Tag: human resources

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Arming for the Workplace Cultural Dynamics

Today’s workplace seems to have become a battleground in the culture wars. Will your employees embrace workplace diversity or will they feel embattled?

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Focus on relationships, not rules, when it comes to creating a thriving workplace culture.

The workplace is the most prevalent arena of so-called forced diversity. That’s not intended as a criticism or qualitative assessment. To the contrary, properly understood and directed, the reality can be a positive development. Rather, the observation notes the following reality — the workplace is both where we spend the greatest amount of time outside the home and where diversity is thrust upon us more than in any other place.

the argument logoReasonable people can see the benefit of embracing diversity — diversity of thought, culture and experience. We learn much from each other. The pace of social change — reflective in the workplace — was intentional and deliberate in the past. It started perhaps before 1964, but certainly no later than that year with the passage of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

The pace of social and cultural change has accelerated dramatically recently with several developments:

  • The Supreme Court recognized same-sex marriage, and that ruling has expanded social relationships on which some workplace policies and benefits depend, such as the Family and Medical Leave Act and employee spousal benefits.
  • The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and other government agencies now interpret the phrase “sex discrimination” — which has been used in various laws, regulations and executive orders since 1964 — as prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The Affordable Care Act’s non-discrimination mandate recently was interpreted to require a health plan to cover gender transition medical treatment. These new interpretations have impacted the workplace — from harassment policies to bathroom access to procedures covered by insurance.
  • Technology and social media allow people to work anywhere, and many people work everywhere. These advances allow employees to broadcast opinions to a wide audience, including co-workers. The lines between “on duty” and “off duty” are blurred, and broadcasting personal opinions among a large group of fellow workers can impact workplace relationships and taint the workplace environment — and yet these activities have been interpreted as “protected concerted activity” for which an employer may not be able to take any discipline.
  • The mounting importance of “feelings” in the culture, with a corresponding expectation (albeit unrealistic) that workers should be free of any conduct they find insulting, unaccepting or challenging to their viewpoint.

The Tension

These legal and social changes create tensions that are a huge challenge for employers. The differences in this “forced diversity” are no longer limited to race or gender, but are also reflective in more divergent religious views, ethnic origins, sexual preferences, gender identities and widely divergent political persuasions.
But, as with all challenges, a savvy employer realizes that this challenge also presents an opportunity: Meeting this challenge effectively can be a difference-maker and can provide a means of recruiting and retaining quality talent.

Can employers effectively meet this challenge with the adoption of more policies? Not likely.

As the culture changes more rapidly, many employers — and those advising them — cry that handbooks must be reviewed and policies must be revised. While a team-oriented workplace requires occasional policy review and revision, this approach does not provide an effective solution. Why? The answer is multi-faceted:

  • No rule, law or policy transforms behavior at its most needed level. Those will only suppress behavior. Fear of discipline becomes the primary motivator. In a fear-based environment, compliance is at risk, cover-up is more likely and the complaint process loses integrity.
  • According to the National Labor Relations Board, broad civility codes violate Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act; that is, policies with broad expectations of a “positive workplace environment” violate employees’ rights to object to, and confront management about, pay practices or working conditions.
  • Revising a policy does not address issues of unprofessional or inappropriate conduct. For example, consider this scenario: Employee Jane, a Caucasian, sees co-worker Natasha, an African-American, with a new hairdo. Jane compliments Natasha but then asks if the hair is “really hers.” Jane means no offense but is clueless as to how this question sounds to Natasha. Natasha appreciates the compliment but sees the comment as reflective of Jane’s inherent bias. Natasha complains. Yet, no “rule” or “policy” has been broken. The statement was a compliment and at most, was ambiguous and not expressly reflective of bias. A “rules-first” mindset would not prompt any action. But, that approach would not be responsive to the battle brewing.

So, is more training the answer? Recently announced findings of an EEOC task force say no. After a long and detailed study, the task force found that training requirements were not effective in curbing incidents of harassment.

As one who has attended, and presented, many training sessions, this finding is not surprising. Much training — perhaps most training — focuses on a “rules first” mindset. The training announces the rule, law or policy and then instructs employees or managers that the company has a “zero tolerance” for violations. The message is “comply or else.” Worse yet, the training leaves the impression, expressly or implicitly, that the company’s interest in training is merely as a defense in any future lawsuit.

Nonetheless, the task force recommended that employers still conduct training. Part of the answer is more training, but of a different sort. It must equip employees with a more powerful narrative than fear or litigation risk avoidance.

Practical Solutions

Wise employers have recognized the differing constituencies in the workplace and have begun evaluating how to balance the needs and rights they present. Savvy management knows that true leadership involves managing relationships in a way that promotes the desired workplace narrative. For example, a savvy manager, when faced with the scenario of Jane and Natasha above, would not ignore the situation. No rule was violated, but the more important relationships within the workplace have been strained.

Practical solution No. 1. Focus on relationships, not rules. A rules-first mentality is misguided. No employer’s policy can anticipate all circumstances the human condition can present. Rules are important, and in almost all situations they should be enforced. But a wise employer avoids the entrapment of a “rules-first” mindset and recognizes that its policies serve as important guidelines to foster and promote cohesive, efficient, positive workplace relationships. On occasion, uncritical enforcement of policies may actually undermine those relational objectives. Rules, and their enforcement, must serve relationships, not the other way around.

Practical Solution No. 2. A well-run and efficient team is truly “other-minded.” An employer must encourage those within workplace relationships to affirm what they hope is the best in others, rather than focusing on what they fear is the worst. This conflicts with our me-first world. The culture has elevated to idolatrous levels a person’s feelings.

While no rule was violated, Jane still needs coaching. Jane needs to understand that her comment could be viewed by others as revealing an underlying bias (would she have asked such a question of a Caucasian co-worker?). Plus, if Jane’s cluelessness continues to manifest itself in insensitive comments (or if Jane is a manager and thus arguably should be held to a higher standard), then the employer should conduct higher levels of coaching or discipline.

But, likewise, Natasha needs coaching, too; she needs to work on accepting Jane’s comments in the spirit offered; recall Jane intended a compliment, not an affront. The standard of perfection — or better stated, Natasha’s expectation that Jane will harbor no inherent bias — is a standard of judgment that Natasha cannot satisfy either. Neither humans, nor workplaces — filled as they are with humans — can withstand being judged under a standard of perfection. When people are offended by statements, we must evaluate both the cluelessness (or worse, the inappropriate bias) of the speaker and also must evaluate the perhaps too-heightened sensitivity (or worse, the biased interpretation and lack of grace) of the hearer. Failing to do so will sow seeds of the very weeds we are trying to uproot.

Practical Solution No. 3. How does an employer encourage employees to affirm what they hope is the best in people and not focus on what they fear is the worst? An employer must reinforce that all work has dignity and that all workers have dignity and deserve respect.

Today’s workplaces are filled with not-so-subtle “caste systems.” There are white collar jobs and blue collar jobs; there are salaried and hourly workers. In hospitals, there are doctors and nurses (and now physicians’ assistants, RNs and LPNs), and techs and housekeeping. These various job titles lure workers into caste-system thinking; some, especially those in the more prestigious roles (i.e., the higher-paid ones) may be lured to feel superior to others in the seemingly less significant roles. But, if someone does not properly clean the countertops in a patient’s room, patients will die of infection.

Dare we, in this culture, advance a narrative that all work has dignity? If an employer fails to do so, any talk of a “team” concept rings hollow. And, if an employer can promote effectively the perspective that all work has dignity, then workers will readily see that all workers have dignity and deserve respect.

Practical Solution No. 4. If all workers deserve respect and dignity, then performance management is required. If a manager knows an employee is on an unsuccessful path, and yet says nothing, that manager is not being respectful of the employee. In fact, saying nothing could be another form of bias — the soft bigotry of low expectations.

There is a duty for a manager to act in addressing, and redirecting, the employee to a more successful path. But how? Is it OK to be angry at such poor performance? Yes. But follow one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s principles of non-violence — be aggressive toward problems not people. Proper coaching is not manager versus employee, although the employee may initially feel that way. Rather, proper coaching is manager and employee versus the behavior leading to an unsuccessful outcome.

Practical Solution No. 5. A manager conducting this coaching must be willing and able to recognize and to confess that she too fails to meet this standard on occasion. That is, the manager must approach the performance management process with humility. The manager must recognize that she too has some flaws that prevent her from perfectly fulfilling the standard she espouses.

If the workplace is built upon a fear motivation, these solutions are not possible. Often, those who try to motivate by fear are fearful themselves. Fear is neither an efficient nor a successful motivator. Fear as a motivator sprouts from a rules-first mentality. An employer must evaluate and articulate the relational purposes that the rules are designed to serve and advance those objectives. This analysis necessarily will eliminate (or at least ease) a fear-based environment and focus more on the relationships being served. Focusing on the purposes the rules are designed to serve will result on occasion in an exception to the rules.

But those exceptions will occur in the limited circumstances when the purpose behind the rules is served more effectively by making an exception rather than enforcing the rule.

Tim Garrett is an employment law attorney with Bass, Berry & Sims in Nashville.

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Illinois, Texas A&M University and Wisconsin Top HR Master’s Programs List

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The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was recognized as the top master’s in HR program by College Choice. Photo credits: UI Public Affairs

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Texas A&M University and the University of Wisconsin top the 2016 ranking for the Best Master’s in Human Resources Degree Programs, according to College Choice, which provides college and university rankings and resources.

“[Human resources managers] plan, manage, and enforce the policies and rules that govern a given organization. They are also responsible for recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and, yes, firing too,” said Christian Amondson, managing editor of Eugene, Oregon-based College Choice, in a statement. “That’s why it’s so important for HR professionals to get an education that prepares them to help manage a company’s employees with compassion and a strategy.”

College Choice stated that it curated its 2016 ranking for Best Master’s in Human Resources Degree Programs by collecting information from individual school websites, other ranking sites, and the U.S. News and World Report site.

The rankings, listed alphabetically, are as follows:

Baruch College, New York City

California State University Long Beach, Long Beach, California

Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland

Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

DePaul University, Chicago,

Florida International University, Miami

Howard University, Washington, D.C.

La Roche College, Pittsburgh

Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles

Loyola University Chicago, Chicago

Manhattanville College, Purchase, New York

Marquette University, Milwaukee

Mercyhurst University, Erie, Pennsylvania

Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan

Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

Pace University, New York City

Pepperdine University, Malibu, California

Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana

St. Louis University, St. Louis

Stanford University, Stanford, California

Temple University, Philadelphia

Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas

Towson University, Towson, Maryland

University of Chicago, Chicago

University of Houston, Houston

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois

University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky

University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland

University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota

University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island

University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina

University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee

University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas

University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio

University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin

Utah State University, Logan, Utah

Vanderbilt University, Nashville

Villanova University, Villanova, Pennsylvania

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NLRB Is Now Basically Creating Unfair Labor Practices Out of Thin Air

Jon Hyman The Practical Employer

Those that have been readers for awhile know of my dislike of the NLRB’s expansion of its doctrine of protected concerted activity (e.g., here and here).

The latest on the NLRB’s hit list: employee mis-classifications. The NLRB has concluded that an employer has committed an unfair labor practice and violated an employee’s section 7 rights by (mis)classifying its employees as independent contractors. Or so was the board’s conclusion in its recently published General Counsel Advice Memorandum [pdf].WF_WebSite_BlogHeaders-11

The case involved drivers for a drayage company, whom the company classified as independent contractors. The company opposed a union’s efforts to organize the drivers on the ground that they were not employees covered by the National Labor Relations Act. Even after the NLRB determined that the purported contractors were employees subject to organizing, the employer still refused to re-classify them as employees.

In response, the NLRB Office of General Counsel concluded “that the Region should issue a Section 8(a)(1) complaint alleging that the Employer’s misclassification of its employees as independent contractors interfered with and restrained employees in the exercise of their Section 7 rights.” On the one hand, the GC’s decision makes some sense. If the NLRB determines that you have intentionally mis-classified employees with the specific intent of avoiding a union, then you have likely interfered with the rights of those employees to organize.

Yet, the GC’s decision goes well beyond the facts of the case, and concludes that even a “preemptive strike” in advance of any organizing campaign violates employees’ section 7 rights.

The Employer’s misclassification suppresses future Section 7 activity by imparting to its employees that they do not possess Section 7 rights in the first place. The Employer’s misclassification works as a preemptive strike, to chill its employees from exercising their rights under the Act during a period of critical importance to its employees—the Union’s organizing campaign.

Employers, thanks to the NLRB, your risk of employee mis-classifications (which is already sky high) just increased. Get ready to start fighting a two-front war against your independent contractors. Savvy plaintiffs’ lawyers simultaneously will file the FLSA lawsuit in federal court and, based on this Advice Memorandum, the unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB. Since an NLRB charge typically moves faster than a federal wage/hour lawsuit, expect the (unfavorable) Board decision first, and expect your contractors to argue the conclusive and binding effect of that decision in the FLSA lawsuit.

The NLRB is wading into uncharted and dangerous waters — creating an unfair labor practice out an alleged wage/hour violation. Moving forward, expect the employee friendly NLRB, and not federal judges, to decide whether you have classified your workers properly. This development is decidedly not to your benefit.

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

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Benchmarking: The Compass to Navigate the Future of Work

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By integrating benchmarks into everyday tasks, HR leaders can make informed decisions based on data-driven HCM metrics. Illustration by Jakub Jirsák

Providing the right mix of competitive rewards to attract and retain talented employees can be like shooting arrows in the dark: You try to take aim but can easily miss your target.

Unfortunately, this metaphor applies to many of today’s HR practitioners, who still rely on educated guesses and trial-and-error methods to build and engage a high-performing workforce. Benchmarking can improve your HR aim. It can be a compass that shows business leaders how their company’s offerings — to the market and to employees — compare to competitors and the industry.

Timely benchmarks have historically been hard to find and limited in scope due to practical and technological limitations. As a result, HR leaders have underutilized benchmarks to guide decision-making. Fortunately, that’s changing. With the rise of big data and HR analytical tools that transform information into actionable insights, benchmarking now is a strategic asset for workforce management.

Big data is improving benchmarking by providing more relevant, recent and reliable information that can help HR professionals better understand their organization’s competitive positioning externally. It also can help them compare metrics among different business units and teams internally. Before advancements in data aggregation, benchmarking typically involved fielding surveys that could take months to plan, execute and validate.

Today, data aggregation involves massive volumes of data that — when analyzed — support a broader spectrum of human capital management activities. Using data science can make it cheaper and easier to generate and use benchmark data. As a result, HR leaders have greater access to high-quality benchmarking data they can use to guide their team’s daily work.

One increasingly popular use of benchmarks: using it to address high employee turnover rates. For example, analysis of workforce data may reveal that a company is experiencing high turnover rates for certain functions and that the root cause for many may be their search for higher compensation.

Here’s the good news: New data visualization tools and enhanced graphic user experiences make benchmarks more approachable and intuitive to the average HR user than ever before. With simple data visuals, HR practitioners can more accurately interpret the results of benchmark analysis.

A merger or acquisition is a prime example of how workforce management benchmarks can impact cross-functional business activities and give an employer a competitive advantage. Given that employee compensation is one of the biggest expenses for most organizations, benchmarks can provide clarity on what competitive compensation levels look like for hiring and paying employees in new or unfamiliar markets. HR leaders can use those benchmarks to rationalize and standardize compensation strategies for the newly combined company.

Beyond compensation, mergers and acquisitions also open up other opportunities to leverage benchmarks as strategic guides. Benchmarks can help establish criteria, such as rates of high absenteeism, to help identify employees who may leave a company after the transition. In addition, HR leaders can leverage benchmarks to compare a company’s post-merger turnover rate with competitors to gain insights that will help refine their talent retention strategies. Another example is ratios of support staff to lines of business and spans of control benchmarks that can help optimize a post-merger business structure. These types of benchmarks provide guides on how the organization can lead sizing efforts.

Business leaders look to HR to deliver strategic insights that assess workforce conditions and inform forward planning. By integrating benchmarks into everyday tasks, HR leaders can make informed decisions based on data-driven HCM metrics. In an evolving and competitive recruitment market, benchmarks can provide important guides to help companies seek and build a high-performing workforce that will drive long-term growth.

Modern data science and HR analytics tools can help companies take more accurate aim at the available talent pool and, potentially, increase the number of times they hit the target.

David Turetsky is vice president of ADP DataCloud product management.

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Re-engaging With William Kahn 25 Years After He Coined Term Employee Engagement

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Photo courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Today it’s not uncommon to see article after article about the ubiquitous term employee engagement, such as: “This percentage of employees are disengaged,” a study finds; “How do I keep my employees engaged?” one article asks; and “How does engagement affect overall business?” another wonders.

Although a popular talking point now, the term “employee engagement” is relatively new. Professor William Kahn of Boston University coined “engagement” in terms of the workforce setting 25 years ago in his 1990 paper, “Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work.”

Workforce caught up with Kahn via email to discuss the genesis of the term, its evolution over the past 25 years and what leaders can do to re-engage the disengaged.

Workforce: Before you first used the word ‘engagement’ in the business setting, how did you identify the problem of employees being disengaged?

William Kahn: The presenting issues revolved around employees’ lack of motivation and involvement. People were often doing only what needed to be done, as defined and directed by others, and their work had very little of their own personal selves, very little of what they thought and felt ought to happen as they went about their work. Managers did not really understand the problems, which they thought had to do with employees not being the right fit for the job or not being rewarded enough for their work.

WF: What was the ‘aha’ moment when you hit on engagement as a business case? Why did you use that word, that terminology?

Kahn: There was no particular ‘aha’ moment. It was simply the accumulation of noticing, studying and writing about employees who were unfulfilled at work, and why that might be. I used ‘engagement’ and ‘disengagement’ because those words evoke very clearly the movements that people make toward and away from their work, other people and the roles that they had. Engagement is a word that suggests betrothal — the decision to commit to a role, an identity and a relationship that offers fulfillment.

WF: Why was it an issue then?

Kahn: Leaders of organizations had very little understanding of modern concepts of empowerment, and believed that motivating others was mostly a matter of hiring the right people and giving them the right incentives. The engagement concept was developed based on the premise that individuals can make real choices about how much of their real, personal selves they would reveal and express in their work. That premise was radically different than the operating assumptions of the time.

WF: Has employee engagement evolved or is it still rooted in the same problems as 25 years ago?

Kahn: The problems are much the same, although there is more sophistication about how they appear and are dealt with. The problems of giving people voice over what they do and how they do it, of ensuring that people find their work intrinsically meaningful, and enabling them to craft their roles still exist, as managers wish to exert control over others when they are made anxious by the demands to produce and perform.

WF: What’s your one key way to improve engagement?

Kahn: Approach employees as true partners, involving them in continuous dialogues and processes about how to design and alter their roles, tasks and working relationships — which means that leaders need to make it safe enough for employees to speak openly of their experiences at work.

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Time and Attendance Orientation Guide

In a growing business, the day will eventually come when managing time and attendance on paper becomes both inefficient and risky, especially when trying to balance things like overtime, paid time off, and myriad regulations. “It usually happens when companies reach 50 employees,” said Jose Gaona, vice president of product strategy for Replicon Inc., a cloud-based time tracking applications provider. “At that point it becomes too complex to do.”

It can also get extremely time-consuming, with human resources staff spending hours each week manually tracking timesheets or punch cards, and transitioning that data over to payroll. Gaona recalls working with a health care facility that processed 10,000 employees’ monthly payroll and had a manual time-keeping system.

“They had 10 people involved with processing time,” he said. Beginning two weeks in advance, the team would sit at a conference table and sort through piles of time cards, and then pass their work to the person next to them to check for accuracy. “And because they had to start two weeks in advance, they had to forecast the last two weeks of every month,” he said. Once they implemented an automated time and attendance system, that process went from two weeks to three days, and from 10 people to two. “It had a huge impact.”

ROADBLOCKS

  • Don’t automate everything. A good time and attendance system will automate tedious tasks, like tracking data and generating reports, but you still need a human touch to do things like accommodate individual schedule goals or to adapt the schedule to accommodate short-term ebbs and flows in workforce planning.
  • A major obstacle in this journey is that time and attendance has four stakeholders — payroll, IT, finance and operations, said Deloitte Consulting’s Lisa Disselkamp. “You need to choose a single owner, or the process will be driven by the individual with the most influence.”

Along with time savings, automated time and attendance systems can also eliminate errors, uncover time theft and, most importantly, help with compliance. “When we talk to companies, the No. 1 issue they are concerned about is compliance,” said Richard Allaway, general manager of ADP small-business services. A recent survey from ADP shows that 35 percent of respondents say they spend more time today on human capital management-related compliance tracking than they did two years ago. And it will only get worse. “The HR landscape has gotten incredibly complex regarding state and federal regulations, and if employers don’t stay in compliance with all of them, they face fines, penalties and even lawsuits,” he said.

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ 2015 Global CEO survey, 78 percent of CEOs are concerned with over-regulation and its effect on their ability to achieve their companies’ strategies. This is especially true for small businesses that spend up to 80 percent more per employee on federal regulatory compliance than large companies, according to a U.S. Small Business Administration survey.

An automated time and attendance system that is linked to payroll can reduce the risk of compliance issues because it provides the transparency and data management tools that companies need to track and audit their scheduling and overtime to ensure compliance with the Affordable Care Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, local rules and union contracts.

FAST TRACKS

  • Consider a point system to deal with chronically late employees. Start every employee with five points, and take one away when they are late, then every six months add an additional point to their banks. Establish appropriate disciplinary measures for those who run out of points.
  • ‘Think of time as an asset,’ Replicon Inc.’s Jose Gaona said. You wouldn’t throw away valuable products of resources, so give the same respect for your team’s time.

Value vs. Risk

Though if you want to get the most value from a time and attendance system, you need to think bigger than just compliance, said Lisa Disselkamp, director of HR transformation for Deloitte Consulting. “Time and attendance shouldn’t be treated as a back-office function,” she said. “It should be positioned as a driver of business outcomes.”

If companies want to get the most out of these tools and processes, they should align scheduling and attendance strategies with business goals that have measurable outcomes such as improved productivity, increased employee engagement, better customer satisfaction or reduction of operating costs. “When you focus on what you are trying to accomplish as a business, it reframes the conversation,” she said.

For example, if employee engagement is the goal, you might focus on creating schedules that are more predictable, consistent and adequate so employees can better plan their lives and budgets and reduce use of sick days and shift trading. “It creates shared value for the employees and the employer,” Disselkamp said.

Regardless of your business goals, it’s important to do your due diligence before implementing any time and attendance system. That means making sure you understand your pain points, what you want to accomplish and how you are going to measure the impact of a new system. And recognize that it is going to require a change in the way you operate, Disselkamp said. “It will feel disruptive at first, but in the long term it will add a lot of benefit.”

TIME AND ATTENDANCE CHECKLIST

  • Once you hit 50 employees, it makes sense to transition to an automated time and attendance system.
  • To measure the return on investment of a new system, factor time saved, compliance risk, “time theft,” and unexpected overtime into the equation.
  • Update your scheduling process, and rules around attendance before choosing a tool.
  • Choose a system that can grow with you and adapt to constantly changing regulations.

Plan

Organize the data. Gather all of your historical data on scheduling as well as documentation on attendance rules, payroll guidelines, union agreements and any other documents that influence time and attendance. “If all this data isn’t in place, the transition will be a lot more complicated,” Replicon’s Gaona said.

Review your process. Think about things like how you assign schedules, track time/overtime, and keep track of tardiness and vacation days, then consider whether you want to make improvements, said Joe Wang, chief services officer of ServicePower. “You want processes that clearly define what is expected, and when and where you will make exceptions.” Consider whether you want to update rules around how schedules are assigned, and the way you deal with employees who are chronically late, Wang said.

Look at the regulations. One of the biggest goals for time and attendance programs is to achieve and prove compliance. Before choosing a system, identify the rules you need to comply with, the data you will need to collect, and which systems will need to be integrated to achieve those goals, said Andrew Shopsowitz, manager of product strategy for Ceridian HCM Inc. “If you don’t link time, scheduling, payroll and benefits together, it can be hard to stay in compliance.”

Find the hidden roadblocks. Do an audit of every aspect of your time and attendance process, with a focus on “home grown” solutions that individuals create as workarounds, Disselkamp said. For example, the manager who does all scheduling on paper then enters the data later into the system or allows shift changes without documenting them. “If those hidden systems remain, it will impact your outcomes,” she said.

Set a baseline. Measure the time spent doing time and attendance today, including the costs associated with fixing errors, moving data from one system to another and compliance-related penalties. Use these as benchmarks to prove the effectiveness of the new system.

Set expectations. Figure out how time and attendance aligns with the business strategy, then establish key performance indicators — i.e. improved productivity, reduced turnover, lower operating costs. “When you know the outcome you want to achieve, you can plan back from that,” Disselkamp said.

Do

Assemble a shortlist of vendors. Focus on core functionality, like whether it is cloud-based, has mobile functions, is customizable by users and integrates with your broader HR management system. Then look at usability and performance. “It needs to be user-friendly or you won’t get buy in from managers,” Shopsowitz said.

Involve managers in the review process. If they are the ones who will use the tool, they have to like how it works.

Review reporting tools. The best solutions will give you real-time insight and alerts related to key performance indicators, like increased overtime, or too many hours for part-time workers. “You don’t want to review that data two weeks after it happened,” Shopsowitz said. “You want that feedback in real-time if you are going to avoid compliance issues.”

Make vendors prove themselves. Don’t let the system drive the process, Disselkamp said. “Tell your vendors the outcomes you are looking for, then have them show you the features that will help you achieve those results.”

Think about the future. Choose a vendor and system that can grow with your company and be easily adapted to accommodate new regulations, employees and scheduling strategies. You don’t want to be locked into a system that doesn’t meet your needs in three years.

Make an app for that. Take advantage of mobility features to give managers and employees the freedom to check schedules on the fly. “You want a system that can be used where the work happens,” Disselkamp said.

Train employees to use the system. The only way to get value from a new time and attendance tool is if managers use it effectively. Provide training and support tools in a variety of formats (e.g., live classes, Web-based modules and help desk support) to make sure they have the confidence to embrace the new software.

Communicate. Once you choose a tool and/or a new process, tell your workforce what the changes are, how they will work, and how they will benefit the employee and the organization, Wang said. “If employees understand why you are making a change to your time and attendance program, it will feel less like Big Brother is watching them.”

Review

Measure results against key performance indicators. Six to 12 months after you implement the system, gather data to review impact. Have you cut overtime? Improved engagement? More effectively aligned schedules to the flow of business? Quantifying the effectiveness of the system will help tie HR investments to strategic business outcomes.

Track adoption. Make sure managers and the HR team are using the tool effectively, including data analytics features to support real-time decision-making, and ensure rules and regulations are being met. Consider offering additional training or incentives if adoption is low.

Communicate results across the business. Share impact data with the executive team, managers and front-line workers, and customize your communication to the relevance of your audience, such as financial benefits to your CEO or chief financial officer, or more consistent schedules to employees and managers.

Use the data to build your brand. Reductions in turnover, improved employee satisfaction, and greater predictability in scheduling are all value-driven outcomes that can help you establish the company as an employer of choice.

Do something with the savings. Have a plan for how you will use the time or money saved as a result of the new system, Disselkamp said. Then communicate that plan to the company. “It helps people understand how they are contributing to the business, and that can be very empowering.”

RECAP

PLAN

  • Collect all of your employee and regulatory documentation.
  • Revise any time-and-attendance rules or processes that are creating inefficiencies.
  • Identify current and future regulations that directly affect your business.
  • Look for homegrown processes (i.e., custom spreadsheets used for time tracking) that need to be incorporated into your new system.
  • Define strategic business outcomes (i.e., reduced overtime and improved engagement) and set a baseline to measure results.

DO

  • Assemble a shortlist of vendors that offer the features to meet your needs. Consider including mobile options, real-time reporting, and software-as-a-service on the list.
  • Involve managers in the review process to secure buy-in and prove usability.
  • Look for tools that offer alerts when you fall out of compliance with regulations or internally set rules.
  • Choose a system that can grow with you and adapt to changing regulations.
  • Teach employees to use the tool, and explain your business goals for choosing it.

REVIEW

  • Measure results against key performance indicators, focusing on things like time and money saved, improved retention and greater accountability.
  • Share results with the executive team, managers and front-line workers.
  • Make sure managers are using the tool effectively, and offer training, incentives and deadlines to encourage adoption.
  • Use results to attract new employees and establish yourself as an employer of choice.
  • Reinvest the money and time saved into new initiatives or incentives, and let employees know the role they played in making those programs happen.
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Special Report: The New Recruits in E-Recruiting

Companies may have big plans to grow their workforce this year, but there is an ongoing war for top talent, and companies need better tools and strategies to secure the best recruits — especially younger candidates with high expectations for the recruiting experience.

According to CareerBuilder, one-third of employers have plans to add full-time staff this year, which is a 50 percent increase over 2014; and Glassdoor Inc.’s 2015 Recruiting Outlook Survey shows talent shortage is the No. 1 hiring challenge today.

“Recruiting as a business strategy is going to get relevant much quicker than people expect,” said Holger Mueller, principal analyst and vice president at Constellation Research Inc. If companies don’t adapt their recruiting process, they aren’t going to be able to fill these roles, especially as seasoned baby boomers head toward retirement. “If you can’t find the right people, you can’t grow your business,” he said.

Fortunately, recruiting technology vendors are here to help. This segment of the human resources tech sector is full of innovative young companies eager to help customers add speed and efficiency to every aspect of the recruiting process, from marketing jobs via social media and building talent communities to simplifying and streamlining the application, interviewing and onboarding processes.

 

 

Hot List
Source: Companies

 

 

“All of the HR tech trends around big data, mobile, social and cloud, started with recruiting,” said Derek Beebe, director of HR technology for HR consultancy Towers Watson & Co.

And the biggest innovations are coming from the smallest vendors. “The pace of change in this sector is outpacing the big providers’ ability to keep up,” Beebe said. “The smaller, nimble organizations are the ones on the leading edge.”

Join the Community

One of the most popular areas for innovation in this space is around social media. Beebe points to tools like iCIMS Inc.’s Social Distribution, which helps companies leverage social media sites through employee referral networks and automated job publishing. “ICIMS has nailed the social component of recruiting,” he said.

It appears that iCIMS isn’t alone. Bullhorn Inc., Jobvite Inc. and Newton Software Inc., and other applicant tracking systems vendors are fleshing out their own social media engagement tools to provide customers with more holistic ways to connect with passive candidates online.

They are also beginning to build features that allow customers to create “talent communities,” where recruiters can track and stay engaged with candidates who might one day be a good fit for the company, even if they aren’t looking today. This is part of the larger trend of companies curating their own social networks of candidates, said Ivan Casanova, senior vice president of marketing for Jibe, a cloud-based recruiting software company. “Talent networks will differentiate how well organizations market themselves and build their brand within the talent pool.”

It may also give them a new way to entice passive candidates, who appear to be growing weary of cold calls from recruiters and networking sites — Glassdoor’s survey shows more than half of hiring decision-makers say their passive recruiting efforts have grown less effective in attracting highly qualified candidates, and nearly half say that candidates respond to emails and phone calls at a much lower rate than they did in the past. “The old methods of recruitment and job search just aren’t working well enough,” said Steve Roop, general manager of Glassdoor for Employers, in a news release. “Potential candidates are researching opportunities through new, interactive channels, and hiring decision-makers are planning to invest more in these channels to attract more qualified candidates.”

Going Mobile (But Not There Yet)

This shift in how companies use technology to connect with candidates reflects a broader effort to make the application experience less frustrating, said Kathy Kalstrup, an executive vice president at Aon Hewitt.

For years vendors have focused on how they can make the recruiter’s job easier and more efficient. But as the demand for talent quickly outweighs supply for many critical roles, vendors have shifted their thinking, Kalstrup said. “Today it is all about making the candidate experience as easy and seamless as possible.”

A big part of this transition is occurring through the adoption of mobile recruiting apps and mobile-optimized career pages. The bigger HR tech players, including SuccessFactors, Taleo Corp. and Workday Inc. all offer mobile tools to support recruiters on the go, and Workday even took a “mobile first” approach to building its recruiting software.

 

 

 

Data Bank
Source: Indeed

 

 

Smaller vendors are equally mobile-focused as they strive both to meet the needs of recruiters and to accommodate candidates where they spend most of their time. According to LinkedIn Corp.’s Global Recruiting Trends survey, 28 percent of companies report that candidates applied for positions using mobile devices in 2014 (up from 16 percent in 2013); and 34 percent say their career site was mobile-optimized in 2014. This is also up from just 20 percent the previous year, but still suggests that a large majority of companies are still struggling to adapt to the mobile trend. These companies are looking to industry vendors to help them close this gap.

For example, Sonoco Products Co., the global product packaging company headquartered in Hartsville, South Carolina, is working with a handful of independent recruiting tech vendors to address shortcomings in its recruiting technology. The company, which has 22,000 employees worldwide, relies on Tweetmyjobs to generate traffic and market new opportunities via social media; iMomentous to build out its mobile job application process and to collect data on its talent pipeline; and Async Interview to conduct video interviews of candidates as a way to streamline its screening process. “It’s a piecemeal approach, but we’ve seen solid results,” said Keesha Moore, Sonoco’s talent acquisition specialist. The tools are helping her reach a broader candidate pool and shorten the hiring process, and it gives her a chance to test new recruiting technologies for a relatively low investment.

“Our next step is to find a vendor who can help us with predictive analytics for workforce planning,” she said.

Recruiting Analytics: Just Getting Started

She’s not alone. Workforce analytics continues to be the holy grail for companies that are trying to figure out where the best candidates come from, how much time and money it takes to find them, and how successful their recruiting processes have been. “Companies aren’t just interested in how many people they hire; they want to understand the quality of their hires,” said Amy Wilson, vice president of human capital management product strategy at Workday.

Smarter Recruiting, Smarter Technology

Software that monitors and audits equal employment opportunity and affirmative action data is a must.

In today’s day and age, technology has become part and parcel of the workplace, and what better use of technology than to let it help you manage your workforce and recruit the best talent available in the marketplace. Recruiting software automates the sourcing and hiring process through a stand-alone program that can be incorporated into the company’s pre-existing human resources management software, integrating payroll, talent management and compensation management. Here’s a look at how recruiting software can help you as well as the potential legal pitfalls you should consider.

A More Efficient Hiring Process

The primary function of recruiting software is to provide a searchable database whereby you can track all of the applicants for your company, allowing you to easily identify where an applicant is in the hiring process, manage correspondence with the applicant, update an applicant’s information and status, schedule interviews, process background checks and manage the transition from applicant to employee once hired. Some software may also allow you to create automated procedures for screening out unqualified applicants, route qualified applications to the appropriate recruiter or hiring manager, manage the requisition and acquisition of applicants, generate reports, and track the sources of your best hires.

Legal Considerations of Recruiting Software

As part of equal employment opportunity, or EEO, regulations, a company must follow certain guidelines for collecting, storing and reporting information that is gathered from job applicants. In order to be compliant with EEO laws, you should make sure the recruiting software program that you use requests voluntary EEO information from each applicant, automatically records the reason for rejecting every applicant, automatically records the minimum qualifications for each available job, creates logs of the hiring process for each job and applicant in case of an audit (e.g., data received, name, position, job group, race and sex, veterans status, reason for rejection and date of hire) and can generate reports that show the company captured the vital information for each applicant. (Note that you cannot force an applicant to provide EEO information, and this information must be kept confidential and not be made available to a hiring manager).

Finally, you’ll also want to monitor and regularly audit your EEO and affirmative action data, so make sure to use software that allows you to view this information online and generate custom reports.

—Richard Y. Hu

Fully 64 percent of global talent leaders say they are not doing a great job tracking return on investment on sources of hire, according to LinkedIn’s global recruiting survey. Though again, the vendors are doing everything they can to make that happen.

All of the recruiting technology firms, from the startups to the enterprise giants, are trying to build better, easier and more robust analytics tools to help customers improve and measure their recruiting efforts. But it is still a work in progress, said Jibe’s Casanova. “Using analytics to enable data-driven recruiting is a big trend, but we are only at the very beginning.”

Most vendors offer some version of an analytics dashboard and/or metrics to track where candidates come from and basic measures around quantity of candidates and time to hire, though they are far from delivering on the promise of predictive analytics. Casanova predicts that the real benefit won’t be seen until these tools become a seamless part of the recruiting workflow — like the dashboard in a car. “Until the technology is integrated into the recruiter’s life, there won’t be mass adoption,” he said.

While that vision may be years away, there are some interesting innovations already in the market. Mueller points to Work4 Labs, a social media recruiting vendor that uses analytics to post job openings to social media sites where the most attractive candidates for the job spend most of their time. “It’s a more intelligent way to search,” he said.

Similarly, HireVue Inc.’s new Insights tool provides companies with analytics to analyze their internal hiring processes, including how good interviewers are at making the best hiring decisions. “This is something no one else is doing,” Beebe said.

Forget the Résumé

Vendors are also coming up with more innovative ways for recruiters to assess a candidate’s fit, for both the position and the culture, said Forrester Research analyst Claire Schooley. “We are moving beyond the résumé,” she said.

For example, video interviewing tools from vendors like Async and HireVue allow managers to see applicants in action before scheduling face-to-face meetings; HackerRank lets companies assess the skills of tech professionals by giving them programming challenges to solve; and vendors like BrandAmper and Match-Click help companies market themselves and their corporate environment to candidates who are looking for a place where they will find a good culture fit. “It’s an interesting time in the recruiting space,” Schooley said. “Everyone is focused on building relationships and making sure a candidate is a good fit for the company.”

Prepare for Another M&A Frenzy

Despite all the exciting innovations that are coming from small stand-alone vendors, the big HRMS players still have a powerful value proposition to offer because their recruiting tools tie into the broader talent management systems. Workday’s Wilson noted that one of the biggest things its client advisory board is interested in is the ability to recruit internally. “Recruiters want access to both internal and external candidates, and they want to be able to compare them side by side,” she said. That’s more likely to be accomplished if you are using a single HR management system because it holds the end-to-end data necessary to provide that level of candidate transparency.

And it is likely that most of these stand-alone vendors won’t be independent for long. Analysts across the industry predict that the big firms are going to begin another buying spree as they eye the accomplishments of these independent recruiting tech firms. “Over the next 12 months we will see another wave of acquisitions where the upstart recruiting providers will get swallowed up,” Beebe said.

It isn’t something customers need to worry about, but they should keep it in mind. “You want to choose tools that will solve your problems today, while keeping an eye on the future,” he said. “There is a great wave of innovation going on — but you don’t want to sign any five-year contracts.”

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Meet the Game Changers 2014

Human resources is considered a cautious sector by practitioners and outsiders alike. But there are those people in the industry dedicated to pushing it forward with innovative people-management practices. Here at Workforce, we call those innovators Game Changers.

Workforce’s editorial staff selected the 30 winners of the fourth-annual awards program based on professional accomplishments and other achievements. They are a diverse group representing some of the best HR practitioners and strategists under 40 years old.

This year’s class hails from arguably the most diverse and unique set of trades and backgrounds in the four years of Game Changers. Each year the Workforce editorial team has identified a trend that characterizes the group of award winners. Last year’s group seemed to be full of practitioners focused on employee development.

This year, however, there is no clear trend to identify, no definitive stamp. Instead, like the practice itself, our winners cut a broad swath across HR. This international group of HR talent is making its mark in benefits, rewards and recognition, employee communications and a variety of HR practices. They come from a variety of industries such as technology, auto manufacturing, social services, academia and the federal government.

That these individuals are able to effect change in a field often criticized as being adverse to risk-taking truly makes them Game Changers.

Congratulations to each winner.

MEET THE GAME CHANGERS 2014

Doreen Allison Eric Barger Luca Bonmassar Elijah Bradshaw Andi Campbell
Nathan Christensen Andrea Dropkin Taro Fukuyama Tanvi Gautam Keith Henderson
Michael Housman April Kassen Keagan Kerr Sarah Lecuna Kristin Lewis
Todd Maycunich Lisa Mitchell-Kastner Nate Randall Claudia Riccomagno Talia Shaull
Max Simkoff Jamie Trabbic Tushar Trivedi Brent Wagner Danielle Weinblatt

 

GAME CHANGERS 2014: THEY ALSO HAVE GAME:
Yiorgos Boudouris, Craig Bryant, Sebastian Rodriguez, Cara Silletto and Beth Silvers
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It’s Time to Update Your Severe-Weather Policy

How bad is the weather going to be in Cleveland today? It’s so cold that even the Horseshoe Casino is closed. You can’t even get hot at the tables.

In light of these historically frigid temperatures, I’m re-sharing a post I ran all the way back in 2010 on workplace severe-weather policies, including including how to handle issues such as attendance, wage and hour, and telecommuting:

  1. Communication. How will your business communicate to its employees and the public whether it is open for business or closed because of the weather? Are there essential personnel that must report regardless of whether the facility closes? Phone chains, email blasts, text messages, and even social media updates are all effective tools to communicate this essential information.
  2. Early closing. If a business decides to close early because of mid-day snowstorm, how will it account for the orderly shut-down of operations? Which employees will be able to leave early and which will have to remain to ensure that the facility is properly closed? Is there essential crew that must stay, or is there an equitable means to rotate who must stay and who can leave?
  3. Wage and hour issues. To avoid jeopardizing exempt employees’ status, they should be be paid their full salary when a company closes because of weather. For non-exempt employees, however, it is entirely up to the company whether to pay them for a full day’s work, for part of the day, or for no hours at all. Will employees have to use vacation or other paid time off if they want to be paid for the day, or will the company consider it a freebee? If your company closes but an employee does not get word and reports to work, will the company pay that employee anything for reporting?
  4. Attendance. Will the absence be counted against employees in a no-fault or other attendance policy, or defeat any perfect attendance bonuses?
  5. Telecommuting. If your area has frequent bouts of severe weather, consider whether you want to allow employees to telecommute. Even if your business does not typically permit employees to work from home, exceptions for exceptional weather could potentially save you lost productivity.

Please be safe and stay warm.

Jon Hyman is a partner in the Labor & Employment group of Kohrman Jackson & Krantz. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.  For more information, contact Hyman at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com. Follow Hyman on Twitter at @jonhyman.

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Elder Care — You Can’t Buy, Pray or Prescribe Your Way Out of It

elder care

Ed Frauenheim is on assignment.

I had been looking forward to lunch with my friend Kate for some time. During the past few years we’ve bonded over the travails of raising teenagers, the challenges of balancing work and home and the exhausting job of caring for elderly parents. We laugh a lot when we’re together too, but those topics always seem to creep into our conversations—the last one with increasing frequency.

We’ve tried to get together several times in the last year but as any working mom knows, coordinating schedules with friends often means planning so far in advance several holidays can go by before you actually see each other. But this time the planets had aligned and our lunch date was set. I was looking forward to it.

The day before she sent me an email that began with: “Well, things with my parents have gone to hell in a hand basket and I’m heading to Tennessee for a week.” Her mom is struggling with dementia and her father is in failing physical health. Watching their decline has been devastating for Kate and her family.

So it goes with the life of a caregiver. There are good days and there are bad days and there are days when all hell breaks loose. One minute you’re on the phone with your mom planning a trip to the mall and the next minute you’re in the emergency room praying that she didn’t have a stroke or break her hip or catch pneumonia. A million things can go wrong when our bodies start to fail us.

It’s a wild and unpredictable ride and eventually, most of us will climb aboard. Or as Greg Johnson, director of family care giving at New York-based EmblemHealth, Inc. says, “you can’t buy, pray or prescribe your way out of it.” When a parent needs help few of us have much choice other than stepping up and doing the best we can.

And that’s exactly what 65 million people are doing every day — caring for an elderly relative, often while holding down a full-time job. Any many of them are also raising children — the sandwich generation as they are called. I am one of them. I have two amazing teenagers and one loving 86-year-old mother, and all three are at a stage in their lives where they need me more than ever.

Trying to meet their needs while working full time often leaves me feeling drained and in need of some care myself. Luckily, I have understanding editors who allow me to work from home when I need to, but not everyone is so lucky. Just ask the telecommuters at Yahoo!

With people living longer the number of caregivers in the workplace is rising rapidly and that costs companies up to $34 billion a year due to absenteeism and lost productivity. That doesn’t include health care costs, which are higher for caregivers who are more likely to suffer from heart disease, depression and other health issues than noncaregivers. At the same time the number of companies offering elder care programs and services has declined.

That means more employees are using lunch breaks to drive dad to the doctor or sort out medical bills. Employees at companies without elder care referral services or flextime or other supports must navigate the confusing world of Medicare and Medicaid and nursing homes and in-home care alone and during any spare moment, including vacation time. Not surprisingly, burnout and fatigue are higher for caregivers than for other workers.

But there is much that employers can do to help those workers, like offering flextime and resource-and-referral services. Some companies, like Johnson & Johnson in New Jersey, are taking it a few steps further, offering free geriatric care services to its employees. Caregivers work with a case manager who checks in regularly and will even visit nursing homes and other facilities with the family.

While many employers can’t afford such extensive supports, just offering flexible schedules and a little understanding can go a long way in helping workers stay healthy and in boosting retention and loyalty.

The issue of elder care will gain more attention as more workers become family caregivers—a role typically dominated by women. And as more women move into executive positions the problem of caring for mom or dad will become just as pressing as finding good child care.

Johnson of EmblemHealth calls caregivers “the backbone of the world.” But the weight of supporting kids and parents can be crushing. By providing elder care support employers can do a lot to lighten their load.