Workplace Culture – Page 24

September 29, 2016June 29, 2023

Arming for the Workplace Cultural Dynamics

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

WF_1016_CultureWarsImage_302 — Focus on relationships, not rules, when it comes to creating a thriving workplace culture.

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

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

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

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

The Tension

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Practical Solutions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

September 23, 2016June 29, 2023

Stay Out of My Hair. Deal With My Work

This week, in a 3-0 decision, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a case brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against an Alabama company that rescinded a job offer because a black woman refused to cut off her dreadlocks.

I don’t want to, but I can see two sides in the issue. Dreads are a hairstyle; they aren’t an “immutable trait,” as the court says. They often have spiritual significance, and they take a lot of time and effort to grow and care for, but they are a hairstyle.

If they’re long and the person works around machinery where they might get caught, or in a kitchen where they might flop into the soup, OK, let’s regulate it — just as you would long hair of any type — hello hair net. Or, if an employer feels that a certain hairstyle is inappropriate for their particular workplace — a hair salon with a predominantly white customer base — it makes more sense for them to say you don’t meet our internal or external aesthetic. That too has its iffy sides, but I get it. Here, however, we’re not talking about a kitchen or a plant filled with dangerous, heavy machinery. We’re not talking about a salon filled to the brim with little old white ladies with beehives and blue-tinted bouffants. We’re talking about customer service. I’ll get to that in a minute.

With this ruling, we’re now walking a fine, fine line. If the Supreme Court can ban dreads from the workplace — a hairstyle almost exclusively favored by people of African descent, what’s next? At some point in the future, will my employer be legally able to force me to get a perm if they decide my curl pattern’s not right for the office?

The company involved in the incident that kicked it all off openly stated that this was a grooming issue. A piece published in Elle recounted the tale:

“In 2010, a woman named Chastity Jones received a job offer from Catastrophe Management Solutions in Mobile, Alabama. But according to Jones, a white human resources manager took issue with her dreadlocks, saying the style was against company policy because dreadlocks “tend to get messy, although I’m not saying yours are, but you know what I’m talking about.” ’

WF_0916_ONLINE_Dreadlocks — Dreadlocks were at the center of a case recently decided by the federal 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Um, no. No I don’t. Actually, wait. I have seen some extremely messy dreads before — on white people’s heads. Sorry, guys. Certain textures of hair don’t work as well in certain hairstyles. It’s just a universal beauty shop truth.

But let’s dig into to that HR manager a bit. The woman openly said that dreads — also known as black, natural hair — are messy. There’s so much wrong with that, I don’t think I have enough strength in my fingers to type/battle it out. But ultimately it goes back to a not uncommon belief that natural black hair is offensive, dirty and ugly. Why? It doesn’t conform to the accepted standard of beauty. Comedian Paul Mooney said it best: If your hair is relaxed, white people are relaxed. If your hair is nappy, they’re not happy.

Black hair has always been political, not to mention an endless source of curiosity. I’ve blogged more than once about incidents in the news where some poor black person’s body became the equivalent of a petting zoo for an unexposed person who regressed to toddler age and couldn’t keep their hands to themselves.

I’m no legal eagle; I don’t know the ins and outs of the case and the deliberation process that produced the final ruling, but it seems like one key side of the issue has been woefully neglected: Would Chastity Jones’ hair prevent her from giving excellent customer service? No. Not unless someone wrapped one of the dreads around her throat, and she couldn’t talk.

An unstated opinion or a belief rooted in bias should not be allowed to dictate policy. We can throw legal terms, arguments and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 around all day, but at the root this is about a perceived lack. Jones was judged not on her performance but on her appearance. Whether the employer’s decision to discriminate or behave in a biased and prejudicial manner was ultimately deemed legal or not, this woman was quietly labeled unattractive, and she lost the means to make a living because of it.

When it comes to the workplace we need to ask ourselves, what’s more important? Perception or performance?

Kellye Whitney is the associate editorial director for Workforce. To comment, email editor@workforce.com.

September 19, 2016June 29, 2023

What Are You Scared Of?

I’m not one for contemplating the big questions. You know: Why are we here? Does God exist? What’s the meaning of life?

I disdained philosophy in college. I had a headache the entire class because my eyes were constantly rolling, and no question ever seemed to have an answer.

I’m big on answers: We’re here because we are. Now live it up until you’re not. God exists if you want him to. If you don’t, he won’t. And the meaning of life? That’s up to you. We have these wonderful things called free will and choice with which to craft if not the life of our dreams, at least lives we can be proud of.

But I often ask myself one big question: Why are people so resistant to diversity?

Off the top of my head I can come up with a half dozen really great answers: history, social conditioning, life experiences, diversity fatigue, the need for power — that’s a personal favorite — and the winner of this motley group of diversity blockers, fear.

Fear.

It makes sense. The sexist remarks, the refusal to consider minorities for leadership positions, the unreal, almost determinedly blind lack of response to incidents of racism, discrimination and inequality in the workplace — and everywhere else — the insistence that very real experiences for some are not real at all, or because of who these realities occur to they are not worth acting upon or even considering, it all screams — to me — I’m scared of you. I think you could take my job and surpass me. Therefore, I’m going to shut you down by fair means or foul.

Of course, everyone who throws up a workplace road block for a woman, a disabled person, someone of color or someone who is LGBTQ, isn’t motivated by fear. Just like every white man isn’t racist, and every black woman isn’t angry, and every gay man or transgender woman isn’t secretly trying to convert the world to their way of life — that’s not actually a thing, by the way. But I’d venture to say — with absolutely no real way to prove this — that most of the artificial barriers minorities face in the workplace are generated and/or motivated by fear.

And in a business context, that leaders allow fear to dictate policy and procedure, that baffles me.

You don’t have to be a genius to look at the numbers, or the dollars. Diversity makes money — period. It helps businesses reach customers, innovate new products and services to sell, diversity can help companies reach new or untapped audiences with huge pots of discretionary/disposable income. It helps plump up talent pipelines, guide talent management efforts, produce better internal and external business outcomes. Diversity can facilitate more effective and results oriented collaboration, and in many situations it can mitigate risk.

There’s so much data floating around that proves diversity is good for business on multiple fronts. I just read an excellent piece from Tech Crunch on the competitive advantages diversity can bring. It was chock full of data points, many I’ve seen in myriad studies, on websites and in speeches. For instance:

“A 2015 McKinsey study found ethnically diverse companies were more than 35 percent more likely to outperform their industry counterparts. Even more significantly, each 10 percent increase in racial and ethnic diversity on the senior executive team yielded on average a rise of 0.8 percent in earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT).”

That’s real money directly attributable to diversity.

Or, check out these data points from the same article:

“ … a Credit Suisse study found that companies with higher female representation at the board level or in top management exhibit higher returns on equity, higher valuations and also higher payout ratios. Dow Jones studied more than 20,000 venture-backed companies over a five-year period and found that those companies with at least one woman executive were more likely to succeed than those with only men in leadership positions.”

That snippet didn’t throw around any hard or exact figures, but higher returns on equity, higher valuations and higher payout ratios, success in business, those word combos equal cash, kids. Bucks, dinero, moola, loot. And if we’re not just talking about dollars and sense in the marketplace, diversity also generates goodwill, brand equity, customer loyalty. And guess what? All of those things generate cash too.

So, I ask all of you discerning business professionals out there, if there’s a proven way to ensure that your efforts at work mean your company will make more money and solidify its place as a leader in the global marketplace, why wouldn’t you take it?

Fear.

Here’s another question for you: If you are scared of someone who’s different — and fear manifests in many different ways: aggression, distance, hyper-sensitivity, etc. — what are you really scared of? Of giving someone unproven a chance? Don’t be. Someone gave you a chance when you were new and untried. They mentored and nurtured and helped you learn from your mistakes, and you turned out great.

Are you scared a minority will eclipse you? Hence, you feel it’s in your best interest to keep a lid on your professional competition? Don’t be silly. Insecurity is weakness.

Be the guy or the girl who had the brains to prepare and package potential greatness, and unleash it on the competition. Be the leader who develops other leaders no matter what they look like or where they come from. Be the manager who ignores petty, temporary discomfort in favor of getting the job done, and done well, by using every available talent resource. Be the person responsible for developing the woman, gay man or whoever it is who shows that they want to take the bit between their teeth and run with it, and let the company reap the benefits.

Leaders who embrace diversity, who welcome it – despite any discomfort or unknowns — who enable it and measure it, they rarely regret it. These people aren’t necessarily fearless. They may still have valid questions and concerns.

But they’re willing to ask the tough questions, to challenge the status quo, to resist what that Tech Crunch article so eloquently called “a natural tendency toward sameness” that “has become a liability in today’s marketplace.” Leaders who understand the value of diversity are willing to use natural fear not to stall but to invigorate workforce productivity and effectiveness, to build fabulous cultures that talent queue up to join, and ultimately to knock those bottom line figures out of the park.

I ran across an Insta post on Scandal actor Tony Goldwyn’s account a few weeks ago. He was acknowledging Women’s Equality Day, and it reads: The rise of women does not mean the fall of men.

Allowing others who are different to step up to the plate or sit down at the table doesn’t mean those who are already in play will lose their place. Some may. No lie. I know it. There aren’t infinite slots at the top or unlimited corner offices. It’s natural that some rise and some fall based on talent, opportunity, work ethic. There are any number of variables that determine who is a success and who is a failure in the business world. But will you cheat to maintain your position, your corner office?

I have one more question for leaders: Are you scared to compete?

Kellye Whitney is the associate editorial director for Workforce. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

September 12, 2016June 29, 2023

Forced Retirement Is an Age Discrimination No-no

The EEOC has sued a Colorado hospital for age discrimination. The key allegation? That it forced employees to resign because of their age. The lawsuit claims hospital managers made ageist comments, including that younger nurses could “dance around the older nurses” and that they preferred younger and “fresher” nurses.

According to Phoenix District EEOC Regional Attorney Mary Jo O’Neill, “Research shows that pervasive stereotypes about older workers still persist — for example, there are widespread stereotypes that older workers are less motivated, flexible, or trusting and that a younger workforce is preferable. These stereotypes are flatly untrue and must be recognized for what they are — prejudice and false assumptions.”

While not necessarily on point, this case does segue into an important issue — mandatory retirement. It’s still a fairly popular misconception that businesses can force employees to retire at a certain age.
In truth, with the exception of a few limited circumstances, mandatory retirement ages are about as close to a slam dunk case of illegal age discrimination you can find. The exceptions permit — but do not require — mandatory retirement:

At age 65 of executives or other employees in high, policy-making positions.
At age 55 for publicly employed firefighters and law enforcement officers.

Forcing an employee out is the same as requiring an employee to retire. While lessening duties and responsibilities, demotions, and reductions in pay could cause an older employee to retire, it could also cause that same employee to claim a constructive discharge. However, there is no law that says that an older employee does not have to meet the same legitimate expectations of the job as any other employee. If an older worker is not performing as needed or required, document and treat as you would any other employee.

Treat the employee’s performance, not the employee’s age.

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

August 30, 2016June 29, 2023

The Problem With You vs. Them

It starts out with good intentions to celebrate diversity, ensure equity and practice inclusive leadership. You implement employee resource groups for historically underrepresented groups like LGBTs, start a mentoring program for women of color, and equip leaders to coach millennials on workplace norms and professionalism. But after a while you revisit your D&I metrics and find you haven’t met your goals. In fact, your results are slightly worse than when you started.

What’s going on?

The problem may be an incomplete or misguided sense of what inclusion is. Like the rest of your leadership team, you’re smart and well intended and have a commitment to D&I grounded in supporting employee brilliance and excellence, which generate tangible results for your organization. You believe one way to accomplish this is to help certain identity groups feel more a part of things, supported in their professional development and generally brought into the fold.

The problem with this approach is that it’s an assimilation model based on the notion that “they” must be more like “you” to succeed and add value. It subtly communicates that “you” are superior and “they” are inferior and need fixing.

This presents a power imbalance that doesn’t leverage the real reason diversity plus inclusiveness gets better results: multiple brains contributing their unique brilliance to form a bigger combined brain that generates more ideas and makes better decisions. True inclusion or inclusiveness isn’t just about hearing all voices and taking them seriously; it’s about ensuring shared power and equitable involvement in decision making. True inclusiveness means that “you” too are open to exploring what “they” bring and changing how “you” do things.

Consider the way millennials are commonly viewed and treated in the workplace. I often hear negative, even emotional opinions expressed about millennials’ supposed lack of work ethic and poor workplace habits in stereotypical terms, which if used to discuss a group of color would likely result in serious outcry and lawsuits.

The dominant belief is that these young people must be taught how to behave correctly. However, there isn’t anything inherently correct or superior about leaving earbuds at home, staying off phones in meetings, following orders without giving feedback or insisting on personal benefit.

Behaviors are assigned meaning within a particular set of beliefs and norms, also known as culture. Common behaviors exhibited by millennials and other identity groups can actually add value if explored with curiosity and commitment to win-win solutions. New, even odd behaviors can provide tremendous positive results, especially within the context of their cultural frame, which — like it or not when it comes to millennials and people of color — is the future. If you have doubts, read this article about how millennials are doing exactly that in organizations, including Starbucks, that listen and adapt.

At the same time, there are new or different behaviors that don’t add value, and the old way is demonstrably better in terms of business impact, productivity, results, engagement or just plain workplace awesomeness. Perhaps a certain dress code, work station layout, schedule or set of meeting norms really are the best fit to support your organization’s vision, mission, goals and objectives.

The key to success is taking the time to explore, engage and devise creative solutions that maximize benefit to all parties, not just you. This includes gathering data to determine what is true and not based on assumptions. For example, is it really true that your customers fear employees with tattoos or don’t take them seriously if they don’t wear ties?

Creating an inclusive culture isn’t “either-or”: either requiring “them” to adapt and assimilate to you or you offering everything up for debate and input by “them.” The answer is “both-and,” which requires time, effort and intentionality at first, but pays huge dividends over time and allows “you” to ensure your sustainability and relevance into a future dominated more by “them.”

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

August 15, 2016July 25, 2018

Before the Whistle Blows: Creating a Speak-up Culture at Work

We’d all like to believe that the companies we work for are on the up-and-up. That from the top of the organizational chart to the bottom, everyone is on the same page when it comes to honest business practices and integrity.

The reality is that all organizations suffer lapses in ethics and compliance at times. Strengthening a company’s ethics program — and making it central to business strategy — won’t eliminate such lapses, but research shows it can reduce misconduct “by as much as 66 percent in organizations with effective programs,” according to the Ethics and Compliance Initiative, a report based on the findings of a panel of 24 thought-leaders including myself.

A key element of any effective ethics and compliance program involves promoting a “speak-up” culture that empowers employees to report suspected violations early.

Creating a “speak-up” culture puts a premium on ethical decision-making across the board with responsibility shared by all. But setting the tone and promoting that culture rests squarely on the shoulders of organizational leaders.

Their endorsement and modeling create an atmosphere of openness and trust that reassures employees who are understandably anxious about coming forward, whether out of fear of being let go or fear of being ostracized. Leaders who take employee concerns seriously and follow through send a strong message about integrity.

But as the ECI report highlights, there are several desirable and effective practices that broadly apply. They involve formal mechanisms as well as thoughtfulness and creativity.

Provide Multiple Methods for Reporting

One starting place for organizations is to make sure that managers and supervisors receive thorough training in how to respond to and guide employees who come forward. These sessions may also expand to include full team training with hypothetical scenarios or case studies. Simultaneously, the organization ensures that the ethics and compliance policy is clear on how violations are identified and acted upon. Employees must know what constitutes misconduct within the organization and at what point it should be reported. From there, employees need to know the methods available for speaking up.

A high quality ethics program will have multiple methods for reporting concerns. These may include talking confidentially with a supervisor, an ethics and compliance officer or a human resources representative. Use of a company “hotline” or reporting website can also go a long way toward encouraging employees who are more comfortable reporting anonymously. Global organizations should include translation services as needed and the ability to report day or night. Whatever the method, the program should make clear how the complaint will next be handled.

Treat All Reporters the Same

When an employee chooses to report face-to-face, the manager should focus on the investigation of the allegation, not the reporter, no matter how often they have come forward or the perceived seriousness (or lack thereof) of the allegation. This approach will underscore a commitment to addressing problems while at the same time sending a message about consistency and fair treatment for all employees.

Managers may also wish to acknowledge the employee’s courage as doing so may help ameliorate a natural sense of discomfort or fear. Most importantly, the manager must emphasize the organization’s policy of non-retaliation for coming forward. Protecting an employee from blowback from the start and at every step of the way as the investigation proceeds supports a team commitment to resolution by the manager and the reporter.

As the issue proceeds, the organization should check in with the reporter periodically to make sure they have not experienced any retaliation. Substantiated instances must be brought to the attention of senior management and, as appropriate, the board.

For employees who just want to report the initial finding and skip the check-in process, the company can monitor their career success over the long term to get a read on well-being and any possible retaliation.

Acknowledge the Outcome

When a case concludes, where possible the organization will want to close the loop by communicating directly with the reporter about the outcome. Managers should reiterate their gratitude and admiration for coming forward. But the moment also presents a golden opportunity to reinforce the speak-up culture across the board.

Organizations should consider sharing the results with all employees in a manner that does not include identifying details about the parties involved (such as an appropriately scrubbed employee newsletter entry). When the wrongdoing is very public, the organization should generally acknowledge the issues to all employees and the actions it took to rectify them.

Establishing a high quality ethics program with a strong speak-up culture requires thorough planning and commitment. It’s not a simple matter of checking off the one-size-fits-all boxes. Compliance is an ongoing process that requires frequent check-in and check-ups.

But it’s well worth it. Research shows that in organizations with effective ethics and compliance programs, reporting of wrongdoing to managers increased by 88 percent, according to the ECI Report. In the long run, promoting a speak-up culture not only helps to protect an organization from possible misconduct and reputational damage, but it also demonstrates the organization’s commitment to its employees.

Matthew Pachman is the chief risk and compliance officer at FTI Consulting. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

July 19, 2016June 29, 2023

Ohio Appellate Decision Sends Working Moms Back to the 1950s

An employee claims her supervisor advised her not to apply for an open position because “she is a single mother with kids and if [she] had to take time off work, it would jam [us] up for getting someone to cover the scheduling.”

The employee sues for gender discrimination. She wins in a landslide, right?

Guess again. She loses.

Edwards’ statements, if true, merely reflect his concern for the efficiency with which the company operated. Although the statements may have been insensitive to Weber’s relative position as a single mother, they do not, without some inferential leap or presumed ill intention, provide direct evidence of discrimination. This is especially so where, as here, Weber was offered the actual opportunity to apply for the position or, at the least, conduct further inquiry into the application process. We therefore hold the trial court did not err in concluding appellant failed to produce direct evidence of discriminatory intent.

The case, Weber v. Ferrellgas, Inc. (Ohio Ct. App. 6/30/16), reminds me a bit of this other case, from deep in the archives, which cost Kohl’s a $2.1 jury verdict. Different courts, different results.

I believe that Weber is an anomaly. To that end, take a look at this passage from the dissenting opinion, which is right on the money:

In this writer’s humble opinion, I disagree. I believe Edwards’ statements to Weber that he did not want her to apply for the service scheduler position because she is a single mother, if true, constitutes direct evidence of unlawful sexual stereotyping.

Employees should not have to choose between their jobs and their families. Employers who force women to make such decisions are guilty of unlawfully discriminatory sexual stereotyping. Companies need to pay attention to this issue. Weber notwithstanding, familial status discrimination is, and remains, illegal.

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.

July 1, 2016June 29, 2023

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

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.”

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

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

June 20, 2016July 30, 2018

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.

June 19, 2016July 30, 2018

The Last Word: The Tired Scare Tactics on Retirement

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.