as gift cards help keep employees connected to the greater whole of the organization, according to Jeremy Tolley, chief people officer at CareHere LLC, a Nashville-based health care and wellness provider. Its noncash rewards include sending its nurses a card during National Nurses Week or giving employees an Amazon gift card with a note, “Buy yourself a book! You deserve to curl up, relax and read a book.”

Such noncash rewards work well with CareHere’s widely dispersed employee population. “[We’ll] have a pocket of three or four employees in a rural location,” Tolley said.

An extra $25 in a paycheck might not be something they notice, especially with direct deposit, he said. If a company wants to reward an employee, a gift card can make that recognition more memorable.

“It makes the thank-you or the occasion last a little longer because they have that in their purse or pocket, and they can take it and cash it in later,” Tolley said.

Such rewards come with legal guidelines. Employers must keep IRS rules in mind and remember that de minimis items — something like a fringe benefit, for example, whose value is too small to be considered legally — are not taxed. However, the IRS does not define what value is considered de miminis.

“It’s important [that] you have a good relationship with your finance department and make sure that they are aware of the taxation fees, because you don’t want to have a problem and get in trouble with that,” said Paula Harvey, vice president of human resources and safety at Schulte Building Systems Inc., a construction company in Hockley, Texas. “Any time I’m thinking about these things, my CFO and I talk about it.”

Experts consider $25 or less to be a safe amount, she added. Years ago, Schulte began to offer $25 grocery store gift cards during the holidays when there were complaints about the annual Christmas ham and Thanksgiving turkey. A gift card allowed employees to buy what they needed rather than be limited to one item.

Vendors have ventured into the gift-card space and created a system in which employers don’t have to deal with taxation issues, Harvey added — one reason for their popularity over the years.

Buffalo Wild Wings launched a corporate gift card portal in 2014 to allow organizations to buy cards in bulk. They saw it as an opportunity to remain competitive as more large retailers entered the business-to-business incentive space, said Kim Sobasky, director of gift cards at the Minneapolis-based company.

“To be brand-forward and competitive, we wanted to get as easy and simple for companies to purchase directly from us,” she said.

Although legal considerations are important, other guidelines can help companies use gift cards more effectively.

Gift cards shouldn’t be used to recognize good safety records, Harvey said. She’s seen companies reward employees who went a year without a safety incident, prompting some employees to take advantage of the gift. “[Some employees] want to get the reward and then don’t report when they get hurt,” she said.

Offering a gift card to a place an employee does not like may be seen as a disincentive, CareHere’s Tolley said. Many gift cards go unused, he added, because employees lose them or don’t patronize that store or restaurant. People seem to be happy with something more general, like Amazon.

“My No. 1 rule when someone proposes a gift card incentive is, do we know this is a gift card this person will have a use for?” Tolley said.

July 13, 2018August 31, 2022

Give ‘Em a Break: Employees Want Their Lunch Break Back

A new survey shows the vast majority of employees take into account whether they get a lunch break when scouting for a job. Once they land that gig, however, results also show that more employees are scarfing down a sandwich rather than leisurely dining on dim sum.

“Take Back the Lunch Break” shows that 27 percent of the 1,600 North American survey participants don’t take a lunch break each workday. The study notes that going out for lunch helps workers feel more engaged and productive, said Jennifer J. Deal, senior research scientist at the Center for Creative Leadership and affiliated research scientist at the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California.

“If you think about athletes, there’s halftime for a reason, right? Because halfway through any endeavor, you need a break. You need to take time to breathe and not continually engage in the activity,” said Deal, who partnered with workplace hygiene company Tork for the study. “For people in the workplace, taking a lunch break is just that. It’s halftime.”

Employees who took a lunch break every day scored higher than those who didn’t in the survey results for job satisfaction, the likelihood to continue working at the same company, and recommending their employer to others.

Deal said employees want to be perceived as hard-working so they bypass lunch and power through the day.

There may be some truth to that, given that survey results show 22 percent of supervisors think employees who take regular lunch breaks are less hardworking.

Employees and employers can nibble away at the problem. Deal recommends that employees pay attention to their energy levels to notice when they start to get drained. And employers can help change the culture at the company.

“You need to model the behavior and not reward the person who never takes breaks. So, it’s a matter of modeling behavior, encouraging behavior and rewarding behavior,” Deal said.

July 11, 2018June 29, 2023

Some Employers Bringing the Gas Pump to Employees

As consumers brace for a spike in gas prices this summer, some employees may be feeling a little less pain at the pump thanks to a relatively new perk — fuel delivery at the workplace.

In the past few years, a number of startups that offer this service have popped up across the country, promising to spare employees the hassle of filling up at the gas station. There is Booster Fuels in the Bay Area, Filld in Silicon Valley, Yoshi, which launched last year in Southern California, and Neighborhood Fuel in Miami, among others.

“It’s a perk that doesn’t cost the employee or the employer anything, that puts time back into your schedule, saves you money and eliminates a chore that no one enjoys,” said Jorge Camaraza Jr., founder of Neighborhood Fuel.

He said he got the idea in 2015 after a frustrating experience at a gas station with a broken pump and a faulty credit card reader.

“The workplace is a great market for this,” he said. “There are a large amount of cars and predictable parking opportunities to service the client. They can park their car, push a button on an app and leave work with a tank full of gas.”

Employees request fuel delivery through their smartphone and designate the location where their car is parked. A truck carrying fuel will stop by and fill their tank and the employee will get a notification on their app and a receipt, he explained.

Some startups add a per gallon surcharge or a monthly fee, but Camaraza said that Neighborhood Fuel makes money by buying gas directly from suppliers at a lower cost than at the pumps.

With gas prices at their highest level since 2014, commuters will be paying more, but some will be doing it from the comfort of their office chair.

July 10, 2018June 29, 2023

Sector Report: Navigating the Patchwork of Screening Regulations

Background screening is often considered the most tedious and stressful aspect of the recruiting process. While it will never be a pleasant experience, companies and vendors are focused on making it as painless as possible. “If recruiting gets bogged down during background screening you run the risk of losing candidates — and all the resources you spent recruiting them in the first place,” said Dawn Standerwick, vice president of strategic growth for Employment Screening Resources, a background screening company in Boulder, Colorado. You also the run the risk that they will complain about the process to friends and colleagues, said Richard Seldon, president of Sterling Talent Solutions, a global background screening company in New York. “Companies want candidates to say the process was efficient, timely and easy to do.”

That’s driving screening vendors to integrate their technology with applicant tracking systems, onboarding, payroll and other solutions to streamline the process, reduce wasted time, and eliminate demand for redundant information. They are also adding automated alerts and update features, including texts and emails letting candidates know where they are in the process, whether information is missing, and how they can access their background report. “A little extra communication makes the process more transparent,” Standerwick said.

It also shortens the screening process by auto-loading data, and alerting candidates immediately if more information is required. “Speed is always a good idea,” Seldon noted. “Companies and candidates always want this process to go faster.”

Along with improving candidate experience, screening vendors and companies continue to struggle with many of the same issues that have plagued them in the past — varying laws, ban the box movements and the need for global solutions. All of these trends have one important theme in common: lack of consistency.

In the case of screening laws, every county, city and state has its own requirements for what can and cannot be considered in a screening, how many years back screeners can look, and what kinds of notifications companies need to provide candidates about this process. “The patchwork of regulations has heightened the environment of lawsuits and litigations, and employers are looking for more guidance from their providers,” Standerwick said. Some vendors are taking on increasing responsibility for providing disclosures and notifications that are legally the employer’s responsibility, while others are “leaning back,” she said. “It’s getting increasingly complex to manage, and not every vendor wants to take that responsibility on.”

The same is true for ban the box rules, which vary in terms of when it is permissible to ask for a criminal history in the application process, what notifications are required and how to handle actions if information disqualifies a candidate. The rules get even more complex if a candidate lives in one state but will be employed in another, Standerwick noted. “We are reaching the tipping point with ban the box.” It’s not only complicated, it can actually do more harm than good. If the recruiting process drags out for weeks only to have the candidate disqualified, it delays that person from finding a job and the company from filling a position. “It’s creating a lot of frustration.”

Going Global

Managing laws gets exponentially more complex for global companies or those seeking candidates abroad, Seldon said. Often, HR leaders aren’t certain how they handle screening in other countries or they rely on local HR teams to establish their own rules. But as the risk of lawsuits increases, and new data privacy rules emerge — like the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, in the EU — companies are realizing they need a more consistent approach, he said. “The focus on global solutions has gained a lot of momentum this year.”

Not many screening companies have a global presence, though. As companies seek out vendors to manage global talent programs, the larger vendors are likely to expand their footprint through acquisition of local screening firms or through organic growth. “Global companies expect global solutions,” he said.

Going forward, companies should speak to their screening vendors about how they plan to address all of these issues and what is on their technology road maps. “Every company’s needs are different based on their industries and the positions they are screening for,” Seldon said. The more companies can educate themselves about screening laws and opportunities for risk in the screening process, the better able they are to choose vendors who can meet their needs.

July 3, 2018June 29, 2023

Senior Living Facility Employees Benefit from Art Therapy

Elder Care Alliance Employees participate in creative activities in the Create Art at Work program. Photo courtesy of Dr. Erin Partridge. Photo courtesy of Dr. Erin Partridge. — Elder Care Alliance Employees participate in creative activities in the Create Art at Work program. Photo courtesy of Dr. Erin Partridge.

Last month I asked you readers if your company has ever incorporated something creative or art-based in your wellness program. One organization, Elder Care Alliance, a nonprofit senior living organization based in California, responded with a unique program they launched a year ago called Create Art at Work. I enjoyed this as a mini-case study and hope that you find some ideas here that could work at your organization as well!

Management at the nonprofit knew that it needed to do something novel to address the issues its workforce was facing, including stress, burnout and turnover, said with Rosemary Jordan, vice president of business development and strategy at Elder Care Alliance. Jordan leads the team that launched the Create Art at Work program.

The direct care employees at Elder Care Alliance have emotional, physically demanding and fast-paced jobs even with meals and breaks planned in their schedules. But they also see their job — taking care of older adults — as a calling and do this type of work to make a difference in their lives.

“We were feeling, especially because we’re a not-for-profit organization focused on taking care of our employees as well as our residents, that we needed to do something different,” Jordan said.

Traditional wellness programs did not fit this workforce, she added. “They weren’t, in our experience, catapulting us toward results the way we needed them,” she said.

Then Dr. Erin Partridge joined the company in January 2017 as an experimental researcher in residence. As a licensed art therapist, she had both practical and research experience in how to implement an art therapy program. Also, there was already an art therapy program for the residents of the living facility, so bringing something similar to the organization’s workforce was a manageable idea.

One thing I’d like to note here: When I blogged about this topic before, I focused on art as a social event for employees, not as an actual evidence-based, therapeutic exercise. What this organization is doing is very different and actually aligned to the real definition of art therapy.

“We’re not just going to paint by numbers or play with clay. While it is fun, we don’t see it as entertainment or play,” Jordan said. “It’s not a one-off. In fact, we’re trying to situate this as truly embedded in the day-to day work experience. We’re trying to normalize it and make creative arts practice like a fully legitimate thing to be doing.”

Rosemary Jordan, vice president of business development and strategy at Elder Care Alliance, leads the Create Art at Work Program.

There are a few activities that are designed to help employees in different ways, Jordan said. Group journaling is one that individuals can do on their own time while they’re drinking coffee in the morning, or any part of the day they wish. They all respond to the same prompt — which can be something thoughtful or something as simple as “Pie or Cake?” — and everyone’s contributions are accumulated in the same place. Even the “Pie vs. Cake” prompt led to positive results, inspiring a bake-off that engaged many employees.

The organization also hosts a “creative break” once a month in which anyone can drop in on a two-hour-long open studio and participate in a creative project next to your colleague. This is designed to be more collaborative than the individual journaling.

Another area they’re working on is getting people in analytical or leadership roles to abandon PowerPoints and boring charts and think more creatively about how they present ideas. This is difficult because many of these people have been in the workforce for 20 or 30 years, and through job training or business school they’ve learned how to do things a certain way. It takes a while to get people out of their comfort zones, Jordan said, but it’ liberating when it happens. She pitched a business plan to the CEO via a gallery walk rather than a traditional PowerPoint.

This program stuck with the Elder Care Alliance Employees while other wellness programs didn’t for a few reasons, Jordan said. Many people in the workforce don’t speak English as a first or primary language, and art can appeal to anyone no matter what language they feel comfortable with. “It’s seldom to see wellness programs that are truly accessible in terms of preferred language,” Jordan said. “But the language of art is universal. Everyone can feel confident and competent.”

One activity in which leadership participated in was this tree mural in which each member of the leadership team, responding to a prompt, contributed a leaf to the tree. Photo courtesy of Dr. Erin Partridge.

Also, the gamification and competitive elements that are common in many types of wellness programs don’t appeal to everyone. It might appeal to populations like employees in a start-up bro culture, but not the employees at Elder Care Alliance.

“When we’re talking about a 45-year-old mom who was born in Honduras and struggling with three jobs; that’s not really going to get it done for her,” Jordan said. “It’s not going to feel meaningful or relevant.”

Finally, many wellness programs require a lot of commitment and many gadgets, which just aren’t practical or realistic for these employees at their worksite. By focusing on art therapy, the employer created an accessible space for employees, and all employees have to do is come.

“It’s flipping the script on whose responsible, which has a lot of currency right now,” Jordan said. “Frankly, I think there’s been a little too much of finger wagging and putting a lot of pressure on employees to be better at wellness.”

I enjoy this wellness program example for many reasons. Most importantly, it’s truly personalized to the organization’s workforce, which isn’t something I hear too often as a wellness blogger. Yes, everyone loves to say their program is personalized and holistic, but oftentimes it sounds like a simple reiteration of any other wellness program.

The other part of this example that I enjoy is how this program is utilized in the health care industry. No surprise, the health care industry is a stressful place to work, and burnout is common.

I love seeing these real-world examples of how to incorporate the stress-reducing qualities of creating art in the workplace. Thanks for sharing, Elder Care Alliance!

The “On My Mind Prompt” is one activity which program participants have been able to interpret hundreds of ways. Photo courtesy of Dr. Erin Partridge.

Final Thoughts:

Not related to the art therapy program, Jordan has many interesting things to say about wellness in the workplace, specifically around mental health and holistic well-being. I found this conversation to be especially relevant after seeing all the conversation around mental health in the workplace following the suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain.

“Our national conversation about mental health is still in its infancy,” Jordan said. While it’s great that there’s now more public discussion about mental health and that people are trying to reduce stigma, there’s more work to be done. There’s more than just depression, but sometimes depression is all people focus on. There’s a broader conversation to be had about mental health.

My question for readers: Besides depression, what are other areas of mental health you can focus on or you have been focusing on in the workplace, via benefits, wellness programs or another vessel? Feel free to share!

June 27, 2018October 31, 2023

10 Effective Tips for Managing in a Unionized Setting

There’s a lot of mythology about the difficulty of union-management relations. One way or another, I have been involved with union-management relations since 1975. Experience teaches that managing in a unionized setting is not all that daunting if you can follow ten simple rules.

Tell the truth.

Never squander your credibility. Trust is one of the most important factors in union-management relations. Deals cannot get done without trust – and trust requires honesty. Even protective or evasive “white lies” or “sugar-coating” about difficult subjects can erode trust and credibility.

Management runs the place.

The Union does not run the organization and generally you do not need to ask the Union’s permission to do things, yet some workplaces have this exactly backward. Tact, forethought and consideration of the Union’s role are still important, but management runs the place.

Maintain productive behavior.

You always have the right to expect proper performance and to maintain a workplace without serious interference in getting work done. It is a “workplace” – getting the work done is the primary consideration.

Use the “work now, grieve later” rule as a guide.

“Work now, grieve later” is a fundamental rule that says a lot about the basic dynamics within a unionized employer. Decades ago a well-known arbitrator wrote: “The workplace is not a debating society.” Management has a right to expect orders to be followed, not debated. It is almost always legitimate to say, “Get it done, and file a grievance later if you want to.” There are exceptions if the order is dangerous or intentionally degrading or humiliating, but the “work now – grieve later” rule is a useful microcosm of the fundamental power allocation in a unionized work setting.

Rely on your good judgment.

The law of labor relations — and generally all of employment law — has a huge component of simple common sense. Try to be fair, and trust your judgment when in doubt. Good judgment often carries the day when the legalities of a situation are scrutinized later.

Don’t respond in kind to pettiness and provocations.

This requires avoiding grudges and tolerating some abrasive activity without responding in the same vein. Be the adult on the room. Hold your own temper. Do not stoop to the level of the people who misbehave. Good tone and good behavior almost always achieve better results and will always present a better picture if there are legal proceedings, including grievances and arbitration.

Overlook personal attacks, rudeness and anger.

“Protected concerted activity” is very generously construed under the labor laws, and “shop talk” is given wide latitude. Profanity, insults, anger and personal attacks can easily erupt in union-management meetings, and sometimes the misbehavior seems to call for a disciplinary response. But the law often protects the bad speech, and often prohibits punishment even in the name of maintaining respect, decorum or civil discourse. Standing up and walking out is always permissible. Threatening or actually imposing discipline may cross the line.

Do not be afraid to talk things out.

It is difficult to say something utterly irrevocable in the process of union-management relations. There are very few truly “gotcha” or “third rail” words that will destroy management rights. Talking things out is rarely damaging, and more often helps reach solutions (unless, of course, someone is trying to turn the workplace into a debating society). In the process of talking things out, honestly hedging your comments is also almost always OK: “I don’t know for sure, but I think …” or “… I need to check …”

Do not make quick decisions unless you have to.

Snap or immediate decisions can often be traps. “I hear you, I’ll get back to you,” is almost always an appropriate response. Very few labor relations decisions actually need to be made on the spot. Don’t be boxed in by a persistent demand for an immediate decision. Fall back and consult.

Good communication with the union is invaluable.

Make a habit of giving the union a “heads up” before something happens. This may seem like an affront to management rights, but it is actually one of the most valuable management tactics for achieving desired results. This also adds to your credibility. Thinking about and then actually inquiring about how the Union leadership will react and what they may have to react to is always a pathway to better labor relations.

June 25, 2018June 29, 2023

Second Chances Versus the #MeToo Movement

The issues that HR face today tend to be divisive now. What’s fair? What’s appropriate? What even are the facts?

Coretha Rushing, senior vice president, chief people officer at Equifax and board president at the Society for Human Resource Management, said this to a room of thousands of HR professionals on the Monday morning of SHRM’s annual conference. And she has a point: HR is increasingly in the spotlight, and most of these topics are heavily debated topics for which get people emotional on either side of the issue.

“Everywhere you look, people issues are dominating conversation, from #MeToo to AI and so much more,” Rushing said. That seemed to be a major theme of this year’s annual conference: HR is both increasingly the subject of people’s attention now, and meanwhile organizations like SHRM are making more of an effort to advocate for issues publicly under the leadership of Johnny C. Taylor Jr., who certainly does not come across as someone who’s nervous to debate.

My editor Rick Bell has gone into detail about this as it relates to the Workflex in the 21^st Century Act, and I’d like to throw out another context a well as I conclude my SHRM18 coverage for Workforce. I’ll use Taylor’s press conference on Monday, June 18, as source material. Also my inspiration: an HR professional who in a passing, short conversation said that they were surprised SHRM didn’t have more planned around sexual harassment.

Harassment is one of those hotly debated topics that is difficult for HR to address.

According to Taylor, three major agenda items for SHRM are workplace immigration, second-chances for the formerly incarcerated, and harassment (both sexual and otherwise). An obvious tension point between two of these three items, which one journalist did ask Taylor about at his press briefing, is #MeToo versus people who have been incarcerated for a sexual crime.

We didn’t get a clear answer on this from Taylor in the press conference, although it seems clear what SHRM’s perspective will be on second chances. Case in point:

Everyone deserves to start over after they’ve served their time, Taylor said. Everyone deserves that second chance. I’m playing devil’s advocate here: That’s a pretty broad statement. Not everyone does. What about the Harvey Weinsteins, Mario Batalis or Matt Lauers of the world? There are enough men in the world who don’t harass women, and enough women who haven’t been given those same career opportunities as men, historically, that maybe they should be the ones to get their first chance.
An even more interesting debate moving forward will be, what about third chances? And fourth chances? Taylor posed this thought. My counterpoint: I’d really, really hope companies would put their foot down after a certain number, in the context of harassment. To do otherwise would be irresponsible. Also, think of how many of these cases that have come to light recently in which a person has continually committed similar verbal or physical abuse and gotten away with it. They’ve already gotten their chance not to repeat a behavior again.
If a person’s criminal record says “assault,” that can mean many different offenses, Taylor said. For example, maybe it was a verbal threat and nothing physical. My counterpoint: Verbal threats are still serious. Let’s not undermine the seriousness of these just because nothing physical happened; emotional and mental abuse are real and not to be taken lightly.

Big picture, here’s what I’m getting at: People have the capability to change and reform. But let’s admit the seriousness and pervasiveness of sexual harassment. Crazily enough, there are people out there who still don’t get that this is a big deal! Or that women don’t seem to know how to take a compliment or a joke!

My concern is that it’s already pretty well-known that HR historically has not done enough or gone far enough in the fight against sexual harassment. Yes, it’s a positive if HR folks want to give people second chances, but I really hope that they’ll be much more proactive at appropriate punishments, like firing or filing criminal charges if necessary, when it comes to people who have been incarcerated for sexual offenses, whether that’s verbal or physical. HR has a lot to prove right now in how it deals with sexual harassment.

This brings me to Rushing’s talk, because at one point she brought up how at Nike, when a group of women wanted to come forward about harassment, they went to the media, not HR. That’s how they knew something would actually get done to address the situation.

“Too often we’re hearing, I went to HR and nothing happened,” Rushing said.

My personal call for HR professionals in the advocacy space is: Yes, of course, advocate for the formerly incarcerated. It’s true that they’re an untapped source for talent. I want to be clear that I agree this is a very positive development, that Taylor had many solid points in his argument, and that many people out there deserve a second chance.

Meanwhile, don’t put sexual harassment on the back burner. That’s still important and should remain in the spotlight as well. As you move to improve the job-search environment for the formerly incarcerated, also remember to be more assertive in how you address harassment.

June 25, 2018June 29, 2023

2018 Workforce Game Changer: Laura Roenick

Laura Roenick, Director, Talent Acquisition, United Talent Agency

Laura Roenick is a strong supporter of diversity and inclusion, and not just because it’s her job. The director of diversity, development and recruitment at talent and literary agency United Talent Agency is Latina and the daughter of a first-generation immigrant, giving her a personal connection to her role.

Roenick, 35, has been a part of many projects that have pushed diversity and inclusion initiatives at United Talent Agency. She remodeled the referral-based process into one that’s more diverse when sourcing and selecting entry-level candidates. In this way, it was ensured that all résumés were reviewed, even those of individuals who don’t have a connection to the industry.

And in a time where the Time’s Up movement is prevalent, Roenick also focuses on coordinating overviews of the movement across the United Talent Agency offices and hosts follow-up innovation sessions in New York, Los Angeles and Nashville, Tennessee.

Go here to read about the rest of our 2018 Game Changers

— Aysha Ashley Househ