Workforce Management Time & Attendance Excellence - September 2022

Top Ways To Address HR Challenges

37 Why Holidays And Festivals Should Be Part Of Every

Inclusion Efforts

Picks

The Future Of The Workplace

Embracing change and moving ahead

- Gilles Raymond, Founder & CEO, Letsmeet

Four-Day Workweek: Addressing The Needs Of A Modern Workforce

The future of work is “work in any way”

- Bjorn Reynolds, Chief Executive Officer & Chief Guardian, Safeguard Global

Is Gladwell Wrong About The Future Of Work?

Lessons to learn from Apple workers’ petition against return-to-office Chantel Rowe, VP, Product Management, Topia

Employment Law 101

How to protect your business

- Elizabeth Hartsel, Partner, Fortis Law Partners

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Hybrid Work, 4-Day-Workweek: What Can Hr Do to make Them Work?

The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic are gradually fading away from the world of work. Many companies have started bringing workers back to office. However, that does not mean remote work has come to an end. In fact, that is far from reality.

There are still many who log in remotely and will continue to do so. With hybrid work becoming the norm, it is critical that employers invest in new technologies and processes that enable employees to work in a hybrid workplace seamlessly.

One of the main issues affecting remote employees, including human resources, is a lack of collaboration. How can compa nies improve the collaboration of their remote HR team?

From pursuing purposeful collabora tion to setting boundaries to promote a healthy workplace, there are several tips that may help you improve collaboration and overall workplace culture in your re mote HR team. Check out Terkel.io’s Brett Farmiloe’s article, where he lists down the 13 Ways To Improve Collaboration In Your Remote HR Team.

The future of work is here, and it is neither remote nor hybrid. It is “work in any way”. Employees trying out a four-day workweek in the U.K. in the biggest work place experiment of its kind have said that their new schedule is a game-chang er! This shouldn’t come as a surprise to HR and business leaders worldwide.

Safeguard Global Chief Executive Officer Bjorn Reynolds, in his article, Four-Day

Workweek: Addressing The Needs Of A Modern Workforce, shares the results from a recent study and will help us understand what the modern workforce expects from companies.

A little over a month back, best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell drew flak from social media for his stand against those working from remote. Is offering flexibility to employees bad? What are the risks involved in flexible work arrangements? How can employees set a good strategy while offering flexibility to employees?

In Is Gladwell Wrong About The Future Of Work?, Topia’s Chantel Rowe goes indepth into the subject and will help us find answers to these questions.

Also, read The Future Of The Workplace by Letsmeet Founder & CEO Gilles Raymond, and Top Ways To Address HR Challenges by Sweetwater Chief People Officer Jeff Ostermann, among others.

This is not all!

This month’s issue of Workforce Manage ment, Time & Attendance, Excellence brings you several other informative and educational articles that we hope will help you achieve excellence and efficiency in your workforce management efforts.

Happy Reading!

Disclaimer: The views, information, or opinions expressed in the Excellence ePublications are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of HR.com and its employees. Under no circumstances shall HR.com or its partners or affiliates be responsible or liable for any indirect or incidental damages arising out of these opinions and content.

13 Ways To Improve Collaboration In your remote Hr Team

Improving overall workplace culture

By Brett Farmiloe, Terkel.io

Give one tip/strategy for improving collaboration in your remote HR team?

To help you improve collaboration in your remote HR team, we asked CHROs and people leaders this question for their best strategies. From pursuing purposeful collaboration to setting boundaries to promote a healthy workplace, there are several tips that may help you improve collaboration and overall workplace culture in your remote HR team.

Here are 13 tips these leaders recommend you try to improve collaboration in your remote HR team:

1. Pursue Purposeful Collaboration

2. Use Recognition Apps Like “HeyTaco”

3. Connect On Non-work Topics

4. Improving Transparency

5. Create a Communication Guide

6. Shared Project Calendars for Easier Collaboration

7. Create Communication Channels

8. Create An HR Slack Channel

9. Shared Document Repository

10. Regularly Cull Your Remote Tools

11. Assign Shared Responsibilities

12. Keep the Connection Human

13. Set Boundaries to Promote a Healthy Workplace

Tim Toterhi, CHRO, Plotline Leadership

1. pursue purposeful Collaboration

Too often companies orchestrate awkward teamwork events because it seems like the right thing to do. But tick-box collaboration exercises from forced-fed icebreakers to ill-timed brainstorming sessions can actually reduce team engagement and further alienate remote workers.

If you want to enhance collaboration, especially in a virtual environment, focus on real work. When employees realize that their participation will help solve actual business problems, they’ll be more inclined to contribute. There is a power in clarity of purpose: When people have one, they can’t help but get involved.

2. use recognition apps like “HeyTaco”

Since we switched to working remotely, I’ve found that one of the best ways to encourage collaboration is to use recognition apps like HeyTaco. With HeyTaco, you can give virtual “tacos” to your colleagues for doing a good job. It’s a fun way to let people know that you appreciate their work, and it also encourages people to work together. For example, if someone helps you with a project, you can give them a taco. Or if someone comes up with a great idea during a team meeting, you can give them a taco. This simple act of recognition can go a long way towards improving col laboration in your team.

Antreas Koutis, Administrative Manager, Financer Logan Mallory, Vice President of Marketing, Motivosity

3. Connect on non-work Topics

If your HR team is remote, make sure to connect on non-work topics occasionally. Those interactions build important bonds, which increase the effectiveness of your collaboration. People excel when they work with peers they like and trust, a personal relationship makes that a reality. If you want to improve collabora tion, invest in getting to know your remote HR peers.

members regularly through brief one-on-one video sessions, email updates, and team meetings. To improve the transparency among employees sharing internal and external information, it is vital to building a culture of togetherness and trustworthiness.

Leanna Serras, Chief Customer Officer, FragranceX

5. Create a Communication Guide

When working remotely, you have many channels to choose from. Different people have different personal preferences, which can cause conflict and division. It is much better to create a simple document that sets out when each channel should be used.

For example, team meetings can be conducted over video conferences. In-depth one-on-one conversa tions can be held over phone calls. Brief updates can be shared over emails. Quick questions and informal office banter can be exchanged on Slack.

As different teams have different needs, let everyone on your HR team collaborate on the communication guide to reach a consensus.

Rachel Roff, Founder & CEO, Urban Skin Rx

4. Improving Transparency

Poor transparency is the leading cause of low employee morale, lack of trust, and engagement for work-at-home workers. To alleviate this common issue, leaders can start by communicating with team

Liz Hogan, Digital Partnerships CPRW, Find My Profession

6. shared project Calendars for easier Collaboration

When employees work together remotely it is im portant to have a good workflow. Having a project progress calendar that is shared with those involved can help clarify many misunderstandings. Teammates should update the shared calendar with the progress the have made on a given project and notify the per son that is next in the chain of the project workflow. In this way management can also supervise how a proj

13 Ways To Improve Collaboration In Your Remote HR Team

ect is going and if there are any significant issues in the workflow. Projects can move from one teammate to another seamlessly and management is aware of who is working on a given task at any time.

human resources staff to discuss more sensitive issues away from the rest of the company. However, HR staff can also use this platform to bond with each other, blow off steam, and grow closer as a team.

Dan Reed, Career Coach, Top Prospect Careers

7. Create Communication Channels

Communication is key to collaboration. Nationally and globally dispersed teams need an effective channel or system to collaborate and communicate. Emails are ineffective when dealing with multiple time zones, teams with different priorities, and when you need to generate feedback rapidly. An instant and responsive chat service streamlines collaboration, enables quick messaging, and optimizes day-to-day collaboration and team dynamics.

Slack, Discord, Asana, and Trello are great tools for team collaboration and will enable employers to easily communicate with their staff. These platforms can also be used for project discussions and updates. They make the dissemination of information fast, easy, and accessible while enabling the leadership team to coordinate remote teams.

Carly Hill, Operations Manager, VirtualHolidayParty.com

8. Create an Hr slack Channel

One simple way to improve collaboration on a remote HR team is to give the HR department its own Slack channel or equivalent on a similar remote work platform. These channels give HR colleagues an easy way to communicate with each other instantly without the messages getting lost in the stream of wider company communications. By locking the channel so that only invited members can view and join, you free

Wendy Makinson, HR Manager, Joloda Hydraroll

9. shared Document repository

One tip for improving collaboration in your remote HR team is to use a shared document repository. This can be a cloud-based service like Google Drive or Dropbox or a more traditional server-based solution.

By storing your team’s documents in one central location, everyone can easily access the latest ver sions of critical files. This will help reduce confusion and ensure everyone works from the same set of materials.

You can use document sharing to keep track of who is working on what tasks and to give team members an easy way to provide feedback on each other’s work.

Fernando Lopez, Marketing Director, Circuit

10. regularly Cull your remote Tools

Discuss tools regularly. While remote communica tions tools are the key to maintaining a remote connection, switching between countless platforms is confusing, time-consuming, and bound to leave some messages lost in translation. Meet with your remote HR team every month or quarter to discuss how your tools are working - just because something worked well six months ago doesn’t mean it won’t

change in another six. Those tools that no longer con tribute any value can get tossed, new tools may be in troduced, and new standards can be established based on which your teammates prefer to use over others. The more central you keep your team communications, the easier and faster collaboration will become!

Jenna Nye, CEO, On the Strip

11. assign shared responsibilities

One of the biggest issues that come with remote teams, especially in HR is that each person is assigned a task or different aspect of HR roles and employees don’t seem to cross paths at all. By assigning shared responsibilities and tasks to team members, they’ll not only be forced to collaborate, but get to know each other’s strengths, personalities, and bond together in a remote atmosphere. Assigning shared responsibili ties also helps remote workers learn from each other, acquire new skills and come up with new ideas.

Sasha Prylypska, Product Manager, Elai.io

12. Keep the Connection Human

Your team is full of working professionals who can do their work brilliantly. Nevertheless, struggling with collaboration can be a common issue. We collaborate more effectively with people we feel connected to on a simple human level. Make sure your teammates know something about each other outside of work and engage with that: when working remotely, building a hu man connection is more critical than ever.

Olivia Thompson, Director of Digital Marketing, Sesh

set boundaries to promote a Healthy Workplace

Learning how to set boundaries in a remote workplace can help promote a healthier and more productive work environment. Boundaries delineate the space between us and the other people and responsibili ties in our lives. Without establishing these within our workplace, we can lose our sense of self through over extending and overcommitting, thus leading people to experience higher rates of depression, anxiety, or other mental health symptoms. In a remote setting, your coworkers and superiors don’t have a direct lens into your workload, leading them to believe you can take on more than you can handle. Learning how to say “no” in a healthy and communicative way teaches others to honor our capacity.

Brett Farmiloe is the Founder and CEO – and currently CHRO - of Terkel.io Brett is an SHRM Influnecer and has also been a keynote speaker at several state SHRM conferences around the topic of employee en gagement.

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13 Ways To Improve Collaboration In Your Remote HR Team

one simple way to improve collaboration on a remote Hr team is to give the Hr department its own remote work platform.

Marshall Goldsmith

Executive Coach

Courtney McMahon Vice President of People Analytics Colgate Palmolive

Beverly Troxtell Head of HR Change Management & HR Evolution PayPal

Linda Cai Head of Talent Development LinkedIn

Melanie Tinto CHRO Wex

Nikita Steals Head of Talent Acquisition Capital One

Dave Sachs Senior Director People Analytics and Data Science Northwestern Mutual

Ryan McCrea Head of Learning & Development Atlassian

Hybrid Work: How Work Cultures need To evolve

Paving the way for flexibility and inclusivity

By Jeetu Patel, Cisco

Two Cisco studies shed light on hybrid work — where organizations stand today and what needs to be done for the future

In recent years, pretty much every assumption about how, where, and when we work has been upended. But I believe we are still at just the beginning of a revolution in hybrid work.

Today, there’s a clear opportunity for organizations to step into the next wave of working, supported by even better technology and workplace cultures that nurture work/life balance and creative collaboration. Along the way, we can create new opportunities and expand inclusivity as we dissolve the traditional barriers of geography, language and culture.

Yet there’s also a risk: Those organizations that fail to learn the lessons of the past two years and try to return to a 100 percent office-based work strategy, will fall short in productivity, talent retention, and so much more.

As I speak to our global customers, all are laser-focused on hybrid work as one of the most critical — and challenging — business transitions of our time.

So, it’s important to know just where we stand with hybrid work today and what needs to be done for the future — in terms of technology adoption, culture change, leadership, and beyond. To that end, Cisco led two comprehensive studies over the last year: the recently updated Global Hybrid Work Index and the newly released Hybrid Work Maturity Model.

That’s why I’m so excited about these studies. They shed light on how work cultures need to evolve. Because there’s no going back. As the results show, we are entering a world in which flexibility is demanded and inclusivity is the norm.

The Hybrid Work maturity model

Leaders need to know just where their organizations stand on the hybrid-work maturity curve. So, Cisco

commissioned IDC to create the Hybrid Work Maturity Model, a framework from which to benchmark their journeys (the InfoBrief can be viewed here[1]).

Their research featured survey respondents from thousands of organizations of all sizes across 20 industries around the world, and the study defined four distinct levels of hybrid-work maturity:

● Hybrid Work Observers (7 percent): These organizations are beginning to explore different hybrid-work models but are predominantly working within the office during regular business hours.

● Hybrid Work Adopters (47 percent): Experimenting with hybrid-work models and beginning to invest in technology to enable them.

● Hybrid Work Champions (38 percent): Seeing the success and improved business outcomes with hybrid work models in separate silos but have yet to adopt them throughout the organization.

● Hybrid Work Innovators (8 percent): These organizations feature well-established, company-wide hybrid policies and have invested in the technologies that support a hybrid-first strategy.

Hybrid Work: How Work Cultures Need To Evolve

Survey respondents were also asked to rate their organizations’ maturity across four key dimensions. Fifty-one percent cited technology as the key focus, followed by culture (33 percent), policies (12 percent), and facilities (4 percent).

In my mind, all four of these categories are critical to hybrid work success. But the study revealed other ways in which organizations are lagging in these categories. For example, only 9 percent of organizations have declared and deployed a long-term, company-wide hybrid-work policy, and 62 percent of organizations are still at the earliest stages of transforming their people and culture for hybrid work.

But what of the benefits? For our survey respondents, improving productivity (48 percent) was viewed as the top concern. This was followed by business agility (39 percent), improved partner and customer engagement (39 percent) and improved employee engagement (36 percent). As organizations progress along the maturity curve, the benefits only increase. For example, Hybrid Work Innovators reported that their ability to attract and retain top talent and improve regulatory compliance also improved.

Global Hybrid Work Index

We launched our first-ever Global Hybrid Work Index last year and today we’re unveiling new findings. Our methodology taps into our core platforms, analyzing millions of anonymized customer data points from collaboration (Webex), networking (Meraki), internet visibility (ThousandEyes), and security (Talos, Duo, Umbrella). These data points were combined with third-party research from double-blind surveys of more than 39,000 respondents across 34 countries, including CIOs, IT decision-makers, and employees. Cisco’s own workforce data rounded out a far-reaching study.

What did we find? For starters, it revealed much about what I strongly believe should be a core concern for every organization: the well-being of employees. Seventy-three percent of global hybrid workers are happier and more motivated in their roles through the ability to work wherever they choose, and 61 percent

said their relationships with teammates have become stronger. Can’t say I’m surprised to share there was also strong evidence supporting the connection between hybrid work and talent retention.

I have long argued that great technology can support a work environment and culture in which there is no divide between in-office or remote workers. So, I was excited to see that a clear majority of respondents agreed. Seventy-eight percent of executives and 66 percent of workers overall believed that with the right technology, work could be done virtually without any loss of productivity. Another 61 percent of hybrid workers across the globe and across generations have seen improvement in the quality of their work.

Of course, the hybrid work environment has introduced myriad, far-flung endpoints. So, it’s no surprise that security is a top concern. The good news is that organizations are responding. Both the number of actively protected remote devices and the count of daily authentications to apps has increased 2x since the world first began its shift to hybrid work as the norms.

While these studies show that organizations are beginning to make progress in the hybrid-work revolution, they also underscore that for many, there is a long way to go. As an industry, we cannot be complacent and must break down the barriers of hybrid work across technology, culture, and physical spaces. Only then will we unlock the true potential of hybrid work, for a future in which flexibility and inclusivity are the norm.

Jeetu Patel is the GM and EVP of Security and Collaboration at Cisco

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Hybrid Work: How Work Cultures Need To Evolve

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The Future Of The Workplace

By Gilles Raymond, Letsmeet  Embracing change and moving ahead

The pressure regarding working from home (WFH) is understated. Kastle Company manages access controls in 2600 office buildings in 138 cities in the US. Their data shows an occupancy rate of 44% and moving more down than up. Companies are facing significant pushback from the employees regarding the back to the office. As a consequence, most of the pushbacks are done under a kind of passive resistance with real rationales, but also through weaker arguments. Companies that are offering full remote, mention it in their advertisements to attract talent. Linkedin data shows that remote jobs offer represented 20% of the paid job posting and received over 50% of all applications. Companies that are not offering it (like Google), list their offices from which you can work. It is clearly an important element for recruiting talent.

Let us check what did not change in the last century. First, is the increasing need to meet and communicate. If you look at the big trend for the last 100 years regarding the way we work, they are all about improving the quality and the speed of communication. From the first wired phone to Slack, from the fax to Zoom, from feature phones to WhatsApp. Linked to it, is the pressure to execute fast. What those communications brought on top of the intensity and density of communication, is the speed.

When my parents were working, they were communicating with memos, and the expected time for an answer was within a month, and at the end of their career, fax pushed down answering time from one month to one week. When I started to work, the

main communication stream was email and you were expecting an answer within days. With instant messengers (Slack, Wechat, etc.), you are talking for hours, or even minutes. A company is a competitive social organization, and the ability to communicate and move as fast as possible will always be a key success factor.

My top workplace trends for the future include:

My top workplace trends for the future include:

Work from Wherever: The unstoppable trend with structural effect on average salary, commute infrastructure, urban planification, internationalization, cultural domination, and management. The collateral effects will be visible on numerous levels. Most importantly, we are at the start of this wave, starting to understand it and adjust to it. Many examples and data mentioned above are confirming the trend. It will impact the organization, the management, the infrastructure, the working hours, and the commuting.  On one side, you have companies that are reluctant to offer work from home. They resist the push by asking their teams to be at the office “40 h a week”, or to be at the office a few days per week.

On the other hand, you have a vast majority of the teams that do not want to lose time commuting and have more freedom in the way they use their time. As said, it might be scary, disturbing, and challenging, but you have no other choice than to embrace the change. Embracing it will give you the choice to organize and structure it. If you do not, you will face passive resistance, demotivation, legal risk, and counterpro ductive behaviors.

Intelligent productive tools. We are piling productivity tools, and the acceleration of the trends is impressive. As mentioned above, we moved in a few years from 5 tools to 20+ software. They have for the moment limited capacity. Artificial intelligence will change that, it will write basic emails on our behalf, set reminders, build to-do lists, and define the best process.

Internationalization: It is a major collateral effect of the WFW. If you allow people to work from wherever it also means you can recruit people from wherever. In that case, why would you recruit a developer at $100K if you can have one at $50K? Outsourcing to third parties abroad has been in place for decades. The new wave is the recruitment of full-time employees from all over the world, not as external consultants but as full team members. It will reshape the labor market, redistribute the wealth between different countries, and decrease the pressure on rare skills.

Socialization: From pro to private and from real to virtual. We met most of our social network during college and at work. Spending less time at the office will impact our social interactions in quantity and quality. Virtual connections to initiate social interaction will be more and more successful. As a reminder, in April 2020 – the start of the lockdown in many US cities – 19% of the 30-44 yo population had an active account on Tinder.

DEI: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion will be key elements to appreciate the ethics of the company.

VC, HR, are tracking in detail the indicators regarding DEI. Internationalization should ease this trend.

Humans, and by extension, companies have the tendency to resist changes. I love to say humans are mammals full of habits. When wire phones arrived at work, there was only one phone by company or service, because management thought it would distract people. I saw the same trends on the internet. At the start of the internet, access to the web was restricted, because companies wanted to be sure that employees were not wasting time surfing the web. 10 years later, those behaviors sound absurd.

When you have a massive push about the way people want to work, it is counterproductive to fight or even slow down this evolution. It might be disturbing, and scary, but you have no other choice than embrace the change, especially when that change is about freedom.

Gilles Raymond is the Founder & CEO at Letsmeet Would you like to comment?

Top 3 Ways To persuade blue-Collar Workers To say yes To a Job offer

Key findings from LANDED's survey

By Vivian Wang, LANDED

Getting a qualified candidate to find your job listing, apply, and make it to an interview is an excellent start. But how do you close the deal? When so many restaurants, stores, and hotels are

hiring, how do you convince a job applicant to choose your company over another one?

A 2022 survey by LANDED explored just that. More than

1,000 hourly workers were asked what makes them most likely to say yes to a job offer. Here’s what they said they value the most.

1. Flexible Scheduling

First, in the top spot, was flexible scheduling—with 67% of respondents listing this option in their top three things that might get them to say yes to a job offer.

Today’s world is increasingly complex, and job applicants know it. They hope to work for an employer who will understand that they have lives and obligations outside of work—elderly parents, the occasional illness, and kids who need to be picked up before daycare closes.

Many employers are using tech tools that help employees self-schedule or swap shifts last minute. Some companies offer split shifts, giving workers a wide window of open daytime hours, or they adjust scheduling to allow employees to work a full-time schedule over four days instead of five.

2. signing bonus

Sitting just behind flexible scheduling was a signing bonus. 59% of survey respondents listed this option in their top three.

Sometimes called a sign-on bonus or a hiring bonus, a signing bonus is a way of attracting top talent

in a tough market. Most signing bonuses for blue-collar workers start at $250 or $500 and then rise to $1,000 to $1,500 or more.

A hiring bonus is sometimes paid out all at once, and sometimes is paid out in intervals over the first few months of employment.

Either way, the goal is to get the worker in the door. Then the new employee will see all of the other things that make the company a great place to work: top-notch culture and supportive managerial staff, for example.

3. on-the-spot Job offer

Finally, 45% of respondents listed an on-the-spot job offer in their top three reasons for saying yes to a job offer.

What makes a right-here, right-now offer so enticing?

Well, the LANDED survey also found that 70% of blue-collar workers have at least once applied for a job and never heard back from the employer at all. In other words, most blue-collar workers have invested time and energy into the job search process—and then gotten ghosted.

An on-the-spot job offer says, “Hey, we like you. This is for real. Let’s do this.”

Put the job offer out there, but keep the pressure low. Give the candidate some time to think and discuss with his or her family.

“yes” Is more Sourcing and interviewing the best candidates takes you most of the way there. Then think about what workers are looking for in a right-fit company. With a thoughtful, well-timed job offer, you’ll hear more acceptances and fill more openings, keeping your company running smoothly.

Vivian Wang is the Founder & CEO of LANDED. She and the LANDED team are building the fastest way for the 90M hourly workers in the US to land jobs at essential restaurant and hospitality like Panera, Cava, Chick-fil-A & more. After graduating from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, Vivian worked in roles ranging from advising European central banks on financial markets strategy at BlackRock and launching the Asia & EMEA markets at real estate tech company, Matterport (NASDAQ: MTTR), to leading special projects for the C-suite at Gap, Inc., owner of Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, Athleta, and Intermix. Would you like to comment?

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Four-Day Workweek: addressing The needs of a modern Workforce

Addressing The Needs Of A Modern Workforce Through A Four-Day Workweek

The future of work is “work in any way”

By Bjorn Reynolds, Safeguard Global

The early results are in, and they shouldn’t be a surprise to HR and business leaders worldwide: employees trying out a four-day

workweek in the U.K. in the biggest workplace experiment of its kind say their new schedule is a game-changer.

Many of the 33,000 workers--who represent 70 companies participating in the trial--say the new schedule enables them to take up new hobbies, pursue longer-term goals and improve their home lives, all without sacrificing productivity. These results echo a smaller trial of the four-day workweek in Iceland last year, which was so successful that shorter working hours are now an option for more than 85% of the country’s workforce.

In the larger U.K. trial, employees are being paid the same for working 80% of the hours. And because they are boosting their mental health and finding better work-life balance with their additional time off, they are completing tasks in four days that used to take five.

This knowledge is changing the workplace in fundamental and permanent ways. Now that employees know they can successfully work remotely and be more productive with less hours, they want the flexibility to do their jobs in ways that work for them. It’s up to employers to embrace a people-centric approach to workforce management and provide an environment that allows them to perform at the top of their game. Failing to do so could easily mean losing top talent to a competitor who is willing to create people-centric work policies.

Our team at Safeguard Global has worked relentlessly through significant upheaval these last three years, just as we know many around the world have. Our employees deserve flexibility as we’ve seen that they will use it to achieve, and even exceed the goals they have in front of them. That is why we have decided to launch our own trial of the four-day workweek.

Addressing the Needs of a Modern Workforce

Our trial began about a month ago with ten of our remote engineers, who follow asynchronous schedules and are used to putting in extended hours for special projects. As we work through this trial to see if the four-day workweek helps us to better support our teams’ work-life balance, we’re keeping an eye on the progress of our teams and communicating with them frequently about how they feel the four-day week is affecting their ability to do their job, their job performance and work-life balance.

As we monitor overall sentiment and productivity, we’re making adjustments to our program based on their feedback and the trends we’re witnessing. So far, we’re seeing a positive impact on the team’s performance. In fact, the team has improved a lot of the metrics that matter

such as the quality of work and our retention rate. Our Chief Technology Officer reports that team members have been creative, eager, and engaged – and when new challenges arise, they are able to quickly problem solve with the new flexibility and freedom to set their schedules.

We’re looking at the results of this trial from a qualitative perspective to see if outcomes align with our expectations of more energized, engaged, and motivated employees. In the next two months, we plan to expand the four-day week to our operations centers, where we employ over 1,200 people across six different countries. By the end of this year, we will know whether performance benchmarks are being met – such as quality of work, quarterly results, daily deliverables, and the impact on our clients. Depending on these results, we’ll know whether Safeguard Global is set to join the four-day movement as one of the largest global employers putting a premium on employee well-being.

Addressing The Needs Of A Modern Workforce Through A

It’s important to note that the four-day workweek is not the only way we’re experimenting with the best ways to balance employee workload and avoid burnout. There is never a single solution. We’re looking at numerous initiatives, whether it be implementing required holidays, designated PTO hours, wellness weeks, etc., and exploring how they would work for different teams. We know all teams will not react or work better with the same structures – we need to be deliberate in identifying the different approaches. But this is going to help shape the future of work for our company, to be a Work in Any Way company.

The Future of Work is “Work in Any Way”

Every company, and often each department within it, is different and requires a unique approach to meet their goals. The four-day work week is not a one-size-fitsall approach that will generate the same results across the company.

It’s just one example of what I like to call a “Work in Any Way” mentality that puts employee needs and flexibility at the forefront.

The world of work was radically altered by the pandemic with the larger company adoption of remote work and now the great resignation, where a record number of 47.4 million American workers voluntarily quit their jobs in 2021. As a result, people are increasingly realizing the traditional 9-5 work model doesn’t work for them. Employees want more than just a flexible workspace - they want a flexible work experience.

Culture plays a significant role in determining which job offers workers accept, how long they stay and how well they perform. And now that employees have proven they can excel in unconventional environments, they are demanding the flexibility to do their jobs in ways that better suit their schedules, their relationships, and their mental health.

companies support a diverse array of workstyles and workplace cultures around the world.

The question is: how is your company adjusting to let your people work in any way?

The question is: how is your company adjusting to let your people work in any way?

HR and business leaders have had a front-row seat to the evolving global workscape and identified different ways to restructure how our teams work, not just through the lens of what is best for the company, but also what is best able to serve the needs of our workforce. We are increasingly erasing geographic borders, reconfiguring office space, updating remote work policies, and allowing employees to choose between being remote-first or traditional office environments. Our mission has always been to transform how people work. Ten years ago, that meant helping organizations hire and pay their employees globally. Today, it means helping

If a valuable employee wants or needs something out of the ordinary, it might not be simple to accommodate them. And in the past, the answer might have been “no.” But there is a revolution in the workplace today because employees have learned how much they can accomplish. And the future is all about “getting to the yes.” The four-day workweek is one way some of us are getting there – how are you?

Bjorn Reynolds is Chief Executive Officer & Chief Guardian at Safeguard Global

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Four-Day Workweek: Addressing The Needs Of A Modern Workforce

Addressing

Needs Of A Modern Workforce

A

Employees want more than just a flexible workspace - they want a flexible work experience.

How To Keep your Distributed Workforce safe

Perfecting your risk mitigation strategy

By Stephen Cavey, Ground Labs

According to Microsoft’s 2022 Work Trend Index, more than half (52%) of employees surveyed are considering going hybrid or remote in the next year. In this new normal, flexibility is proving essential, and remote work, to some degree, is here to stay. With remote and hybrid working arrangements rising in popularity — completely revolutionizing global talent acquisition and onboarding processes — the privacy and cybersecurity threats remain a significant concern for many businesses and HR leaders.

Factors contributing to this risk include employees using both personal and work-issued devices for work-related tasks, which may unintentionally expose sensitive company data. And, for that matter, security is no longer just a CISO or IT concern but rather a risk that impacts the whole organization and its reputation, requiring active participation from all employees across the business, starting foremost with Human Resources.

a remote Workforce: personal vs. WorkIssued Devices

The pandemic, supply chain disruptions, and chip shortages have forced organizations to rely on their employees’ personal devices to fulfill their tasks. With the increased use of personal and work-issued devices, an organization’s privacy and security posture

is being contested. And as a result, organizations lack visibility into employees’ home networks, increasing vulnerability within the organization.

According to a Beyond Identity study, nearly half (49.6%) of survey respondents only used work-issued devices, while 39.1% used both personal and work-issued devices. For that reason, a considerable amount of corporate data is likely being distributed across personal devices.

In April, a study conducted by Sophos reported that 66% of organizations surveyed were hit by a ransomware attack in 2021, up from 37% the prior year. With a distributed workforce, organizations — now, more than ever — must be proactive in ensuring their most significant asset is protected. From a hiring perspective, companies acquiring global talent must adapt and mitigate the risks accompanying candidates and employees dispersed worldwide.

Since no organization is exempt from these threats, now is the time for HR and business leaders to determine HR’s role in improving security within the organization. While larger organizations often rely on software solutions, smaller businesses may struggle to break through the veil of personal ownership.

Business Awareness Is Key

According to Ground Labs research, 70% of professionals surveyed believe their organization does not know where all of its data is stored. In April alone, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that some 4.4 million Americans resigned. Some employees take data with them when they leave, whether they intend to or not, which is an added risk given today’s security threat landscape. With a deeper understanding of where data lives, how it is being secured, and who has access to it, HR and business leaders can work closely with IT and security professionals to remediate and protect data. This collaboration can ultimately eliminate this increased risk.

How To Keep Your Distributed Workforce Safe

Correspondingly, with emerging regulations, security is not the only concern for understanding where data is stored — compliance is paramount too. As companies continue to navigate the complexities of the landscape, such as complying with GDPR, HIPAA or CCPA, they must first understand what personal data they are holding. That includes knowing the location, amount, and types of information collected, such as the country or jurisdiction of the data subjects. Data awareness helps the company distinguish the value of its assets and develop a comprehensive security strategy.

Perfecting Your Risk Mitigation Strategy

A holistic approach is one of the most effective avenues to achieving compliance. Unless your organization is sharing customer data with a third party, your employees are often the only people with access to your company’s crown jewels repository of customer data.

HR teams can reinforce the importance of employees’ active participation in minimizing cyber risks by providing training across departments on proper handling and storage practices. This practice could help instill a strong sense of high alert when working with files and other data sources that contain individuals’ personal and private details. These individuals, whether they’re customers, contestants, employees or other private citizens, have entrusted the organization they handed their details to. They expect that such information will be kept private and secure.

To fulfill this requirement and expectation, businesses should consider hiring a data protection officer (DPO) or a similar role. Assigning a well-informed and competent professional responsible for data privacy and security oversight will equip your organization with another level of assurance that data safeguards are being implemented and overseen as an ongoing process.

Likewise, to further help the organization remove unnecessary risks and achieve greater visibility and awareness, consider how non-technology

groups across the organization, such as Human Resources and Marketing, can work together. These departments can be influential in detecting and removing unnecessary personal data such as aging ex-employee files, old customer service case logs, and out-of-date marketing prospect lists.

Without these critical steps, any subsequent action decision will be based on the assumption of where data is, leading to considerable risks being overlooked or ignored. At the same time, remember that you can protect the organization while instilling confidence in your employee’s ability to safely make data-driven decisions in their role.

As businesses continue to inch closer to post-pandemic recovery and adjust to an ongoing distributed workforce, prioritizing data security, compliance and privacy are fundamentally expected and no longer reserved for large organizations with dedicated security teams. Any organization of any size that collects and handles any form of personal data will need to prioritize this objective to mitigate privacy and security risks.

Ground Labs’ Co-Founder and Chief Evangelist, Stephen Cavey leads a global team empowering enterprise organizations to discover, manage and secure sensitive data. He has deep security domain expertise with a focus on electronic payments and data security compliance.

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Is Gladwell Wrong about The Future of Work?

lessons to learn from apple workers’ petition against return-to-office

By Chantel Rowe, Topia

Recently, best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell issued a scathing critique of remote work, telling those who work from home that “it is not in your best interest.” The author, whose books have been practically required reading for business leaders and entrepreneurs, was immediately rebuked on social media for his

harsh criticism. Many even argued Gladwell was being hypocritical, having spent nearly all of his quite successful career working remotely. If he can be productive remotely, why can’t they?

While Gladwell is right to be concerned about remote workers needing to feel a

sense of belonging within the organization—and organizations absolutely should address this—his critique seems out of touch with the experience and expectations of today’s modern workforce. In short: Remote workers are doing just fine and forcing them back to the office is a talent disaster in the making

Case in point: Just recently, Apple employees launched a petition protesting the company’s return-to-office plan, arguing that flexible work—the ability to work from wherever they choose—is essential for productivity, diversity, inclusion, and ultimately, the future success of the company.

As other big tech firms like Facebook, Twitter, Google and more—that largely compete for the same pool of talent as Apple—have implemented permanent flexible work policies, Apple’s return-to-office demand is extremely risky. Last year, 41% of employees said the flexibility to work from home was a reason to change jobs, and 64% of workers say they’re more likely to seek a

new job if forced to return to the office full-time. Can Apple afford to lose that many employees?

Furthermore, contrary to Gladwell’s assessment, flexible work arrangements do not mean “sitting in your pajamas in your bedroom,” but rather giving employees the option to come into the office or work elsewhere on their own terms. For some, that may mean working from home during school holidays so they can be with their children, or from their parents’ house for two weeks to help out with a project or provide essential care. For others, it might mean extending their upcoming holiday trips home, or taking an extended “workcation” where they can remain emerged in a culture or environment longer—a valuable experience for both personal and

professional growth—while also being productive and contributing to the organization. Still, others might just need an occasional change of scenery to gain a fresh perspective.

Certainly, the office will continue to be valuable in a post-pandemic workplace—some people need that separate space or the energy that comes from being among colleagues—but employees don't want a one-size-fits-all mandate. In fact, 94% of employees say they should be able to work from anywhere as long as they get their work done, while 78% believe teams in the future will be agile and it won't matter if everyone is in the same location. Employees want flexibility, meaning they may want to be together in an office, just on their own timelines and terms.

Is Gladwell Wrong About The Future Of Work?

Not to mention, forcing employees back to the office will have a negative impact on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts that had been improving with the shift to remote work. Topia’s recent Adapt survey found that 43% of HR leaders have been able to hire a more diverse group of employees since embracing remote work. As the Apple employees’ petition points out, some individuals have disabilities, caretaking obligations and health, safety and environmental concerns that make it impossible for them to be in the office five days a week. Even a hybrid schedule that’s set by their employer requiring specific in-office days isn’t “flexible,” but is rather what I call “forced flexibility.” With truly flexible work, individuals have the freedom to fit work around their life rather than the other way around. By stripping employees of this autonomy, companies risk losing out on a more diverse talent pool.

Finally, Gladwell’s frustration with the inability of “leadership

complexity for companies in areas like employment law, payroll, tax and immigration, which is a valid concern. That’s why it’s more important than ever for HR leaders to implement the proper technology to effectively manage remote work, so they can give employees the flexibility they want while also safeguarding the company’s interests.

to explain this effectively to their employees,” also seems a bit out of touch with modern management. This top-down approach to enforcing policy from the perspective that leadership knows best disregards employees’ needs, is antiquated and demonstrates a lack of trust in them. The reality is, happy employees are much more productive, and allowing them to work remotely, away from the distractions of the office, can help them to get more work done. Trusting employees to balance their life and work is a win-win for employees AND the company.

Regardless of what leaders want, modern employees demand control over when and where they work, and they’re not afraid to go elsewhere to get it. In fact, 96% say that flexibility in work arrangements is a top priority when seeking a new job. Therefore, employers must embrace flexibility in order to attract and retain top talent and remain competitive today and in the future. Certainly, this flexibility can introduce added

Chantel Rowe is the VP of Product Management at Topia. Chantel’s career has always found itself at the intersection of Global Talent Mobility and technology. She firstly spent 8 years at EY specializing and qualifying in US, UK, French and International taxation of globally mobile employees and managing key customer accounts on a global basis. Wanting to experience challenges from another perspective, she managed EMEA Mobility, Tax and Payroll for Société Générale, and eventually became a customer of Topia herself! Seeing the opportunity to be part of transforming the world of global work through technology, she joined the Topia family in 2015 – firstly building our amazing solutions consulting team of industry experts, and then transitioning to lead our Product organization and bring her years of mobility expertise to designing, building and delivering our technology solutions.

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Is Gladwell Wrong About The Future Of Work?

Top Ways To address Hr Challenges

There has never been a better time to be in Hr

By Jeff Ostermann, Chief People Officer, Sweetwater

Throughout 2022, there have been major changes to the workplace. Economic uncertainty, post-pandemic adjustments and the continuation of long-term labor market trends have combined to shape a new set of employee expectations and organizational challenges.

For those organizations that remain focused on delivering outstanding results, the importance of navigating these dynamics is critical. Fortunately, this season presents an opportunity for skilled HR leaders to chart a course to deliver exceptional outcomes. Now more than ever, all business leaders (including CEOs and boards) recognize that talent attraction, retention, engagement, and optimization will determine their future.

Driving Growth

One of the primary opportunities for HR leaders today is wielding their influence to drive growth during these uncertain and volatile economic times. Companies are experiencing a fluctuation of talent while searching to find the right human resources delivery models, precise organizational structure, and solutions for attracting and retaining key talent.

To fully leverage this opportunity, HR leaders need to proactively identify the strategic talent needs and talent strategies for the future of their company.

Mapping key positions and strategic succession planning is critical for the team to function effectively and efficiently both today and into the future. A company’s ability to attract customers and to deliver great customer service starts with the organization’s workers and leaders. When HR leaders look out beyond today to what the organization will need tomorrow, they help lift the entire organization’s vision beyond the near-term horizon and create optimism that transcends the current environment.

balancing the Tight labor market

While looking to the future, HR leaders cannot lose sight of also addressing present realities. Companies are facing the challenge of balancing a tight labor market with economic headwinds that may cause a re-evaluation of hiring pace and company needs. The number of candidates for available jobs is low, resulting in high competition to hire them, all while businesses may be succumbing to the pressures of sustaining workforce costs amid the economic turmoil.

This is where scenario planning comes in handy. HR leaders must prepare for a range of economic and business possibilities to ensure they have a plan in place for any situation that may come their way. Banking on only one outcome can harm the company and its employees when the market shifts and leadership finds out they guessed wrong. Strategizing through various possibilities is not only prudent but absolutely necessary given the rapid changes all around us

Creating meaningful engagement post-pandemic

With work-from-home being so prevalent today, HR leaders are also facing a new challenge of creating meaningful engagement among employees. Survey after survey reveals that employees still want strong work relationships and to be a part of doing meaningful work while working remotely. However, other surveys have found that working from home continues to have a negative mental health impact on

many employees, especially those who are not getting a steady level of in-person interaction.

Employers must look at ways to facilitate close personal interactions, including equipping managers to provide purpose, praise, and meaningful constructive feedback. Leaders should look for smart ways to be more accommodating to employee needs, including making sure employees feel heard and valued, fostering personal connections, planning virtual get-togethers, and encouraging health and wellness. The best leaders look for ways to grow their team through personal connections and engagement by having all communication from HR lead with empathy and understanding. Since the pandemic, there is no longer a clear separation between an employee’s personal and professional lives. A struggle in one area can bleed over into another, affecting performance, engagement, and productivity. It’s important for employers to have an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) in place, with confidential resources easily accessible to help combat this.

By focusing on driving growth through strategic talent foresight, navigating the tight labor market through scenario planning, and creating meaningful engagement with and among employees, there has never been a better time for HR leaders to ensure both individual and organizational health and success.

Jeff Ostermann is responsible for providing leadership to Sweetwater’s Human Resources group while also continually developing new ways for the company to invest in the growth of its team members to further its unique and industry-leading culture. Jeff came to Sweetwater in 2012.

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When HR leaders look out beyond today to what the organization will need tomorrow, they help lift the entire organization’s vision beyond the near-term horizon and create optimism that transcends the current environment.

How to protect your business

By Elizabeth Hartsel, Fortis Law Partners

Owning a business comes with many responsi bilities, and when entrepreneurs reach the point where they need to hire employees, a whole new set of obligations arise.

Unfortunately, many business owners find themselves woefully underprepared in this arena–and through no fault of their own! Entrepreneurs are focused on being visionaries and selling their products and services.

They didn’t start a business because they were dying to deal with the nitty-gritty details of being an HR manager or creating formal employment policies. So when they find themselves with more employees

than ever and no employment guardrails, major complications can erupt.

As a litigation attorney and employment attorney, I have been on both sides of many employment law disputes. Below I will share the most common employment law pitfalls I see regularly and the top items every entrepreneur should have in their proverbial back pocket to help protect their business and avoid potentially costly litigation.

1. employee Handbook

I have listed this first because it is one of the most vital tools in every business owner’s toolkit. Employee employment law 101

handbooks provide important legal guardrails for both employers and employees. They not only formalize guidelines, expectations and terms and conditions of employment but more importantly, they help provide a layer of protection against employee claims and lawsuits.

An experienced employment attorney can help create a comprehensive handbook addressing fundamental policies. The following is a list of essential topics to outline in the handbook:

● Compensation and benefit policies

● Vacation, sick, and paid/unpaid leave policies, including state and federal mandates for national health emergencies, such as the Covid-19 pandemic and maternity and paternity leave

● Dress code

● Workplace safety and security policies

● Conflict of interest statements

● Internet usage policies

● How to file or report workplace complaints

● Equal employment, disability, and anti-discrimina tion policies

● Workers’ compensation policies

2. Executive and Non-executive employment agreements

Employers should have a template for each type of employment agreement because they will vary inherently due to the position and nature of employment. For example, an employment agreement for a CFO will not look like that of a manufacturing facility employee due to the amount of access to proprietary information, the type of compensation involved and other factors.

Work with an experienced employment attorney to develop these two agreements that should contain protective clauses relating to confidentiality, intellectual property, non-solicitation and non-compete agreements and arbitration. Each factor can differ depending on job responsibilities, industry and unique federal and state employment laws.

For example, several states recently passed bills that will impact the use and enforcement of non-compete and non-solicit provisions. A skilled employment attorney can counsel companies on ways they can still protect their trade secrets and intellectual property in employment agreements. For instance, all provisions around confidential information and intellectual property protections should extend even after

employment ends—a key element many employment agreements miss and that many employees may not understand they are legally bound to uphold, even after separating from the company.

In addition, consult with an attorney to determine which specific issues or behavior will be included in the agreement as grounds for termination ‘for cause’ and whether or not the company will provide severance or other compensation for termination for or without cause.

Finally, employment agreements should also include choice-of-law and venue provisions specifying which state or country’s laws will be used to interpret the agreement and how disputes will be resolved, i.e., mediation, arbitration, court, etc. Again, discuss each option’s pros and cons with an employment attorney.

3. Independent Contractor agreements

These are a separate animal from standard employment agreements because there are so many distinct boundaries and legalities around work location, taxes, company property and benefits that identify whether or not a worker is considered an independent contractor vs. an employee of the company.

If the lines are blurred, or an independent contractor agreement was not signed, and the company gets audited by the Department of Labor, they will face expensive employment misclassification penalties.

4. severance agreements

Employers often reach out to their attorneys in need of a severance agreement immediately due to circumstances requiring them to terminate an employee the very next day. Unfortunately, that is not always a feasible ask. By preparing template severance agreements in advance, moving in a quick time frame will be possible.

Employers should also have two template severance agreements on file—one for employees ages 39 and under and one for employees ages 40 and over. The need for separate agreements based on age is an important distinction many employers are unaware of. Employees ages 40 and above are legally entitled to 21 days to review a severance package and seven days to revoke their signature on the agreement.

Understandably, many startups and young companies do not have the funds to staff an internal legal and HR department. However, working with a skilled employment attorney to make strategic decisions about how best to protect your company and assemble templates of the agreements listed above can cost less than $5,000. In turn, the business will receive significant protection against potentially costly employee claims, lawsuits and litigation.

Elizabeth Hartsel is Partner at Fortis Law Partners and the head of their Employment Law practice. Would you like to comment?

Celebration Together: Why Holidays And Festivals Should Be Part Of Every Company’s Inclusion Efforts

Building a more inclusive environment

By Anna Julow Roolf, Propel PRM

Earlier this year, my child’s Midwest-based daycare surprised us when they shared that they would be closing early for Eid al-Fitr. The holiday, which marks the end of Ramadan and is celebrated by Muslims worldwide, wasn’t on the yearly school calendar and list of closures. However, so many employees observe Ramadan that the daycare made adjustments to allow their staff to be home celebrating with their families.

I don’t share this story to cast my child’s daycare in a poor light. Quite the opposite: It illustrates an example of inclusion — driven not by a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) plan — but by kindness and consideration for the people who make up the organization.

Holidays as Part of DEI

We’re all seeking that sense of belonging and holidays are part of that equation. As organizations look to incorporate more diversity, equity and inclusion practices (DEI), the significance of celebrating various holidays as it relates to inclusion shouldn’t be overlooked.

At our company, “diversity as an edge” is one of our core values. One place we see that diversity is in the holidays our team members celebrate. Our relatively small team is spread out across multiple countries, including Israel, the UK and the US. Holidays like Shavuot and the UK’s Spring Bank Holiday are just as commonly observed among our team as US federal holidays like Memorial Day.

However, even with an intentional focus on diversity, we still missed the mark with holidays a few times. Here’s what we learned along the way.

Holidays Help Us Feel Seen

Most of our employees are based in either Israel or the US. Unlike the US, in Israel, there are specific religious holidays, recognized by law, when members of each recognized religion don't work. Because of this, until recently, employees based in Israel had a set list of holidays, but US-based employees did not. Instead of giving US-based employees a set holiday schedule, we introduced an unlimited PTO policy for US-based employees and allowed each employee to take any holiday they wanted.

Celebration Together: Why Holidays And Festivals Should Be Part Of Every Company’s Inclusion Efforts

However, employees still asked a lot of questions regarding holidays even after the unlimited PTO policy was rolled out. They wanted a list of holidays. Our US-based team wanted to be seen and recognized the same way our employees in Israel were seen and recognized.

Because team members are clustered in three main countries, we developed three lists of holidays by region: one for Israel, one for the US, and one for the UK. We recognize these lists will likely grow and evolve as our team and company grows and evolves.

Holidays Help Us Feel Connected

Learning about how others celebrate, helps us to feel connected to one another. However, it’s challenging to learn about holidays and other celebrations, if you don’t even know you could ask.

Since our holidays are broken up by region, it would have been easy to store regional holidays in a handbook, shared only with those in each region. But then we’d miss the opportunity for team members

to learn more about one another on an individual and cultural level.

Instead, we created a comprehensive holiday calendar that employees can access right from their work calendar. This provides visibility for these holidays in a way that is in line with our team’s workflow.

Holidays and Your Organization

It can be easy to miss certain holidays simply due to a lack of knowledge. As you’re considering how to incorporate holidays into your inclusion efforts, consider leaning on employees to fill in the gaps.

The team at Ethena, an NYC-based startup that provides modern corporate training for sexual harassment prevention, suggests sending, ”a list that allows your coworkers to anonymously contribute any holidays they’d like to see celebrated in the office” or asking employees “broad questions like, ‘Does your family have any traditions around this time of year?’”

Holidays and other celebrations are a natural vehicle for inclusion efforts, but each organization is as unique as the people who comprise it. To create a sense of belonging, it’s important to consider the cultures, customs, regions, and religions represented in your organization. You won’t necessarily get it right the first time, but your efforts can build a more inclusive environment and a greater sense of belonging for employees.

I recently got the 2022/2023 yearly school calendar and a list of closures for my child’s daycare. After closing early for Eid al-Fitr in 2022, the daycare will be closed the full day for Eid al-Fitr in 2023.

Anna Julow Roolf serves as the SVP of Operations and People for PR technology platform, Propel PRM Prior to joining the company, she was part of the executive team for BLASTmedia, a US-based PR agency specializing in B2B SaaS, where she not only enabled the agency to scale from approximately 20 employees to over 60, but also built a robust client roster including well-known B2B companies like MOZ and 6sense. Anna also has extensive experience in PR, including with media relations, content marketing, and analyst relations for B2B and B2C tech.

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Why Holidays And Festivals Should Be Part Of Every Company’s Inclusion Efforts

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Informing, Educating, Enlightening and Assisting HR professionals in their personal and professional development, the Excellence series offers high-quality content through the publications!