HR Industry Brief

Employers are aware that working parents have more pressures and responsibilities than ever, and they fear that they aren’t doing enough to help. According to a new survey of employers:

• Fewer than half say their programs and policies are effectively meeting the needs of working parents.
• 74% say that supporting working parents is a top priority, although one in four say they’re losing employees because of increased caregiving responsibilities.
• 97% say they offer flexible hours for working parents. More than one-fourth report that they provide access to backup childcare services or discounts/subsidies for daycare or other supports.

More than ever, culture is more than a buzzword. During this pandemic, organizations with true cultures of agility were able to pivot, adapt, and innovate to survive and even thrive. Moving forward, consider the five elements your culture needs to be flexible, fluid, and creative:

• Promote psychological safety. This means creating an environment where people feel comfortable taking risks and trying out process changes and new ideas. This leads to greater collaboration, innovation, and engagement.
• Agility mindset. Give employees permission to question how the business is changing and have input into ways you can better meet stakeholder need and move forward with new ideas quickly. Don’t let promising ideas or innovations get bogged down with endless reviews and sign-offs.
• Inclusive collaboration. Break down the silos and bring people from different teams and departments together to collaborate on projects. Identify and celebrate the strengths and … [Read more...] about (9/24) 5 Elements of a Culture of Agility

A national Coronavirus Commission for Safety and Quality in Nursing Homes has released its final report, featuring 27 recommendations for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and other regulatory entities in 10 areas, including testing and screening, equipment and PPE, workforce issues, and communication. Here are some of the key recommendations:

• Increase specificity and expand breadth of guidance on communication between nursing home staff, residents, and families.
• Mobilize resources to support a fatigued nursing home workforce and assess minimum care standards.
• Provide equity-oriented guidance that allows nursing home workforce members to safely continue to work in multiple nursing homes while adhering to infection prevention and control practices.
• Catalyze interest in the CNA profession through diverse recruitment vehicles; issue guidance for on-the-job CNA training, testing, and certification; and create a national … [Read more...] about (9/23) Coronavirus Commission for Safety and Quality in Nursing Homes Report Released

Do you have the right tech tools to manage your workforce in a time of unprecedented changes and challenges? Here a few cutting-edge resources that should be in your toolkit:

• A capability in your time/attendance tools, this puts a “fence” around the location in which workers can’t clock in unless they’re onsite.
• Combatting burnout and fatigue. More employers are using resilience training software that can help workers survive change and manage the emotional/mental health issues that they may experience.
• Machine learning. Employers are using this to help guide talent planning and investment decisions.
• Voice of the Employee (VoE) technologies are gaining traction. These let employers collect and analyze workers’ opinions, perceptions, and feelings through efforts such as surveys or feedback tools.

According to a new analysis, job roles may require up to 10 new skills by 2021; and the current environment – including economic instability due to the pandemic – has made traditional talent pools less viable for source talent. As a result, employers are rethinking how to best get work done and what skills their workers will need in this new normal; and they are making some changes to recruiting functions:

• Defining talent needs by prioritizing skills instead of hiring profiles.
• Uncovering the total skills market instead of targeting known talent pools.
• Creating responsive EVPs, not just responsive candidates.
• Leveraging HR partnerships to map future needs.
• Recruiters and employers working together on how to best align job strategy with organization-wide objectives.

As the U.S. officially entered a recession earlier this year, one study says, employee engagement experienced an 11% increase over this same period in 2019. At the same time, workers’ intent to stay in their current position is at an all-time high. Before attributing these numbers to the pandemic or the economic downturn and becoming complacent, consider the most common and consistent root causes of increased engagement and satisfaction:

• Communication and leadership. Employees almost unanimously report that frequency of communication from leaders has increased their engagement and made them feel supported during the pandemic. Survey data shows that engagement is linked to employees having what they need to be productive, feelings of connection between managers and team members, workers who feel informed about the company’s priorities, and support for employees’ work and personal lives.
• Health, wellbeing, and balance. Employees report that their engagement has … [Read more...] about (9/18) Why Has Employee Engagement Improved During the Pandemic?

Before the pandemic, home health employers often were scrambling to find workers. However, in recent months, turnover and hiring are down; and there isn’t as much of an urgency to attract job seekers. Among recent data about the home health care workforce:

• The turnover rate for home care aides and licensed practical nurses in 2019 was under 30%. This compares to over 60% for similar positions in the healthcare industry as a whole.
• As of August 28, job postings for home care and home health jobs were down 14%-20% from last year on major job sites.

A new report suggests that 70% of organizations use at least one cloud-based HR system, and interest in these tools is growing. The benefits of cloud-related solutions include:

• They simplify the data entry process and managers only have to deal with one source of information. This enables them to be more efficient and focus on the quality of data.
• They enable/provide more frequent updates. Automatic updates allow you to adopt new functionality and apply it promptly.
• They are updated regularly to comply with new laws. For instance, they can consider tax laws for different geographies.
• They offer better data security. Cloud-based system developers are well aware that one breach could be disastrous, so they’ve put the effort into security measures that stay up-to-date with new threats, viruses, malware, etc.

According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projections, the labor force will grow slowly and participation will decline in the coming decade. Among the findings:

• The slow workforce growth is due in part to the aging of the baby boomer generation, all of which will be age 65 by 2029.
• An increase of six million jobs is predicted by 2029.
• Labor force participation is expected to decline from 63.1% to 61.2%.
• Social services and healthcare will add the most new jobs in the coming decade. Of the 10 projected fastest-growing occupations, six are related to healthcare. Home health and personal care aides top the list.
• Outside of healthcare, information security analysts and statisticians are in greatest demand.
• Retail may lose the most jobs between now and 2029.

Every day, you wake up and think about what you can do to succeed for yourself, your organization, and the world around you. A new approach to achieving the win-win-win is to think “me-we-world”:

• Positive change starts with you. It may sound trite, but you need to invest the time, attention, and resources to get and stay physically and mentally healthy and surround yourself with positive people and activities.
• Focus on change in your formal and informal teams. Nurture trust, which leads to belonging/engagement, creativity, and resilience in the face of challenge and crisis.
• Focus on how you can positively impact the people and planet around you – both in work and life. Identify the key areas you are passionate about, determine how you can have an impact, and develop a plan/timeline to make contributions and promote positive change.