InFront on the Workforce

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Employees Want Mentors…Now

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Workers at all levels see mentorships as a valuable perk, but companies aren’t delivering.

As your organization deals with constant change and a range of workplace and industry challenges, coaches and mentors are more important than ever for employees at all levels. Nonetheless, while employees in a recent survey said that mentorships are valuable, few actually have a mentor.

While over half of 3,000 respondents (56%) said they have had a mentor in the past, only 37% said they still have such a professional relationship. Interestingly, 9% said that they aren’t sure if they have a mentor or not, as the relationship is unclear.

When Disaster Strikes, Do You Have Answers Employees Need?

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Don’t wait for an emergency to know ins and outs of FLSA, FMLA compliance.

Hurricanes, tornados, floods, fires, blizzards. When disaster strikes, employers have a plethora of concerns. As HR, you need to think about Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) compliance; and you should be prepared to answer employees’ questions about how, when, and if they will be paid if there are evacuations or closures or they need to take time off.

Nonexempt employees only have to be paid for the time they actually work. Therefore, if your organization is evacuated or closed and they don’t have to report to work, these workers don’t have to be paid.  Exempt (salaried) employees, on the other hand, must be paid their full salary if they work any time during the week of a closure or evacuation. For instance, if everyone but essential staff are sent home on Wednesday because of blizzard and not required to report back to work until Friday, they must receive their full, normal paycheck. However, employers can require workers to use available leave for these absences.

Suicide Rates Rising: Are Your Employees at Risk?

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Beef up your mental health and employee assistance programs to keep workers safe.

Your employees are under pressure–constant regulatory and policy changes to deal with, family issues, financial concerns, and more. You may think they are coping, but are they? Stress and pressure can push people who already have mental illness such as depression to the brink. You need to be able to recognize signs that someone may be hurting.

According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the suicide rate has jumped 33% between 1999 and 2017, and the rates were significantly higher last year, especially among men. Your older employees, as well as your residents, are not risk-free. Older adults (people over age 65) make up just 12% of the population, but they account for 18% of all suicide deaths.

Employers can’t assume that their workers and safe and happy, and a growing number are acknowledging urgency to address mental health. Currently, 70% of employers say they are taking some action on this issue or plan to do so within the next two years. These actions vary from working to erase the stigma of mental illness to partnering with outside organizations for mental-health support.

Despite Barriers, HR Can Lead Digitalization

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HR leaders face barriers to digital solutions, but continuous performance improvement can help.

HR executives agree that taking the leap to high-tech operations is a top priority for 2019 and beyond, but many aren’t sure how to pursue this, how to ensure success, and how to get buy-in from the top down.

According to one survey, 94% of corporate HR officers are planning to digitalize HR within 1-3 years to improve operations, employee experience, and productivity; and they are pursuing an average of five digital initiatives. However, 61% said they aren’t prepared to manage this digital transformation. Most respondents (73%) rated their organizations as having a below average level of digital advancement.

So what is holding them back? According to respondents, top barriers include poor existing IT infrastructure, insufficient funding for digital innovations, and competing organizational priorities. Of course, HR professionals working in organizations that already are digitally advanced have fewer concerns about these barriers.

House Passes Paycheck Fairness Act: What’s Next?

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Pay equity is a hot issue that can impact morale, engagement, and retention. Don’t wait for a law to address it.

By a 55-vote margin, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Paycheck Fairness Act (H.R. 7) this week. If passed into law, the bill would prohibit employers from asking job candidates about their salary history and require them to demonstrate definitively that pay disparities between men and women are job-related. 

Survey: Employee Trust in Executives Lacking

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Employees care: Does management walk the walk when it comes to culture?

According to a new survey, employees understand the value of company culture, but they don’t always think that management is effective at communicating or modeling it. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of employees said workplace culture impacts their organization’s success.  Three-quarters said that culture influences their own performance; 77% suggested it inspires them to do their best work. Seventy-six percent (76%) said it impacts their productivity and performance, and 74% said culture influences their ability to best serve customers/clients/patients. Sounds great, right? Well, here’s the problem: the survey also showed a major gap between employees’ recognition of culture’s value and how they experience it at work day to day.

G.I. Jobs: Hiring Vets Is a Winning Proposition

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In a tight labor market, veterans can help solve your workforce woes.

Many employers look to veterans as a pool of potential employees. Now they can be rewarded for their efforts. The U.S. Department of Labor is accepting applications for the 2019 HIRE vets Medallion Award Program, which recognizes employers for their investment in recruiting, employing, and retaining our nation’s veterans. The award signals your commitment to veteran hiring and retention, letting potential applicants and clients know that you’re a veteran-friendly business. View the award criteria and apply here. If you haven’t get looked to veterans as potential employees, it’s not too late; and the benefits are numerous.

Bright Ideas Are Everywhere: Make Innovation Work for You

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Are you making the most of creative innovators in your organization?

Innovation is essential to getting ahead, especially in a tight employment market. HR can help create a culture of innovation and encourage employees to be visionaries and problem solvers. This process starts with brainstorming, but it doesn’t end with a good idea. Innovation is a process that starts with people asking “what if?” and moves on to involve planning, developing, testing, changing, retesting, and—yes—sometimes failure. In the end, though, innovation results in better systems, products, materials, and tools that make improve work and life.  So now that you understand the innovation process, what’s next?

Employee Journey Mapping: Track Worker Experience to Improve Recruitment, Retention

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Sometimes it’s the journey, not the destination; employee journey mapping can help everyone enjoy the trip.

Journey mapping, though typically associated with efforts to track customer/patient encounters, can help you identify the moments that matter to employees in their work experience.

What is journey mapping? Generally, it is a process in which you visually plot out the experience your employees have in their tenure with your business, helping to identify opportunities for improvement and highlighting the good and bad parts of the experience. Employee journey mapping enables HR to examine what employees are saying about the organization (for instance, on social media) and determine how closely their experiences match what is described in recruitment and hiring materials. Via mapping, HR can track each stage of employment to understand how it impacts the worker’s experience holistically.

Understand Employee Complaints to Improve Retention

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From pay and equity issues to concerns about benefits and communication, employees share their top workplace grievances.

A survey of employees at 2,100 organizations representing various industries identified the top complaints employees have. Consider which of these might be issues in your organization and how you might address them to improve hiring, retention, and engagement.