strategy – Page 7

June 8, 2019June 29, 2023

5 Myths Surrounding Women in the Indian Workplace

“If one man can destroy everything, why can’t one girl change it?” — Malala Yousafzai

Women in India constitute 48.4 percent as compared to 51.6 percent of men in the total Indian population of 1.37 billion people.

A good ratio, right? Moreover, according to international non-governmental organization Catalyst, Indian women access higher education at the same rates as men at 27 percent.

But the ratios are not in favor of women when it comes to their participation in the workplace. Research by Catalyst notes that “only about 29 percent of Indian women work compared to 82 percent of Indian men.”

Indian women are in order first and foremost supposed to be a devoted wife, a doting mother and then a working professional. Women in India are expected to conform to traditional and societal norms.

Family always has to come before work. Women in India also have to be present and represent every ritual and cultural function conducted. And the older a female gets in India, the more she is bound in a “double burden syndrome” — balancing home and work.

But even women who get to join the workforce are not free of facing stereotypes and harassment. Women are rarely offered C-suite roles and similarly lofty positions.

There’s a lot that people hold against women in the workplace. It’s time to shatter the myths associated with women in the workplace and help increase their workplace participation.

Myth: Women Can’t Negotiate

The gender wage gap is the highest in India, according to Indian English-language daily Business Standard. Women in India are paid 34 percent less than what an Indian man is paid in the workplace, according to a research conducted by the International Labour Organization.

The prevailing explanation as to why women don’t earn as much as men is that “women aren’t aggressive enough.” People say that women don’t push their employers hard enough to give them a raise or that they can’t negotiate.

That’s not true. Women are as assertive as men when asking for salary appraisal. More and more studies in 2019 are showing that the rate of women and men asking for salary is the same. But, the conversion rates still favor male employees over women.

Myth: Too Emotional or Too Cold

In higher-level managerial positions, women often face a double bind. When they portray female characteristics, they are termed as emotional or sensitive. But when they follow traditional leadership roles, they are perceived as too difficult or too cold.

Lisa Feldman Barrett, the director of Northeastern University’s Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory, said that emotions are not something that we are born with but are rather created according to circumstances. And in India, women are groomed to be delicate, fragile and sensitive to situations. Therefore, it can be said that portraying high emotional intelligence is not biological but rather a social construct.

Myth: Women Don’t Belong in STEM

According to UNESCO, only 30 percent of women in India participate in STEM-related fields in higher education. What’s more disheartening is that the dropout rate among women in technology is even higher in junior to midlevel positions. Across Asia, the dropout rate is 29 percent.

Another reason why women continue to remain underrepresented in STEM fields begins very early in childhood.

Women are associated with arts and languages and men with math and science. When given a mathematical examination, women are under a lot more pressure to succeed than men. When applying this institutional fear toward a workplace full of men, it adversely

Myth: Women Are Only Good at Soft Skills

This is a judgment held against women, especially in the engineering field. Soft skills involve communication, creativity, adaptability, flexibility and teamwork. These are skills that every individual who works with other people needs to possess irrespective of profession and gender. To be a successful engineer, one needs to have both technical as well as soft skills.

Myth: Sexual Harassment Is a Woman’s Issue

The number of registered cases against sexual harassment in the workplace increased 54 percent from 371 cases in 2014 to 570 in 2017, according to the independent Indian English-language news site Scroll.in. But, as it is in most cases, the majority of these reported cases were from women. Due to maximum cases being reported by women, people assume that women are subject to harassment and therefore it’s “their issue” and they should resolve it on their own.

Sexual harassment doesn’t limit itself to a gender. While it’s important to understand that, it’s also important for people to stand by each other when such cases are reported. Men and women should be allies when someone reports against a “higher-up” or report when they have witnessed something.

Instead of holding their social conditioning against them, let’s all try to build a workplace in India where everyone has the same opportunities and treatment irrespective of their gender.

June 6, 2019

Relational Intelligence Can Give Companies a Leg Up

There’s a difference between how people behave in their personal life and how they behave professionally. But businesses can learn something from the tactics people use to repair personal relationships, according to therapist and author Esther Perel.

One of the speakers at the Unleash 2019 conference in Las Vegas in May, Perel has extensive experience counseling couples. She consults organizations on conflict resolution as well.

“As couples’ therapists, we have wide familiarity working with polarized systems,” Perel said. “I know [how] to work with relationships where one person doesn’t believe a word the other person is saying. That’s what couples who are arguing do. So we actually have an enormous amount of experience helping companies.”

Her session at Unleash focused on how organizations can use some of the tenets of couples counseling in their workplace when it comes to working on the relationship between the employer and the employee. She also spoke after the session to answer more questions on relationships in the workplace.

Perel prefers the term “relational intelligence” over the oft-used term “emotional intelligence.” That’s because it’s not a self-referential concept, she said. Rather, it’s knowing how to deal with other people and become in tune with the needs of other.

This skill set is especially important after #MeToo, she said. Now, she added, “there’s tremendous anxiety and restlessness in the workplace about how we relate to each other, how we establish boundaries and how we deal with disagreements breaches of trust.”

People carry narratives about relationships that influence their expectations from an interaction and their interpretations of the situation they’re in. Perel calls this their “relationship resume.” People come to work with this past. Were they raised to be trusting or suspicious? Did they grow up in a household where they were taught to ask for help or figure things out on their own? Do they prefer to work collaboratively or alone?

Answers to questions like this help explain what kind of team member a person will be, Perel said. That’s a missing set of questions that employers don’t consider when they hire.

Understanding boundaries is another key relational intelligence skill useful in both personal and professional relationships.

“These days we have narrowed the definition of boundary and we have sexualized it,” Perel said. But really the term “boundary” refers to a much broader scope of situations. Boundaries in sexual situations are just a small piece of it.

In the workplace, boundaries exist in any team. This can show itself in many ways. It’s the difference between an employee who’s involved in everyone’s business and the employee who hardly interacts with any colleagues. It’s the difference between teams that act like a secret society and teams with more “porous” boundaries.

There are several key boundary questions that exist in a team. They include, Who’s involved in this project? Who needs to say what to whom? What needs to be shared, and what can be kept to oneself? How much can you be absent for three days without anyone noticing? What is private versus what is shared? And what are decisions you make alone versus decisions for which you need to ask your manager permission?

When Perel is consulting organizations, she relies on the concept of “polarity management,”“an approach to conflict resolution that’s about identifying and managing unsolvable problems,” to communicate with her client.

The specifics of how to use polarity thinking warrants its own article. Looking at it more broadly, though, Perel explained some of the key tenets behind it. Before you tell someone what they’re doing wrong you tell them what they’re doing right. Also, you acknowledge that you know what losses someone will face by doing something different.

“Before you go directly from here to here and say, ‘This is wrong, you need to do that,’ you first address the loss. Every change comes with loss,” Perel said.

June 6, 2019June 29, 2023

An Obituary for Employment At-will

Over at her employee-rights blog, Screw You Guys, I’m Going Home, attorney Donna Ballman asks, “Is is time to terminate at-will employment laws?”

Well Donna, there’s no need to terminate these laws; they are already dead. I hear it all the time from clients. “Aren’t we an at-will employer? We paid you for that handbook that says so. Why can’t we fire this employee. This is *!%#*!”

Yes, your employees are at-will. And that and a hill of beans will get you sued.

Employment at-will is dead. Do you have the right to fire an employee for no reason? Absolutely. Yet, if that employee is African-American, Other-American, a woman (or a man), pregnant or recently pregnant, suffering from a medical condition (or related to someone with a medical condition, or you think has a medical condition but doesn’t), on a medical leave or returning from a leave, injured, religious, older (i.e., age 40 or above), LGBTQ, serving in the military or a veteran, or a whistleblower or otherwise a complainer, the law protects their employment. Which means that if you fire them, you better have done so for a good reason.

If you look at those categories, most of your employees fall under one of more of them. In other words, while you are an “at-will employer,” that doesn’t really mean anything anymore. Employees just have too many protections.

So, how do I suggest you respond? Follow the Platinum Rule of Employee Relations. Treat your employees as they would want to be treated. If you treat your employees as they would want to be treated (or as you would want your wife, kids, parents, etc. to be treated), most employment cases would never be filed, and most that are filed would end in the employer’s favor. Juries are comprised of many more employees than employers, and if jurors feel that the plaintiff was treated the same way the jurors would expect to be treated, the jury will be much less likely to find in the employee’s favor.

What does this mean for your poor performing employees? Does they understand the performance problems? Were they given sufficient counseling and warnings before termination? And, most importantly, can you prove it via contemporaneous documentation? If so, there is no reason to give poor performance a pass just because of the risk of a lawsuit. Otherwise? I’d think long and hard before firing.

So let’s all raise a glass and toast employment at-will. It had a good ride.

June 6, 2019June 29, 2023

Will President Trump’s Merit-Based Immigration Proposal Provide H-1B Visa Relief?

Immigration reform and H1B visa programs

Last month President Donald Trump announced his desire to implement a new merit-based immigration system.

He did not put forward a detailed proposal, but instead described his proposal in broad strokes. The president emphasized that his goal is to change the make-up of U.S. immigrants, envisioning a points system that would provide more green cards to highly skilled, highly educated and younger immigrants, and reducing immigration based on family relationships.

While he did not mention many specifics, the president’s proposal bears a striking similarity to the RAISE Act, an immigration bill introduced into the Senate in 2017 by Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, and David Perdue, R-Geaorgia. Trump praised the RAISE Act when it was initially introduced in the Senate, but the bill died in Congress.

The RAISE Act would have reduced total U.S. immigration by approximately half and included a points-based permanent immigration system which placed high numeric values on advanced education and extraordinary achievement.

According to the system proposed in the RAISE Act, although an immigrant would score more points with a U.S. job offer, U.S. employers would not be able to sponsor new hires or existing employees for green cards. The point value would be the ultimate determinant in whether a person would be able to secure permanent residence in the U.S.

In light of the president’s emphasis on increasing immigration of highly skilled workers, one might assume that his plan envisions higher numbers of temporary work visas for educated and highly skilled foreign nationals. However, neither the president’s recent proposal nor the RAISE Act included any discussion of temporary work visas such as H-1B or L-1 visas.

Further, the president laid out his proposal as just that: a proposal. The changes he would like to make are significant and such a radical departure from current law that most of them would have to be implemented in new immigration legislation. This is not likely to occur anytime soon as it would require bipartisan consensus.

In light of the fact that Congress would need to pass new immigration legislation to implement the president’s immigration vision, recruiters and hiring managers who rely on foreign talent to fill open requisitions should not expect to see increases to the H-1B visa numbers in the near term.

Further, since Trump has taken office, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services denials and requests for additional evidence in H-1B visa cases have risen significantly, reflecting the president’s desire to protect the American workforce, as spelled out in his April 2017 Executive Order, “Buy American, Hire American.”

Employers sponsoring H-1B visas should be prepared for the possibility of longer processing times between filing and ultimate approval of petitions, and should budget for potential additional legal fees.

June 5, 2019September 5, 2023

How an Employee-centric HR Communications Strategy Impacts Your Organization

employee communication, hearing, talk, schedules

In today’s digital day and age, designing an HR communications strategy that effectively reaches an increasingly dispersed, distracted workforce is critical to increase employee engagement — and ensure employees are informed and aligned to meet broader business objectives.

Lack of employee engagement remains rampant among organizations, with a whopping 85 percent of employees today not engaged at work. Yet when employees are connected, organizations see an increase in productivity by 20 percent to 25 percent — making internal communications increasingly critical to the business. Those organizations that don’t prioritize their employees and ensure they are well connected will resign themselves to a serious disadvantage.

Also Read: Focus on Employee Work Passion, Not Employee Engagement

Yet, as companies embark on efforts to modernize the employee experience, many HR and communications teams struggle to scale communications in the face of resource and staffing constraints, often with ratios as low as 1 communicator to 20,000 employees. This reality makes it exceedingly challenging to create, deliver and measure content that is relevant and valuable to all different types of employees. HR and communications teams are delivering greater business impact but pulled in more directions than ever, and are in dire need of a scalable, targeted way to carry out their strategies to support broader business initiatives.

With this in mind, here are a few factors to consider as you embark on designing a communications approach that empowers HR, communicators and employees alike — and why it matters to your business goals:

Connected employees directly impact customer satisfaction

Employees’ value extends well beyond what you pay them in salary. Employees need to feel appreciated and recognized, despite what number appears on their paychecks. In fact, 69 percent of workers said they would work harder if they were recognized and appreciated more, and Gartner predicts that by 2020, 70 percent of companies will implement technology for employee recognition and reward.

What’s more, a 5 percent increase in employee engagement can lead to a 3 percent jump in a company’s revenue. Effective communications not only makes employees feel like they matter to their organization, but also emphasizes their role in contributing to a greater goal and broader effort among colleagues — and that directly affects business outcomes.

Despite the clear business benefits of HR communications, most companies still rely on a single channel for communications. Employees have unique preferences for when, how and where they access communications, and HR and internal communications teams need to adopt a multi-channel strategy to reach all employees — regardless of location, job function and the devices they use.

Particularly as many employees today are desk-less, engaging employees wherever they may be is foundational to successfully connecting, informing and building trust with employees. From a company mobile app to digital signage, email, print and more, HR and communications teams must incorporate multiple, targeted channels in their toolkit, with a system to integrate all channels so they aren’t stuck managing multiple platforms.

And not only does the channel matter, but so does the message. What might work on email may not work for mobile or other mediums, and communications should be designed for consumption on each specific channel you plan to use. It is also important to train and encourage team and frontline managers to create their own content that caters to their team members and direct reports — making content more local and relevant not only ensures the right messages get to the right employees, but also alleviates the burden on HR and communications teams in creating all content.

Build Employee Retention With Impactful Communications

As an organization grows, it is important to share engaging and compelling messages to motivate, inform and retain employees. Shockingly, only 10 percent of employees today report knowing what’s going on in their company at any given time — meaning they are not aligned to larger business goals, setting up those initiatives to fail.

Employee retention doesn’t stop with employee orientation. More impactful engagement goes well beyond day one, starting with studying and understanding your employees — who they are, their unique preferences and motivations. Much like a marketer who analyzes the customer journey, building employee personas and mapping out their journey will allow you to deliver more targeted, effective communications personalized to their needs.

Moreover, organizations should look to not only share relevant, customized communications across channels with employees, but also establish a platform where they can quickly search for and find information they need to be informed at all times. An outdated Intranet for sharing employee information simply won’t suffice when employee engagement, productivity and the bottom line are at stake.

Successful HR communication is vital in engaging employees, maintaining a thriving company culture and boosting both individual employees and the organization. By taking a more targeted, customized and multi-channel approach to communications, organizations can elevate HR and communications teams to support broader business outcomes, while reaping the benefits of greater employee engagement, productivity and retention.

May 31, 2019June 3, 2019

Bully or Tough Boss? Here Are Some Guidelines to Define Leadership

The good news: Many companies invest in programs that support employee physical and mental health of their employees. They understand that flourishing human beings generally translate into happier and higher performing employees.

The bad news: Not all bosses have gotten the memo.

It’s bad enough that after having to dodge bullies in school; we still confront them even as adults. Even worse, the bully may be the person who’s supposed to be in charge of your mentorship and growth, yet it seems like they’re more interested in intimidation and threats.

So how do you know when your boss has crossed the line into being a bully, and what do you do when he or she has?

How to Spot a Bully at Work

Having cut my teeth at a Fortune 50 technology company, I’ve heard a lot of debate on whether a boss was tough or simply a bully. It can sometimes be hard to tell if a boss is pushing you to reach your limits or trying to push you off a cliff.

A boss that only wants to be liked and lets his or her team walk all over them is another kind of danger. But being assertive and demanding can go too far. Leadership is tricky; one must be aware of their own personality derailers, understand positive and impactful boundaries, and be able to inspire others to help drive lasting results, without being a bully.

The Workplace Bullying Institute defines bullying as “threats, humiliation, intimidation, work sabotage or verbal abuse.” In its 2017 report, they found that about 1 in 5 workers are bullied at work, and 61 percent of the bullies are bosses.

If you want to know if you’re being bullied, ask yourself how you feel. If you’re being pushed by a tough boss, you should still feel inspired and psychologically safe. If you feel nauseous at the thought of going to work, unable to sleep and stressed to the max, you might be being bullied.

Bullies come in a few varieties, some easier to spot than others.

The easiest one is the loud, abusive boss. They humiliate you in front of others. You’re the butt of their jokes. They curse at you. It feels like the playground and you’re being pushed in the dirt by the big kid.

There is also the boss who is a passive bully. They torment their targets with quiet but piercing techniques such as undermining their employees, dividing their team, gossiping and sometimes even creating lies. This one feels a little more like high school, whispering in the halls.

How to Handle a Bullying Boss

There is not a single or simple answer to how to manage a boss who believes the best way to develop employees is to give them tough love or build thick skin by being abusive, abrasive or explosive.

If you find yourself in this type of environment, let me start by saying it is not OK and it is not your fault. I understand how being in this type of situation can tear you apart emotionally and physically. Breaking you is what the bully wants to do.

The most important thing you must do is take care of yourself. Removing yourself from the situation is always an option.

Some may criticize me for suggesting you leave the bully boss situation, because it may look like you’re letting the bully win. But it is an option you have and sometimes this is the best option for you.

If you choose to take on the situation head on, here’s my advice:

Have a plan. Be thoughtful and deliberate about how you will show up, perform, communicate and get results.

Continue to perform. Bring others along on your journey and deliver results. The bully will have a hard time attacking you if others are involved and part of your work.

Document. Even the little things should go in a log. A bully often makes mistakes that will leave them vulnerable to being reported.

Be careful who you trust. You may find yourself in a situation where you are ganged up on because another person the bully attacks is looking for any break from the bad behavior and they actually side with the bully. It reduces their torment. It sounds crazy, but it happens.

Talk to someone. Many people think this is a sign of weakness but it is not. You might want to talk with someone outside your organization so you know it won’t get back to the bully.

Remember That Bullies Are Ultimately Pathetic

I have come across a few bullies in my career and they were miserable people. They talked about others all the time, bringing everyone around them down.

Their home lives were sad. They were often unhealthy. When they did smile, it was forced. They carried a lot of stress and it showed up in their work, relationships, family and community.

The one thing I remind myself of frequently is that bullies I have come across in my career have to live with themselves every day.

You can escape your bully, but they cannot escape themselves. In time you will rise above the situation and never look back and your bully has the pleasure of living in their hateful and unhealthy life. That is their punishment.

Most bullies lack confidence and feel powerful when others feel powerless. Bullies are often threatened by the person they are bullying. It sounds silly and it is, but it is often true. You must take care of yourself if you find yourself in a situation like this. This will impact how you show up for yourself, your coworkers, your team and, more important, your family and friends.

It’s never OK for someone to bully another person. If the bully is making it sound like it is to get the best results out of a person or toughen them up, feel free to call it out.

There is no place for an abusive boss, including verbal abuse. I believe strongly in accountability and I set a high bar — professionally and personally — for my peers, my team and myself. Please do the same for yourself.

May 29, 2019June 29, 2023

Collaboration Tools Are Great for Communication — Provided They Are Properly Implemented

Organizations around the globe are communicating with employees through digital tools to improve engagement and retention, increase productivity and more.

Connected workforces improve time-to-innovation by 31 percent, according to a McKinsey report. Digitally connected employees are 51 percent more likely to have strong job satisfaction and 43 percent more likely to have a positive view of work-life balance compared to workers who lack these tools, according to a recent study.

A growing number of organizations are adopting collaboration platforms such as Workplace by Facebook, Yammer and Microsoft Teams to break down silos, create a more vibrant culture, and foster a community of real-time teamwork. For instance, Workplace by Facebook provides a user experience similar to the company’s popular social media tools, enabling organizations to engage employees in a variety of ways, from live leadership broadcasts and news updates to polls and sentiment surveys.

Yet many organizations lag behind in implementing these tools. Because of their positive impacts on innovation and connectivity, use of digital collaboration platforms often pop up in pockets of organizations as employees seek more efficient ways to work. This unsanctioned shadow IT often lacks the appropriate governance or compliance mechanisms, carrying with it a myriad of risks, such as insider threats or vulnerable data. The organization must then play catch-up to roll out collaboration in a more controlled way.

Given the impacts on employee engagement, HR leaders often play a major role in the adoption of collaboration tools. But it’s important to look before you leap. Human behavior risk can proliferate without the right controls. The informal communication that speeds innovation can also cross the line into sexual harassment, discrimination and bullying. It’s essential to provide safeguards that ensure employees behave appropriately within these digital platforms to protect the company culture.

Others will share these concerns:

Cybersecurity will need to understand any new types of threats collaboration brings into the technology landscape. While enterprise-grade collaboration platforms are highly secure from outside attacks, it is essential to mitigate potential insider threats. Whether accidental or malicious, the chatty environment of collaboration tools can cause an employee to divulge sensitive or confidential information to the wrong people.
Compliance will have questions regarding data privacy regulations such as HIPAA and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, which went into effect in 2018. In industries such as healthcare and financial services, it is essential to have a process to enforce data removal and retention policies. Compliance will also want to know what measures will be in place to ensure employees adhere to the organization’s policies and guidelines for appropriate behavior, including in closed or secret groups.
Legal will have be concerned with addressing legal hold situations and efficiently completing eDiscovery processes and internal forensics investigations. Unlike email, collaboration tools offer revision or deletion functionalities on messages and shared content. This can create liability and compliance concerns. As a result, legal may require access to an archive of all public and private content relevant to pending litigation – including revisions and deletions.

To address these stakeholder concerns, organizations need an effective community management strategy when rolling out digital collaboration. This strategy will define what endorsed behavior looks like, along with a response plan for unsanctioned or distracting behavior. It will also detail how the community manager will monitor the digital community and reinforce the desired behaviors.

Community managers should introduce accompanying solutions that satisfy stakeholder needs. This will keep unexpected incidents or requirements from threatening digital workplace rollouts. These include:

A well-configured monitoring tool that scans public and private conversation areas. This solution will automate the day-to-day work of digital community management, providing real-time alerts as issues arise. Real-time surfacing of concerning content—whether an HR violation or a sensitive data share—is critical to reinforcing desired collaboration behaviors.
A searchable archive that serves as a protection against legal action. Introduce a practice of storing authored messages and posts, as well as corresponding context—including revisions and deletions. Legal teams can then efficiently search and extract relevant conversation data for litigation scenarios.
A data management solution that enforces retention policies, satisfies user data removal requests outlined by the GDPR as well as supports the need to manage legal holds. Organizations own the conversation data that is generated by workers. It is critical to have a way to purge, protect and extract as needed.

By staying mindful of stakeholder needs, champions of collaboration will address the risks and requirements that can derail organization’s collaboration rollout. By identifying and addressing these issues before employees start using the platform, community managers can ensure a positive user experience and digital workplace sponsorship across the organization’s leadership.

May 28, 2019June 29, 2023

What Does a Valid Jury Waiver Look Like?

Earlier this year, the Senate took up the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act.

It would, among other things, prohibit employers from requiring employees, as a condition of employment, to sign agreements submitting employment and civil rights claims to arbitration in lieu of filing in court. According to Vox.com, this legislation has some initial bipartisan support, and has some legit traction to perhaps become law.

I am on record as not being a fan of arbitration for employment disputes. I do not believe they are any less expensive or time consuming that in-court litigation. In stead, I’ve previously argued for tools such as contractually shortened statutes of limitations and jury waivers as tools employers can to limit risk instead of arbitration agreements.

What does a jury waiver look like, and in what circumstances do courts enforce them? A recent Ohio appellate decision provides the answer.

In Kane v. Inpatient Med. Servs., the employer required its employees, as a condition of employment, to sign an employment agreement that contained the following jury trial waiver.

Waiver of Jury trial. EACH PARTY HERETO ACKNOWLEDGES AND AGREES THAT ANY CONTROVERSY WHICH MAY ARISE UNDER THIS AGREEMENT IS LIKELY TO INVOLVE COMPLICATED AND DIFFICULT ISSUES, AND THEREFORE EACH PARTY HEREBY IRREVOCABLY AND UNCONDITIONALLY WAIVES ANY RIGHT SUCH PARTY MAY HAVE TO A TRIAL BY JURY IN RESPECT OF ANY LITIGATION DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THIS AGREEMENT AND ANY OF THE AGREEMENTS DELIVERED IN CONNECTION HEREWITH OR THE TRANSACTIONS CONTEMPLATED HEREBY OR THEREBY.

In her sex discrimination lawsuit, Kate Kane argued that her discrimination claims should have been tried by a jury because the jury trial waiver did not expressly mention discrimination claims within its umbrella of coverage. The appellate court disagreed.

Undoubtedly, the waiver provision is broad. It encompasses “any litigation directly or indirectly arising out of or relating to this agreement and any of the agreements delivered in connection herewith or the transactions contemplated hereby or thereby.” This Court must conclude that Ms. Kane’s claims alleging discriminatory termination at the very least indirectly arise out of or relate to Ms. Kane’s employment agreement.

She also argued that the jury trial waiver as a whole was invalid, as she did not she did not voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently waive her right to a jury trial. Again, the appellate court disagreed, noting that courts apply the following five factors to determine if a “jury waiver was was entered into knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently.”

The conspicuousness of the provision of the contract;
The level of sophistication and experience of the parties entering into the contract;
The opportunity to negotiate terms of the contract;
The relative bargaining power of each party; and
Whether the waiving party was represented by counsel.

In this case, the court concluded that the five factors merited the enforcement of the jury waiver.

We note that while the provision appears towards the end of the agreement, the provision is nonetheless conspicuous as it appears in all capital letters while most of the agreement does not. Ms. Kane has not argued she was unaware that the provision was in the agreement. Ms. Kane is a college-educated professional with experience negotiating contracts. In fact, there was evidence that Ms. Kane negotiated a higher salary prior to accepting an offer of employment. There was no evidence presented that would indicate Ms. Kane did not have a meaningful choice with respect to the waiver. And while the record does not indicate whether Ms. Kane was represented by counsel at the time she was offered a job, the employment agreement does contains a clause indicating that Ms. Kane “had the opportunity for th[e] Agreement to be reviewed by counsel[.]” Ms. Kane’s mere assertions that she did not understand she would be waiving her right to a jury trial for these claims is insufficient under the circumstances to demonstrate that the waiver was not entered into voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently. We cannot say that the waiver is unduly complicated or confusing such that someone of Ms. Kane’s background would not have understood the scope of the right she was waiving.

Thus, if you seek for employees to contractually waiver their right to a jury trial, you should ensure:

The waiver is in writing.
It is clearly and conspicuously delineated within an agreement, such that employee is not likely to miss it upon reading the contract.
It is written in language for which it is reasonable for the employee to understand.
The possibility of negotiation of any terms of the employment agreement is at least a possibility.
If offers the opportunity for the employee to have their own counsel review it before the employee signs.

And, while it’s tempting merely to ape the language used in Kane, you should really have your own employment counsel review a jury waiver before you implement it in your own employment agreements.

I love the Kane case, because it gives employers something to think about other than, “Everyone else loves arbitration agreements, so we do too.” After careful deliberation, you might decide that arbitration agreements are the correct answer for your employees and your business. Before making that decision, however, consider the risks, benefits and alternatives. You might just decide that jury waiver is the right solution.

May 28, 2019June 29, 2023

A Collective Concept for Conflict Resolution

All kinds of personal issues at work escalate into conflicts, and we usually resolve them privately.

Making the process public is a recipe for awkward, messy feelings, isn’t it?

Maybe not.

My consulting firm recently experimented with working through a conflict between two staff members in a collective way. That positive experience, along with insights from our culture work with clients and other research suggests we need to rethink the way we resolve interpersonal clashes in the workplace. In particular, there are four reasons why in many cases we should shift to collective conflict resolution.

And when we do, we help our organizations “go horizontal” — move toward non-hierarchical cultures that I and others see as the future of work.

The four reasons for resolving conflicts publicly are:

1. People feel safer to communicate. How can you feel safer with a bunch of people observing you? Because individuals can stretch truths and even (ouch) sometimes full-out lie. When there are witnesses, those behaviors are less likely. One of my colleagues who has experimented with a group approach to conflict resolution puts it this way: “Having witnesses helps me work my way through my emotions and communicate in the most precise and exact way I can.”

2. Conflict is usually wider than the pair being mediated. When we are upset with a situation we often talk about it to others. This usually leads to a one-sided perspective and some emotional offloading. If I go into a private room and experience a successful mediation process, those people who have been pulled into the conflict are still feeling it. The conflict still exists in others and can linger and return, like hot coals. If we acknowledge that conflict is in the system, we should invite those involved in the system to witness the untangling of it. That puts out the conflict “out” properly.

3. When a tension gets untangled it usually ends with solutions. If a conflict is settled privately it puts a lot of pressure on those in the situation to handle the follow up on their own. But if the resolution process is public, everyone understands the situation more fully and understands what else must be done. This generates a sense of mutual support. If you aren’t there to witness the untangling, you miss out on creating that help system and feeling shared responsibility thereafter.

4. Well-resolved conflicts can have a bigger societal impact. When people work out differences in a positive way, it can lead to profound change that ripples beyond the individuals involved. Author Diane Musho Hamilton notes that every tension with another person is an opportunity to transform the conflict into “patience, mutual understanding, and creativity.” She continues: “When we use the opportunity, we contribute to the shared endeavor of learning how to live peacefully with each other.”

When we see interpersonal conflicts at work as inevitable, as connected to wider systems and as a chance to cultivate a more nonviolent human race, we start to see why they may not be suited for hidden encounters between just two people. Or two people and a mediator. When quarrels are privately addressed, they not only carry a whiff of shame to them, they are lost opportunities. Why shouldn’t we bring the advantages of the full team to these snags, and allow the team to receive the full benefits of straightening them out — with positive outcomes spreading outward from every individual witnessing the work?

This rippling out gets at how collective conflict resolution helps organizations become more horizontal. By horizontal cultures, I’m referring to workplaces that are characterized by a focus on purpose, by transparency, by employees participating in decision-making and by relationships that are more deeply human than the transactional ones often found in traditional, top-down organizations.

Any two individuals involved in a spat are typically part of a wider social web. Treating the conflict as an opportunity to heal not just their immediate rift but strengthen the broader community reinforces an organization’s commitment to horizontal principles.

And those principles are increasingly vital to success. Hierarchical organizations are proving too slow and stultifying to solve today’s problems. Examples of companies embracing flatter, more participatory structures range from computer chip maker and artificial intelligence leader Nvidia to tomato processor Morning Star to Dutch home health care provider Buurtzorg Nederland. As these and other organizations show, the future of work is in flatter, horizontal cultures.

Publicly resolving conflicts in your organization can help you go horizontal, too.

May 22, 2019September 5, 2023

Welcome to Your Employee Communication Road Map

Road maps are a form of content that will help you navigate key areas of people management. Each road map includes an orientation guide that gives a high-level overview of the subject as well as articles and other resources that provide more detailed directions on how to find your way to success. This road map focuses on the changing terrain of employee communication. The orientation guide below will get you started, and we invite you to see other Workforce road maps by visiting workforce.com/roadmaps.

Effective employee communication is the foundation of a good human resources program. Setting guidelines for how and when to communicate with employees, and what you are going to say sets the tone for the company culture and paves the way for business success. However, most companies — even big global firms — often leave this important element of human resource management to chance.

Only 20 percent of organizations have an internal communications role somewhere within their HR department, according to a 2018 Newsweaver study. In other organizations this role falls to sales and marketing teams, individual managers or no one in particular.

“They just let the communication culture emerge, and assume everyone knows what to do,” said Craig Johnson, partner in Mercer’s Career Business focusing on communication and technology. “That’s not the right approach.”

This “do-it-yourself” attitude leads to mixed messages, missed opportunities to engage, and a negative communication experience when employees are deluged with messages from management that they eventually just tune out, according to Rachel Miller, director of All Things IC, an internal communications consultancy.

“Internal communications should be part of your business strategy and plan,” she said. It ensures that internal messaging is consistent, relevant to the brand, and reflective of the company culture and business goals. “Every message should reflect what the company is trying to achieve.”

If you don’t have a communication plan — or haven’t reviewed yours in years — this road map will help you get started.

PART 1: Make a Plan

Put someone in charge. A communication strategy needs a leader, said Johnson. Putting someone from HR in change of the overarching company communication plan ensures a consistent tone and prevents disparate, confusing or conflicting information bombarding employees from all sides.

Identify stakeholders. Effective employee communication requires planning and buy-in from leaders across the organization. Miller suggests bringing together a cross functional team of executives, HR leaders, managers and employees to write the plan and ensure it aligns with the corporate vision.

Define your goals. A good communication plan links communication strategies to the purpose of the company, its mission and its vision. “Don’t just copy the words off a vision statement,” Miller warned. Really think about what the company is trying to do and how internal communication supports those goals.

Consider your audience. It’s not enough to know what information you want to send, you need to customize it for the reader. If you are announcing a merger, the information you share with front-line workers or IT teams will be far different from the messages you send to VPs and managers. “Understanding your audience is how you get the right information to the right people at the right time so that they can do their jobs,” Miller said.

Choose your channels. Do your employees read emails every day? Visit the company portal? Communicate via Slack? “It’s easy to attach a document to an email, but if three-fourths of your employees won’t click on it, what is the point?” Johnson said. Understanding how, where and when employees want to engage with company content will increase the chance that your messages will get read.

Create a calendar. Large companies may have dozens of vendors sending information to employees about benefits packages, 401(k) plans, insurance offerings, etc. If they all send messages at the same time it creates a tremendous amount of noise, Johnson said. To reduce the deluge, he advises clients to audit all communications — including vendor messages — then eliminate the ones that aren’t necessary, and create a schedule for those that are. “A plan helps you think through what you are sending instead of always reacting.”

He suggests organizing messages into three categories:

Annual events: Messages related to benefits enrollment and updates about annual meetings can be scheduled months in advance.
Ad hoc scheduled events. These include one-time scheduled events, including information about workshops, announcement about technology upgrades or reminders to complete required training.
Ad hoc unplanned events. Leave some space in the calendar for urgent messages that can’t wait.

Remember, Johnson added, “even if emails from vendors are part of the service, if the message isn’t useful it won’t add value.”

PART 2: Start Communicating

Customize each message. Every communication should begin with an overarching message about why this information ties back to the company’s goals and values, Johnson said. For example, if you are hosting a financial wellness workshop, start the announcement with, “As part of our commitment to helping employees achieve a better work-life balance, we are offering this financial wellness workshop to … .’ ”

It shows that the workshop is tied to something broader, Johnson said.

Create a review step. Having someone else review messages before they get sent to the entire company can minimize the risk that grammar errors, inaccurate information and embarrassing gaffes get sent out.

Provide training. HR isn’t the only group sending company communiques. To ensure there is a consistent cadence in all internal messages, provide training to managers and leaders about how to craft messages that align with the business goals.

PART 3: Measure Results

Define success. Every communication campaign should have a goal. “That is what makes measurement possible,” Miller said.

Establish key performance indicators. When setting measures, focus on outcomes not output. Counting messages sent or number of people who signed up for a class doesn’t tell you much, Miller said, whereas tracking the results of these programs will. Some useful measures might include proof of changed behavior, improved employee engagement, increased participation in rewards programs or fewer safety incidences. “Outcomes are tangible if you know what you are looking for,” she added. “We don’t do this enough.”

Ask employees what they think. Include questions in employee surveys about the quality of company communication, their top communication issues and/or what could be done better. This can provide evidence of the impact of HR communication efforts and help identify areas that require improvement.

Adapt accordingly. A communication plan is always evolving. Measuring outcomes can help you identify which messages, channels and cadence of content is having the biggest impact, so you can continue to adjust it to meet employees’ needs.