Tag: employee engagement

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Tips for restaurant owners on getting more employee feedback

Summary

  • Collecting employee feedback gives staff a voice and catalyzes new solutions.

  • There are five main ways to increase the amount of employee feedback you recieve.

  • Keeping the communication channels open with employees will encourage them to provide feedback frequently, at any time.

Usually, feedback is perceived as something being given by the employer to their employees. However, receiving feedback from your employees could be a real game-changer for your restaurant.

Why is employee feedback important?

Feedback makes employees feel empowered. It provides them a voice and makes them feel like their opinions matter. Employee feedback catalyzes new solutions. It might spark new ideas that you can use for improving customer service, streamlining your kitchen processes, creating new dishes to serve, modifying your recipes, and more. Restaurant owners get invaluable insights from employees who have on-the-ground, customer-facing experience.

So, the big question is, how do you gather more employee feedback? Here are some tips:

1. Create a culture of feedback

You create a culture of feedback by making it easy for employees to give feedback at any time. Giving and receiving feedback needs to become a part of your organizational values for you to create this culture.

Give your employees a voice. You’ll only hear what they have to say if they speak up! Actively encourage them to provide feedback by telling them they have the power to communicate.

Nurture honest communication in the workplace, but also understand that this honest and open dialogue can lead to conflict. Learn to be comfortable with feedback that may be difficult to hear and create an environment that allows both managers and employees to communicate without hesitation.

View employee feedback with the perspective that running your restaurant is a team sport. View your employees as your allies and build rapport with them. The stronger your rapport is, the more comfortable they’ll feel contributing their ideas to your business.

Creating a culture of feedback is a team effort. While collecting employee feedback is critical, don’t forget to give them your feedback using the right tools and applications. The right tool should let you provide employees with regular shift feedback regarding performance levels, areas of opportunity, and workplace success.

By giving your employees feedback, you’ll inadvertently encourage them to provide their own feedback, since they will feel they need to reciprocate and fit in with the feedback culture.

2. Allow employees to give feedback anonymously

Giving feedback anonymously is sometimes a safe way for both employees and restaurant owners to bring the truth out into the open.

Some employees may not be comfortable sharing honest feedback in person. This could be for several reasons. Maybe they have a strong complaint against another employee and don’t want to talk about it openly. Perhaps they disagree with you on something but don’t want to risk their job, or it could be something else.

One way to do this is to create Google forms/surveys that ask confidential questions, allowing employees to leave their feedback anonymously. Such feedback surveys with the right questions can give you invaluable written feedback to improve how you run your restaurant.

Your feedback surveys can ask questions that are usually unspoken, like: What were some of your pain points while working this week? How challenged do you feel at work on a daily basis? What are some things you’d like to change about running this restaurant and why? Is there any training you’d like to receive from us?

Another tactic you can use to collect feedback anonymously is to create a suggestion box. Using apps like Culture Amp, it’s possible to create an online suggestion box where employees can leave their feedback anonymously. Alternatively, you could create a physical box where people can drop an anonymous note with their feedback.

3. Set up regular feedback sessions

Set up regular feedback sessions and meet your employees in person. These interactions can teach you more about each employee’s sentiments because they give you body language cues that you can’t get from strictly written or vocal feedback. Make sure you set up both group and individual feedback sessions that are face to face to collectively gather a variety of perspectives.

Make your feedback sessions specific by creating focus groups. For instance, you could have one focus group just for collecting feedback about your customer service and one just for your restaurant’s interior decoration.

A popular Mexican restaurant chain, Chipotle, started hosting ‘listening sessions’ for employees. This was during the time when racial tensions were intense due to George Floyd’s death. Leadership at the business set up virtual chat sessions to listen to employees voice real-life concerns.

Organized by store leadership, these sessions asked employees questions like “What are the three words that describe how you’re feeling?” or “What is the one thing you want executive leadership to know?” and “What should we be doing to create and cultivate a better world?”

The notes from these sessions resulted in all of the change initiatives, both internal and external, that Chipotle decided to implement. One of the goals of these initiatives was to hire 10,000 employees to support growth through and after COVID. Chipotle launched a ‘We are hiring’ campaign and hired 8,000 new employees through it.

4. Incentivize employees to provide feedback

Elon Musk says, “A well thought out critique of whatever you’re doing is as valuable as gold.” If feedback is as valuable as gold, giving incentives to employees to provide feedback seems like a good bargain. Provide both monetary and non-monetary incentives to your employees for providing their feedback.

A few examples of non-monetary incentives could be to offer them a work shift of their choice for many weeks in a row, a mentoring or training program to help them with professional development, or quite simply, free meals at your restaurant at the end of their shift.

Make the process of seeking feedback more fun by ‘gamifying’ it. Giving and receiving feedback should be seen as a fun exercise that your employees look forward to. You can do this by giving employee bonuses proportional to the quality and quantity of feedback provided by employees. Another option is hosting ‘employee of the month’ competitions, with feedback being a solid determinant of who the employee of the month should be. Doing gift giveaways (like giving t-shirts or other goodies) for employees that take feedback-giving seriously could also be a good idea.

5. Have a simple shift feedback tool

Employees should be encouraged to leave feedback on every shift when they go to clock out. However, staff won’t feel the need to do this if giving feedback is a difficult and tedious process. Usually, mobile time clock apps are the best way to open up an efficient avenue for employees to provide regular feedback.


A shift feedback tool should allow you to gather actionable data on what went well during shifts and what did not go well. It should also give staff the option to leave additional notes for shift managers. For instance, wait staff may leave some negative feedback on a certain day because poor scheduling resulted in a short-staffing issue. Or kitchen staff may leave positive feedback if they had good communication with the wait staff on a day with unusually high sales. Employees can also use this opportunity to justify their actions in case any customers have complained about them.

All of this information your employees provide can be used by managers to pinpoint frontline issues in scheduling, burnout, and engagement.

Keep communication open between employees and owners

Open the lines of communication with your employees so they’re able to provide feedback at any time. Feedback shouldn’t just be viewed as a distracting exercise that needs to be completed on brief occasions; it should be encouraged and built into your workforce management system.

To discuss how you can encourage your employees to give more feedback, get in touch with us.
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Practical tips for better employee experience going into 2022

Summary

  • “Antiwork” culture is fueling the labor shortage.

  • To attract workers again, employee experience needs to be improved.

  • Addressing the fundamentals of workforce management can make employees happier, engaged, and productive. 

Most people at some point have felt the urge to pull a Christopher McCandless. The notion of dropping everything and running away to the Alaskan wilderness in an old van is a refreshingly romantic one, especially for the unfulfilled employee. Who needs overbearing managers, rude customers, and exhausting overtime hours anyways, right?

“Antiwork” and the American labor shortage

Rejecting the status quo in favor of pursuing unconventional lifestyles and career paths is back in vogue now, thanks to an existential crisis sweeping the workforce. Spurred by the pandemic, disillusioned people everywhere are questioning what it means to be happy in their work.

These sentiments are in large part felt by young people part of the “antiwork” movement. They are tired of the structure behind traditional work-life – all the clock-ins, deadlines, barely livable wages, and whatnot. 

As a result, America is facing an unprecedented shortage in labor. According to a Peterson Institute for International Economics report, the country still needs 6.2 million jobs filled. Even still, many are choosing to opt out of the workforce. 

Perhaps it is time employers take a look inward for a moment to reevaluate how employees feel about their jobs. A report from Gallup measuring factors like employee stress, anger, sadness, and worry says that overall employee engagement is down 2% globally, with only 23% of people saying they are very happy working for their employer. In America and Canada, only 34% of employees said they felt engaged in their work. 

So, workers are angry and worried in the workplace; that isn’t great. And it certainly isn’t helping the labor shortage. Heading into 2022, businesses should seek to reevaluate their understanding of employee experience and strive to improve it. 

Of course, this is not all about the worker; poor employee experience translates to both time and monetary costs for businesses. Frustrated and disengaged employees usually take longer to complete tasks, and their work is often below standard. This can all lead to higher employee turnover, which is very costly to businesses. Sometimes, replacing a worker can cost nearly 20% of what they make annually. 

Improving employee experience

There are many informative lists out there regarding how to improve employee experience, with most suggesting things like team bonding events and haphazard appreciation gestures. While useful at times, these tend to be very vague attempts at solving the issue. Instead, it is worth tackling employee experience from a workforce management perspective. Many issues in employee experience stem from improper scheduling and attendance practices. Solving these problems will not only improve how employees feel about their jobs, but will also help businesses retain employees, attract new hires, and control labor costs. 

So, here’s what you can do:

Raise wages

This may seem obvious and overly simplistic. However, it is often because of this simplicity that managers overlook raising wages.

In these times, workers want to be recognized as human beings, and as such, be compensated accordingly. They want living wages more than they want 90-day bonuses. Some businesses already recognize this, choosing to adopt “pro-employee” mentalities and accept short-term increases in labor costs.

“There are a number of ways you can attract folks,” says Andy Cole of Elite Staffing during a Nov. 8 Workforce.com webinar. “But what we feel right now is that wages are by far the number one reason as to how you get people in the door.” As COO of a staffing agency covering 2,000 locations, Cole understands well what workers value most right now and going forward into 2022. 

Offer opportunities for shift feedback

Employees like to be heard, especially when it comes to how they feel about their shifts. Providing them with a tool to automatically rate shifts every time they clock out will give managers valuable insight into how satisfied employees are with their hours, coworkers, and environment.  

It is important to receive feedback on a regular basis. Doing this helps managers identify and resolve underlying issues employees may have early on before things get out of hand. 

Utilize shift swapping functionality

Sometimes, life happens. And when life decides to happen, rigid schedules can become a nightmare. Offering flexible technology that lets employees easily find shift coverage can go a long way in improving employee experience. 

“I think [my employees] being able to select the position or the shift for that day is really helpful because they feel like they’re helping the team,” says Katie Strehlow, an HR generalist for a baseball team in California. “They come in with a positive attitude, which always leads to a better work performance.” Her employees use shift swapping technology on their phones; she says it has led to an increase in engagement, satisfaction, and performance. 

Clean up your leave management

Recently it was discovered that Amazon has been incorrectly handling paid and unpaid leave for employees due to flaws in their time and attendance software. Many of these employees were wrongfully fired after the software marked them as “no shows” while on leave. If Jeff Bezos’ empire gets leave management wrong, so can any business. 

Employees must have proper visibility into their paid and unpaid leave. They also need to know that it will never be mishandled or miscalculated. Leave management systems that cater to employee experience should be accurate, transparent, and easy to use; ensuring these things helps employers build trust with their workers. Leave management should also integrate with scheduling systems, so as to easily avoid accidentally scheduling people when they are away. 

Enhance scheduling visibility

With fair workweek laws popping up across the country, it is becoming apparent that employees highly value predictive scheduling practices. Employers should make sure they send out schedules far in advance so as not to surprise their workers. 

In addition, schedules should be published onto a single live platform for all employees to view anytime, anywhere – this eliminates the confusion and frustration that comes from repeatedly sending out different schedules across an entire workforce. 

Personalize with granular employee data

It is helpful to have an in-depth workforce management system that provides data down to the individual. Understanding employee preferences through metrics like where and when they consistently show up late, or for what shifts they usually request a swap, helps managers address underlying experience issues. 

Granular employee data also helps managers equitably distribute shifts. For instance, managers can actively see while scheduling which employees have been given the fewest hours, and then react accordingly. Segmenting data in a personalized way like this also provides insight into sales vs labor hour metrics; managers can use this information to recognize and help out employees who might be struggling with productivity. 

Automate time tracking

According to a recent article from Forbes, outdated legacy systems are often unable to efficiently automate time tracking; the inconvenience of this harms employee experience and increases administrative costs. 

Hourly employees want their lives to be easy, especially when it comes to monotonous tasks like clocking in and out and filling in timesheets. They also want peace of mind regarding the timeliness and accuracy of their paychecks. Automating time and attendance guarantees employees are paid correctly every time, eliminating the headaches of variables like overtime and pay differentials. An automated system like this also serves to make your employees’ jobs easier, improving their overall experience. 

Slick and easy UX

If employees are unable to navigate basic tools for their jobs, their experience is undoubtedly going to get really sour, really fast. Complicated and broken UX can cause anger and stress for employees and its something businesses should seek to eliminate. 

UX experts note easy logins, straightforward interfaces, consistent styles, and easy to find policies/contact info as several principles that should be considered when designing systems to maximize employee experience.

It comes down to the basics

To improve employee experience, you first need to solve workforce management. Scheduling and timekeeping are the fundamentals of how a business, and its staff, operate on a day-to-day basis. Streamlining these areas always results in higher employee motivation, engagement, and happiness. 

Want to get started? Hop on a call with us today. We’ll talk you through it.

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Casinos scramble for post-pandemic talent as business rebounds

Eureka Casinos, talent, hospitality

Casinos across the United States were among the hardest hit businesses as the hospitality and travel industries suffered through the pandemic.

Conventioneers and gamblers disappeared and unemployment soared as the iconic Las Vegas Strip looked more like a ghost town than a glitzy, bustling entertainment mecca. And the numbers tell a bleak tale.

Gambling revenues slid by 31 percent in 2020, according to an annual report by the American Gaming Association. By comparison, the report noted that the industry’s economic tumble in 2020 far outdistanced the 8.4 percent decrease during the Great Recession. And, the Las Vegas unemployment rate reached 30 percent at the height of the pandemic, according to reports.

Business and employees slowly return

But the casino business is bouncing back. Employees are now being snapped up to fill thousands of vacant positions as the Las Vegas unemployment rate has slipped back to single digits. Many of them will be working the conventions — the Society for Human Resource Management and HR Technology Conference among them — that are finally returning to in-person events in Las Vegas this fall.

Along with the mega-corporations that line The Strip, Eureka Casinos appears to have weathered the storm and is shaking off the pandemic’s effects to fully reopen for business. With Nevada properties in Las Vegas and Mesquite and a casino in New Hampshire, Eureka Casinos is the only employee-owned gaming company in the United States. That distinction puts Eureka Casinos in a unique position to entice job candidates in a desperate battle to staff up as visitors return.

The battle for talent

The scarcity of good talent is particularly acute as casinos rush to re-staff, said Eureka Casinos Chief Operating Officer Andre Carrier. Any casino’s growth is tempered by its ability to field a qualified workforce, he added.

To be competitive in talent acquisition, Carrier said Eureka Casinos instituted hiring bonuses and is offering employees flexible hours and dual rates to fit staffing needs and schedules. But their key competitive advantage is employee ownership, he said.

“It means that our employees are provided with a long-term retirement benefit with no direct contribution,” he said. “This is an exceptional benefit and one we hope allows us to not only to retain our talented people, but attract future employees.”

Also read: Allied Universal boosts its hiring as demand for security services surges

With an employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP, employees take on an owner’s mindset, which means a stronger sense of buy-in to the business and each other, Carrier said. It became especially valuable as COVID-19 swept across the industry.

“The pandemic was an unimaginable crisis with much of the company’s business closing for nearly three months,” Carrier said. “The challenge was to establish new systems to care for the physical, financial and emotional needs of the employee owners rapidly and effectively.”

Research has shown that companies with an ESOP are less likely to lay people off and keep employees working than conventionally owned businesses. Employee ownership has helped Eureka Casinos build a family style atmosphere for employees among the massive gaming conglomerates.

Building employee engagement

Engagement was a huge priority for Eureka Casinos throughout the pandemic, Carrier said. Being a mega-corporation would have impeded their ability to focus on the needs of their 600 employees, 70 percent of whom are hourly.

“One of the main ways we kept our employees engaged throughout our three-month closure was a weekly drive-through food pantry,” he said. “Many of our employees volunteered to pack food baskets and pass them out, and we had volunteer drivers deliver baskets. This was just one more way that we came together as a family business.”

Producing videos on the expected timeline for the state’s shutdown, answering common questions and preparing employees for a return to work kept everyone updated, Carrier said.

Carrier said employees were paid “for as long as possible before any need for unemployment” during their closure.

“We also allowed employees to use paid time off if needed and paid for health care benefits while we were closed,” he said. Some departments remained on duty during the entire closure, he said, noting how the engineering team worked to fabricate all the Plexiglas dividers that were a requirement for reopening.

Vaccinating employees

Once vaccines were approved, Eureka Casinos worked with government agencies and local hospitals to develop a vaccination center and a process for employees and the community to get vaccinated. They created a reservations platform and staffed the center as well, he said.

Also read: EEOC says that employers legally can offer incentives to employees to get vaccinated in almost all instances

A rewards program also was established for employees wanting to be vaccinated.

“Any employee who gets vaccinated receives a cash bonus,” he said. “Once the company reaches two specific overall vaccination thresholds, additional bonuses are paid out to vaccinated employees.”

Tight talent pool

Carrier told Las Vegas television station KTNV that the pool of available worker talent in Las Vegas will remain tight as venues prepare for the second half of 2021. “This is arguably one of the most difficult times ever to find new people to join your company.”

But Carrier is optimistic that his casinos will fully rebound in large part because of their employees.

“Having hope for the future is a core value for Eureka Casinos, and the pandemic taught us how important that value is.”

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Slow rehiring of child care workers may stymie employers’ return to workplace plans

child care

Employers are navigating a variety of issues as employees gradually return to a more permanent physical workplace.

According to a new survey by Aon, 52 percent of employers said employees will return onsite in the third quarter, and 81 percent of those organizations already have a tentative date in mind. A May 2021 survey by law firm Littler, however, reveals a disparity in employers’ plans and employees’ preferences when it comes to hybrid work models and returning to physical workplaces.

There are several reasons employees may hesitate returning to the workplace. Chief among them for parents of young children, returning to work means finding quality, affordable child care.

Reestablishing pre-pandemic connections to daycare facilities is a challenge for many workers who are remote or unemployed and looking to return to work. The pandemic has crushed many small businesses, and child care centers are no exception, said Lauren Gill, head of people at New York-based child care provider Vivvi, which has 200 employees working on three campuses. Thousands of child care facilities have closed since March 2020, Gill said, and experts say that will have a profound impact on working families, especially women.

“Our challenge as an industry is how to rebuild and provide increased access,” Gill said.

Women bear the brunt of caregiving

The Center for American Progress found that the pandemic led to a 144 percent increase in child care-related work absences from September through November 2020, compared with the same period in 2019. The pandemic also led three in 10 women with children under 18 to temporarily or permanently leave the workforce to become a primary caregiver to children.

“The pandemic exacerbated the issues, resulting in over 2.2 million women leaving the workforce and the average parent spending 27 more hours per week on child care,” Gill said. “This has forced organizations to confront the fact that child care is a universal concern that affects all employees and that employee benefits have inadequately addressed this issue. Inadequate access to quality child care has been a challenge for individual families, for employers and for the U.S. economy for a long time.”

Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, said that child care providers bring invaluable benefits to children and their families every day.

“Our entire economy is dependent upon their labor, yet razor-thin margins and a dearth of public investment mean the workers themselves receive poverty-level wages and few benefits,” Goss Graves said in a statement commemorating National Child Care Provider Appreciation Day in May.

Early childhood education is already a physically and emotionally demanding field, said Kae Bieber, education programs manager at nonprofit ACCA Child Development Center in Annandale, Virginia. The additional workload from health precautions coupled with the stress of working in a field that exposes employees directly to COVID-19 has made it difficult to fill positions.

At the pandemic’s onset ACCA kept its doors open for the children of essential workers, Bieber said. The number of children dropped from over 210 to 40 in the early days of the pandemic.

Struggling now to fill positions

As more parents returned to work and enrollment increased, Bieber said they have struggled to find qualified staff to fill positions vacated by employees who left during the pandemic. Some employees felt pressure to find a less stressful, safer choice for them and their family, so they left, she recalled.

“With the limitations on capacity due to COVID regulations and the need for staff, wait lists for quality child care are increasing,” she said. “Most often, a parent may get the call to return to the office but then still must wait until child care is available. This causes stress on the parents during an already extremely challenging time.”

Kae Bieber, child care
Kae Bieber, education programs manager at the ACCA Child Development Center.

As ACCA — which has an infant-toddler center as well as a preschool building with 12 classrooms — began restaffing its workforce of 65 hourly employees, Bieber found job candidates were hesitant to join the field. Early childhood education previously was seen as a good starting point for someone interested in working with children and education, she said.

“Now a potential candidate must consider the low wage in comparison to the sacrifice they will be making with their lives for themselves and their family,” she said. “We may have 30 responses to one job posting but when a potential candidate sees the reality of the amount of work and exposure in-person, they do not see the value in their work due to the low wage.”

While money may not be everything, Bieber believes that if they were able to offer hazard pay as additional support during the pandemic, ACCA would not have lost as many child care professionals. In a worker’s mind, she said, they could at least feel as if they were being compensated in some way for the exposure they were faced with and bringing to their homes.

“No matter how vested someone’s heart may be, if their ability to provide for their family is struggling and they are now facing exposure to a deadly virus each day, it can be very difficult to rationalize staying in that position.”

Employees move on for safety and pay

Good employees were forced to choose between staying with a profession they loved versus switching to a job with less exposure and often higher wages, she said. The added sanitation measures quadrupled workloads in an already labor-intensive environment. Interaction with children also changed dramatically due to social distancing guidelines.

“Children thrive off of closeness, hugs, smiles, high fives, pats on the back and interacting with each other,” Bieber said. “We lost that, literally overnight. We went from creating high quality learning experiences to supervising social distancing and implementing nonstop sanitation. Our staff began to question if they were doing more harm than good by having children play six feet apart and keep their distance from the children. They had a very difficult time adjusting to the new normal.”

Stagnant wages for caregivers

Though there is a greater appreciation for child care, Gill said many programs are restricted in their ability to boost wages since they are under-enrolled and recovering from months on end collecting little or no tuition.

“We haven’t seen a major shift in wages in the child care industry since the pandemic,” she said.

Gill added that as a sector, they need to think about how to make early childhood education a true career with all of the financial stability, respect and growth opportunities that other careers offer both in the wake of the pandemic and beyond.

“We should never make educators choose between their passion and a comfortable life,” she said. “It’s vital that they become synonymous.”

Entice candidates by prioritizing benefits

There are opportunities to bring stability to the child care industry and its professionals. Only 4 percent of employers offered subsidized child-care centers or programs, according to the Society for Human Resource Management’s 2019 employee benefits survey. There is a huge opportunity to move the needle, Gill said.

child care
Lauren Gill, head of people at child care provider Vivvi.

“Employer partnerships are a path to bringing high-quality care and early learning to more families” while helping employers recruit and retain top talent and increase productivity across the board, Gill said.

As a private employer that has partnered with organizations including the New York Presbyterian Hospital network, Gill said Vivvi built its business model with competitive wages for teachers at its core. “While we haven’t shifted our compensation strategy as a result of the pandemic, we continue to offer full-time, salaried roles and offer a full suite of benefits,” she said.

Some employers are looking at offering employee benefits that give employees options for access to affordable and quality child and elder care options, said Michelle Barrett Falconer, co-chair of the Leaves of Absence and Disability Accommodation Practice Group at Littler Mendelson.

“If an employee has access to affordable, quality child and elder care, the employee may not need to take time off from work using a paid family leave statute to address those caregiving obligations,” Barrett Falconer said. 

Higher wages are not yet a reality for early childhood, Bieber said, although with the Biden administration’s new American Rescue Plan, she sees hope that wages for early childhood workers could begin to increase and meet a living wage for early childhood educators.

“The child care industry desperately needs legislation in place to recognize early childhood education as a valued profession and the message from top to bottom in our society needs to place emphasis on the recognition and need for quality child care,” Bieber said.

Having spent most of her career in education, Gill said that supporting the educational development of future generations is a monumental and vitally important task. Affordable, quality child care can be transformative for working families and make for happier, more productive employees, she said.

“When parents have peace of mind, they can pursue their goals outside of the home and be better, happier parents as a result.”

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Work Schedule Planning [Guide + Examples]

Predict staffing requirements

Planning work schedules for employees can be a time-consuming process. Planning schedules for hourly workers can be even more frustrating, like trying to solve a never-ending jigsaw puzzle in which the pieces are constantly changing. It doesn’t have to be so bad. If hourly schedules are the bane of your life, follow these suggestions to make them less of a chore.

What to consider before work schedule planning

As with any complex process, don’t just jump in and start filling in shifts. The more time and energy you devote to preparation, the smoother the end process becomes.

Monitor and map your demand

You’d be shocked how many businesses fail to take into account the basic need to track customer demand when work schedule planning for your hourly employees. Step back and take stock of how your business works on a day-to-day, week-by-week, and month-by-month basis, and let that guide your planning. What are your busiest and quietest periods? Are you in a sector where demand is seasonal? These aren’t questions to be asked once, but something you should query regularly. Patterns change, and it’s all too easy to find yourself overstaffed or understaffed because you didn’t notice in time.

Use past performance to predict your staffing needs

There are several ways you can predict your future staffing requirements based on past performance.

  • Staffing Ratio: Looking at your typical staffing ratio can offer a rough guide to working out how many new hires are needed and in which areas. For example, if you generally have 10 workers to every manager, then deviations can tell you if you need more managers, less staff, or some other variation.
  • Statistical Regression: For businesses where income is closely tied to staffing, such as call centers, using a statistical regression model allows you to track when your most profitable periods were and see what the staff levels were for those periods, helping you find the most efficient size for your workforce.
  • The Delphi Method: For larger companies, this approach involves convening a panel of senior managers and external consultants to pool their insights and offer a roadmap for future staffing needs.

If all of this sounds intimidating, or if you have a new or small business where such data is limited, don’t worry. There are workforce management tools that can automatically provide this analysis for you.

Prepare a clear and concise paid time off policy

You can head off many work schedule planning issues early on by making sure your paid time off (PTO) policy is robust, clear, and up to date. Employees who know what time they are entitled to are empowered to make meaningful decisions about their schedule.

Your PTO policy should include details on the following:

    • The types of time off covered: Sick leave, vacations, personal/bereavement days, national holidays.
    • How PTO is accrued based on hours worked and how many days workers are eligible for.
    • How PTO can be used. For example, is it taken in units of an hour or less, or as full or half days?
    • How much notice is needed to book time off and are there any blackout periods during which time off cannot be taken, such as key retail periods.

The exact contents of a PTO policy will vary from one business to another. But as a rule of thumb, the Society for Human Resource Management says that most current policies offer between 15 and 20 days of PTO per year, plus any company-observed holidays.

Don’t assume that because you implement such a policy that workers will use it. A 2018 study for the Annual Review of Sociology revealed that many workers were afraid of repercussions to their job if they took full advantage of flexible working hours. It’s not enough to have more equitable scheduling; you have to reassure your employees that they should take advantage of it.

Your work schedule planning checklist

Once you have done your top-level preparation, you’re ready to start work schedule planning for your hourly workers. Use this checklist to make sure you don’t overlook anything important.

Identify your needs. You’ve already laid the groundwork for this in the preparation process above. It’s the basic question at the heart of all workplace schedules: How many people do you need where and when? Don’t be tempted to guess. The Workforce Business Intelligence Board’s 2020 HR State of the Industry Survey found that only 21.1 percent of organizations have used workforce analytics.

Choose the right people. Employees aren’t generic widgets used to plug gaps. The more you know about your employees’ strengths and experience, the greater your ability to not just drop them into a schedule but plan well-balanced shifts that run smoothly.

Cross-reference your resources. Scheduling isn’t just about people; it’s about making sure they have what they need when they need it. For example, when are deliveries made? Who signs them in? Who moves the stock and how? Miss this step and your schedule falls apart when staff members have to leave one task to deal with another.

Check against safety regulations. Don’t assume this is only an issue for construction workers and similar manual jobs. Even a low-risk workplace should have trained first aid personnel on each shift. Check the OSHA guidelines to see how many you need.

Fill out the shifts. An obvious step, but one that still requires strategic thought. You can take a top-down approach in which the manager sets the schedule, or a bottom-up process in which employees can request open shifts. Workers who have more control over their working life are happier and more loyal. So, if your business model allows it, a hybrid of the two will likely yield best results. Let Workforce’s analytics guide you. Working in the dark on staffing management makes for bad business.

Be prepared. No-shows and last-minute changes will happen. It’s frustrating, but you can minimize disruption by keeping a standby list of dependable part-time workers or employees looking for overtime to deal with these problems. Always do so in consultation and with prior agreement with these workers—nobody wants to have their evening plans ruined by a demand to come into work, and it may even be illegal to do so.

Evaluate, evaluate, evaluate. Whenever the natural break in your shift cycle falls, audit the performance of your scheduling over that period. Are there still crunch points with not enough staff or regular periods of over-staffing? Scheduling is not the sort of job that is ever finished. It will always be in flux to some degree, so use a tool like Workforce to automatically collate the data you need to make informed choices.

Communicate. Encourage an open dialogue with your hourly workers. Is the system working for them as well? There may be mutually beneficial changes that are invisible from a management perspective. You don’t have to cede control of how the business is run, but giving employees more say in their working hours is a great way to cut down on the churn of shift staff.

Follow these steps and you’ll find that work schedule planning, even for hourly workers, is a much more manageable task.

Why legal compliance is key to successful work schedule planning

Smart scheduling is important for more than just your immediate business needs. There are swathes of legislation regarding how and when people work. The good news is that following these laws should mean staff stay with you longer and are more productive when they’re on the clock.

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) pertains to hourly workers, which means that pay for hours worked must add up to the minimum wage for your company to be legally compliant. Always check your local state laws in this area, as currently 29 states have a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum wage.

Non-compliance naturally comes with stiff penalties, so understanding and following the law is vital. Wading through the details can be hard, and details can be missed, so using employee scheduling software that automatically checks your schedules against national and local labor laws will give you peace of mind.

There’s one more thing you will need to be aware of when work schedule planning for hourly workers in sectors like retail and hospitality. You may see it referred to as predictive scheduling or “fair work week.” But over the past six years, multiple cities and states have enacted legislation aimed at reducing exploitation of people with practices such as “clopening.”

“Clopening” laws give your employees breathing room

When an employee is the last to close up at night and is also the first on shift the following day to open up, that’s clopening. It leads to stress, burnout, and high staff turnover. Under “fair work week” laws, businesses must adhere to minimum periods between shifts. In Philadelphia, for example, you must allow at least nine hours between shifts. But in Seattle, it is 10 hours, and in New York, the limit is 11 hours.

Predictive scheduling gives employees visibility on their upcoming workload

These laws also make it a legal requirement to use predictive scheduling, which means setting shifts for hourly employees at least two weeks in advance so that workers can better plan childcare and other quality of life essentials. So far, the states and cities that have enacted laws are San Francisco, Emeryville, and San Jose in California; Oregon; Seattle; Philadelphia; New York City; Chicago; and the District of Columbia. More predictive scheduling legislation will follow, so make sure you are up to speed on the rules specific to your location, as there are regional variations.

Slip up on a small detail, and you could face a big penalty. Seattle, for instance, has a $500 minimum penalty applicable on a per-employee and per-violation basis. Make a mistake that impacts 10 employees, and you’re looking at a five-figure fine. That’s why Workforce provides a labor compliance solution with up-to-date regional templates for workplace legislation, automatically checking that your schedules comply with the latest rules wherever you are.

When it comes to work schedule planning, expect the unexpected

Hourly work schedules may seem chaotic and prone to sudden change, but staffing management doesn’t need to be a headache. By accepting things will change and having a firm but flexible framework for the planning process, you can head off problems before they arise. Workforce can automate the most time-intensive parts of the process and make sure you follow the law in the process. The benefits to your business of a coherent and reliable scheduling system are higher productivity, greater worker retention, and better morale. And, of course, less stress for you.

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Communicating the needs of the frontline workforce

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

Cristian Grossman may be a newly minted author with the recent release of his first book, “The Rise of the Frontline Worker: How to Turn Your Frontline Workforce Into Your Biggest Competitive Advantage.”

But the co-founder and CEO of Beekeeper, a mobile collaboration platform, also has toiled as a frontline worker. A former waiter, factory worker and chemical engineer, Grossmann meshes his time in the trenches with his entrepreneurial savvy to argue that technology is imperative to making frontline workers more effective employees.

From health care to manufacturing to retail employees, Grossmann deftly addresses the importance of frontline workers. Since the pandemic began, millions of North America’s frontline workers found themselves in the spotlight for the first time, with appreciation initiatives in almost every city. Despite the recognition, Grossmann argues that the reality is many frontline workers don’t have the support and tools they need to do their jobs.

Workforce caught up with Grossmann for an in-depth Q&A in the days leading up to his company’s “Frontline Future” virtual conference on May 6.

Workforce: Define a frontline worker.

Cristian Grossmann: Frontline workers are employees who do not sit at desks or work at computers. Their jobs are most often mobile, like sales associates, first responders, construction workers and restaurant servers. As their name implies, they are on the frontlines of their company, either in a customer-facing role or a hands-on role, like a production worker in a manufacturing facility.

What many people don’t realize is that frontline workers actually make up the vast majority of the world’s workforce. In the United States alone there are approximately 50 million frontline workers. Worldwide there are about 2.7 billion frontline workers, which is 80 percent of the world’s workforce.

Workforce: So, the book title — “The Rise of the Frontline Worker” — are you saying these employees have been overlooked and now employers are coming to understand how valuable they are?

frontline workforce
Cristian Grossmann, author of “The Rise of the Frontline Worker”

Grossmann: Early into the pandemic, frontline workers were thrust into the public spotlight. Beneath their masks, they put on a brave face and continued providing the services that society needs to sustain itself and its people. Now, frontline workers are appropriately recognized as essential workers, because they are vital to our economy. In fact, according to the Department of Homeland Security, essential workers are now officially recognized as part of our critical infrastructure operations.

When office employees transitioned to remote work, many frontline teams continued to work onsite throughout the duration of the pandemic. Without these essential workers, many companies and industries would not have been able to operate. Hospitals are filled with frontline workers, as are grocery stores, manufacturing facilities and delivery services. These are the workers that society relies on most and the pandemic highlighted just how important they are.

When it comes to workplace technology, frontline workers have been underserved for a long time. Companies typically spend most of their IT budget on desk workers while frontline employees often rely on outdated, inefficient communication channels. Paycheck stuffers, break room bulletin boards and word of mouth are just a few examples of outdated communication channels many companies still use to reach their frontline employees.

Now, with the rise of the frontline worker in the public spotlight and advances in mobile collaboration technology, business leaders are stepping up and investing more into productivity and collaboration technology that will reach and connect their frontline teams.

Workforce: It seems like an overarching theme is, by enhancing frontline workers’ access to technology, employers can gain a competitive advantage. Is that accurate?

Grossmann: I believe that digitally empowering frontline employees will be one of the single most important competitive advantages for businesses in the new post-pandemic normal. A high-performing workforce can only be cultivated when every worker is included and digitally enabled. If a company is only connecting with a small portion of their workforce and not including their frontline teams, they’re missing out on a huge opportunity to improve the safety, agility and overall productivity of their business.

Access to cutting-edge workplace technology creates a frontline workforce that is more productive, collaborative and ultimately happier. A connected workforce experiences fewer on-the-job accidents, sees higher retention rates, and is more innovative. All of these factors ultimately improve the customer experience and the bottom line of the business.

Let’s consider the hotel industry. Almost every guest interaction customers have occurs with frontline workers — they are the de facto brand ambassadors of the business. The happier these employees are and the more empowered they are to do their jobs with the right collaboration tools and access to information, the better guest experience they will create.

When companies digitize their frontline workers they are boosting productivity, safety and agility of their workforce, which fuels their competitive advantage.

Workforce: How can digitalization bring out the best in frontline workers?

Grossmann: When companies invest in their employees, it helps build a more engaged, committed workforce and lays the groundwork for a more collaborative, productive company culture.

This cultural transformation brought about through digitalization happens for a few reasons. First, simply connecting with workers and getting their input and feedback not only dramatically improves morale, but it also makes their jobs easier. The average frontline worker spends three hours each week just searching for information they need to do their jobs.

With a mobile collaboration and productivity tool, they have all the information they need at their fingertips. It streamlines operations by making their day-to-day tasks and work lives easier. They become more productive and more engaged. According to Gallup, a connected workforce leads to a 17 percent boost in productivity, 21 percent profitability increase and a 40 percent decrease in turnover.

And on a human level, just connecting workers to the company and to each other, creating space for team members to build social connections at work goes a long way in driving engagement and boosting morale.frontline worker

Workforce: Talk about the technology divide that you’ve seen between desk-based workers and frontline workers.

Grossmann: Historically, companies have invested most of their technology budget in desk-based workers while not really knowing how to connect with the frontline. It’s created a digital divide within the workplace. While desk workers have access to IT systems, email, telephones and much more, frontline workers lack the digital identity that desk-based workers are used to. It favors one group by giving them a voice while frontline workers are left without a way to contribute and connect.

Companies often resort to adapting an existing platform in their tech stack designed for desk-based workers for their frontline teams. But frontline workers have their own set of unique needs that often require different technology solutions.

Workforce: Many organizations with hourly employees still use manual, paper-based processes like scheduling and onboarding. Why should they digitize?

Grossmann: COVID-19 has accelerated the need for unified productivity and collaboration tools and the process of digitization that comes with them. If there was ever a moment to invest in frontline worker enablement, this is it. Companies are realizing just how much more efficient they are when they digitalize workflows and empower their teams with mobile technology.

First, paper-based processes are inefficient and are more likely to lead to miscommunication, which costs small companies about $460,000 a year. What’s more, completing this paperwork is repetitive and time consuming for staff. Automating routine tasks can free up employees’ time to spend on value-add tasks.

For example, if HR used a digital platform to automate the onboarding process and digitize employee paperwork, they could then spend more time on high level initiatives like recruitment and retention. This is also true of shift management. With a digital tool, creating schedules and communicating changes with employees is streamlined through one hub.

Also read: The future of automated employee scheduling

Workforce: Is HR resistant to digitization?

Grossmann: At Beekeeper, we have actually seen HR departments initiate the digital transformation journey in their own organizations. However, no matter who gets the ball rolling, it’s critical that top leadership supports and invests in digital transformation to set the tone for the project. If the CEO is passionate about progress, then frontline workers will follow their lead and support it, too.

From automating the onboarding process to digitizing payroll, HR teams can dramatically benefit from productivity tools, too. We have one customer, a casino with over 600 workers, that saved nearly $100,000 by digitizing paper-based processes, including HR forms that once had to be filled out manually.

Workforce: So, I am a manager. We’ve just digitized our employee communications through a smartphone app. And I see my employee on the floor checking their phone instead of restocking the yogurt and sour cream. How should I react?

Grossmann: I realize that letting employees use their phones at work can be a sensitive subject. Objections such as: they’re too distracting; they negatively affect productivity; they just simply “don’t belong” at work. I get it. It can be tempting to throw your hands up and banish the use of cell phones at work once and for all.

But the truth is that a “no tolerance” take on cell phone policies may not be the best solution, except for highly sterile procedures or risky production processes. In the modern day workplace, cell phones are a needed resource to facilitate internal collaboration, especially for employees who don’t have computer access or a company email account and allow them to better serve customers

I believe that the benefits of allowing employees to use phones at work greatly outweigh the risks if implemented properly. The key to successfully allowing cell phones in the workplace lies in creating a clear BYOD policy and making sure everyone understands what’s expected of them. Proactively addressing the key concerns is the first step to creating a solution that fits your company’s needs. Don’t let fear of change cause your organization to miss out on all the advantages of mobile communication in the workplace.

Workforce: You make a really interesting point about employees taking communications into their own hands by using commercial products like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger for workplace communications. Why is that wrong?

Grossmann: Aside from security concerns, another problem with using WhatsApp for workplace communication is that it can sometimes create more confusion and chaos for workers. Juggling multiple group chats, no user management, and unprofessional user names make managing business communication through WhatsApp very difficult.

All this confusion ultimately leads to unclear, disjointed and disconnected workplace communication. In the end, WhatsApp can hurt productivity more than it helps. If managers are spending 15 minutes of each shift trying to figure out which group chat the closing checklist was sent to, then it pretty much defeats the purpose.

Don’t get me wrong. WhatsApp is fine for social communication. But when it comes to business, workers need a robust, collaborative platform with features and capabilities (like integrations) that streamline workflows and communication and enable them to be more productive.

I like to compare social media apps to the Wild West: they’re unregulated, out of control, and carry potential security consequences for a business. Companies have no control over consumer-grade communication apps.

Workforce: Communicating with your employees through an app is all well and good. But with an hourly workforce, aren’t you treading on potential wage and hour or overtime violations if they are “on” 24/7?

Having access to employees around the clock does not mean they should be accessible and available to the company 24/7. With Beekeeper, employees can set the app to the “Do Not Disturb” mode that can also be linked to their shifts automatically and mute push notifications outside of work hours. This respects the free time of off-duty frontline workers and also reduces a company’s legal risks around wage and hour labor laws that can arise when contacting employees when they’re not working.

Fair play rules are also essential when it comes to integrating workplace technology. Employees must understand that they may only use employer-provided communication technology, such as an app, during work hours.

Workforce: While we’re on that subject, talk about avoiding potential compliance violations when you digitalize employee communications.

Grossmann: On top of labor laws and data security, each industry has regulatory agencies who have specific standards and rules for companies. For example, manufacturing and construction must comply with OSHA. Health departments and the FDA have rigorous laws that govern the restaurant industry. It’s a lot for companies to keep track of and a workplace platform can help make sure they stay compliant on all levels.

Also read: Wage and hour violations cost restaurant $697,000

Another topic that must be considered when discussing employee communications compliance is privacy and how data is treated. GDPR, CCPA, and other regulations have clear guidelines on how personal data of employees must be handled. It’s crucial to have the proper certified systems in place to address this.

Workforce: You are the CEO of Beekeeper, but you’ve also spent considerable time as a frontline worker. Talk about your experiences, and how that helps you shape your company’s mission and goals.

Grossmann: Before I got into technology, I was actually a frontline worker myself. I was a factory worker, a waiter, and a chemical engineer. I started very early on learning how frontline industries work as one of my grandfathers worked in a copper factory and the other one in a paint production factory. Also, my father worked with a team of electricians and blacksmiths to produce and automate garage doors in Mexico City. I was fortunate to spend a lot of time with them learning how those businesses worked, and especially how crucial it was to have clear and simple systems in place — at that time many of their processes were all paper based! I draw on that perspective and experience to inform the ways we have been and continue to evolve and improve Beekeeper to support more frontline workers.

We serve some of the largest frontline-powered companies in the world and I also rely on what our customers want and need in a mobile productivity platform. We’re honored that companies rely on Beekeeper to support and connect their frontline workers.

From “happy birthday” to “have you clocked out?” share key updates, celebrate milestones and make everyone feel part of the team through Workforce Chat. Sign up for your demo today.

 

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The link between employee engagement and good brand image

employee engagement

Companies can spend millions of dollars on campaigns promoting their brand each year. But aside from building connections with potential customers and nurturing relationships with existing ones, there’s another side of branding that businesses need to pay attention to — employee engagement and perception. 

Kay Phelps, director of British workplace communications company PR in HR, discussed the impact of employee engagement on a company’s brand and why authenticity is especially essential these days for elevating brand perceptions.

Good branding comes from within

When employees find purpose in their roles and feel valued, they can be a company’s greatest brand promoter. But if they are not heard or treated well, what they have to say can be detrimental to your brand image. 

“Employees who are engaged are likely to spread positive thoughts around your brand — be it through word of mouth or social media,” Phelps said. Engaged employees are also likely to interact with their company’s social media pages, therefore boosting the reach and engagement of the brand via digital channels.

Kay Phelps, director, HR in PR
Kay Phelps, director, PR in HR.

Leaders also need to recognize that there are online platforms where employees can air out their experiences with the company, whether positive or negative. “Combine this with the potential for posts on social media, not only should employers be motivated to treat staff well for their wellbeing, but to protect their image too,” Phelps added. 

According to a Glassdoor survey, 86 percent of employees and job seekers research company reviews and ratings to decide on where to apply for a job. Further, a negative reputation can cost a company as much as 10 percent more per hire. 

Bad employee reviews not only hurt the perception of potential hires but can also discourage customers from doing business with a company. 

“If staff feel that their employers genuinely support them and take their views into account, they’ll be more likely to go to them first with any problems instead of heading online to air their opinions,” said Phelps.

Also read: How technology can help your employee engagement strategy

Authenticity is essential

Customers are paying more attention to how brands are living up to their core values and treating their people. A Stackla report said that 86 percent of consumers say that authenticity is important when deciding what brands they like and support. 

“After last year, people want to see that brands care about their people and their customers — not least in terms of diversity, equity and inclusion, wellbeing and health and safety,” Phelps said. 

Phelps sees this as a huge opportunity for companies to be talking about their successful programs that promote employee welfare. However, she cautions about the dangers of claiming to have such initiatives without clear actions, “Companies should take action before talking about it in their comms. Your messaging can’t be ingenuine. It must reflect real action and support in these areas. Fail to do this and you’re likely to be called out by onlookers or your employees,” Phelps explained. 

Also read: Human capital management: Considerations to better engage employees and promote diversity

Empowering your biggest promoters

“Part of understanding why people want to associate with your brand is being able to recognize their struggles and when you do this, you can create targeted messaging that addresses pain points and provides solutions,” Phelps said of boosting brand awareness, and the same principle can also be applied to creating a better working environment for your employees. 

According to Glassdoor, employee voice is three times more credible than the CEO when it comes to talking about working conditions in the company. 

Phelps says that a reason for poor brand awareness is unclear messaging. Just like customers, employees tend to be disengaged when expectations for their role are unclear. When not addressed this leads to confusion and conflict, resulting in poor performance and worse, a bad company review. 

The second reason is assuming knowledge on the part of the target audience. “Companies need to be able to get their messages across to the ordinary person in a clear and simple way. If a person is confused, they’ll simply turn off,” Phelps explained. 

Just with managing the workforce, managers should not assume that their employees know it all. They need to lay out all essential information for their people to do their jobs well. Open lines of communication are a must for fostering a culture of trust in the workforce. Employees need to feel a certain sense of safety that allows them to raise questions and concerns without fear of being shut down. 

Companies should prioritize enabling their employees to perform at their best. This means providing them with the right tools and platforms that will allow them to be more efficient. Tools that enable them to collaborate, make data-driven decisions, and just generally make admin work easier are essential to keeping them engaged. 

What employees have to say about a company is just as crucial to what customers think about the brand — sometimes, even more. Employee engagement can resonate outside the organization and can either make or break your business. Given today’s business landscape, taking care of your employees is essentially protecting your brand image and bottom line.

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Wage law implications of employer-sponsored earned wage access products

EWAP, pay, compensation, money

Nearly 40 percent of Americans struggle to cover an unexpected $400 expense, according to a 2019 report by the Federal Reserve.

Earned wage access products, or EWAPs, offer a potential solution to this problem by allowing employees to be paid in real time for the hours the employee has already worked, instead of waiting until payday to receive payment. Each EWAP employs a different system for advancing earned wages and recouping those amounts from the employer.

The majority of EWAPs require employees to download an application on their phone, through which employees can request an advance on their earned wages. The advance on the employee’s paycheck is typically paid to the employee by depositing the funds into an account or loading it onto a payroll card. This advance is then deducted from the employee’s next paycheck, along with any applicable fees.

Explaining the EWAP models

There are two distinct EWAP models: employer-sponsored and direct-to-consumer. In an employer-sponsored model, the employer directly contracts with the EWAP application provider and the EWAP application is integrated into the employer’s payroll systems. Examples of employer-sponsored EWAP applications include Instant, DailyPay and Earnin. In the direct-to-consumer model, the EWAP provider offers services directly to the employee and recoups advanced funds directly from the employee’s bank accounts after the employee gets paid.

EWAPs provide employees with greater flexibility to use their paychecks in a manner that fits their financial needs. Employees can meet unexpected expenses without resorting to overdrafts, high interest credit cards or payday loans.

By offering EWAPs as part of their benefit packages employers can help curb employee financial stress, which can lower employee absenteeism and potentially increase employee productivity and employee retention. Companies including Walmart and McDonald’s offer EWAP options to its employees.

State, federal oversight of EWAPs

Due to the nascency of EWAPs, there is little regulation at either the state or federal levels. Regardless, employers considering EWAPs as part of their benefit packages must carefully evaluate whether the EWAP implicates wage laws that an employer must comply with.

For instance, employers considering EWAPs that deposit an employee’s earned wages into an account set up by the EWAP provider could run afoul of state direct deposit laws.

Most states, such as New York and California, only permit employers to pay wages by direct deposit with the written consent of the employee. Employee authorizations allowing direct deposits of wages into an employee’s bank account may not extend to the deposit of funds into a separate EWAP provider created account. Accordingly, employers should consider obtaining additional written authorizations from employees to deposit their earned wages into an EWAP account to ensure compliance with applicable direct deposit laws.

Potential for additional fees

As an alternative to direct deposit, employers also have the option to utilize EWAPs that deposit an employee’s earned wages onto payroll cards. Employers should be wary of any transaction or loading fees imposed on an employee by the EWAP provider or the third-party payroll card issuer. This is because many states, such as California, require employees paid via a payroll card to have access to their full wages without any fees. In other states, such as Minnesota, while employers are prohibited from charging an employee any participation or loading fees to receive wages, EWAP providers may charge employees transaction fees to access their earned wages. In such circumstances, the employer should provide the employee with a written disclosure upfront stating the terms and conditions of the payroll card option, including a complete itemized list of all fees that may be deducted from the employee’s payroll card account. Alternatively, in order to avoid this potential issue altogether, employers should consider paying all such fees instead of the employee, if possible.

Most EWAP providers charge a monthly membership fee ranging from $5 to $8 a month or a per transaction fee ranging from $1.99 to $3.99 per transfer, which are either paid by the employer or the employee. These fees are typically deducted from an employee’s paycheck, along with the advanced wages. Generally, an employer may not deduct or withhold any part of an employee’s wages without employee authorization. Albeit nominal, membership and transaction fees may be considered as wage deductions. As a result, employers should consider paying any such fees on behalf of its employees, or obtain written authorization from its employees allowing EWAP providers to directly charge the employee any fees, in order to comply with wage deduction requirements.

Wage assignment laws

Moreover, EWAPs that require employers to transfer an employee’s earned wages into an account set up by the EWAP provider may also implicate assignment laws. Wage assignments are prohibited in some states and regulated to varying degrees in others. Some states require specific authorizations or significantly limit how much money an employee can assign to a third party.

In California, no more than 50 percent of the employee’s wages may be assigned at the time of the payment of wages, and the wage assignment must be notarized, and include written consent of the employee’s spouse if married. This is an important consideration for employers, as wage assignment laws vary from state to state.

As more employers offer EWAPs as part of their benefit packages, it is imperative that employers closely examine the particular EWAP’s payment structure in order to understand the benefits and legal risks of the application. At a minimum, employers should consider paying all transaction fees and obtain any relevant authorizations so as to not infringe on any state-specific wage laws.

Employers should also assess whether EWAPs implicate state and federal consumer protection, data security and privacy laws. Given that there is little current regulation on the use of such products, employers should insist on limitation of liability and indemnification clauses while negotiating contracts with EWAP providers to ensure that they will not be liable for any legal issues implicated by EWAPs in the future.

Avoid added expenses due to data entry errors and payroll oversights. Integrate your payroll system with Workforce.com’s platform for automated timesheet exports and calculations, allowing you to stay on top of your wage costs. 

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It’s time to end pandemic PTO hesitancy

leave management, PTO, vacation, PTO

I haven’t taken a proper vacation in 25 months. We were supposed to go to Portugal last March, but then COVID-19 happened. In the 13 months since, there’s been little point in taking off from work for any length of time because I haven’t been able to go anywhere. “I can’t go anywhere, so I might as well work,” has been a popular pandemic refrain (me included).

Americans were bad at vacations before COVID. The pandemic certainly hasn’t helped our PTO hesitancy.

Consider the following from The Atlantic.

Americans are good at lots of different things, but going on vacation is not one of them.… Guess which industrialized country is the only one that doesn’t guarantee time off to its workers? Guess which country left 768 million vacation days on the table in 2018?

The pandemic has not been great for America’s vacation malaise. When there are few new places to go and few new things to do, what’s the point of asking for time off? Yes, many Americans who have made it through without losing their jobs have taken a break to discover nature or their apartment balconies, but largely, we do not seem to be PTO-ing our way through this god-awful year. In February, time-off requests on the HR platform Zenefits were down 26 percent from the year before, a spokesperson told me, in line with what the company has seen since July.

I’m ending my vacation moratorium this summer with a week in a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I suggest that you strongly encourage your employees to do the same, lest you risk the burnout I warned about last week.

Here are four tips to help push your employees to use their PTO and take a vacation.

1. Teach your employees the benefits of taking a vacation. Make it a part of your wellness education. Communicate the health and wellness benefits of taking a vacation. If employees understand that vacations lead to improvements in performance productivity, they will be more likely to leave work behind for a few days.

2. Take your own time off. If the boss never takes a vacation, employees won’t either. If you want your employees to take time away from work, do so yourself. Leadership and messaging start at the top. If you make vacations a priority, your employees will, too.

3. Ease employee back to work. When asked why they don’t take time off, most employees historically cite the fear of returning to a backlog of work and thousands of emails to which to respond. COVID hasn’t helped, as fewer are away from work. Plan for coverage when employees are out, and provide a day upon their return for them to catch-up, so that they won’t fear the return-to-work ambush or avalanche.

4. Prohibit vacation shaming. No one should be permitted to discourage or tease employees who take a vacation. If you send or permit negative messages about vacations, your employees won’t take them. They will fear letting the team down, or the time-off impacting their employment. This form of bullying cannot and should not be tolerated.
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Is work from home not all it’s cracked up to be?

coronavirus, remote work, COVID-19, remote workforce

Three weeks ago I returned to the office. That return matched my start date at Wickens Herzer Panza. I decided that it’d be difficult, if not impossible, to learn a new firm and its systems, and build camaraderie and teamwork with my new co-workers, if I’m working remotely. Thus, I made the decision to break free of my self-imposed COVID-19 cocoon and start working most days in person in the office.

I thought about this decision as I read this article in the Wall Street Journal: After Covid, Should You Keep Working From Home? Here’s How to Decide.

Consider these conflicting stats.

  • 54 percent of employees say that they would want to work remotely if permitted post-COVID-19.
  • Yet, over 60 percent of employees report that remote work has increased their time spent in meetings and their work hours, and nearly 50 percent report that it has decreased their work-life balance.
In other words, employees are in favor of remote work as a concept, but in practice, they may not understand that it is doing more harm than good.
Without a real physical separation between work and nonwork, people won’t ever stop working. They will be on the clock 24/7, ultimately burning themselves out at great cost to themselves and their employers. The most recent episode of Depresh Mode with John Moe expertly addressed this issue.
What does this mean for your remote employees? It means that they are likely working too much, some to the point of burnout. If you value your employees’ mental health and wellbeing, factor it into your decision when and whether to bring your employees back to your physical workplace, at least part time. They might think they want to keep working remotely, but they may not necessarily know what’s best for them.

In the meantime, if your employees are going to continue working remotely, consider these tips to help them maintain the balance they need to avoid overworking and burning out.

1.  Set a schedule for your employees and strongly encourage them to stick to it. Alternatively, make available technology that allows employees to designate when they are available and not available. In either case, it must be clear to managers, supervisors, and coworkers that these boundaries must be respected except in the case of a 911-level emergency.
2. Require that employees take breaks during the workday, including a lunch break.
3. Prioritize days off so that employees can recharge their batteries.
4. Remind employees who might be struggling with their mental health of the services you have available for them, including an EAP and counseling and other mental health services via your health insurance plan.