by admin | Oct 17, 2023 | Workplace
As the flu and RSV season gets underway, companies are asking themselves how they can support employees who need to stay home to care for their children. In fact, last October, 104,000 Americans missed work because of “childcare problems” – the highest total since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking the figure in 2003. Although that number has since lowered, it has remained above historic levels. Experts have noted that one possible cause is the “Tripledemic” which includes flu, COVID, and RSV.
This isn’t just a problem for parents. Workplace absences are a problem for employers. When parents have to take time off work to care for their children due to illnesses, school closures, or other unforeseen circumstances, it can create challenges for employers in terms of maintaining productivity, meeting deadlines, and ensuring a stable work environment. This is especially true in situations where there is a lack of adequate family leave policies or flexible work arrangements.
How Can Employers Support Working Parents?
Remote Work Options: With the return to office in full swing, employers need to simply recognize that kids get sick. Allowing employees to work from home offers a distinct advantage. It makes all the difference to be able to take a mid-day appointment with your child’s pediatrician. In fact, a FlexJobs survey reported that two-thirds of working parents called remote options a top workplace priority. Additionally, 62% said they would quit their current job if they couldn’t work remotely at times.
Flexibility: Another key tool employers can offer is flexible hours. Kids’ schedules often don’t match up with their parent work schedule. Flexible hours allow parents to make appointments during the day to care for a sick child, allowing them to work in the evening or in the early morning while children are still sleeping is helpful to manage responsibilities both at work and at home.
Empathy and Understanding: Show compassion and understanding when employees need to take time off due to sick children. Avoid making them feel guilty for needing to prioritize their children’s health.
Cross-Training: Cross-train employees or have a backup plan in place so that work can continue smoothly even when someone needs to take unexpected time off.
Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs): Working parents can often feel isolated as employees, struggling with responsibilities they aren’t typically encouraged to share with others. Offer access to EAPs that provide counseling, resources, and support for managing work-life balance and stressors related to caring for sick children.
Remember that supporting working parents with sick children not only improves employee morale and retention but also contributes to a positive company reputation and a more productive work environment. Offering support to employees helps them thrive in their job as well as at home.
by admin | Oct 4, 2023 | Hot Topics, Human Resources
Pushback on Remote Work
Nowadays, many employers are insisting that workers return to the office in full force. Last week, HR Exchange Network reported on Goldman Sachs enforcing a five-day RTO rule. The Street recently reported on how Dimon longs for the same at JPMorgan Chase. This is not new news. Some have suggested the big banks are concerned about compliance with However, The Street speculates that Dimon is most interested in strict RTO as a result of the organization’s real estate investments.
Walmart Lowers the Minimum Wage
Apparently, Walmart is paying some new hires less than it was paying others three months ago, according to the Wall Street Journal. The writer suggests that this is a sign that companies are trying to cut labor costs after significant wage increases during the Great Resignation. Most new hires will now earn the lowest possible hourly wage for their store.
“The wage-structure change comes after Walmart and other large employers have for years steadily raised wages and added benefits to attract workers in a tight labor market. The retailer’s latest move suggests that the stresses companies are facing in trying to find employees are easing and that they need to find ways to offset those wage increases,” according to WSJ.
UAW May Strike
The summer of strikes might just turn into the fall of strikes. The United Auto Workers (UAW) told General Motors that their proposal was insulting, according to CNBC. The contract for GM’s 46,000 UAW-represented workers included a 10% increase in wages. But the union rejected it and within days the UAW may go on strike.
“Despite the proposed wage increase being the largest under a UAW contract since 1999, it still falls far short of the union’s demands of a 40% hourly pay increase, a reduced 32-hour workweek, a shift back to traditional pensions, elimination of compensation tiers, and restoration of cost-of-living adjustments, among other items on the table,” according to CNBC.
Millennials Are the Hybrid Workers
LinkedIn is sharing data points from its latest Workforce Confidence survey, and it showed a difference in the way generations are experiencing work at the moment. About 20% of Millennials, compared to 17% of Gen X and 15% of Baby Boomers, are hybrid workers.
Cybersecurity Sees Layoffs
Cybersecurity was once considered a safe role to have because of the great necessity to protect data and technology from breaches. However, in the last month, nine cybersecurity companies have laid off employees, according to Axios. IronNet, Malwarebytes, Fortinet, NCC Group, Rapid7, Dragos, HackerOne, and Bishop Fox are among those that cut jobs. The publication reported that the companies have cut between 10% and 20% of their workforce, which amounts to hundreds of layoffs.
By Francesca Di Meglio
Originally posted on HR Exchange Network
by ckistler | Feb 23, 2021 | Human Resources, Work From Home
In the past year, many employers who would never have considered a remote work arrangement discovered that it was not only possible, but in some (or many) ways preferable to how they worked before. As a result, many employers plan on maintaining a remote workforce in some form once the pandemic is over. There’s a lesson here for all employers: the standard way of doing things is not necessarily the only or best way to do things.
As you begin the new year, it might be worth examining your HR practices and asking yourself whether the way you do things is really the best way, or just the comfortable, easy way. Look especially for areas where you’re setting unnecessary restrictions on yourself or your employees.
Job postings, for example, often have requirements that could be tossed with no loss, but a lot of gain. Does someone really need a four-year degree to do an entry level admin job? Or knowledge of how to use certain productivity tools, which can realistically be learned in a matter of hours? Restrictions such as these may be limiting your applicant pool. Other old habits may be losing you productivity and profit.
By Kyle Cupp
Originally posted on ThinkHR
by admin | Jul 28, 2020 | COVID-19, Human Resources, Work From Home
“When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute.” – Simon Sinek
The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us many things. First, it has taught us that empathy and kindness goes a long way. We’ve learned that as individuals, communities, and as a nation, that we can do hard things when we work together. Finally, this pandemic has taught us that the relationship between employer and employee is a valuable one. How much the employee feels valued by their employer is called “engagement.” And this feeling of value is one that more and more companies are investing in in a post-COVID environment.
Employee engagement is when an employee feels “high levels of involvement (passion and absorption) in the work and the organization (pride and identity) as well as affective energy (enthusiasm and alertness) and a sense of self-presence.” Let’s dive in and look at some fast facts on this subject and how to increase engagement in this new workspace we have found our world occupying.
BY THE NUMBERS
- 34% of employees and 35% of employers stated they felt engaged in their work in a 2019 Gallup poll.
- 38% of employees now say they are “highly involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace” via a May 2020 Gallup poll.
- This is the highest reported engagement since Gallup began measuring this topic in 2000.
BOTTOM LINE
- Unengaged employees lower productivity, innovation, and the bottom line.
- Engaged employees have lower absenteeism and lower turnover.
- When an employee believes that they are being heard and seen as a valued investment, they feel empowered to do their best work.
- Teams that report being engaged in the workplace have 21% higher profitability than those who report being unengaged.
HOMESCHOOL
- One way to create engagement in the workplace is to promote learning opportunities at home for employees. This can be done in virtual workshops for remote workers.
- If a company’s investment is in learning and development, this shows the employee that their employer sees their future as important.
- Positive results of investing in workforce education include increased employee engagement, more innovation, and increased understanding of the company’s goals.
- Remote employees who participate in a company’s virtual training report that beyond the educational benefit they receive, they also feel as though they are being equipped with new skills for handling stressful situations once they are able to return to work.
RESOURCES
There are numerous blogs and articles and creative educational interaction sites to keep employees engaged and learning while remote. Below are some fun and creative sites to help you create your own engagement campaign for your organization.
by admin | Mar 19, 2020 | Human Resources, Work From Home
It’s been said the ongoing COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak has created the largest remote work experiment ever devised. In fact, there are many recently documented cases where companies have asked at least some of their employees to work from home. Three of those companies are Amazon, Twitter and Microsoft.
Remote work, of course, is not something new. In the past, remote work has been largely reserved for customer service representatives but that’s changed now with remote work being a reality for many different industries across the board. There’s been a 173 percent increase in people working remotely since 2005. Additionally, 75 percent of workers say they’re more productive at home. The reasons:
- Fewer distractions
- Less commuting
- Lower instances of office politics
The coronavirus aside, there are some real challenges for HR when it comes to looking after a remote workforce. Chief among them is the strategy for keeping those remote employees engaged the company.
Remote Work
Employee Engagement
Employee engagement is not an easy thing to accomplish. By and large, it really depends on the type of organization and the type of workers typically employed by said organization. What works for one doesn’t necessarily work for the other. When a company then adds remote workers into the mix, one can see how it gets more difficult to see success in a strategy.
In some ways, it’s easy for human resources to develop this idea remote workers don’t need engagement. The opposite is actually true. Remote workers tend to be very productive. Most statistics back up this claim. A solid remote worker is typically described as:
- Self-Disciplined
- Adaptable
- Flexible
- Strong communicators
- Independent
- Confident
- Reliable
Even with all of that said, remote works want to feel like they belong with the company. It’s imperative they believe they are important and valued members of the company culture and its community. Remote workers, just like on-site workers, are susceptible to certain trends such as leaving the organization within the first year and leaving to pursue career advancement opportunities.
Facilitating Remote Work
All of that said, there are things company leaders and managers can do to set the engagement of the remote workforce on the right path.
- Expectations
The whole point of remote work is not having to go into the office. As such flexible work scheduling is typically a piece of the overall remote working strategy. To be more to the point – workers probably aren’t working a 9-to-5 shift if they’re off-site. That being said, managers can set particular expectations such as times the employee is expected to be “on the clock.” Some people refer to these as “busy hours” or “office hours.” It’s during this time remote workers should be expected to be prompt in their responses to emails and phone calls as well as be available to collaborate with the team.
- Inclusion
Normally when the word inclusion is used, it’s in connected to diversity. In this particular instance, the focus is not on the inclusion of workers from any other perspective than the fact they are part of a team. If a team is meeting at the office to discuss strategy or anything for that matter, remote workers should be allowed to participate. They should actually be expected to do so. With tools such as Zoom and Skype available, there’s no reason they should not be included in the conversation.
- Rewards
In a lot of instances, brick-and-mortar employees tend to think remote workers don’t work nearly as much. That’s actually a misconception. In most instances, remote workers work longer hours than those in the office; about 46 hours a week. That being said, it’s important to reward these workers. If they are hitting their goals, that needs to be recognized.
Productivity Case Study
One area where companies tend to cringe when it comes to remote work is in productivity. There are some real fears presented from leaders with respect to workers not being as productive when working from home as compared to those brick-and-mortar employees. Some of it, like it or not, stems from the need some leaders have with respect to seeing their direct reports work. Is this fear founded or unfounded? If the results of one case study (and several others) are to be believed, the answer is definitely unfounded.
Look to CTrip, China’s largest travel agency. A professor from Stanford studies whether or not remote work was “beneficial or harmful for productivity.” It took two years to complete the study and what the professor found is a profound increase in productivity for a group of remote workers over their in-office counterparts. It wasn’t all “sunshine and rainbows”, however. Those remote workers did report an increase in feeling lonely and many reported they didn’t want to work from home all the time. In the end, the recommendation was to create a hybrid of sorts; one that balanced working from home and in the office.
In summation
Here’s what we know. Right now, there are some 26 million Americans who work, at least part of the time, from home. And that number is only going to grow. According to a report from Buffer, 99 percent of employees say they want to work from home some of the time for the rest of their careers. Additionally, IWG says their research indicates 80 percent of workers would choose a position with flexible work over one that didn’t offer the benefit.
It can only be hypothesized the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to push employers to test the boundaries of remote working. In doing so, they will have to take a very hard look at their current employee engagement strategies to ensure workers still feel connected to the organization and each other. While it’s not the single most important thing when it comes to continued profitability, especially in an economy rocked by a worldwide coronavirus outbreak, it will go a long way to ensuring companies can continue delivering on business promises and supporting the bottom line and the company workforce.
By Mason Stevenson
Originally posted on hrexchangenetwork.com
