workforce.com
January/February 2018
EMOJIS AND HR
What evil lurks behind those faces?
MESSAGE MANAGEMENT
Controlling the communication overflow
PRICE OF LOYALTY Respect still a valued commodity
THE DIGITAL AGENCY FOR HCM COMPANIES
CONFUSION-FREE CUSTOM CONTENT YOU HAVE A MAZE OF OPTIONS WHEN IT COMES TO CUSTOM CONTENT. Partner with the Human Capital Media Research & Advisory Group to create influential thought leadership and compelling custom content. We tailor our knowledge and insight of HR’s inner circle to your brand, giving you a powerful voice in the HR space. Work with the HCM Research and Advisory Group today! Questions? Visit humancapitalmedia.com/research. #ResearchHCM
From Our Editors
FROM PERSONNEL TO WORKFORCE The workplace has changed a lot since 1922. That year The Journal of Personnel Research debuted, rebranded later as Personnel Journal and finally Workforce. Now in our 96th year, we take a look back at what was on the minds of past generations of people managers.
By any measure, 96 years is a long run. In business today, it’s a rarity. A quick survey of Fortune 500 companies compared to a few decades ago highlights just how exceptional it is. Average company life expectancy used to be 75 years. Now it’s 15 and getting shorter by the day. Through it all, one constant has been HR. The ability to manage people is a competitive advantage, and for the past 96 years Workforce has been there to help. Starting with this issue and continuing in the months ahead, our editors dig deep into the archives to show just how much has changed as well as what hasn’t. Change may be common in business today but that kind of valuable perspective remains a rarity. — Mike Prokopeak, Editor in Chief 4
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The More Things Change… Before Slack, before IM and even before email, there was face-to-face employer-employee communications. John T. Samaras writes that managers must make the message clear. Samaras argues that when persuasion is necessary, face-to-face contact is more effective than other media since the manager can observe reactions and adapt the presentation for desired results. “Communication is the most significant ingredient in any sort of management, for it is mastery of this function that will lead to managerial success.” August 1980 Personnel leaders also read about enhancing the quality of work life (note: not work-life balance) and union-management dispute arbitration. A Heidrick & Struggles survey story profiling black executives was billed as “the first study known to be made among black managers and professionals.” Another story on challenges facing HR in the 1980s may have tapped the origins of the “seat at the table” push: “Almost all executives felt that top management would continue to place greater emphasis on the personnel function.” Compensation for an HR generalist wasn’t too shabby. Personnel search firm Fox-Morris advertised a division personnel manager in L.A. paying “To $35,000 & bonus.” That’s about $110,000 today. — Rick Bell
Why Women Still Earn Less Than Men (Back Then) The gender wage gap persists, despite many efforts to close it since the equal rights movement in the 1960s, writes author Victor D. Infante. Some people say that pay discrepancies could be explained by job time lost during maternity leave, but others cite federal data to point out that argument doesn’t adequately explain the gap. Infante summarizes a study that controlled for variables like job April 2001 field, age and geographic location, which all can contribute to difference in salary. Even among men and women who shared these demographics, a large gap existed. “For the purpose of our study, we don’t have the capacity to know why that gap exists,” said one source. No mention of unconscious bias or women in leadership positions in this article, FYI. Human resource professionals also read a column criticizing the age 60 rule for pilots, which deemed that people over 60 could not pilot commercial planes (note: a 2007 ruling raised the age to 65). Also, with an almost unanimous 96-1 vote, the Senate passed legislation that greatly increased the number of H-1B visas available to foreign workers in high-tech industries, and businesses rejoiced the death of a Clinton executive order that could have raised companies’ costs for ergonomics measures. — Andie Burjek j a n u a ry / f e b ru a ry
2018
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Celebrate Tomorrow’s
Fearless HR Leaders Nominations for the 2018 Workforce Game Changers are opening Jan. 12, 2018. Each year, the Workforce Game Changers Awards celebrates the growing number of HR professionals, under the age of 40, advancing the profession through innovative people-management solutions.
E C H A N GE
GA
G C
RS
NOMINATE TODAY!
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2018
Nominations close Feb. 16, 2018. Winners will be featured in the July/August issue of Workforce magazine.
VISIT WORKFORCE.COM FOR MORE INFORMATION.
A PUBLICATION OF January/February 2018 | Volume 97, Issue 1 Marygrace Schumann EVENTS GRAPHIC mschumann@workforce.com DESIGNER Tonya Harris VICE PRESIDENT, lharris@workforce.com VICE PRESIDENT, CFO, COO RESEARCH AND Kevin A. Simpson WEBCAST MANAGER ADVISORY SERVICES ksimpson@workforce.com Alec O’Dell Sarah Kimmel aodell@workforce.com skimmel@workforce.com VICE PRESIDENT, GROUP PUBLISHER BUSINESS MANAGER RESEARCH MANAGER Clifford Capone Vince Czarnowski Tim Harnett ccapone@workforce.com vince@workforce.com tharnett@workforce.com VICE PRESIDENT, REGIONAL SALES DATA SCIENTIST EDITOR IN CHIEF MANAGERS Grey Litaker Mike Prokopeak Derek Graham clitaker@workforce.com mikep@workforce.com dgraham@workforce.com PRESIDENT John R. Taggart jrtag@workforce.com
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Rick Bell rbell@workforce.com MANAGING EDITOR Ashley St. John astjohn@workforce.com CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Frank Kalman fkalman@workforce.com VIDEO AND MULTIMEDIA PRODUCER Andrew Kennedy Lewis alewis@workforce.com ASSOCIATE EDITORS Andie Burjek aburjek@workforce.com Lauren Dixon ldixon@workforce.com Ave Rio ario@workforce.com COPY EDITOR Christopher Magnus cmagnus@workforce.com EDITORIAL INTERNS Alexis Carpello acarpello@workforce.com
RESEARCH CONTENT SPECIALIST Kristen Britt kbritt@workforce.com
Robert Stevens rstevens@workforce.com
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Jennifer Benz Kris Dunn Sarah Fister Gale Jon Hyman Heather A. Jackson Patty Kujawa Paul McDonald Max Mihelich Marta Moakley Rita Pyrillis Michelle V. Rafter Rachel L. Schaller
Daniella Weinberg dweinberg@workforce.com
EDITORIAL ART DIRECTOR DIRECTOR, BUSINESS Theresa Stoodley DEVELOPMENT tstoodley@workforce.com Kevin Fields kfields@workforce.com MEDIA & PRODUCTION MANAGER Ashley Flora aflora@workforce.com PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Nina Howard nhoward@workforce.com VICE PRESIDENT, EVENTS Trey Smith tsmith@workforce.com EVENTS MARKETING MANAGER Anthony Zepeda azepeda@workforce.com
DIRECTOR, AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT Cindy Cardinal ccardinal@workforce.com DIGITAL MANAGER Lauren Lynch llynch@workforce.com DIGITAL COORDINATOR Mannat Mahtani mmahtani@workforce.com LIST MANAGER Mike Rovello hcmlistrentals@infogroup.com
BUSINESS ADMINISTRATIVE EVENTS CONTENT EDITOR MANAGER Malaz Elsheikh Melanie Lee melsheikh@workforce.com mlee@workforce.com
WORKFORCE EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Arie Ball, Vice President, Sourcing and Talent Acquisition, Sodexo Angela Bailey, Associate Director and Chief Human Capital Officer, U.S. Office of Personnel Management Kris Dunn, Chief Human Resources Officer, Kinetix, and Founder, Fistful of Talent and HR Capitalist Curtis Gray, Senior Vice President, Human Resources and Administration, BAE Systems Jil Greene, Vice President, Human Resources and Community Relations, Harrah’s New Orleans Ted Hoff, Human Resources Vice President, Global Sales and Sales Incentives, IBM Tracy Kofski, Vice President, Compensation and Benefits, General Mills Jon Hyman, Partner, Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis Jim McDermid, Vice President, Human Resources, Cardiac and Vascular Group, Medtronic Randall Moon, Vice President, International HR, Benefits and HRIS, Lowe’s Cos. Dan Satterthwaite, Head of Human Resources, DreamWorks Dave Ulrich, Professor, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan Workforce (ISSN 2331-2793) is published bi-monthly by MediaTec Publishing Inc., 111 E. Wacker Dr., Suite 1200, Chicago IL 60601. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, IL and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workforce, P.O. Box 8712 Lowell, MA 01853. Subscriptions are free to qualified professionals within the US and Canada. Digital free subscriptions are available worldwide. Nonqualified paid subscriptions are available at the subscription price of $199 for 12 issues. All countries outside the US and Canada must be prepaid in US funds with an additional $33 postage surcharge. Single price copy is $29.99 Workforce and Workforce.com are the trademarks of MediaTec Publishing Inc. Copyright © 2018, MediaTec Publishing Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Reproduction of material published in Workforce is forbidden without permission. Printed by: Quad/Graphics, Sussex, WI
FREE LIVE
ONLINE EVENTS
CONTENTS Feature 2
ON THE COVER HARASSED BY EMOJIS
Employers should consider updating their employee handbooks to mention emoji use.
30 SECTOR REPORT 44 RECRUITING TECHNOLOGY SOFTWARE PROVIDERS
Technology is expanding, unlike recruiters’ willingness to use it.
46 RECRUITMENT PROCESS
OUTSOURCING PROVIDERS
Tech is finding its foothold in the RPO space.
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FEATURES 36 WORKDAY, INTERRUPTED
From email to Snapchat, bosses to baby-sitters, employees are bombarded by communications all day long.
40 LOYALTY NOT FOR SALE
Lavish perks have their benefits, but employees seek the basics: sustained respect and honesty.
CORRECTION In the story “The Automation of HR:Take Us to Your CHRO” in the November/ December 2017 issue of Workforce, Carolyn Broderick’s title should have stated that she is a member of SHRM’s HR Tech Expertise Panel. j a n u a ry / f e b ru a ry
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ON THE WEB SPEAK UP!
The Workforce online community provides you with virtual meeting places to chat about issues and trends affecting you and your workplace.
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FOLLOW US:
TRENDING
twitter.com/workforcenews
JOIN THE GROUP: workforce.com/LinkedIn
10 OVER THERE
Next best tech hire probably isn’t in Silicon Valley. Or in the U.S.
WATCH US: workforce.com/youtube
FOR YOUR BENEFIT COLUMNS 4
YOUR FORCE
Shining the light on 96 years of Workforce history.
14 WORK IN PROGRESS
Promote Great Managers Over Culture.
16 NAILING IT DOWN
Construction industry takes on opioid addiction woes.
17 BOOMING DEMAND
Boomers call for push in lifetime income plans.
20 BENEFITS BEAT
Benefits Offerings a Puzzle That Needs Assembly.
22 THE PRACTICAL EMPLOYER
Legal Lessons From the Worst Employers.
50 THE LAST WORD
Rephrasing a Common Workplace Salutation.
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17 LIFE SAVER
A new plan is hailed as “Pension for the 21st Century.”
18 SCHOOL RULES
U. of Minnesota makes healthy choice with its own health panel.
11 FROM THE WEB, PEOPLE MOVES AND BY THE NUMBERS
Trademarking buzzwords; Cox Auto taps Barnard; winter blues.
12 PRIVATE EXCHANGE
Alan Cohen encourages rational employee health-plan decisions.
12 NEW HR TECH EVENT UNLEASHED HRN taps China Gorman to manage N.American operations.
LEGAL 20 SHENANIGAN STOPPER
Virtuous management guards against workplace scandals.
21 LEGAL BRIEFINGS
Background check dispute; ADA.
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TRENDING
Bend in the Road Could Lead to Top Tech Talent Your next best hire probably isn’t in Silicon Valley. Or in the U.S., for that matter. By Sarah Fister Gale hen Gray Skinner tried to recruit developers for Droplr, his growing software start-up company in Bend, Oregon, he was disappointed by his options. Bend is known more as an outdoor sports mecca than a tech hub, but even when he expanded his search to Portland and San Francisco he struggled to find qualified candidates. “Good talent is so expensive, and we didn’t have the luxury of spending all our capital on developers,” he says. Even when he managed to hire a few code school graduates, they were quickly poached by other start-ups offering six figure salaries and equity. “After we lost the third one, we knew we had to do something different.” Skinner is hardly alone. More than 80 percent of CIOs reported difficulty filling tech roles in the past year in a survey from Tech Republic. And Gartner says the lack of available tech talent is the leading obstacle keeping CIOs from achieving their objectives. Part of the problem is where they are searching. While major U.S. tech hubs may be in short supply of unemployed developers, there are lots of cities with strong tech talent eager to work for U.S. companies; they just aren’t based in the United States. “When it comes to recruiting you have to think about where the right talent is located,” said Patric Palm, CEO and co-founder of Favro, a collaboration software developer in Uppsala, Sweden.“And
When Skinner’s team decided to look abroad for talent, they started with their own customer base. Droplr has a large population of users in Poland, so they sent an email via their customer relationship management system saying they would host a recruiting event there later that month to spread the word. Skinner and his co-founder, Levi Nunnink, ended up interviewing 35 people in two cities over five days and ultimately found their purple squirrel: Radek Paklikowski is a developer with a master’s degree in his early 30s who had lead two previous start-ups, worked with U.S. and U.K. companies, spoke fluent English, and was passionate about being a leader in a U.S. start-up. “We knew right away that he was our guy.” Skinner and Nunnink hired Paklikowski as vice president and head of the Poland office, and put him in charge of re-
cruiting the rest of the team — with their final approval. Most of the candidates Paklikowski found had master’s degrees in computer science, and one had deep expertise in Amazon Web Service, which is among the toughest skillsets to find in the United States. “It’s been a great experience, and we are so impressed with how ambitious people are to work with a U.S. startup,” Skinner said. He is also excited about the salaries. Thanks to the local economy and exchange rate, salaries for tech talent in Poland are less than one-third of U.S. rates, and the quality of talent their is much higher. Droplr now has nine employees in Poland and is recruiting two more. Skinner admitted the process hasn’t been seamless. He and Nunnink each travel to Poland every couple of months, and they’ve had to hire local lawyers to navigate the tax and corporate laws. They also start their days early to overlap time zones. It’s been worth it. In the 18 months since they started hiring in Poland, Droplr went from two employees and $50,000 in debt to 18 people in two countries generating more than $1 million in revenues annually. “Hiring the team in Poland was central to our success,” he says. While not every start-up will find their dream team in Poland, looking abroad can give cash-strapped companies an edge. “Many companies today have fully distributed teams,” Palm said. “If you are willing to adapt the way you work, geography won’t get in your way.”
HIRING TECH TALENT OVERSEAS Pick a country based on the talent. Many industry organizations publish top 10 lists highlighting which countries are known for different tech skills. For example, Hacker Rank found French developers were best at C++, while Taiwan dominates in Python. “Do your research to find which country fits your needs,” said Gray Skinner, CEO of Droplr. Focus on one place and make a splash. Hiring multiple people from a single city can establish your brand in the community and get people excited
about working for you, said Patric Palm, CEO of Favro. “It improves your chances of finding the best and brightest.” Pick someplace you love. Not only is this a place you will be traveling to a lot, you also want your team to feel like you admire their country. “They don’t want to be viewed as just another cheap source of labor,” Palm said. “They want to know you care about them and their home.” Ask local talent what they want. Skinner uses every
interview as an information-gathering session to get a sense of salary and benefits expectations. “It gave us a sense of the workplace culture and what we needed to offer to be competitive.” Start with one great hire. You need someone on the ground who has insight into the culture, language and local talent, Skinner said. “I never could have built our team without the help of someone on the ground who I really trust.” — Sarah Fister Gale
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in many cases it’s not where you think.” Cities in South Africa,Vietnam, Slovenia and Lithuania are known for having excellent tech talent who speak English, have advanced degrees and are looking for work, Palm said. And because they are relatively young as tech centers, these locations provide unique opportunities for even the smallest companies to establish themselves as great places to work. The trick is knowing where to go and how to find the best people once you get there.
Asking customers for help
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TRENDING
PEOPLE
FROM THE WEB MACRO IMPLICATIONS Education technology company Grovo has trademarked “microlearning,” one of the industry’s hottest buzzwords. Why? According to Grovo CEO Steven Carpenter, going after other companies that use the term is not their intent. He said the main point of the trademark was to make microlearning a core part of every organization’s learning strategy. “I want to grow the category by leaps and bounds.” Workforce.com/grovo WHY RAMPANT HARASSMENT? Don’t blame the laws or the courts, argues Workforce employment law blogger Jon Hyman. Current harassment laws are fine. So, if amending our workplace harassment laws isn’t the solution, what is? The real issue is employers that have, for far too long, turned a blind eye to these issues. Workforce.com/rampant WHEN YOUR BOSS IS AN ALGORITHM In a fresh edition of the “Talent 10x” podcast, Workforce editors Frank Kalman and Rick Bell ponder whether their next boss will be flesh and bones or an app on their phone. With major conglomerates like GE experimenting with apps doling out tasks, managing talent could take on a whole new meaning for the workforce. Workforce.com/BossAlgorithim j a n u a ry / f e b ru a ry
2018
moves
JANET BARNARD Janet Barnard was named chief people officer for Cox Automotive, a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises. She is responsible for developing the organization’s culture and talent management program. Barnard oversees all HR functions, including oversight of corporate and field operations, total rewards and organizational effectiveness. ALEJANDRO REYES Alejandro Reyes joins HMH from Laureate Education, where he served as the chief talent and organization development officer responsible for building the talent infrastructure for the company’s recent growth. At HMH, he will focus on enabling success for the employee$51 community as a whole, including talent development and management. MICHELE MEYER-SHIPP International law firm Akin Gump named Michele Meyer-Shipp as its first chief diversity and inclusion officer. She will guide all diversity programs and initiatives across the firm, ensuring that Akin Gump’s foundational principles of inclusiveness and diversity are reflected in the firm’s internal and external policies, work and practices.
By Bythe theNumbers Numbers compiled by Rick Bell
Winter of Discontent Winter blues is a milder, medically recognized version of Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD. What’s the workplace effect and remedy?
Dark Days 6%
14%
U.S. population with Seasonal Affective Disorder
U.S. population with winter blues
Source: Psychiatry
Costly Illness Depression costs in the workplace $26 billi on
5
Ways Winter Blues Affect Workers
Lethargy Difficulty waking up in morning Decreased energy Weight gain Lower concentration
Source: Parade.com
in direct treatment costs
$51 billion
in absenteeism from work and lost productivity
Source: Mental Health America
Higher Anxiety
EAPs field more calls in January vs. July 33% increase in anxiety calls 30% increase in depression calls 22% increase in stress calls Source: ComPsych, 2017
Combating Winter SADness What businesses can do to brighten the mood Take an ‘outside’ break Offer flexible hours Increase natural/bright light Provide healthy food/exercise options Promote your EAP
To be considered for People Moves, email a brief announcement and a high-resolution color photo to editors@workforce.com. Include People Moves in the subject line.
Up the employer-employee dialog Source: Beat the Winter Blues
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TRENDING
New HR Tech Event Unleashed THE PRIVATE EXCHANGE’S SPREAD IN THE WORKPLACE
By Michelle V. Rafter
E
Alan Cohen, author
By Andie Burjek After co-founding Liazon, one of the industry’s leading benefits exchanges for employers in 2007, benefits expert Alan Cohen extensively analyzed the current American health care landscape and the place of the private exchange within it. His new book “Employee Benefits and the New Health Care Landscape” explores how private exchanges are bringing choice and consumerism to the workforce. Workforce Associate Editor Andie Burjek recently discussed with Cohen the growth of private exchanges and the importance of employers making rational decisions when it comes to the health plans they choose. Workforce: What do you think is holding back the spread of private exchanges in the workplace? Alan Cohen: Change is always hard. Frankly, we’ve seen clients who try to present it to employees that it’s not much change. That hasn’t worked very well. It actually is a big change. It’s worked far better with our clients who embrace the change. We’re very vocal about how you have to think of this as a dramatic change in your employee benefits strategy and in your human capital strategy. It’s not just changing your health plan or benefits program. It’s changing your human capital program. Anything that’s going to have that much effect is not going to explode overnight.
WF: What would you tell employers uncertain about moving to a private exchange? Cohen: I would tell them to think hard about why they offer benefits to begin with. We are so focused nowadays on how we can reduce the cost of health care and make our population healthier, that we’ve lost track of the reason for employee benefits. It’s not to have the lowest possible health care costs for employees. In the job markets we have now, which are getting tighter and tighter, we have to look back at the reason we have benefits, which is to attract and retain employees in a cost-efficient way. If you use that as the measure of your benefits program, I’m sure you’ll find private exchanges are an excellent way to do that. We’ve seen 10 years worth of proof that employees are happy, make good choices and want to be in control.
WF: What do you hope employers get out of your book? Cohen: The demystification of exchanges. In any new area, there’s a lot of mystery and it’s kind of obtuse and it’s hard to understand. What I try to do here is shed light on this area and boil it down to simple choices a company has to make, which is: What is the goal of your employee benefits program? I hope it makes the idea of exchanges more understandable and digestible to employers so that they can make a rational decision. They still might not choose it, but at least if you’re not going to choose an exchange, do it from a point of knowledge as opposed to not choosing it because you believe it’s something that it’s not.
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uropean-based HR industry event organizer HRN, which is behind a fledgling U.S. HR technology conference, is counting on longtime insider China Gorman to boost its presence stateside. The outfit tapped Gorman to manage its North American operations, including helping it rebrand and run its second U.S. conference. The event, once known as HR Tech World and rebranded as Unleash back in October, is scheduled to take place in May in Las Vegas. In building its American operations, HRN is going head to head with the existing HR Technology Conference. The LRP Publications-run event all but created the HR technology exposition phenomena when it kicked off its first gathering 20 years ago. HRN’s focus on the future of work and unique programming separates it from existing conferences, Gorman said. “This isn’t our parents’ HR tech conference, that’s for sure,” she said. An HR Technology Conference spokeswoman declined to comment. The rival conferences hope to appeal to HR practitioners at a time when companies are using more cloud-based services for payroll, benefits, performance, learning and other aspects of people management. At the same time, venture funds are pouring an unprecedented amount of capital into HR technology startups. The past few years also have seen a proliferation of HR tech blogs, review sites — including some with crowdsourced reviews — and other content devoted to assessing HR technology. Gorman will work for Unleash part time from her home base in Las Vegas. “I see myself as a rocket booster for the Unleash team,” said Gorman, chief executive of Great Place to Work Institute from 2013-15 and SHRM’s COO from 2007 to 2010. j a n u a ry / f e b ru a ry
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If You Want Your Best Employees Around in the Future, Give Them One Cornerstone’s software helps the world’s leading organizations to realize the potential of their people. Find Out More at csod.com/training
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Promote Great Managers Over Culture By Kris Dunn |
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Wo r k i n P r o g r e s s
o here we are. It’s 2018.The year of the dog in the Chinese calendar.Tweets are flying from world leaders, we’re in peak economic cycle and yes, recruiting is harder than it’s been in a while. If you’re paying attention, you’ve seen the recruiting market tighten up to historical levels, with the number of open jobs climbing and time-to-fill at all-time highs. That means you’re looking for any competitive advantage you can get on the recruiting trail. The first thing you need is an actual advantage (often overlooked). The second thing is a recruitment marketing plan/ communications strategy to influence candidates to believe you’re special. Here’s where a lot of us mess it up. We think that our company cultures are special and provide that advantage. Most of them aren’t. Here’s why that’s a problem: We overpromise on culture via recruitment marketing platforms. The most common version of this is aspirational in nature: leadership teams announcing what they want their culture to be (rather than what it is) and promoting a stale, “me-too” cultural vision as part of their employment brand.There’s little differentiation when this happens. Great candidates smell phony cultures a mile away. Talent in our job market has more options than ever. They’ve shopped for jobs but aren’t desperate to make a move in this candidate’s market.Your culture is easily crosschecked on various company reputation sites.This just in: a rating of 3.0 on one of those sites (on a five-point scale) means you’re average. The candidates most likely to value empty calls to culture are the ones you want the least. This is the trap. You may find yourself getting great feedback on the marketing you’re doing on company culture. If your culture is average, you’re likely getting great feedback from average candidates — the ones others have released. Great candidates? They’ll see through your cultural mirage because they’re much more particular about the threshold necessary for them to make a move. But there’s still a way you can land great candidates even if your company culture is average at best. Promoting your best hiring managers is your path to overcoming average company culture on the recruiting trail. Bad managers at Google cause people to leave one of the
most attractive employers on Earth. Just as importantly, great managers at average (and even bad) companies attract and retain talent regardless of the corporate issues present. Great managers at your company have their own cultural gravity. I’ve always viewed this as what I’ll call the “career agent” paradigm. Managers get a reputation as career agents at your company when they’re better than their peers at developing talent.The best managers who take on the career agent role develop the people on their team in a variety of ways. Those managers ultimately become hiring managers at your company. If you’re looking for an effective way to attract top talent at your company, stop promoting a “me-too” cultural statement that sounds like everyone else and start promoting your best hiring managers. Here’s how you can do that. Identify your best managers. Sounds easy, right? If you don’t know who people look up to at your company, just ask your employees the following question:“Other than the manager you work for, who would you most want to work for in our company and why?” Employees know who the career agents are inside your organization. Create interesting ways to feature those managers in your recruitment marketing. The most powerful thing you can do is include credible hiring managers in your recruitment marketing strategy. Feature them via video on your careers site and even within job postings for best results. Focus messaging on what’s interesting about the work being conducted in the role. In a sea of broad themes like teamwork and collaboration, the best candidates are immune to the routine company culture plays. What gets their attention is a manager who’s passionate about the work in their department and stories of career advancement/fulfillment for their team. The bad news is your culture — however much you love it — is average or slightly above average. That’s just math. Only a few companies can be outliers. The good news is that all companies have a few stars in their managerial ranks. Find them, promote them and connect them with your recruitment marketing/communications plan and upgrade your recruiting efforts this year.
WE THINK THAT OUR COMPANY CULTURES ARE SPECIAL AND PROVIDE A RECRUITING ADVANTAGE. MOST OF THEM AREN’T. THAT’S A PROBLEM.
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Kris Dunn, the chief human resources officer at Kinetix, is a Workforce contributing editor. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.
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FOR YOUR BENEFIT
Construction Industry Nailing Down Opioid Addiction Woes One company’s holistic approach addresses workplace safety and addiction education. By Rita Pyrillis
O
pioid abuse can take employers by surprise, in part because addiction can be hard to spot and its impact on health care costs and productivity takes time to surface. But for Suffolk Construction the effects of the opioid epidemic are impossible to ignore. The company’s Boston headquarters is next to the so-called Methadone Mile, a stretch of the city known for drug dealing and methadone clinics. “We see it every day, but we also look at data and follow the trends,” said Alex Hall, executive vice president of environment, health and safety, at Suffolk, which has offices in Florida, California, New York and Texas. “What’s become clear to us is that given the high rates of opioid abuse relative to other industries is that consequently more people in construction are being prescribed painkillers.” It is estimated that 15.1 percent of construction workers have engaged in illicit drug use and that opioids comprise about 20 percent of prescription drug spending in the construction industry — about 5 to 10 percent higher than other industries, according to a 2015 report by commercial insurance underwriter CNA Financial Corp. And yet employers often overlook the problem because they are focused on day-to-day business operations, such as replacing a missing worker or managing performance issues, and may not see the underlying problem of addiction, said Tess Benham, a senior program manager at the National Safety Council, a nonprofit organization that promotes health and safety. “Employers who are not in hard-hit states are just now waking up to how this crisis is impacting their workforce and their business costs,” she said. “Companies that are smaller or in industries without a lot of machinery and tools are the least prepared to deal with it.” The National Safety Council offers a substance use cost calculator that allows employers to enter their industry, location and size to determine how much substance abuse might be costing the company. Employers across industries and around the country are becoming increasingly concerned about the abuse of prescription opioids and are looking for ways to address what many experts say is a public health crisis, according to Brian Marcotte, president and CEO of the National Business Group on Health. According to the association’s “Large Employers’ 2018 Health Care Strategy and Plan Design Survey,” 80 percent of employers are concerned about the abuse of prescription opioids, with more than half stating that they are very concerned. Prescription opioids include painkillers such as oxycodone, morphine and hydrocodone and can lead to addiction to heroin — an illegal opioid. “We’ve had information sessions for employers this past year and concern is really heating up,” he said. “While health care 16
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costs are a concern, the real cost has to do with lost productivity. It’s a major driver of excessive absenteeism.” In fact, opioid abuse could be costing U.S. employers about $18 billion a year in lost productivity and medical expenses, according to a 2016 study by health information firm Castlight Health. It found that on average, 4.5 percent of employees who received an opioid prescription showed signs of abuse. Overall, this group accounted for 32 percent of all written prescriptions and 40 percent of prescription painkiller spending, according to the study. Employers can take steps to fight abuse by approving opioids in limited supplies, limiting coverage to a network of pharmacies and providers, and encouraging physicians to find alternatives to pain management, according to Marcotte. At Suffolk, a “holistic approach” that addresses workplace safety and educating employees and providers on opioid abuse is the most effective way to deal with the problem, according to Hall. “The first step is to reduce injuries and eliminate the need for pain treatment,” he said. “We want to heighten awareness of safety and encourage everyone to look after one another on the job site.” The company also meets with physicians at the clinics it contracts with to discuss their treatment protocols and opioid abuse. “These are not easy conversations to have because we’re not experts,” Hall said. “We’re not here to tell them how to do their job. We just want people to properly administer treatment protocols. We want to be part of the solution and creating awareness of the problem is absolutely critical.” Suffolk also trains supervisors on how to administer naloxone, a medication that prevents overdose. j a n u a ry / f e b ru a ry
2018
FOR YOUR BENEFIT
Employers Slow to Respond to Boomer Calls for Lifetime Income Plans
‘Pension for the 21st Century’
Despite the demand, such plans haven’t been popular with employers for various reasons.
United Technologies Corp. said it has the pension for the 21st century built into its 401(k) plan. It’s called lifetime income, and United is one of the few companies that automatically enrolls workers into the option.
By Patty Kujawa ore than 74 million people have a 401(k) plan to prepare them for the day they don’t have to work. But most employers don’t offer investment options that might help retirees spend what they’ve saved more predictably. Such options are called lifetime or retirement income solutions and are similar to defined-benefit plans where participants get a set monthly income.These products are guaranteed or variable annuity options, but instead of purchasing them at retirement, workers put dollars in the products just like any other investment choice in their 401(k). At retirement, participants get a steady paycheck for life from the annuity. “What people have wanted is to accumulate wealth” in 401(k) plans, said Diane Garnick, chief income strategist for TIAA.“It’s only now that the baby boomers are turning 71 that they are demanding retirement income solutions.” Historically, lifetime income has not been popular with employers for various reasons.They are tough to explain easily, employers see them as a commitment and there’s always the cost factor to consider and the potential for being sued for having pricey investment options. But as Garnick said, the largest wave of workers is retiring on a daily basis, and they are realizing that they don’t know how to budget a spending plan for retirement. In fact, respondents to a recent TIAA survey said only 50 to 69 percent of their current income would be enough to live on in retirement, when most experts say 70 to 100 percent is needed. Meanwhile, with automatic features becoming so highly used in plan design, many participants don’t have to think about much because they are used to setting their retirement savings goals once and forgetting about the plan, she added. “We are now asking people to make a very proactive decision and to figure out their finances,” Garnick said.“In many ways, it’s the most irresponsible thing we do.” More than half of respondents to the recent TIAA survey said the most important goal of their retirement plan should be to provide a monthly income stream for life. If given a choice between a $500,000 lump sum and a check for $2,700 each month, 62 percent said they’d choose the monthly option. “We were so happy to see this,” Garnick said. But a good bit of education is needed, the survey showed. Nearly half of respondents didn’t know whether their 401(k) offered a lifetime income solution. Plus, 63 percent said they thought their target date fund would provide a monthly paycheck for life.That would only happen if an annuity option was built into the fund or if the participant purchased it on their own. Employers are starting to see what is happening, and slowly heads are turning. According to investment consultancy NEPC’s 2017 “Defined Contribution Plan and Fee Survey,” about 8 percent of plans reported offering a lifetime income solution investment as part of their plan lineup. “Five years ago, most [employers] reported no lifetime income” investment option, said Kevin McCullough, analyst at NEPC. “It continues to be a focus in the marketplace even though we haven’t seen a migration in that direction.” Garnick added that employers are waiting for Congress and the Labor Department to make it easier to adopt lifetime income products into their investment fund lineup, but particularly into target-date options. Ideas have included tax incentives for employer contributions as well as federal guidance for employers to show participants what their balances might look like in retirement on a monthly basis. “There is opportunity here,” she said.
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About five years ago, the Connecticut-based aircraft maker reviewed its investment plan options and decided it wanted to offer workers a product that would give them a paycheck for life. The company embedded a lifetime income product into its target-date funds. Participants in these funds would see their assets slowly convert from traditional investments to lifetime income products by the time they hit retirement age. Since June 2012, all new hires are automatically invested in the strategy. Today, United has more than 29,000 participants with $1 billion in its lifetime income fund. “As our default, we are automatically securing the future retirement of our new employees,” Kevin Hanney, United’s senior director for pension investments said in a recent discussion with industry group Institutional Retirement Income Council. IRIC Executive Director Bob Melia said employers who want their 401(k) plan to be a better HR tool should follow United’s design. Because of the paycheck for life, this option gives workers financial security — the kind of security workers used to have with defined-benefit pensions. Studies have shown that workers who are less stressed about their finances tend to be better at their jobs. Melia and Hanney agree that companies need to look at their current plans to figure out whether it is meeting the objectives set out for the 401(k). Hanney added that advisers should become more familiar with the lifetime income because so many plan sponsors are interested. “If employers engage in a thoughtful risk/reward analysis of a retirement income product for their plan, most would find that the rewards for their employees outweigh their costs,” Hanney said. —Patty Kujawa w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce
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FOR YOUR BENEFIT
University Makes Healthy Choice With Health Care Panel Experts in the Health Care Task Force are key to the U. of Minnesota’s internally run self-insured plan. By Andie Burjek
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he Health Care Task Force may not be ment, make mistakes and revamp strategy the most creative name for a super if necessary has contributed to the progroup of organizational planners, but it gram’s success. Currently, the university is served a vital service for University of Min- primarily focused on the overall value and nesota in 2002 when the institution results of the benefits plan rather than the switched to a self-insured plan. Rather than cost, said Horstman. It would have been an relying on the state of Minnesota, the uni- easy decision to go the HDHP route like versity set up its own internal infrastructure, other employers, but the university had its complete with internal expertise in areas reasons for pursing a different strategy. like pharmacy, HR and law. “There’s nothing wrong with [HDHPs]. Fifteen years later, the university’s inter- But over time, if you get into too high of a nal plan still yields impressive results con- deductible area, it does limit the care peotrary to general health care cost trends. ple seek for themselves, and that was a They avoid the high-deductible health concern on our part,” Horstman said. plan, which shifts costs to employees; their “Is it sustainable for the future?” he addpharmacy costs are well below the nation- ed. “We’ll find out, there’s a lot of unceral trend; and employees aren’t seeing a pre- tainty in this environment, and we can’t mium increase for 2018, according to Ken control all of that.” Horstman, senior director of total comThe rise of self-insurance in the face of pensation at the University of Minnesota. The university, which has campuses in THE RISE OF SELF-INSURANCE five Minnesota cities, accomplished this successful internal program through its IN THE FACE OF TODAY’S own expertise and clear goals. The health plan has gone through many iterations HEALTH CARE CLIMATE IS since its genesis in 2002, said Horstman, SOMETHING NOTABLE, but what has always been consistent is considering the support of the employees. AND NOT ONLY FOR LARGE For example, costs and trends were skyrocketing in the mid-2000s after the uni- ORGANIZATIONS. versity shifted to self-insurance, he said. When developing the health plan and today’s health care climate is something strategy based on those trends, the impact notable, and not only for large organizaon employees was a major factor in the tions like the University of Minnesota, decision. “[We] held back on making any which covers 19,500 employees and their significant plan design changes that would families. Between 2011 and 2015, self-inshift costs to its employees,” Horstman said. surance rose from 11.9 percent to 14.2 The task force included a law professor, percent for employers with fewer than 100 HR professionals and a consultant who employees and from 25.3 percent to 30.1 helped determine plan design and how to percent for employers with 100 to 499 set up the initial premium structure, he said. employees, according to data from the The university also consults employees, Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Emforming a Benefits Advisory Committee. ployee Benefits Research Institute. Four different employee groups represent“Employers, no matter the size, have fied include academics and professionals, nally given up hope that a huge insurance faculty, civil servants and labor representa- company or the government in D.C. will tives. They’re not decision-makers, but do something to save them or change costs, they’re a vital part of the structure of the and so they’re taking it upon themselves to health plan, said Horstman. do something,” said Andrew Cavenagh, The university’s willingness to experi- managing director of Pareto Captive Ser18
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Ken Horstman
vices, a company that manages benefit captive programs allowing medium sized employers to self-insure with less risk. It can be daunting at first for small to midsized organizations to go this route, but a good insurance consultant can help, said Cavenagh. General Converting Inc., a carton manufacturer based in Bolingbrook, Illinois, has about 65 employees and is one Illinois-based employer partnering with Pareto and other small businesses to self-insure. A critical step for the company is finding a knowledgeable broker with good people behind their company, said Christopher Husenger, controller and CFO for General Converting. “We don’t have a big staff, an HR staff, we don’t have people working on this solely, so we need to reach out to people to do this,” said Husenger. “There are a lot of insurance consultants out there that the status quo is great for,” said Cavenagh. “What we spend a lot of our time doing is trying to identify consultants who aren’t willing to accept the status quo on behalf of their clients.” He added that he sees real health care reform, at the employer level, coming from small employers partnering together. “I think this will change the health care economy in our country.” j a n u a ry / f e b ru a ry
2018
FOR YOUR BENEFIT
Benefits Offerings A Puzzle To Assemble By Jennifer Benz |
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Benefits Beat
any of our clients are waiting for the release of a technology solution that will solve all their problems.Will this be the year everything clicks into place and ongoing benefits engagement is no longer a challenge? Once we have the right tools, everything will be simple, easy and consolidated in one place, right? If only that were our reality.What we’re seeing instead is a benefits and HR ecosystem that continues to get more crowded and more complicated. Providers are getting increasingly sophisticated in the tools and resources they offer. At the same time, employers are offering benefits from more and more providers. While the niche programs and tools are highly valuable and a great way to meet the needs of a diverse workforce, this means a more complex ecosystem for employees to wade through (and benefits pros to manage). Before you move forward and make any significant changes to your benefits ecosystem — including adding a new communications channel or provider — consider how they will fit into your current environment. First, evaluate the different communications channels and resources you’re using today. Then determine if they create a cohesive experience for employees and how new providers and communications channels can be incorporated. At the heart of any successful benefits ecosystem is a single dedicated and highly branded website that houses all benefits information.This education hub, or portal, connects employees to all the various administrators, programs and providers to make their transactions. It should be built outside the firewall so it’s accessible to family members. As a single go-to resource, a benefits website makes the task of adding new programs or communications channels much easier. Once your website is in place, think about how the pieces of your communications ecosystem — across administrators, providers and programs — fit together to move employees to and from the information they need. The most successful strategies utilize the strengths of multiple channels, and every organization needs to use several channels to reach employees and family members. As you review your current ecosystem and think about adding a new provider or communications channel to the mix, think about how to best use various tools to drive action. • Alerts: Text messages, notifications, calendar reminders and single-topic emails are just some of the alerts we see
every day. Alerts work best when they are personalized, targeted and timely. Look for how new providers incorporate alerts into the way they stay connected to employees and be cautious that you don’t overwhelm employees with alerts (or they will start to tune out). • Promotions: Email, home mailers, posters and table tents are a just a handful of promotions we’re all familiar with. There are so many creative ways you can promote HR programs and resources. They can also be effective channels for your hard-to-reach audiences. These promotions point people toward education and transactional resources. Think about how you’ll use promotions to drive engagement across benefits and how you’ll make them as relevant and meaningful as possible. • Education: Detailed brochures, websites, videos, in-person meetings and webinars. If you’re like most employers, this is where you spend the bulk of your time and resources when it comes to communicating benefits. You explain how things work and are building channels that provide helpful information so employees have 24/7, self-service access.When you add new providers, think about how the education provided on their sites integrates with what you already have available. And, think about what you’ll need to do to get employees to use those sites. • Transactions: Benefits administration platforms, HRIS systems and providers’ websites can all be used to get stuff done, whether that’s enrolling, updating a beneficiary or participating in the wellness program. With mountains of personal data at their disposal, these channels create a compelling, targeted and personalized experience. But they are often full of resources that are underutilized. Plan for ongoing communication to drive usage of these platforms and tools. A cohesive user experience is one of the biggest hurdles to ongoing engagement.While we may never have a single tool that does everything for us, looking at how all of the pieces work together and making ongoing benefits communication a priority will drive engagement.
BEFORE YOU MOVE FORWARD AND MAKE ANY SIGNIFICANT CHANGES TO YOUR BENEFITS ECOSYSTEM, CONSIDER HOW THEY WILL FIT INTO YOUR CURRENT ENVIRONMENT.
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Jennifer Benz is CEO and founder of Benz Communications, a San Francisco-based employee benefits communications agency. She was honored as one of Workforce’s Game Changers in 2013. Contact her at jen@benzcommunications.com or follow her on Twitter at @jenbenz. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.
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Legal Guard Against Workplace Scandals Virtuous management is an old-school solution to modern office issues. By Marta Moakley
“I
t’s vintage.” This is how I find myself describing many of my possessions lately. And while I admit that I’ve used the term as a crutch to describe stuff that is really just ripe for the garbage heap, there is also much inherent value in vintage items. Just because something has been around for a while doesn’t mean it has to be antiquated or passé (think of a sorority pin, wedding pictures of loved ones or an antique history book bought on a first trip to Paris). These old-school things are emblematic of values that I hold dear: permanence, loyalty and perseverance. It occurs to me, while reading through some of the coverage of recent workplace harassment scandals, that incorporating similar vintage concepts into workplace culture and goals would serve many affected organizations well. And when I say vintage, I’m going way back — to Roman times, in fact.Virtuous business principles (or, those emphasizing the four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, temperance and courage) have been discussed in terms of executive leadership for some time. But in understanding some of the systemic failures that have allowed bullying, abusive or harassing conduct to permeate an organization, it leads me to think that the adage “everything old is new again” would serve those organizations seeking to plan responsive supervisor training programs well. When fashioning a response to bad workplace behavior, an employer may structure the program so that virtuous decision-making is emphasized and recognized. Training supervisors in this old-fashioned way may not only prevent future incidences of workplace harassment, but permeate decision-making so as to promote overall ethical, professional and compliant practices. All four classical cardinal virtues address aspects of an exceptional leader. Prudence may be described as self-discipline, the prevalence of reason or having good judgment. Prudence is the opposite of negligence, which leads to liability risks in corporate settings.While a frivolous claim may always be filed against an employer, a prudent supervisor will have the good judgment to show what was done and why and possess the integrity to back it up. 20
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In a business context, the second cardinal virtue, justice, may be described as the proper administration of work rules and the fair application of workplace policies. Fair supervisors understand the unbiased application of laws, policies and work rules, thereby reducing the likelihood of charges of discrimination or retaliation.
Implementing workplace-training programs that emphasize classical virtues isn’t outdated. Instead, the practice ensures that the efforts achieve enduring quality and permanence. Supervisors need to constantly monitor whether certain behavior for some types of employees is considered acceptable, yet for others the disciplinary repercussions are swift and dire. If discipline isn’t meted out in ways that ensure procedures are followed consistently and the workplace remains welcoming, then that organization fails to exemplify the just and fair treatment of employees. The third virtue, temperance, describes the ability to provide moderate responses. By engaging in temperate behavior, a supervisor displays a level-headedness in relating both to subordinates, peers and those up the chain of command. In j a n u a ry / f e b ru a ry
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addition, a supervisor shows a talent for resolving or dissuading conflicts. The ability to moderate behavior and display level-headedness may be a particularly good quality in global or highly diverse organizations. Understanding social cues and acting accordingly may make workforces at far-flung locations feel more valued and supported and less likely to file unfair labor practices claims. The ability to resolve or dissuade conflicts from occurring, however, also needs to be coupled with the courage to do so. Which leads to the fourth virtue, courage — having the strength to overcome fear or difficulty in order to persevere. Developing one’s strength in addressing unfairness, emergent challenges or illegal behavior is a trait of a budding corporate leader. Courage requires that those who learn of allegations of workplace misconduct have the fortitude to enforce existing work rules and procedures, regardless of where the allegations may lead or who may be involved. Courage requires that a complaint involving, for example, an intern accusing a longtime executive of quid pro quo sexual advances, rife with threats of blacklisting (“You’ll never work in this town again” and the like), be dealt with deftly and promptly. Showing courage in the ordinary workplace may leave one potentially vulnerable to criticism and somewhat exposed. But a virtuous supervisor will continue to press on simply because it is right and the process should be seen through. Hearteningly, courage is contagious. If employees see their leaders act with courage, then they may very well be inspired to do so, too. In fact, the best supervisors not only model the cardinal virtues as individuals but also attempt to engender these traits in subordinates. Directing those in leadership-track positions to embrace these virtues propels the overall organization into one that is emblematic of these qualities. Senior management should support supervisors as needed through their learning and development journey by fostering an environment that values fair communications and regular feedback. Implementing workplace-training programs that emphasize classical virtues isn’t outdated. Instead, the practice ensures that the efforts achieve enduring quality and permanence. In other words, the initiatives will become a truly vintage classic. Marta Moakley is a legal editor at XpertHR, an online compliance service. Before joining XpertHR, Moakley practiced law in New York and Florida. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.
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Legal Legal Briefings HOT LATTE WITH A SHOT OF NOTICE AND CHANCE TO DISPUTE Starbucks applicant Jonathan Santiago Rosario received a notification from Starbucks stating he was rejected from hiring consideration because of criminal history information contained in a third-party background investigation report. Rosario disputed the accuracy of the information and the third-party background investigator removed it. But Starbucks did not reinstate Rosario’s job offer. Rosario brought a putative class action against Starbucks under the Fair Credit Report Act for failing to provide affected applicants with a copy of their background investigation reports and a summary of their rights under the FCRA before taking an adverse employment action. Starbucks argued Rosario did not have an FCRA claim because he was provided a copy of his background report and an opportunity to contest the report before he received the letter notifying him that he was rejected from hiring consideration. The court rejected this argument. Rosario successfully argued he was actually rejected when the third-party investigator “adjudicated his application for employment based on Starbucks’ hiring requirements and when Starbucks ‘adopted’ that adjudication.” Thus, because Rosario alleged Starbucks “rubber stamped” the third-party investigator’s decision before sending Rosario notice of his rejection, the court allowed Rosario’s putative class action to proceed past the motion to dismiss stage. Rosario v. Starbucks Corp., Case No. C16-1951 RAJ, 2017 WL 4811493 (W.D. Wash. Oct. 25, 2017) IMPACT: FCRA notices should contain clear and reasonable deadlines for disputing the accuracy of background investigation reports, and no final decision should be made until after the expiration of the dispute period, and consideration of information, as corrected by the third-party investigator.
ADA DOESN’T GUARANTEE MORE LEAVE BEYOND FMLA For seven years, Raymond Severson worked as a fabricator of retail display fixtures, a physically demanding job, for Heartland Woodcraft Inc. At the end of a 12-week leave under the FMLA to deal with back pain Severson underwent surgery, which required that he take an additional two to three months off from his job to recover. Heartland denied Severson’s request for additional leave and terminated his employment but invited him to reapply once cleared for work. Instead of reapplying, Severson sued Heartland under the ADA for denying him the accommodation of three-months leave — beyond the 12 weeks of FMLA required leave — and terminating his employment. While it is the EEOC’s position “that compliance with the FMLA does not necessarily meet an employer’s obligation under the ADA,” the 7th Circuit held in Severson v. Heartland Woodcraft Inc. that Heartland did not violate the ADA by denying Severson additional time off after he exhausted his FMLA leave. Severson v. Heartland Woodcraft, Inc., 872 F.3d 476 (7th Cir. 2017) IMPACT: An employer in Illinois, Wisconsin or Indiana that is subject to the FMLA and has a clear and consistent policy to provide no more than the 12 weeks of FMLA leave may not be required to provide additional long term or indefinite leave as an accommodation under the ADA. Heather A. Jackson and Rachel L. Schaller are attorneys in the Employment Law Practice Group at Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, which has offices throughout the Midwest.To comment, email editors@workforce.com.
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Legal
Worst Employer Legal Lessons Jon Hyman |
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The Practical Employer
ho was the “worst” employer of 2017? I ask this question tongue-in-cheek (sort of). Last year, I tracked the stories of 23 employers, the behavior of which was less than exemplary. From the list of 23 potential nominees, I was able to whittle it down to these four finalists. As much as I would like to say that these stories are fiction, or that I exaggerated facts for dramatic effect, each is a real news story or real case filed in a U.S. court of law. The Cancerous Boss: An employee received the unfortunate diagnosis of kidney cancer and required immediate surgery to remove the tumor. As a result, she asked her employer for a 10-day leave of absence. If the employer granted the request, it’s safe the say it wouldn’t have made this list. Not only did the business owner deny the request for time off, she told the employee she doesn’t “need people with cancer working in her office” and further stated, “this is America and in America you have to work even if you’re sick.” She closed the conversation by firing the employee, telling him, “With your illness, people die and I cannot keep you as a worker not knowing what is going to happen to you.” The Racist Boss: An African-American employee complained to her white boss about his repeated use of racist slurs in the workplace. For example, he would comment about his Latino employees, “We’ll just make the Mexicans do it,” and make fun of Hispanic accents in front of them. He also told the plaintiff, along with another African-American female employee, “Y’all are my b******,” before discussing a task. Following her complaint, her boss gave her a Christmas present — a rhinestone-studded purse of the Confederate flag and several photos of him posing with Confederate symbols. The Horny Head of HR: A client-relations manager sued his employer after its head of human resources began sexually harassing him. She bragged how her “husband has a girlfriend” and claimed she lets her teen son watch porn. She pestered him about his sexual orientation and hugged him against his will. She texted him a picture of a man reading a book with the title, “A– Eating Made Simple,” a video of a masturbating monkey and a picture of a man with an erection. It culminated with her nibbling on his ear while whispering, “I hope you’re not going to sue me.” That’s exactly what he did.
The Callous Non-Accommodator: Michael Trimble, originally from Ukraine, was born without arms as a result of birth defects resulting from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. He rides a modified bike designed specifically for him and his disability. He is extraordinarily inspirational, which did not stop his employer from firing him. A manager complained about Trimble’s habit of bringing his bicycle in through the building’s front door and asked him to carry it up the back stairs. Trimble says he explained the obvious: that he can’t carry his bike up a flight of stairs because he doesn’t have arms, nor, for the same reason, could he walk his bike through an outdoor courtyard. “Can’t you just push your bike?” a supervisor asked him. “How can I push my bike? I don’t have any arms.” His employer ultimately fired him for continuing to bring his bike through the front door. It’s scary to think that in this day and age employers like this still exist. That bosses don’t know that you can’t fire someone who needs a few days off for cancer surgery, or can’t make repeated race-based comments and slurs, or heads of HR (of all people) who don’t know the first thing about sexual harassment and how to avoid it, or we deny easy-to-make accommodations to our disabled employees. Throughout 2017, I was asked time and again, “Jon, you’re a management-side attorney. Why are you focusing on bad employers?” Because bad conduct is a wonderful teaching tool: “Don’t do as they do.” I’ve decided to continue my work calling out the worst of the worst in the hopes that it makes us all better employers and, more importantly, better people. Here’s your early leader for 2018: According to recently filed lawsuit, a 68-year-old accountant asked his 23-yearold clerk to visit his home office off hours so that he could teach her about tax returns and accounting. She said that when she arrived, he told her that God wanted her to be his sexual plaything, that “she was an angel sent to him for sex and compared himself and her to Adam and Eve.” Clearly, my work is not yet done.
It’s scary to think that in this day and age bosses don’t know that you can’t fire someone who needs cancer surgery, or make repeated race-based comments and slurs.
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Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.
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industryinsights Beyond the Transactional How the financial services industry should embrace next-gen learning to get ahead of digital disruption
By Tim Harnett
When ATMs were first introduced, many predicted bank tellers would disappear, as transactional tasks could now be completed by machines. Yet between 1970 and 2010, the number of tellers increased — even as the number of ATMs grew.¹ Tellers’ marketing and interpersonal skills became vital to the job, as they completed tasks that ATMs couldn’t.²
re-evaluate and retrain their workforce. “The pace of technological change is driving a skills explosion, with the shelf-life of many skills shortening,” Auger says. “At the same time, AI and other technologies are disrupting traditional skills and even jobs. Staying ahead of the curve on this disruptive force is critical to every business and every employee.”
The need for critical skills continues to challenge the financial services sector. As blockchain technology threatens to further automate transactions and processes, employee responsibilities will shift. With the ubiquity of smartphone apps that handle financial transactions automatically, organizations will need to develop their employees differently to effectively serve a more knowledgeable customer base.
Sarah Nicholl, director of customer success for D2L Corp., agrees. “Next-gen learning platforms excel in their ability to generate and curate content. In the early days of online learning it took time to deploy a new initiative, and often learning priorities had shifted by the time the program was in place. But with next-gen learning platforms, you can develop and deploy content quickly. These agile learning platforms can adapt to how people learn and integrate feedback across the organization, which helps build employee engagement.”
“The effects of artificial intelligence augmenting what people do with technology, coupled with the speed of change are all challenges,” says Jeremy Auger, chief strategy officer for D2L Corp. “In five years there will be new skills sets people will need, so addressing that skills shortage and supporting your organization are top priorities.” Fintech can help remove inefficient business practices, but established organizations will need new learning methods to stay ahead of digital disruption and shifting customer loyalties. This is where next-gen learning platforms come in. They feature adaptive learning paths, with video, micro- and social-learning tools that augment how people naturally learn.
Understand the challenges Digital disruption from blockchain and other technologies permeates every industry, and financial services are no different. Yet these challenges give financial services organizations the opportunity to
Recognize the need for development More employees are concerned about their own development as they move through the job market. Organizations that respond to this need for development will have an edge in hiring top talent. “Some organizations are using preboarding, MOOCs or even philanthropy to attract this new generation of workers,” says Nicholl. “By using preboarding to train potential recruits, learning and development teams can impact recruiting and retention in ways they weren’t doing before.” With financial services unemployment hovering around 2.7 percent (far below the national average),³ organizations will need every tool at their disposal to attract and recruit top talent.
Embrace technology These days, all financial services employees need to be tech-savvy. As customer knowledge increases and new fintech models bring transactional processes
D2L is the software leader that makes the learning experience better. The company’s cloud-based platform is easier to use, more flexible, and smart. By using D2L, organizations can personalize the learning experience to deliver real results. The company is a world leader in content creation and curation, and enables employers to act in real-time to keep workers on track. D2Le is used by learners in higher education, K-12, and the enterprise sector, including the Fortune 1000. D2L has operations in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, Brazil, and Singapore. www.D2L.com
direct to customers’ phones, organizations will need to upskill their current employees to prepare them for the digital disruption already happening in the industry. “Employees need to be better informed and able to answer deeper questions than before,” Nicholl says. “By reskilling employees, organizations can engage with customers at a very high level.” Leveraging technology and employees’ familiarity with it will help with reskilling. “Recognize that many of your incoming workers are digital natives,” Nicholl says. “They’re very comfortable searching for a video or tutorial whenever they need information. By curating your content on a next-gen learning platform, you can push technology to any device and ensure your employees always have the right information available when they need it.”
All organizations in the financial services sector — from banks to investment firms — face immense disruption. While today’s workforce may call for new learning and development delivery methods, the competencies themselves won’t change. “The knowledge people will need for their jobs will be different, but the approach will be the same,” Nicholl says. “What problems are you trying to solve? Basic skills we’ve always needed will be more important going forward: employees will need critical thinking skills and a host of core competencies to respond to changing markets. Next-gen learning platforms give employees just-in-time resources to keep them engaged and relevant, which in turn translates to better organizational outcomes.” Learn how D2L can help you execute a next-gen learning strategy at d2l.com.
Bessen, J. (2015). Learning by Doing: The Real Connection between Innovation, Wages and Wealth. Yale University Press. Pethokoukis, J. (2016). “What the story of ATMs and bank tellers reveals about the ‘rise of the robots’ and jobs. AEI. 3 BLS (2017). Industries at a Glance: Finance and Insurance: NAICS 52. 1 2
industryinsights 3 New Findings on Creating a Human Work Culture By Sarah Payne
As we inch closer to Thanksgiving, it’s only natural to reflect on what we are grateful for. Many workers, it turns out, are not including their job on their gratitude list this year. How do we know? Gallup’s State of the American Workplace report found more than half – 51% – of workers are actively searching for new jobs. This year we saw an all-time high in U.S. job openings according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So not only are employees ready to leave, they have plenty of options when it comes to making their next career move. The holidays can also be inherently difficult for retaining people. CEB found career satisfaction drops 2% and job searches increase by 16% after a major gathering of friends and classmates. Be wary of those high school reunions! With so much choice and willingness to jump ship, what will it take to foster workplace cultures that that empower, grow, and truly appreciate our people? Most importantly, how can your company stay competitive for years to come? Globoforce’s WorkHuman Research Institute annually surveys full-time U.S. workers to answer some of these questions and give HR leaders a better sense of employee sentiment and motivation. This year we surveyed more than 2,700 professionals and gleaned three high-level findings:
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Employees are increasingly searching for meaning in their work and values-based recognition is one of the best ways to meet that need.
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When it comes to performance, employees are looking for more frequent check-ins, which ultimately can enhance the manager-employee relationship.
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As organizations become places of shared community, workers are craving a sense of belonging and celebration of life events in the workplace. A more in-depth look at the data makes a clear case for bringing more humanity to how we recognize, grow, and celebrate our people.
Recognition Experience and the Human Workplace It’s easy to assume that money is the primary driver in an employee’s decision to stay or leave your company. But the data tells a different story. We asked workers, “What makes you stay at your company?” The top answer from nearly a third (32%) of respondents was, “My job – I find the work meaningful.” Perhaps surprisingly, compensation ranked as the third most important reason for stay, behind, “My team – I really enjoy the people I work with.”
“Ninety-three percent of workers recognized in the last six months agree their work has meaning and purpose.” How can people find meaning in their work? One way is through frequent validation and recognition that what they do day-to-day matters in the context of the greater goals of the organization. Ninety-three percent of workers recognized in the last six months agree their work has meaning and purpose. Of workers who have never been recognized, only 72% agree their work has meaning and purpose.
A New Paradigm for Employee Performance Is your company re-thinking its performance management process? Regardless of where your company is headed, it’s important to understand what actually drives better performance from an employee’s perspective and how team dynamics are changing. Sixty-five percent of workers surveyed believe their coworkers know more about their day-to-day work than their manager. This might explain why 56% of workers say recognition crowdsourced from everyone – senior leaders, their manager, and peers – is more motivational than recognition from just a manager or senior leader.
As Managing Editor, Sarah manages Globoforce’s blog and writes about the latest research on how to make work more human for people and organizations worldwide. Sarah is also a freelance writer with a monthly entertainment column at a local magazine. She has a BA in English Language & Literature and Writing & Rhetoric from University of Rhode Island.
Having more frequent communication about growth and development is also linked to better manager-employee relationships. In companies where performance management is a quarterly or ongoing process, workers are more likely to trust their manager and believe they are better partners and strong collaborators.
Bringing Life to Work More than ever, workers are craving an emotional connection to their company and their work. We asked workers how many close friends they have a work. Nearly half (42%) have three to more than five close friends, and a majority said they would like more opportunities to celebrate life events (such as having a baby, getting married, buying a house, etc.) at work with their co-workers. The more life events celebrated, the more likely workers report a sense of belonging and agree their company has a human work culture. What’s more, when workers agree, “My company has a very human work culture – fostering recognition and appreciation while empowering individuals, strengthening relationships, and providing a clear purpose aligned with achievable goals,” they are much more likely to exhibit a positive connection and feeling toward their career and their relationships. They are: • 112% more likely to feel appreciated for the work they do • 2x as likely to feel like they can grow in the organization • 30% more likely to feel like they fit in with co-workers
The Bottom Line The data shows a fundamental shift away from traditional workplace trends – like top-down, infrequent recognition, traditional performance reviews, and boundaries between work life and home/personal life. Workers are much more likely to be engaged, to recommend your company to a friend, and to work harder when their work culture is grounded in appreciation.
To download your copy of the full report, http://www. globoforce.com/resources/research-reports/humanityrecognition-performance/.
industryinsights Smile for the Camera How teledentistry and digital disruption are shaking up adult orthodontic treatments By Tim Harnett
The American Association of Orthodontists reports that nearly 80 percent of the population could benefit from orthodontic treatment; however, visits to dental offices began to drop in 2003 and have remained on a steady decline ever since.¹ As dental providers seek remedies to this gap, one solution has emerged in teledentistry. The company leading the charge in teledentistry is SmileDirectClub. Using proprietary technology to improve orthodontic services, SmileDirectClub has employed the teledentistry model to increase convenience and reduce costs for customers. Even with dental insurance, procedures that could have a positive influence on a person’s long-term health may be out of reach for many employees. Traditional orthodontic treatment can require numerous days off work and cost upward of $8,000.² SmileDirectClub uses teledentistry to increase access to adult orthodontic treatment and aligner therapy by shipping invisible aligners directly to customers, reducing cost and saving time for both employers and employees.
Too busy to take advantage of services Not all dental plans cover orthodontic treatment, and even when offered, employees might not take advantage of the benefits offered to them. “There are a lot of people who wouldn’t consider having these services done if they had to go to a traditional office setting upward of 15 times for their care,” says Jeffrey Sulitzer, DMD and chief clinical officer for SmileDirectClub. Today, customers value convenience from all of the services they employ, including dental and orthodontic care. In an age where digital disruption is affecting nearly every industry, teledentistry offers the convenience of virtual consultations, virtual records review, access to services for patients in remote areas, and cost and time savings to those who cut out the middlemen.
Toothy confidence Professionally speaking, 14 percent of people who are unhappy with the appearance of their teeth feel they might be missing out on a better job.³ Adult aligner therapy may help boost patients’ confidence in getting a new job by fixing their smiles. “Many people’s teeth affect how they face the world with their smile,” Sulitzer says. “Sometimes, people won’t talk unless they put a blinder in front of their teeth. They are so selfconscious about how their smile looks that they won’t project the way a confident person does. Our most consistent finding is that when patients finish aligner therapy, their smile is more aesthetic to them, giving them increased confidence. They love the way they look, and that confidence carries throughout their life.”
Dental digital disruption Teledentistry doesn’t happen in a vacuum. SmileDirectClub’s services are offered through a network of more than 200 licensed orthodontists and general dentists across the country. One of SmileDirectClub’s goals, says Sulitzer, is to drive people to general dentists. “In our program, users need to have clearance through their own dentist before they have any services done through us. This requirement has the benefit of increasing the number of people who get dental cleanings, which have been shown to have a positive impact on overall health. Chronic inflammatory diseases, such as diabetes, coronary artery disease, Crohn’s disease, eczema or IBS can be exacerbated by
“One of the goals of teledentistry is to improve overall patient health.” — Jeffrey Sulitzer, DMD
We’re SmileDirectClub, and we believe everyone deserves a smile they’ll love. That’s why we straighten grins for 60% less than braces by sending custom invisible aligners directly to you. Every smile plan is created and overseen by a licensed dental professional in your state. Join the grin life and take the first step toward your new smile by completing a free smile assessment to see if you’re a candidate for invisible aligners: https://smiledirect.co/SmileForTheCamera
gum disease. Good oral hygiene, including getting your teeth cleaned twice a year, can reduce gum disease and potentially reduce the effects of other chronic inflammatory diseases, thus affecting overall health.” According to the National Association of Dental Plans, people with dental benefits are more likely to go to the dentist, receive restorative care and experience greater overall health — not just in their mouths.⁴ “Studies also show that when patients practice good oral hygiene, their cost of medical care is significantly less than those without good oral hygiene,” adds Sulitzer. “That creates significant value for organizations looking to reduce
their cost of medical care. If we can raise awareness of the need for patients to get in to their dentist for regular teeth cleanings, we’ve bettered people‘s health.” SmileDirectClub’s goal is to give patients access to a smile they’ll feel confident about, encouraging them to take better care of their teeth and gums and leading to better overall health. SmileDirectClub’s platform allows affiliated, licensed doctors (either orthodontists or general dentists) to perform orthodontic treatment for mild to moderate malocclusions in a teledentistry environment. Visit smiledirectclub.com for more information.
Glassman, P. (2016). “Teledentistry: Improving Oral Health Using Telehealth-Connected Teams.” University of the Pacific Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry. American Association of Orthodontists (2014). Economics of Orthodontics survey. 3 American Association of Orthodontists and Wakefield Research survey (2012). 4 National Association of Dental Plans (2009). The Haves and the Have-Nots: Consumers with and without Dental Benefits. 1 2
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ppearing in text messages, emails, on T-shirts and even their own movie, emojis — cartoon representations of emotions and common objects — are a ubiquitous presence in people’s lives and daily communications with one another. Seventy-one percent of Americans use visual expressions such as emojis, stickers or GIFs when texting or using mobile messaging apps, according to a 2017 survey conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of Tenor, a mobile GIF sharing platform. But there are potentially sinister motives in the workplace behind an innocent emoji martini glass or kissing cat. Given their widespread use, employment attorneys recommend employers review their employee handbooks and consider whether there should be rules governing emojis in office communications. A smiley face or shruggie may be acceptable in a text or Facebook post outside of work, but they could cause problems for HR leaders in the workplace.
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“We’re not only looking at words anymore; we now have symbols,” said Kelly Hughes, shareholder at law firm Ogletree Deakins. “It’s not a legal requirement, but it would be a good idea to review electronic communication policies and make sure it includes the use of symbols. I think it’s become prevalent enough that it would be a good business practice to do so.”
The Problem With Emojis in the Workplace It seems far-fetched that tiny cartoons inserted into a text message or employee Slack channel could end up as evidence in an employment lawsuit for a company. But according to legal experts, emojis have appeared in cases more frequently in recent years. “There have been numerous cases that involve the use of emojis as well as ‘likes’ on social media that involve claims of harassment. Such communications have been cited by employers as evidence of a hostile environment,” Scott McIntyre, partner at law firm BakerHostetler, wrote in an email. “Likewise, employers sometimes rely on such symbols used by employees in a positive fashion as evidence that a claimed hostile environment did not rise to a level required to constitute actionable harassment.” Employment law experts agree that it’s the subjective nature of emojis that can create issues in the workplace. Simply put, emojis are a form of slang and will mean different things to different people. “One issue I read about was the use of the hands-up emoji,” said Jay Holland, shareholder and chair of the labor employment and whistleblower group at law firm Joseph, Greenwald and Laake. “In our culture it means praise. But in China, if you’re doing business there, it’s offensive. It means stay away from me. If you were to use that in a work-related occasion in China, you’re accomplishing the exact opposite of your goals.” The appearance of professionalism is perhaps the most basic concern for employers when it comes to emoji use in employee communications.
IT’S THE SUBJECTIVE NATURE OF EMOJIS THAT CAN CREATE ISSUES IN THE WORKPLACE. EMOJIS WILL MEAN DIFFERENT THINGS TO DIFFERENT PEOPLE. A recent survey conducted by Robert Half found that 39 percent of senior managers said it’s unprofessional to include emojis or emoticons in work communications, but 61 percent stated it’s fine in certain situations. When researchers from the California-based human resources consulting firm asked office workers how they feel about these symbols, 59 percent replied they never or only sparingly 32
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use them, while 41 percent send them at least sometimes. Using emojis could imply “a lack of seriousness. It takes away from your message. It’s different from social media, which has a social purpose,” said Holland.“If you put an emoji in an email to your boss, I think the boss may not think you’re that serious of a person. It of course differs between cultures and person to person.” Further, researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel found that using emojis can increase the perception of incompetence. The 2017 study shows that contrary to actual smiles, smileys decrease perceptions of competence. “Perceptions of low competence in turn undermined information sharing. The adverse effects of smiley use are moderated by the formality of the social context and mediated by perceptions —SUSAN WILSON, CONSTANGY of message appropriateness.” Although it’s possible the use of BROOKS, SMITH emojis can be interpreted as un- & PROPHETE professional, that doesn’t mean companies need to ban their use outright. Every company should have their own approach to how employees communicate with one another, according to legal experts. For example, law firms may have more formal expectations for their employees, while a tech startup may consider emoji use integral to their company culture. “I wouldn’t suggest that every employer overhaul the handbook to make sure emojis are contained in their policies,” said Susan Wilson, attorney and co-lead of the e-law practice group at law firm Constangy Brooks, Smith & Prophete. Wilson however, recommends that any policies regarding emoji use be consistent with company social media and code of conduct policies, meaning employees should be reminded that communication should not reflect poorly on themselves or the company. Hughes corroborated Wilson’s position. “Whether we’re talking about Facebook,Twitter or even LinkedIn, it’s important for these policies to link to the company’s code of conduct, including sexual harassment,” said Hughes.
‘I WOULDN’T SUGGEST THAT EVERY EMPLOYER OVERHAUL THE HANDBOOK.’
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avenue for sexual harassment. Hughes agrees. In recent years, she has seen an increase in Using a smiley face or a winky face at the end of an email sex harassment stemming from email and text messages. to lighten the tone or emphasize a joke does not necessarily And now that emoji use has proliferated, she has also seen qualify as sexual harassment. However, if communications the symbols being used to convey inappropriate thoughts between the harasser and the victim contain emojis, the per- from one employee to another. vasiveness or severity of the emoji use could be evidence of “I think it’s absolutely correct that emoji use — and a hostile work environment. social media in general — has really exacerbated the “It could be evidence of intent to harass, to start a sexual harassment issues we see. It’s not just in sexual relationship outside of the normal workplace relation- harassment cases, but that is where I’m seeing most of ship,” said Holland. “One element of a hostile work en- it,” said Hughes. vironment claim is David Morrison, a pervasiveness. If a haprincipal of the litirasser is regularly usgation and labor & ing emojis and upemployment groups ping their game, so at law firm Goldberg to speak, from smiKohn, disagrees with leys to hearts to kissy the prevalence of faces, that’s evidence emojis in workplace of workplace hostilisexual harassment ty. It’s happening. I cases. And although see it happening.” they still possess a Sexual harassment is novel quality in the — DAVID MORRISON, GOLDBERG prohibited under Title personal lives of VII of the Civil Rights KOHN many, he doesn’t Act of 1964, which view emojis as parprotects against employment discrimination based on race, ticularly disruptive to the employment law field. From his color, religion, sex and national origin. Although the law perspective, the message may now contain cartoon faces, doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments or isolat- but the behavior is still harassment. ed incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal “I think these are all subsets of the same policies that when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or companies have had in place for years,” said Morrison. offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse “Those policies tend to say, ‘Don’t download vulgar employment decision, according to the Equal Employment things from the internet,’ ‘Don’t circulate vulgar jokes.’ Opportunity Commission. The internet probably created a need to make sure In light of numerous sexual harassment and assault companies were making policies about content we allegations against Harvey Weinstein and other Holly- weren’t accessing at work previously. Before the internet wood executives, NBC News and The Wall Street Jour- you had the classic example of a calendar in a locker nal conducted a poll that found 48 percent of women room or something like that. When the internet allowed currently employed in the United States say that they all that content to come into the office, companies had have personally experienced an unwelcome sexual ad- to deal with those problems.” vance or verbal or physical harassment at work. Furthermore, the October 2017 poll found that 67 percent Preventing Liability With Training of Americans believe sexual harassment happens in most and Compliance or almost all workplaces. It was estimated that emojis were used by 92 percent of Holland said emojis in employee communications the world’s online population in 2.3 trillion mobile mesrepresents the highest risk as evidence in a lawsuit like a sages in 2016, according to a report published by Emogi workplace sexual harassment case. Technologies Inc., a New York-based mobile messaging “These are issues that wouldn’t have been company. The report also argues that emojis are the fastthought of only a few years ago. But they est-growing language worldwide. are,” said Holland. “Employers should Love them or hate them, emojis are here to stay, which get on the curve here, they’re may present challenges to HR departments trying to prenot ahead. Well behind, vent sexual harassment if their senior executives are not in fact. They need to un- familiar with the latest double meanings of some emojis. derstand these issues It’s inevitable that there will be some employers who are and create policies to still confused by emojis, according to experts. prevent these issues.” Ogletree Deakins’ HARASSMENT continued on page 49
‘I THINK THESE ARE ALL SUBSETS OF THE SAME POLICIES THAT COMPANIES HAVE HAD IN PLACE FOR YEARS.’
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Workday,
Interrupted
From email to Snapchat, bosses to baby-sitters, employees are bombarded by communications all day long. And when it comes to communicating benefits, it’s a message employees need to see.
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BY ANDIE BURJEK
O
n any given day an employee will be bombarded by hundreds of communications.There are emails, voicemails and old-school snail mail. Slack messages pop in from customers, clients and co-workers.There are companywide communications about everything from new employees to doughnuts in the break room. At the same time there are texts from the parents about whether the dog will like its new plaid pajamas and friends asking about dinner plans via Snapchat and Facebook. Not only are employees still expected to do their jobs through this glut of information, they’re also expected to make decisions on employer-sponsored benefits. These potentially life-altering choices on health care and retirement, employee assistance and wellness programs and even pet insurance can be complex and leave many employees confused, anxious and lacking in information. Increasingly, HR is discovering how much communication is too much, which can leave practitioners in a dilemma when they are restrained to just a few messages to convey important information. Although difficult, it is possible to tame this delicate balance of giving employees the necessary information without overwhelming them. At a certain point, even the most vital information can become white noise, just another of 300 or so messages per day, and go undetected and ignored. Reaching employees and engaging them in today’s always-on world is one of the key challenges that organizations have, according to Keith Kitani, CEO of GuideSpark, a software company specializing in employee communication. Part of the problem is that employees are accustomed to consuming information in a certain way in their personal lives, through short, digestible and sometimes video-based messages. Corporate communication hasn’t risen to this new bar. “Companies are competing with employees’ personal lives now,” said Kitani.
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Also, many employers will send communications such as emails or newsletters with too much information, and not all of it may be relevant to an employee at a given point in time, he added. “In a noisy world, you have to think about relevance,” he said.“As more organizations think about communicating, the more they can figure out how to deliver shorter, targeted messages with relevant information.” This may not be the company’s initial instinct, he said. Many times, companies will have an important message to send employees and they’ll tack on other less important messages. An employee may file away a piece of irrelevant information for later and never get back to it.
AT A CERTAIN POINT, EVEN THE MOST VITAL INFORMATION CAN BECOME WHITE NOISE. “The world is so noisy now,” said Kitani. “The reason you file away is you’re getting hit with so many pieces of information, and you pick the one that’s the most relevant and consume that one, and forget the one you weren’t ready to consume.” Being able to focus on one clear, concise focused message would serve companies better, he added.
Understanding the Value Behind Your Benefits One area in the workplace in which communication is especially important is benefits, whether that communication is about open enrollment in the fall or a different topic during the rest of the year. Two out of three employees said that making sense of benefits is complicated, and 75 percent said that there is some part of their benefits coverage they don’t understand, according to a recent Aflac survey of 5,000 employees. In the health care space, “a lot of employees miss key information that comes out in advance of open enrollment, and they suffer for it in the next plan year,” said Kevin McNamara, senior enrollment strategist at The Standard, a Portland, Oregon-based insurance company. Only 8 percent of employees update their workplace benefits during open enrollment, according to the Aflac survey. The same survey found that 80 percent of people spent less than an hour researching and reviewing their benefits options. Considering the complexity of benefits, one strategy of employee communication employers can use is being clear on the philosophy behind the benefits program from the very beginning, said Michele McDermott, senior vice president of human resources at Assurance, an insurance company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. “We share with employees the ‘why’ behind our programs, which then makes understanding the ‘what’ so much easier,” McDermott said. For example, the company only offers a high-deductible plan with a health savings account.“We only offer the HSA because we believe in consumerism.That’s our philosophy,” 38
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she said. When the company shares that ‘why,’ it helps the employees to buy into that ‘why’ and to understand important questions like ‘What is an HSA?’ ‘What do I need to know?’ and ‘How do I use it?’ ” she added. Explaining the “why” helps when communicating company information in the broader sense as well, according to Kitani.With Kevin McNamara any business message, if you don’t tell them that “why,” employees often won’t consume the information. He suggests following the “inspire, inform, reinforce” strategy. Start by telling the employees why it’s important to them, then tell the information. Unfortunately, companies forget to reinforce, he added, and that can ruin a great communications strategy. Considering the demographics of the workforce also helps guide a strategy in the right direction, according to Mark Johnson, founder and CEO of benefits management company Creative Benefit Solutions. Demographics are one prong of his four-prong strategy. The other three prongs include creating a yearlong strategy that educates employees on the benefits offered, making the most of technology, and using social media efficiently.Together, these can help employees get the information they need to understand and find value in the plan. Using social media is especially valuable at the start of the strategy before employees have questions, said Johnson. This can be done through usual channels like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, but businesses should also consider having an internal benefits blog in which employees could have the chance to comment and ask questions, he said. The company’s consultants and benefits team could be involved so that people get the correct information. Johnson suggests taking a quarterly approach to benefits communication and breaking that information into bitesized chunks. A company might take one of these pieces to focus on a highly utilized benefit, such as health care or retirement, and focus on educating employees how to use that benefit as a consumer. It might use another time to focus on an underutilized benefit. For example, it might have a workforce with many millennials who do not participate in a flexible spending account.“Target those specific nonparticipating members to try to see the value in that benefit,” Johnson said. Alternatively, a company may have employees who sign up for extra benefits they don’t need, he added.They may end up choosing a benefit plan with a higher premium solely based off the perception that it’s the best plan for them and end up spending a lot of money on something they’re not using. Striking that balance between cost and quality of benefits can be tricky, said Johnson. Even if employees understand the content, knowing the value is another vital piece that is sometimes not considered. j a n u a ry / f e b ru a ry
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Communication Errors Miscommunication with employees has been around as long as there has been management. Heidi Guetzkow, national program manager, health risk solutions at Lockton Benefit Group, gave her point of view on the most common communication blunders that employers should avoid. Don’t assuming that employees are getting whatever communication you’re sending out. And do believing them when they say they don’t have the information. Guetzkow mentioned an employer group that surveyed its employees and found that they said they did not understand the information, felt unsure how to navigate their benefits and made many comments that clearly indicated there was a communication issue. The employer responded by insisting it communicated just fine with everybody. Meanwhile, there are ways for a company to improve an internal communication strategy. “I’ve seen employer groups create focus groups. That’s a wise choice,” said Guetzkow. She also suggested branding your internal HR benefits communication. adding that when employees see something with a certain brand, they’ll pay more attention to it because they know it’s directly related to their benefits. —Andie Burjek
An Increasingly Complex Future Communication is getting more complex as the types of communication increase. Looking toward the future, Kitani suggests that employers begin to think of communication as part of the employee experience, as it’s the way that employees interact with the company and the programs it offers. “Everything has been fairly decentralized and inconsistent. A company may use different vendors like Fidelity and Aetna, and it may use different departments,” Kitani said. “One of the things [employers] should think about is how does this [communication] deliver a culturally consistent employee experience?” Assurance already does this.The company coordinates any communication going to employees through one central internal communication person or function, said McDermott. By coordinating in this way, one party has control over the types of messages and the number of messages that go out, and employees have a center point they can rely on. Even with this control, employees at the company still sometimes find they’re receiving too much information to take in, she added. For example, many employees are confused about events like technology changes and benefits j a n u a ry / f e b ru a ry
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communication. The company will consider the amount of communication going out, and if it gets to the point where it’s too much, then they’ll focus on communicating for a more current project rather than adding something else unnecessarily, said McDermott. Don’t be afraid to delay a project, she added. Sometimes it’s necessary so not to overwhelm employees with information overload. Having more demographics in the workforce than in times past also poses a challenge in terms of the modes of communication a company chooses, and this mix of demographics in most places isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Some people prefer information communicated to them via mail, others through text messages, and others through one of the many alternative options including email and social media, according to Heidi Guetzkow, national program manager, health risk solutions at Lockton Benefit Group. “More than ever before, companies have to spend more time thinking about those complexities and planning for it and coming up with a solid strategy in order to best reach their employee population,” said Guetzkow. Recent changes in the health care landscape have also muddied the waters for how employers strategize their communication plan moving forward. With the introduction of the Affordable Care Act, the increasing trend of high-deductible plans and growing use of supplemental insurance, some employees don’t understand their new options, according to The Standard’s McNamara. These employees are starting at zero, he added. “The challenge is employees who have worked 10 or 20 years at a job may really understand dental, life and disability insurance, but some of these plans they’ve never heard of before,” said McNamara, because the need wasn’t as present in the past. Employers could consider decision support tools that help employees navigate their new realm of options, including supplemental plans like critical illness and accident insurance, he added. He cited new innovations in the decision-support tool area.The Standard, for example, did a study with employees to understand their decision-making process and how they like to learn, then developed a tool; one option of many. “Through our analysis we build personas based on these segments of employees and their behaviors of buying benefits,” said McNamara. By asking six simple questions, the decision-support tool labels the employee with a persona and presents the same content but presented in different ways to reach different types of people. The goal is to engage employees in the first few lines and make them feel like the message is speaking to them personally. “Maybe now instead of fading out after the first paragraph or page, they’re actually engaged, making it to the end and getting the key information they need to know,” said McNamara. Andie Burjek is a Workforce associate editor. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.
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Loyalty Not for Sale Lavish perks and trendy benefits are nice, but employees seek something much more basic: sustained respect and honesty. BY PAUL McDONALD
F
aced with a red-hot job market, employers are offering perks like free ski passes, complimentary e-readers and on-site acupuncture to attract and retain quality employees. These benefits are certainly fun and may help attract top talent. Certainly, some people may jump at the chance to work at a firm that offers in-house yoga and spin classes. But there are organizations where once the luster wears off, employees begin to see that these benefits are simply camouflage over a toxic work environment. They speculate that such perks are provided simply to entice employees to never leave as opposed to rewarding them for jobs well done. Catered lunches and dinners might make employees think that leaving the office for meals is frowned upon, while free
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trips cause skeptical workers to question whether they’ll be able to make their own vacation plans or do as the company dictates. Workplaces with low employee morale see constant churn, and right now, the number of U.S. workers quitting their jobs is the highest it’s been in more than a decade. Seven in 10 American workers are not engaged in their jobs, according to Gallup’s recent “State of the American Workplace” survey. Given today’s robust job market, employers must work to develop positive, healthy workplaces that entice top talent. Dedicating resources to the benefits that matter most — competitive compensation and respect for a healthy work-life balance, to name just two — will help ensure that workers join the right firms and stick around. So how can businesses build and sustain a positive culture? It starts the day they receive a prospective hire’s résumé.
DEDICATING RESOURCES TO THE BENEFITS THAT MATTER MOST WILL HELP ENSURE THAT WORKERS JOIN THE RIGHT FIRMS AND STICK AROUND.
The 5 Cs That Draw Workers to a New Job Robert Half’s recruiters across the United States identified five main factors that compel job-seekers to accept a position. Compensation Workers have become more discerning about the details of salary and benefit packages. Culture Work environments that are positive, rewarding, and aligned with workers’ values are more essential than ever. Career path Job seekers are looking for positions that give them a chance to learn new skills and advance through the company’s ranks. Cost of living Candidates want to know that they can live comfortably on their starting salary. Commute Short commutes, opportunities to work remotely and flexible work hours are all in high demand among today’s workers. — Paul McDonald
Promote Timely Hiring Practices Many businesses drag out the hiring process and make prospective hires fret for weeks after they take an interview. That rubs applicants the wrong way. In a survey of 1,000 U.S. adults by my organization, Robert Half, 40 percent reported that waiting just one to two weeks after an interview for an offer was “too long.” This lengthy hiring process causes 40 percent of U.S. adults to lose interest in the role and pursue other job openings, according to the same survey. Nearly 1 in 3 adults reported that a lengthy process makes them question the company’s ability to make other decisions. It’s imperative for employers to put their best foot forward the moment an applicant submits a résumé. Managers should interview all candidates on-site and make sure that everyone who needs to meet with the applicant is available that day. Employers should also offer applicants a chance to see the office and meet their potential co-workers, which allows candidates to quickly assess the company’s culture for themselves. After the interview, employers should let prospective hires know when they can expect to hear back. If there’s a delay in the decision-making process, employers should update candidates as soon as possible. These simple courtesies go a long way in ensuring 42
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that prospective hires feel wanted and respected, which increases acceptance rates and builds goodwill.
Focus on What Matters Most to Workers Employers also must make sure that they’re giving employees what they want. Workers aren’t as interested in extravagant perks as employers may think. According to a survey by software firm Qualtrics and venture capital firm Accel Partners, 80 percent of millennials rank in-office perks as the least important benefit when considering a new job. The same survey found that millennials want a workplace that fosters a sense of pride and offers competitive compensation, a positive culture, opportunities to advance and flexible hours.
Getting the Fit Right According to “The Secrets of the Happiest Companies and Employees,” a survey of 12,000 workers by Robert Half in collaboration with engagement-analytics company Happiness Works, the biggest factor affecting worker happiness is the sense of pride an employee takes in their job. Workers who share a company’s vision derive more meaning, satisfaction, j a n u a ry / f e b ru a ry
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and happiness from their jobs than employees who see their work as a mere paycheck. But employees also want competitive compensation, and they want their managers to be proactive about giving it to them. Ninety percent of workers think they deserve a raise, but only 44 percent planned to ask for one in 2017. In fact, many professionals would rather be cleaning their house, getting a root canal or being audited by the IRS before asking for a raise. Given this hesitancy, employers need to be proactive. They should clearly communicate guidelines for raises and they should be more vigilant about ensuring that they’re paying competitive salaries. It’s no longer enough to compare salaries once a year. In today’s job market, employers should strive to cross-compare salaries at least twice a year, if not quarterly. To that end, managers also should set up meetings with their employees to discuss compensation. These meetings can help professionals understand the factors affecting compensation levels and the steps needed to earn a raise. Recognizing workers’ successes with consistent compliments and encouragement costs managers nothing but makes employees feel valued. In fact, nearly 1 in 2 employees ranked management’s recognition as “very important” to their job satisfaction, according to a survey of 600 U.S. employees by the Society for Human Resource Management. Workers also want an opportunity to climb the company ladder. Prospective hires consider advancement as one of the chief considerations of taking a job, according to that same SHRM survey. Finally, a company culture that gives employees the flexibility to attend to their private lives is of high importance to employees. More than half of workers are willing to change jobs for a position that offers more flexible working hours, according to the Gallup survey. This is understandable, given that today’s workers spend an average of 49 minutes commuting each day, according to my company’s research. Businesses can offer this work-life balance by allowing telecommuting where it makes sense and bringing in project workers when the core team is overwhelmed. Following these guidelines would do wonders to attract and retain workers as well as boost employee happiness.
The Benefits of Happy and Engaged Workers When employees are invested in their work and committed to doing their jobs well, company productivity also improves. According to the Gallup survey, business units that score in the top quartile of their companies on measures of worker engagement experience 41 percent less absenteeism compared to the lowj a n u a ry / f e b ru a ry
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What Makes An Employee Happy? Simply put, happy employees do better work. Here’s what makes an employee happy, according to a recent Robert Half survey of more than 12,000 U.S. and Canadian workers. What are the drivers of employee happiness? Sense of pride. Feeling of appreciation. Sense of fairness and respect. Sense of accomplishment. Meaningful work. Positive relationships. Which employees are the happiest? Senior executives. Those working in a firm with fewer than 10 employees. Those age 55 or older. Those in the first year of their job. — Paul McDonald
est quartile of units. They are 17 percent more productive. These companies also are 21 percent more profitable, the survey noted. Happy and engaged workers are also considerably less likely to leave their jobs, thereby reducing turnover-related costs. By comparison, when workers are not engaged, the company’s bottom line suffers. One disengaged employee costs his company more than $2,200 per year, according to a study by ADP. That equates to hundreds of billions of dollars overall. At a moment when talented employees are increasingly hard to come by, attracting top talent requires more than quirky company perks. Businesses need to invest in creating the kind of workplace culture that supports happy, engaged employees. If they don’t, their most valuable workers will have no trouble finding the exit no matter how many trips to posh Caribbean resorts you are offered. Paul McDonald is the senior executive director at global staffing firm Robert Half. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.
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SECTOR REPORT
R e c r u i t i n g Te c h n o l o g y
Recruiting Tech Is Expanding — Unlike Recruiters’ Willingness to Use It Studies show companies are struggling with implementing and enhancing hiring practices. By Sarah Fister Gale
A
fter years of advances in recruiting technology, it appears that progress has stagnated. “Not much has changed in the last year,” said Holger Mueller, an analyst with Constellation Research. While the technology itself continues to evolve, recruiters and talent managers aren’t adapting their hiring processes to take advantage, he said. “Best practices have not caught up to innovation.” Predictive analytics, video interviewing, social media networking, automated chatbots, passive candidate pools and other technologies can all help companies speed their assessment process and make better, less-biased hires, but only if recruiters and hiring managers take full advantage of them, Mueller said. Yet industry studies show a consistent disconnect between understanding the potential benefits of these tools and actually implementing them. Despite years of talking about the value of social networks for recruiting, only 28 percent of companies believe their use of social sourcing is “excellent,” according to Deloitte’s 2017 “Human Capital Management” report. And while video interviewing has been touted as a significant time saver, only 16 percent of candidates participated in any form of video interviewing in 2016, according to HireVue’s 2017 “Candidate Experience Research” report. More concerning: The majority of executives say improving candidate experience is a top priority but only a third have taken steps to do anything about it, according to Aptitude Research Partners.
HALF OF ALL HIRED CANDIDATES RATED THEIR APPLICATION AND HIRING PROCESS AS AVERAGE OR BELOW AVERAGE. That’s not to say companies aren’t sampling some of these tools to wade through the initial deluge of applications, but they are still following a traditional “post and pray” approach to hiring when they should be rethinking every step in the process, Mueller said. That includes
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70
%
building internal talent depth charts to understand who on staff might be perfect for a job, tapping employees’ social networks to look for promising candidates, and writing more specific job descriptions before ever posting to a job board. “It is not how it is done now but it should be,” he said. There is room for improvement, and many tools to help recruiters get there. Dan Shapero, vice president of talent solutions for LinkedIn, believes the industry is on the precipice of a new era in recruiting technology. “The last 10 years have been all about passive talent recruiting,” he said. “The next 10 years will be about intelligent recruiting.” That requires greater use of artificial intelligence and algorithms to analyze existing talent data, more clearly defined characteristics of a good hire and automated tools that can identify signals suggesting talent might be open to recruiting based on their social media posts or changes in their online profiles. Companies are also focused on making better use of internal and market data to narrow the potential candidate funnel at the front end, and to find stronger connections between candidates and culture fit, said David Mallon, vice president and analyst for Bersin by Deloitte. “Companies want to hire people who fit the company, not just the role,” he says. The use of analytics-driven solutions — should they eventually be adopted — will shift the entire hiring environment, Shapero predicted. “Talent managers will spend less time on day-to-day recruiting activities, and more time acting as talent advisers, using data to support the broader talent management goals of the business.” But to get there, companies still need to take the time
OF RECRUITING BUDGETS ARE SPENT ON JOB BOARDS, RECRUITING TOOLS AND STAFFING AGENCIES.
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to ensure the quality and consistency of their talent data, to integrate their talent management systems and to take advantage of the rich talent data sources that exist outside of company databases to improve their selection process. “This is already being done informally, through employee referrals but we need to make it part of the formal recruiting process,” Mueller said. He predicts that the vendors who deliver solutions for harnessing existing data and social networks to transform the recruiting process companywide will be in the
best position to thrive going forward.“It will happen, it’s just a matter of when,” he says. Mallon warns that no one piece of software will solve the recruiting challenges that companies face today. “You have to be willing to do things differently before you can find technology to help you get there.” Sarah Fister Gale is a writer in the Chicago area. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.
HOT LIST Recruiting Software Providers Listed alphabetically; compiled by Alexis Carpello; editors@workforce.com COMPANY NAME & Web Address ADP adp.com
TalentReef talentreef.com
Ultimate Software ultimatesoftware.com
iCIMS icims.com
Names of recruiting Software
Number of clients
Key clients using system
ADP Recruiting Management
400
Not disclosed
TalentReef
3,400
Zoe’s Kitchen; Del Frisco’s; Culvers; Twin Peaks; Huddle House; Bar Louie
UltiPro
3,700
Bloomin’ Brands; Culligan International; Feeding America; Major League Baseball; Red Roof Inn; Subway; Texas Roadhouse; Yamaha Corp. of America
iCIMS Recruit
3,500
Kate Spade; Canon; Sony Music; Discovery Communications; L.L. Bean; Enterprise Holdings
Source: Companies
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SECTOR REPORT
Recruitment Process Outsourcing Providers
Tech Gaining Foothold in RPO Space As the struggle to find good talent continues, companies are starting to realize they may not have the skills and technology to address all of their recruiting challenges. By Sarah Fister Gale
F
ully 79 percent of companies report that they have skills gaps that are difficult to close and most say they don’t understand how to solve this problem, according to 2017 research from Aberdeen.“More than half of companies lack the insights needed to improve the quality of their talent pipeline,” said Aberdeen analyst Zach Chertok.And they are turning to recruitment process outsourcing to fill that gap. The $5 billion recruitment process outsourcing market is set to grow more than 14 percent per year through 2025 as these vendors expand their offerings and provide more integrated solutions to help companies tackle their talent acquisition challenges. But these vendors can’t rely on the same old solutions to win business, said Stacey Cadigan, principal consultant for Information Services Group, a market intelligence firm.“Technology is playing an increasingly important role in the RPO solution.” The increasing pressure to shorten time to hire and to find highly skilled candidates for specific hard-to-fill roles is driving a lot of interest in the RPO space, said Chertok. “Companies recognize the need for more sophisticated recruiting solutions, and they are looking to their RPO vendors to deliver it.” That’s forcing RPOs to adapt or lose market share.“We need to deliver smarter, faster recruiting, and automated technologies are helping us do that,” said Neil Griffiths, vice president of brand marketing for Korn Ferry Futurestep, an RPO. Over the past few years, many of the larger RPOs have been building their own proprietary software or buying or partnering with technology firms to integrate new automated offerings at every stage of the recruiting process. Talent analytics, machine-learning capabilities, automated sourcing and candidate screening are among the leading tools to extend their platform.
THE GLOBAL RPO MARKET WAS VALUED AT $5 BILLION IN 2017 AND IS PREDICTED TO EXPAND % PER YEAR THROUGH 2025.
14.4
Companies aren’t asking for specific technologies directly, rather they are looking for solutions to their recruiting problems, and these technologies help achieve that, Griffiths said. “When they see what artificial intelligence and social learning can accomplish, they understand the value.” Robotic process automation is also gaining attention, as RPOs look to automate data entry, message creation and other
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mundane tasks, freeing their recruiters to focus on more value-added tasks.“Now a lot of them are scrambling to figure out how they can stitch it all together,” Cadigan said. Griffiths admits that this transformation to a technology-driven strategic partner is a journey. “No one has cracked the code yet but the transformation is occurring.” They are less advanced when it comes to gig economy trends and the role RPOs play in hiring these contract workers. “It’s a big challenge for clients and RPOs,” Griffiths said. He predicts industry leaders will focus more on providing contract sourcing services in the next two years as these workers take an increasingly larger role in the workforce. “It has to be part of the solution going forward, but it won’t happen overnight.” All of these solutions are helping RPOs achieve their long-held goal to reposition the marketplace as talent experts rather than a cheap source of labor. “RPOs don’t want to be seen as ‘outsourcers’ anymore,” Chertok said. “They are trying to espouse their value beyond recruiting to take an advisory role with their clients.” As they integrate more technology offerings and demonstrate their strategic business value, they may finally be able to shed that mantle and establish themselves as talent partners that can help companies achieve their long-term business goals. In the meantime, Chertok encourages companies to question their RPOs’ current service offerings, and to make sure their road map includes tools like artificial intelligence, social learning and RPA to address ongoing recruiting needs. “If they aren’t listening to your questions or can’t respond credibly to your requests, it may be time to look elsewhere.”
THE RPO MARKET IS HIGHLY CONSOLIDATED, WITH A FEW PLAYERS CONTRIBUTING TO MORE THAN
80
%
OF TOTAL MARKET REVENUE.
Sarah Fister Gale is a writer in the Chicago area. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.
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HOT LIST Recruitment Process Outsourcing Providers Listed alphabetically; compiled by Alexis Carpello; editors@workforce.com
POSITIONS FILLED ANNUALLY
NUMBER OF CLIENTS OUTSOURCING END-TO-END RECRUITMENT PROCESS
NUMBER OF CLIENTS OUTSOURCING RECRUITMENT OF ALL JOB CLASSES
ABLE TO BLEND RECRUITING OF TEMPORARY STAFF AND PERMANENT STAFF ON A SINGLE PLATFORM
Not disclosed
Not disclosed
Not disclosed
RPO services provided for permanent staff only
1,110
90,000
90
n/a
Yes
3,800
ALLEGIS GLOBAL SOLUTIONS allegisglobalsolutions.com
167,300
85
Not disclosed
Yes
2,550
IBM TALENT ACQUISITION OPTIMIZATION ibmtalentao.com
105,000
60
Not disclosed
Yes
1,500
KELLYOCG kellyocg.com
48,500
60
30
Yes
749
ORION NOVOTUS orion-novotus.com
4,125
25
17
Yes
175
PEOPLESCOUT peoplescout.com
300,000
Not disclosed
Not disclosed
Yes
2,000
RANDSTAD SOURCERIGHT randstadsourceright.com
89,000*
56*
Not disclosed
Yes
1,050*
SEVENSTEP sevensteprpo.com
30,000
25
12
Yes
320
WILSONHCG wilsonhcg.com
Not disclosed
115
Not disclosed
Yes
718
COMPANY NAME & Web Address ADP adp.com ALEXANDER MANN SOLUTIONS
NUMBER OF RECRUITMENT PROFESSIONALS ON STAFF
alexandermannsolutions.com
Source: Companies *U.S.-based figures
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HARASSMENT continued from page 34 “Sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes it’s not,” Hughes said.“In sex harassment, we often see fruit representing different body parts. It may be innocuous to people who don’t understand. It can expose companies to liabilities if they’re being used inappropriately.” There is no black and white solution to emojis as they relate to sexual harassment in the workplace. However, in order to guard against liability, it would benefit companies to conduct regular sexual harassment training, provide clear methods of reporting for sexual misconduct in the workplace and develop communication policies that they can enforce. As with most everything, there is a rule of reason and proportionality, according to employment law experts.When it comes to updates to the employee handbook concerning emoji use in company communications, people ought to be informed of any new policy, and be given the chance to get used to it. “An isolated use of emojis or violations of any kind, if they’re minor they should be treated as such. Any punishment should de-
‘I THINK IT’S ABSOLUTELY CORRECT THAT EMOJI USE … HAS REALLY EXACERBATED THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT ISSUES WE SEE.’ —KELLY HUGHES, OGLETREE DEAKINS pend on the seriousness of the offense,” said Holland. “If there’s an individual using graphic or offensive emojis, that’s pervasive and that’s a hostile work environment. Something like that needs to be treated with the seriousness it deserves.” Max Mihelich is a freelance writer based in Chicago. Email editors@workforce.com to comment
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LAST WORD
Rick Bell
RESHAPE A CYNICAL WORKPLACE SALUTATION
D
uring a visit with friends over the holidays I was privy to a conversation between their teen daughter and her uncle. She was complaining that her manager at a local pizza joint tells her to do something, then after she does it the manager tells her she did it wrong. Said the uncle in a too-familiar tone of resignation: “Welcome to the working world.” We’ve all been there. A fresh-faced teen is eager to do a good job, excited to be earning a paycheck and begin to break away from the folks. In fact, a recent Robert Half survey shows that those in the first year of a job are among the happiest people in the workforce. Too often though, that enthusiasm is crushed by a manager who: A. Doesn’t know the first thing about slapping sauce on a slab of dough. B. Is clueless about communicating how to take an order. C. Promoted to manager because they are family. D. All of the above. I’ve heard tales of terrible management and shady paycheck practices from my four now-grown kids, too.
THERE ARE WORKPLACES THAT TREAT YOUNG WORKERS LIKE GRISTLE ON A STEAK — CHEW ’EM UP AND SPIT ’EM OUT. So why is our fallback advice, “Get used to it”? Many of us have developed a workplace immunity to inept supervision thanks to years of recessions, consolidations, downsizings and rightsizings. But it doesn’t have to be that way. And lest you think this is a “coddle your millennial employees” lecture, no generational gibberish here. Through strong economies and bad, no matter the political climate, disengaged employee numbers — old and young — historically hover just under 70 percent. There are plenty of reasons so few workers are energized by their workplace. I lay blame at the feet of managers. Engagement must begin with young employees. Whether it’s a local eatery or a global agency, building a generation of engaged workers starts as soon as they enter the workforce. Unfortunately it is clear that there are workplaces that treat young workers like gristle on a steak — chew ’em up and spit ’em out. But before you think all is lost once an 18-year-old is berated by an overbearing boss, they know there is hope for workplace nirvana. No matter how many crummy pizza joints or shifty 50
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direct-marketing companies young people work for, there’s a fresh sense of optimism once they graduate from the hallowed halls of ol’ State U. They exude anticipation to finally join an organization that respects their talents and treats them as professionals. Like that first job in high school there’s renewed excitement — especially if they land a gig at a prestigious Nashville PR firm representing country music stars like Tim McGraw, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers. Kirt Webster Publicity was described as a “publicist boot camp.”The bulk of their in-house talent was young people, as Webster would hire graduates or provide internships to young people straight out of college. That’s commendable. Hire a bunch of eager young people, work them hard then take great pride as they move on and blossom. Then last fall allegations surfaced of Webster’s sexual assault of Austin Rick, a young country singer. And the lurid stories of a sickeningly toxic workplace seeped out. Or perhaps better to say gushed like blood from a stuck pig. Work your ass off took on new meaning at Webster Publicity. Numerous published stories from ex-workers reported that Webster “employed a mix of bullying and career rewards to dominate them emotionally, making shockingly inappropriate comments in the workplace and even openly sexually assaulting them by fondling them, both male and female subordinates,” according to one report. One anonymous employee told the online music site Taste of Country, “He would grab me by the hair and air hump me, he would caress me. As a young woman straight out of college in the music business, you’re already facing so many challenges, and he didn’t make it any easier.” Webster and his terrorized young charges clearly had talent. PR News named him publicist of the year in 2017, an honor it later rescinded because of the allegations. Those PR chops were not enough to keep star clients including Parton, who parted ways with Webster after his toxic leadership became public and he too stepped down. Dolly famously sang about working “9 to 5” — her 1980 lament about a chauvinist, disrespectful boss. We’re finally saying enough as a society to workplace sexism. Let’s go several steps past that to make for a genuinely welcoming workplace, no matter the generation. So that “welcome to the working world” is an earnest greeting rather than a callous warning to hopeful young people entering the workforce that hey, you just have to deal with it. Rick Bell is Workforce’s editorial director. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.
j a n u a ry / f e b ru a ry
2018
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