Author: Rick Bell

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Aligning Intent and Impact for Powerful D&I Results

Getting crystal clear about your goals and intentions — personally as well as professionally — is the first critical step for diversity and inclusion practitioners and champions to obtain powerful results. Once goals and intentions are clear, D&I change agents should take two more crucial steps:

Step 1: Go out and have an impact!

1. Always stay centered and grounded in your intention or goal. Advocate, take a stand, make decisions, show leadership, and demonstrate behaviors that reinforce progress in D&I based on costs, benefits and your organization’s unique, mission-critical DROI (diversity return on investment).

2. Be realistic and honest with yourself about the required foundation for success. For D&I to work and for you to have powerful, positive impacts, you must have:

  • Leadership buy-in from the top, which goes beyond lip service to commitments in time, resources (human and budgetary), and meaningful action.
  • Political and personal will from formal and informal leaders and stakeholders.
  • A belief among leadership that change is possible, and within their power to co-create — an optimistic, proactive approach instead of reactive, apathetic, or victim mentality.
  • A belief that change is not only possible but necessary (per the costs and benefits and your DROI).
  • Courage and resources to endure the difficulties of change and the inevitable conflict and upheaval that will take place.
  • A crisis (hopefully not, but this is often a key motivator). Be prepared if you think this is imminent!
  1. 3. Celebrate, even tiny successes and triumphs. Remember that it took women over 100 years to get the vote. Many of the women who demonstrated, went to jail and endured beatings for a basic right now taken for granted never got to vote themselves because they died before it became a reality. Realize this journey may be a marathon. Pace yourself. Stop every mile and do a victory end zone dance and have a piña colada, then keep running until the next mile or pit stop! Don’t just trudge on to some distant finish line, endlessly in agony, unwilling to appreciate small miracles.
  2. 4. Be prepared to walk away, and know when that is. Don’t sap your brilliance and precious energy on a losing battle. There is much work to be done. Don’t waste yourself on an impossible or untenable situation — you’re needed elsewhere! And maybe someone else is a better fit for the current reality. Be clear about where your line in the sand is and let it shift, but don’t cross it. Having a clear sense of self and integrity will keep you from compromising or diluting the goals of the initiative, which are more important that you are (another reason to make sure to do your “personal work”).

Step 2: Call out misalignments of intent and impact and course correct!

1. Notice and record ways your organization or individual leaders are having an impact. Do they align with stated goals and intentions?

2. Assume good intentions. Unless you’ve gathered a significant amount of data over a long period of time to the contrary, assume others mean well. If you can’t assume good intentions, check your assumptions by tactfully asking what the intentions were. If you are certain there are bad intentions, go back to Step

3. Address impact.

  • Call out the misalignment of intent and impact (in the appropriate setting using emotional intelligence and political savvy) by stating facts: (a) here is what we said we would do, or who we say we are, (b) this is what happened, or this was the impact. Observations are facts. Data (like employee or customer satisfaction survey results or employee retention data) are facts. Stories and emotions are also facts, because they are true accounts of a person’s experience. Avoid questioning intention or an individual’s motivations. Terrible impacts can be had with noble intentions. Always stay focused on the goal at hand and whether or not it’s being met. Addressing the problem this way is effective even when there is little trust and respect. It can also serve to build trust and respect, which may lead to deeper conversations (perhaps about intent). Consider using a model like PNDC or Crucial Conversations.
  • Apologies may be necessary, but insufficient. You must still address impact, correct behaviors and make amends. Here’s a metaphor: “You stepped on my foot and broke my toe. You’ve apologized for breaking my toe (thank you), but now what are you going to do about getting me to the hospital and paying for my medical care?” You might need input on what kinds of amends and corrections you need to make.
  • Collaborate and problem-solve with ALL stakeholders to find ways to course correct and create better impacts. Make a plan. Agree on action items, a timeline, who is responsible for what, and when/how there will be follow up, and how all parties will be held accountable.

Following these steps will better align intent and impact for you and your organization to experience more powerful results around D&I. Please share your triumphs, challenges and further questions below!

Susana Rinderle is president of Susana Rinderle Consulting and a trainer, coach, speaker, author and diversity & inclusion expert. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

 

 

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The Adverse Action Standard for Retaliation Is Low (But Not This Low)

Jon Hyman The Practical Employer

The legal standard for an “adverse action” to support a claim for workplace retaliation is pretty low. How low? According to the Supreme Court, an adverse action sufficient to support a claim for retaliation is any action that would dissuade a reasonable worker from complaining about discrimination.

But, is does it reach this low? In Bien-Aime v. Equity Residential (S.D.N.Y. 2/22/17), a federal court concluded that two managers’ general rudeness toward the plaintiff, which started only after the plaintiff filed a civil rights complaint, stood as a sufficient adverse action to support his retaliation claim.

What kind of rudeness? I’ll let the court explain:

Eichinger “stopped saying good morning” to him; Sec “totally change[d]” in the way he spoke to him and spoke to him without a “warm welcome” in his voice; Sec continually monitored him at work; Sec asked him about two instances in which he incurred employee overtime without prior approval; and Sec and Eichinger talked to him like he was a criminal.

Yup, they no longer said good morning and spoke to him in less friendly manner. While the court conceded this was “a close question,” it believed a jury, and not a judge, should decide whether this change in demeanor qualified as an adverse action.
With all due respect to this court, the legal standard for an adverse action, is not mere adversity, but material adversity. As SCOTUS correctly explained:

We speak of material adversity because we believe it is important to separate significant from trivial harms. Title VII, we have said, does not set forth “a general civility code for the American workplace.” 
 An employee’s decision to report discriminatory behavior cannot immunize that employee from those petty slights or minor annoyances that often take place at work and that all employees experience 
 . It does so by prohibiting employer actions that are likely “to deter victims of discrimination from complaining to the EEOC,” the courts, and their employers 
 . And normally petty slights, minor annoyances, and simple lack of good manners will not create such deterrence 
 .

Someone convince me that the acts of these managers as alleged in Bien-Aime are anything other than “petty slights, minor annoyances, and simple lack of good manners.” The floor is yours.

1. Thanks to Matt Austin Labor Law for tipping me off to this case.
2. The irony of the fact that the plaintiff’s surname translates to “well liked” is not lost on me.
Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.
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One Employee Says He’s Sick of Wellness Carrots and Sticks

personal genetic information
Not everyone is onboard with HR 1313, which allows employers to offer lower insurance premiums for employees who share their personal genetic information.

Last week I posted a news brief about a new bill that caused some controversy. That bill, the Preserving Employee Wellness Program Act, or HR 1313, would allow employers to offer lower insurance premiums for employees who share their personal genetic information with their employer.

Kurt Schanaman, a freelance technical writer and roofing supply specialist in Gering, Nebraska, left a comment on my story as an employee concerned about his privacy. So I asked him to write a little more about his position on this topic.

[Read: “New Wellness Bill HR 1313 Gets Flak for Genetic Privacy Concerns”]

[Read: “Swapping DNA for Lower Insurance Costs Is One Wellness Step Too Far”]

Supporters of HR 1313 point out that sharing one’s genetic information is in fact voluntary. The opposition states that although not technically forced, they are being coerced. Schanaman’s argument is a fleshed-out version of the latter. “If a person feels coerced into signing away rights to his or her body and possessions under threat of financial (or other) penalties, it is an abrogation of that person’s rights entirely and ceases to be truly voluntary,” he wrote.

Below you can read his argument, edited for clarity and space:

“In August 2016 I was informed by my employer that I must choose to do a health risk assessment survey and submit to an annual biometric physical to qualify for the lowest possible health insurance premium for 2017. Included in the packet was a form I was to sign and provide to the medical practitioner so that my sensitive health data could be shared with a third party composed of people I don’t even know. Since I was facing up to a thirty percent premium increase for refusing to sign that paper and participate in these intrusive requirements, I realized that this amounted to a punitive form of coercion against me. There was no way I was going to sign away constitutional privacy rights to my medical (and soon, genetic) data to complete strangers.

“Human resources in today’s corporation would be in for a shock of a surprise were they to visit the workforce to ask how people feel about these outcome-based wellness programs with incentives (carrots) and disincentives (sticks). They may also be surprised to find out that workers are beginning to visit amongst themselves over these coercive encroachments on their privacy rights. It can be reasonably expected that before long, HR departments are going to learn that a large grassroots action campaign is brewing against them for implementing such draconian, intrusive rules. There is going to be a political backlash in 2018 over this also.

“None of these things will likely be realized by human resources officers, however, until enough workers have finally dumped their health benefits altogether in protest of such inhumane, unconstitutional practices. Such protest has already begun since I, and others, have started to notify workers across this nation about their constitutional privacy rights to this data, how valuable it truly is, how it can be abused or stolen and distributed via hacking and commercially backhanded activities, and how once a person has signed away rights to medical and genetic privacy (such as that which will be allowed to be asked for via bills like the ‘Preserving Employee Wellness Program Act – H.R. 1313’), all control is lost and the signing away of that information can never be undone.

“Human Resources should reconsider their actions. The proverbial ‘cat’ is out of the bag.”

Indeed, when I first began reporting and blogging about wellness, the disagreement over incentives was one of the first things I discovered and have heard a lot about ever since. The basic question is, by rewarding one group of people (example: wellness program participant sharing medical or personal information, people who try to quit smoking), are you inherently punishing the other group of people (example: employees concerned about their privacy, smokers not trying to quit)? Or is it a perception problem, a way in which an embittered employee chooses to perceive the situation because they didn’t get something?

My two cents? For something small — a $15 gift card to Starbucks or a 10 percent discount at the company gym, something relatively inconsequential like that — I understand that perception argument. But applying that lens to something that amounts to thousands of dollars a year in insurance premiums doesn’t hold. It’s much easier to see the situation as coercive, especially when sensitive genetic information is concerned.

Andie Burjek is an associate editor at Workforce. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

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Job Descriptions Count (but not as Much as You Think) in ADA Cases

Jon Hyman The Practical Employer

Donald Bush worked as a chef manager for Compass Group. According his written job description, his duties included routinely lifting more than 10 pounds. Bush informed his employer that he suffered from rapidly progressing cervical/thoracic spondylosis (a degenerative back condition), and requested a transfer to a less physically demanding job. Ultimately, Compass Group fired him because his illness prevented him from heavy lifting of over 50 pounds.

So, who wins Bush’s disability discrimination claim? Bush (based on the 10 pound limit in his job description), or Compass Group (based on its estimation of the practical realities of his job’s lifting requirements)?

The answer? In Bush v. Compass Group (6th Cir. 3/23/17), the appellate court affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of Bush’s claim.

Uncontroverted evidence shows that lifting up to fifty pounds was an essential part of Bush’s job duties. During his deposition, Bush confirmed that the written job description did not accurately reflect his actual job duties. Specifically, when asked about the description’s statement that candidates needed to be able to lift up to ten pounds, Bush stated that he “was lifting and moving quite a lot more than that.” Bush confirmed that he was required to move cases of meat and fifty-pound bags of potatoes and sugar. Moreover, Bush stated he was lifting heavy weights “for quite a bit of my employment” because he would have to assume the duties of less senior cooks when they did not show up for work. When asked if lifting heavy weights “was essential” to his job, Bush responded “Yes. Yes.”

Thus, because Compass could not accommodate Bush’s disability to meet the actual essential function of his job, the ADA did not protect his job.
A written job description is only one of seven factors courts consider in determining whether that function is essential to the job:
  1. The employer’s judgment as to which functions are essential;
  2. Written job descriptions prepared before advertising or interviewing applicants for the job;
  3. The amount of time spent on the job performing the function;
  4. The consequences of not requiring the incumbent to perform the function;
  5. The terms of a collective bargaining agreement;
  6. The experience of past incumbents in the job; or
  7. The current work experience of incumbents in similar jobs.

Thus, written job descriptions are important, but are not dispositive of a job’s essential functions. Just because you list a function as “essential” doesn’t mean a court has to take your word for it. If the other six factors show otherwise, then they will carry the day, and not the written job description.

Please do not, however, mis-assume that you should not have written job descriptions. To the contrary, you should have written job descriptions for each position in your organization. They not only help establish reasonable expectations for what you expect from your employees in a position, but it also help set a baseline for what you do, or do not, have to reasonably accommodate. You must provide a reasonable accommodation to enable a disabled employee to perform the essential functions of a job; you do not, however, have to accommodate the non-essential functions. The point is that a job description is only part of the story of whether a job functions is essential; it is rarely ever the whole story.

Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.

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Clarify Your Goals and Intentions for Powerful Diversity and Inclusion Results

So much potential, energy, talent, time, and money are wasted because we aren’t clear. When it comes to diversity and inclusion in particular, many of us lack clarity about our goals, the impact we want to have, or even our intentions.

Sometimes we have clear intentions but no idea how to get there. Sometimes we have clear intentions and goals for desired impact, but we don’t believe we can get there. Other times, we have positive, clear intentions, but negative or unintended impacts.

To align intent and impact for more powerful D&I results, first get crystal clear about your goals and intentions. Diversity is a means to an end. Inclusion is a means to an end. They are not the end! “Doing diversity” for its own sake — to look or feel good, comply with regulations, avoid lawsuits, or do the right thing are old school reasons that are incomplete at best and misguided at worst. Having only “old school” motivations are why many internal D&I initiatives, offices, and professionals aren’t taken seriously, and aren’t given the same power, recognition or resources as other departments. Thus such initiatives, offices and resources can be easily eliminated in tough times; D&I is seen as icing on the cake instead of an essential ingredient for the cake. It’s seen as a nice-to-have, not the must have evidence now demonstrates it to be.

What to do? Three actions:

1. Answer these key questions to define your organization’s mission-critical diversity return on investment:

  • What does this organization value most? What are its highest, most urgent priorities? Don’t look at the vision, mission, or core values, or listen to what leaders say. What do they do? Where does the money go? That tells you what the actual values and priorities are!
  • What does not “doing diversity” cost us now? What could we have saved or avoided? Identify data that affect the organization’s highest, most urgent priorities. Think about quantitative data like dollars wasted due to staff turnover (including the costs of recruiting, training, hiring, onboarding, and new hire learning curves), low engagement, low productivity, absenteeism, low customer satisfaction and reduced market share. Think about the many costs of lawsuits and other crises. Think also about qualitative data like morale, brand reputation, team performance, stress levels, effective decision making, customer satisfaction, innovation, creativity.
  • What is not “doing diversity” going to cost us in the future? Use the same metrics to project your ongoing and future costs, taking into consideration projected trends for your industry, market, and geography. Consider the shifting demographics of the United States and beyond, increasing automation and the globalization of most industries.
  • How is “doing diversity” going to benefit us? What do we stand to gain now? In the future? Using the same metrics, articulate your organization’s unique, mission critical DROI (diversity return on investment)!

2. If you are a D&I professional or champion, take time to get clear on your personal motivations and vision for doing this work. What is your personal story? Your personal pain? What early or current experiences make you passionate about this? How does D&I benefit you personally? What are your deepest values? What is your vision for the future? What possibilities do you see? What kind of world do you want to live in? How are your choices, words, and actions aligned with your vision of that world? Being rooted and grounded from a heart center will provide balance to your intellectual clarity on goals. It will add depth and authenticity to your work. It will provide motivation and inspiration when you’re weary.

3. If you are a D&I professional or champion, invest time and effort in healing your personal trauma around this work. Your pain and values may drive your commitment, but you won’t be effective over time if you’re not adequately processing your anger, grief, or shame. Most of us who do D&I work do it because we (or a loved one) have been wounded or abused in some way. Do not allow this important work and its impact on future generations to be diluted or tainted by you trying to resolve your personal pain or anger through the work alone. Also:

  • Seek a qualified therapist you respect and trust. Consider a body-focused therapy like EMDR or somatic experiencing, or try working with the subconscious through hypnotherapy.
  • Seek coaching from a certified, and preferably also credentialed, professional coach.
  • Get together regularly (weekly or monthly) with colleagues or friends you can talk with openly about the challenges. Vent and be heard, but don’t stay stuck — move to insights and solutions. Find out how you can take radical responsibility for your experience. Commit to changing your behaviors in service of your healing and vision.
  • Pursue a spiritual practice that provides solace and connection — and also guidance, accountability, and support for your behavior changes.
  • Pursue a physical practice like a sport, vigorous gym workouts, yoga, or dance in your preferred musical genre.

Going out and having an impact, then course correcting misalignments between intent and impact, are the next steps in obtaining powerful D&I results — but crystalline clarity about goals and intentions must come first.

Susana Rinderle is president of Susana Rinderle Consulting and a trainer, coach, speaker, author and diversity & inclusion expert. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

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Social Media May Distract Employees, but Should We Care?

Jon Hyman The Practical Employer

Earlier this week, I asked when employees will learn that online comments can, and will, be used against them. There is another half to the workplace-social-media equation—employers, who have the task of regulating their employees’ use of social media, which happens more and more in the workplace.

Yesterday, Cleveland reporter Olivia Perkins discussed a recent survey, which found that nearly 90 percent of employees access personal social media accounts at work, to varying degrees of distraction.

The survey of 1,200 employees, at companies of varying size, found that 18 percent of respondents said they checked social media 10 times or more during the workday. On the other end of the spectrum were the 12 percent of respondents, who said they never checked social media at work.

The on-the-job social media habits of most employees fell somewhere in between. Sixty percent of respondents said they checked social media at work one to five times daily. Ten percent said they checked social media six to 10 times during the workday. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.

The question is what to do about it? My answer? In most cases, absolutely nothing. As I’ve long argued:

Employers that try regulate personal social media use out of the workplace are fighting a Sisyphean battle. I call it the iPhone-ification of the American workforce. No matter your policy trying to regulate or outright ban social media in your workplace, if your employees can take their smartphones out of their pockets to circumvent the policy, how can you possibly police workplace social media access? Why have a policy you cannot police and enforce? And, don’t forget, the NLRB is watching, too.

Instead of regulating an issue you cannot hope to control, treat employees’ use of social media for what it is—a performance issue. If an employee is not performing up to standards because he or she is spending too much time on the internet, then address the performance problem. Counsel, discipline, and ultimately terminate if the performance does not improve. A slacking employee, however, will not become a star performer just because you limit his or her social media access; he or she will just find another way to slack off. Instead of wasting your resources to fight a battle you cannot win, reapportion them to win battles worth fighting.

We ask so much of our employees. The 9-to-5 is no longer relevant. If my employee, who is giving up nights and weekends for me, wants to spends a few minutes during the workday posting to Facebook or checking the score of last night’s game, or buying something on Amazon, I just don’t care (unless you are working in a safety-sensitive position, and then why the hell are you on your phone at all?), unless and until it reaches the level of distraction and impacts performance. Then, however, we are treating the performance problem, not the technology problem, which is the appropriate and practical solution.

Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.

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New Surveys Reveal That Most Employees Favor Paid Leave and Flexible Schedules

Jon Hyman The Practical Employer

America remains the only industrialized nation that doesn’t mandate some level of paid maternity and/or family leave for employees. Meanwhile, while the FMLA provides 12 weeks of unpaid leave, many will tell you that benefit is woefully inadequate for employees. Indeed, more than 40 percent of employees are not covered by the FMLA and are not eligible to take FMLA leave.

http://dilbert.com/strip/2013-05-10

Thus, the results of a recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center should surprise few.

Chew on these key findings:

  • 85 percent say that workers should receive paid leave for their own serious health conditions
  • 82 percent say that mothers should receive paid leave following the birth or adoption of a child
  • 69 percent say that fathers should receive paid leave following the birth or adoption of a child (notice the disparity, and what this says about our deeply held stereotypes over the roles of mothers versus fathers in the family and in the workplace)
  • 67 percent say that workers should receive paid leave to care for a family member with a serious health conditions
Yet, despite the call for paid leave, only the smallest of majorities (51 percent) believe it should be a government mandate, with the remainder holding that it should be up to each employer to provide it as a benefit. And, when asked to rank public policy priorities for 2017, paid family leave came in dead last at 35 percent.
Meanwhile, another survey suggests that most employees (60 percent) value flexible work schedules more than any other benefit, and the ability to work from home or set one’s own schedule (65 percent) more than how much one earns. Why do I mention these statistics? Because it is clear that workers need and value flexibility, and if you are not going to offer paid leave to accommodate these needs, then you should be considering flexible work schedules and telework as an option for those for whom it makes sense.
“Employees aren’t productive at home,” you say. SHRM begs to differ, reporting, “Telecommuters log five to seven more hours per week than non-telecommuters, often working even when they’re sick or on vacation.”
What does all this mean? Paid leave and telecommuting are tangible benefits that promote work-life balance. If employees value these benefits as highly as these surveys suggest, why aren’t you offering them to your employees?
Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.
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When Will Employees Learn That Online Comments Can and Will Be Used Against Them?

Jon Hyman The Practical Employer

I recently gave two different speeches discussing the balance between an employee’s privacy and an employer’s right to know. One of the themes is that social media has irreparably blurred the line between one’s personal persona and one’s professional persona, and employees best be careful with that they say online, because employers are watching and holding them accountable.

Case in point? Buker v. Howard County (4th Cir. 3/20/17) [pdf].

Buker concerns a fire department battalion chief fired because of series of posts (his spelling, not mine) to his personal Facebook page.

My aide had an outstanding idea . . lets all kill someone with a liberal . . . then maybe we can get them outlawed too! Think of the satisfaction of beating a liberal to death with another liberal . . . its almost poetic . . .

and

To prevent future butthurt and comply with a directive from my supervisor, a recent post (meant entirley in jest) has been deleted. So has the complaining party. If I offend you, feel free to delete me. Or converse with me. I’m not scared or ashamed of my opinions or political leaning, or religion. I’m happy to discuss any 8 of them with you. If you’re not man enough to do so, let me know, so I can delete you. That is all. Semper Fi! Carry On.

and

Unfortunately, not in the current political climate. Howard County, Maryland, and the Federal Government are all Liberal Democrat held at this point in time. Free speech only applies to the liberals, and then only if it is in line with the liberal socialist agenda. County Governement recently published a Social media policy, which the Department then published it’s own. It is suitably vague enough that any post is likely to result in disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment, to include this one. All it took was one liberal to complain . . . sad day. To lose the First Ammendment rights I fought to ensure, unlike the WIDE majority of the Government I serve.

Additionally, Buker “liked” a photo, posted by a co-worker, of an elderly woman with her middle finger raised, captioned: “THIS PAGE, YEAH THE ONE YOU’RE LOOKING AT IT’S MINE[.] I’LL POST WHATEVER THE FUCK I WANT[.]”

He also “liked” a racist comment by a co-worker to his “beating a liberal to death” post, which suggested that Buker “pick a black one.”

Based on the totality of these posts, the department fired Buker.

The court had little problem affirming the lower court’s decision dismissing Buker’s claims.

For several reasons, we conclude that the Department’s interest in efficiency and preventing disruption outweighed Plaintiff’s interest in speaking in the manner he did regarding gun control and the Department’s social media policy. First, Plaintiff’s Facebook activity interfered with and impaired Department operations and discipline as well as working relationships within the Department. 
 Second, Plaintiff’s Facebook activity significantly conflicted with Plaintiff’s responsibilities as a battalion chief. 
 Third, Plaintiff’s speech frustrated the Department’s public safety mission and threatened “community trust” in the Department, which is “vitally important” to its function. 
 Fourth, Plaintiff’s speech—particularly his “like” of the image depicting a woman raising her middle finger—“expressly disrespect[ed] [his] superiors.” Lastly, we observe that the record is rife with observations of how Plaintiff’s Facebook activity 
 disregarded and upset the chain of command upon which the Department relies.

In sum, we conclude the Department’s interest in workplace efficiency and preventing disruption outweighed the public interest commentary contained in Plaintiff’s Facebook activity.

Let me put it a more practical way. Employees have not yet realized that anything they say online can impact their professional persona, and that every negative or offensive statement could lead to discipline or termination. Until people fully understand that social media has erased the line between the personal and the professional, these issues will continue to arise. It is our job as employers to help educate our employees about living in this new online world, because it is clear that not all employees have yet learned this lesson.

Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.

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When You Use the Word Victim 


Whenever I see the word “victim” in a diversity context I always want to roll my eyes. Not because it’s completely false, but because historically discriminated against groups are already behind the eight ball in so many ways; why slap that pitiful label on us, too?

Labels have power. They prompt negative and positive associations — usually negative — and when it comes to diversity, labels can have layers of bias attached to them as well. The word victim inspires crappy adjectives and images around weakness, pain, suffering, helplessness. Ew.

So, when a release on new research from VitalSmarts crossed my desk this week, I paid attention. The leadership training company asked 500 victims of discrimination — their words, not mine — to share workplace experiences that made them feel excluded, unwelcome, discounted, etc. based on their race, gender, age and a host of other diversity-related criteria.

Now, I’m a journalist, so I always give the word research a gimlet eye. Many studies, even with participant pools this substantial, don’t always pass the sniff test when it comes to credibility or academic validity. You have to beware of agendas, hidden or otherwise, from the research hosts. I’m not saying this research is cracked — I’ve worked with VitalSmarts before — I’m just acknowledging there could be some bias here that I’m not aware of. For instance, I don’t know how these alleged victims were selected.

diversity and victimsI talked to my colleague Sarah Kimmel, the director of research at Human Capital Media — home of Workforce magazine — and she said this research looked “fuzzy” and should certainly be considered anecdotal. But it’s not to be completely discounted because the resulting analysis from these vctims’ stories is confined to this particular survey pool.

After analyzing the stories, David Maxfield, vice president of research at VitalSmarts, and Judith Honesty, CEO of Honesty Consulting, found workplace bias to be pervasive, permanent and unmanageable for victims. Specifically:

  • Pervasive: 49 percent of victims said the discrimination happens regularly in their workplace.
  • Permanent: 66 percent of victims said it has a large impact on their engagement, morale, motivation, commitment and desire to advance in the organization.
  • Unmanageable: 60 percent of victims said they did not feel they could master incidents of bias in the moment or prevent them from recurring in the future.

Maxfield and Honesty used American psychologist and author Martin Seligman’s work on learned helplessness to measure the impact of discrimination on employee behavior: frustration, stress, depression and helplessness. They also identified seven themes in the stories indicating the most prevalent types of workplace discrimination. They are:

  1. Don’t Be Yourself. Employees are warned to avoid showing who they really are — i.e. to avoid talking about her “wife,” to dress in a more “feminine” way etc.
  2. You’re Not Credible. Employees are interrupted and discounted, excluded from meetings, passed up for high-visibility assignments or promotions, etc. Others hint the perceived lack of credibility is the result of race, sex, age etc.
  3. Oops, Just Kidding. A manager or co-worker makes a blatant racist, sexist, intolerant comment to a colleague and then tries to walk it back.
  4. Anything Goes After Hours. A manager or co-worker makes blatantly racist, sexist, or intolerant comments/jokes about others — customers, people in the news, etc. They feel it’s OK because they’re not at work or because they aren’t talking about an employee.
  5. You’re Unwelcome. Employees are excluded from conversations at both work and social gatherings. Co-workers or managers “forget” to invite them to meetings or give them information they need to do their job. Others fail to socialize with them or change the subject or stop socializing when they join.
  6. Gotcha. A manager or co-worker seeks to tear down their colleague or believes others, even when they aren’t credible; dishes out unequal punishments; finds faults to the extent of distorting the truth.
  7. Unconscious Bias: Women, minority, or older employees are told they “lack executive presence,” “don’t fit our culture,” “are too aggressive” even though their performance would be seen as exemplary in a white, male or younger employee.

Whether this study is as sound as a drum or worthy of the side eye, there’s enough truth here to give HR and diversity leaders serious pause. These seven themes reveal a trend of subtle and harmful discrimination in the workplace that people you know or see every day on the job are experiencing. That’s not good.

“We catalogued hundreds of moments where victims were left questioning others’ intentions and their own perceptions,” Honesty said in the release. “The inner litany sounds a bit like, ‘I’m upset, but I don’t know if I should be, or if I have a right to be.’ At best, this shadowy bias is exhausting. At worst, it’s soul destroying to both the individual and the organization.”

Preach.

As much flak as diversity-themed training gets for its lack of effectiveness, it’s necessary to combat this kind of discrimination. Unconscious bias training, for instance — if done well — can help to root out the biases we all have but are often unaware of; building awareness is the first step on the road to positive behavioral and cultural change. Then comes the learning. Specifically, how to deal with and prevent the aftermath — low engagement, high turnover, poor retention, subpar performance.

There are no quick fixes to these kinds of problems, but if organizations are willing to make a long-term commitment to build an organizational culture that is not only diverse but inclusive, the business impact — more innovation, higher engagement, easier recruiting and greater performance — can make it all worthwhile. And “victims” becomes just another unfortunate word.

Kellye Whitney is associate editorial director for Workforce. Comment below or email editor@workforce.com.

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You’re Sick? Go Home!

sick at work
Some 85 percent of workers say that they have gone to the office while sick, according to one recent survey.

An IT guy at a San Francisco tech startup comes to work looking like death warmed over near the end of flu season. He is visibly ill and sweating. Unfortunately, he’s also responsible for installing vital software to everyone’s computers in the office and doesn’t want to take off sick in the middle of the upgrade.

His colleagues beg him to go home, telling him they’ll be OK. Everyone is overreacting, he says, and pretends to lick their keyboards and cough on everything.

The upgrade continues despite his illness and soon people are calling in sick. All told, 20 percent of the workforce was out sick for multiple days; a few had to be hospitalized. He is confronted with this; his response: They’re whining.

This true story unfortunately isn’t that uncommon. Even though 82 percent of HR managers in a recent study by OfficeTeam said their company encourages staff to stay home when they’re sick, 85 percent of workers in the same survey announced that they have gone to the office while sick anyway.

The takeaway? If managers want to keep their teams healthy, they’ve got make the message a lot clearer, and also practice what they preach.

According to that same survey, people say they work while sick because they feel well enough to work and they don’t want to fall behind.

It’s tricky to determine whether a person who thinks they don’t need to call in sick is, in fact, right. When people have been sick and are on the mend again, they might still sound terrible but feel much better. But conversely, people are often contagious a few days before they start exhibiting symptoms. “It’s those days when they’re still coughing but their fever has broken that an employee might think, ‘I’m lethargic, but if I go ahead and drive in, I could get my work done,’ ” said Claire Bissot, managing director of CBIZ HR Services.

Not having sick days, saving sick time in case they need it later, and not wanting to burden co-workers with extra work were other common survey responses. “A lot of times, people feel guilty about making colleagues take up the slack for work they’ve left behind,” said HR consultant Arquella Hargrove of Meta Training and Consulting in Houston. Whatever the reason, as Lisa Oyler, HR director at Access Development Corp. in Salt Lake City points out, workers would be much better served taking real time off to recuperate fully. “If you take care of yourself, you’re going to get better quicker.”

Again, it’s not just about the worker but also their colleagues. “When you’re contagious, think about your community and stay home.” Oyler said. When employees don’t heed this advice, management needs to intervene. Oyler recalled a time when a colleague came into work with a scratchy throat. “As soon as everyone found out his kids had strep, our manager sent him home.” Not every boss reacts so well, though. Bissot was stunned at the story about the office epidemic at the San Francisco tech startup and said, “Shame on that manager. I would have said, ‘Here’s a mask and gloves, now teach me how to do what you need to do so you can go home.’ ”

Managers can avoid having to take a forceful stand against sick colleagues by making it 100 percent clear it’s OK for anyone to be out sick. “Deadlines are deadlines, but employees’ health is also important,” Oyler said. “You can’t make employees feel guilty. If an employee wakes up sick, there should be no doubt in their mind that they should stay home.”

Prevention Plans

Companies can do a lot to encourage wellness in the workplace. Influenza costs the American economy $87 billion in lost productivity each year, but only about half of Americans get vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Getting vaccinated is the No. 1 way to prevent flu, according to the CDC. It’s especially important for pregnant women, senior citizens and people with asthma, diabetes or certain other immune-compromising conditions, as they’re at higher risk for flu-related complications.

The CDC recommends hosting a flu vaccination clinic in the workplace to provide shots at low cost or no cost. That makes it as easy as possible for employees to protect themselves and check off that annual task from their to-do lists.

Bissot’s company opens up its flu vaccine clinic to family and friends of employees as well. “I think inviting the whole family in is a great idea, because if the kids are sick, the parents stay home sick,” she said.

There’s no such thing as emphasizing it too many times: “Stay home if you’re sick” is a message that employees need to hear again and again. “HR can communicate it but it doesn’t really mean anything unless employees hear it from their managers,” Oyler said.

Posting fliers encouraging thorough hand-washing and healthy sneezing hygiene can help.

“The more places you remind people to wash their hands and use hand sanitizer, the better off you are,” Bissot said. “During this season, you can make a fun gift out of it,” she added. “You can print a reminder and deliver it to everyone with tissues and two Emergen-Cs to raise awareness.” She recommends that companies buy hand sanitizer, disinfecting wipes and facial tissues in bulk to make them easily accessible in the office.

Beyond influenza, diseases such as norovirus can spread like wildfire in a workplace. Often described colloquially as “stomach flu” or “food poisoning,” the gastrointestinal malady is highly infectious and spread both by direct contact and through the air.

Knowing that germs can live on hard surfaces for up to 72 hours, Bissot recommends talking to the office’s cleaning crew to make sure they are sanitizing doorknobs, kitchen appliances and vending machine buttons. “It may cost the company a little extra,” Bissot said, “But one hour of a cleaning crew compared to having seven to 10 people out of every 50 sick is worth it.”

Staying Flexible

It’s one thing for a staff member to come to work sick to avoid falling behind, but managers should also be aware of employees’ economic reasons for working while sick. “Nonexempt people might not be paid for sick days, so if you have someone that really needs to be paid and be working, they’re going to come sick,” Hargrove said. The same goes for people who have run out of days in their PTO banks. She advises managers to be as flexible as they can to keep infectious workers out of the office. “If they come in and you have to send them home, maybe you can allow them to make up that time in the same payroll period.”

Allowing people for whom it’s practical to work from home to do so is one option to get teams through contagious illnesses unscathed. “If they really need to be there, though, we can come up with a creative solution like setting them up in a private office on a critical day,” Oyler said.

It’s important for leaders to have a contingency plan for flu season and beyond. It’s safe to assume a few folks will get sick at any given time. Managers should know in advance what resources are at their disposal. “Be proactive and make sure there’s a backup plan, so if someone is out, someone else can pick up the slack,” Hargrove said. “If people can work from home, that’s fine. If you have someone out for too long, maybe bring someone in on a temporary basis.”

And managers should remember that employees will follow the boss’ lead: Supervisors need to be willing to call in sick themselves.

“It all starts with managers,” Bissot says. “You can’t try to enforce a rule when you aren’t following it yourself. If you contaminate other people, you’ll just make things harder for yourself.”

Brandi Britton is a district vice president for OfficeTeam, a staffing service company based in the Bay Area. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.