human resources – Page 22

July 16, 2019June 29, 2023

As You’re Aware … Self-Awareness Is Critical to Your Company’s Success

The research indicates that more self-aware individuals understand others better, enabling them to lead more effectively.

However, while most people believe they are self-aware, a study by The Eurich Group shows that the quality of self-awareness is actually in short supply.

There are a number of reasons to believe that greater general levels of self-awareness at organizations lead to positive business outcomes. For example, studies such as those by Bass & Yammarino, Atwater & Yammarino, and Church showed that people with more accurate self-conception tended to perform better.

At the top level, the relationship between self-awareness and flexibility is demonstrated by a study of the Royal Navy, which found that more self-aware leaders were better able to tailor their leadership style to the needs of the situation at hand. Better employee performance plus more agile leadership typically leads to a better bottom line.

There’s also reason to believe that it might influence retention. My team at the Myers-Briggs Co. recently researched workplace well-being with over 10,000 global respondents, and found that individuals with a higher level of well-being — which can stem from self-awareness — had significantly higher levels of job satisfaction and were significantly less likely to look for a new job.

What Is Self-awareness, and How Does It Help You?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary self-awareness is “Conscious knowledge of one’s own character and feelings.” Researcher Anna Sutton further elaborates on this to describe it as, “The extent to which people are consciously aware of their interactions or relationships with others and of their internal states.”

Think about a time you took your car in for a tune-up. Nothing major was fixed, but afterward it drove like a dream. Similarly, increasing your self-awareness can help you perform better — by discovering how you operate, you begin to understand how to adjust your behaviors for better results.

You also begin to understand other people’s approaches too. In our own recent research on self-awareness, survey respondents reported that increased self-awareness led to improvements in confidence, decision-making, people-management and stress management. When we asked people about the advantages of being self-aware, the top responses were:

. Understanding of reactions and motivation.
. Management of self and others.
. Ability to adapt behavior.
. Relationship improvement.
. Personal growth.

Additionally, people said that self-awareness was particularly helpful when:

Working with others in a team (mentioned by 58 percent of survey respondents).
Coping with stress (mentioned by 54 percent of survey respondents).
Acting as a coach (mentioned by 53 percent of survey respondents).
Dealing with change (mentioned by 50 percent of survey respondents).
Managing and leading others (mentioned by 45 percent of survey respondents).
Dealing with clients (mentioned by 33 percent of survey respondents).
Receiving coaching or feedback (mentioned by 28 percent of survey respondents).

How Is Self-awareness Measured?

A number of models and assessments can be employed to measure self-awareness in individuals, but one particularly useful one comes from a 2015 study by Sutton, Williams and Allinson which identified four facets of self-awareness: Reflection, Insight, Rumination and Mindfulness. In our own research, here is a sampling of the included questions designed to measure these facets:

Reflection

I often reflect on my thoughts. I do not often think about the way I am feeling.
I enjoy exploring my “inner self.”
I often reflect on my feelings.
Others would benefit from reflecting more on their thoughts.

Insight

I am interested in analyzing the behavior of others.
I value opportunities to evaluate my behavior.
It is important to understand why people behave in the way they do.
When I’m feeling uncomfortable, I can easily name these feelings.
I usually know why I am feeling the way I do.

Mindfulness

I am often on autopilot and do not pay much attention to what I am doing.
Sometimes I am careless because I am preoccupied, with many things on my mind.
I often dwell on the past or the future, rather than the present.
My mind often wanders when I am trying to concentrate.

Rumination

I often find myself thinking about past negative events.
When things go wrong, I often ruminate on them for long periods of time.
I tend not to look back and think about how I could have done things differently.

How Can a Workplace Professional Promote Self-Awareness?

There are many ways to develop self-awareness, but a mix of methods will probably work best. Here are some of the most popular, based on responses to our survey.

Feedback from peers.
Completing personality questionnaires.
Feedback from family, managers, clients, subordinates and a wider network.
Training to become a coach.
Professional training.
360-degree tools.

However, the most popular methods aren’t necessarily the best. We looked at a number of commonly used approaches and found that the best methods, in order of effectiveness, were:

Training to be a coach.
Being coached.
Having structured feedback from your peers.
Completing personality assessments.

It wasn’t too surprising that “training to be a coach” topped the list, as this involves many, many hours of learning to understand oneself before being allowed to coach others. Of course, such training is also time consuming and expensive and not a realistic route for most employees.

On the other hand, “being coached oneself” as a way to help senior managers, is something that many organizations may invest in. It does, however, come with a significant cost and time commitment, so companies might want to look into having ‘structured feedback from your peers and completed personality assessments, which may in fact be the most cost-effective approaches in terms of providing the biggest payoff for a relatively low monetary investment.

Similarly, journaling, the practice of keeping a diary or journal that explores thoughts and feelings surrounding the events of your life, offers a low-cost way to effectively promote self-awareness.

However, companies should note that one of the interesting findings of our research was that “feedback from your manager” was seen to be one of the least effective methods. This is an important point because, as noted earlier, this kind of feedback was also listed as one of the most common methods of promoting self-awareness that organizations leverage.

Though we cannot say exactly why manager feedback was not seen as especially effective, there are a number of possible reasons. Some managers may be less close to their subordinate’s work than peers, seen to have particular agendas or as too busy with other aspects of their job. Whatever the reason, this is a troubling finding for managers.

You’re Self-Aware, Now What?

Self-awareness is really just the first step. Once individuals become more aware of their own personality preferences and have a structure to understand and describe them, they can start to recognize how their co-workers are similar to or different from them and begin to devise strategies to work with them more effectively. Linked to this greater understanding, managers and workplace professionals can put in place systems to help people work together more effectively. This could include approaches such as:

Establishing a modus operandi for working together that takes account of the rights and the responsibilities of different personality types.
Ensuring that important information is communicated in a range of different ways (rather than only in a style that suits the personality of the sender).
Allowing time for reflection during or after meetings.
Considering personality preferences when reorganizing office layouts.

Regardless of whether some or all of the approaches are taken, the key to successfully implementing any of these is the realization that we are different from others in ways that can be identified and described, and the harnessing of this diversity of personality in a positive way.

July 16, 2019June 29, 2023

Playing the Game of Baby Boomer Bingo

It’s no secret that the retirement of baby boomers is contributing to a shortage of workers.

Recent reports show that the United States is predicted to see a 38 percent increase in the over-65 population between 2015 and 2025, while the U.S. population of those between ages 18 and 64 is only expected to rise by 3 percent. Baby boomers are estimated to comprise 15 percent of the total global population, according to a resource on website employmentcounselor.net.

Around the world, employers are trying to retain these tenured resources with creative incentives. Some countries are increasing wages, and others are increasing retirement ages.

At the same time, companies are finding that the work styles of baby boomers are changing. After long careers spent largely working as traditional, full-time employees, many in this generation are shying away from retirement and are instead looking for smaller, more flexible work as contractors or consultants. In a tight labor market, this shift can be a significant opportunity for employers desiring the deep level of subject matter expertise, hard and soft skills, and management experience that boomers carry.

Boomers’ preference to continue working can be a big win for any company. To keep this generation in the workforce, however, companies will have to embrace several basic approaches to improve worker engagement. These approaches include creating flexible schedules and engagement models, partnering with senior workers in their career progression, and empowering senior workers with technology.

Embrace Flexibility

As baby boomers find their own balance between easing into retirement and staying productive, employers can aid the transition by providing flexible work options and alternative engagement models. For example, consider the sales executive who looks forward to cutting the hourlong commute from her morning or evening schedule.

For the employee, retirement may be a big, drastic step, but the personal and lifestyle benefits of removing the commute, even if just a few days per week, outweigh the anxieties of not working. By engaging that worker in meaningful dialogue around her real needs and proactively offering remote work as an option, the employer can dramatically alter the equation, often resulting in the employee staying on board for several valuable years. Similarly, flexibility in scheduling may include four-day weeks or alternative hours.

Along with schedule adjustments, an open mind about engagement models is also an advantage. Talent may come in the form of consultants or contractors, allowing a more flexible engagement model.

Hiring managers need to become comfortable in looking at both traditional employees and flexible workers when considering talent needs. That level of comfort requires an environment that enables the employer to quickly and easily identify and access all available talent, including permanent employment candidates and contractors alike.

Become a Career Partner

When employing baby boomers, it is critical to partner with them in their career progression and understand what they want from the position, as well as their overall career goals. For example, they may be interested in expanding their skills.

From technology to processes and new fields of expertise, workers of all generations value learning, and employers would do well to meet their needs with appropriate resources and learning programs. Likewise, visibility into job openings across the company is also valuable to pre-retirement workers. What the boomers desire in development (or increased flexibility) may come simply in the form of a role in a different department or functional group.

Along with traditional training opportunities and job visibility, boomers can benefit greatly from the give and take of knowledge transfer among workers in the organization. Mentorships are an obvious option for knowledge sharing from pre-retirement workers to those of other generations. Less obvious, but just as important, are reverse mentorship arrangements that give pre-retirement workers a chance to learn from younger generations.

Provide Up-to-Date Technology

Employers wishing to continue working with highly skilled baby boomers should not only provide them with workplace flexibility but also enable them to do that work with easy and transparent digital interactions. While baby boomers may have lived a substantial portion of their lives before the rise of digital communication, they also have grown accustomed to the consumer experience of using applications for everything from shopping on their phone to using Facetime to connect with distant family members.

In the workplace, baby boomers can benefit from the same level of technology enablement. For example, the use of cloud-based technologies for collaboration should make workflow, documentation, feedback, and approvals on projects transparent and accessible any time, any place.

Likewise, telecommuting tools like videoconferencing are no longer new, but many organizations have not fully adopted the concept in their core business. As more boomers opt to avoid or reduce the number of days spent commuting to onsite locations, use of these tools will become more widely accepted as part of corporate cultures and more widely sought after by generations approaching retirement.

Make Workplace Accessibility a Priority

Regardless of age, employees need to believe that their employer is committed to their well-being, and removing barriers to access is an important part of that commitment.

For workers with disabilities, an employer’s commitment to improving employees’ ability to utilize physical and virtual resources can be instrumental to a positive work experience. Considering that the percentage of the U.S. population with a disability jumps from 10.6 percent for those between 18 and 64 to more than 35 percent for those over 65, according to research by the University of New Hampshire, the importance of access and accommodation for baby boomers is clear.

The most obvious example of accessibility is the corporate website. Captions with audio and video, along with visual options such as larger formats and contrasting color schemes, can help to ensure that the employer does not place unnecessary barriers to work and interaction for employees.

Many organizations can help companies assess their accessibility and provide paths for improvement. At the same time, employers should consider that accessibility often leads to a better experience for everyone and not just workers with disabilities.

Engaging Talent of All Ages

Organizations will continue to compete for valuable baby boomer talent. The competition may come from different employers, or it may come in the form of competing life choices, from full retirement to relocation. In all cases, core principles that drive great talent engagement will make the difference between employers that successfully engage baby boomers and those that miss out on the opportunity these workers present.

These commitments — being flexible, empowering their careers, and providing the right tools and technology to get work done — are more than strategies for recruiting senior workers. They are basic paths for any company to become a better employer to the people it hires and aims to retain, whatever their age and experience group. When it comes to attracting and retaining talent of any age, what’s good for people is good for business.

Keep Looking Ahead

Companies face persistent challenges in attracting, finding and retaining critical talent. They are struggling to get work done in a market where demographics are shifting, and the technology is constantly evolving.

When positioning a talent acquisition strategy to better engage the workforce, regardless of generation, an open mind for change is essential. A new solution may supplant the technology that works today for virtual work.

The model that engages pre-retirement professionals as consultants may evolve as part of a total talent approach. Amid such conditions, the leaders, today and in the future, will be the employers that continually question how work gets done, who needs to do it, and how they will go about securing that talent.

July 15, 2019June 29, 2023

The 13th Nominee for the Worst Employer of 2019 Is … the Excoriating Executives

It’s been nearly a month since I posted the last nominee for 2019’s Worst Employer.

It’s not for lack of ideas; it’s just that the prior nominees have been so awful that the bar for qualification has been set pretty high. Thankfully, France Télécom has come to the rescue.

What did the former top executives at France’s national phone company do to earn their nomination?

35 Employees Committed Suicide. Will Their Bosses Go to Jail?

I’ll let the New York Times story take it from here:

The men — all former top executives at France’s giant telecom company — wanted to downsize the business by thousands of workers a decade ago. But they couldn’t fire most of them. The workers were state employees — employees for life — and therefore protected.

So the executives resolved to make life so unbearable that the workers would leave, prosecutors say. Instead, at least 35 employees — workers’ advocates say nearly double that number — committed suicide, feeling trapped, betrayed and despairing of ever finding new work in France’s immobile labor market. …

“They were stuck, cornered,” said Michel Ledoux, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers. “The only possibility was to make them leave, one way or another.”

Weeks of wrenching testimony about despairing employees who hanged themselves, immolated themselves, or threw themselves out of windows, under trains and off bridges and highway overpasses, have suggested that the former executives went very far in “pushing the company into the new century,” as corporate strategy dictated. …

“The company was going under and it didn’t even know it,” Mr. Lombard, the ex-chief executive, testified. “We could have gone about it much more gently if we hadn’t had the competition banging on our door.”

Unfortunately for Mr. Lombard, he was recorded saying in 2007 that he would reach the quota of layoffs “one way or another, by the window or by the door.” The window is what a number of the employees chose.

“This isn’t going to be lacework here,” Mr. Barberot said in 2007. “We’re going to put people in front of life’s realities.”

If you harass employees to the point of mass suicide in the name of layoffs, you might just be the worst employer of 2019.

Big thanks to Kelly Paxton for bringing this story to my attention.

Previous nominees:

The 1st Nominee for the Worst Employer of 2019 Is … the Philandering Pharmacist

The 2nd Nominee for the Worst Employer of 2019 Is … the Little Rascal Racist

The 3rd Nominee for the Worst Employer of 2019 is … the Barbarous Boss

The 4th Nominee for the Worst Employer of 2019 is… the Flagrant Farmer

The 5th Nominee for the Worst Employer of 2019 is… the Fishy Fishery

The 6th Nominee for Worst Employer of 2019 Is … the Diverse Discriminator

The 7th Nominee for Worst Employer of 2019 Is … the Disability Debaser

The 8th Nominee for the Worst Employer of 2019 Is … the Lascivious Leader

The 9th Nominee for the Worst Employer of 2019 Is … the Fertile Firing

The 10th Nominee for Worst Employer of 2019 Is … the Exorcising Employee

The 11th Nominee for the Worst Employer of 2019 Is … the ****y Supervisor

The 12th Nominee for the Worst Employer of 2019 Is … the Disguised Doctor

July 10, 2019June 29, 2023

Why Are Employers Testing Job Applicants for Prescription Medications?

During a pre-employment medical examination and drug screen, an applicant tests positive for Alprazolam, the generic form of Xanax (a medication commonly prescribed for anxiety), a fact she had already disclosed during the examination.

The doctor performing the medical exam and reviewing the drug screen concludes that the applicant is medically acceptable for work as an intake specialist at an inpatient mental health facility. The employer, however, has other ideas. It withdraws the job offer without providing the applicant any opportunity to discuss the results.

The applicant sues, claiming disability discrimination.

Who wins?

(a) The employer, because the ADA permits pre-employment medical examinations and drug screening, and further because there exists a nexus between the applicant ’s underlying mental impairment (anxiety) and her fitness to work at a mental health facility.

(b) The employer, because the ADA only protects physical and mental impairments, not drugs used to treat them.

(d) The applicant, because the only logical explanation for rescinding a job offer after an applicant tests positive for a prescription drug commonly used to treat anxiety is that the employer regarded the applicant as disabled.

While we may eventually find out the official answer to this puzzle (the EEOC recently filed suit alleging an ADA violation arising from these facts), if you answered (d), grab yourself a Kewpie Doll.

Still, the answer might not nearly be this cut-and-dry. The ADA is remarkably silent on the issue of testing for legally prescribed medications.

Thankfully, courts have stepped in to fill in the ADA’s omission. For example, Bates v. Dura Automotive Sys. (6th Cir. 8/26/14) [pdf].

1. Does the ADA permit an employer to test for prescription medications?

Whether the ADA permits an employer to test employees for prescription medications will hinge on whether the test is a “medical examination.” If the test is a “medical examination,” then the ADA only permits it during employment if the test is “job-related and consistent with business necessity.” According to the Court, whether the prescription-drug screen is a “medical examination” will hinge on whether the test “is designed to reveal an impairment or physical or mental health,” which examines both the employer’s reasons in using the test and the test’s typical uses and purposes.

2. Does the ADA permit an employer to require employees, after a positive test, to disclose medications to a third-party administrator?

The court concluded that there exists a huge difference between a general requirement that employees disclose a list of all prescription medications taken (possibly illegal), versus a policy that only requires the disclosure of job-restricted medications after a positive test.

How can an employer make sense of this discussion? These are difficult issues that balance an employer’s right to maintain a safe workplace against an employee’s right to medical privacy. What is an employer to do?

1. Limit testing for the use of prescription drugs to safety-sensitive positions, and then only for those medications that could pose a safety risk.
2. Do not ask employees to disclose the underlying medical condition for which they are taking the medication.
3. Be consistent in your treatment of employees who test positive.
4. Only disclose the results to those who need to know.

In conclusion, I want to focus for a moment on point No. 1 — limit testing for the use of prescription (any?) drugs to safety-sensitive positions and then only for those medications that could pose a safety risk.

Unless one is applying for a job that poses a safety risk, why are we drug testing at all? If you don’t want those who use illegal drugs to work for you, I get that.

That’s your right and your decision. But prescription drugs?

What are you hoping to learn from those tests? Unless you have a legitimate reason to hunt for medications that could impair an employee’s ability to safely perform their job, the risks of the test severely outweigh any benefits to gain.

You’ll learn a heap of protected medical information (or make assumptions based on the physical or mental impairments the drugs are used to treat). Either way, you are opening yourself up to a difficult disability-discrimination lawsuit if you rescind a job offer, as Rogers Behavioral Health in the lawsuit the EEOC recently filed.

Is this risk worth the minimal benefit?

July 9, 2019June 29, 2023

NLRB Offers Significant Guidance on Its New(ish) Employee Handbook Rules

It’s been just over 18 months since the National Labor Relations Board decided Boeing Co., perhaps its most significant decision in decades.

It rewrote more than a decade of precedent by overturning its Lutheran Heritage standard regarding when facially neutral employment policies violate the rights of employees to engage in concerted activity protected by section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act.

In Boeing, the board scrapped Lutheran Heritage’s “reasonably construe” test (a work rule violates section 7 if an employee could “reasonably construe” an infringement of their section 7 rights) with a test that balances “asserted business justifications and the invasion of employee rights” by weighing “(i) the nature and extent of the potential impact on NLRA rights, and (ii) legitimate justifications associated with the requirement(s).” It was a huge win for employers drafting and issuing workplace policies.

In applying this balancing, the NLRB announced the three-tiered approach to analyzing the legality of employee handbook and other workplace rules.

Category 1: Rules that are Generally Lawful to Maintain, which, when reasonably interpreted, do not prohibit or interfere with the exercise of rights guaranteed by the Act, or the business justification for which outweighs any potential adverse impact on protected rights

Category 2: Rules Warranting Individualized Scrutiny, which are not obviously lawful or unlawful, and must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis to determine whether the rule would interfere with rights guaranteed by the NLRA, and if so, whether any adverse impact on those rights is outweighed by legitimate justifications.

Category 3: Rules that are Unlawful to Maintain, which are generally unlawful because they would prohibit or limit NLRA-protected conduct, and the adverse impact on the rights guaranteed by the NLRA outweighs any justifications associated with the rule.

Last month, the NLRB Office of General Counsel released its advice memo in Coastal Shower Doors (curiously dated 8/30/2018), which passed judgment on the legality or illegality of 10 different handbook provisions under the Boeing standard.

1. “Obtaining unauthorized confidential information pertaining to clients or employees.” Lawful Category 1 confidentiality rule.
2. “Rude, discourteous or unbusinesslike behavior; creating a disturbance on Company premises or creating discord with clients or fellow employees.” Lawful Category 1 civility/disruptive-behavior policy.
3. “Soliciting, collecting money, or distributing bills or pamphlets on Company property by employees during non-working time, including rest and meal periods, is not restricted so long as such activity is in good taste.” Lawful Category 1 solicitation/distribution policy.
4. “Un-business-like conduct, on or off Company premises, which adversely affects the Company services, property, reputation or goodwill in the community, or interferes with work.” Lawful Category 1 on-duty conduct rule, and lawful Category 2 off-duty conduct rule.
5. “… all information gathered by, retained or generated by the Company is confidential. There shall be no disclosure of any confidential information to anyone outside the Company without the appropriate authorization. . . . nothing in this policy is intended to infringe upon employee rights under Section Seven (7) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).” Unlawful Category 3 rule.
6. “Disparaging, abusive, profane, or offensive language (materials that would adversely or negatively reflect upon the Company or be contrary to the Company best interests) and any illegal activities—including piracy, cracking, extortion, blackmail, copyright infringement, and unauthorized access to any computers on the Internet or email—are forbidden.” Lawful Category 1 civility and on-duty misconduct rule.
7. “Employees should refrain from posting derogatory information about the Company on any such sites and proceed with any grievances or complaints through the normal channels.” Unlawful Category 3 rule.
8. “Employees may not post any statements, photographs, video, or audio that reasonably could be viewed as disparaging to employees.” Lawful Category 1 civility rule.
9. “Employees may not post to any on-line forums … providing any Company telephone number or extension. Do not create a link from any personal blog, website or other social networking site to a Company website without identifying oneself as an employee of the Company.” Part lawful Category 1 rule (as to self-identification) , and part unlawful Category 2 rule (as to telephone number ban).
10. “The use of personal cell phones or other mobile devices is prohibited during working hours for personal use, including phone calls, texting and downloading of web content.” Unlawful Category 2 rule.

This memo, which delves into a lot more detail on each of the 10 policies, is required reading for anyone drafting, rewriting or reviewing an employee handbook, and offers great insight into how the NLRB will judge policies under its relatively new Boeing test.

June 25, 2019June 29, 2023

Day 2 at #SHRM19 — It’s All About the Underutilized Talent Pool

It’s no secret that HR pros face a broad range of challenges every day.

And if, like me, you were waiting to hear the broad range of topics that the world’s largest HR association is addressing from the organization’s CEO as the first full day of the Society for Human Resource Management’s annual confab dawned in Las Vegas, you were probably pretty disappointed.

That said, if you were eager to hear about the untapped talent pool consisting of the formerly incarcerated, people living with disabilities, veterans, and those people considered to be too old for the workplace, well, spending a little time at the general session Monday morning in the Las Vegas Convention Center was your little slice of heaven.

SHRM CEO Johnny C. Taylor Jr.’s mini-keynoter before the real keynoter Brene Brown didn’t shed new light on the direction of his 300,000-member-plus association’s present or future. He skirted any potential controversies and closely stuck to the message of building a more inclusive, diverse and empathetic workplace. It was a valuable message, no doubt.

At times I felt like I was at a political rally. It’s clear that Taylor knows how to stoke an emotional response with videos and people’s up-close and personal stories. Taylor introduced four people representing underutilized pools of workplace talent to emphasize his signature push to put these people back in the workplace.

Taylor also reminded us that overlooking these potential employees not only causes them a disservice but tears at the “very social fabric” and causes harm for generations.

“Workplaces are where real social services begins,” Taylor said.

Taylor also noted that HR’s expanding role in talent acquisition is to remember that those who do not think, walk or talk like us deserve dignity of work. “As stewards we play huge role not keeping out wrong people but bringing in the right people,” Taylor said.

Then came a quick video set in a courtroom. The criminal was guilty and sentenced to life in prison.

That led to Alice M. Johnson, whose life sentence was commuted by President Trump after a push by Kim Kardashian, to walk onstage. Johnson, now an author, briefly and passionately told her story and offered a moving example of the second chance movement.

“There are so many more like me who are not so fortunate after serving their debt,” she said. “They were shut out and they only want to find their purpose in the dignity of work. HR pros like you can stop the cycle of poverty, you create a better world.” Her talk understandably drew a large round of applause.

“Millions are waiting for opportunities,” Taylor said. “Put biases aside. They’re not just charity cases, nor superheroes. They need an opportunity. They can become leaders, change makers.”

Taylor followed up by introducing three people with physical disabilities.

Taylor called them ambassadors for changing workplaces, adding that people with challenges like mental health and ADHD need to be supported by HR in the workplace.

“We all bring layers of challenges,” Taylor said. “HR has a profound responsibility to do our best to support these people.”

Taylor recognized veterans and then addressed the challenges older workers face by being aged out of the workforce.

“Ageism is illegal and it’s damaging to the bottom line,” Taylor said as a handful of older people dressed in all black formed a semi-circle behind him. It was a bit melodramatic but drove home Taylor’s point.

“We place premium on youth,” he said. “Aging is seen as debilitating. Let these people in. Recruit older workers.”

Taylor then closed his keynote by pounding home the benefits of a diverse workplace. “Different is beautiful,” he exclaimed. “Eliminate discrimination any time we see it.”

While it was a feel-good speech filled with personal examples, Taylor’s 26-minute reminder to hire disadvantaged talent pools was merely an extension of the initiative he launched about this time a year ago at SHRM 2018 in Chicago.

No doubt it was a moving and emotional speech, but if I’m an HR leader I know we face a shortage of talent and that it’s time to get creative with our hiring. And as Taylor implored the assembled crowd to hire these people, all I could think of was the “yes, but …” that was likely running through many SHRM members’ minds — or potentially will be after they return to their workplaces.

Taylor chose to stick to a recurring theme during his one chance to address the assembled SHRM membership. While finding talent is an important topic, HR leaders face a bevy of challenges beyond hiring. Young employees drowning in student debt; soaring health care costs; the #MeToo movement, which unfortunately seems to be yesterday’s news. We also have a president who wants to eliminate the Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s HR department.Want to advocate for a membership’s cause? My guess is SHRM has a fair portion of OPM employees as members.

Yes, SHRM19 provides plenty of opportunities to air out these issues with cohorts and gather insight during sessions to solve problems back home. But Taylor could have used his half hour setting a broad tone for the conference by touching on several hot-button HR issues rather than polishing what sounded more to me like a political speech on a single topic.

More 2019 SHRM Conference Coverage:

Exclusive Video Interviews from the 2019 SHRM Conference

The State of #SHRM19 Speech: Wait Until Monday

Brené Brown at SHRM Conference: ‘Leaders Are Never Quiet About Hard Things’

SHRM Releases Annual Benefits Survey

June 23, 2019June 29, 2023

The State of #SHRM19 Speech — Tune in Monday

It always seems like there’s a world-class soccer tournament simultaneously playing as the the Society for Human Resource Management opens its annual soiree.

Sure enough, the Women’s World Cup is on in France, and SHRM is opening in Las Vegas. And sure enough, Brazil and France were deadlocked 1-1 in overtime as Sunday’s opening session kicked off.

Timing wise that was fine because we should know who wins by the time Johnny C. Taylor Jr. gives the assembled HR faithful the annual CEO’s state of SHRM. Last year in Chicago, Taylor’s inaugural speech at the Sunday general session was a riveting blend of revival meeting and motivational speech about HR’s growing role in the workplace.

So, let’s check the boxes as we watch the first 20 minutes or so until Taylor speaks.

Huge conference space at the Las Vegas Convention Center? Check.

Record attendance? Oh yes … somewhere north of 20,000 people are here.

Glitz and glamour? Check and check. I mean, the opening act was iLuminate, a deft troupe that blends tech and theater. And the upcoming opening keynote was TV and media personality Martha Stewart.

Score still tied 1-1.

Event emcee Melissa Dawn Simkins offered up a plug for the SHRM Foundation and we heard about new initiatives — the SHRM Studio and Convos & Coffee, a clever little lounge with a weirdly intuitive floor that asks questions about such things as ageism and diversity of your workplace.

France goes ahead 2-1. Still 7 minutes left. Yikes.

Simkins introduced SHRM Board of Directors Chairman David Windley.

Pleasant enough speech. Windley noted the 20,000 people in attendance this year, 1,400 of whom belong to the public sector and a large number who practice HR internationally.

Windley also noted how people spend a third of lives at work and that there’s a growing level of trust between employees and their employers.

“People are losing trust in institutions but not in their workplaces,” Windley said. “The employer is most trusted — 75 percent more than NGOs, media and government. Employers are the key relationship in peoples’ lives. So we have a serious responsibility,” Windley added.

France still ahead, 2-1; 2 minutes left. Annnnd, I lose the feed. Noooooo ….. .

Oh well, Taylor will be on shortly.

Windley continues about SHRM’s second chance push for formerly incarcerated people and how advisors are on hand at the conference for HR practitioners who want to learn more about what has been Taylor’s signature initiative. And there was polite applause as Windley mentioned companies signing a pledge to give people a second chance in the workplace.

Match over; France advances. Full attention now as Windley concludes his talk.

“Learn, share, go back and build better workplaces for a better world,” Windley said as the assembled crowd applauds.

Behind him people scramble to set up two chairs and a table for the upcoming chat between Taylor and Martha Stewart.

But … out comes Stewart. And Taylor. Big applause.

And my jaw drops. What?!? No Johnny C. Taylor state of SHRM talk? I get a text from a colleague. “No JCT???”

No whipping the crowd into a frenzy over the second chance initiative? No firing up the HR base over building better workplaces?

I mean, the CEO’s talk — whether it was Taylor’s predecessor Hank Jackson or even dating back to Sue Meisinger — occurred Sunday, since it’s the big chance for all SHRM members to hear from their CEO before they begin hitting sessions and the expo hall (not to mention Las Vegas). Instead they get the chairman of the board — and I don’t mean Frank Sinatra.

So, maybe you were happy with Taylor and Stewart kibbutzing for 90 minutes. I thought Stewart was disappointing and all about herself with just a passing mention of her own incarceration. What a great opportunity to forward Taylor’s prime initiative.

Call me a creature of habit. Perhaps if I had read the schedule a bit more closely I would noticed that Taylor is set to give his take on all things HR on Monday morning before keynoter Brene Brown takes the stage.

As one SHRM media person told me, “Johnny likes to mix things up.”

Indeed he does.

So, France moves on to play again. And, it appears, so do the rest of us to hear about SHRM’s current and future state.

More 2019 SHRM Conference Coverage:

Exclusive Video Interviews from the 2019 SHRM Conference

Day 2 at #SHRM19: It’s All About the Underutilized Talent Pool

SHRM Releases Annual Benefits Survey

Brené Brown at SHRM Conference: ‘Leaders Are Never Quiet About Hard Things’

June 20, 2019June 29, 2023

Workforce Names Its Class of 2019 Game Changers

A strong international contingent leads the Class of 2019 Workforce Game Changers.

This marks the ninth year of the Game Changers, an awards program designed to recognize those in workforce management under 40 years old who are pushing the field forward with innovative people-management practices.

Is Blockchain the Next Frontier in Combating Sexual Harassment?

Vault Platform has developed an app that uses blockchain technology to allow employees to document and report workplace sexual harassment on their smartphones.

“Interesting,” you say,” but what’s blockchain technology?”

Great question. I asked my partner, David Croft, who chairs Meyers Roman’s Blockchain & Cryptocurrency practice group. His answer: “Blockchains are decentralized databases, maintained by a distributed network of computers that rely on network effects and economic incentives to secure the network.”

In other words, blockchains are secure bits of data secured across a decentralized network of digital devices, for which the keys to unlock rely on every other block in the chain. Or, described another way (per Blockgeeks)—

A blockchain is a growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block a timestamp, and transaction data. By design, a blockchain is resistant to modification of the data. It is “an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way. …

A blockchain is, in the simplest of terms, a time-stamped series of immutable record of data that is managed by cluster of computers not owned by any single entity. Each of these blocks of data (i.e. block) are secured and bound to each other using cryptographic principles (i.e. chain).

Which brings us back to Vault Platform’s sexual harassment documentation and reporting app.

The app uses blockchain technology to provide a safe space or a “vault” allowing workers to write reports of harassment and store any evidence, says Neta Meidav, CEO of Vault Platform. The vault itself is private, she says, but at any time workers can use the app to send that information directly to HR. …

If workers decide to report harassment directly to their HR department they have two options, they can elect to individually report or they can choose to go together, Meidav says. By using go together, the platform will search for other complaints about the same individual. If others exist, then the reports will all be sent to HR together. If not, then it will be held until another employee reports that person. …

“The technology will identify if there has been past or present complaints about this person as well,” she says. “Your claim will go to HR with other people who have reported in the past.”

Blockchain has the potential to transform human resources management. It’s being used in hiring and recruiting, paying employees and contractors, tracking time and attendance, and verifying backgrounds (among other uses).

This post is in no means an endorsement of Vault Platform. I’ve never used it and don’t know of any company that has; everything I know about it is from reading its website and the few articles about it I found on the internet. That said, it is illustrative of how blockchain may, in the near future, disrupt HR.

If you are not at least investigating how blockchain technology can help you organization take its HR management to the next level and into the future, you are doing your business a disservice. Thankfully, I know a few attorneys who are at the ready to help.

June 19, 2019August 3, 2023

Employers, Stop Oversimplifying Your Employees’ Body Mass Index

Conference season is exciting when you hear a solid debate, learn more about a topic you care about or discover a speaker who is a promising resource.

But it also means coming across speakers who sling dangerous or overly simplistic ideas to their audience, in this case employers. I want to take this opportunity to gripe about my biggest pet peeve(s) in the employer health and benefits space. These are ideas I’ve heard at several conferences over several years and/or have read in a good number of articles about.

Here’s the biggie: Workplace weight loss or nutrition programs that hinge on body mass index on an individual level, especially outcomes-based programs whose “rewards” rely on reaching a certain BMI or losing a designated amount of weight.

“BMI is useful when studying populations and trends,” according to Medical News Today. But it can only give a rough idea of an individual’s health and weight status. There are flaws in the formula.

This is important to point out because if employers want to continue to micromanage employees’ health, they should know the nuance behind certain health measures instead of blindly trusting wellness companies.

To be clear, I understand that obesity is a considerable public health issue in America. I understand that there can be health risks.

But it’s also an issue I feel employees should feel safe dealing with in the privacy of their doctor’s office rather than having to share private medical information with their employer. Also, I’m aware of the fact that people and organizations have misconceptions about BMI and weight that are important acknowledge. Here are some important facts to know:

There’s a misconception that thinner people are healthier. This is not always the case, as weight is only one of many measures for health. (Northwestern Medicine)
Using BMI gives us a false idea about who has weight issues and who doesn’t. (Northwestern Medicine)
“It’s important to recognize that BMI itself is not measuring “health” or a physiological state (such as resting blood pressure) that indicates the presence (or absence) of disease.” (Harvard Health Blog)
Plenty of people have a high or low BMI and are healthy and, conversely, plenty of folks with a normal BMI are unhealthy (Harvard Health Blog). [This fact might not be considered in certain settings. For example, the New York Times recently reported about how, even though women can still be healthy with a high BMI, fertility clinics often refuse to treat them.]

I don’t know if employers in general understand the limitations of BMI.

The American Journal of Managed Care published an interesting research paper in November 2015 called “U.S. Employee Wellness Programs and Access to Obesity Treatment in Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance.” Its primary results were that 16 percent of employers required wellness program participation in order to receive full health benefits (how employers do not realize that this is coercion and does NOT make the program voluntary is beyond me!). Further, while most wellness programs set targets for weight and for other health indicators, most organizations health plans did not provide coverage for evidence-based obesity treatments.

The paper concluded:

For people seriously affected by obesity, the coverage gap described here is problematic because substantial improvement in their condition is unlikely without evidence-based treatment. This is true because obesity and its complications are typically chronic and progressive. Wellness programs may have little impact on costs driven by severe obesity in the absence of access to effective treatment for this chronic disease.

This is one of my major issues with wellness programs: They should be treated as secondary to real, HIPAA-protected medical benefits. Adequate health care is important. A wellness program should not be a replacement for certain coverage areas in a health plan. Also, if an employee would rather deal with health issues (any health issue, not just weight) through their doctor rather than a wellness program, they should not have to lose the opportunity to get hundreds of dollars in “rewards” like wellness program participants do.

I enjoyed this Consumer Reports story about privacy issues on wellness program. Its basic argument is that wellness programs often pose major privacy problems and that people should have a choice on whether they want to participate. Financial incentives or insurance discounts muddy the waters and may coerce people into sharing medical information.

Why is the free choice to participate necessary? The goals and recommendations of a wellness program may not align with your personal health care decisions, the article noted.

“If something you’re being asked to achieve in your workplace wellness program is unhealthy in your doctor’s opinion, you shouldn’t be required to do it,” said one source, Dr. Anna Kirkland, professor of women’s studies at the University of Michigan. “Wellness programs should never replace or supersede your doctor’s advice.”

The final point I want to make is that bias against people who are seen as overweight or unhealthy does exist. This is more so for women than for men, unsurprisingly; women tend to experience higher levels of weight stigmatization than men, “even at lower levels of excess weight.” Some negative stereotypes against seemingly overweight people include that they are “weak-willed, lazy, unintelligent and gluttonous.”

Further, a research report about this, “The Impact of Workplace Health Promotion Programs Emphasizing Individual Responsibility on Weight Stigma and Discrimination,” was released in November 2018. The research identified workplace health promotion programs as “potent catalysts of weight stigma and weight-based discrimination, especially when they emphasize individual responsibility for health outcomes.”

This is a lot of information, but my main argument here is that employers shouldn’t look at employee weight and BMI in such a black-and-white capacity. Also, I want to stress the point that health plans (covered under HIPAA, unlike wellness programs) should cover evidence-based obesity treatments. Finally, as employers focus more and more on employee health, be aware that weight discrimination is serious and should never be tolerated.

Also read: Some Constructive Criticism on Wellness