HR technology – Page 8

March 19, 2020June 29, 2023

How to strengthen workforce communications during the COVID-19 crisis

Communication is at the heart of every sound workforce management practice.

From establishing clear expectations, setting a bigger purpose, building company culture down to fostering accountability, communication will always be at the core . Clearly messaged, trusted communication can either make or break operations and enhance employee engagement.

A study by The Economist Intelligence Unit shows how poor workplace communication is detrimental to an organization. Survey respondents say that communication barriers result in delay or failure to complete projects (44 percent), low morale (31 percent), missed performance goals (25 percent), and lost sales (18 percent). And it can be worse when a crisis such as the coronavirus pandemic hits.

Clear communication is crucial to stability

Effective communication becomes even more critical during times of crisis and uncertainty.

Workforces globally are facing a massive challenge to their business operations with the COVID-19 pandemic. It has prompted businesses to take drastic measures to ensure the safety of staff and customers alike. Depending on the nature of the business, some have ceased operations or function under a skeleton workforce and limited hours, while other organizations have implemented work from home arrangements.

Effective communication can still bind your team together.

Given the shifting workplace situation, effective workforce communications are more critical than ever. A crisis, whether a natural disaster, a corporate meltdown or the outbreak of a disease affects employee morale. Effective communication can still bind your team together even during times of uncertainty. Leaders need to do their part to address issues promptly and clearly.

It’s also important to note that social media and online platforms can turn employees into de facto spokespeople for your organization. Whatever they share on their platforms about working for your company will reflect how you communicate with them. Those communications — or lack of a clear, consistent message — can result in a better brand image or sprout into a new crisis.

So how can leaders effectively address their staff during a challenging time?

Act fast

When a crisis strikes, it’s essential to address employees as soon as possible.

Leaders might not have answers to some of their questions right away. In the case of rapidly developing situations, like the COVID-19 pandemic, this is understandable. But it’s crucial to let employees know that you are looking into the issue and finding solutions to their concerns. What matters is to give them the assurance that the organization is aware of the situation and that the welfare of staff is a priority.

Solidify the message

Consistent messaging is key. While different roles have different concerns, it’s essential to keep the overall message continuous and consistent.

Address all of their concerns and frequently asked questions. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the questions will revolve around remote work, schedule changes, payment arrangements, leave management and other operational issues.

Diversify message delivery

How you relay the message is equally important as how it is crafted.

Empathy is important during a crisis, but what if face-to-face communication is no longer possible?

Video conferencing or a recorded video message are viable options, but how do you let staff know about it? Email is a common communication channel for organizations, but it’s best to diversify delivery channels when the situation is urgent. In a 2019 survey by text-messaging platform SlickText of over 1,000 employees across the United States, 43 percent of respondents say that timely notifications and emergency alerts are best sent through SMS and not email. Chat platforms also are useful in this case as they can quickly disseminate information and concisely. Employees are likely to open chat platforms frequently, too.

Keep the feedback loop open

Effective communication to staff goes beyond issuing announcements or bulletins. It’s about keeping communication lines open and soliciting feedback.

During a crisis, it’s imperative to open channels for discussions and to raise questions. Chat applications are suitable not just for discussing in groups but in one-on-one correspondence as well. It’s more immediate than email too and helps pass information more quickly.

See how it works: Workforce.com’s employee app includes chat features.

A platform to stay connected

A good communication process is vital for any organization. It’s important to equip a workforce with different ways to stay connected.

Thanks to technology, employers and staff can still stay connected. But a more effective approach is to keep all necessary communication in one place. A workforce management system provides crucial features to stay on top of operations and team communications.

For Workforce.com users there are features on our platform available to keep communication lines open during this difficult time. Chat with your staff, schedule according to operational changes, manage leave, clock in and out remotely, and communicate changes through custom events, among other things.

COVID-19 is rapidly changing how businesses operate. We recognize that organizations need an extra helping hand right now. So we’re offering our platform for free to new sign-ups over the coming months. Sign up today and our Workforce Success team will gladly provide a personal, online walkthrough of our platform to help you get started.

March 17, 2020June 29, 2023

Scheduling headaches: How to better manage your hourly workers’ schedules

time clock, workforce management, scheduling, time and attendance

When it comes to scheduling hourly workers, time really is money. Managers and executives may recognize the significance of employee scheduling. Still, it can seem like an impossible task. Maintaining a fair and functional schedule that keeps everyone happy is a full-time job all on its own. Scheduling more than 100 hourly workers may be a burden for both the managers that spend hours trying to create these schedules every week and for the employees who don’t always get the schedule they wanted.

Knowing exactly how to schedule employees isn’t easy. And there are many last-minute changes that occur, such as split shifts and requests for time off. Emergencies, such as employees calling in sick or needing their hours covered also need to be taken into consideration as extra time that managers will inevitably spend on trying to manage a cohesive schedule, said Leon Pearce, lead software engineer at Workforce.

“Schedules are never complete, they’re constantly changing. Managing the lifecycle of schedules takes some pretty good tools to do it well,” Pearce said.

Also read: On-shift scheduling doesn’t have to be a headache for managers or employees

Matt Fairhurst, chief executive officer of Skedulo, a mobile workforce management platform, said that tackling these continuous challenges is organized chaos. “The complexity of scheduling hourly workers is mind-boggling, and the chaos grows exponentially beyond 50 workers,” Fairhurst said in an email statement. “It’s a living, breathing, ever-evolving puzzle that never quite gets solved.”

Fair workweek laws are something else to be aware of when creating hourly schedules, Fairhurst said. It’s smart for managers to do some research and ensure that the company is in compliance with local fair workweek laws, which right now are in flux.

“A large part of managing the hourly workforce is not just managing and communicating schedules, but helping establish and comply with work conditions, constraints and rules that help govern fair working practices, fatigue management and more,” Fairhurst said. “It’s important for systems managing the working week of any hourly employee to have the capability to ensure these constraints are understood, respected and optimized for.”

Employee scheduling software can help make sure that the schedule continues to work best for both the employees and the business by tracking time off requests, shift trades, availability changes, overtime and projected sales all in one place. This saves managers time and gives employees more control over their work lives. “It leads to having a more engaged and happier staff, because they’re more likely to be working the hours that they wanted, which is the best case for everyone,” Pearce said. “It also gives a lot of time back to the managers and allows them to focus more on the actual business as opposed to the administration type of tasks.”

Also read: The use of technology in managing burnout in your hourly workforce

Mike Zorn, VP of Work Strategy at WorkJam

It’s beneficial for employers to make scheduling more flexible and give employees a greater say in what their schedules look like, according to Mike Zorn, vice president of work strategy at WorkJam, an employee engagement app for the hourly workforce. “Giving people the ability to swap schedules is critical,” Zorn said. “If you give people the ability to pick up schedules when they want to work, you’re less likely to have turnover because they’re making a commitment to that time rather than the manager telling them [when to work].”

Managers should develop a self-service mentality to relieve themselves from the tedious scheduling tasks in order to put more valuable time into their responsibilities that will ultimately help the business succeed, according to Zorn.

“It takes the manager away from those critical things that a manager should be doing, which is inspiring people, coaching people and making sure the strategies are being produced,” he said. “Anything that takes away from the key things that a manager should be doing is detrimental to the overall business.”

March 12, 2020July 24, 2024

HR People Moves: Summer 2020

human resources, people moves, promotion

Carla Dawson

Equity derivatives clearing organization OCC named Carla Dawson as senior vice president and chief human resources officer. She reports to CEO John Davidson. Dawson previously was first vice president, talent management, and was responsible for partnering with leaders across OCC to develop and implement comprehensive talent management and development strategies to support OCC’s business strategy. This included performance management, employee engagement, training and organization development, and change management. Before joining OCC in 2017, Dawson served for nearly 20 years in a series of roles at Driehaus Capital Management LLC, including as managing director, human resources, where she was responsible for developing and executing a human resources strategy in support of the firm’s overall business plan and strategic direction. Her efforts were focused in the areas of talent management, employee relations, communications, organizational development, compensation and benefits, recruitment and regulatory compliance. Previously, Dawson worked for two executive search firms — Heidrick & Struggles and Korn Ferry — as well as the financial services firm of Abaco De Bolsa. Dawson received a bachelor’s degree in industrial relations from Universidad Anahuac in Mexico, and a master’s degree in organizational development from the Quinlan School of Business at Loyola University in Chicago.

Caroline Stockdale

U.S.-headquartered First Solar Inc. named Caroline Stockdale to lead human resources and communications, overseeing a global workforce of 6,500 employees. She replaces Chris Bueter, who is retiring. Stockdale has more than 20 years of operating experience in finance, human resources, business leadership and process excellence, ranging from large global companies to entrepreneurial startups. She most recently served as the CEO for First Perform, a provider of human resources services for a wide variety of customers from the Fortune 100 to cyber startups. She served as chief human resources officer for Medtronic and Warner Music Group among others, and as the senior human resources leader in global divisions of American Express and General Electric. She is also a member of several advisory groups including the Forbes Human Resources Council.

Carla Yudhishthu

HR risk-management company ThinkHR and Mammoth named Carla Yudhishthu as vice president of people operations. Yudhishthu brings more than 20 years of experience in human resources and talent acquisition to the role, where she will drive organizational and leadership development around the companies’ people strategy. Yudhishthu previously was head of people and talent for BCG Platinion. She has also held leadership positions at Mars, W.L. Gore and Associates, Guidant Corp., and Arthur Andersen.

Traunza Adams

Health care technology company OODA Health named Traunza Adams as vice president of people. Adams previously served as chief people officer for Ginger, a provider of on-demand behavioral health coaching, therapy and psychiatry. Prior to Ginger, Adams led people operations at AppDynamics, an application performance management company. She has also held key human resources roles at UniversityNow, Salesforce.com, IBM and other companies. She holds a bachelor’s degree in French and sociology from Stanford University.

Ken Stelzer

Mobile commerce optimization platform Button named Ken Stelzer as chief financial officer. Stelzer will build a strategic finance function at Button to accelerate revenue and profit growth. He brings nearly 20 years of experience in finance and operations at both public and private companies. Most recently, he was the chief financial officer of Zocdoc. Before that he served as CFO of Bankrate and Integreon. He has significant expertise in corporate finance, executing growth initiatives and implementing operational efficiencies to drive profitability. He’s also overseen M&A transactions valued at more than $6 billion and helped raise more than $4 billion in capital through debt and equity offerings.

Stephanie Mardell

Button also named Stephanie Mardell as chief people officer. Mardell will continue evolving Button into a place of admirable talent. She was previously vice president of people at Button. As the company’s 14th employee, she built its people team from scratch through her meticulous, data-driven approach to people operations, garnering Button recognition as one of the best places to work year over year by Fortune, Entrepreneur and Crain’s. Before joining Button, Mardell spent more than a decade scaling teams during periods of significant growth while establishing operational best practices such as compensation and recognition programs, management training and development, and diversity and inclusion initiatives at Square, Airtime and Isaacson Miller.

Tracy Flynn

HR technology company Eightfold.ai named Tracy Flynn as head of human resources. Flynn joins Eightfold.ai as an experienced global human resources veteran, having spent nine years at Visa as a member of the HR leadership team in roles including global head of talent acquisition, vice president of diversity recruiting, and vice president of executive recruiting. Flynn will now oversee all aspects of global people operations at Eightfold.ai. Flynn is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley.

Celia Poon

Eightfold.ai also named Celia Poon as chief financial officer. A seasoned finance executive with experience in both public and private fast-growing companies in Silicon Valley, Poon joins Eightfold.ai following a year in which the company opened two new international offices and reached over $55 million in total funding. Poon will lead all financial operations with a focus on building out financial functions. Poon brings broad finance leadership experience to Eightfold.ai, having served as chief financial officer at both Wag Labs Inc. and Highfive. Prior to her roles as CFO, Poon served as VP of finance at Twitter for four years as well as VP of corporate finance at Zynga, and VP of corporate finance and treasury at Yahoo. Poon graduated with an economics degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, and holds MBA degree from the Walter A. Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

Gunnar Kiene

Recruitment marketing company Symphony Talent named Gunnar Kiene as chief creative officer for its U.S. operations. Kiene will be responsible for helping to set the creative vision for the organization and will oversee innovation, engagement and the creative direction for its clients. He will also lead Symphony Talent’s overall product experience. Kiene joins Symphony Talent with more than 20 years of experience in design and advertising. Kiene was executive creative director at Havas where he reinforced design thinking while leading a multidisciplinary team across design, UX and copy. Kiene also led the New York creative department at SapientRazorfish where he worked on accounts such as MasterCard, Lufthansa, Target and Verizon. Kiene began his career with agencies R/GA and AtmosphereBBDO.

Also Read: Symphony Talent Debuts New Composition With Acquisition of SmashFly

March 9, 2020June 29, 2023

Recapping Ultimate Software’s 2020 conference: ‘An awkward date’

Move forward. Faith. Trust.

That was the overarching message that I took away March 3 as I watched the opening keynote on day one of Ultimate Software’s Breakthrough Connections 2020 user conference in the cavernous Wynn Las Vegas and Encore Resort.

Less than two weeks into Ultimate’s merger with workforce management software provider Kronos Inc., the message of positivity was to be expected. And given Ultimate’s deeply ingrained people-first culture, maybe it wasn’t such a big ask of employees to believe in the process.

Moving forward seems the simplest to accomplish. As I tried to put myself in the shoes of an Ultimate employee, I couldn’t help but think, there isn’t much choice but to push ahead. Because try as they might, things will never be the same as they were pre-merger.

I give credit to Ultimate’s Chief Relationship Officer Bill Hicks for addressing the merger head-on during the opening session because frankly, that’s what most attendees wanted to hear about. Hicks, who has been an “Ultipeep” for 16 years, likened the post-merger atmosphere to that “awkward dating stage” when you are trying to figure out where the relationship is going.

I think that crystallized as Hicks, who in years past would have handed the microphone to former Ultimate CEO Scott Scherr or outgoing CEO Adam Rogers, instead introduced Ultimate’s new boss, longtime Kronos CEO Aron Ain, to the Sister Sledge tune “We Are Family.” It probably was asking too much to play George Michael’s “Faith” or Devo’s “Whip It” (with the lyrics “go forward, move ahead”).

Ain’s initial message to the assembled 4,500 combined Ultimate customers and employees preached the move ahead-faith-trust mantra. Ain, who became Kronos’ CEO in 2005, talked about his background, his philosophies and his legacy. “How I want to be remembered is as a great father, husband and friend, not a CEO,” Ain told the crowd. Touching.

Still, there were a couple of moments during Ain’s 20-minute talk to ease his new customers’ angst that gave me cause to pause.

“Your investment is safe. You made the right choice when you chose Ultimate as your partner,” Ain reassured the assembled Ultimate customers. OK, got it.

Then he asked for one favor. “Don’t listen to people calling you up now,” a clear reference to the inevitable phone calls that come in after a merger or acquisition. Of course there will be concerns on the part of customers after their HR software provider merges. If Ultimate did their jobs properly — and it appears that they have — a request to ignore competitors is unnecessary. It seemed a bit perplexing to me, as if he didn’t have the faith and trust in Ultimate’s sales and service teams.

And if we are being honest here, isn’t that what any competitor worth its salt is going to do? I mean, this is business.

Why not put forth your faith in your new team and trust that the relationships built over Ultimate’s 30-year history will endure?

Then Ain took aim at pundits. First, who is a pundit in HR technology? Was he lumping analysts, the HR influencer community, bloggers and business writers into one big melting pot of pundits?

I personally did not see blowback written after the merger’s announcement. Most of the experts and analysts I followed were taking the “wait and see” approach in their comments.

Yet Ain opted to tell us, “Pundits, give me my strategy. … They are not telling you the truth. They have another agenda, and look out for their best interests,” and added, “We will communicate honestly, we will tell you what’s going on. Trust is everything and makes everything else easier.”

He then curiously added, “Don’t read all the propaganda about Kronos.” In the story I wrote about the merger on the day it was announced, I stated, “Considering this is a merger of like organizations, the dreaded ‘duplication of efforts’ specter hangs heavy. Are layoffs, buyouts, rightsizing or downsizing in the future of this new marriage?”

I also pointed out, “With the meshing of cultures, perhaps no department or staff member will be downsized. Maybe they’ll reskill portions of their workforce. … For those of us who have been through a merger or acquisition, the reality is people leave. Some leave voluntarily because it’s not a good fit anymore, or they’re simply laid off. … I hope and pray that the people will retain their jobs and blend into one big, happy, 12,000-employee company with room to grow.”

I still stand by those statements.

The point was a bewildering dig at the media — sorry, the pundits — that we see all too often coming from this country’s overly emboldened leadership.

Merging Kronites and Ultipeeps: A few uncomfortable chuckles broke out when Ain referenced what post-merger employees might be called. Ultimate’s employees are known as Ultipeeps, while Kronos workers are Kronites. He said he received a suggestion: “Kronites and Ultipeeps … Kreeps. I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

Coronavirus concerns: Before introducing Ain, Hicks immediately addressed another pressing concern of attendees — the growing threat of coronavirus. He noted that hand sanitizers would be placed throughout the conference — which they indeed were. Hicks also said that even a traditional handshake is under the microscope now, so to speak. How did he plan to greet people? “Some people are huggers, some are fist bumpers. I’ll do whatever you want.”

Clearly the coronavirus is having a huge effect on travel and is taking a toll what is typically a busy time during conference season. SXSW shut down. Oracle took its conference online.

My Monday afternoon flight to Las Vegas was barely half full. I don’t ever recall a flight where my row on both sides of the aisle was empty, as was the row in front of me.

And, word came during the conference that SAP Fieldglass canceled its mid-March user conference. This announcement came March 3 via Twitter:

“The health of our employees, customers, partners and communities is our top priority. Due to concerns surrounding COVID-19, we are cancelling #SAPAribaLive Las Vegas 2020 and look forward to seeing you at our upcoming Ariba Live virtual experience.”

What’s in a name: A bit of a surprise that the merged organizations have yet to settle on a new name for the company. Attendees were informed that the new name will be revealed in the next three to six months.

One observer pointed out to me that it could come sooner, possibly during the annual Unleash conference in early May. It is beneficial to have an assembled audience that will include a bevy of analysts and influencers for such an announcement.

Just a guess here that the new name won’t be Kreeps.

Bakersfield Beat: In a week of ups and downs, country singer-songwriter Dwight Yoakam’s performance March 4 was a high point. Yoakam performed for over three hours straight without so much as a sip of water. His show at the Wynn Theater in the Wynn Hotel-Encore complex was not affiliated with the Ultimate conference and came as a welcome diversion as Yoakam took the full house on a 70-plus-year musical journey laced with plenty of anecdotes across Southern California’s rich musical landscape.

Yoakam focused primarily on the legendary Bakersfield Sound that influenced so much of his own music. But his finale was a nod to Las Vegas (no, not a Brandon Flowers tune, although that would have been pretty sweet). “You can’t play Las Vegas and not play this one,” he said as he launched into Elvis Presley’s “Suspicious Minds.”

Thanks, Josh Cameron. I really, really enjoyed the show.

March 6, 2020June 29, 2023

Q&A with Dan Schawbel: How his career and the HR industry has changed

In this Q&A, Dan Schawbel, managing partner of Workplace Intelligence and New York Times bestselling author, discusses the changes that have occurred throughout his career and the HR industry, as well as what innovations are to come in the near future.

Workforce: How have you grown professionally over the course of your career?

Dan Schawbel: Every experience I’ve had and every person I’ve met has helped shaped my career path since I started over a decade ago. In my early career, I wanted to try everything and today I’m focused on what I’m best at and the audience I can add the most value to. Growth has given me clarity in my career.

WF: How has your career changed?

Schawbel: In the first phase of my career, I helped individuals build their online personal brands, then I transitioned to focusing on managing a multi-generational workforce. Now, I’ve transitioned to topics like the future of work and being human in the age of technology. Throughout each phase of my career, my goal has been to advise companies while being a champion of the worker. By serving both audiences, I can make a bigger impact.

WF: What are some of the changes or trends you’ve seen in HR over the past few years?

Schawbel: The biggest HR trends over the past few years are the rise of employee activism, the use of artificial intelligence, the skills gap, the mental health, and loneliness crisis, internal mobility sustainability and the emphasis on the employee experience.

Dan Schawbel, managing partner of Workplace Intelligence.

WF: What advice would you tell yourself five years ago?

Schawbel: The biggest advice I would have told myself is that change is already happening, even if it’s not universally seen and felt. The workplace trends we talk about are already happening and in order to prepare for the future, we have to adapt in the present.

WF: What have you learned over the course of your career in HR?

Schawbel: I’ve learned that almost everyone in HR has an unorthodox background, which makes sense because you can’t major in HR in undergraduate college. This means that all HR professionals have a unique lens that allows them to add value to workplace programs.

WF: What are some things that you value most about your career?

Schawbel: I had two choices of career paths to pursue when I was focused on personal branding; marketing or HR. I chose HR because I wanted to help people achieve career success and I saw HR as the path to doing so. My theory is that if we improve the workplace, we improve a person’s entire life since one-third of our lives are spent working.

WF: What do you foresee in the future of HR?

Schawbel: Based on my research, it appears that HR departments will be consolidated in the future. HR administrative roles will eventually be removed from the economy, while the more strategic roles will maintain as long as professionals build the right alliances in their companies. If you’re in HR and you feel like you’re working “like a robot,” you will more than likely be replaced by a robot. Think about getting experience outside of HR to protect your future within the industry.

February 20, 2020June 29, 2023

Ultimate Software merges with fellow HCM platform Kronos Inc.

Call the merger of Ultimate Software and Kronos Inc. one of those surprising, not surprising deals.

The Feb. 20 announcement came as a surprise. But then, they’re both owned by the same private equity company. Their HCM software — Ultimate Software’s human capital management and Kronos’ workforce management — play together nicely, although it would be an interesting comparison to put them both side by side and analyze their similarities and differences.

Also, both Ultimate Software and Kronos tout their employee culture as huge selling points. Earlier this week Ultimate was ranked No. 2 on Fortune’s Best Companies to Work For list, while Kronos clocked in at No. 52. Ultimate Software also took the Gold in the 2019 Workforce Optimas Awards’ Corporate Citizenship category.

Kronos Inc. CEO Aron Ain will head up the merger between his company and Ultimate Software.

In the press release issued just after 10 a.m. Central time, one of the first points made was their vaunted corporate cultures. “Combining two exceptional, highly compatible cultures will create a company that is People Inspired” (their italics, not mine).

Considering this is a merger of like organizations, the dreaded “duplication of efforts” specter hangs heavy. Are layoffs, buyouts, rightsizing or downsizing in the future of this new marriage? During this honeymoon period they are saying all the right things, noting that the combined organization will have 12,000 total employees “with further plans for growth including the addition of 3,000 employees over the next three years.”

Aron Ain, longtime Kronos chief executive officer, will be the CEO and chairman of the combined company – “guiding an experienced executive team comprised of leaders from both Ultimate and Kronos.”

There was no mention in the release regarding the future of Ultimate Software CEO Adam Rogers, who took the full CEO title in January 2020. Rogers does offer up this quote in the release: “The combination of Ultimate and Kronos paves the way to deliver the next generation of employee-facing solutions that will set the standard for the workforce of the future. This merger will enable our more than 12,000 inspired people around the world to deliver innovation in human capital management faster than ever before. Both companies remain fully committed to their core strengths as well as to the combined benefits that the new company will bring to employees and customers.”

That could very well be the case. With the meshing of cultures, perhaps no department or staff member will be downsized. Maybe they’ll reskill portions of their workforce.

Still, for those of us who have been through a merger or acquisition, the reality is people leave. Some leave voluntarily because it’s not a good fit anymore, or they’re simply laid off.

I hope and pray that the people at Ultimate and Kronos — which according to the release will remain headquartered in Weston, Florida, and Lowell, Massachusetts, respectively — will retain their jobs and blend into one big, happy, 12,000-employee company with room to grow.

Now that I think about it, when I requested media credentials to cover Ultimate Software’s user conference in early March, PR maven Kelsey Donohue mentioned that I shouldn’t miss the Tuesday general session.

I checked the agenda. Michelle Obama is speaking on Wednesday. That’s pretty awesome. But I could not find the keynoter for Tuesday. I didn’t really give it much thought, but now … the conference and especially Tuesday’s opening session takes on a whole new level of verrrry interesting.

February 18, 2020June 29, 2023

Workforce time clocks keep punching away. Thanks, Coldplay

My stove and kitchen radio decided to simultaneously conduct a household appliance assault, which triggered a mini-obsession with clocks.

When I set the timer on my stove, the time of day on the clock disappeared, which for some reason bothered me to no end. Already irritated, the annoying Coldplay song “Clocks” blared from the radio.

Nice. Now I don’t know what time it is, and I have earworm like “It’s a Small World” or “Viva la Vida” (ugh; Coldplay again), bobbling around my noggin. But then, would “Rock Around the Clock” have changed anything? Jim Croce crooning “Time in a Bottle”? Maybe it was just my time. Or that time of day. Whenever, wherever, I guess.

Unfortunately my fixation carried over to the next morning.

As I walked past a city water department crew hovering over a trench laying a water main, my time-sensitive brain set me pondering: Do these guys queue up at the crack of dawn, pull their paper time card off of a wall-bound time card rack, punch in on an old-fashioned workforce time clock and then pop it back in the rack before trudging out to a company rig and rambling off to the job site?

As I scurried to catch the train I drifted back to a time when I punched in and out on a workforce time clock for my dad as a plumber’s apprentice and again two summers later on his buddy’s road construction crew.

I got to wondering … what companies still use time clocks? After all, we are in an age where technology makes clocking in and out just an app away on our phones. So naturally, to satisfy my clock-obsessed curiosity, I googled time clocks.

Also read: Solving the concern over clean time clocks with a mobile solution

Do workforce time clocks still exist? Boy howdy, do they!

I was pleased to discover that there are several companies that still manufacture and sell the old-style workforce time clocks. I was particularly taken by the story behind Lathem Time Corp. The Atlanta-based manufacturer recently celebrated its 100th anniversary, and their company history page reads like the opening line straight out of a college class in Southern literature.

“In 1919, when George Lathem and his son, Louie P. Lathem began selling time clocks, the father and son sales team traveled by train throughout the Southeast, getting off at the whistle-stops of small towns and looking for the telltale smokestacks of local factories … .”

Which makes me want to add, “The sulphur burned their eyes as they strode toward the block-long red-brick building … ” OK, OK, snap back to 2020. Well, sort of.

Workforce time clocks — Plenty of workforce time clocks, like this one manufactured by Lathem Time Corp. in Atlanta, are still in use.

As many organizations move toward cloud-based, mobile time-and-attendance software, I asked Lance Whipple, Lathem’s vice president of sales and marketing, about the viability of using workforce time clocks of a bygone era.

Whipple assured me that plenty of punch clocks are still in use.

“There are likely a couple hundred thousand Lathem punch clocks still in use daily, and many more when you add in competitive products,” Whipple said. “We’ve sold millions of time clocks to small businesses in our history.”

Punch clocks remain popular with small businesses, he added, and when you consider business needs, workforce time clocks make sense. Sure, we can romanticize their use in the farms and smoke-belching factories of yesteryear, but time clocks are simple to use and as reliable as sweet tea on a steamy Southern summer day.

“As much as we love time clocks, it’s not a sexy or exciting purchase for most small businesses,” Whipple said. “It serves a utilitarian purpose. The low cost of ownership is key in the decision making process. A small business can purchase a punch clock for a few hundred dollars, have it up and running in less than 10 minutes and it will provide many years of reliable service,” he said.

So reliable, in fact, that Lathem has heard from customers with workforce time clocks they made more than 50 years ago.

And time clocks require virtually no training, Whipple said.

“Some small businesses are reluctant to move to more complex technology until they grow to a point where manual time tracking is too much to handle easily.”

Although workforce time clocks are used in primarily blue-collar work environments, Whipple said the size of an organization typically will dictate what type of time and attendance function is in place.

“The smaller the business, the more likely they are to select a punch clock solution over a software-based system,” he said. “There will always be a need for a traditional punch clock for small business. Some aren’t ready to give up pen and paper or commit to the ongoing subscription cost of cloud solutions.”

All that being said, Whipple added that cloud-based applications provide incredible value in managing employee time and attendance.

“We are in a unique position to upgrade a traditional punch clock or older desktop software customers to these new cloud solutions as they outgrow their current product,” he said. “Our cloud-based customers that have made the transition love the access to their employee’s time and attendance data.”

Armed with my new-found knowledge of time clocks, my obsession has been quelled. Wait, time clocks. Clocks. Clocks!! Arrrrgghh, now Coldplay is stuck in my head again!

Can someone sing “It’s a Small World,” please?

February 14, 2020June 29, 2023

Google’s head of HR steps down amid long standing employee tensions

Eileen Naughton, vice president of Google’s people operations, announced that she will be stepping down from her position later this year to be closer to her family. The company said in a Feb. 11 press release that she will not be leaving Google altogether but will be transitioning into a different role at the company that has not yet been specified.

During Naughton’s time as vice president of people at Google, she has had to deal with a series of conflicts within the company’s workforce, such as sexual harassment claims that lead to mass walkouts at several office locations, wrongful termination of several employees and being criticized for diversity issues.

During the backlash, Naughton led an effort to make it easier for employees to report misconduct by introducing a new program that allows employees to bring a friend with them to human resources when they file a complaint and during the investigative process as well, according to Fortune. The article also stated that Naughton responded to criticism about Google’s poor treatment toward its U.S. temporary workers who lacked many benefits that their staff receives by implementing new standards including a $15 minimum wage, health care and parental leave.

Dania Shaheen, vice president of strategy and people operations at Kazoo, said that while Google has been known as a leading company to work in the tech world, they are now learning some valuable lessons as they are thrust into the limelight regarding the company’s future and culture.

“What Google is now learning is that hard-fought gains in employee trust build up over a long time frame can easily be squandered,” Shaheen said via email. “While this change management situation may seem dire at the moment, there’s hope for Google and other companies out there going through changes in their cultures.”

In terms of Google’s next steps, Shaheen said they need to revisit what made it such a great company in the first place — its culture — to rebuild the trust with their employees, which begins with the company’s leaders.

“For a company’s culture to flourish, the key is to build a purpose-driven culture of high engagement and high performance within the workforce, and one that evolves as the organizations evolves,” Shaheen said. “One of the best ways to ensure culture will flourish within an organization is to create an environment of trust, transparency and open communication.”

Considering Google’s extended experience with facing backlash and employee tension over the last several months, management burnout is something to also think about. Shaheen says that every company is bound to experience these types of significant changes at some point, and that change can be especially difficult to deal with in the workplace.

“To avoid management and employee burnout in these situations, company leaders can involve managers early on in the change management process to embrace, promote and facilitate the changes that need to happen,” Shaheen said. “When managers aren’t completely aligned or involved with the organizational change, employees hear mixed messages and feel ambivalent toward the initiatives. While leadership drives desired culture changes, it’s imperative to solicit feedback and input from everyone impacted.”

In times of turmoil in an organization, the role of HR leaders is to provide clear communications expectations and not to assume that all managers will know the expectations for sharing information with their teams, Shaheen said.

“By keeping the employee front and center during all change management initiatives and conversations, companies can help reduce management and employee burnout during times of significant change.”

January 9, 2020June 29, 2023

Remote Work May Be Helping Women Overcome Traditional Office Barriers

Remote work sits at the intersection of many urgent issues that impact how we live and work today.

The demand for flexible work options has been driven by outside factors such as the housing crisis and the rising costs of living across major cities, the growing gig economy, and even longer and increasingly more stressful commutes by car or public transportation.

Meanwhile, advances in technology and cloud capabilities have made it easier for employees to work outside of the traditional office environment. The result is that an estimated 23 percent of the U.S. workforce now works remotely at least part of the time — a number expected to reach 50 percent this year.

With 40 percent of our employee population working virtually, my company, Ultimate Software, set out to study the state of remote work and how this growing trend is impacting the experience of fellow remote and in-office workers alike. We surveyed 1,000 U.S. employees nationwide, all of whom work for a company that has a mix of remote and in-office employees. What we found was quite unexpected.

Counter to the common narrative of remote workers as isolated and overlooked, the majority of them — and, surprisingly, women in particular — seem to be thriving when working outside of the traditional office setting. The data suggest that flexible work options may actually be helping women overcome barriers such as access to career growth and work-life balance.

These findings come at a time when our nation is grappling with important conversations surrounding equal pay, the #MeToo movement and how women are treated in the workplace. It’s important for business leaders and HR teams to pay attention to what women’s experiences tell us about improvements that still need to be made in traditional office settings.

Women Who Work Remotely Are Thriving

The prevailing media narrative around remote workers is that they are isolated, as they often miss out on in-office benefits, including team collaboration, company culture or access to HR. At worst, there’s a myth that remote workers are overlooked when it comes to career growth — out of sight, out of mind. But our survey data paint a different picture, particularly when you compare men’s and women’s experiences.

For example, our research found that women who work remotely were twice as likely to report proactively leveraging HR to resolve issues, when compared with in-office women. This gap did not exist between in-office men and remote men. Meanwhile, women who work from home were also more likely to feel confident that HR understands their needs and concerns — 67 percent agree or strongly agree that HR is aware of their needs, versus 57 percent of in-office women. Men tended to be even more confident — 73 percent of in-office and 72 percent of remote male workers agree or strongly agree.

This stronger connection with HR could be benefiting remote women workers’ overall career growth. They were the most likely to report a promotion in the last year, eclipsing men in either work environment: 57 percent of remote women reported being promoted in the last year, compared with 35 percent of in-office women, 51 percent of male remote workers, and 43 percent of male in-office workers. These women were also significantly more likely than in-office women to report room for growth in their current roles (80 percent of remote women versus 60 percent of in-office women).

The data also indicated a continued struggle for work-life balance among in-office women in particular. They were significantly more likely to report feeling guilty about taking paid time off than any other group (42 percent of in-office women versus 28 percent of remote women, 21 percent of in-office men and 18 percent of remote men).

Have Workplace Advances Left Women Behind?

A cursory glance at these numbers tells us that remote women workers are reaping valuable benefits. If you dig even deeper into the data, another startling trend emerges. While the reported experiences of remote and in-office women varied vastly when it came to career growth and a connection with HR, men tended to report similar experiences regardless of where they worked.

Also read: Remote Employees: Out of Sight, Out of Their Minds?

In fact, the experiences of remote women were often on par with their male counterparts who worked in the office or at home, while women who work in the office lagged behind all other groups significantly. What the data make clear is that women are feeling disconnected and disadvantaged in traditional office settings.

What is the answer? Should women be working from their home offices and kitchen tables for a better chance of a promotion and supportive work environment? Obviously, this is not the solution.

It’s not women who work in traditional office settings who should be paying attention to this data — it’s the people who lead and manage them. It’s evident that, while significant advances have been made to improve the work experiences of all employees, there is still work to be done.

How Leaders Can Make a Difference

While these issues may not exist in the same form at every company, these findings can serve as a starting point for HR leaders and business executives to take a closer look at their own companies. Real change begins by asking the right questions, and these stats provide a script.

Ask yourself: How are remote workers performing relative to in-office workers at your company? Are there significant gender gaps? The answers can be quantitative or anecdotal. Look for patterns in who’s accessing HR and training opportunities, who’s getting promoted — and who isn’t — and then ask why.

Once you’ve turned inward and asked some honest questions about your workplace, the next and most important step is to ask for feedback — and then keep asking. Gather feedback from employees in a safe, supportive way, and then encourage open dialogue. Various methods may work best for your organization, from mentorship and manager one-on-one meetings to employee surveys to creating a diversity and inclusion committee.

Regardless of whether your company has a remote workforce now, the ways in which we work are changing. Employee expectations are also changing.

Leadership has a particular responsibility to ensure a company weathers these changes by supporting all employees. A workplace revolution is coming. In many ways, it’s already started. Leadership must look inward to ensure their company is on the right side of that shift.

December 23, 2019June 29, 2023

Artificial Intelligence Is a Double-Edged Sword. Here’s How HR Leaders Can Properly Wield It

Unemployment in the United States stands at a 50-year low. The quit rate of workers hovers near an all-time high. And the number of open jobs continues to outpace the number of unemployed individuals.

Workers have reaped the benefit of this employment boom, through more job options and bigger paychecks. But it has ramped up pressure on HR departments grappling with recruiting and retaining top talent.

To help overcome these challenges, many are eyeing a double-edged sword: artificial intelligence. AI holds immense promise.

Technology that mimics human thinking by making assumptions, learning, reasoning, problem-solving or predicting, AI helps humans figure out who to hire and how to keep them. Such benefits for HR have already outweighed any setbacks.

But if HR departments wield AI without a proper understanding of it, they risk playing with peoples’ lives and their company’s brand. Indeed, a flawed AI program, or one used without the proper safeguards, could lead to hiring the wrong person, missing a deserved promotion, or systemic bias in the hiring process.

Few HR departments fully grasp AI’s potential and limitations. And that’s understandable. After all, AI’s role in human resources is still relatively new. HR departments being first and foremost people-focused often trail behind other departments in learning the latest technological innovations. Furthermore, HR now can benefit from the combination of AI technology maturing and the high volume of accessible data that powers AI. In recent years, the availability of data has increased exponentially.

So avoiding AI’s pitfalls and seizing on its opportunities first means knowing what they’re dealing with.

Today, some HR departments experiment with fairly basic forms of AI. For example, using platforms that scour thousands of online résumés to uncover and rank candidates against specified job requirements.

But the more advanced forms of artificial intelligence — programs that become more autonomous and smarter over time — will require greater caution. Imagine a training platform akin to Netflix’s recommendation engine, suggesting customized development resources and shaping a tailored employee learning path. Or think of a compensation program that monitors employee performance against real-time market trends to suggest the timing and size of pay increases for maximum retention.

It’s a tantalizing vision but one rife with peril. Even tech-savvy companies have run into problems. One retailer took the well-intentioned step of using AI to enhance its recruiting, but when the software developed systemic bias, they had to pull the plug. Trained on the data of past hires — predominantly men — the AI quickly “learned” to penalize female candidates, downgrading attendees of women’s colleges, for example.

This does not mean that organizations should shy away from AI. The technologies now coming online may truly revolutionize HR’s ability to find, hire, engage, and develop but only as part of a coherent plan with vigilance from the top.

To realize the gains and avoid the dangers, organizational leaders should:

Identify HR processes that could capitalize on a combination of machine and human intelligence — with the former’s computational muscle augmenting the latter’s judgement. Machine intelligence can analyze more data, more rapidly, than can humans. It can also spot patterns or correlations between factors that a human analyst might miss. For example, AI tools could recommend coaching topics that would accelerate time-to-productivity for new hires in a specific role.
Collaborate with other functions to determine how to best use AI in the company. As content experts, HR should lead the process, identifying areas that could be automated or where AI could be leveraged. IT should be an initial partner, but legal, risk management, data protection, data security, communications and even corporate social responsibility may also play roles.
Employ AI to “fix” AI — and humans. Tools like IBM’s Watson Recruitment suite already use systems that detect unseen bias from hiring data and natural language processing. According to IBM, it can spot whether past bias patterns are being reproduced — and fix them. AI scientists hope to increase transparency so that they, as well as skeptical auditors, will be able to see what’s going on inside. This will help them root out latent forms of bias and monitor the stability of their models over time.
Create new roles that facilitate the adoption of AI. AI-for-HR is likely to lead to new or expanded human resources roles. AI expert Tom Davenport suggests three clusters of such jobs: trainers who will teach cognitive technologies about capabilities; explainers who explicate the process and results, and sustainers who ensure the systems are performing well from an HR perspective.

In the coming years, the United States will continue to experience a tight labor market. Seismic demographic shifts will persist, including the exodus of baby boomers from the workforce and insufficiently small batches of new entrants replacing them. Such trends will only perpetuate the challenges to those charged with hiring and retaining talent. HR professionals will need to employ AI — carefully and intentionally.

Amy Lui Abel is the vice president of The Conference Board’s Human Capital Center.