Rick Bell – Page 15

July 24, 2020October 22, 2021

Ethics and the future of workforce management

As the future of work rapidly evolves and organizations integrate people, technology, alternative workforces and new ways of working, leaders are wrestling with an increasing range of ethical challenges.

These challenges are especially pronounced at the intersection between humans and technology, where new questions top the ethics agenda about the impact of emerging technologies on workers and society. How organizations combine people and machines, govern new human-machine work combinations and operationalize the working relationship between humans, teams and machines will be at the center of how ethical concerns can be managed for the broadest range of benefits. Organizations that tackle these issues head-on – changing their perspective to consider not only “could we” but also “how should we” – will be well positioned to make the bold choices that help to build trust among all stakeholders.

Ethical concerns are front and center for today’s organization as the nature of work, the workforce and the workplace rapidly evolve. In Deloitte’s 2020 Global Human Capital Trends report, 85 percent of survey respondents believe that the future of work raises ethical challenges but only 27 percent have clear policies and leaders in place to manage them.

And managing ethics related to the future of work is growing in importance: More than half of the respondents said that it was either the top, or one of the top issues facing organizations today, and 66 percent said it would be in three years.

According to our report, four factors rose to the top of the ethics concerns: legal and regulatory requirements, rapid adoption of AI in the workplace, changes in workforce composition and pressure from external stakeholders.

The leading driver that respondents identified was legal and regulatory requirements. Given that there is often a lag in laws and regulations relating to both technology and workforce issues, this perception is surprising. However, outside of a few moves including fair workweek rules for hourly workers, policy changes have been slow in coming.

The pressure on ethics created by the rapid adoption of AI in the workplace, however, is much more understandable. AI and other technologies make ethics in the future of work, specifically more relevant because the proliferation of technology is driving a redefinition of work. Perhaps the issue that has attracted the most attention is the question of how technology affects the role of humans in work.

While our survey found that only a small percentage of respondents are using robots and AI to replace workers, headlines of the forthcoming “robot apocalypse” continue to capture global attention and raise concern. Organizations that are implementing technologies that drive efficiencies can expect to make decisions whether and how to redeploy people to add strategic value elsewhere, and what, if they decide to eliminate jobs, they will do to support the workers thus displaced. AI will also be a part of scheduling work across a blended workforce of machine and human workers.

As technology becomes more embedded into work, its design and use needs to be assessed for fairness and equity. Organizations should consider questions such as whether their applications of technology decrease or increase discriminatory bias; what procedures they have to protect the privacy of worker data; whether technology-made decisions are transparent and explainable; and what policies they have in place to hold humans responsible for those decisions’ outputs.[1]

Our research found that the third driver of ethics’ importance in the future of work is changing workforce composition, which raises issues about the evolving social contract between the individual and the organization and the organizations and society — the growth of the alternative workforce is one major phenomenon contributing to these concerns.

The number of self-employed workers in the United States is projected to hit 42 million in 2020. “Invisible labor forces” are being exposed in the recent research by Mary Gray and Siddarth Suri’s “Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass,” which talks about the unsavory working conditions of many workers performing the high-tech piecework (labeling data, captioning images and flagging inappropriate content) that powers automation and AI.

The fast growth of this workforce segment is calling to attention related ethical concerns, including alternative workers’ access to fair pay, health care and other potential benefits.

July 21, 2020June 29, 2023

How to effectively use data analytics for workforce success

There’s a lot of emphasis put on data-driven decision making. But how do organizations start that process? Serena Huang, global head of people analytics at the Kraft Heinz Co., shared some helpful insights into how leaders can use data to better understand the workforce and improve overall management and performance.

Workforce recently caught up with her, and she shared her thoughts on how to use data analytics and gather information and employee feedback for better workforce management.

Workforce: What do leaders need to know about the relationship between strategic business planning and data analytics?

Serena Huang: I’d encourage leaders to think of data analytics as a new mindset and a new language rather than a new tool from IT. There are several areas where analytics can improve business planning, such as more accurate demand forecasting and a better understanding of consumer behaviors.

WF: What is the importance of using analytics in managing people? How did the COVID-19 pandemic highlight this?

Huang: It’s always been important to use analytics in managing people. Many companies would say that “people are their most important asset” and even the most technologically advanced companies cannot operate without people. Instead of relying on intuition, analytics can help organizations make more informed decisions faster and at scale.

Employees’ health, safety and engagement have never been more important. The pandemic has provided an opportunity for HR to become heroes by caring for employees and ensuring business continuity. At Kraft Heinz, this is critical because our employees are crucial to making food that everyone needs. We have a responsibility around the world to feed people, and our employees make it happen.

WF: What are the common misconceptions about people analytics and its role in workforce management?

Huang: One of the biggest misconceptions is that data must be perfect before you can do analytics. I always recommend starting with the business problem rather than the data. You’d be surprised how much usable data already exists. Another misconception is that you need data scientists or know how to code to start doing people analytics. It is much more important to focus on the right questions before hiring a data scientist or learning how to model.

Also read: Labor data analytics can inform better talent decisions

WF: How can organizations effectively use and make sense of the data they have?

Huang: Visualizations and dashboards are great ways to turn data into insights. To know where to start, it’s best to align with business leaders on solving problems.

For example, in workforce management, companies often have significant data on time and attendance, so a starting point can be using analytics to optimize labor costs. If there are different systems, it’s helpful to choose a country or location that needs the most help and start with a pilot.

To create the most value, it’s important to monitor data quality on an ongoing basis.

WF: How can organizations track the right type of data for their workforce? How can they identify metrics of success?

Huang: It’s crucial to stay closely connected with the leadership team on strategy and business problems. If you can figure out the top three to five pain points, you can then frame questions to answer and think about what data you’d need.

The metrics of success will vary from one problem to another. I’d recommend thinking in different time frames and ask yourself what success looks like in six months, 12 months, and two to three years.

WF: How can managers use data to improve productivity and boost employee engagement?

Huang: Managers can certainly leverage surveys if they have a large organization. Often organizations conduct engagement surveys on a regular basis, so start with existing surveys for potential areas of improvement.

For managers with smaller teams, it is most beneficial to conduct regular check-ins and one-on-ones. Managers must create an environment where there is psychological safety, so team members feel comfortable sharing concerns openly.

WF: What are different ways companies can collect feedback or listen to their employees, especially in the era of remote work?

Huang: There are several ways companies can listen to employees, including surveys, virtual focus groups, and Q&A during employee town halls. It’s helpful to monitor the participation rates as it could signal overload if participation decreases. It’s also important to encourage managers to connect with their team members directly on a regular basis in addition to this corporate-level feedback.

WF: What are the factors to consider when choosing the right tools, methods or technology to measure and improve employee engagement?

Huang: A good starting point will include an evaluation of how many employees, how many languages, local legal requirements, reporting/analytics for users, text analytics capabilities. In my article published on LinkedIn, I explain why there isn’t the “right” number of times to pulse employees, and it depends on how quickly the business leaders can act on feedback.

WF: What do you think the future of work will look like given current times?

Huang: It’s hard to predict what will be a temporary rather than permanent shift in the future of work, but I see more focus on flexibility, diversity and inclusion, well-being and skills development.

Data from COVID HR-Pulse show that fewer than 50 percent of companies had a remote work program before the pandemic, and now office employees have been working virtually for months. Employees will demand more flexibility, and organizations can use flexibility to attract new hires.

We have seen different businesses get creative during the pandemic. At Kraft Heinz, we’re focused on being agile at scale because we believe that agile and nimble organizations will outperform those that cannot pivot quickly when needed. To be truly agile in workforce planning, an organization should know the skill sets needed to deliver business results and the skills its workforce currently has.

Also read: A midterm outlook on the future of the workplace

The recent tragedies have brought diversity and inclusion front and center for many organizations. Companies that can create an inclusive environment where everyone belongs will continue to be able to attract and retain talent.

While mental health remains a difficult topic to discuss, especially in a corporate setting, the pandemic has made it more critical to talk about this topic. We will likely see a focus on employee well-being extend beyond the pandemic.

July 20, 2020June 29, 2023

Employee performance shines bright with valuable, continuous shift feedback

With the number of engaged employees consistently hovering at a disappointing 33 percent, it’s little wonder that retaining good workers is an elusive endeavor.

Disengaged employees can break down an organization. Minimal effort and a lack of productivity shouldn’t be the standard expectation, and building a quality workforce takes teamwork and constant inspection and fine-tuning of the processes. There are better ways than “hire and pray they work out” to develop, engage and evaluate a workforce.

Rate your employees’ performance

For managers there is no greater feeling of satisfaction than watching an employee grow into their role. Some employees thrive immediately, and others take time to bloom and flourish. Building a strong team takes a keen eye for talent, but assessing and developing effective talent also requires time and patience.

One solution is utilizing software that allows managers to evaluate employees through continuous, ongoing shift ratings and feedback. Much like tracking an actor from cameo appearance to leading role, the five-star rating system follows an employee’s pathway for success from an ordinary start to a meteoric rise in achievement.

‘A’ ratings — assessment and accountability

How do you hold your team accountable while also inspiring them to grow?

Managers can take the input and build skill profiles for their front-line employees with a shift rating and feedback solution. Qualitatively assessing an employee’s performance may at first seem arbitrary, but as the assessment continues over the course of that person’s tenure with the organization, the solution reveals ongoing performance over time.

Using a five-star rating system, managers can record employee performance immediately after their shift ends.

Assessments aid scheduling

Too often managers are forced to guess which employees mesh best. This should not turn into a game of Whack-a-Mole hoping to guess which person to pair with your cadre of five-star employees. There are likely a handful of two-star employees, while the bulk of the workforce ranks among three- and four-star staffers and it is imperative that managers consistently find the proper Triple-S balance: seniority, salary and skill.

A shift feedback and rating tool provides the perspective and guidance managers need to blend top talent with those who are competent in their work as well as those who require more training. While having a lineup of all five-star talent is a manager’s dream, conversely, scheduling an entire shift of two-star talent has the potential for disaster.

Incorporating a shift rating and feedback app into a manager’s arsenal provides that quick-glance guidepost to maximize the available talent at any given time.

Don’t hesitate — rate!

Like a forgotten item on a grocery list left on the counter, it’s easy to forget the nuances of an employee’s performance in the days following their shift. Implementing a shift rating app leaves nothing to memory.

Wait two weeks or even two days and recollection of that employee’s performance is as hazy as the IPA they were serving that day. Rate the employee’s performance from one to five stars immediately after the shift ends and there is no room for doubt.

Managers then gain the confidence that their assessment maintains pinpoint accuracy and removes the guesswork from scheduling future shifts. The ratings also can be averaged per team to determine where staff performs best.

You’ll be a star when scheduling your employees with the confidence you need through a continuous system of rating their performance based on one to five stars. Get the Workforce.com shift rating and feedback app and let your stars shine through.

July 14, 2020June 29, 2023

Employee growth and team building is no mystery for escape room company

Puzzle Break, escape room, engagement, team building

Escape rooms have grown in popularity as a way for friends and families to collectively crack the code to diffuse an imaginary time bomb or uncover clues to propel their mythical team of adventurers past an evil witch and return home.

Not surprisingly, these live-action games that allow teams to cooperatively explore a physical space and solve mental and physical puzzles to accomplish a goal as time ticks away also have become a popular corporate team-building tool.

team building, employee engagement — Nate Martin

But team building has been a challenge for organizations in recent months. As more employees work remotely and opportunities for workers to congregate in one place for any length of time is often discouraged, dodging mythical trolls and creating a team of elite hackers to foil a mad scientist’s plot to take over the world has not exactly been top of mind for most organizations.

With a recent report by HR consultancy Gartner stating that 74 percent of CFOs intend to shift some employees to remote work permanently, collaboration among workers could continue to deteriorate. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, 19 percent of remote workers say they struggle with loneliness, and 17 percent add that a lack of communication and collaboration also is an issue for them.

Zoom fatigue

While Zoom happy hours and virtual lunch chats bring colleagues together for a more personal experience, they don’t necessarily build and sustain organizational teamwork. Videoconference fatigue, or “Zoom fatigue,” is further exhausting employees, according to experts.

So, enter the virtual escape room, which can provide companies in need of activities fostering communication, collaboration and fun in a game-like environment minus the fatigue associated with a workday videoconference.

CASE STUDY: How LAZ Parking discovered the secret sauce of employee engagement

Seattle-based escape-room company Puzzle Break in March pivoted to a virtual version for remote teams to play online after shutting down all its physical escape room facilities. As of early July, company officials said that more than 400 escape experience groups have included over 3,300 players — many with more than 20 in a group. Participants including companies like Microsoft, Starbucks and Deloitte are using the escape rooms as a remote team-building tool, they add.

But as Puzzle Break helped to facilitate the virtual employee engagement efforts of its clients, it also faced challenges of its own. According to Puzzle Break founder Nate Martin, demand for virtual escape rooms outpaced his staff’s ability to keep up. Unlike many companies that laid off or furloughed their hourly employees, Puzzle Break began searching for talent.

Also read: Boost your managers’ effectiveness with an essential mobile clock-in tool

“We’ve gone to great lengths to bring on and retain long-term employees with pay and benefits well above industry standard,” said Martin, whose staffing has climbed up to 40 employees. “When COVID hit and we pivoted to virtual team building, we became slammed with demand from a newly global customer base. In order to keep up with demand, we’ve been hiring hourly folks as fast as we can to curate Puzzle Break experiences for time zones across the planet.”

Scaling up onboarding

With the new demand for virtual team building, Martin said it is extremely difficult to find time at the company level to get everyone together since all his employees are remote for the time being.

“Fortunately, we have a baked-in solution,” he said. “All our new hires go through multiple Puzzle Break virtual team-building experiences together in a cohort as part of their onboarding. We have deliberately engineered our employee training to be hands-on team building.”

For Puzzle Break, which has physical locations in Seattle, New York and the Boston area, growth is a relief in this era of cutting staff. But it does test the organization’s people practices, Martin said.

“We’ve reached a point where I haven’t met over half our workforce,” Martin said. “It’s great to grow, but it is bringing all sorts of new and exciting challenges.”

Organizations face numerous challenges while onboarding and scheduling employees in an uncertain economic environment. See the big picture and make more accurate, data-driven staffing and scheduling decisions in just a few clicks with our comprehensive scheduling software. Check it out and our Workforce Success team will provide a personal, online walk through of our scheduling platform.

July 13, 2020October 4, 2021

Human capital management: Enriching your human resources

Human resource management is an ever-evolving discipline in business management.

Dating back to the early 1900s, experts recognized that managing a workforce goes beyond carrying out transactional tasks and ensuring that there are hands on deck to get the job done. Gradually, more attention is given to understanding employee well-being and its importance in delivering quality work.

One expert who delved into the study of the workforce was James R. Angell, president of Yale University and the Carnegie Corp. He started a joint initiative between the Engineering Foundation and National Research Council to propel a research movement that looks into the science behind workforce management through unifying modern engineering, labor management, and educational bodies. It has given birth to Workforce.com today and for 98 years, this initiative has delved deep into the issues within the workforce and understand best practices in human resource management.

As market trends change and employee behavior and preferences shift, an organization’s human resources management practices should also pivot to meet these developments. Today, it is all about engaging the workforce to push the business forward and is a key component of business success.

Human Capital: Investing in your organization’s best asset

Human resource management, as its name suggests, is an area of business management that ensures a holistic experience for the organization’s most important resource — its people. It’s involved with the following:

Recruitment: Recruitment is the core foundation of building an organization’s human capital. It is involved in identifying the needs of the company and the particular roles that can fill those gaps. Attracting, screening, and onboarding candidates are all part of the recruitment process. The goal of the recruitment process is to successfully find candidates whose skills, values and motivations are aligned with the organization’s goals and culture.
Compensation and benefits: Compensation and benefits refer to what the company gives its employees in exchange for their work or service, and they include monetary and non-monetary components. A company’s compensation and benefits package includes an employee’s salary and government-mandated benefits. Other perks and incentives can be part of the deal such as insurance coverage, gym membership, housing allowance, company-sponsored trips and events.
Labor law compliance: Running an organization is governed by employment laws. Human resource management is involved in creating company policies that comply with labor regulations. Labor law regulations vary per region and they can change from time to time. That being said, a crucial part of human resource management is staying at pace with these changes and ensuring that company policies remain compliant.
Training and development: Training and development are focused on nurturing the potential of employees. Training refers to programs that are geared toward improving skills or learning new technical knowledge needed to perform tasks. Meanwhile, development is focused more on programs that enrich an employee’s overall growth concerning soft skills, leadership, communication, and adapting to certain situations.
Retention and engagement: Human resource management is also involved in creating strategies to keep employee turnover to a minimum. Retention and engagement programs are proactive steps to ensure that employees are motivated to perform their best not just for a paycheck but because they have a clear alignment of values with the organization. All of these parts should move cohesively to ensure the best experience possible for staff at every stage of the employee lifecycle.

Overcoming human resource management problems

Human resource management involves a lot of moving parts and these can come with their own sets of challenges. Here are common challenges in human resource management and ways to solve them.

Difficulty in attracting the right talent.

Delays in hiring can be costly, but an unfit hire can also be detrimental to an organization. So how do you know a candidate is fit for the role? While skills and experience are important in assessing whether an applicant is qualified or not, it’s also essential to look into whether they can fit into your company culture.

How to solve:

It’s all about clarity and a good candidate experience. Create your job ad in such a way that it highlights what you’re looking for and what’s in it for a qualified candidate when they get in. Provide information about the working style and culture that you have in your company. This will attract people who both have the required skills and similar values as you. At the same time, this can also filter out candidates who have a different working style and culture preference. Another common challenge is convincing candidates who are highly skilled and qualified yet passive. These candidates are most likely in touch with a lot of recruiters and are considering more than one job offer. How do you stand out? Look into what motivates this type of worker. Investigate what that person is looking for in an employer and see if that aligns with your goals, culture and compensation package. Customize your messaging accordingly.

Boosting your brand as an employer can also help increase your chances of attracting the right talent. According to research from Glassdoor, organizations that invest in employer branding are three times more likely to make a quality hire.

Poor candidate experience can also be the thing between you and a quality hire. Communication is at the core of solving this. Make sure that all details and instructions are clear at every stage of the process. Timely feedback and response are also crucial. Take a look at your current process and see how it’s affecting candidate experience and employer brand. Glassdoor found that organizations that create a strong experience for candidates improve their quality of hires by 70 percent.

Dealing with too much paperwork.

Human resource management deals with a lot of information — from employee details, company policies and other essential business documents. And too much paperwork can be a burden, especially when done manually. It can take time away from more valuable tasks like strategizing and optimizing programs and processes.

How to solve:

There are digital solutions that can remove the tedious task of processing paperwork. For instance, digital employee onboarding solutions help eliminate the long forms that new hires need to fill. They enable new staff to log in their information and upload important documents online. This ensures better accuracy of information, improves the employee onboarding experience, and allows for a better way for a new hire to spend his first day at work.

Understanding and applying labor laws.

Staying compliant with labor laws is a must. However, understanding regulations, applying them in policies, and staying at pace with labor law changes can be very challenging.

How to solve:

Implement a compliance strategy to avoid any potential financial and reputational repercussions of failing to comply. A compliance strategy is a set of programs and processes that’s geared towards ensuring regular updates and audits of policies and communicating any changes with staff promptly. Given the ever-evolving nature of regulations, it’s best to build a strategy and assign a working group to focus on compliance. Technology is also helpful in staying at pace with changes. For instance, some solutions automate labor law updates and ensure that these are reflected in the payroll computation.

Retaining employees.

Attracting the right talent is just half of the battle. The other half is retaining them and keeping them satisfied with their role, especially those that are performing above and beyond.

How to solve:

It’s all about consistent growth and learning. Employees are more likely to stay the course when they are given opportunities to grow and are recognized as a vital part of the organization’s success.

Training and development programs are essential to retaining employees. But creating these programs is not a one-time thing. That’s why it’s important to have regular alignments with your staff. Regular check-ins can help you get a pulse on their current sentiment about working in the organization, satisfaction with their roles, and the challenges or gaps they’re facing. From there, you can customize programs or identify next steps that can help them stay engaged.

It also pays to have a competitive compensation and benefits package. One of the things to keep employees happy and make them know that they are valued is by providing not just what they need to get their job done, but also offering other incentives that will motivate them to perform better and stay aligned with the values of the organization.

Engaging talent at every stage of the employee lifecycle.

Human resource management plays an important part in engaging employees, and it is a continuous process throughout every stage of the employee lifecycle, from onboarding up until the time an employee leaves an organization. All of these stages affect culture, staff morale, and the success of the company.

An organization is only as good as its employees. It’s imperative to nurture and cultivate staff no matter where they are in their tenure with the organization. Doing this takes time. That’s why it’s important for human resources to have the right technology in place so that they can reduce time on administrative tasks and focus more of their energy on engaging employees.

July 2, 2020June 14, 2020

Court defers to OSHA on COVID-19 safety issues

Smithfield Foods is a meat-processing company, which was affected by several federal and state orders related to COVID-19. On April 4, the state of Missouri identified livestock-slaughter facilities as “critical infrastructure.”

On April 22, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration sent a “rapid response investigation” letter to Smithfield regarding its COVID-19 work practices and infection at Smithfield’s Milan, Missouri, plant, and giving Smithfield seven days to respond. OSHA requested that Smithfield identify what policies and actions had been implemented in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Rural Community Workers Alliance, which represents the workers at Smithfield’s Missouri plant, brought a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri accusing Smithfield of failing to adequately protect employees at the Missouri plant from contracting COVID-19. The RCWA raised state-law claims for public nuisance and breach of duty to provide a safe workplace.

The court dismissed the lawsuit. The court dismissed the case under the primary jurisdiction doctrine, which allows a district court to refer a matter to the appropriate administrative agency for ruling.

Citing in part the Trump administration’s April 28 Executive Order requiring meat processing plants to continue operating during the pandemic, the court concluded that “OSHA (in coordination with the USDA per the Executive Order) is better positioned to” determine whether Smithfield’s plant was complying with federal guidance. Rural Community Workers Alliance, et al. v. Smithfield Foods, Inc. et al., No. 5:20-CV-06063-DGK 2020 WL 2145350 (W.D. Mo. May 5, 2020)

IMPACT: While labor unions and advocacy groups will continue to raise concerns regarding worker safety in light of COVID-19, federal courts may be inclined to defer to OSHA on these matters. Ultimately, by reducing the risk of workers’ exposure to the virus, employers can also reduce their own exposure to liability.

June 28, 2020June 14, 2020

Overtime and FLSA outside sales exemption

employment law, labor law, overtime records

Eugene Martinez was a sales representative for Superior HealthPlan, Inc. Martinez’s duties included soliciting Medicare Advantage Plans. Superior classified Martinez as an independent contractor pursuant to the terms of his sales agreement. Martinez subsequently filed a lawsuit against Superior, alleging that he was misclassified as an independent contractor and was entitled to overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Superior filed a motion for summary judgment regarding Martinez’s FLSA claim, arguing that even if Martinez was an employee he would not be entitled to overtime pay because he fell under the FLSA’s outside sales exemption.

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas held that Martinez was not entitled to overtime pay because the outside sales exemption applied. The court assumed that Martinez was an employee for purposes of argument and focused on Martinez’s actual job duties for Superior. The court noted that Martinez spent virtually every weekday in sales appointments away from Superior’s offices. The court deemed that the FLSA’s outside sales exemption applied and Martinez to the extent that he should have been classified as an employee and was not entitled to overtime pay. Martinez v. Superior HealthPlan, Inc., 371 F. Supp. 3d 370 (W.D. Tex. 2019).

IMPACT: Companies that employ sales representatives should be aware of the fact that such employees are not automatically exempt under the FLSA. Under the FLSA, an employee may be classified as exempt from overtime pay if he or she is paid above the FLSA’s earnings threshold and his or her duties meet one or more exempt “duties test” categories (i.e., executive, administrative, professional or outside sales exemptions).

June 25, 2020June 29, 2023

Your time clock is better with GPS functionality

frontline workforce, Boost your managers’ effectiveness with an essential mobile clock-in tool

A manager’s effectiveness depends on many variables.

Support from company executives is critical. Possessing the know-how to hire and retain a reliable staff is another. And having the personal attributes to interact effectively with others — the so-called soft skills such as communication, positive attitude and leadership — are absolute musts for an effective manager.

Hard skills are equally as important, and employers can clearly boost managers’ effectiveness by equipping them with the right tools to successfully supervise their teams. Provide your managers with a mobile tool that boosts their ability to know in real time that all shifts will be covered, who is scheduled for what shift and when that employee clocks in.

Scheduling concerns are a thing of the past

Mobile time clock software automates how the staff clocks in and out while improving the accuracy and efficiency of every manager. Every internet-connected device essentially becomes a time clock. No one has to touch a communal device or handle paper time cards. Spreadsheets and calculators are no longer necessary since a mobile solution streamlines cumbersome administrative tasks.

A mobile solution will:

Free up managers’ time.
Simplify scheduling by tracking attendance, paid and unpaid breaks, and time off.
Ensure that every shift is covered without guesswork.
Assure the right person clocks in for the shift.
Allow staff to communicate with managers and each other.
Integrate with other tools to manage staff.
Eliminate bulky paperwork.

Target employees on the go

Your employees are checking their phones to pass the time. Whether at home or on the move, make their phones an essential work tool when it is equipped with a mobile time clock. From anywhere and at any time, a time clock app integrated with workforce management solutions authorizes your staff to check their schedule, communicate with a fellow employee about a shift swap or ask a manager for time off. More than a time clock in their pocket, the multi-tool mobile app lets employees use their phones to clock in and out and allows managers to monitor in real time where and when the punch in or punch out occurs.

Multipurpose mobile app

The best mobile clock in apps do more than merely track an employee’s work hours. Paired with a powerful scheduling tool, managers will simplify the time-consuming task of creating complicated rotating or overnight shifts. Timesheets created from clock ins can be auto-approved to relieve an overwhelmed business manager and improve an organization’s overall effectiveness.

Easing compliance concerns

Sloppy recordkeeping, inaccurate payroll and incoherent time-and-attendance protocols can quickly bog down an organization with costly, burdensome compliance issues. A paper timesheet system just can’t ease those stresses compared to a mobile clock in solution, which efficiently tidies the payroll process and saves trees by eliminating the need for unnecessary paperwork.

Managers also can be assured that the right person is clocking in for the right shift through electronic photo verification and unique passcodes. The nagging problem of buddy punching is a thing of the past with photo ID verification.

Since a mobile time clock app is so easy to use, employees are helping their bosses avoid costly wage-and-hour disputes, trim unnecessary overtime and eliminate embarrassing and expensive payroll corrections. Clocking in and out is simple, as employees use their own device to tap into the app to clock in and out.

Empower your managers

Soft skills may be hard to come by but hard skills are indispensable to a manager’s ability to supervise staff. Give your managers the tools they need to manage their employees and administer digital timesheets, payroll, budgeting and labor compliance reporting. A mobile time clock app gives your managers a powerful tool that makes employee supervision a breeze.

Empower your employees

Make clocking in and out, requesting absences, viewing current and past timesheets and communicating with one another while on the go a snap for your hard-working staff. With an intuitive, mobile-first user experience, employees will find the Workforce.com Time Clock mobile app easy to use without any training.

Start tracking their time today!

June 24, 2020June 29, 2023

Are employees taking paid leave under the FFCRA?

According to a recent poll conducted by the National Partnership for Women & Families, less than one in five employees have either taken or plan to take paid sick or paid family leave under the FFCRA.

Of the 19 percent who has actually taken, or intend to take, paid FFCRA leave:

9 percent say they are using new leave protections for their own illness or isolation.
8 percent say they are using new leave protections due to a family member’s isolation/illness.
7 percent say they are using new leave protections to care for a child due to child care or school closure.
6 percent said they took leave, but not because of the new policy.

Yet, a higher number, more than one in four employees, have no idea that this paid leave even exists or are unsure if they will use it. Of this 28 percent of employees:

17 percent said they were unaware of the new protections.
11 percent are not sure if they will use the new protections.

These numbers seem low to me. So I’ve created my own poll, which you can take below.

I’ll publish the results tomorrow.

June 23, 2020June 29, 2023

Must you accommodate an employee with a high-risk family member?

One of the questions I have received most from clients during this pandemic comes in some variation of the following: “An employee [does not want to come into work/wants to work from home/wants a leave of absence] because s/he lives with someone who is at high risk for coronavirus complications. What do we do?”

In other words, must you accommodate an employee for the employee’s close family member’s disability?

According to the EEOC, the answer is, “No.”

Is an employee entitled to an accommodation under the ADA in order to avoid exposing a family member who is at higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19 due to an underlying medical condition?

No. Although the ADA prohibits discrimination based on association with an individual with a disability, that protection is limited to disparate treatment or harassment. The ADA does not require that an employer accommodate an employee without a disability based on the disability-related needs of a family member or other person with whom she is associated.

For example, an employee without a disability is not entitled under the ADA to telework as an accommodation in order to protect a family member with a disability from potential COVID-19 exposure.

According to me, however, the answer is, “It depends” (on how you’ve historically treated similar requests by similarly situated employees).

The ADA not only protects employees with disabilities, but it also protects employees associated with individuals with disabilities. There is, however, one critical difference between these two types of protections. The former imposes on employers an obligation to offer reasonable accommodations, while the latter does not. This difference, however, does not mean that employers in all cases can deny accommodations to employees associated with individuals with disabilities.

If an employer has a history of accommodating employees similarly situated to an employee requesting an accommodation for an employee associated with someone at risk for coronavirus complications, the employer would be open to claim of disparate treatment by denying the employee’s accommodation request. Thus, an employer must scrutinize its decision to deny an accommodation request for an employee’s family member against similar requests by other similarly situated employees to avoid a claim of disparate treatment.

Of course, the ADA is a floor and not a ceiling. An employer is always free to accommodate any employee’s request for any reason. As the EEOC points out, “[A]n employer is free to provide such flexibilities if it chooses to do so.” Further, during the pandemic, the DOL “encourages employers and employees to collaborate to achieve flexibility and meet mutual needs.”

Moreover, there are myriad business reasons why an employer might choose to grant an accommodation in this case.

It’s the ethically or morally correct thing to do.
It will help you to retain a quality employee.
Granting the accommodation will create goodwill, strengthening the employee’s loyalty to your company.
You will avoid the potential for bad press or negative social media if you deny the request, or worse, fire an employee seeking an accommodation under these circumstances.

For these reasons, I generally favor granting the accommodation. Unless there is a legitimate and overriding business reason to deny an accommodation request to an employee who, during the COVID-19 pandemic, seeks remote work or a leave of absence because he or she does not want to endanger a high-risk family member, grant the request. It’s the right thing to do, and, depending on the circumstances, it might also be the legal thing to do.