Rick Bell – Page 24

January 30, 2020June 29, 2023

Does Title VII protect veganism as a religion?

A judge in the United Kingdom has ruled that “ethical veganism” is a protected class akin to religion and is protected from workplace discrimination. The Washington Post shares the details:

An employment tribunal made that landmark determination in a case involving a man who claimed he was fired from his job at an animal rights organization for revealing to colleagues that their pension funds were invested in companies that experiment on animals. The tribunal has yet to rule on the merits of the case, but it did on Friday take the step of deciding that the man’s ethical veganism constitutes a “philosophical and religious belief” protected by anti-discrimination law.

That’s the United Kingdom. What about the United States? Well, it depends.

There are two leading cases on this issue.

In Chenzira v. Cincinnati Children’s Hosp. Med. Ctr. (S.D. Ohio 2012), the federal court denied the hospital’s motion to dismiss the employee’s religious discrimination claim. The core issue the court decided is whether veganism is a sincerely held religious belief, or merely a moral or secular philosophy or lifestyle (as the hospital argued). In support of her argument, Chenzira—a customer service representative who refused a flu vaccine because it contained animal by-products—cited an essay, The Biblical Basis of Veganism. She also cited bible verse to her employer when she made her request for a religious accommodation. In denying the motion to dismiss, the court stated:

The Court finds that in the context of a motion to dismiss, it merely needs to determine whether Plaintiff has alleged a plausible claim. The Court finds it plausible that Plaintiff could subscribe to veganism with a sincerity equating that of traditional religious views.

Contrarily, in Friedman v. Southern California Permanente Medical Group (Cal. Ct. App. 2002), the state appellate court dismissed the religious discrimination claims of a vegan IT worker who refused a mumps vaccine for similar reasons as Chenzira. He claimed the vaccine “would violate his system of beliefs and would be considered immoral by him,” which resulted in the withdrawal of his employment offer. The court concluded that veganism is not a protected religion:

We do not question plaintiff’s allegation that his beliefs are sincerely held; it is presumed as a matter of law that they are.… There is no allegation or judicially noticeable evidence plaintiffs belief system addresses fundamental or ultimate questions. There is no claim that veganism speaks to: the meaning of human existence; the purpose of life; theories of humankind’s nature or its place in the universe; matters of human life and death; or the exercise of faith. There is no apparent spiritual or otherworldly component to plaintiffs beliefs. Rather, plaintiff alleges a moral and ethical creed limited to the single subject of highly valuing animal life and ordering one’s life based on that perspective. While veganism compels plaintiff to live in accord with strict dictates of behavior, it reflects a moral and secular, rather than religious, philosophy.

In other words, while his beliefs are sincerely held, they are moral beliefs, and therefore secular and not religious.

To answer my question on how U.S. courts would view this issue, it depends on the jurisdiction in which your business is located, and perhaps whether the employee’s beliefs are grounded in spiritualism or personal morals.

These cases also raise a more fundamental question — how far should businesses go to accommodate employees’ requests for special treatment. To me, sometimes, the path of least resistance makes the most sense.

For a hospital, there may not be a path of least resistance when comes to public health issues such as vaccinations. Other businesses, however, have to balance the burden of granting the accommodation versus the risk of a lawsuit (and the costs that go with it). In many cases, the accommodation should win out, because it is easier and less costly than denying the request and eating a lawsuit, even if it’s a defensible lawsuit.

For example, if you face this same vaccination issue at your widget company, is there a harm in letting employees opt out on religious ground, even if it’s a borderline (at best) religion, like veganism. You can defend your decision to deny the request based on the bona fides of the claimed religion. But, where does that get you? Are you on right side of the law? Possibly. Have you irreparably damaged your relationship with your employee, while at the same time demonstrating to your entire workforce that you practice policies of exclusion instead of inclusion? Likely.

In other words, there are more factors to consider other than answering the question, “What does the law say about this?” How you incorporate those other factors into your accommodation decision-making is often more important than simply answering the underlying legal question.

January 29, 2020June 29, 2023

Chipotle settlement highlights child labor issues

employment law, labor law, overtime records

According to CNN, Chipotle has agreed to pay a $1.3 million fine for more than 13,000 child labor violations at over 50 of its Massachusetts restaurants.

The state’s attorney general’s office accused the company of forcing teenagers to work without proper work permits, late into the night, and for too many hours per day and week. It’s the largest child labor penalty in Massachusetts history.

Writing at Inc.com, Suzanne Lucas (aka the Evil HR Lady) makes the excellent point that these failings fall squarely on the shoulders of management.

Employees, even adult employees, aren’t expected to know and comply with all labor laws. … It’s not up to a 17-year-old to clock out no later than 9:59 pm. It’s the manager’s responsibility to make sure it happens. This can be difficult for managers—and can require some complicated scheduling or hiring more adults than teenagers. Some teens want to work more hours and are happy to keep their mouths shut. It doesn’t change the law around it. Managers need training on the law and how it differs between adults and minor employees.

So what are the rule of the road for child workers? Each state’s laws differs. Here’s what Ohio law says on the issue.

Ages 14 and 15

When school is in session: i) they cannot work between the hours of 7 p.m. and 7 a.m.; ii) they cannot work for more than 3 hours on any school day; and iii) they cannot work more than 18 hours during any school week

When school is out of session: i) they cannot work between the hours of 9 p.m. and 7 a.m.; ii) they cannot work more than 8 hours per day; and iii) they cannot work more than 40 hours per week.

Ages 16 and 17

When school is in session: i) 11 p.m. before a school day to 7 a.m. on a school day (6 a.m. if not employed after 8 p.m. the previous night); and there are no limits on hours worked per day or week.

When school is not in session, there are no limits on starting or ending times, or hours worked per day or week.

Unlike adult workers, all minors are required to have a 30-minute uninterrupted break when working for more than five consecutive hours.

Prohibited Occupations

All minors are prohibited from working in the following occupations:
Slaughtering, meat-packing, processing rendering
Operation of power-driven slicers; bakery machines; paper product machines; metal forming; punching or shearing machines; circular and band saws; guillotine shears; woodworking machines
Manufacture of brick, tile, and kindred products
Manufacture and storage of chemicals or explosives, or exposure to radioactive and ionizing radiation substances
Coal mining and mining other than coal
Logging and sawmilling
Motor vehicle, railroads, maritime, and longshoreman occupations
Excavation operations, wrecking, demolition, and shipbreaking
Power-driven and hoisting apparatus equipment
Roofing operations

Additional Prohibited Occupations for 14- and 15-Year-Olds

Manufacturing and warehouse occupations (except office and clerical work)
Public messenger services occupations
Work in freezers; meat coolers and all preparations of meats for sale (except wrapping, sealing labeling, weighing, pricing, and stocking)
Transportation; storage, communications, public utilities; construction and repair
Work in boilers or engine rooms; maintenance or repair of machinery
Outside window washing from window sills, scaffolding, ladders or their substitutes
Cooking, baking, operating, setting up, adjusting, cleaning, oiling, or repairing power-driven food slicers, grinders, food choppers cutters, baker type mixers
Loading or unloading goods to and from trucks, railroad cars or conveyors
Work with cars and trucks involving pits, racks, or lifting apparatus
Inflation of tires mounted on rimes equipped with a removable retaining ring
For-profit door-to-door employment (unless the employer is registered with the Ohio Dept. of Commerce Division of Labor & Worker Safety)

As one can imagine, the Department of Labor and state attorney general offices take child labor violations very seriously. Just ask Chipotle. And ignorance is no excuse.

January 29, 2020June 29, 2023

Cultures of cohesion connect employees with engagement

It’s time employers stop focusing on employee engagement and start focusing on cohesion, according to Troy Hall, chief strategy officer for South Carolina Federal Credit Union.

“More often than not, leaders fail to embrace the type of culture that places an emphasis on the employee,” said Hall. “When organizations claim employees are their greatest assets, one would expect to experience the type of thinking and see actions that correlate to that end.

“Far too often that is not the case because leadership has been taught for the past two decades to put profit before people.”

A “cohesion culture” is a work environment where employees have a sense of belonging, understand their value and commit to both self and desired organizational outcomes, he said.

Hall has spent 14 years working with the South Carolina Federal Credit Union’s leadership team to create a cohesion culture. He does it through an approach he calls the talent retention model, which he describes in his book “Cohesion Culture: Proven Principles to Retain Your Top Talent.”

“Cohesion is a causal phenomenon, engagement is not,” said Hall. “When cohesion is present, it has a positive impact on performance. Cohesive team members produce better results. Cohesion can be measured, engagement cannot.”

Engagement is an arrangement to do something with a specified period of time, he added.

“We think of engagement as leading to commitment, loyalty and going the extra mile. In fact, the type of engagement that leaders seek is fueled through cohesion.”

Today’s workforce requires transformative leaders who value people beyond the courting process, said Hall.

“Employees want to work in an environment that makes them feel like they belong, have value and can commit to both personal and corporate desired outcomes,” he added.

Hall’s strategies have worked, leading the credit union to be named one of Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work in 2019 and 2020. In 2017, it earned a No. 2 ranking on a national list of best credit unions to work from Credit Union Journal and Best Companies Group, which identified companies that have excelled in creating quality workplaces for employees.

Employees offered praise for the financial institution, citing its “fantastic” 401(k), time-off policies, an option that offers free health care, management’s ability to “keep things fun and keep motivation high” and how “they make you feel special, appreciated and give lots of opportunities to grow.”

Hall shares his organization’s success stories and methodologies with others’ top management and HR directors worldwide to help transform their cultures and retain top talent.

The war for talent must transcend merely attracting talent to focusing on retention strategies, said Hall.

“With 63 percent of the current workforce seeking opportunities for advancement or new roles, employers will need to focus on retaining that talent or it will become a revolving door between acquisition and retention,” said Hall.

It costs 25 percent of the employee’s salary to replace the organizational intelligence that walks out the door, Hall said.

Hall’s doctoral dissertation at Regent University in global leadership and entrepreneurship focused on group dynamics and cohesion.

“My assertion to focus on retention is based upon what we are seeing as trends in the marketplace and understanding how to create a culture that is self-fulfilling and sustainable,” he said.

It is critical for CEOs to lead the charge for talent retention, said Hall. His boss, Credit Union CEO Scott Woods is a prime example.

“CEOs who are self-aware inspire a cohesive spirit within their company and align individual wants, desires and goals to those of the organization,” Hall said.

The smallest of actions can have a ripple effect, said Hall.

“A misplaced comment or the unexplained absence of the CEO from a major organizational endeavor sends confusing signals,” he said. “It is up the CEO to ensure the leadership team is on board with the culture and that they work in tandem to represent one voice.”

Aligning employee goals to organizational goals maximizes the bottom line, said Hall.

Within the cohesion process, the element of commitment is more aptly fulfilled with leaders who support employee development first, then move toward organizational goals, said Hall.

January 29, 2020June 29, 2023

Engaging a remote workforce requires some down-home hospitality

employee communication, hearing, talk, schedules

Out of sight and out of mind is far from the truth when it comes to maintaining engagement among a remote workforce.

Today’s business culture is much more open to hiring remote workers as it expands the playing field for hiring new top talent, allows for more flexibility in schedules and in turn creates a better work-life balance for employees. Working remotely has increased by 103 percent since 2005.

Currently, 3.7 million employees work remotely (2.5 percent of the workforce) at least half the time. However, this can make maintaining high employee engagement and retention rates a bit tricky due to the common feeling of isolation among remote workers.

Jason Patel, founder of Transizion, a college and career prep company, said that starting with the onboarding process is key and that it is best to treat onboarding as if they were in-office employees.

“It’s important to set the tone from the start, that remote employees are just as appreciated as office employees. If that tone is set in the culture, it will percolate,” Patel said in an email statement.

Maintaining a productive and successful remote team culture requires a strong communication line. Communication tools such as Slack, Workplace or Zoom make it easier for remote teams to communicate and feel as though they aren’t missing out on important information, meetings or celebrations. They should feel like they are in the office alongside everyone else, voicing their opinions, sharing their ideas and actively contributing to the conversations.

Making sure to include remote employees in meetings and scheduling regular check-ins is also vital for creating an inclusive environment and tracking progress, according to Carlos Castelán, managing director of business management consulting firm The Navio Group. If remote employees aren’t provided with clear expectations and direction, it can be easy to feel like they are stranded on an island. Those who work remotely need to feel a sense of purpose in order to stay motivated and passionate about the company’s goals. “One of the hardest parts of staying motivated as a remote worker is fully grasping how your contributions fit into the overall picture and mission,” Castelán said.

Although emails, phone calls, video calls and text messages are convenient, Deb Boelkes, founder of leadership development firm Business World Rising, suggests taking it a step further and planning in-person meetups as a best practice if the budget permits. Whether in the form of large company events or small team-bonding outings, it is essential to build a sense of camaraderie as this can be an obstacle for those who don’t see their co-workers five days a week.

Boelkes also recommends scheduling weekly team calls to update everyone on individual and team progress, asking and offering help, brainstorming approaches and recognizing major accomplishments and successes. “Really knowing each other and meeting face-to-face helps build trust. Try to meet in person at least occasionally,” Boelkes said in an email statement. “Otherwise use video conferencing technology whenever possible. Team members need to know the other members on the team, what they are doing, and how they can help each other.”

Gamification has also become more popular in today’s business culture as it creates a sense of collaboration, cooperation and a competitive edge to everyday work responsibilities. Gamification applies game-playing elements to nongame environments, which can be used as a tactic to encourage engagement in a fun way.

This can be implemented into the recruitment or onboarding and training processes as well to increase retention rates. According to a 2019 TalentLMS study, 61 percent of the 900 employees surveyed said they receive training with gamification. Some 83 percent of those who received gamified training claimed to feel more motivated, and 61 percent of those who did not receive gamified training said they felt bored and unproductive.

“Whatever you do with office employees is what you should be doing for remote employees. If anything, you should be more disciplined and clear when working with remote employees,” Patel said. “There are far too few touch points between you and the remote employee, which means there are plenty of intersections for miscommunication. That’s why agendas, metrics, and goal and mission articulation are so important. Make it seem as if they are in the office with you.”

January 28, 2020June 29, 2023

Creating a healthy workplace culture can increase employee engagement

Michael O’Malley, co-author of “Organizations for People,” spoke with Workforce to discuss the best (and worst) practices when it comes to structuring a healthy workplace culture to maintain high employee engagement.

Workforce: What inspired “Organizations for People”?

Michael O’Malley: It came about because I had heard so many ugly stories about workplace issues. I wanted to write an anecdote to that, that there were companies out there that were quite different, and people should know about them. I wanted to provide some social science to provide some context. I also wanted to put principles behind what these companies do so people aren’t just trying to mimic the practices, but what they really should be thinking about is what these practices afford these companies to do.

Workforce: What are some best practices when it comes to creating a healthy workplace culture and maintaining high employee engagement?

O’Malley: It starts with the premise that there are institutional rules, like the foundation of the workplace is mutual respect and that that’s enforced so that there are certain ways of behaving that are acceptable and ways that are unacceptable, and that those are widely known. It’s not only a general attitude that you have toward one another, but it carries over to incidences of respect. So, you show up for meetings on time, you respond to people’s questions and you’re helpful — all of those kinds of interpersonal rules that enhance the pleasure of the workplace. It starts with basic rules of respect and values.

The companies that I visited tend to put the employees at the center of their organization and that means that there’s a lot of employee involvement. I can’t say there’s complete transparency, but there is significant transparency on how the company is doing and there’s general openness about news, events and finances and so forth about what’s going on in the company. When decisions are made, employees are fundamentally a part of that decision process.

There are lots of principles, but one other one that I thought was important was they foster this sort of sense of abundance that the employer has their backs and that the processes are fair. If one opportunity, for instance a career advancement, passes them by, they know that there will be other opportunities that will come along because their employer is working with them to find what they’re passionate about, what they want to do and is willing to readily move people across the organization into other roles and will put money into training them. A lot of these companies actually allow people to do internships in other departments or shadow people in other departments. So, rather than have this aggressive competitiveness for things that are in short supply, there is this feeling that through training, growth and ample career opportunity, you can actually take pleasure in other people’s successes because you know that the company is working if you work. I think that this notion of abundance is very important in these companies.

Workforce: Why is this a challenge for many organizations?

O’Malley: I think it’s because a lot of what these companies do seems unbusinesslike and risky from an organizational point of view. I think they are slightly afraid of trying out things that are a little bit different and may seem odd in business settings that people have grown accustomed to. So, these places are oddities, they do things that other places don’t do and I think the challenge is for people to break away from this strict notion of “this is the way it’s done” and to try something that’s a little bit different.

Maybe it’s a fear of looking a little bit foolish by trying something that may not work. I have to say that not everything that these companies do does work, but there is a very high tolerance internally for trying things and if it doesn’t work, then learning from those experiences and modifying their approach. Over time people become acclimated to these different ways and are very patient with one another in trying out things that are new. I think the fear really has to do with outmoded conceptions about what the workplace should look like.

Workforce: What organizations have you come across that you think are doing it right?

O’Malley: A lot of the companies in my sample are private companies, so they’re not really beholden to shareholders. But, Instructure, a technology company in Salt Lake City, was different because they’re a public company that creates learning platforms for higher educational and corporate institutions. They have a nice combination of being a very kind and caring organization, but at the same time they seem to have a very aggressive culture, in a good way — they want to win in the marketplace. They have managed this fine line of maintaining a culture that is genuine and pleasurable and at the same time going about their work without denying themselves the usual life satisfactions with friends and family. I think Instructure does it very well. Finding that balance between market aggressiveness and getting results, but at the same time innovation, is difficult to do but I’ve seen them do it.

Another company that has done it well that comes to mind is Pure Insurance, a premium property casualty insurer outside of New York. They, too, have instilled this sentiment that they want to be the best, they want to do things their way, differently, but at the same time have maintained this sense of belonging and all the things that people want like — belonging, autonomy, growth and self-confidence in their abilities.

So, those are two companies that I think people should visit and see how they manage these two worlds. There is this conception that kindness means soft and that isn’t it. Kindness means that you want people to fulfill their potential. So, one of the principles behind all of these companies, but certainly in Pure Insurance and Instructure, is that we want you to live a satisfying life, we want you to do what you want to do and we want you to be as good as you can be. A part of that caring is helping people to improve and become better people.

Workforce: What is the difference in approaches between private and publicly traded companies when it comes to maintaining a healthy workplace culture?

O’Malley: What happens is that, with a public company, people get overwhelmed by the financials — that most of what is communicated is financially-oriented — so a lot of times the rewards really are for revenue growth, profits and so forth.

I think that privately held companies often have the founder-owners who have started the company — not only with a market idea but with an idea about values in what a company should be — and those values carry through on the organization. All the companies that I visited in the book started with founders who had very definite ideas about what companies should do and what they should afford people who work within their companies, so they are very value-rich places to work. I can tell you that the profit isn’t the purpose of these organizations. I think they all have very caring and charismatic leaders who actually wanted the company to be formed with certain principles and values in mind. Sometimes with public companies, the longer they’ve been around, the bigger they get, the further they get from those principles that they had at their inception.

Workforce: How does this differ with a remote workforce?

O’Malley: TCG, which is an information technology consultancy in Washington, D.C., and Intuitive, which is an engineering consultancy in Huntsville, Alabama, are both consultancies, so a lot of people are out of the office most of the time. First of all, they have recurring staff meetings that bring people back in the home office occasionally, or sometimes they can be online meetings. Another company is Concord Hospitality in Raleigh, North Carolina. They have properties all over the place, so they have routines that people abide by, but they do a lot of things in parallel or take time to do things collectively.

For instance, every month TCG has some kind of charity drive that a committee of employees select, and the company will make a donation to that charity, but everyone will volunteer for a day.

For Concord Hospitality they’ll have charity week at all of their properties where people are dedicating time and resources to charities in their local environment but everybody is doing it the same week, same time throughout their properties. Additionally, every month Concord prints a poster-sized agenda for all of their properties that show everything happening that month. Consistency, routines and doing things in parallel are things that help remote workforces.

Workforce: Do you think organizations should come up with an alternative name for their staff, rather than use the term employee?

O’Malley: Yes. I don’t think any of the places I visited refer to employees as “employees.” They actually view that as a subservient relationship and they want a culture that’s more even, where there’s open, two-way communication. They want people to act independently and “employees” sort of has this dependency that they want to discourage.

The Motley Fool, an investment advisory house, they call each other “fools.” People at Patagonia are “patagoniacs.” I think this does two things; it fosters a bond that I think “employee” doesn’t have, but it also denotes a relationship with each other and the company that is more egalitarian, which is what these companies want.

Workforce: What are some goals that organizations should keep in mind while structuring or restructuring a healthy workplace culture? What would you advise them to do?

O’Malley: When you want to change a culture, you have to look at the people who behave consistently with that culture or who, through feedback, are able to change the way that they approach their behaviors in the workplace. Sometimes I think companies are slow to purge the negative out of the workplace, but I do think you have to have people who are in tune with the culture, and sometimes there are cohorts within organizations that just aren’t. Then, I would probably reestablish things with a new set of values and then actually change the way you hire and socialize, so you change the way you introduce people to the company. I would do that in either case. In either case, the thing you want to communicate from the start is that you have certain performance expectations of people, but you also have certain expectations about how they conduct themselves when they’re in the office. That starts with how you select people. You want not only people who are technically proficient but people who share the values of the organization.

Workforce: What are some common business fables that you have come across that you think are important for organizations to know as untrue?

O’Malley: There’s a fable that being compassionate or empathetic will interfere with people’s business judgment and that somehow they will be led astray by their emotions. To me, that’s a fable because you make wiser and better judgments when you have a sounder perspective of the situation, and that really involves understanding the emotional tenor of the situation. This concept of business objectivity is a falsehood. We would have better, wiser managers if they allowed themselves to entertain a broader range of information, including emotional information.

January 28, 2020June 29, 2023

Saying goodbye to a decade’s worth of bad wellness

Writing about workplace health and health care for the past several years has meant reading my fair share of buzzy health trends.

That’s why I’ve enjoyed reading about the worst wellness trends of the 2010s and discussing it with my friends and family. Vice even did a March Madness-style bracket, which I found to be fun.

Not surprisingly, the anti-vax movement took Gold, with the keto diet taking Silver.

I was especially happy that corporate wellness made it to Round 3! It lost to another unfortunate workplace trend, #NoDaysOff. You know, that crazy idea that people who work 90 hours a week and never take a break are superior to other employees, so they brag about it online? Woof.

Still, I’m glad workplace wellness made it as far as it did, because academic studies have shown that they’re not effective at cutting health costs or changing habits. They mostly shift health care costs to employees, hence the “cost-savings.” Here was Vice’s reasoning:

Corporate wellness is the latest iteration of workplace wellness, which has been around since the late 1800s and has always existed to increase worker productivity. The current iteration of corporate wellness is mainly focused on mindfulness, but can also include, uh, taking DNA samples from employees or harassing a double-mastectomy patient into getting a mammogram. Surprisingly, these programs don’t actually contribute to workplace wellness. Go figure!

This wonderful bracket made me think about the worst trends I’ve seen in employer health in the past several years.

Some of these relate to other parties that intersect with employers, and none of this is to throw shade at employers. A lot of good things have gone on this decade, as well! Reminiscing brings up cringe-worthy memories for everyone. For example, 10 years ago I used to crochet my own ill-fitted beanies and wear them out in public because I thought they made me look artsy. It’s not fun to revisit that one.

Here are my list of worst health trends, in no particular order.

1. The “culture of health” trend: Recently U-Haul got mixed reactions online for revealing that “it will no longer hire people who use nicotine in any form in the 21 states where such hiring policies are legal.” I’ve seen positive feedback from health advocates online, but ultimately, this is a scary, slippery slope. Are we headed in the direction of a person’s employability being increasingly more linked to their habits or their health?

Think about how the Affordable Care Act protects people with pre-existing conditions when it comes to accessing health insurance. Individuals with a health condition should have just as much of a chance at getting a job as healthy individuals. Health status shouldn’t be akin to a line on your resume.

2. Health care consumerism: One of my favorite articles in the past several years was a New York Times op-ed arguing that we have to stop referring to people paying for health services as “shoppers.”

I know, I know… This movement of encouraging individuals and employees to be smart health care consumers isn’t going away soon, probably. But I agree with the argument. Encouraging employees to be educated about health care is a good thing, but marketing health care as merely a consumer good rather than a vital service people need to survive seems misleading to me.

We should stick with “patients” instead of “health care consumers” or “shopper.” And, like this op-ed suggested, we can simplify our language and just say that patients “pick” or “choose” a health plan rather than “shop for” it.

3. Pseudoscience/misinformation: A big piece of wellness this month is “The Goop Lab with Gwyneth Paltrow” arriving on Netflix. Historically, Paltrow has received criticism from health advocates and medical professionals for spreading misleading or false health information through Goop, her wellness company. Yet Goop is still a big money-making player in the wellness industry.

Meanwhile, people also get misinformation about diets and workouts from social media wellness influencers, who may not be peddling effective or safe advice.

The bottom line is, take medical advice from professionals, not celebrities or influencers. And this doesn’t just apply to individual people. Health risk assessments, which some employers rely on, sometimes contain misinformation, according to Slate.

4. Overhyped health studies: Health journalism is infamous for the “big scary study.” A news outlet gets its hands on some research and twists a finding into something that will get attention. That’s how you get headlines about how some number of glasses of red wine a day reduces your chances of getting cancer.

According to the “How bad science can lead to bad science journalism — and bad policy” from the Washington Post, this also impacts employers’ decisions. This article gives the example of accountable care organizations, which employers may choose to offer employees. The best available evidence shows ACOs don’t work, the article cited. Still, journalists have sung their praises based on studies with deep design flaws.

I’ve written about this in more detail before, but both individuals and benefits decision makers should approach health journalism skeptically. Don’t be afraid to ask questions about how the research was conducted and what might be the limitations of the study.

Finally, my honorable mention goes to consumer-directed genetic tests — specifically the fact that individual or employer consumers may get marketing talking points rather than well-rounded information when companies try to sell these products to them.

January 26, 2020June 29, 2023

So, who says Generation Z and millennials are anti-leadership job-hoppers?

There are several stereotypes that have been placed on millennials and Generation Z that are just not true, according to new research.

Bellevue University’s Human Capital Lab partnered with Human Capital Media’s research and advisory group to conduct a study of more than 2,000 employees over a range of five generations to observe how their views vary regarding leadership in the workplace.

“With five generations in the workforce and a diverse range of perceived wisdom about what each generation expects from leaders and how they view their own prospects for leadership, this research set out to put some solid data behind how generational behavior and expectations related to leadership vary,” said Michelle Eppler, director of Human Capital Lab and dean of the College of Continuing and Professional Studies at Bellevue University, located in Bellevue, Nebraska.

When it comes to why companies are so obsessed with generational behavior variances, there are many potential contributing factors.

“One may be that it appears to be a convenient way to sort populations — and there is some evidence that experience, although not the same thing, does have a slight impact in how one views leadership,” Eppler said in an email statement. “In the current climate of nearly full employment, retention has become even more vital and companies are constantly searching for ways to enhance employee engagement, reduce costs and increase efficiencies by lowering their attrition rates.”

The leadership preferences survey was delivered online to 2,009 respondents through Survata, a brand intelligence research company. The sample was balanced by age, gender and educational attainment.

“We made sure that we had equal numbers of respondents from different age groups, and also that we had representation from respondents without a college degree, with a college degree and in addition, 20 percent of respondents had a master’s degree or higher,” said Sarah Kimmel, vice president of research at Human Capital Media. Some 60 percent of the respondents were women and 40 percent were men. All of the respondents were from North America, ranging in between 18 and 65 in age, Kimmel said.

Organizations have heavily focused on benefits and different generations with the assumption that generations have different requirements when it comes to benefits. The common stereotypical traits that millennials and Generation Z have been labeled with have been driving policy for some to prepare for future workforce needs. “The two big key takeaways were that, in terms of generational preferences, age is not actually as determining as you might think,” Kimmel said.

According to the study, the majority of employees — regardless of which generation — are actually driven by compensation, have leadership ambitions and want to stay and build or retain their careers with one organization. Eppler said that the study’s findings may serve as exciting consequences for employers.

“If millennials and Generation Z want to stay, but also want a career path that transitions to a leadership role, then adequate compensation, coupled with learning and development in the skills and behaviors they associate with good leaders should improve retention,” Eppler said. “Companies that invest in these areas are more likely to be more confident in the long-term benefits of adequate compensation and leadership development.

Every age group within the study all preferred the same top three qualities in a leader; they must be a good communicator, honest and respectful. “Communication is integral, according to the study,” said Kimmel.

It is often thought that younger generations aren’t as interested in leadership positions, but the study suggests the opposite. 45- to 54-year-olds are twice as likely (36 percent) to say that they are not interested in leadership positions than 25- to 34-year-olds are (13 percent). A total of 85 percent say that they would prefer to stay with their current organization for their entire career, and half of those say they are willing to stay under the right conditions. The only group that showed the most interest in leaving were those between the ages of 18-24 years old. “If you think about it, those are the people just out of school or just starting out in their career, so of course they might be leaving their organization — they’re kind of in their starter job,” Kimmel said. “Over the age of 24, its almost identical across every single age group. People want to stay.”

One thing that stuck out to Eppler about this study’s results was how women are less likely to currently be in a leadership position or ready for leadership (47 percent) than are men (60 percent). Eppler said that this could possibly be due to women being more likely to wait until they have the required skill sets for leadership positions or due to the amount of non-work responsibilities that function as career obstacles. Women were also 10 percent less likely to say that they expect a promotion at their current employer.

According to the study, 42 percent of men say that their employer provides on the job development times for them compared to women (35 percent). Women are more likely to say they are given stretch assignments (23 percent) than men (19 percent). However, they are equally likely to be given leadership training, coaching and mentoring and tuition reimbursement.

“That’s great news, as it points to there not being a lot of structural bias in leadership development programs,” Kimmel said.

Said Eppler, “The one thing the study tells us, is we need to do more to understand what is behind this lack of trust data point women have and examine what are effective approaches within the workplace that successfully address it.”

January 23, 2020June 29, 2023

5 ways leaders ruin employee engagement

Employee engagement levels are woefully low. The latest Gallup data shows only 34 percent of employees are actively engaged in their work.

That means more than half of all employees are not engaged in their work, and 13 percent are actively disengaged, according to the survey.

These are troubling numbers given the proven benefits that employee engagement brings to a business, which include higher share prices, greater customer loyalty, lower turnover, easier recruiting and a host of other desirable business outcomes.

The good news in this story is that HR is not to blame. While HR leaders may be responsible for overseeing benefits programs, gathering employee engagement survey results, and rolling out employee programs and campaigns, they are not the ones who actually move the needle on engagement.

Studies consistently find that employee engagement hinges entirely on the way leaders lead and the kind of culture they create, said Patrick Kulesa, global head of employee research for Willis Towers Watson in New York. “The numbers show that how leaders inspire people with their strategy and mission determines whether employees will be engaged,” Kulesa said.

The problem is that leaders rarely take responsibility for employee engagement. They see it as a people issue, so they assume HR will fix whatever is broken. This is one of many mistakes leaders make when it comes to engagement.

Here are some of the other mistakes leaders make that damage employee engagement and how they can do better.

Leaders assume company perks will make a difference. Offering free coffee, half-day summer Fridays and other creature comforts may deliver short-term positive vibes from overworked employees. But if you aren’t also addressing the core problems in your culture — like a lack of acknowledgement for work well done, managers who can’t be trusted or limited opportunities for development — no amount of free snacks will solve your employee engagement problems, Kulesa said.
Leaders talk, but they don’t listen. “Employees don’t need to be told what to do. They need to be encouraged to trust their instincts,” said Kevin Hancock, CEO of Hancock Lumber in Casco, Maine and and author of The Seventh Power. Hancock learned this lesson after acquiring a rare voice disorder in 2010 that made it difficult for him to speak. To protect his voice, whenever anyone asked him a question, he responded with, “What do you think is the right answer?” He wasn’t trying to improve engagement, but that’s what happened. Over the course of a year, engagement levels rose as employees gained confidence in their ideas and became more innovative and invested in their work. It made him realize the power of distributed leadership, and giving everyone a voice.
Leaders think employees should serve the business, not the other way around. When business leaders make financial performance the most important factor in every decision, employees become slaves to business outcomes. “But what if you rethink the purpose of work?” Hancock said. When leaders prioritize improving the lives of employees, improved employee engagement is the natural result. That leads to better performance, higher revenues and other business benefits that every leader wants, he said. “When the company exists to serve the employees, it creates a stronger company and a better future for everyone.”
Leaders focus on numbers, not outcomes. When leaders only care about achieving the right employee engagement score, they lose focus on the ultimate goal, said Jim MacLennan, founder of Maker Turtle, a digital transformation consulting firm, and author of “Don’t Think So Much.” “Once they reach the target metric they move on to something else.” That makes employees cynical about their motives and can cause any short-term improvements to quickly sag. Instead, he suggested using employee engagement surveys to identify the biggest problem in your culture, then to spend the year solving it. “Keep it simple and define what ‘better’ looks like so it doesn’t get diluted,” MacLennan said. Once you see improvements, move on to the next thing. When leaders focus on outcomes rather than metrics, continuous improvement becomes part of the way things are done.
They mistake surveys for conversations. If you want engagement to improve, leaders have to actually talk to employees, listen to their needs and build a corporate culture that inspires trust and respect. “You can’t do that with a survey,” MacLennan said. “Once you wade in and start having conversations, you’ll be amazed at what you learn.”

January 23, 2020June 29, 2023

The use of technology in managing burnout in your hourly workforce

Social psychologist Christina Maslach, known for her pioneering research about occupational burnout in the 1970s and ’80s, spoke at a conference for medical professionals in Chicago in 2017. I was lucky enough to attend.

I think about her session every time I read or research something about burnout — which, as most everyone on LinkedIn knows, is an increasingly common subject to come across in the news.

One of her most vital yet obvious points at the 2017 conference was that while the term “occupational burnout” wasn’t coined until the late 1970s, that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist before the ’70s. People just didn’t talk about it.

Not even academia took it seriously in the 1970s. Maslach first published her seminal research on burnout in a non-academic publication, resulting in a large amount of reader feedback from employees who had experienced burnout.

While the conference session focused on burnout among medical professionals, many of Maslach’s findings also apply to a group of employees that receive much less attention than salaried medical staff: hourly shift workers. Just like academia didn’t take burnout seriously decades ago, I wonder if some organizations still have the same attitude toward this hourly, generally less-educated group of employees.

“As technology and automation advance to simplify the lives of skilled laborers, the needs of low-wage hourly workers are forgotten,” wrote WorkJam CEO Steve Kramer in a recent article. He stressed a few reasons why low-wage workers might be experiencing burnout and what their needs are. He also noted that increasing productivity expectations, no predictable hours and chronic understaffing are a few of the major reasons for hourly employee burnout.

Employers are not powerless against this burnout, though, he wrote. He suggested technology as a potential solution for managing burnout.

Some digital tools, for example, allow frontline workers to give feedback and constructive criticism to managers and higher-ups. Other tools allow employees more agency in the scheduling process. Also, digital, personal training exists that can help employees learn new skills.

Also read: Employee Burnout Is No Fairy Tale

I would like to argue that managing burnout among hourly workers is not as simple as “run to the shiny new technology.” If a manager gets anonymous feedback that they’ve created a stressful work environment, what if they’re the type of manager that wouldn’t do anything to change?

If employees express that productivity goals are unrealistic for individual employees, what if the company sees that as employee laziness rather than a valid concern? If an employee has issues with whatever digital tool is used by their manager, will company decision makers actually think about replacing it with something less problematic?

As Vox writer Emily Guendelsberger points out in her essay, “I was a fast-food worker. Let me tell you about burnout,” enhanced technology has improved the lives of many skilled, educated workers. Meanwhile, the same advancements allow employers to track worker productivity down to the second — a reality that helps create burnout in hourly workers.

In 2019, after the newspaper she worked at closed, journalist Guendelsberger decided to work three different hourly jobs (in an Amazon warehouse, at a call center, and at a McDonald’s) to see how tech was now being used and to gauge how working in these jobs had changed over the years.

Here’s one of the changes she noticed:

“When I used to do service work, we still mostly used paper time cards; you could make your case to the manager if you were late, or maybe stay a few minutes beyond your shift to make up for it. At many modern service jobs, the digital time-clock system will automatically penalize you for clocking in a minute after the start of your shift or after a break.”

This is just one example, but it shows how the lack of humanity in digital systems could potentially punish someone for being human and making a small mistake occasionally. Could there be any way for digital tools to treat employees like people and give them some leeway? Not leeway to come in 15 minutes late every other day, but to come in five minutes late every once in a while.

While I don’t doubt that technology has the potential to help any type of employee, I’d encourage company decision makers to think critically about the impact of certain technology on low-wage employees. Rather than romanticize the potential of tech, try thinking about it rationally. Ask yourself a few questions: How are my expectations impacting employees’ stress levels? Could this burnout lead to health problems in my employees? Do I expect my hourly workers to work like humans or machines? Are the hourly wages my company offers keeping up with the rising expectations of how much these people must do on a daily basis?

The modern working class of America are fast food, retail, warehousing, delivery and call center workers, as Guendelsberger noted. “These jobs are not just a source of teenage pocket money; they’re something adults are trying to survive on,” she wrote. Burned-out fast food workers might suffer physically by accidentally burning themselves or suffer mental stress from constantly putting up with rude customers.

Just like we should care that white-collar professionals and medical professionals may make mistakes due to burnout, we should care that working class employees go through the same. Burnout isn’t just an affliction of the middle or high-class employee.

January 23, 2020June 29, 2023

Mental illness cuts across the workplace hierarchy

Money, power and status do not protect people against mental illness.

Executives are affected by mental illness as often and as severely as other segments of the workforce, said Dr. Samuel Ball, director of psychology and executive programs at Silver Hill Hospital. He specializes in treating executives suffering from mental illness.

Alcoholism is one of the most common afflictions, Ball said, followed by personality disorders and mood disorders such as depression and anxiety. Executives struggling with depression may have difficulties with productivity and have to force themselves to perform their job due to lower energy levels and interpersonal skills, while some people afflicted with alcoholism can drink heavily while often being functional at work.

A group of high achievers may be initially reluctant to admit the problems they’re experiencing, Ball said. They feel a “different kind of shame about the problems they’re struggling with because they’re on a pedestal. So many people rely on them, [and] so many people look up to them at work and in their family.”

They need to feel secure, he added, describing a patient who felt comfortable speaking up because the CEO gave him a clear message that they wanted him back after treatment.

Home Life Versus Work Life

An executive’s spouse and family play a critical role in convincing them to get help.

“In a number of cases, the problem is not as widely known at work as it is at home. And the spouse has gotten to the end of their rope with [their] concerns,” Ball said.

At work, the executive will “put on the best face or a mask of maintaining their competency” because they’re motivated to maintain their career status. But when they get home, it’s different. Their spouse will usually be the one to convince them to get treatment.

If someone has these health issues, it can negatively impact their spouse and children, especially children in their teenage years. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, growing up in a family with mental health or substance abuse problems is considered an adverse childhood experience — a potentially traumatic event that occurs in childhood and increases people’s risk for health problems as adults.

This group of patients generally have the means to afford outpatient treatment, which is a good first step, Ball said. The patients he sees, though, are often the ones too ill for outpatient treatment. Instead of living at home and regularly seeing a psychiatrist, they need inpatient care. Ball will get a phone call from the spouse, who has done the research to find the ideal place for inpatient care — usually somewhere in a different city that’s nearby enough that family can visit.

How Peers and Employees Can Respond

When an executive’s mental health is severe, employees and peers may notice. But knowing what to do or how to express sympathy or concern is different. For those employees who report to this higher-ranking person, it can be difficult to know what to do, if anything.

Also read: The mental health parity challenge

An exception might be if an executive has a trusted assistant who has been with them for a long time, Ball said. This type of direct report may have some ability to do something about the situation, especially if they play a “work spouse” role in this person’s life. But a majority of direct reports are not in this situation.

Typically, these high-ranking people won’t go to HR or contact an employee assistance program, Ball said.

“These executives report to the most senior people in the organization. And when they do finally admit to having a problem, if they do admit it, it’s not clear to them where to go in the organization to get support,” he said.

Usually it’s the one or two people above them — usually the CEO or COO — telling them to go on leave to get treatment that finally makes them get help, Ball said.

“They’ll say something like, ‘You’re incredibly valuable to us and we want you back, but you’re not well enough to work now. Take a month, two months, but we want you to get into a treatment program,’” he said.

Still, HR has power here. Lower-level employees may bring their concerns to HR, and an HR representative can speak directly with the CEO or COO, who typically are not surprised by the information, Ball said. From there, the CEO or COO can lead the intervention with the sick executive, and the HR person can stay in the meeting as an observer, especially if there’s been any sort of wrongdoing or complaints about the executive’s behavior.

It’s especially helpful if their boss can show sympathy in this discussion, Ball said.

“When this has gone well, their boss is either someone who has struggled with depression or alcohol, or it’s in their family. And they’ll have that discussion with their affected employee and say something like, ‘I know what this is like, and you’ve got to take care of this,’” he said.

Fighting Stigma

A prime reason executives fear coming forward with mental health issues is the fear that their progress at the company will effectively stall and that people will wonder when their next relapse will be.

“Even if they don’t lose their job, the reputational fallout of people knowing they’ve gone off to rehab is significant,” he said.

Some workplace experts encourage leaders to be open about their mental health struggles in order to decrease stigma for employees. However, since even these leaders experience stigma, talking openly about mental health at work is a hard but courageous thing to do, according to Ball.

Still, he said that it does have a positive effect on the workplace when leaders are honest and open about their struggles. He mentioned a patient who, upon preparing to leave soon, plans to go back to work and share broadly with the workforce that he’s been on leave treating his depression. This executive said he wanted people to take better care of themselves and recognize the signs that he did not.

“I think it’s courageous when people do that,” Ball said. “It’s helpful to employees when they send that message.”