Category: Commentary & Opinion

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Court OKs Using Employee’s Own Facebook Posts in Race-Bias Case

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I read with interest a post on Eric Meyer’s Employer Handbook Blog, titled Court says employee’s Facebook page on race stereotypes is fair game at trial. The post discusses a recent federal court decision which permitted an employer to impeach at trial a race-discrimination plaintiff with her own racial Facebook posts.

No doubt that some of the comments on plaintiff’s Facebook page are prejudicial to her case. Indeed, some of plaintiff’s comments on her Facebook actually support the claims she asserts in this case and plaintiff has used these posts to substantiate her claims. … It also relates to whether plaintiff was offended by such conduct at work and whether this conduct forced her to resign since she herself participated in comments containing racial stereotypes and jokes on her Facebook page which were, in part, insensitive and demeaning. …

[T]here is evidence in this case that at times plaintiff initiated and engaged in racial jokes and comments while at work with co-workers. … [T]he comments made by plaintiff and the comments liked by her on her Facebook page can be used by the Hospital to challenge her credibility at trial. As mentioned, the credibility of the witnesses is for the jury to weigh. This evidence is also relevant to whether plaintiff truly found the comments made by co-workers as offensive and unwelcomed.

Here’s my question. How is this different than impeaching a sexual-harassment plaintiff with her provocative clothing, or personal pornography habit? Just because one finds some sexual or racist content unoffensive doesn’t mean that one welcomes all such content, especially at work.

Food for thought, and another reason why employees need to be extraordinarily careful with what they share via social media.

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

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Adopt an A-E-I-O-You Method for Medical Leaves

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Consider the following example. ABC Co. has a policy that states that an employee is entitled to a 12-week leave of absence for any medical reason, and thereafter the company cannot guarantee a job upon an employee’s ability to return to work. Does this policy pass muster under the Americans with Disabilities Act?

Opinions differ sharply on whether an employer can satisfy its obligations under the ADA by implementing a neutral leave of absence policy that caps a maximum allowable leave (for example, a policy that says, “Employees who do not return to work following a maximum of six months leave will be presumed to have resigned,” or “Employees will be entitled to a maximum of six months of unpaid medical leave in appropriate circumstances, and thereafter the company cannot hold the employee’s position open or guarantee a position to which the employee can return.”).

One opinion that is clear, though, is that of the EEOC. According to the commission, in its recently published guidance titled “Employer-Provided Leave and the Americans with Disabilities Act,” the answer is likely “no.” According to the EEOC, “the prevalence of employer policies that deny or unlawfully restrict the use of leave as a reasonable accommodation,” which the agency believes “serve as systemic barriers to the employment of workers with disabilities.”

In my experience, employers deny leaves because they are simply trying to do the best they can to balance the operational needs of their business against the medical needs of an employee. Sometimes the business wins. The EEOC is trying to level the playing field by making sure that employers consider leaves in all cases when appropriate.

The guidance is broken down into six key areas, which highlight various issues for employers to consider when employees need medical leaves of absence not covered by, or in addition to, the Family and Medical Leave Act.

  1. Equal access to leave under an employer’s leave policy. Employers must provide employees with disabilities access to the same leaves of absence rules as employees without disabilities.
  2. Granting leave as a reasonable accommodation. An employer must consider providing unpaid leave to an employee with a disability as a reasonable accommodation if the employee requires it, and so long as it does not create an undue hardship for the employer.
  3. Leave and the interactive process generally. After an employee requests leave as a reasonable accommodation, the employer should promptly engage in an “interactive process” with the employee, a discussion that focuses on the reasons for the leave, whether it’s blocked or intermittent, and its expected duration, which may include confirming information from the employee’s health care provider.
  4. Maximum leave policies. Policies that place a hard cap on an employee’s leave of absence, without consideration of modifications or extensions as reasonable accommodations, are unlawful under the ADA.
  5. Return to work and reasonable accommodation (including reassignment). Avoid “100 percent healed” policies, which mandate that an employee must be fully recovered before returning to work. They are unlawful. Instead, consider reasonable accommodations that will enable an employee to return before 100 percent healed, which might include transfer to a vacant position.
  6. Undue hardship. Depending on the duration and frequency of the leave and the effect on the employer’s business, the leave of absence might be an undue hardship that an employer need not offer. An open-ended, indefinite leave is always an undue hardship.

Employers need to be practical and tread very lightly around the issue of leaves of absences until the EEOC softens its position. The agency is aggressively pursuing businesses that enforce these neutral leave policies to the detriment of employees with disabilities. Unless you want to end up in the EEOC’s crosshairs, I recommend adopting the following “A-E-I-O-You” approach to employee medical leaves:

  • Avoid leave policies that provide a per se maximum amount of leave.
  • Engage in the interactive process with an employee who needs an extended leave of absence.
  • Involve your employment counsel to aid in the process of deciding when an extended leave crosses the line from a reasonable accommodation to an undue hardship.
  • Open your workplace to employees with disabilities to demonstrate to the EEOC, if necessary, that you take your ADA obligations seriously.
  • You should document all costs associated with any extended unpaid leaves to help make your undue hardship argument, if needed.

Remembering “A-E-I-O-You” will help you avoid the defense of a costly disability discrimination lawsuit.

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

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Office Politics: 5 Ways to Survive the Shark-Infested Waters

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Whether you’re just starting your career or have been swimming in the deep waters of office politics for many years, you’re bound to run into some dangerous “fish.”

During my 25-year corporate career I held roles on the front line, in middle management and at the executive level, including a role reporting directly to the company president.

My friends would often ask me if my work environment was political. “It’s like swimming with the sharks.” I would say.

I thought I had come up with a unique — and clever — analogy. I was wrong.

Articles about office politics abound. No wonder in a survey conducted by Robert Half International, 62 percent of the workers interviewed said navigating office politics was at least somewhat necessary to get ahead. So it’s no wonder that a large number of those articles use the swimming with sharks analogy.

In a blog post entitled “Shark Week at Work! Are You Swimming With an Office Shark?” Robert Half, which is one of the world’s largest staffing firms, advises workers to “keep on top of which kinds of sharks are native to your waters so you know what to expect — and how to react.”

WF_WebSite_BlogHeaders-14So here are the five kinds of shark I encountered during my career and how I survived swimming with them:

  1. The Hammerhead Shark: People who choose less-talented friends over more talented strangers (i.e., you). I am a big believer in mentoring — mentoring others and being mentored. Among the people I established mentoring relationships with were people who were higher up the food chain than I

Those people also served as sponsors. In one instance, an executive wanted to unilaterally hire a candidate. One of my sponsors asked for a competitive process; no guarantees, just a fair shot.

As it turned out, I was selected and the person who expected to get the job ended up working for me. But not for very long: the executive granted her request for a transfer.

  1. The Bull Shark: People who pass on misinformation or rumors about you. In my experience, it was never worth my time to address every rumor or bit of misinformation about me. It was more important for me to build my credibility in individual encounters over time. Thus, some rumors would temporarily take hold. But the reputation I built usually spoke more loudly. “That does not even sound like, Greg” people would say in response to negative rumors.

A case example: I once had to ask for the resignation of a popular employee. Friends of the employee spread the rumor that I terminated him unfairly. Eventually, as people who knew me spoke up, that rumor faded.

  1. The Basking Shark: People who make you look bad so they can look good. The key here is to take the high road. Focus on highlighting your own work. The best response you have to attacks on your work is to produce good work.

Once, after I had completed a temporary assignment, I was told by the regular manager that I had “failed in the field” because an ethics investigation was launched during my assignment (related to conduct that preceded my arrival). However, my response to the misconduct was praised. I never directly addressed the comment. My actions spoke louder than her words.

  1. The Great White: People who highlight your mistakes to higher-ups. When you mess up, fess up. I learned to choose accountability. That is, I didn’t wait until my mistake came to light to reveal it. I always wanted my boss to hear bad things about me from me first. In doing so, I defanged this particular species of shark. As an internal client once said, “Bad news does not get better because it’s older.”
  1. The Sand Shark: People who ask you to support them at the cost of doing what was right. This is a particularly dangerous species of shark, especially if they outrank you. Fortunately, I faced this particular shark only a few times. In each instance, I did what I thought was right and provided a legitimate business explanation about why I chose to carry out an order in a way that was different than directed.

Once I was asked to pay a consultant who was hired to perform ongoing work from a special project budget so that our operating budget would not take the hit. I did find some minimal work on the project and charged just that work to the project budget. I told my boss, that upon closer examination of the invoice, I found that most of the work was part of normal operations and so I charged the work accordingly.

I placed the ball back in the shark’s court (talk about your mixed metaphors!). And the shark acquiesced to how I handled the situation.

In my experience, the primary survival tips in the office shark tank are to do the right things the right way and let your actions, your reputation and your relationships represent you.

So long as we resist the temptation to become one, we can successfully swim with the sharks.

Greg Wallace is CEO of leadership consulting firm The Wallace Group. He is also the author of the book “Transformation: the Power of Leading from Identity.” Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.

The Career Hackers is a new blog devoted to helping people start their careers and achieve their goals. Learn more about The Career Hackers on Tumblr.

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Your Employees Are Using Social Media at Work; Deal With It

 

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A recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center confirmed what I have long thought. Your employees are using social media at work — 77 percent of them. And I believe even that number is low.

Meanwhile, another recent survey, this one by CareerBuilder (h/t Ragan.com) attributes smartphones to the fact that 20 percent of full-time workers say they work less than five hours per day.

It’s not all bad news for employers. The same study found that evidence that workplace social media policies concerning impact on-the-job use. Workers whose companies have policies regulating social media use at work are less likely to use social media in certain ways:

  • 30 percent of workers whose companies have an at-work social media policy say they use social media while on the job to take a break from work, compared with 40 percent of workers whose employers do not have such policies.
  • 20 percent of workers whose employers have at-work social media policies say they use social media to stay connected to family and friends while on the job, compared with 35 percent  of workers whose social media use is not regulated at work.
  • Only 16 percent of workers whose companies regulate social media at work say they use social media while working to get information that’s helpful to their job, compared with 25 percent of those whose workplaces have no such regulations.

What does all this mean? Despite the help that social media policies provide, employers that try regulate personal social media use out of the workplace are fighting a losing battle. I call it the iPhone-ification of the American workforce. No matter your policy, if your employees can take their smartphones out of their pockets to circumvent the policy, how can you possibly police workplace social media access? Why have a policy you cannot police and enforce? And, don’t forget, the NLRB is watching, too.

Instead of regulating an issue you cannot hope to control, treat employees’ use of social media for what it is — a performance issue. If an employee is not performing up to standards because he or she is spending too much time on the internet, then address the performance problem. A slacking employee will not become a star performer just because you limit his or her social media access; he or she will just find another way to slack off.
Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.
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Cliches Weaken Feedback: Choose Words Wisely!

I’m guessing you’ve heard this phrase before. Either it came out of someone else’s mouth, or you said it: “Don’t take this the wrong way, but…”  I’m also guessing you know what follows the “but”: an awkward cliché or unflattering feedback, perhaps even a downright insulting or blatantly bigoted or sexist statement. Common examples include:  “you talk too loud,”  “people think you’re aggressive,” “you’re so articulate and competent” or “you’re overly emotional.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way” is a poisonous preamble that should be eliminated from interpersonal communication, especially in the workplace. Here’s why:

  • This phrase signals that the speaker knows what follows is inappropriate, perhaps offensive. It’s a gesture designed – intentionally or not – to give the speaker carte blanche to say inappropriate or offensive words.
  • This phrase places all responsibility for the speaker’s impact on the receiver. Speakers exempt themselves from all accountability for what they say.
  • This phrase is an exercise in coercive “power over.” Would you tell your boss, a respected elder, or other authority figure “don’t take this the wrong way, but…”? I doubt it.
  • There is no such thing as “the wrong way.” The receiver is going to take the speaker’s words the way they take it. No one has the right to legislate or dictate someone else’s feelings or reactions. What the speaker really means is, “don’t take this in a way that I don’t mean, or that makes me look like a bad person.” However, it’s the speaker’s responsibility to communicate in a way that aligns with their meaning and come across like a good person, not the receiver’s.

“Don’t take this the wrong way” can be used consciously to manipulate others and inappropriately leverage power, but it’s most often used unconsciously by well-intended people to communicate a sensitive idea or to deliver uncomfortable feedback. This is especially likely in conversations across differences like race, gender, sexual orientation and social class. But rather than softening an uncomfortable message, “don’t take this the wrong way” actually communicates disrespect, impedes dialogue and erodes trust.

If the intent is to soften difficult communication, provide context, and come across as a good person, try these approaches instead:

Own and express your own anxiety: “It’s uncomfortable for me to say this out loud, and I’m not sure how it’s going to come across to you.” Then say the rest without saying “but” first.

  • Example: It’s uncomfortable for me to say this out loud, and I’m not sure how it’s going to come across to you. I’ve heard from some of our customers that they see you as aggressive. I’d like to give you some specific examples, then problem solve together.

Take responsibility for your words: “I want to give you some feedback to help you succeed.” [Insert uncomfortable words]. “I realize that may come across as [acknowledge potential negative impact on the receiver].” Express next steps.

  • Example: I want to give you some feedback to help you succeed. I’m hearing from customers that you’re being aggressive with them. I realize that feedback may come across as insulting, especially coming from your male boss. I’d like to give you some specific examples, then problem solve together.

Frame what you’re going to say, using your knowledge about diversity and intercultural communication. “I understand that [insert knowledge or stereotype here].” Don’t say “but”. “My intention is to [be transparent about your goal for the communication].”

  • Example: I understand that there’s a stereotype about women being seen as “aggressive” when they’re confident go-getters. My intention is to give you some specific feedback about how our customers experience you this way, then problem solve together to get better results.

Silence. If you know a certain idea, stereotype or cliché can be triggering, potentially insulting, or inappropriate, don’t say it at all. This includes during casual, informal office conversation.

  • Example: Don’t take this the wrong way, Silvia, but you are so loud and aggressive for a woman! Say nothing instead.

Intent does not equal impact. Having good intentions isn’t enough to be effective and produce excellence, even as a leader. It requires awareness, knowledge and skills like these to communicate effectively across differences and have the positive impact that matches your intent.

Susana Rinderle is president of Susana Rinderle Consulting LLC. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

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Misled in a Job Interview? You’re Not Alone

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Entering the workforce, whether it be as an intern, part-time worker or full-time employee, is both an exciting and daunting challenge. It requires countless hours being devoted to researching job openings, creating rĂŠsumĂŠs and cover letters, preparing for interviews and, hopefully, receiving and deciding between job offers.

Once a job seeker accepts a job offer, one of two fates is likely to unfold:

The first, a positive experience full of one-of-a-kind learning opportunities that are both fun and educational and take place alongside intelligent, friendly and supportive co-workers who will serve as possible connections and resources throughout the newbie’s future career.

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Moritz Kothe, kununu

The second, an utter disaster full of boring tasks and surprise responsibilities, resulting from poorly skilled employers, negative work environments, and misleading HR professionals who misrepresented the company during the interview process.

This second fate is what Moritz Kothe, CEO of kununu, an employee rating site new to the U.S. market via a partnership with Monster, describes as the “Oh my God, what have I done?” feeling that job seekers experience all too often after accepting a job offer.

In a kununu survey, which sampled 1,019 employed Americans 18 and older, it found that 23 percent of participants reported having been misled during a job interview, which is almost the same amount of people who reported having been misled on a first date. Furthermore, 3 out of 10 job seekers felt it is often difficult to receive accurate, honest information about the day-to-day experience of a specific job during the interview process.

Based on these findings, it is no wonder that many Americans regret a job after accepting an offer. Fortunately, this does not have to be the case for everyone. The solution here is research. And lots of it.

Job seeking Americans are curious about many aspects of their potential future employer. For example, Kothe says, “some might be interested in what opportunity advancement is like, and some might be interested in what the culture’s like.” Kununu and other employment rating platforms allow inquiring job seekers to access the answers to these questions as told by real employees who have shared their thoughts, experiences and ratings. This allows interested candidates to receive accurate job and company descriptions from people who have actually experienced it firsthand.

Besides using such platforms as kununu or Glassdoor, job seekers should do as much background research on a company as possible by thoroughly examining the company’s websites, press releases, mentions in the media, etc. They should also seek out any possible connections they might have to a current or past employee of a company, because a job seeker can never have too much information when it comes to choosing which company is the right fit for them.

Whether it be through employee review platforms, internet research, or speaking to personal connections, conducting thorough research about a potential employer is vital. This is the key to finding an internship, part-time job, or career that makes a person happy and helps prepare them for success in future aspirations.

AnnMarie Kuzel is a Workforce editorial intern. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.

The Career Hackers is a new blog devoted to helping people start their careers and achieve their goals. Learn more about The Career Hackers on Tumblr.

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Who to Hire When Your Culture Sucks

If there’s anything we love as HR/talent pros, it’s talking about culture. We love talking about how the culture at our company is different, what we value and how we reward people according to our cultural norms.

But the dirty little secret is most people are either actively looking or open to moving to a different opportunity. If you believe a recent 2016 CareerBuilder poll, 3 out of 4 employees would leave your company if the right opportunity came around.

But that’s not you, it’s them. Right?

Sure it is, Sparky.

That stat means one of two things: Either your culture sucks or it doesn’t matter as much as you think it does.

The aforementioned CareerBuilder stat leads to turnover in a good economy, resulting in the blame game inside your company. Who does the company want to blame for rising turnover? HR! Who should be blamed? Probably someone else!

But most HR pros don’t have the time or organizational clout to blame others, so we start to try to stop the bleeding by building a case that our culture is different. We do this in an attempt to differentiate our company on the recruiting and retention trail.

The path is pretty standard. Upgrade workspace and make it cooler. Insert pingpong, foosball and a pool table — in that order — and start recruitment marketing activities designed to compete in a hot market for talent.

Of course, your culture isn’t struggling because you don’t have good ideas or a road map on what you want your real culture to be built on. Your culture struggles because you’ve got mediocre managers.

Crappy managers lead to all kinds of bad outcomes. The most obvious one is a lack of leadership across teams of all sizes and specialties in a company. An absence of leadership leads to team dysfunction, infighting and yes — turnover.

That’s why you probably should stop competing in the superficial culture wars and start getting focused on how you select people to join your company. Whether your culture truly sucks or is just bruised a bit doesn’t really matter — selecting the type of talent who can survive the challenges that exist inside your company is key.

You don’t have to hire superheroes to deal with the cultural challenges inside your company, but you do need to have a road map in mind related to the behavioral strengths that a new hire needs to have to deal with ambiguity, uncertainty and a lack of organizational consensus that accompanies weak culture.

Simply put: Hire the right type of person who can deal with the downside of your culture, and they’ll thrive. If they thrive, odds are they’ll stay.

While it’s impossible to give you notes based on the specific cultural challenges you face, there are some common elements to candidates who can survive in crappy cultures.

First up, star employees in mediocre corporate cultures tend to have low sensitivity; inconsistency or even outright hostility doesn’t fluster them. They take each day as it comes, remaining level-headed and calm when others around them are melting.

Low sensitivity doesn’t mean someone doesn’t care. It simply means you don’t have to talk someone off the ledge when things don’t go as planned. Without the norms of a strong corporate culture, inconsistency in outcomes, feedback and internal politics is the rule rather than the exception.

Another common behavioral characteristic is the ability to deal with chaos. Dealing with chaos requires someone with low-rules orientation.

An employee with low-rules orientation wants to help determine the best possible solution for each circumstance. Inconsistent company culture maximizes that circumstance for all employees, so it stands to reason that the person who can create new solutions on the fly is going to be a winner.

Finally, these employees are almost always more aggressive than their peers. Uncertainty leads to a natural advantage for those with high-assertiveness levels. While no one likes an asshole, there are jerks, sharks or whatever name you want to give assertive people who almost always get more done than passive employees. That reality is even truer when cultural norms aren’t there to guide the way for the masses.

Great HR pros are pragmatic to a fault, which leads to our ability to understand we might be working for companies with room to grow related to culture.

While you’re helping build a culture you can be proud of, do yourself a favor: Start recruiting the type of person who can thrive in that freak show you call a company.

Kris Dunn, the chief human resources officer at Kinetix, is a Workforce contributing editor. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.

 

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SHRM ’16: MetLife’s Jeff Tulloch Talks Retirement Planning

Diversity Casual People Employee Retirement Discussion Brainstorming Concept

It seems like a lazy Sunday in The District, but I’m already pounding the keys on my laptop at the SHRM 2016 Annual Conference & Exposition. I even had my first interview with Jeff Tulloch, MetLife’s vice president of the PlanSmart, Workplace Benefits and Business Advantage group.

Since I have retirement on my mind with my latest “Last Word” column and Workforce’s upcoming July issue on retirement, I talked to Tulloch about what companies can do to help workers with retirement. An edited transcript follows.

Whatever Works: How do you get past the white noise that many employees hear when it comes to retirement planning?

Jeff Tulloch
Jeff Tulloch, MetLife

Jeff Tulloch: The first component is, where we are now compared to 10 years ago, people have woken up to, ‘OK, my parents maybe had a pension plan and they were taken care of, and, well, I don’t have that. So now, what do I do? How do I get myself secure?’ So I think there’s the stark reality that people now have. ‘I need to do something,’ but they don’t know where to go. ‘I see things in the paper, I see things in the magazines, I see things online, I talk to my friends.’ So getting past the white noise, we have this workshop [PlanSmart] offering that is a voluntary benefit. You come if you want. You’re not forced to go. And that gets people to take the first step forward. ‘I know I need information. I just don’t know what I need.’ And then once they get there, there’s a variety of information that’s provided to them that helps get them to a better spot. And then they can self-select if they want to take things to the next step, which is meeting with a financial adviser one on one. So it’s still difficult because, obviously, a large population is not financially well but that forum where — you’re not forced into it, you go if you want — and then you self-select how far you want to go with it helps get people [pointed] in the right direction.

WW: What mistakes are companies making in explaining retirement benefits?

Tulloch: I would say one would be thinking that the 401(k) plan is it. It’s the answer. And it’s not. The average balance nowadays is $100,000, maybe a little less than that. And that’s the average. A lot of people have a lot less. Probably one mistake is: ‘We put a lot of effort into our 401(k) plan, we did a great job of getting more people into it and contributing more, so we’ve done our job.’ And that’s just one component, one mistake. A second one kind of playing off that would be not realizing how stressed out people are regarding their financial matters and how that drains on the company’s productivity. ‘I’m on the phone with people trying to figure stuff out or I’m stressed out online looking stuff up, or I’m stressed out and therefore missing deadlines and not as productive as I should be.’ So I think those two things go together.

WW: Has the mentality changed on how employers approach employee retirement over the years?

Tulloch: I don’t know that I’d say it’s completely changed. I think [it’s] the reality of where companies are now financially and the challenge to be more and more competitive relative to who they are competing against. Companies [are] being stretched to figure out how to lower expenses. That’s the reality. The people we interact with, large corporations, they want to do what’s right. I think the same passion is generally there to help employees, but then there’s the reality of, ‘We can’t give you a pension plan anymore.’

WW: What about the smaller employers?

Tulloch: They are even more challenged just because of the resources available to them. And a small employer, if I’m the owner or one of the key managers, I’m so focused on the 14 jobs I have within the company that I’m stressed to figure out what to do for the employees. So that’s tough. There are tools out there to provide people with access to information, whether it’s online calculators or newsletters, things like that.

WW: What three bullet points do you have for companies to provide best practices to help employees with retirement planning?

Tulloch: The first would be drive a culture of helping support people financially from the top down. Make sure it’s not just something that an upper-level manager is supporting. Really start at the top, the CEO, the owner of the business,  and really say, ‘This is important. We’re committed to it. We want our employees to be in a good spot, and we’re going to do everything we can.’

One would be start with the CEO on down. The second would be realize that there’s a commonality that most of us have some level of financial stress in our lives, but the range of what that stress is is extreme. You and I can be the same age and [have] the same income, but your stress might be that you’re trying to save for college. My stress might be I have a special-needs sibling that I’m taking care of. The third one might be I have no clue what I’m trying to save for retirement.

The second one would be realize there’s a wide need; it’s not just one answer.

The third would be accessibility. Do people want it on the phone, do they want a workshop setting, do they want it online on the intranet? And I think the answer is probably yes to all of that. So how can you deliver something that’s multimedia?

James Tehrani is Workforce’s managing editor. Follow Tehrani on Twitter at @WorkforceJames and like his blog on Facebook at “Whatever Works” blog.

 

 

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The Last Word: The Tired Scare Tactics on Retirement

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To maintain my, ahem, lavish lifestyle, I’ll need to put away $2.2 million by the time I’m ready to retire at age 67, according to the retirement calculator on CNN Money. And with all those Social Security benefits promised to me, I’ll have it made.

As a longtime journalist and editor who torches fifty-dollar bills to light cigars, I scoff at this declaration about my retirement and any fearmongering from the financial experts out there, like this little rant on neglecting saving for retirement from Dave Ramsey: “You’re going to be so bad, you’re going to be ordering the cookbook ‘72 Ways to Prepare Alpo and Love It.’ ”

Well, that’s pretty ruff. I mean, rough.

“I could pawn my new Ferrari F60 for more than that,” I shout at my computer screen, adding a juicy raspberry and “na-na, na-na, boo-boo” for good measure.

Then reality hits.

Huh? Wait, I must have been daydreaming.

“Oh, crap,” I say to myself as I snap back to reality. There’s a better chance of Trump, Cruz, Clinton and Sanders singing “The hills are alive with the sound of music” together in a picturesque meadow than I being able to set aside more than $2 million to retire. Of course, my wife will have to fend for herself under this maddening retirement scenario. Love you, honey, but the “you” in CNN’s “Will you have enough to retire?” tool is second-person singular as far as I can tell, and there’s an “I” and a “me” in “retirement.” So …

But there is a ray of hope. If I hang on to my job until age 76, the calculator tells me I should be on track to have just enough money to retire. That is as long as I plan on being healthy for the rest of my days and I expire at age 92.

If I beat expectations and go for the century mark, or spend the last years of my life regretting those hot dogs and cheeseburgers I ate at backyard barbecues over the years, or those Bombay Sapphire martinis I imbibed at various social gatherings, or if my asthma catches up to me from the summers I spent breathing in smoke and coughing up black junk while grilling ribs at outdoor festivals, I could be hurting even more.

Medical bills: expensive. And playing bridge for money with people who are much better at cards than I am is expensive, too. Unfortunately, I’ve heard bad things about the “I’m gonna strike it rich” by playing the lottery every week strategy for retirement.

It’s not going to be easy for me to save enough for retirement for sure, but women have it even harder, writes Patty Kujawa in our retirement feature, “Making Up the Difference.” She cites a Transamerica report that found women are less likely than men to have access to a 401(k) and are also less likely to participate in one or even contribute to one.

Furthermore, in its 2016 Retirement Confidence survey, the Employee Benefits Research Institute found that 40 percent of unmarried women have less than $1,000 stashed away for retirement. Twenty-two percent of married women were under $1,000 as well.

The EBRI survey also offered this grim analysis: “Despite the fact that women tend to face higher expenses in retirement due to their greater longevity, unmarried women (36 percent) are more likely than their unmarried male counterparts (25 percent) to think they will need to accumulate less than $250,000 for retirement.”

Two hundred and fifty grand? What is this 1950?

If you had a quarter of a million dollars back then, it would be the same as almost $2.5 million today. Problem is it hasn’t been 1950 for, oh, 66 years.

Our friends at the Social Security Administration tell us that if you’re a female millennial born Jan. 1, 1982, you are expected to live almost 86 years, and if you make it to age 70, you’re on pace to live till 89.

That’s great, but we are going to start seeing more people work to 100 and beyond just to pay the bills.

It’s nice to know there are some organizations like Cedars-Sinai that offer a choice in retirement benefits. Employees at the Los Angeles-based health care facility can choose — yes, choose — between a defined contribution plan and a defined benefit plan.

While we can’t “turn back time to the good old days,” it’s important to know there are a lot of workers who are “stressed out” about retirement. Is there anything you, the HR community, can do to communicate differently about retirement? Clearly the scare tactics just aren’t working.

Let’s figure this out soon. I’m almost out of Alpo.

James Tehrani is Workforce’s managing editor. Follow Tehrani on Twitter at @WorkforceJames and like his blog on Facebook at “Whatever Works” blog.

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8 Remote Meeting Tools That Aren’t a Waste of Time

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While you might see PowerPoint presentations, conference tables and paper agendas as the only way to set up a meeting, I see it as a bad choice.

As a remote worker for most of my life, the least efficient meetings have been the ones I’ve participated in while seated around a table. They’re mostly bantering about sport with a vague pep talk at the end — something about “going out there and making more sales.”

The most productive meetings I’ve ever been a part of have been remote — using video chat software, cloud-based documents and file storage resources. We work better in our own comfortable environment with access to the right tools, so if you’re managing a remote team or thinking about putting an end to physical meetings, here’s what’s worked for me.

Tools for Taking Better Meeting Notes

Let’s put a stop to scribbling, photocopying and overwhelming our desks with printouts. Thanks to tools like WorkFlowy, Dropbox Paper and minutes.io, those tasks are now obsolete.

WorkFlowy

WorkFlowy lets you create sharable bullet-point lists with tags and search, which is perfect for taking and organizing meeting notes. The way I use it is to keep a list called “meetings,” with sublists of dates that have the notes inside. By tagging the action items, I can quickly search the tag and bring up everything I have to do after the meeting.

Dropbox Paper

Dropbox Paper offers real-time collaboration over cloud-based documents. You can insert code snippets, images, comments and suggestions. For meetings focused on a particular project’s progress, getting your team to draft their ideas and put their resources inside a Dropbox Paper document can be an easy way to get a quick overview and add comments to each section.

Minutes.io

Minutes.io is lightning-fast note-taking software, specifically engineered for taking meeting notes. It features hot keys and automatic emailing to all meeting members, meaning that after the meeting is finished, the person taking the minutes can send it to everyone in the group in one click.

Tools for High-Quality Video Calls

Skype isn’t the only option for video calls. There are plenty of other players in the space.

Screenhero

Screenhero lives inside Slack and offers high-resolution voice, video and screen-sharing. It’s great for when you’re demonstrating your work on your computer without having to have  someone look over your shoulder. However, since it’s acquisition by Slack, you can’t get it as a standalone app.

Appear.in

Appear.in is a video chat service that gives you a permanent room locked to a URL. Members can come and go as they please, but the room remains fixed, making it more efficient than Skype because calls don’t have to be stopped and started. With appear.in, the room is running at all times so the only requirement after setting it up is turning up.

Tools for Storing Meeting Resources

During the employee onboarding process, it’s ideal if you add employees to a platform containing the assets they’re going to need in the future. This could be slides and notes from previous meetings, style guides or to-do lists. Here are some tools we’ve had success using:

Trello

Trello cards are ideal for storing your meeting resources in one place. Make a card for the meeting date, then add in the recording, the notes, slides and anything else you need. Once the meeting notes are attached to cards, you can link the cards to other projects on the relevant boards, centralizing your resources.

Basecamp

Like Trello, Basecamp is a project management tool. That doesn’t mean you can’t . The difference is that you don’t work inside cards, but inside projects. You could set it up so there is a one project for all meetings, and then attach notes and files in there. You can also chat with your team using Campfire — a chat service from the same company.

Google Drive

The advantage of using Google Drive as the go-to place for meeting resources is that it can link directly to your desktop’s file structure. One member can have the notes from their computer saved inside their Drive folder on the desktop, and that automatically syncs to every member. In my opinion, Google Drive is the ideal solution here because it doesn’t stop you from using project management software with it — both Trello and Basecamp can be integrated with Google Drive.

Getting Your Team to Adopt a New Tool

The choice of remote meeting tools can be overwhelming, but there are plenty of options out there. Explore for yourself. Until next time — meeting adjourned.

Benjamin Brandall is the head of content marketing at Process Street, a software as a service company based in California. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

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