Author: Rick Bell

Posted on

6 States Now Mandate Sexual Harassment Prevention Training

The #MeToo era has prompted an increasing number of states to mandate sexual harassment prevention training in the workplace. California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine and New York all have such laws in place.

Here is a look at the laws in these states, noting which employers are covered, deadlines for completion and other nuances.

California mandates training for employers with five or more employees. By January 2021, training must be provided to supervisory and non-supervisory employees within six months of employment or assuming a supervisory position. For seasonal/temporary employees or those hired to work for less than six months, training is mandated within 30 calendar days of hire or within 100 hours worked, whichever occurs first. Excepted are employees of temporary services employers, which must provide training to seasonal/temporary employees.

Supervisors must receive two hours of training, and nonsupervisory employees receive one hour in a classroom setting with an in-person trainer. An interactive method (such as a webinar or e-learning) is also permissible.

Employers may develop their own training modules or use the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing’s online training course. Employer-created training must be conducted by a trainer with expertise in the topic.

After Jan. 1, 2021, employers must provide training to each employee in California once every two years and maintain training documentation for at least two years.

Connecticut mandates training for employers with three or more employees. Those with fewer than three need only train supervisors. Existing employees must receive training by October 2020. Employees hired on or after Oct. 1, 2019, must receive training within six months of hire. Employers with fewer than three employees must train supervisors by October 2020. New supervisors must receive training within six months of assuming a supervisory position. Those hired on or after Oct. 1, 2019, also have six months to receive training.

Training must be two hours in a classroom-like setting and allow for questions. The Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities is developing online training, but employers may develop their own curriculum.

Employers must provide updated training every 10 years. Training records should be maintained at least one year and, if a complaint is filed involving someone the employer trained, until that complaint is resolved.

Delaware mandates training for employers with 50 or more employees (not including applicants or independent contractors). Supervisory and nonsupervisory employees must receive training by January 1, 2020 or within one year of hire for new employees. No training is mandated for employees with less than six months of continuous employment or those employed by employment agencies.

While no minimum length or trainer requirements exist, training must be interactive and occur every two years. There is no recordkeeping requirement, but it is recommended employers retain documentation for two years.

In Illinois, beginning Jan. 1, 2020, employers with 15 or more employees, and all restaurant and bar employers (restaurants, coffee shops, cafeterias and sandwich stands that give or sell food to the public, guests or employees, as well as kitchen/catering facilities where food is prepared on premises and served elsewhere) must provide annual sexual harassment prevention training for all employees, regardless of classification.

The Illinois Department of Human Rights will offer a free model training program. While employers may use their own program, it must meet or exceed the minimum standards of the model program.

Restaurant and bar employers must include supplemental training material (to be prepared and released by IDHR in both Spanish and English) that addresses sexual harassment issues seen frequently in their industry, includes an explanation of manager liability and responsibility under the law.

Illinois does not have requirements for training format, trainers or retention of records.

Maine mandates training for employers with 15 or more employees. New employees must receive training within one year of hire, and supervisory and managerial employees must have it within one year of hire or starting a supervisory/managerial role.

Maine does not have requirements for format, trainers or frequency. Employers must keep records for at least three years.

New York mandates that as of Oct. 9, 2019, all employers must provide training to all employees who work any portion of time in New York, regardless of immigration status: exempt; non-exempt; part-time; seasonal; temporary; interns who work more than 80 hours in a calendar year and have worked at least 90 days; and independent contractors who have performed work for the employer for more than 80 hours in a calendar year and more than 90 days and have not received the training elsewhere. New employees should receive training as soon as possible if they start after the October deadline. 

New York employers must use the model sexual harassment prevention training program provided by the New York State Division of Human Rights and the New York Department of Labor, or establish a program that equals or exceeds the minimum standards of the program.

The training can be in person or online but must be interactive. Employees cannot merely watch a video or read a document without a component of feedback or interaction.

The state Division of Human Rights recommends a live trainer, but the trainer need not be certified. New York does not currently certify or license training providers. Employers may use third-party vendors or organizations or existing employees or managers to deliver the annual training. Employers are encouraged to keep records. New York City employers must keep records for three years.

While the states identified here have passed laws mandating sexual harassment prevention training in the workplace, employers should contact its counsel for additional information and to conduct trainings that comply with all applicable laws.

Posted on

Workplace Dress Codes Push Fashion Forward — and Sometimes Backward

Flip-flops, board shorts and a tattered Rip Curl T-shirt. Perfect beach attire to be sure, but it’s not uncommon to see employees at companies with progressive — some may call them nonexistent — dress codes roll into the office as if it’s a day at the beach and not a 10-hour shift behind a keyboard.

Organizations still contemplate defining business casual dress codes.

While dress codes have substantially loosened over the past three decades, the area between appropriate and inappropriate apparel becomes a bit hazy. Fashion and personal style strategist Joseph Rosenfeld said that lax dress policies can result in employees consistently dressing down and misrepresenting themselves in a professional setting.

“What’s happened with business casual as a concept culturally is we chase to the lowest common denominator,” he said.

Business casual can be a safe bet in allowing employees to dress to their comfort levels and identities. By definition, business casual is just a step down from business professional. It is more casual, but doesn’t include jeans, and certainly bars shorts and an old high school gym T-shirt. Still, business casual can be a bit blurry too, depending on how well, or how poorly, a workplace communicates its do’s and don’ts when it comes to what to wear to work.

“More than 20 years later, I’m still trying to teach people that casual means leaving things to chance, and you don’t really want to leave things to chance when it comes to how you present yourself professionally,” Rosenfeld said.

dress code
Joseph Rosenfeld, co-founder of ModeDNA.

An OfficeTeam survey found that nearly 31 percent of office workers stated that they would prefer to be at a company with a business casual dress code; 27 percent favor a casual dress code or no dress code at all.

But there are limits to what passes as acceptable office attire. The survey also found that the most common dress code violations at work include wearing overly casual clothing and showing too much skin.

dress code
Megan Moran, founder, The Style Foundry.

“I find that companies with a strict business professional policy often deal with less dress code violations and a more consistent workforce. However, their employees end up feeling bored with their wardrobes and unable to express themselves and their personalities,” said Megan Moran, founder and wardrobe stylist at The Style Foundry. Although Moran also said that companies that implement a casual dress code policy may struggle with displaying a consistent company message and their employees may lose that empowered feeling that comes with business professional attire.

Workplaces should also avoid enforcing a dress code policy that is sexist or neglects traditional clothing among different cultures and religions. Failing to accommodate these aspects can put a company in legal trouble. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from discriminating against individuals on account of their religion, birthplace, ancestry, culture or linguistic characteristics common to a specific ethnic group.

Amy Quarton, associate professor at Maryville University in St. Louis, said managers should ask employees for their input to help draft an appropriate dress code as this could illuminate potential concerns and legal risks as well as earn support. Quarton also said that the policy should include clear guidelines and examples of what is and is not acceptable as well as established consequences. The goal is to create a dress code policy that allows all employees to express themselves through their work attire while simultaneously represent their employer’s brand in a positive way, she said.

“New and existing employees may benefit from training programs aimed at improving their cultural competencies and understanding of stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination,” Quarton said. “Employers can also establish a process that allows employees to share their concerns about the dress code. They can then work with people on an individual basis to negotiate accommodations that work for both the employer and the employee.”

Posted on

#MeToo Does Not Always Equal #FireHim

Jon Hyman The Practical Employer

Just because an employee complains about harassment does not mean that if the allegations are founded the employer must fire the harasser.

Consider, for example, Abbood v. Texas Health & Human Servs. Comm. (5th Cir. 11/7/19).

Amanda Abbood, an employee of the Texas Health & Human Service Commission, complained to her supervisor that a co-worker, Matt Otts, had subjected her to sexually offensive and unwelcome conduct, including comments about her figure, discussing his marital problems and describing “movies on Netflix that have a highly sexual connotation.” When confronted, Otts admitted to the misconduct, but claimed he was just joking. Instead of firing Otts, the employer reprimanded him, counseled him, reassigned him to another unit and relocated his office away from Abbood.

Four months later, however, Abbood again complained about Otts, this time that he told her he wanted to “jump her bones.” This time, the employer immediately removed Otts from the building, placed him on emergency leave, and changed the office locks. After completing its investigation, the employer then fired Otts.

Abbood’s second complaint about Otts occurred the same day as she suffered her own workplace issue. She discovered a stray dog outside the office, and used the commission’s computer database to try to locate the owner. The employer fired Abbood for the inappropriate use of its data system, in violation of its Computer Use Agreement and a Data Broker Computer Security Agreement.

Abbood, however, alleged that she was fired because of her complaints about Otts, and that the employer acted inappropriately by not firing Otts after the first harassment investigation. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, however, disagreed.

HHSC is not liable under Title VII if it took “prompt remedial action” once it knew of Otts’s harassment. Abbood argues that Otts should have been fired when she first reported him in August 2016, and that HHSC’s response was ineffective because he harassed her again in December. But an employer “need not impose the most severe punishment” on an offending employee, so long as the remedial action is “reasonably calculated” to end the harassment. And [t]o be reasonably calculated to end the harassment, an employer’s actions need not end the harassment instantly.” “The test … is not whether the harassment stopped but whether the action taken by the employer was reasonably calculated to end the harassment.”

Here, the record reflects that HHSC took prompt remedial action.… When … Abbood complained a second time, Otts was immediately placed on emergency leave, the office locks were changed, and he was subsequently fired. These facts demonstrate that HHSC took prompt remedial action.

An employer’s obligation in responding to a harassment complaint is to investigate and, as the court points out, take “prompt remedial action” to reasonably ensure that the harassment stops. If it doesn’t stop (as was the case here), then remedial action must become more severe (as the employee didn’t get the message the first time).
For a first instance of harassment, however, while termination is a remedial option, is is not the only remedial option. As long as the employer acts reasonably and promptly under the circumstances, a court likely will not second-guess the employer’s handling and response.
Posted on

McDonald’s Chief People Officer Resigns After CEO Fired for Violating Company Policy

chief people officer McDonald's

https://workforce.com/news/the-evolving-role-of-a-chief-people-officerFollowing the early November announcement that McDonald’s Chief Executive Officer Steve Easterbrook was fired after admitting to violating company policy by having a consensual relationship with an employee, Chief People Officer David Fairhurst resigned a day later.

While a company spokesman said Easterbrook’s firing and Fairhurst’s resignation are unrelated, experts contend that with such a drastic and sudden leadership change, it’s not uncommon for major shifts to occur in the C-suite.

“When the CEO leaves the company, it is very common for it to have a cascading effect. In some cases, other executives leave because they did not get the CEO job and therefore felt passed over. In other cases, they are not aligned with the new CEO and leave to pursue new opportunities,” said Dave Ramos, chief executive officer of consultancy Shiftpoints Inc., in an email. “Every executive will now have to switch their personal loyalty to Chris Kempczinski, their new CEO, or consider departing. Some of the senior executives may struggle to make this switch.”

In order to rebuild trust, Ramos said Kempczinski and the executive team must “address these issues in a humble, transparent and credible way.” The fast-food giant also stated in a press release that the “leadership transition is unrelated to the company’s operational or financial performance.”

Chicago-based McDonald’s leadership shake-up also serves as an example of how the #MeToo movement put a spotlight on the behavior of those who are in a powerful position in the workplace. Ramos said that “Easterbrook’s firing should be a red alert warning to any other executives who are violating McDonald’s no-dating policy.”

Rebecca Thornley-Gibson, a partner at law firm DMH Stallard, said that because of the amount of time colleagues spend together, it is common for personal relationships to occur. “Most of the time this won’t create issues and employers won’t interfere with the relationship,” Gibson said. “However, where there is a relationship that involves one of the individuals holding the balance of power in the workplace relationship, then conflict issues are more likely to arise.”

Gibson also said that when a relationship involves a party who is responsible for the other’s evaluations, pay reviews or promotion opportunities, then there is danger of favoritism and perceived bias. A subordinate may also feel as though they can’t say no to sexual advances from their superiors, which creates a risk of sexual harassment claims.

Relationships within the workplace aren’t illegal, but some companies implement non-fraternization policies to prevent allegations of favoritism or lawsuits stemming from unwanted advances or sexual harassment. If the situation does occur, experts say that it is best to notify a human resources director.

“Stopping relationships is not likely to be practical for employers but putting in place steps to minimize any fallout from the relationship should be considered,” said Gibson. “This will involve having in place, and communicating workplace policies on conduct at work, equality and diversity policies with a clear zero tolerance toward sexual harassment and also requiring employees to declare relationships which are likely to result in a potential conflict.”

Fairhurst had worked alongside Easterbrook for McDonald’s in the United Kingdom and was promoted to chief people officer soon after Easterbrook became CEO in 2015. No other details were provided as to why Fairhurst decided to step down when he did.

According to a Bloomberg article, Senior Vice President Mason Smoot was named as interim chief people officer.

Fairhurst announced his departure with a farewell post on LinkedIn that said although he was sad to be leaving, it was time for him to move on to his next career challenge.

Posted on

Symphony Talent Debuts New Composition With Acquisition of SmashFly

Symphony Talent’s acquisition of SmashFly Technologies is being called one of the most significant HR technology deals of 2019. Industry observers note the combined company will serve an estimated 750 companies out of the gate, including a number of Fortune 500 and multinationals.

Symphony Talent announced the transaction Nov. 1, though it didn’t disclose financial terms.

On the surface, the deal brings together two complementary offerings. Symphony Talent is known for its employer-branding and creative services, while SmashFly is regarded for its recruitment marketing and candidate relationship management tools.

In an interview with RecruitingDaily, Symphony Talent CEO Roopesh Nair said the combined company “can really help practitioners create their strategy and accelerate their brand across touchpoints, across channels and audiences.” Among other things, he added, customers will benefit from “a more unified and consistent approach” to talent acquisition.

Ben Slater, vice president of marketing for recruiting platform provider Beamery, said the deal underscored the importance of technology to today’s talent acquisition strategies.

“It’s not enough to have career site and brand collateral. You need functionality for building and nurturing talent pipelines, managing events and campaigns,” he said. “In short, you need a platform to do the heavy lifting once you have developed your employer brand strategy.”

Strategic or Tactical?

Nikki Edwards, principal research analyst at industry researcher NelsonHall, said the acquisition will strengthen Symphony Talent’s market position. Introducing SmashFly’s technology into the company’s mix will result in “a more complete service/tech offering,” she said.

“Service providers are increasingly leveraging technology to deliver a better service, but those service providers are experts in their own field first … and usually experts in technology second,” she observed. In a market crowded with companies offering sophisticated platforms and tools, “it makes business sense for service providers to partner with or acquire companies with the intellectual property they need.”

For Symphony Talent, making such a move is particularly important, said Chad Sowash, an industry consultant and co-host of the recruiting podcast “The Chad & Cheese Podcast.”

In recent years, he explained, the company has struggled with a number of organizational, operational and marketing issues. Symphony Talent “hasn’t done a great job when it comes to letting the market know who the hell they are,” he said. “SmashFly has done a better job.”

On a tactical level, Sowash thinks Symphony Talent acquired SmashFly with its eyes squarely fixed to compete with TMP Worldwide Advertising and Communications. Since January, TMP has purchased social media firm Carve, recruitment tech company Maximum, programmatic recruitment platform Perengo, and employer branding and recruitment marketing firm CKR Interactive. “Symphony had to do something and I think they had to wait to be able to do the right thing,” Sowash said.

In this case, the right thing was not just to acquire SmashFly’s technology but also its customers, revenue and “the engineers who are building SmashFly for the future.”

Having such expertise in-house will be critical to Symphony Talent’s success, Sowash said. However, that success is by no means assured.

“I think this is going to be the point where we either say, ‘This is where Symphony Talent actually took off from the launch pad or it blew up on the launch pad,’ ” he said. “This is all about execution. They have all of the tools, all the connections to be able to make this happen or to fail miserably.”

Posted on

Federal Employee Labor Union Files Grievance Against VA’s Smoking Ban

The Department of Veterans Affairs’ new smoking ban took effect on Oct. 1, prohibiting all patients and non-staff from smoking on VA hospital premises. In January the ban will extend to employees.

The smoke-free policy was created to initiate a healthier environment and improve care for veterans, but the American Federation of Government Employees argues that the ban violates the labor union’s contract.

A 2008 contract that is still in effect states that all VA facilities will provide employees with “reasonably accessible designated smoking areas.” However, the ban does not allow any smoking while on VA property, including parking areas.

Because of the conflicting policies, the AFGE filed a national grievance, which the VA’s Office of Labor Management Relations denied. The 670,000-member labor union has invoked arbitration and is waiting to schedule a hearing once the arbitrator is selected.

“Although we believe that the agency violated the law and our contract by implementing the directive for AFGE’s bargaining unit employees, we encourage employees to comply with the directive to avoid the threat of discipline while we continue to challenge the policy,” said Alma Lee, AFGE National Veterans Affairs Council president, in a statement.

In addition to the contractual dispute between the union and the VA, the ban has received pushback from veteran’s and their families who don’t think the policy is necessary.

Alma Lee, AFGE National Veterans Affairs Council president.

Al Lewis, author of “Cracking Health Costs,” said that the ban is only a good idea in theory and questions whether it is a wise decision for the overall productivity of the organization. “Instead of creating a culture of health, you are creating a culture of deceit,” Lewis said.

The idea of taking away all designated smoking areas from veterans using VA facilities is also seen as cruel and unfair. Based on the affiliation between tobacco products and the military, it is common for veterans to rely on smoking as a source of comfort.

Pat Englewood, an organizational psychologist and counselor said that the use of tobacco products can be part of good and bad memories of the military service that a veteran may choose to not let go of, or can’t let go of.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study released in 2018 found that about 30 percent of veterans use tobacco products, which is a much higher rate than most of the non-veteran population. The prior culture of tobacco use in the military is considered a significant influence on this issue.

Englewood said that part of the upset toward the smoking ban may be derived from the veteran’s addiction to these products.

“The craving has become a necessary habit in their daily routine,” said Englewood, who is also a Vietnam era and Gulf War veteran. “If there is any threat that this craving will not be satisfied, then the big guns come out and they blame others through their defensive comments and behaviors.”

Although taking away the designated smoking areas will make it difficult to take smoke breaks, Englewood saw the new policy as a responsible step toward better protecting the health of the VA’s patients and staff.

“It is not an overstepping of power to look out for the health and well-being of all service members and hospital staff,” she said. “No one is taking anyone’s control of their lives away.”

Gary Kunich, a spokesman for the Milwaukee VA Medical Center, also supports the ban as he considers it to be a positive and healthy change toward maintaining a healthy work environment.

“We’ve actually gotten a lot of positive comments from people who are happy that we’re doing this, that there’s not a cloud of smoke outside or that there aren’t cigarette butts on the ground,” Kunich said.

Since the Milwaukee VA Medical Center has undergone this change, Kunich says that the ban has “changed things for the better.” According to Kunich, a majority of the employees and veterans at the Milwaukee facility don’t smoke and have wanted a healthier environment to provide and receive better care.

In the 10 years that Kunich has worked at this facility, he recalls town hall meetings where some of the veterans would ask why they still allowed smoking on the property. “It just seemed to be a logical step forward and the right thing to do for all of our employees and all of our veterans,” he said.

For veterans who are struggling to quit smoking or using other tobacco and nicotine products, Kunich encourages them to take this as an opportunity to find healthier habits by taking advantage of the programs that the VA offers.

Posted on

A Page From My Working Mom Diaries

blog
Stefanie Coleman, Workforce Game Changer 2019.

These are interesting times for a professional woman in her 30s.

For many, more than a decade has been invested in a career. Rungs on the ladder climbed, reputations established. Big responsibilities in tow … heck, some of us run departments, even companies!

And that is awesome — after all, the #futureisfemale. It is also the decade where women in big cities like New York and London most commonly start having children [1a] [1b].

Gender aside, it is my opinion that jobs get more rewarding with age. The more time you spend in the workforce, the more experiences you have.

In time (assuming these experiences are relevant), they will pave the way to enhanced responsibilities, usually coupled with better role titles, bigger teams to manage, and more generous compensation. Sure, the pressure is higher, but in the eyes of an emerging executive, the benefits of climbing the corporate ladder outweigh that burden.

But this poses an interesting challenge for professional women who want children.

Imagine this. After more than a decade of hard work, a woman in her mid-30s is breaking into leadership ranks. Established and credentialed in her field, she is scaling the corporate ladder — her eye on the prize, the next promotion in sight. But she knows she wants to birth children, and that window won’t stay open forever. So that is what she does, and while she will always cherish that decision, she wonders if it will hurt her career.

It shouldn’t. But for some women it does, particularly when the right support is not in place. And this is my reason for this blog post.

blogI don’t suppose to have all the answers — and as a mother of two currently on maternity leave, I’m still working this out for myself. But I do have some thoughts. And, if my thoughts help even one more mother assimilate back to work when it suits her, then I’ll take it.

I took interest in this topic in 2015 when I discovered my first child was on her way. I was 32 and living with my husband in New York City. Eyeing up promotion and facing the most challenging client engagement of my career, the discovery of my pregnancy was both thrilling and terrifying.

Among the excitement were the moments when I realised the “work hard, play hard” mentality that served me through my 20s was no longer an option. After all, a pregnant woman needs her sleep. The realisation was perplexing — I needed to reframe my attitude toward work and its role in my life, and I didn’t know where to start.

I’ve made a lot of progress since then. Two babies later, I am often asked how to juggle life as both a mother and a professional. It’s the impossible question as there is no simple, let alone right answer. Alas, I attempt:

  1. It takes a village.This African proverb is profound. For me, that village is my husband, nanny, in-laws and sister. Put simply, I could not do my job without them. A working mother must identify her villagers — they must be strong and reliable, trusted to look after the most precious of possessions. They must be thanked and appreciated, for this group is the most important coalition for a working mother’s success.
  2. We’re in this together. There are many allies to working mothers — both men and women. But other moms in particular truly get it. We must support one another. A colleague told me she thought of asking me for a change of clothes since her baby ruined her outfit in transit to an important meeting. I wish she’d have asked — I’d have moved mountains to help. Another colleague jumped on a plane to cover for me at a moment’s notice when I was too pregnant to travel across the U.S. for a meeting. Her words when I thanked her: “We must help each other out.” I knew exactly what she meant.
  3. Find a supportive employer. I am lucky since my firm is consistently ranked a top company for working mothers [2]. A firm that takes diversity and inclusion seriously is more likely to support a working mother’s integration than one that does not. Look for flexible work policies and family friendly benefits, as well as a leadership culture that promotes wellness and work life balance.
  4. Divide domestic duties. As articulated by Annabel Crabb in her quarterly essay on Men At Work [3], many working mothers continue to take on the lion’s share of domestic duties in the home. In fact, research from Manchester University and the Institute for Social and Economic Research at Essex University in the U.K. has shown that working mothers with two kids score consistently higher on chronic stress indicators, such as blood pressure and hormones, as compared to the general population [4]. In order to transition back to work in a way that is sustainable and healthy, we need to see more balance in the way domestic duties are divided between family members in the home.
  5. Set boundaries and get to work. Working mothers are expert multi-taskers, whether it’s fixing the kids’ breakfast while taking a conference call or squeezing in a doctor’s appointment between meetings, one thing is for certain and that is that working mothers have very little time. This means that what time we do have reserved for work must be used wisely. For me this has meant less procrastination. If something needs to be done, it needs to be tackled fast. It also means that there is only time for the critical items. As a fellow working mother once coached me, “You can drop the rubber balls but not the crystal one.” Identifying what really matters at work is important, and de-prioritizing the rest is a necessary action for a working mother (even if it doesn’t feel natural).

This article might feel stereotypical to some. Of course, there are women who do not want children, and there are fathers who are primary caretakers. And, obviously, women give birth to or adopt children at all ages, not just in their 30s. I’m not ignorant to that. Take my thoughts for what they are worth. As one working mother to another (or, the partner, child or colleague of a working mother), I hope these thoughts help our working mothers transition back to work with grace. After all, we’re all in this together.

P.S., This post is dedicated to my own working mother, Dr. Cathy Allen, and inspiring friends: Liz Kreuger, Caroline Gatenby, Courtney Nolan, Joanna Bates, Sarah McGrath, Emma Fletcher and Dr. Patricia Davidson. Also, the countless working mothers at PwC who inspire me every day — there are too many to name, but they know who they are.

Posted on

DailyPay Inks Deal With Kronos to Join Workforce Dimensions Platform

Daily pay benefit provider DailyPay joined the Kronos Inc.’s Workforce Dimensions Technology Partner Network.

According to a Nov. 7 release, through a custom API integration with DailyPay, Kronos can share data that enable DailyPay to calculate each enrolled employee’s available balance and facilitate the instant transfer of funds when an employee requests it.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Employers can now offer DailyPay — a 2019 Workforce Optimas Awards winner in the Innovation category — as part of the burgeoning on-demand pay benefit offerings. According to the release, DailyPay is fully compliant with wage and labor laws in all 50 states and allows employees “the freedom to exert control over the timing of their pay and to feel more secure financially.”
According to the Kronos website, other Workforce Dimensions partners include financial wellness provider Branch, Cornerstone Learning and work opportunity tax credit processor HireCredit.

“We are excited to work with Kronos to provide a life-altering benefit that helps the 78 percent of Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck,” said Jason Lee, CEO of New York-based DailyPay, which was founded in 2015. “Through the Kronos-DailyPay relationship, companies have the opportunity to streamline their payroll process and allow their employees to access the money they’ve earned prior to their next payday.”

Workforce Dimensions from Kronos is described as the “first next-generation workforce management solution. Cloud-native, mobile-native, and powered by artificial intelligence, it delivers real-time analytics to drive in-the-moment decisions to unburden managers from time-consuming, low-value tasks and empower employees with an engaging experience.”

“Workforce Dimensions is built on a completely open and extensible platform, enabling innovative integrations with partners, including DailyPay, that empower employees in ways that simply are not possible with legacy solutions,” said Mike May, senior director, Workforce Dimensions Technology Partner Network, Kronos, in the Nov. 7 release. “Providing a great technology experience not only drives user adoption, but it also helps organizations to engage and retain their workforce.”

Posted on

‘Smoking Gun’ Email Revives Employee’s Disability Discrimination Lawsuit

Jon Hyman The Practical Employer

Maryville Anesthesiologists fired Paula Babb, an experienced certified registered nurse anesthetist, because it thought she suffered from a visual impairment.

How do we know why it fired her? Because the day after Babb’s termination, one of her co-workers confirmed it in an email (written at the direction of one of the employer’s owners).

As most of you know, [Babb] has been having major issues with her eyesight and as of late, it has seemed to be getting even worse. We have had numerous complaints from [hospital] staff regarding her inability to read the monitor, etc. Over the past several months the group has given her several opportunities to provide documentation from her eye specialist saying that she was safe to practice. [Babb] was unable to provide this documentation. This, in addition to a few other issues, has forced the group to make a very difficult decision. As of today, she is no longer with our group. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. This was one of the reasons that our meeting was postponed. See you all tomorrow.

Despite this email, the district court granted the employer summary judgment and dismissed Babb’s “regarded as disabled” ADA lawsuit.

On appeal, the 6th Circuit had little difficulty in reviving the claim, in large part because of what it described as the “smoking gun” email.

Maryville has never tried to defend its termination of Babb on grounds that Babb’s vision created a safety hazard, and has instead insisted that Babb’s termination occurred solely because of clinical errors unrelated to her vision. But, yet, just hours after Maryville decided to fire Babb, Crystal Aycocke wrote an e-mail to her fellow CRNAs essentially stating that Maryville was firing Babb because of her impaired vision. More striking still, far from being mindless office gossip, Aycocke admits that she composed this e-mail at the direction of Dr. Proffitt—one of the key players involved in Babb’s termination—shortly after Dr. Proffitt informed her of Babb’s termination. And, of course, all of this occurred in a context in which Maryville’s physicians felt concerned enough about Babb’s vision to discuss it at the meeting at which they decided to fire Babb, and on the official evaluations they wrote about Babb. (“I see her questionable ability to see reflect on how surgeons and the medical staff lack accepting her.”). If this kind of “smoking gun” evidence cannot get an employment discrimination plaintiff past summary judgment on the question of pretext, it is hard to imagine what could.

Employers, if you are short-sighted enough to (a) fire an employee because you believe she suffers from a disability, and (b) confirm that belief in writing, then you deserve whatever fate you suffer in litigation.

Posted on

Reports of the Death of the Job Board Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

The old-school job board model, where employers pay a website to post open positions and hope that qualified candidates will find and apply for them, may not be as flashy or talked about as some of today’s bright, shiny Generation Z gig-worker marketplace products. But since the dawning of the job board as we know it some 30 years ago they appear to remain a viable business model with plenty of life.

In 2018, online job advertising companies earned a total of $22 billion, according to Staffing Industry Analysts, an increase of 15 percent. And while many companies offer advanced services such as programmatic job advertising or social media tools, the leader in many markets “is a traditional job board that makes 70 to 80 percent of its revenue from job postings,” said Jeff Dickey-Chasins, principal of the industry consulting firm JobBoardDoctor LLC.

That doesn’t mean the industry has been complacent. Especially in markets like the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union, job boards have been exploring new revenue models, new technology and new features. They have little choice, observers say. Recruiting practices are changing, the use of data has become more sophisticated and the demands of job seekers are continually evolving. 

Also, the very culture of “being online” has changed. It’s now anytime, anywhere and includes multiple channels such as websites, email, social media and chat. That dynamic can work either for or against the job boards, said NelsonHall Principal Research Analyst Nikki Edwards. Those job boards that have mobilized their platform, integrated with social media, and incorporated other channels “will have greater audience reach, and are more likely to survive, than those who do nothing to adapt or who rest on their laurels.” 

It seems like a far cry from the industry’s early days, when job boards were essentially “the old newspaper classifieds,” said Gerry Crispin, founder of CareerXroads, a recruiting-technology consulting practice. “Certainly, a lot of changes have gone on, but the fact of the matter is job boards are essentially the 21st century extension of classified advertising.”

Technology Draws a Circle

Initially, online job searching was relatively simple: Candidates searched, clicked on a job and applied to it — all without ever leaving the job board. Because applicant tracking systems were just gaining traction, companies around the turn of the 21st century relied on job boards to attract candidates while job seekers used them to deliver their applications to employers. Then, as ATS technology gained traction and more organizations built their own candidate databases, job boards began serving as gateways to corporate career sites.

However, “we’ve come full circle,” said Chad Sowash, a talent acquisition consultant and host of the recruiting-focused “Chad & Cheese Podcast.” Today’s corporate career sites, he said, are often clunky and not particularly attractive.

That encourages job boards to work harder to retain traffic. Rather than charge for how long a post remains online, pay-per-click plays a larger role in their business models. That, too, incites job boards to create simple, effective user experiences.

On another level, the evolution of the ATS changed many job boards from hunter-gatherers to sourcers. “There’s always been that component where if a company wants to source candidates instead of advertise jobs, they could go and look through a résumé database,” said Dickey-Chasins. “There are now job boards whose primary focus is sourcing candidates.”

As an example, he cites Hired. Founded in 2012, Hired offers seekers free profiles designed to match them with employers looking for a particular set of skills and experiences. It then screens those profiles to match a company in, say, Chicago with developers who’ve known the programming language Ruby for 10 years and previously worked at a video game studio. “They’re essentially doing what recruiters used to do, but they do it at a lower price point and in a more automated fashion,” Dickey-Chasins said. 

Hired also illustrates how creating the right experience for recruiters is as important as attracting the right candidates. “We have to make sure that we have a seamless experience for the recruiter because they can’t be going to 12 different websites to look at stuff,” Sowash said. “What we need to do is integrate those platforms into whatever your core system is — if it’s an applicant tracking system like iCIMS or a CRM like SmashFly.”

Given the sophistication of today’s data-management systems and application programming interfaces, or APIs, “there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to funnel all of these vendors into one core piece of technology,” Sowash said.

The term “job board” has become a bit of a misnomer. For instance, Indeed describes itself as an aggregator that compiles jobs from a number of sources. BioSpace, which focuses on the life sciences industry, says it’s  “a digital hub for news and careers.” LinkedIn is “an online professional network.”

These and other companies offer services designed to streamline their customers’ talent acquisition process, or at least portions of it. Such features include diversity products, job-advertising packages, employer-branding packages and other features that get folded into annual subscriptions, Dickey-Chasins said. LinkedIn Group Product Manager Kevin Chuang said his company is testing a short-form skills assessment to help it uncover more accurate matches.

Rise of the Lifestyle Platforms

Among the most fundamental drivers impacting the job boards’ landscape is the ever-changing dynamics of technology products, experts say. When sites like Monster.com first appeared in the mid-1990s, not only did the ATS not exist but the mobile phone was still a large plastic brick and the internet had yet to squash America Online.

Today’s world looks a lot different: Smartphones are ubiquitous, Amazon’s Alexa looks up recipes on command and Google’s Nest manages temperatures and monitors for smoke in homes around the world. Because of this, features like convenience, ease of use, speed and mobility count toward a job board’s success more than they ever have before. In particular, improved usability has become critical as candidates — who are essentially consumers — have come to expect simpler, slicker user experiences, Sowash said.

Advancing technology also spurred the rise of what Sowash calls “lifestyle platforms” — sites like Google and Facebook that fundamentally changed the way consumers regard online communications. “As soon as we roll over in the morning, we jump into them,” he said. Job boards can’t make the same claim because consumers “aren’t looking for a job every single day of their life.”

Job boards, then, must look for ways to leverage both consumer technology and lifestyle platforms.

“If you’re a job board today, you have to realize that people aren’t waking up in the morning thinking, ‘I’ve got to go to Indeed or I have to go to whatever your brand name is,’ ” Sowash said.  “They’re thinking, ‘I have to go to Google, I have to go to LinkedIn.’ ” As a result, job boards “really have to think much smarter than they ever, ever had to before.”

For the industry’s big names — like Indeed, LinkedIn and IT-focused Dice — that’s meant building suites of talent acquisition tools, facilitating messaging between candidates and recruiters and aggressively developing AI-based search mechanisms and data-visualization features. At the same time, a number of startups are at work trying to solve different talent-acquisition pain points of specific industries.

Not only that, said Chuang, but the process of job searching has become more social and thus more personal. Social networks, for example, allow candidates to connect with workers at prospective employers or ask for referrals. “The job post itself has become one step in the overarching process of the job search,” he said. 

“Job boards that are still exclusively focused on job postings and a singular product versus a [fuller] solution are the ones that are really struggling right now,” said BioSpace CEO Joshua Goodwin. “They’re not experiencing the uplift that we’re seeing from this labor market because of a very simple business principle: It’s about really understanding your customer’s pain point and their end goals. Our customers are about trying to hire the right candidates and not about trying to post an individual job posting.”

The Beauty of the Niche

With that thought in mind, niche job boards like BioSpace often focus their product development efforts to align with the behaviors and habits of their audience. Sites that serve truck drivers or skilled tradespeople tend to lean heavily on mobile-first approaches along with texting and universal application models, Dickey-Chasins said. “They try to do things like text-based assessments, to fit the way these people work,” he explained. “In certain sectors it’s super hard to find people, so you basically do whatever it takes to pull those people out.”

Goodwin agrees. “We tell clients that job postings are foundational,” he said. Besides posting open positions and publicizing them, he believes effective job boards provide solutions suites that help companies proactively identify and contact candidates on platforms they might frequent.

That’s particularly important in a job market like today’s, where the candidate pool is small and the most desirable workers are often “passive,” open to opportunities but only the right opportunities. Because those candidates don’t, to paraphrase Sowash, wake up and surf to a job board, sites must think of themselves more as what Goodwin calls “recruitment web sites” that offer “a lot more than job postings.”

On his site, that “a lot more” is content. BioSpace was founded in the late 1980s as a life-sciences media firm. Today, around 700,000 unique visitors access the site each month, mostly to read domain-related content. “They want to know about what’s happening in the industry. They may not necessarily be looking at jobs,” Goodwin said. However, BioSpace’s specialized information provides employers with a launching pad from which to reach candidates.

Successful niche boards, adds John Sumser, principal analyst for HRExaminer, succeed not because of better technology but “because they understand the niche that they’re operating in and they don’t go outside of it.” The moment they attempt to expand beyond their core market, “things fall apart because their expertise is narrow.”