Workforce - September/October 2019

workforce.com

September/October 2019

WORKPLACE FOCUS:

HR's Healing Resources

WHO’S CARING? Caregiving and a career: a workplace culture shock.

Mani Mueller is among the millions of employees balancing elder care and a full-time job.

Get Real.

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Belongs

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your

talent game

is not a

Machine Learning. Gamification.

Artificial Intelligence.

These are the catchphrases resonating across the personality assessment space, but what do they actually bring to the table? At Hogan, we know there are no shortcuts when it comes to personality assessments that accurately predict workplace performance. Over the last five decades, we’ve gathered an unprecedented quantity of data that shows our assessments do what we say they do. Predicting performance is serious business, and Hogan doesn’t play games.

hoganassessments.com

From Our Editors

FROM PERSONNEL TO WORKFORCE

Who does your company serve? If you said customers you’re only partly right.

Customers buy products but shareholders pay the bills. If your company is listed on any stock exchange, then shareholders are who you really serve.

Much is done by bosses in their name. From slashing payrolls to pursuing mergers, the singular aim is to deliver profits to stockholders.According to decades-old business philosophy, shareholders come above everyone else.

So it was a big deal when the Business Roundtable, an influential group of CEOs, announced last month that companies have a “fundamental commitment” to all stakeholders, including customers, employees and communities.

What does it mean in practice? We’ll wait and see but it’s a sign of the power employees have in the modern economy and a reminder to HR to up its game. CEOs are listening.

— Mike Prokopeak, Editor in Chief 4

Workƒorce | w o r k f o r c e . c o m

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 97th year, we take a look back at what was on the minds of past generations of people managers.

A Woman’s Place in the Workforce,

DECEMBER 1958

As the 1950s came to a close, government economist Agnes W. Mitchell looked forward to the 1960s and women’s place in the workforce.“To remove women from the business world would result in the collapse of the entire structure,“ wrote Mitchell in “Women Working — in the 1960s.”

In 1958, 33 percent of the workforce was comprised of women, and Mitchell suggested that out of the 10 million workers expected to join the workforce by 1965, half would be women. She also noted that the trend of more women working was happening at the same time that women were getting married earlier than before. Half of women were married by 21 and 93 percent by age 35. It was becoming acceptable, at least for middle- and upper-class women, to enter the labor market because it was what they wanted rather than out of economic necessity.

Mitchell added that automation brought uncertainty to the future of working women.

“Employers have traditionally dismissed women rather than men during reductions in force.Will automation cause any significant unemployment for women?”

The article also contained “facts” that would sound silly or sexist now.“A majority of women are believed to have had job experience at some point during their lives.” She also explained how women tend not to have supervisory positions because “male supervisors are frequently preferred by both men and women.”

— Andie Burjek

Beware! Baby Boomers Ahead,

SEPTEMBER 1980

Look no further than the September 1980 of Personnel Journal to see how entrenched personnel managers viewed the generational onslaught of … baby boomers!

We’re talking about those whippersnappers born in the mid- to late 1950s.The established personnel leaders of course came from the Silent Generation who were anything but silent in a panel discussion about the changing workforce. Said Douglas Marr, AVP of an insurance firm: “It was different 20 years ago.You paid your dues and worked your way up the corporate ladder.” Personnel administrator Jason B. Strode stated: “We have young people adjusting to work life … and the conflicts between their expectations and older employees and their values … impact the organization.” Marr also noted: “We have a whole populace of generally conservative people who are facing a new group of workers who expect freedom of choice, to have a say in the organization and manage their own careers.”

It’s clear that personnel managers in 1980 were as obsessed with managing a new generation as today’s HR pros. Marsha Sinetar’s piece “Management in the New Age: An Exploration of Changing Work Values” leads with “The management practices of the ’60s and ’70s will not do for the 1980s.” Concluding the “some things don’t change” refrain, Phillip J. Decker covered “Homosexuality and Employment: A Case Law Review.”We may call it LGBTQ rights today, but yeah.The case for workplace equality continues.

— Rick Bell september/october

2019

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A PUBLICATION OF September/October 2019 | Volume 98, Issue 5 PRESIDENT Tasmin Trezise tasmin@workforce.com VICE PRESIDENT, GROUP PUBLISHER Clifford Capone ccapone@workforce.com VICE PRESIDENT, EDITOR IN CHIEF Mike Prokopeak mikep@workforce.com EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Rick Bell rbell@workforce.com MANAGING EDITOR Ashley St. John astjohn@workforce.com ASSOCIATE EDITORS Andie Burjek aburjek@workforce.com Elizabeth Loutfi eloutfi@CLOmedia.com ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR Christopher Magnus cmagnus@workforce.com

VICE PRESIDENT, RESEARCH AND ADVISORY SERVICES Sarah Kimmel skimmel@workforce.com RESEARCH MANAGER Tim Harnett tharnett@workforce.com

MARKETING DIRECTOR Greg Miller gmiller@workforce.com MARKETING SPECIALIST Kristen Britt kbritt@workforce.com REGIONAL SALES

DATA SCIENTIST Grey Litaker glitaker@workforce.com

MANAGER

VIDEO AND MULTIMEDIA PRODUCER Andrew Kennedy Lewis alewis@workforce.com

TECHNICAL OPERATIONS

MEDIA & PRODUCTION MANAGER Ashley Flora aflora@workforce.com

Daniella Weinberg dweinberg@workforce.com MANAGER

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Jennifer Benz Carol Brzozowski Michael S. Cohen Kris Dunn Mark Feffer Sarah Fister Gale Suzanne Grossman John Hackston Jon Hyman Patty Kujawa Rita Pyrillis Daniel Saeedi Rachel L. Schaller

FREE, LIVE,

WEBINARS

Skyler Gold sgold@workforce.com DIGITAL & AUDIENCE INSIGHTS DIRECTOR Lauren Wilbur

lwilbur@workforce.com VP OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT FOR EVENTS DIGITAL COORDINATOR Kevin Fields Steven Diemand kfields@workforce.com sdiemand@workforce.com EVENTS MANAGER Malaz Elsheikh melsheikh@workforce.com

WEBCAST MANAGER Alec O’Dell EDITORIAL ART DIRECTOR aodell@workforce.com Theresa Stoodley EVENTS GRAPHIC tstoodley@workforce.com DESIGNER EDITORIAL ASSOCIATES Latonya Hampton Kerry Snider lhampton@workforce.com ksnider@workforce.com BUSINESS MANAGER Francesca Mathewes Vince Czarnowski fmathewes@workforce.com vince@workforce.com

AUDIENCE INSIGHTS COORDINATOR

UPCOMING

mmartinez@workforce.com

SEPT 10 How the Workforce Learns 2019

LIST MANAGER

SEPT 12

Micaela Martinez

Mike Rovello hcmlistrentals@infogroup.com BUSINESS ADMINISTRATIVE

How HR Leaders Can Fix Work

SEPT 19

Moving the Needle on Strategic Diversity

MANAGER Melanie Lee mlee@workforce.com

WORKFORCE EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

PREVIOUSLY AIRED AUG 28

Getting Meaning Out of the HR Effectiveness Ratio

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

Available live on the air date and on-demand for one year after unless otherwise specified. Check them out today and keep the education going!

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

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Randall Moon, Vice President, International HR, Benefits and HRIS, Lowe’s Cos. Dan Satterthwaite, Head of Human Resources, DreamWorks

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CONTENTS

ON THE COVER WHO CARES

Millions of Americans like Mani Mueller, right, are unpaid caregivers. Diana Clark is the benefits manager at Mueller’s employer Promega, which now has caregiver leave.

COVER PHOTO BY PAULIUS MUSTEIKIS

22

36 SECTOR REPORT

FEATURES

44 SECTOR REPORT: HRMS PROVIDERS

22 FACING THE CAREGIVING CRISIS

36 REMOTELY HEALTHY

46 SECTOR REPORT: STAFFING PROVIDERS

32 MENTAL HEALTH PARITY

40 MAYBE YOU’RE AWARE

HR leaders are less than impressed with their cloud-based HR systems.They may be partly to blame.

How staffing agencies are adapting to the supply and demand gap throughout corporate America.

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How much do employers care about their employee caregiver population?

That depends.

Not all health care is created equally.

Behavioral health care still lags in many company health care plans.

Roll out of bed whenever, dress however, the image of the remote worker is one who is healthy and happy. Not necessarily.

Despite people’s belief in their self-​ awareness, there’s a lack of it. Follow these steps to improve it in your organization. september/october

2019

ON THE WEB SPEAK UP!

32

The Workforce online community provides you with virtual meeting places to chat about issues and trends affecting you and your workplace.

LIKE US: workforce.com/facebookpage

FOLLOW US: workforce.com/twitteraccount

40

JOIN THE GROUP: workforce.com/linkedingroup

WATCH US: workforce.com/youtubechannel

FOR YOUR BENEFIT COLUMNS 4

YOUR FORCE

The Power of Employees and the Modern Economy

13 WORK IN PROGRESS

Balancing the 3 Types of Work-Life Balance

14 REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

Employers hear from a growing segment of employees who seek benefits for family planning.

15 BABIES ON BOARD

March of Dimes updates wellness tools in its “Healthy Babies, Healthy Business” program for premature births.

17 BENEFITS BEAT

Benefits Can Help Ward Off Loneliness

20 THE PRACTICAL EMPLOYER Beware ‘Religious Exemption’ Plan

50 THE LAST WORD

Training for an Unnatural Disaster

september/october

2019

15 FINANCIAL PLAN

Finance experts urge HR to get employees to think more like investors when it comes to retirement planning.

16 SEVENTY-YEAR ITCH

Experts contend that 70 is the golden age for employees to maximize their Social Security benefits.

TRENDING 10 HITTING A HIGH NOTE

‘Harmonizing’ touted as a way to keep HR technology humming.

11 PEOPLE MOVES AND

BY THE NUMBERS

Dennis Berger builds culture for Suffolk; Mental health at work.

12 Q&A

Author MichaelVentura, CEO of Sub Rosa, talks workplace empathy.

12 WORKPLACE RIGHTS

Companies signing on for LGBTQ inclusion push.

LEGAL 18 SUCCESSFUL PREVENTION

10 harassment prevention points to keep in mind.

19 LEGAL BRIEFINGS

Arbitration; No-poach policies.

w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

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TRENDING

‘Harmonizing’ to Keep HR Technology Hitting the Same Note By cataloging and documenting, companies are enhancing consistency, efficiency and effectiveness.

By Mark Feffer

E

mployee demand for consumer-like experiences, the increasing use of people analytics and the falling costs of hardware and software are dramatically driving the spread of HR technology. By 2025, the HR management systems market is expected to grow to $30 billion, more than doubling the $12.6 billion recorded in 2016, according to GrandView Research.

Faced with a mind-boggling array of solutions, encompassing everything from full talent-management suites to narrowly focused products that measure components of employee engagement, both technology vendors and customers are thinking more and more about “harmonization.”

In HR technology-speak, harmonization is the knitting together of products so users benefit from a single experience, as well as a data set that cuts across organizational and technical silos.The idea “is definitely something that’s become more prevalent,” said Jeremy Ames, president of Hive Tech HR, a Massachusetts-based HR technology consultant.

Ames believes it’s difficult for organizations to be served by one platform that does everything. At the same time, systems that aren’t properly connected will leave gaps in information and processes.

Employers that aren’t careful are “going to have so many disjointed processes and experiences that it becomes a mess and a maintenance nightmare,” he said.

According to research by engagement platform provider Reward Gateway, 87 percent of HR professionals either want or are pursuing ways to integrate new tools into their existing ecosystem. Harmonization, said Will Tracz, the company’s chief technical architect, is about efficiency and creating a seamless employee journey.

“If you consider it from an IT perspective, there’s great pressure within organizations to save time and streamline,” he said.

“You’ve got different systems at different parts of the journey, from an applicant tracking system that candidates come into, through to onboarding, to setting up communications to engage [employees] from platforms that sit alongside.”

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Workƒorce | w o r k f o r c e . c o m

First, Don’t Get in the Way As a result, organizations are hunting for solutions that are effective, efficient and consistent, Tracz said. Most especially, HR doesn’t want to implement systems that get in the way of employees doing their job. Harmonization, Tracz said, is about providing a best-in-class experience while making it easy for HR to “seamlessly work through the life cycle without interrupting the employees’ days.”

However, there’s more to harmonization than user experience. The information used by the system to provide self-service, reports and analytics must be brought together in a way that creates what data compiled into a business glossary, where scientists call “a single source of truth.” every meaning is defined and every place Traditionally, functions across the orga- it’s used is documented. “It’s a complex nization have relied on their own systems effort,” he said. to get their work done.That can make an“Pretty much what you’ve got to do is alyzing data more difficult and reporting work with the system of record, and more prone to inconsistencies and errors. when important events happen, have For example, Ames said, dissecting data them synchronize between systems in as becomes more complex when 20 percent close to real time as possible,” Tracz said. of it is drawn from the talent acquisition In some cases, that may mean a weekly system, 30 percent from the learning batch file update. In others, it’s enabling management system and the remainder by one system to reach out to others to let the performance management platform. them know changes have been made. In “Sometimes that need to harmonize either case, it also means reflecting from a reporting standpoint is where changes as quickly as possible. the need to harmonize overall can start,” As important as the need for consistenhe said. cy might be, not everyone sees an industrywide wave rolling toward harmonizaCore of Data Governance tion. A year ago, Ames “felt strongly” that That means harmonization is a data-​ harmonization was gaining momentum governance issue as well as a technical because many full-suite vendors weren’t challenge, said David Ricciardi, president paying close attention to narrower tools. of data strategy and analytics firm Proximo. Consequently, customers were tempted On the back end, for example, simple to pursue the best of all worlds, which data points like an employee’s email ad- required building mechanisms for differdress and contact information must be ent systems to speak to each other. consistent across systems. On the front Today, however, “I think some of the end, a single vocabulary should be em- biggest vendors are making more of an efployed across user interfaces and reports, fort to make sure they’re not being byto the point where it’s even incorporated passed,” Ames said. Full-suite vendors are into PowerPoints presented to the CEO. trying to mitigate their risk by building “That’s harmonization,” Ricciardi said. new features themselves or acquiring them.

“They’re all on the same note. They all “There’s always going to be an appetite mean the exact same thing.They have the for both sides of it,” Ames said. “But right same sound, the same pitch.” For that to now I don’t feel a huge push in one dihappen, every data point or term must be rection or the other.” september/october

2019

TRENDING

PEOPLE DENNIS BERGER Construction company Suffolk named Dennis Berger as chief culture officer.

Berger will oversee Suffolk’s people and culture team and will be responsible for creating a top employee experience across the entire employee life cycle. Berger has more than 30 years of experience across all facets of HR and people management, including the last 14 years as chief human resources officer.

By the Numbers

moves

ANGELA PERSAUD G/O Media named Angela Persaud as senior vice president head of talent. Persaud will focus on the company’s culture, including the core values of diversity and inclusion as well as lead recruitment and retention activities. Persaud also will take a leadership role top bar is all men. bottom bar is all women on union and general team member relations. She will report to CEO Jim Spanfeller.

APRIL CASTAÑEDA Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has named April Castañeda as director of human resources. She will lead a team of 70 professionals and direct the laboratory’s compensation and benefits, talent acquisition and university recruiting, diversity, leadership and staff development, labor relations and other key HR functions.

PEGGY RUBENZER Restaurant brand True Food Kitchen named Peggy Rubenzer as chief people officer to lead the brand’s human resources and training function. Rubenzer will be responsible for developing and implementing people strategies. She will report to CEO Christine Barone. She began her HR career in 1989 with Southwest Airlines.

ANGIE DEMCHENKO Multistate cannabis operator Cresco Labs Inc. named Angie Demchenko as its first chief people officer.

Demchenko will be responsible for performance management, recruitment, compensation and employee benefits. She most recently served as vice president, head of human resources for shopping mall operator Starwood Retail Partners.

KELLI SPENCE GameWorks Inc., named Kelli Spence as vice president, people and culture.

Spence was promoted after spending two years as senior director, people and culture. She now will be focused on initiatives centered around enhancing the employee experience, from identifying talent and recruiting through retention and creating career paths for employees as well as ensuring a fun and rewarding culture.

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. september/october

2019

compiled by Grey Litaker and Rick Bell

Mental Health in the Workplace 46.6 million adults suffer from a mental illness.

3.9%

Adults 18+ experienced serious psychological distress in the last 30 days. with a mental illness who 41.2% Adults received mental health services.

34.8% of men received mental health services 47.6% of women received mental health services Sources: National Institute of Health and Centers for Disease Control & Prevention as processed by Talent Tracker Data Scientist (all data U.S.)

Suffering in Silence

Employees speaking up about workplace stress.

Source: Mental Health America, “Mind in the Workplace,” 2019

31% Willing to talk about it.

69% Don’t talk about it.

Unhealthy Cost $1 trillion

annually global in lost productivity due to depression and anxiety.

Return on Investment Productivity improves with investment in treatment for common mental disorders.

Every $1 invested = $4 in improved health and productivity.

Source: World Health Organization, 2019

workforce.com w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce 10| Workƒorce

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TRENDING

LGBTQ+ PUSH

By Francesca Mathewes

M

RETHINKING OUR THINKING WITH EMPATHY

By Francesca Mathewes

Michael Ventura, CEO

Empathy is becoming a vital skill in the workplace, says Michael Ventura, CEO and founder of empathic design firm Sub Rosa. In his book,“Applied Empathy,” Ventura unpacks what a career grounded in human experiences and creativity has taught him about empathy and offers this knowledge to new entrepreneurs and executives.

Workforce: How do you define empathy? What does empathy mean to you?

Michael Ventura: Empathy overall has three subsets. Two out of three types of empathy [effective empathy and somatic empathy] are, in the business and leadership capacity, actually more troublesome than helpful. The third iteration is cognitive empathy. Cognitive empathy is about training the muscle of perspective-taking. That’s about learning how to stand in the shoes of someone else and see the world from their perspective. That deep understanding yields greater insight about this person and what they care about. Our work is grounded in the premise of cognitive empathy. We call it applied empathy, because empathy unto itself is passive.

Workforce: How have your past experiences informed your interest in empathy?

Ventura: In creative businesses there’s often a tendency to shut the doors with a couple of smart people inside and say, “Wouldn’t it be cool if?” And you sort of make stuff up and get high on your own supply. I realized at some point in our business that that is unproductive and often ineffective, because it is just stroking the egos of a couple of people sitting in the room.

When we started practicing empathy and thought “Hey, maybe we don’t know the right way to do this, let’s go talk to people, let’s get inside their heads, go inside their houses and see how they live”; when we were immersed and asking questions and made the investment of going deeper with people, that was when our work got better time and time again.

Workforce: What did you learn about empathy while writing your book?

Ventura: People are unsure how [empathy] can be measured and are worried that it’s too much work. I’ll say that it can be measured in a way that you wouldn’t think.

Quantitatively measuring the empathy of a situation or a person is impractical in a business context. But what you can do is measure the effect of empathy on things like recruitment and retention of top talent, the emergence of high performing teams, how well teams work together [and] overall workplace satisfaction.

Workforce: Do you see these ideas as relevant to recent movements about equity, inclusivity and respect in the workplace?

Ventura: I think that the rise of things like #BlackLivesMatter, the #MeToo movement and other cultural touchstones has brought that conversation to corporate America, and now there’s an increased awareness for diversity, equity and inclusion efforts inside those companies. One of the key ingredients, in my opinion, is empathy.

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Workƒorce | w o r k f o r c e . c o m

ore than 200 companies in the U.S. and across the globe are leading a new push for the expansion of LGBTQ+ rights in the workplace.

Companies including Nike, Bank of America and Pfizer — the most to ever sign a business brief in an LGTBQ+ nondiscrimination case — submitted a “friend of the court” brief to the U.S. Supreme Court. The brief seeks to include sexual orientation and gender identity in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which “prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.”

Brian Turoff, litigator and head of law firm Manatt, Phelps and Phillips’ New York employment and labor practice, explained the primary argument supporting the brief. When companies discriminate against someone based on their sexual orientation, in turn, they’re discriminating against them on the basis of sex, per the way that existing legislation construes the word “sex.”

“For example, if you’re firing a man because he loves or has sex with another man, but you of course wouldn’t fire a woman because she loves or has sex with another man, then by definition you are treating those two people differently on the basis of their sex,” he said.

The brief also draws attention to three cases dealing with LGBTQ+ workplace discrimination being heard by the Supreme Court on Oct. 8. In two of the three cases, lower courts have sided with the employees, which conflicted with an 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in favor of one of the employers, triggering a Supreme Court review.

Cisco, which signed the brief, said that it is “committed to driving longterm solutions that promote fair and equal policies, practices, and laws to help break down barriers,” in a statement. “We will continue to have a critical voice that is focused on protecting and advocating for more equitable rights for gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and gender-expansive people inside and outside the workplace.” september/october

2019

TRENDING

BALANCING THE 3 TYPES OF WORK-LIFE BALANCE

By Kris Dunn |

Wo r k i n P r o g r e s s

I

did a candidate interview for an open position recently — opting out of the corporate version of “Game of Thrones.” during vacation on the beach.

You get more done than the others, or you don’t get Go ahead and fire up the comments about how my promoted or become unemployed. I know it’s harsh. priorities are out of whack. About how I need to take But the ticking clock is real for many who feel great care of myself. about their work-life balance. It’s all fun and games until I provide this nugget as a visual to the following reality. you’re on the market as a candidate whose biggest acThere are three types of complishment was achievwork-life balance in the ing balance. world. Two you can choose, 3. You have no flexione you must earn. All bility and maximum come with a cost. As an flexibility all at the same HR/talent leader, you time. Most of us would should have a point of agree that a feature of great view on each because odds work-life balance is being are they all exist to some able to leave work when extent in your company, you need to — a late lunch but one probably defines with a friend or an event at your culture. your kid’s school. If you have this ability, you agree this is Let’s break down the types of work-life balance you tremendous, and for many of us, it’s the best part of any must choose from: work-life balance conversation.

1. You have zero work-life balance and zero flexFor the most part, it’s earned. You can’t put up walls ibility. Not only are you working long hours but you’re and say you want a 40-hour week to get this flexibility. also expected to be present in the office on the organiza- You have to earn it. The tradeoff for being able to leave tion’s terms, not your own.You have zero flexibility about any time you want is being indispensable, which in corwhen you can leave and you have your smartphone next porate America means your boss — who is likely a to your pillow at night. complete Type A — can ping you at 9:30 p.m. and get a This situation is relatively easy to find. Just change jobs quick answer. a couple of times, don’t have boundaries about what It’s that access and iteration pace that alpha leaders you’ll accept and you’ll find the company and boss com- want out of their people. If you’re looking for work-life bination that can provide this quickly. NOTE TO THE balance, that’s the bad news. But if you’re looking for KIDS: Sometimes you have to put in time in this situa- max flexibility about when and where you work and if tion to pick up the deep experience that can get you to a you can go to the Thursday afternoon soccer game, it better place. might be the type of work-life balance you seek.

2. You have maximum work-life balance. ConAs an HR leader, you’re in a tough spot. Odds are grats! You have found a company and boss that respects that you have jobs at your company with work-life balyour need for time away and even has an unwritten poli- ance flexibility in all three of these categories. But at cy that they won’t reach out to you in the evening or on the end of the day, you’re a performance coach as an weekends. You come in at 8 a.m. and leave at 5 p.m. It HR leader. feels good not to have to worry about the chaos after You don’t define work-life balance alone at your hours. Your time is your time. You found someone who company as an HR pro. That’s a team sport. But only respects that, so if it’s important to you hold on with all you — the gifted HR leader who understands potenyour might. tial and life expectations — can customize career There’s just one little problem: If you hear a ticking coaching for the individual employee in a way that sound, it might be the clock counting down on how matches their ambition. comfortable you are.You see, progress on earth has rarely That’s it, gotta go. Have another candidate interview been moved forward by respecting labor’s need for an coming up. Going to do it in the sun, by the pool.

8-to-5 schedule with a 90-minute lunch, so the tradeoff Then I’ll probably hit the beach. is that your manager may be mailing it in and putting you and your team at risk long term. Also, just know that by Kris Dunn, the chief human resources officer at Kinetix, is a Workforce wanting the perfect 40-hour work-life balance, you’re contributing editor. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.

OF THE THREE TYPES OF WORK-LIFE BALANCE IN THE WORLD, TWO CAN BE CHOSEN, AND ONE MUST BE EARNED.

september/october

2019

w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

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FOR YOUR BENEFIT

Support Grows Among Businesses for Reproductive Rights Varying laws between states are causing companies to rethink their benefits.

By Andie Burjek

M

ost women find a clear connection between reproductive “It was a defreedom and success in the workplace. layed reaction Some 70 percent of people find that reproductive freedom — I wasn’t used to, defined by the World Health Organization as the basic right of and then it beall couples and individuals to select the number, spacing and came very clear timing of their children and the right to attain the highest stan- that there was dard of sexual and reproductive health — is crucial to women’s a lot of conempowerment and equality, according to a new study. Mean- cern within while, 64 percent believe it is crucial for women’s economic the company,” stability, the study notes.

Webb said. Part Chris Webb Amy Everitt “The Business Case for Supporting Reproductive Rights,” a of his response 2019 research from Harris Poll and the National Abortion and was to sign the Reproductive Rights Action League, a nonprofit that advocates “Don’t Ban Equality” letter that appeared as a full-page ad in the for reproductive rights, found that 80 percent of adults believe New York Times in June. Leaders from over 180 companies, includthat reproductive freedom is a human right and 70 percent of ing Yelp, The Standard, Warby Parker, The Muse and Bloomberg employees want abortion to be safe and legal.

L.P. affirmed their support for reproductive care.

There’s a business and human-rights case to support these Webb said his decision to sign the letter wasn’t based on his rights through benefits and policy, according to Amy Everitt, own beliefs but from the collective point of view of the compaNARAL’s vice president of special projects. The business case ny, which has about 220 employees. “I think it would be an includes attracting talent. Employees want to work at companies abuse of my power and my position if I went out and started that are invested in making their employees successful and sup- signing things that I personally agree with and no one else at porting their reproductive autonomy, Everitt said. the company did,” he said.

Reproductive rights don’t just entail an employee’s decision to not have children or to terminate a pregnancy; they also includes REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS DON’T JUST ENTAIL AN employees who want a family. That’s why ChowNow recently EMPLOYEE’S DECISION TO NOT HAVE CHILDREN updated its family-centric policies and benefits and expanded parental leave.

The company is also interested in exploring its benefits regardOR TERMINATE A PREGNANCY; THEY ALSO ing birth control and abortion, but it’s too early to do anything INCLUDE EMPLOYEES WHO WANT A FAMILY. concrete,Webb said. Recent abortion laws across the country still have to go to court, and outcomes of that are still uncertain.

The American Association of University Women, a 138-yearMeanwhile, ChowNow wants to ensure that employees in old nonprofit that promotes equity and education for women Missouri and California have comparable benefits whatever the and girls, also supports the business case. courts decide.

“It’s not just no-copay birth control and access to abortion “California employees have more freedom around their bodies care,” Everitt said. “It’s things like paid family leave [and] having than employees in Missouri, which doesn’t seem right or consisgood pregnancy or anti-pregnancy discrimination policies on tent,” Webb said, also noting that in the previous year many the books.

ChowNow employees transferred to the new Kansas City office.

California-based online food ordering platform ChowNow “Trying to convince people to move somewhere where they’ll opened an office in Kansas City, Missouri, last year, before a have less freedom is a challenge we’re wrestling with.” wave of restrictive abortion laws were passed in several states.

Webb also noted that if states want to bring in more jobs and When Missouri passed a bill in May that would criminalize attract more companies, restricting reproductive care could be abortion eight weeks into a pregnancy, ChowNow employees troublesome. Last year the leaders at ChowNow “fell in love voiced concern to company leadership. with” the city when the state encouraged them to relocate. But The process of getting employee feedback was a different the current legal landscape in the state would make the decision experience that CEO Chris Webb was used to with politically to move much harder, he said. charged events.With the 2016 presidential election he could tell “If you want to attract progressive tech companies from Caliwhich employees were happy and which ones were disappoint- fornia and other parts of the country where policies are different, ed with the results. But with reproductive rights, people kept to you’re going to have to understand that this is going to hurt your themselves until Missouri’s legislation. case,”Webb said.

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2019

FOR YOUR BENEFIT

Preemie Wellness Tools

HR Urged to Create Investors

March of Dimes relaunches program.

Saving employees from themselves is a change in thought.

By Rita Pyrillis

By Patty Kujawa

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any employers strive to support pregnant workers, yet the rate of premature births and maternal deaths is on the rise and the infant-mortality rate in the United States is among the Darlene Slaughter highest in the world.

This has led the March of Dimes to revamp a workplace wellness program aimed at supporting mothers during and after pregnancy.

Healthy Babies, Healthy Business is an online platform that provides information on various stages of pregnancy or preconception, and postpartum care, through classes, webinars, articles, videos, games, challenges and other tools. Initially launched in 2007, the nonprofit organization that works to improve the health of mothers and babies added interactive learning features to the platform, but another impetus behind the re-launch was to help women at a time when pregnancy discrimination is increasing and infant mortality remains high.

“Our country is in a crisis around child birth,” said Darlene Slaughter, vice president and chief people officer at the March of Dimes, which advocates for the health of mothers and babies. “Society is taking away support systems for families.

How do you stay relevant in a world where all this going on? Babies need to be born healthy and the March of Dimes in a good position to help.”

One in 10 babies in the United States are born prematurely each year at less than 37 weeks’ gestation, which affects survival and quality of life, according to 2017 study co-authored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

While most are born healthy, a small percentage of premature infants require extraordinary and exorbitant medical care, which is costing employer-sponsored health plans billions each year, the study found.

Last year, the rate of premature births rose to nearly 10 percent from 9.8 percent, reflecting a steady increase over a three-year period, according to the March of Dimes 2018 Premature Birth Report Card.

“Take those costs and add to it the cost of time away from work and it’s a very costly problem for employers,” Slaughter said. september/october

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P

articipants who think they need $1.7 million to be comfortable in retirement may not be saving enough to hit that mark, a new survey from Schwab Retirement Plan Services found.

The online survey of 1,000 401(k) participants showed the average respondent thought they would need to save $1.7 million for retirement. The same report also showed the average participant contributed less than $9,000 to their 401(k) in 2018.

The fact that people are thinking about how much they will need in retirement is good progress, said Nathan Voris, managing director of business strategies for Schwab. While Voris said he was surprised by how good the $1.7 million mark was, some of the improvements to 401(k)s like automatic features are creating a bit of a backlash.

The “set it and forget it” mentality associated with automatic enrollment and escalation can create a false sense of security,Voris said. It’s a great thing for people to be defaulted into a 401(k), but the minimum 3 percent contribution that is used by many plans won’t allow those participants to get to $1.7 million.

“The unintended consequence is you may think you are fine and you’re not,” Voris said.“We’ve learned a lot about what works, but we still have a lot to do.”

Rob Austin, head of research at Alight Solutions, crunched some numbers to see how workers can get to $1.7 million. It would take roughly 33 years for someone to save $1.7 million if they saved $9,000 this year, increased contributions by 2 percent annually, and had an employer match half of contributions.This would assume a 6 percent rate of return annually.

Schwab noted that people who start saving in their 20s should save between 10 to 15 percent annually to have a comfortable retirement. Workers who wait until age 45 may need to save as much as 35 percent of their annual salary to achieve a reasonable retirement amount.

Austin said that while it is good to set a goal like saving $1.7 million, the real number should hinge on a person’s unique financial situation. Annual income, additional sources of savings, debt and other reoccurring costs should be factored in when setting a retirement amount goal.

“It’s tough to make a blanket statement,” he said.“But it’s good to set a goal.”

Voris and Austin agreed that HR leaders can play a role in helping participants set realistic retirement goals.Voris said that it starts by helping participants understand that they are not just savers but investors. In the survey, two-thirds of respondents said their 401(k) has been their first experience investing; more than half consider themselves as savers.

In addition, nearly 60 percent said their 401(k) is their only or largest source of retirement savings. More than half said they would be more likely to use a savings account for their retirement dollars. Only 46 percent said they would use an Individual Retirement Account.

That mindset may lead participants to invest too conservatively,Voris said.

They should understand that by having a 401(k) plan, they are investors.

“It is a tough nut to crack,” Austin said.“People are saving, but it’s their first time, so they are rookies.The question becomes, how do you convert savers into investors.” w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

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FOR YOUR BENEFIT

Experts: 70 Is the Golden Age to Max Out SS Benefits Lack of proper retirement planning leads many to claim their Social Security benefit suboptimally.

By Patty Kujawa

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ecky Beach admits she doesn’t know much about Social Security, but she definitely thinks it won’t be around when she needs it. That’s why the 40-year-old lifestyle blogger plans to start taking the benefit when she turns 62.

“I plan to take it out as early as I can,” Beach said from her home in Arlington, Texas. “I don’t really know that much about Social Security, but I hear it’s going to go away.”

Lots of people like Beach think similarly. In fact, only 4 percent of retirees wait until the optimal age of 70 to take their Social Security benefit, a new study by robo-​ adviser United Income said.

Retirees lose out on $3.4 trillion in possible income, which on average is $111,000 per household, because they don’t take Social Security at the best point in their lifetime.

“Most people don’t claim Social Security at the optimal age from a financial perspective because they may not be having the necessary retirement planning discussions,” said Jason Fichtner, former chief economist at the Social Security Administration, and co-author of the study. “Financial advisers, employer HR departments and policymakers could do a better job with educational materials and encouraging people to spend more time sorting through this important decision.”

Nearly all (92 percent) of retirees that took Social Security at the wrong time would have seen their income increase had they pinpointed the right time. In fact, more than half of these retirees could have increased their income by more than 25 percent in their 70s and 80s, the report said. That’s usually when people see spikes in health care costs.

Today, Social Security provides more than $1 trillion in benefits to 64 million Americans. It represents a third of retirement income for seniors, which averages $1,461 each month.

There is no doubt the system is being stressed with increased life expectancies, but the doomsday scenario of the system going broke isn’t exactly right, Fichtner 16

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said. The latest Social Security Administration report shows that the trust fund reserves are expected to be used up (if nothing is done) by 2035. If Congress chooses to do nothing to fund Social Security, it will still be able to pay out 80 percent of what working Americans are owed after 2035.

“The trust fund may become depleted, but once depleted, it will pay out what it collects,” Fichtner said. “By law, Social Security will pay out 80 percent of what is promised.”

The study showed that most people should wait until 70 to claim their Social Security benefit. While workers can start claiming their benefit at 62, the amount increases on average about 8 percent each year they delay the claim. The Social Security Administration reported a 62-yearold would receive a $725 monthly benefit if they claimed today. Choosing to delay the benefit until age 70 would increase the amount to $1,280, a 177 percent increase.

see a lower tax bill while in retirement because Social Security taxes may only come from 85 percent to 50 percent of that income. In addition, relying more on Social Security in later years may allow heirs to inherit unused assets from retirement accounts. The important thing, she said, is that people make informed deciSOCIAL SECURITY sions on their health, financial status and other factors to determine the right time PROVIDES MORE THAN to claim the benefit. $1 TRILLION IN BENEFITS TO Fichtner and Jaconetti agreed that most people are like Beach, they really 64 MILLION AMERICANS. don’t think about Social Security and may only have time to hear or see the While waiting to get a bigger paycheck headlines. It would be helpful for human sounds great, it may not always be feasible, resources leaders and policymakers to said Colleen Jaconetti, senior investment help people understand the options well analyst at The Vanguard Group. It’s not before it becomes their time to make this wise to completely deplete an investment often permanent decision to claim Social portfolio to accomplish this, she said. In Security benefits. The study looked at addition, some people may not be able to Social Security messaging and suggested work or earn enough money in their later that the Social Security Administration years to get them to 70. revisit how it describes claiming age.

“A lot of people don’t realize that they Currently, age 62 is labeled “early eligineed to figure out how they fill that gap” bility age.” Fichtner suggested age 62 between 62 and 70, Jaconetti said. “It’s a could simply be labeled “minimum bencomplicated problem.” efit age” while age 70 could be labeled Jaconetti pointed out that those who the “maximum benefit age.” are able to bridge the gap and delay “How we talk about this can change claiming Social Security can also see oth- behavior,” Fichtner said.“The little things er benefits from their decision. Some may can make a difference.” september/october

2019

FOR YOUR BENEFIT

BENEFITS CAN HELP WARD OFF LONELINESS

By Jennifer Benz |

I

Benefits Beat

t’s impossible to avoid the headlines about loneliness and its consequences.

Being lonely hurts our health. It spans generations. And it’s a topic of discussion at HR conferences and in many of the publications you read.

“Loneliness is the new smoking,” one headline announced after a couple of big surveys were released last year. Cigna’s chief medical officer confirmed it, saying, “Loneliness has the same impact on mortality as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, making it even more dangerous than obesity.”

Yikes! So many people are lonely that it’s reaching public health crisis proportions.

The 2018 study by The Economist and Kaiser Family Foundation found that 22 percent of Americans and 23 percent of folks in the U.K. always or often feel lonely, lack companionship or feel left out or isolated.

Cigna’s survey, conducted in the U.S. the same year, had even more striking results: Nearly half of Americans report sometimes or always feeling alone (46 percent) or left out (47 percent).

Only around half of Americans (53 percent) have meaningful in-person social interactions, such as having an extended conversation with a friend or spending quality time with family, on a daily basis.

Generation Z (adults ages 18-22) is the loneliest generation and claims to be in worse health than older generations.

Even with all the talk about loneliness and how pervasive it is, there isn’t much common-sense conversation around what to do about it. That’s why a recent Scientific American article caught my eye.

It revealed that benefits leaders actually have one solution to the loneliness problem in hand, already.Titled “A Solution for Loneliness,” the article outlines three ways volunteering helps alleviate loneliness and its related health impact.

Volunteering is a meaningful way to connect with people and make new friends.

It can make up for the loss of meaning that is often brought on by loneliness.

It protects against the cognitive decline (such as memory loss) that often results from loneliness and isolation.Volunteering is a way to stay engaged and stimulated, build new neural connections, and become more resilient to symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.

The benefits of volunteering are many, as we learn from respondents to Great Britain’s National Survey on the Vol-

unteer Experience. When asked to reflect on what they get out of volunteering, 93 percent said they enjoy it; 89 percent said they meet new people; 86 percent said it broadens their experience of life; 77 percent said volunteering improves their mental health and well-being; and 68 percent said it helps them feel less isolated.

So, there you go. Many companies are already (unwittingly?) helping to prevent loneliness through company-​sponsored volunteer programs. People love them, and it doesn’t take a huge investment to create a program that builds energy. I’ve worked with Intuit for more than a decade, and we hear incredible feedback about its We Care & Give Back program, which gives employees 32 hours per year to volunteer and matches donations to charities up to $5,000 per year.

Salesforce is another company that has made a name for itself from its commitment to community.

Salesforce employees are eligible for seven days of paid volunteer time off per year. Everyone gets a $2,500 company match for charitable donations, and those who complete the full 7 days of volunteer time get another $2,500 matched. These programs play heavily into recruiting and best-places-to-work awards — and they are something people talk about.

Still, promoting volunteerism is but one way the workplace can support people and help them feel less lonely.We can help nurture relationships at work and help people participate in social activities.

And we can build cultures of caring that help people bring their full selves to work. Some of the proudest moments I’ve experienced building a team came from helping to create a culture that supports people during their best times and their toughest times.

That means thinking about the big stuff (how do we handle it when someone needs to be out to take care of themselves or their family?) and the little stuff (do we encourage chitchat on video calls to help remote folks feel more connected?).

Work can and should be a place filled with meaningful relationships — relationships that ward off loneliness.

EVEN WITH ALL THE TALK ABOUT LONELINESS AND HOW PERVASIVE IT IS, THERE ISN’T MUCH COMMON-SENSE CONVERSATION AROUND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT.

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2019

Jennifer Benz leads Segal Benz, a national leader in HR and employee benefits communications. She was honored as one of Workforce’s “Game Changers” in 2013. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.

w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

17

Legal Successful Harassment Prevention Programs in the #MeToo Era 10 points to keep in mind regardless of the size of your company or industry.

By Michael S. Cohen

F

rom the instant I first saw the hashtag #MeToo on Twitter, I had a sense that my professional life might get busy to a degree I had never experienced.

I am an employment lawyer who has spent the better part of the past decade building a practice, the centerpiece of which has been conducting human resources and employment law trainings for organizations of all kinds.The importance of harassment prevention was going to be at the forefront not only for HR professionals (a place it had existed for some time), but finally also for executives and directors.

For each city I have traveled to since 2018 — and by my count that is roughly 100 — my 11-year-old daughter has photoshopped a picture of me in my Philadelphia Eagles T-shirt next to something unique about city to which I’m traveling.

For Detroit, it was a picture of Eminem and me on 8 Mile Road. In Irvine, California, I stood with the cast of the television show “The OC.” And, of course when in Washington, D.C., it was “the other” Michael Cohen and me in front of the Jefferson Memorial, with the hashtag #ImNotThatMichaelCohen. In other words, while travel can be difficult, I’ve been trying to have some fun with all the time I spend on the road.

The purpose of all of these hours, days and weeks on the road has been and remains to be critically important. Since the beginning of 2018, I have conducted more than 350 harassment prevention trainings for organizations of all shapes and sizes.

In many senses, the experiences have differed and diverged greatly from each other. Of course a harassment prevention training for a National Hockey League team might feel different than one for a federal agency, Fortune 50 company, energy investment firm, regional law firm, startup or local nonprofit.

While the differences in experiences may be real and trainings must be modified in a way to be meaningful for the particular organization, the fact remains: There are certain goals that are absolutely necessary for a successful harassment prevention training in light of the current climate in the U.S. workplace.

10 Goals for Harassment Prevention Trainings 1.To ensure that all employees feel safe at work.

2.To educate all employees about what is and is not appropri18

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ate workplace conduct. This absolutely increases employee respect and satisfaction, enhances efforts toward retention and recruitment and decreases the likelihood of claims.

3. To alert management that they must report to HR (or the appropriate person/body) all inappropriate behavior based on protected class, whether the behavior was reported to or ob-

There are certain goals that are absolutely necessary for a successful harassment prevention training in light of the current climate in the U.S. workplace. served by them (even in absence of a complaint).

4. To notify all employees about the organization’s internal complaint procedure and, accordingly, their different and ideally diverse points of contact for raising complaints of inappropriate workplace conduct.

5. To make employees more aware of, and sensitive to, the fact that other people inside the organization have perceptions far different from their own. This recognition is critical.

6. To educate management about the illegality of, and the very real business risks associated with, retaliation. september/october

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7. To ensure that all employees understand that certain explanations are not defenses to inappropriate workplace conduct (e.g., “I didn’t mean any harm by the statement,” “I was just kidding around,” “I didn’t mean for her/him to hear it,” “That’s just who she/he is and always has been,” etc.).

8. To let all employees know that “what happens in Vegas” (read: outside the office) never stays in Vegas. Inappropriate conduct outside the workplace unquestionably has the impact of affecting relationships inside work and therefore must be avoided.

When it occurs it must be addressed immediately.

9. To notify all employees that the organization takes extremely seriously any form of inappropriate conduct, that the organization will investigate all such issues promptly and thoroughly and that when inappropriate conduct occurs potentially severe disciplinary action will be taken.

10. To ensure that managers fully appreciate their legal obligations with respect to inappropriate workplace conduct — what we call the five Rs of supervisory or managerial responsibility.

Refrain from inappropriate conduct, broadly defined.

Report to HR (or the designated member or department or committee of the organization) all complaints of harassment, discrimination, retaliation or inappropriate behavior based on protected class.

Respond proactively, even in the absence of a complaint.

Remedy any inappropriate conduct, making sure the remedy is focused on the wrongdoer as opposed to the complainant.

(Don’t) Retaliate.

As we all know, the #MeToo movement has created a great deal more awareness of workplace harassment generally and sexual harassment specifically. As an absolute direct result, organizations of all types throughout the country have implemented robust and meaningful training initiatives designed to ensure that their workplaces are safe and free from harassment, discrimination and retaliation.

The organizational desire to do right and the decision to train all employees is a critical part of the battle. But, that desire and decision are not enough. Demanding that the program put in place to prevent inappropriate workplace conduct is essential, and it is only this kind of training that will assist in creating and maintaining the workplace we all know is necessary.

Michael S. Cohen is a partner at Duane Morris LLP. He concentrates his practice in the areas of employment law training and counseling. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

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2019

Legal Legal Briefings ARBITRATION CLAUSES CAN CAUSE A RIFT In Latif v. Morgan Stanley & Co., plaintiff Mahmoud Latif complained to defendant Morgan Stanley’s HR department about his co-workers’ inappropriate comments regarding his sexual orientation and religion, inappropriate touching and sexual advances. Latif also complained of a female supervisor sexually assaulting him. Morgan Stanley terminated him one year after he first complained. Latif brought suit in federal court alleging discrimination, hostile work environment and retaliation in violation of Title VII. Morgan Stanley moved to compel arbitration under Latif’s employment agreement. In response, Latif argued the agreement was not enforceable as to his sexual harassment claims in light of a recently adopted New York law. The New York law, N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 7515, prohibits employers from requiring employees to arbitrate claims of sexual harassment, except where inconsistent with federal law. The court found the New York law was inconsistent with federal law — specifically, the Federal Arbitration Act (the FAA), which states that arbitration clauses shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, unless grounds exist for the revocation of any contract.

Similar to AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, where the Supreme Court held the FAA preempts state laws prohibiting waivers of class-wide arbitration, this court found that the FAA preempted the New York law because it attempted to prohibit arbitration of a particular type of claim. Latif v. Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 107020.

IMPACT: Employers should carefully craft arbitration clauses to comply with state law unless and until a court determines that the law is preempted by the FAA.

JIMMY JOHN’S NO-POACH POLICY LEAVES BAD TASTE Sylas Butler was an employee for a Jimmy John’s sandwiches franchise in Illinois. After Butler’s hours were reduced, he attempted to transfer to another Jimmy John’s franchise. He discovered he could not transfer because the franchises have contracts with Jimmy John’s corporate that contain “no poach agreements,” — agreements that prohibit franchisees from hiring each other’s employees. Butler brought a class action lawsuit on behalf of current and former Jimmy John’s employees, alleging the sandwich company violated the Sherman Antitrust Act, and committed unfair and deceptive business practices under state law. The United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois held that Butler stated a valid claim under the Sherman Act and state law. The court rejected Jimmy John’s argument that the no-poach agreements were merely “vertical” restraints on trade between Jimmy John’s corporate and franchisees, and not “horizontal” restraints upon trade between competitors, which are typically illegal. The effect of the no-poach agreements was horizontal, as under the contract, the franchisees had the ability to enforce the no-poach agreements against each other as third-party beneficiaries. Butler v. Jimmy John’s Franchise, LLC, 331 F. Supp. 3d 786 (S.D. Ill. 2018).

IMPACT: Courts are increasingly skeptical of no-poach agreements that restrict the ability of employees to seek gainful employment.

Rachel L. Schaller, Daniel Saeedi and Suzanne Grossman are attorneys at Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.

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19

Legal

Beware ‘Religious Exemption’ Plan Jon Hyman |

W

The Practical Employer

arning: This month’s column is not for everyone. If, however, you are offended by what I am about to say, then this is specifically for you.

In August, the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, the federal agency that regulates and governs federal contractors and subcontractors, proposed regulations to clarify the scope and application of the religious exemption contained in section 204(c) of Executive Order 11246.

By way of background, Executive Order 11246, signed

by President Lyndon Johnson in September 1965, “prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do over $10,000 in Government business in one year from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” It’s been amended over the years, including its 2014 addition of LGBTQ protections to the list of prohibited discrimination.

Section 204(c) specifically exempts from coverage any “government contractor or subcontractor that is a religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society.”

The Trump administration seeks to expand section 204(c) to permit religious organizations with federal contracts to “make employment decisions consistent with their sincerely held religious tenets and beliefs without fear of sanction by the federal government.”

It makes clear that religious organizations can discriminate because of religion, and that religious organizations can require employees’ behavior to meet the organization’s religious rules.

What has people, including me, up in arms about this rule is its proposed change to what qualifies as a “religious organization.” The EEOC has long taken the position that for-profit companies cannot qualify as “religious organizations.” This proposal deviates from that long-standing rule for purposes of the OFCCP. Indeed, according to two senior Labor Department officials, the exemption would apply to “closely held companies acting in accordance with an owner’s religious beliefs.”

In other words, if someone organizes a closely held business for a religious “purpose” and holds itself out to the public as such, it would be exempt from the OFCCP’s anti-discrimination provisions if it operates its business consistent with its religious purpose.

What would this change mean practically? As the American Civil Liberties Union tweeted, “The Department of Labor just proposed a rule that aims to let government contractors fire workers who are LGBTQ, or who are pregnant and unmarried, based on the employers’ religious views.”

This is not “religious freedom.” It’s government-sanctioned discrimination. And it’s just plain wrong.

Private businesses can’t hold religious beliefs. Extending to them these protections based on their owners’ religious beliefs is dangerous. And scary. And abhorrent. We should all be troubled by a rule that permits an employer to opt out of an employment law because of a religious belief.

Religious freedom as an opt-out from the law is a dangerous construct. Our Constitution guarantees freedom of religion. We irreparably damage this important principle when we permit a private business, under the guise of religious freedom, to opt-out, without penalty, from an employment law with which it disagrees or finds offensive.

If you stand with me, and against government-sanctioned discrimination of any kind and in any form, write or call your senator and congressperson and tell them that this proposed rule cannot stand. That as a nation we are better than this. That all private businesses should be held to the same non-discriminatory obligations, regardless of the religious beliefs of their owners.

And, don’t forget about the comment period required by the rule-making process for any proposed regulations. The public gets to chime in, and everyone who opposes this rule should do so.

To conclude, I’ll make this as clear as possible.

Racism is wrong.

Sexism is wrong.

Homophobia is wrong.

If you disagree, you’re a bigot, period.

And, if you hide behind your religion to protect your views, then you’re a hypocritical bigot. There is nothing religious about bigotry, no matter what some might want you to believe. .

Private businesses can’t hold religious beliefs.

Extending to them these protections based on their owners’ religious beliefs is dangerous. And scary.

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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.

september/october

2019

An Informed Employee is a Safe Employee

Secure Alerts for Today’s Uncertain World.

For HR professionals, employee safety is top of mind.

Keeping lines of communication open and clear is the first step to ensuring clarity during a critical event. Let OnSolve’s emergency notification solution go to work for you.

TO LEARN MORE, VISIT ONSOLVE.COM/DEMO

WORKPLACE FOCUS:

HR's Healing Resources

Facing the

Caregiving Crisis Your employees care — care for an elderly parent, care for an ailing spouse, care for a child with special needs. How much do employers care about their employee caregiver population? That depends.

BY RITA PYRILLIS

W

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PHOTO BY PAULIUS MUSTEIKIS

hen Mani Mueller landed a plum job at a biotech firm in Wisconsin in 2013 she brought her parents from Pennsylvania to help care for her two young daughters while she found her footing at work.

The timing was perfect. Her mother had just retired and her father, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease, was doing well and looked forward to spending time with his granddaughters. But what promised to be a dream scenario fell apart within a few months as her father’s condition declined and her mom couldn’t keep up with his care.

Parkinson’s is a progressive nervous system disorder that affects movement, and her father began falling frequently, requiring constant supervision. Soon, Mueller was tackling not only the demands of a new job, but also working a second shift as her father’s primary caregiver and power of attorney, shuttling him to doctor’s appointments, researching treatments, and learning to navigate the Medicare and Medicaid systems. Since her father, a Laotian immigrant, spoke little English she also became his translator.

At 37, Mueller had joined the ranks of 44 million adults in the United States who provide unpaid care for a loved one who needs support, according to AARP. She also became a member of the “sandwich generation,” caring for both a parent and children. Like many caregivers in the workplace, she never told her employer for fear of damaging her career. Instead, she used her vacation and personal days to meet the demands of caregiving.

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2019

Mani Mueller is one of the millions of Americans who has cared for an elderly parent or children while working a full-time job.

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2019

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In January 2018, five years after she placed her father in a nursing home, her company, Promega, introduced a caregiver leave benefit that provides employees with an additional two weeks of paid time off a year to care for a sick parent, spouse or child, or to welcome a new child.

But even then Mueller was reluctant to come forward.

“I didn’t want to advertise that I was dealing with all of this or put on paper that my dad has this condition and my kids have that condition,” said Mueller, now 43 and a manager in supplier quality at Fitchburg, Wisconsin-based Promega. “I keep everything to myself. I thought sharing this information would negatively impact my career. I’m very quiet and private, but internally, I thought ‘How much more can I deal with?’ I was exhausted and stressed out.”

Mueller’s story illustrates the dilemmas faced by many caregivers who must choose between what’s best for their families and what’s best for their careers. It also sheds light on the complexities of caregiving in a time of great demographic change. Older people will outnumber children for the first time in U.S. history by 2030, traditional family structures are changing with families getting smaller and more geographically dispersed, and thanks to medical advances people are living longer with disabilities and chronic conditions.

This is resulting in a caregiving criDiana Clark sis that many employers are failing to acknowledge or understand, according to a Harvard Business School study released in January. “The Caring Company” report highlights a disconnect between the kinds of supports caregivers in the workplace need and what most companies provide.

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Deb Notstad, right, cares for her son Adam, who is physically and developmentally disabled. Photo courtesy of Deb Notstad.

it. But by 2018 Mueller had been a manager for two years and was confident in her position. So, when her dad’s conditioned worsened again that May and her daughter was diagnosed with a kidney infection she signed up for time off under the company’s caregiver leave policy. Her father died the following November.

“Exceptional caregiving” is the term that Roundtree uses to describe the new realities for caregivers who are caring for loved ones with a host of cognitive impairments, physical disabilities and chronic conditions.

“There is a huge chunk of the workforce that will be taking care of a child with special health care needs or an elderly parent,” said Roundtree, who co-authored a 2018 paper on the changing nature of caregiving for Boston College Center for Work and Family.“Today even young, single people understand that complex things will happen either to themselves or to a partner or spouse and they need employers that know how to support them.”

Fear Factor

The Young Caregivers

One reason that employers don’t understand the impact of caregiving on their businesses is that many employees are afraid to tell them, according to Linda Roundtree, an HR consultant who specializes in the aging workforce.

“When people don’t feel free to come forward, they have to make an excuse for why things happen or why they’re distracted at work,” she said.“There’s fear about hurting their careers.You see that fear when women are afraid to disclose that they’re pregnant.”

Only 28 percent of employees who care for a loved one were willing to admit that their family responsibilities harmed their careers, according to the Harvard Business School report.Around half of caregivers surveyed were afraid of being overlooked for challenging assignments, or missing out on salary increases or bonuses. And while 80 percent of employees admit that caregiving has affected their productivity, less than one-fourth of employers said that caregiving influences employee performance.

Mueller said that if Promega had a caregiving benefit when she started there it’s unlikely that she would have taken

While the typical caregiver is a white woman in her late 50s, about one-fourth of all caregivers are between the ages of 18 and 29, according to AARP. They are also the fastest growing and most diverse demographic in the workplace.

Employers need to understand that caregiving affects workers of all ages, Roundtree said.

The scope of the problem came as a surprise to executives at Promega when the company surveyed its own workforce in 2017 to better understand the caregiving needs of its employees.

It looked at all kinds of situations from parents of newborns to parents of children with special needs to children caring for parents and adults caring for a spouse, according to benefits manager Diana Clark. She said that everyone was surprised by the variety and intensity of the demands on employee caregivers.They discovered a hidden population of employees who were spending about 29 hours a week on caregiving duties, basically working a second unpaid shift.

Also a surprise was the average age of their caregivers: 33 years old.

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“I would have thought three years ago that average caregiver is 55 or 60 years old and nearly retired, but it’s a parent with kids and an elderly parent who is struggling with cancer or some other health condition,” Clark said.

“When you talk to people in those roles they will tell you that’s just what they do and that it’s not a burden. They’ll say that ‘dad just needs me to get groceries, or he can’t drive, or I have to make sure that mom takes her meds.’There so many tactile details involved that we couldn’t help but see the strain.”

This led Promega to launch caregiver leave benefits in January 2018 that provide employees with an additional two weeks of paid time off a year to care for a sick parent, spouse or child, or to welcome a new child.The benefit can be used in daily increments or all at once. So far, 120 employees, or 12 percent of Promega’s 1,400 employees, including subsidiaries, have used the benefit.

Employees Open Up

Katie Boer cares for her mother who suffers from dementia.

Photos courtesy of Katie Boer.

Clark said that the program has taken on a life of its own with employees coming forward to share their stories and even launching their own initiative called Circle of Caring. The initiative connects caregivers and employee volunteers willing to help with meals, shopping, lawn care, transportation and other errands. One group of volunteers even planted a garden for an employee who was an avid gardener but was unable to use his arm after a surgery.

This year, the company also began offering free onsite psychological counseling one day a week for caregivers and plans to offer health care navigation services, among other supports for caregivers, such as bereavement support and financial counseling.

Deb Notstad, 57, a complaint investigations specialist at Promega, is grateful for the benefits, even though they came too late to help her. In 2016 her elderly mother was dying and she was caring for her 28-year-old son Adam, who is physically and developmentally disabled. Notstad, a single mother, is also the legal guardian for her brother who is a critical diabetic and is developmentally disabled. While she thinks that two weeks of paid leave is great, it’s not nearly enough for those with complex caregiving needs.

“When they introduced the benefit I had already spent weeks in the hospital with my son,” she said. “My first reaction was, ‘Are you kidding? This is a drop in the bucket.’ But I don’t know too many businesses that offer something like this.”

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ports such as extended paid leave, long-term care insurance for parents and grandparents, and counseling, the vast majority do not offer benefits that are valued by caregivers, according to the Harvard Business School study.

The top reasons that caregivers quit their jobs is the high cost of paid help, the difficulty in finding trustworthy support, and the inability to manage the demands of work and home — all areas where employers could provide support, the study found.

Those that fail to address the problem will pay the price in “hidden costs” such as turnover, loss of institutional knowledge, absenteeism and other factors that are difficult to quantify, according to the study.

Katie Boer, 31, never thought that two years after landing her dream job as a broadcast journalist she would be quitting to look after her 71-year-old mother. In 2016, shortly after she began working at a Las Vegas television station, Boer’s mother, who lives in Seattle, was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia, which can cause hallucinations and Parkinson’s-like symptoms such as body rigidity, tremors and balance problems.

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Healthy Babies Healthy Business is supported by EMD Serono, Inc., the biopharmaceutical business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany in the U.S. and Canada.

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Staying Ahead of Disruption with Workforce Sensing.

By Daniel Roddy (Human Capital Research and Sensing as a Service Leader with Bersin™, Deloitte Consulting LLP ) and Chris Havrilla (HR Technology & Solution Provider Research Leader with Bersin™, Deloitte Consulting LLP) Plug the word “disruption” into Google Trends and you’ll get a jagged line tracking 15 years of peaks and plunges in search frequency. But for all the shortterm variation in the chart, the long-term trend is steadily rising: there are nearly three times as many “disruption” searches today as there were in 2004.

rise to a new kind of company — the social enterprise, whose mission combines revenue growth and profitmaking with the need to respect and support its environment and stakeholder network, and includes listening to, investing in, and actively managing the trends that are shaping today’s world.

The steady rise in searches reflects a reality that won’t surprise most leaders. They face a host of disruptions—social, demographic, environmental, economic, technological, and geopolitical. Not only is it their job to make sure that their companies don’t get blindsided by these breakpoints in the status quo, but they also must be able to respond to them quickly and agilely in order to transform these disruptions into competitive advantage.

The ability to sense the disruptions that matter and pinpoint their anticipated ramifications on the workforce helps leaders become more strategic, outcome-oriented, and human-centric.

Sensing is the foundation on which an organization’s ability to identify, pace, and respond to disruption is built. In hindsight, disruptions seem obvious. By the mid-2000s, it was clear that streaming movies would decimate the video rental industry. But to have realized that a decade earlier, when the MP3 format first emerged for audio, and acted upon it is another matter entirely.

The ability to sense disruptions in their nascent stages and predict how they are likely to affect a company and its stakeholders is crucial to success in business today. This is especially true when it comes to sensing disruptions in the workforce.

The human face of disruption Every disruption has human dimensions. Today’s technological disruptions, such as artificial intelligence and autonomous machines, promise to reweave the fabric of work and alter the composition of the workforce. In remaking social norms, the emergence of political and cultural movements also demand the renovation of corporate cultures and managerial behaviors. Already, growing activism in arenas such as politics and climate change are giving

• It offers leaders a leg up as they seek to incorporate disruptions into ambitious visions for the future of their companies.

• It enables them to harness disruption in the quest to drive productivity and other business outcomes.

• It allows them to reframe disruptions into a more human-centric approach to work itself—one in which meaning and purpose are embedded in every job, and every employee, on and off the payroll, can contribute in the most positive, supportive, and personal way.

A granular approach to workforce sensing Disruptions don’t stay neatly within industry lines. They affect companies across industries and geographies. For instance, voice computing, which is a mashup of artificial intelligence and natural language processing, is a global disruption that will change how business is done in every industry in every geography. But for company leaders, the relevance of voice computing and indeed, every disruption, is always local.

Take age demographics and climate change. They already — and will continue to — affect companies globally, but they have specific effects that are relevant to the oil and gas (O&G) industry. The workforce in O&G is aging out and many younger people think the industry is as fossilized as its products. Meanwhile, climate change is driving a shift from a brown

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Already, growing activism in arenas such as politics and climate change are giving rise to a new kind of company — the social enterprise, whose mission combines revenue growth and profitmaking with the need to respect and support its environment and stakeholder network, and includes listening to, investing in, and actively managing the trends that are shaping today’s world. to green economy—affecting O&G’s lifeblood.

What effects will these disruptive trends have on the workforce of an oil major? An independent E&P company? An oilfield services company? A refiner?

Key to capturing the benefits of workforce sensing is understanding the specific effects of a disruption within your industry and your company.

Workforce Sensing-as-a-Service To sense — and to make sense of — the workforce ramifications hidden within disruptions, leaders need a unique combination of research radar, crowdsourcing, and on-the-ground insight. In response, Deloitte has created a service that uses these capabilities to actively sense tomorrow’s workforce disruptions, not just broadly, but also at a granular level by industry, sector, function, and critical workforce segments.

Workforce Sensing uses topical and trends research, validation by crowdsourced, industry-aligned expert panels, and Deloitte’s extensive consulting network to deliver daily micro-insights.

These insights are aimed at helping leaders understand the external factors that could disrupt their workforce and their business.

By analyzing the ever-increasing inundation of data the reflects our fast-paced and fast-changing world, parsing it to reveal its human face, and making its workforce insights accessible and meaningful, our goal is to equip leaders with the ability to know, not guess, what tomorrow holds in store. It’s the only way to effectively transform disruption into competitive advantage.

Daniel leads a team using Bersin’s proven research and sensing methodologies to provide the C-suite with a continuous, customized advisory service focused on sustaining and extending organizational performance. Daniel brings a wealth of global experience to clients in large-scale workforce and talent initiatives, both in North America and across Asia Pacific. His areas of specialty include human capital research and thought leadership, as well as global HR, organization, and workforce transformation. His cross-industry experience spans mobile telecom, manufacturing, consumer products, airlines, media, technology, retail, financial services, banking, and engineering and construction.

Chris leads the HR technology and solution provider strategy and research practice for Bersin—helping to demystify the ever-changing HR Tech landscape for their corporate and solution provider members.

She has worked diligently through her career with business and HR leaders—both as an internal HR & HR technology/strategy practitioner or as a consultant/ adviser—on radically improving talent strategy, technology, and leadership—as well as the vendors who serve them. With a unique blend of technical, HR practitioner, business and vendor experience, she laughingly describes herself as a bit of a talent, HR Tech and Future of Work “whisperer.”

As used in this document, “Deloitte” means Deloitte Consulting LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of our legal structure. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting.

This publication contains general information only and Deloitte is not, by means of this publication, rendering accounting, business, financial, investment, legal, tax, or other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such professional advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified professional advisor. Deloitte shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person who relies on this publication. © 2019 Deloitte Development LLC. All rights reserved.

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Transformational Leadership: It’s Not What You Think Don’t be fooled by the name; transformational leadership is charismatic leadership with a fancy title

By Scott Gregory The idea of transformational leadership sounds good when taken at face value. A transformational leader is someone who instills pride, respect and trust in its followers.

They inspire and motivate people beyond expectations, sparking innovation and change.

And, if you look up “transformation” in the dictionary, you will see it defined as “a thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance.” So, what organization wouldn’t want to introduce some form of transformational leadership to respond to the disruption caused by the current digital revolution?

Although transformational leadership seems like a good idea in theory, it is nothing more than charismatic leadership with a different and more appealing name. A recent study published by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology shows that there is plenty to dislike about charismatic leadership. In fact, there is little evidence to show that there is a strong correlation between charisma and effective leadership. So, because charismatic leadership and transformational leadership are essentially the same thing, it’s important to understand how this style of leadership has been so widely adopted across the globe.

According to another study published by the Academy of Management, “there is a widely shared consensus that charismatic– transformational leadership is a particularly effective form of leadership.” However, there are some major issues with this assumption, given that this leadership style is fundamentally flawed. There should instead be a shift towards a new and more empirically defined form of leadership, where leaders are appointed based on capability and skill as opposed to charisma.

First, it is widely assumed that leadership is defined as “a person who has a leadership or managerial title.” The problem with that definition is that it doesn’t address how that person assumed the leadership position in the first place. Organizations across the world are notorious for promoting charismatic and politically savvy employees into leadership roles because they seem leaderlike. Some people can charm their superiors into thinking they would be effective leaders. They tend to be confident, creative, charming, and flashy, which helps them stand out in comparison with their peers.

However, although their personality makes them seem “transformative,” in reality they are often ineffective leaders.

Second, there are several inconsistencies when it comes to measuring leader effectiveness. In a 2008 study conducted by Robert B. Kaiser, Robert Hogan, and S. Bartholomew Craig, the authors outlined these inconsistencies.

For example, some organizations measure leadership effectiveness through manager evaluations. Others measure it through subordinate evaluations. Some are based solely on financial results. This diversity in methodology has delivered mixed results, essentially making any conclusions on leader effectiveness inconclusive. Therefore, there is often no real evidence connecting hiring or promoting charismatic-transformational leaders with improved organizational results.

Third, because charismatic-transformational leadership has been deemed by so many to be an effective form of leadership, there is a presumed “fear” among researchers to debunk this myth, which is ironic. If there is evidence to suggest that this leadership style is ineffective,

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yet nobody wants to go against popular consensus, wouldn’t calling out these “experts” be transformative in and of itself?

The bottom line is that charismatictransformational leadership is prevalent in

“

There is often no real evidence connecting hiring or promoting charismatic-transformational leaders with improved organizational results.”

organizations on a global scale, but there is little evidence to suggest it is effective. This leads us to one crucial question that organizations everywhere should be asking: How successful could we be if we did not assume that charismatic-transformational leadership leads to leadership effectiveness?

This is a complex problem with a simple solution: Define leadership correctly and then identify effective leaders through the use of valid personality assessments.

You cannot define leadership as someone who is in a managerial role or someone who has been promoted simply because he or she is inspiring and socially confident. You have to define leadership as a person who builds and maintains a high-performing team. When organizations do that, they have a completely different view of what makes for an effective leader.

Then, through the use of valid and reliable assessment measures, such as those provided

by Hogan Assessments, they can better identify those who will be successful. One of the characteristics that organizations need to look for in leaders is humility. Effective leaders are more modest; they focus on team performance and are willing to admit mistakes, share credit and learn from others. These are the type of leaders that can inspire true positive change and innovation.

As Hogan’s CEO, Scott brings years of expertise in executive selection, development, and succession to his leadership and vision for all aspects of Hogan’s domestic and global business.

He is a frequent speaker on personality in the workplace, has provided executive coaching to CEOs and a U.S. senator, selection research for the U.S. Army and other government agencies, organizational consulting for half of the Fortune 100 list, and worked extensively with personality assessment in North and South America, Australia, Asia, and Europe.

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The Mental Health Parity Challenge Benefits programs don’t necessarily treat physical and mental health care equally.

With more focus on workplace mental health, that may be slowly changing.

BY ANDIE BURJEK

september/october

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I

t’s been a decade since the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act went into effect, with the goal that insurers and health plans offer mental health and substance abuse benefits comparable to coverage of medical and surgical care.

Despite progress made since the law’s passage, some barriers to equality still exist. As vital as behavioral health care is for people with substance abuse and mental health disorders, unlike their physical health needs, employees with employer-sponsored coverage may face challenges in accessing and affording quality mental health care coverage.

The current environment sees employers, employees, the government and individuals spending more money on behavioral health than ever before, but the results just aren’t there, said Henry Harbin, a psychiatrist with over 40 years’ experience in the behavioral health field.

Harbin, whose experience includes senior positions at public and private health organizations, said that while fatality rates for many medical issues are decreasing, fatality rates from suicide and opioid overdoses — two major issues in behavioral health — are increasing. Between 2004 and 2014, the death rate for heart disease decreased by 16 percent and for stroke by 19 percent. In the same span, the death rate climbed by 17 percent for suicide and over 200 percent for opioids, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For employers, genuinely caring about their employees’ mental health issues is a good start, but providing quality coverage is important as well.

Behavioral issues among employees are prevalent.According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 1 in 5 adults in the United States have a mental health disorder. Meanwhile, 1 in 22 adults have a serious mental illness like schizophrenia, major depression or bipolar disorder, the study noted.

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Access Issues There is a national shortage of seasoned behavioral health professionals in the United States, which can “constrain access to essential care and treatment for millions of individuals with mental illness of substance use disorders,” according to the Health Resources and Services Administration report “Behavioral Health Projections, 2016-2030.” The agency, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, focuses on improving access to health care services for individuals who are uninsured, isolated or medically vulnerable.

The report stressed the fact that certain areas of the United States have few or no behavioral health providers available.

The shortage of behavioral health care providers impacts a majority of employer-sponsored health plans, according to Mercer’s May 2019 “10-Minute Survey on Behavioral Health” that surveyed 523 employers. Sixty-three percent of respondents reported that they lack adequate access to outpatient behavioral health care in some or all of their locations.

Some 74 percent of employers said they are taking action to improve employee access to quality behavioral care. Most commonly, 49 percent addressed this by enhancing their employee assistance program services or changing their EAP provider. Only 12 percent of these employers conducted a network analysis to identify gaps in behavioral health care.

Early intervention can be vital for behavioral health, especially for patients with a severe disorder, Harbin said.

For a patient with schizophrenia, for example, screening by one’s primary care physician or pediatrician can help identify the problem early on. The patient can then see a specialist sooner and will likely see better outcomes, Harbin said.

Tom Sondergeld, vice president, global HRIS, benefits and mobility at global pharmacy giant Walgreens Boots Alliance, said that one of the biggest priorities in their carrier analysis was to evaluate access. Employees with a behavioral health issue often face long wait times to see a behavioral health specialist such as a psychiatrist. “To me, that’s not parity,” Sondergeld said.

Walgreens has been pushing hard on its insurance carriers in recent years so that employees can find coverage for the care they need in a timely manner, Sondergeld said.

While larger organizations may have more resources to negotiate with insurance carriers, he suggested that small organizations can join coalitions such as the National Business Group on Health, allowing their voice to be heard within that larger pool of companies.

He also said that using data to tell a powerful story is a way smaller organizations can influence their carriers. Employers can get this information through their health plan, which can use its data to analyze utilization and costs across the various benefits to get a better picture of the overall spend and areas to concentrate on to improve spend.

For example, if a third of the workforce needs access to behavioral health care for themselves or their loved ones, but the data show that a majority of people can’t access care in a timely manner, that’s a powerful, data-supported story.

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Terminology While positive mental health is good to support and cultivate, an employee with poor mental health may not necessarily have a mental illness. That being said, poor mental health can be one factor that leads to mental and physical illnesses.

Given that these terms may be used interchangeably in some contexts, it’s valuable to know the formal definition of each: Mental health: “Our emotional and psychological state, our social well-being and how we feel about ourselves and interact with others.” (Source: Magellan Health.)

Mental illness: “Refers collectively to all diagnosable mental disorders — health conditions involving significant changes in thinking, emotion and/or behavior and distress and/or problems functioning in social, work or family activities.” Mental illnesses go beyond depression and anxiety and include obsessive compulsive disorder, borderline personality disorder and schizophrenia. (Source: The American Psychiatric Association.)

— Andie Burjek

The human impact of mental health problems is notable, as mental illness impacts how people handle stress, how they relate to others and whether they make healthy choices, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Still, HR can use the business case to support the need for better access.

Poor mental health and stress can impact an employee’s job performance, their relationship with co-workers and their physical capabilities and daily functioning, according to the CDC. Depression interferes with a person’s ability to complete physical job tasks about 20 percent of the time and reduces cognitive performance about 35 percent of the time, the agency notes.

“When [employees] can’t find the care they need, the business suffers because they aren’t engaged,” Sondergeld said.

Network Issues A host of issues exist even when an employee does access care for behavioral health problems. A majority of people with behavioral conditions are screened and treated through primary care and not a specialist, Harbin said.The quality of this behavioral health care is often low, with many people not necessarily even getting a diagnosis but getting a prescription for a psychiatric drug. Harbin noted that the patient’s response to the drug may not be tracked efficiently, the drug and dosage may remain unchanged, and this may help lead to low efficacy outcomes. september/october

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Common Mental Health Misconceptions While people generally agree that the stigma surrounding mental illness is lifting, there are still misconceptions.

Psychiatrist Henry Harbin said that many employers don’t realize the impact behavioral health has on total health costs, which are especially high for a very specific employee population: chronically sick employees who also have a behavioral health problem.

The costs for treating people with both mental health disorders and serious physical conditions are two to three times higher than for those without co-occurring illnesses, according to a January 2018 Milliman research report “Potential Economic Impact of Integrated Medical-Behavioral Healthcare.”

Many people assume that severe cases of schizophrenia or depression rack up the most costs. In reality, it’s situations in which an employee with diabetes also has a mild to moderate case of depression.

If employers want to address health care costs, they need to do something about this co-morbid group with behavioral health disorders, Harbin said.

Another misconception is that mental health issues are more common now than they have been in the past, he said. He suspects that it’s not more prevalent now, but people are more willing to talk about it.

Employers should urge employees to use specialists if they want improved outcomes, he said.

Patients accessing out-of-network providers is another issue, he added, citing a 2017 Milliman Inc. report,“Addiction and Mental Health vs. Physical Health:Analyzing Disparities in Network Use and Provider Reimbursement Rates.”

Patients seeking behavioral care more often need to use an out-of-network provider than patients seeking medical or surgical care, according to the report, which also found that medical and surgical providers are paid at higher rates than behavioral providers. The lower reimbursement rates are one reason for low network participation rates among behavioral health providers, making it difficult for patients to find more affordable in-network care.

Employers can work with their providers or vendors to understand if there are places where there are more complaints about access issues than others, said Mandie Conforti, a licensed clinical social worker and senior consultant at Willis Towers Watson.

Even though the mental health stigma is lifting, it’s still there, she said. Many employees hesitate to call HR to complain about not being able to find a behavioral health provider.

“We’ve been asking behavioral health centers to do more customized networks, enhancing the network in locations where employers may have a larger base of employees,” she said.

Quality Control Issues

Whether an employee is bipolar, schizophrenic, severely depressed or something else, they may come out of an episode feeling better. It’s helpful to look at behavioral health needs like physical health needs, Harbin said.

It’s difficult for a patient to find the right provider for their unique situation or one who can get them the best results.

Employers have historically not asked their insurers many questions about behavioral health or the quality of these provider networks, said Sandra Kuhn, Mercer’s national lead for behavioral health consulting. This is an area in which they have potential to be more proactive and really push for more information from their insurers.

Questions can include:What quality measures do you use to bring carriers in and keep them in-network? Can you share with us at the end of the year a data set to show how many people were in treatment and the average length of time people stay in treatment? Also, did people improve while they were in treatment?

“Tools exist to measure those things, they’re just not being uniformly applied,” Kuhn said.

She also suggests that employers look for specific data points as indicators of whether the health plan is adequately addressing behavioral health, starting with data on what the employee population looks like. Then, look at EAP utilization. If utilization is low but a lot of people are using the behavioral health network in the health plan, then perhaps employees aren’t aware of the EAP services.

That knowledge could give employers the opportunity to close the gap.

— Andie Burjek

MENTAL HEALTH continued on page 49

“A lot of employers are doing a good job at workplace acceptance and education about mental health and substance abuse, [which] encourages access and reduces stigma,” he said. “There has been a lot of progress in that area.”

That, combined with more accessible coverage because of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 and the Affordable Care Act, have helped lead to more people seeking care.

Harbin also stressed the need for employers to understand that people with mental health conditions can be productive employees. A diagnosis is not a prediction that someone’s health outcomes will be bad.

There are many people who can function if they get treatment early on or if they have something episodic.

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Out of Sight,

Out of Their Minds

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Roll out of bed whenever, dress as you like — the image of the remote worker is one who is healthy and happy, right? Well, not necessarily.

BY CAROL BRZOZOWSKI

B

arbara Fisher recalled a time one of her remote workers traveled to Hawaii yet called in to four meetings over two days.

“I asked, ‘How are you recharging? Why did you even take your computer?’ As a remote worker, it’s an extension of what she does,” said Fisher, chief operating and people officer for digital health company Aduro Inc. who previously was a vice president for Intel Corp. working in human relations and talent management.

“The reality is that weighs on you.You’re never able to refuel.”

Remote work has become the new normal for companies responding to workers’ desire for flexibility. In its “State of the American Workplace” report, Gallup polling found 43 percent of employees worked remotely in 2016 compared to 39 percent in 2012.

In its 2019 “Employee Benefits” report on leave and flexible working released in June, the Society for Human Resource Management noted that remote work continues to rise in popularity as a benefit. Telecommuting of all types is increasing as a result. Part-time telecommuting — now offered by more than 40 percent of organizations — is up 5 percent from 2018 and demonstrated the greatest increase.

Ad-hoc telecommuting is offered by 69 percent of organizations while full-time telecommuting is offered by more than one-quarter of organizations, SHRM reports.

“From a remote worker’s perspective, some of the positive aspects are flexible job schedules, work-life balance and the freedom to work from almost anywhere,”

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said Tina Garrell, director of the annual HR Florida Conference for the HR Florida State Council, a SHRM affiliate.

For companies, it means extending a footprint beyond its headquarters, saving on office space costs and keeping employees happy.

“But employers are sometimes faced with different challenges arising with their remote workforce, such as the health and well-being of those employees who do not come to the office every day,” said Garrell.

Studies show remote workers struggle with loneliness, isolation, an inability to unplug and ongoing distractions.

“Global Work Connectivity,” a recent study commissioned by Virgin Pulse and HR advisory and research firm Future Workplace, concludes many remote workers feel isolated.

“While remote workers gain freedom and flexibility, the study found they are disengaged and less likely to want a long-term career with their company because of their lack of human contact,” said Dan Schawbel, a partner with Future Workplace.

The survey of more than 2,000 managers and employees in 10 countries found almost half of an employee’s day is spent using technology to communicate.

Slightly more than half always or very often feel lonely as a result.

Men, introverts and younger generations indicated a greater need for work companionship. Leaders can support employee relationships by encouraging connection in person over online, researchers said.

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“Remote workers in some organizations are among the most stressed, which can seem counterintuitive. The perception is they have more time and are free from office politics, getting dressed up and commuting,” said Mary Marzec, senior health strategy scientist for Virgin Pulse, a part of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group that designs technology cultivating positive employee lifestyle habits.

With most employees’ waking hours spent on work, the work culture has a significant influence on adopting and sustaining healthy habits, Marzec said. While technology has paved the way for more employees to work remotely, it also has contributed to that sense of isolation, leading to mental and physical health challenges.

“Technology has created the illusion that workers are connected when in reality they feel isolated, lonely, disengaged and less committed to their organizations when overusing or misusing it,” said Schawbel, who also authored “Back to Human: How Great Leaders Create Connection in the Age of Isolation.”

“Most remote workers have the flexibility to work in different areas — a coffee shop or the beach — and they still choose to work at home,” said Fisher. “The convergence of work and home into one space underlies the struggle to unplug.

“You have to be able to recharge. Not doing it definitely weighs on an individual’s health and how they show up.”

Remote workers can feel left out of key decisions, leading to stress, frustration and unhappiness, said Fisher.

Distractions are another challenge.

One of Fisher’s employees who asked to work remotely later expressed frustration that home tasks were distracting her from work.

TECHNOLOGY HAS CREATED THE ILLUSION THAT WORKERS ARE CONNECTED WHEN IN REALITY THEY FEEL ISOLATED. “When you are a remote worker, it actually is more work because you have to think about how you balance your time to get things done and make sure you’re still connected,” said Fisher.

That necessitates discipline in meeting work milestones and personal goals, she added.

Air in the at-Home Schedule?

The perception that remote workers have more time at home to take care of family responsibilities essentially is false, said Marzec.

“Drawing boundaries can be very difficult,” she added.“If somebody sends you an email, there is internal pressure to answer that right away to show you’re working. Somebody 38

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in the office can be in a meeting for two hours, go to lunch, and even stop at the bank on the way back. A remote worker doesn’t feel that Barbara Fisher Mary Marzec freedom.”

Lack of face time with team members is another challenge.

“You can’t just stop over to somebody’s desk or bump into someone in the hall and ask them if they’ve followed up,” Marzec said. “Emails and communications have to be constructed much more clearly because you’re not there to back it up in person. Communication can start a downstream spiral of lack of productivity.”

Remote workers don’t have the feeling of support one gets by standing around the office water cooler and soliciting ideas on how to deal with professional and personal struggles, Marzec added.

Feelings of isolation and lack of social support are linked to anxiety and depression, she added.

“Even though you think remote workers are not working longer hours, often that sense of being present at work is on their mind and can contribute to depression and anxiety,” she added.

Remote workers also don’t feel they have the freedom to work out or take a walk, said Marzec.

“When you work remotely, you’re not getting in the extra energy like walking from a parking lot to work,” said Marzec.

“Someone who works remotely could have as few as 1,500 steps in a day. Whereas in normal workday walking, you’re going to put in 5,000 to 6,000 steps. It isn’t the 10,000 recommended steps, but it’s a lot more than 1,500.”

Health implications depend one’s go-to for dealing with stress when working alone and not able to walk over to peers to get advice on how to move a project forward, said Fisher.

“Whatever your vice is to manage stress is where you’re going to go. That’s just human nature. When you’re alone, going to that vice is likely easier than when you’re in an office where you can reach out quickly to the person sitting in the cube next to you, tell them you’re having a rough day and try to figure the problem out.”

Companies have a responsibility to take care of the workforce and remote workers have to put themselves out on the radar more, said Fisher. That entails remote worker access to wellness initiatives.

“Part of that responsibility if you decide to have a blended workforce is figuring out how what you offer at your headquarters is also what you offer to your extension sites as well as to your remote workers,” Fisher said.

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house cafeteria, inclusive team challenges such as walking or drinking enough water “are a lot of fun and help everybody feel included no matter where they work,” said Marzec.

Technology makes implementing wellness programs for remote workers easier, said Garrell.

“These programs offer a variety of options both remote employees and employees who physically come to the office can participate in,” she said. “An example of a program that would work well for a remote workforce is providing partial or full reimbursement for various fitness activities in which they choose to participate.”

That can include sports leagues, gym memberships, yoga classes and other activities available in the remote worker’s area that keeps the employee active and engaged. By allowing them to choose activities in which they are interested, it helps ensure higher participation rates and long-term engagement, said Garrell.

Brian Rhonemus, CEO of Sanford Rose Associates — Rhonemus Group, said he encourages everyone on the recruiting firm’s remote team to manage distractions by being as disciplined in their work hours as they would if they physically drove to an office with a more structured schedule.

Rhonemus also said some of his company’s remote workers use stand-up treadmill desks to address the struggle with scheduling fitness time.

“We also schedule blocks of time out of the office to meet people face-to-face to fulfill the need for social interaction,” he said. “We encourage participation in coaching and other outside activities and allow time for that away from the office.We share our personal and professional success in our weekly update call.”

Joey Frasier, CEO of Shortlist, a San Francisco-based freelancer-management platform, suggested that hosting events in remote locations can ensure remote workers feel connected to the office community.

“We constantly remain in contact with our remote staff to make sure they are happy and have all of the support they need,” he said.

Frasier said his company helps its customers manage about 70,000 workers, nearly all of whom are remote.

“Remote workers are encouraged to participate in wellness programs in their areas or online using apps like Calm or MoveWith. HR managers also can provide access to places like One Medical, which provides wellness and mindfulness services.”

Management support is critical. A manager can discuss with a remote employee how to set up their work schedule in such a way they can block off time to engage in physical exercise, said Marzec.

“It relieves that pressure that if I take a walk and don’t answer that email within an hour, I’m not going to be punished for it,” she added.

Virtual Teamwork Garrell said she ensures that the three remote workers in her business are included in as many office activities as posseptember/october

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sible through daily sales team conference calls, video conferencing training programs and a group messaging chat program to communicate with management throughout the day.

“This helps make them feel like they are truly a part of our organization as well as having a positive impact on their mental health, productivity and overall wellness,” she said.

Fostering a strong work culture that helps remote workers feel supported can be done through team-building activities, social events and workstations where workers can get to know each other on a personal level, said Schawbel.

An investment in the remote workforce yields positive returns.

“When you give greater autonomy, flexibility, responsibility but also greater support for employees, they feel it,” said Fisher. “We talk a lot about ‘I want to have a loyal employee who doesn’t want to leave.’

It’s a balance.

The company needs to show how invested they are in the person and the person shows how invested Tina Garrell they are into Brian Rhonemus the company based on that relationship between the two of them.

“There is so much research that employees are looking to be heard and valued. When an employee feels that, they’re able to reach full potential because they’re being challenged and rewarded in ways that inspire and motivate them. The impact to productivity and the bottom line starts to improve.”

When a company addresses physical and mental health challenges faced by its remote workers, those workers stay committed, Marzec said.

“The manager doesn’t have to replace that talent,” she added. “Many times, companies focus on health care costs when it comes to health and well-being and overlook the important factor of employee satisfaction and intention to leave the company.

“Once somebody leaves, that impacts other people on that team who now need to work more to fill the gap of the person who left. The manager needs to put in time to hire somebody else. The training may take up to a year before a new person is really folded into the organization. In some cases, knowledge is lost when somebody leaves and we have a very knowledge-based economy. There can be client loss. Protecting against unwanted turnover is an important goal of health and wellness programs.”

Carol Brzozowski is a Florida-based independent journalist. She can be reached at editors@workforce.com.

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MaybeYou’re Aware …

Self-Awareness Is in Short Supply

Despite many people’s belief in their self-awareness, there’s a lack of it. Follow these steps to assess, build and improve it throughout your organization.

BY JOHN HACKSTON

R

esearch indicates that more self-aware individuals understand others better, enabling them to lead more effectively.

The research on self-awareness by my organization, the Myers-Briggs Co., shows that most people believe they are self-aware. In fact, 82 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “I have a great deal of self-awareness.”

Despite these high levels of self-reported self-awareness, a study by The Eurich Group shows that the quality of self-awareness is actually in short supply. This wasn’t a surprise. In our research, most participants thought that they were more self-aware than most people they knew (which is, of course, impossible; everyone can’t be more self-aware than everyone else).

There are a number of reasons to believe that greater general levels of self-awareness among individuals within organizations lead to positive business outcomes. Studies such as those by Bass and Yammarino, Atwater and Yamamarino, and Church showed that people with more accurate self-conception tended to perform better.

The relationship between self-awareness and flexibility is demonstrated by a study of the Royal Navy, which found that more self-aware leaders were better able to tailor their leadership style to the needs of a given situa-

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tion. Better employee performance plus more agile leadership typically leads to a better bottom line.

There’s also reason to believe that self-awareness might influence retention. My team at Myers-Briggs recently researched workplace well-being with over 10,000 global respondents and found that individuals with a higher level of well-being — which can stem from self-awareness — had significantly higher levels of job satisfaction, felt much more emotionally attached to their organization, and were significantly less likely to look for a new job.They were also much more likely to be good organizational citizens being helpful to their co-workers, conscientious and more willing to go the extra mile.

What Is Self-Awareness and How Does It Help?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary self-awareness is, “Conscious knowledge of one’s own character and feelings.”

Researcher Anna Sutton further elaborates on this to describe it as, “The extent to which people are consciously aware of their interactions or relationships with others and of their internal states.”

Think about a time you took your car in for a tune-up.

Nothing major was fixed, but afterward it drove like a dream. Similarly, increasing your self-awareness can help september/october

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you perform better — by discovering how you operate you begin to understand how to adjust your behaviors for better results.

By increasing self-awareness, you also begin to better understand other people’s approaches. In our own recent research on self-awareness, survey respondents reported that increased self-awareness led to improvements in confidence, decision-making, people-management and stress management.

When we asked people about the advantages of being self-aware, the top five responses were: 1. Understanding of reactions and motivation.

2. Management of self and others.

3. Ability to adapt behavior.

4. Relationship improvement.

5. Personal growth.

BY INCREASING SELFAWARENESS, YOU ALSO BEGIN TO BETTER UNDERSTAND OTHER PEOPLE’S APPROACHES. We also asked people about any disadvantages to being self-aware — but many, many more people mentioned advantages. Additionally, people said that self-awareness was particularly helpful when: • Working with others in a team (mentioned by 58 percent of survey respondents).

• Coping with stress (mentioned by 54 percent of survey respondents).

• Acting as a coach (mentioned by 53 percent of survey respondents).

• Dealing with change (mentioned by 50 percent of survey respondents).

• Managing and leading others (mentioned by 45 percent of survey respondents).

• Dealing with clients (mentioned by 33 percent of survey respondents).

• Receiving coaching or feedback (mentioned by 28 percent of survey respondents).

How Is Self-Awareness Measured?

As we’ve mentioned, just asking people “are you selfaware” or even “are you more or less self-aware than other people” doesn’t work too well. It’s a bit like asking people, “Are you an above average driver?” Around 90 percent of Americans say “yes” to this even though this can only be true for 50 percent of individuals.There needs to be a more structured way to assess self-awareness.

A number of models and assessments can be employed to measure self-awareness in individuals. A particularly useful one comes from a 2015 study by Sutton, Williams and 42

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Allinson that identified four facets of self-awareness: Reflection, Insight, Rumination and Mindfulness. In conducting our own research, we used questions, including the sample below, designed to measure these four facets.

Agreeing with these questions suggests that you may be more self-aware, except for those marked with a “*”; more self-aware people will tend to disagree with these. How would you score? How about others in your organization?

Reflection • I often reflect on my thoughts.

• I do not often think about the way I am feeling.* • I enjoy exploring my “inner self.”

• I often reflect on my feelings.

• Others would benefit from reflecting more on their thoughts.

Insight • I am interested in analyzing the behavior of others.

• I value opportunities to evaluate my behavior.

• It is important to understand why people behave in the way they do.

• When I’m feeling uncomfortable, I can easily name these feelings.

• I usually know why I am feeling the way I do.

Mindfulness • I am often on auto-pilot and do not pay much attention to what I am doing.* • Sometimes I am careless because I am preoccupied, with many things on my mind.* • I often dwell on the past or the future, rather than the present.* • My mind often wanders when I am trying to concentrate.* Rumination • I often find myself thinking about past negative events.

• When things go wrong, I often ruminate on them for long periods of time.

• I tend not to look back and think about how I could have done things differently.*

How Can a Workplace Professional Promote Self-Awareness?

There are many ways to develop self-awareness, but a mix of methods will probably work best. Here are some of the most popular, based on responses to our survey.

• Feedback from a range of different people, including: • Peers.

• Managers.

• Subordinates.

• Clients.

• Family.

• An individual’s wider network.

• Completing personality questionnaires.

• Training to become a coach.

• Coaching and other professional help.

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• Journaling: keeping a diary or journal that explores thoughts and feelings surrounding the events of one’s life.

However, the most popular methods aren’t necessarily the best. We looked at a number of these commonly used approaches and found that the best methods, in order of effectiveness, were: • Training to be a coach.

• Being coached.

• Completing personality assessments.

• Having structured feedback from your peers.

• Journaling.

It wasn’t too surprising that “training to be a coach” topped the list, as this involves many hours of learning to understand oneself before being allowed to coach others.

Of course, such training is also time consuming and expensive and not a realistic route for most employees.

On the other hand,“receiving personal coaching” as a way to help senior managers is something that many organizations may invest in. It does, however, come with a significant cost and time commitment, so for many individuals this may not be a realistic option. Instead, companies might want to look into using personality assessments and facilitating ways in which employees can have structured feedback from their peers.These may often be the most cost-effective approaches in terms of providing the biggest payoff for a relatively low monetary investment.

Similarly, “journaling,” the practice of keeping a diary or journal that explores thoughts and feelings surrounding the events of your life, offers a low-cost way to effectively promote self-awareness. However, journaling may not work for everyone.

Companies should note that one of the interesting findings of our research was that “feedback from your manager” was seen, on average, to be one of the least effective methods. This is an important point because, as noted earlier, this kind of feedback was also listed as one of the most common methods of promoting self-awareness that organizations leverage.

Though we cannot say definitively why manager feedback was not seen as especially effective, there are a number of possible reasons. Some managers may be less close to the work of their subordinates work than their peers; indeed in some large international organizations they may be based on a different country and rarely be in contact. Others may be viewed as having a particular agenda, or as being too busy with other aspects of their job. Whatever the reason, this is a troubling finding for managers.

RESEARCH SHOWS THAT DIVERSE TEAMS CAN PERFORM BETTER THAN HOMOGENEOUS TEAMS.

You’re Self-Aware, Now What?

to work with their co-workers more effectively, using their differences in a constructive, rather than destructive, way.

Research shows that more diverse teams can perform better than more homogeneous teams; team members can bring different perspectives to bear on the issues they have to deal with. Diverse teams can however suffer from more conflict, often because individuals simply do not understand other team members. Building self-awareness is a key way of solving this issue.

Linked to this greater understanding, managers and workplace professionals can put in place systems to help people work together more effectively. This could include approaches such as: • Establishing a modus operandi for working together that takes account of the rights and the responsibilities of different personality types.

• Ensuring that important information is communicated in a range of different ways (rather than only in a style that suits the personality of the sender).

• Taking into account both the logical answer and the solution that makes sense for people and the organization’s values when making decisions.

• Identifying how the different approaches of team members can complement each other.

• Allowing time for reflection during or after meetings.

• Considering personality preferences when reorganizing office layouts.

For managers and leaders, the story does not stop there.

Using personality assessments gives you a structure to understand yourself better. This in turn gives you a structure to understand those you manage; what motivates them, and how you can best communicate with them.

Understanding how your team works leads to an understanding of other teams and ultimately of the dynamics of your entire organization. For those at the top level, it can help in aligning the whole company to the strategy that is needed for organizational success.

Regardless of whether some or all of the approaches are taken, the key to successfully implementing any of these includes both the realization that we are different from others in ways that can be identified and described, and the harnessing of this diversity of personality in a positive way.

And of course, this is a lesson that can be learned by individuals at any level in the organization.

Building your own self-awareness is really just the first step. Once individuals become more aware of their own personality preferences and have a structure to understand and describe themselves, they can start to recognize how their co-workers are similar to or different from them.

They can use this knowledge to begin to devise strategies

John Hackston, head of thought leadership at The Myers-Briggs Co., is a chartered psychologist with more than 30 years of experience in helping clients to use psychometric tests and questionnaires in a wide range of contexts including selection, leadership development, performance management and team building.

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SECTOR REPORT

HR Management Systems

Artificial Intelligence Falls Flat Human resources leaders are less than impressed with their cloud-based HR systems.

They may be partly to blame.

By Sarah Fister Gale

H

uman resources leaders have an idea that artificial intelligence and machine learning tools are going to transform the way they use their HR management systems.They are right, in theory.

6 % 65

%

HR LEADERS WHO BELIEVE THEIR HR TECHNOLOGY IS EXCELLENT. HR LEADERS BELIEVE THEIR HR TECHNOLOGY IS INADEQUATE.

For years HRMS vendors have been talking about the promise of AI and machine learning and how these tools will soon behave more like Netflix and Amazon, and customers are excited. “They want an individualized experience based on who they are, what they prefer, and what people in similar roles have done,” said David Ludlow, group vice president of SAP SuccessFactors.

They also want predictive analytics that will help HR leaders attract and retain a more effective and sustainable workforce, said Chris Havrilla, vice president of HR technology and solutions provider strategies at Bersin, Deloitte Consulting LLP. But so far their expectations haven’t been met.

Deloitte’s 2019 “Human Capital Trends” report shows less than half of cloud-based HRMS users say their platform delivers the employee experience (39 percent) better data and insights (40 percent) and increased HR tech innovation (32 percent) that they expected.Worse, just 5 percent believe their platforms do an “excellent job” of meeting full time workers’ needs, and even less believe its meeting the needs of alternative workers. “That’s hugely disappointing,” Havrilla said.

Though it’s not entirely the vendors’ fault.

Part of the problem is the lack of consistency and integration across their own human capital databases. Deloitte’s report found the average HR department now has nine different systems of record (up from eight in 2018). This legacy of patchwork HR systems makes it difficult to integrate databases for meaningful analytics.

The way companies capture and keep their human capital

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data is also a problem, said Mike DiClaudio, principal management consulting for KPMG. Outdated data practices and lack of consistent data structures also gets in the way of effective data analysis.“They are putting old data in a new platform and expecting different results,” he said.

Ludlow agrees. Companies can’t even deploy basic automation tools, such as chatbots to answer HR questions, unless the tool can access all the data related to benefits, paid time off, and other HR programs. “There is no point in rolling out a chatbot if only three of your policies are digitized,” he said.

TIME TO GET CLEAN DiClaudio argued that getting the most value from these platforms requires users to go through a digital transformation that includes cleaning up their existing data, breaking down silos between systems and changing the way data is captured and used going forward. “There is no silver bullet to any of this,” he said. “You need all of these pieces in place to predict outcomes.”

To begin this journey, Havrilla suggested creating a list of data transformation goals based on what’s desirable, what’s feasible, and what you can do today to deliver profitable results that will help secure funding for future data projects.That might include cleaning all the data for a single department, or focusing on one area of HR data to integrate and analyze.

“It’s a lot of work, but it will be valuable,” she said. Once users have the right data in place to do predictive analytics, it can provide insights into who’s likely to leave, where the best candidates come from, whether you are meeting talent development goals, and many other talent management issues.

Customers who feel lost should speak to their vendors about what’s required to get to an ideal end state, and consider working with consultants who can help them craft a data transformation plan as part of their roll out.

“Vendors now recognize that the implementation is as valid as the product itself,” DiClaudio said. “They aren’t just selling a product, they are helping their clients solve a problem.”

He added that buyers should talk to their HRMS vendors about what support they can offer in helping them transform their data, and how the platform will evolve to meet their needs over time.“Don’t buy the technology,” he said.“Buy the partner who can help you make it do what you want it to do.”

Sarah Fister Gale is a writer in Chicago. To comment email editors@workforce.com.

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HOT LIST HR Management Systems Providers Listed alphabetically; compiled by Francesca Mathewes; fmathewes@workforce.com COMPANY NAME & Web Address

HRMS PRODUCT NAMES

TOTAL NUMBER OF HRMS CLIENTS

KEY CLIENTS

Ascentis HRIS; Ascentis Payroll; Ascentis Timekeeper; Ascentis Recruiting; Ascentis Talent Management

3,600

Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group; Medisolv; Phoenix Communications Inc.; The Laughing Cow; Aspire Health; Sutter Home Family Vineyards; Woodland Park Zoo; Monster Inc.; Morrison Foerster; Allegacy Federal Credit Union

CERIDIAN ceridian.com

Dayforce

3,851

Lululemon; Sephora; The Second City; Denver Broncos

KRONOS INC. kronos.com

Workforce Ready; Workforce Dimensions HCM

4,000

Puma North America; YMCA of Greater Boston; Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort; Sprint Mart

Oracle Global Human Resources Cloud; Oracle Talent Management Cloud; Oracle Workforce Rewards Cloud; Oracle Workforce Management Cloud

N/A

American Eagle; Cummins; Emerson; Caesars Entertainment; Fuji Xerox; Adventist Healthcare; Esterline; Arizona Federal Credit Union; city of Memphis

SAP SucessFactors Employee Central

3,000+

Ernst & Young; PepsiCo; Walgreens Boots Alliance; Woolworth’s Group Limited; American Airlines

UltiPro

6,100

Bloomin’ Brands; Culligan International; Feeding America; First Horizon National Corp; Red Roof Inn; Subway; Texas Roadhouse; Yamaha Corp. of America

Workday Human Capital Management; Workday Learning; Workday Payroll; Workday Recruiting; Workday Time Tracking

2,700

BP; Comcast; Deutsche Bank; Pfizer; Rolls-Royce; Siemens; Target

ASCENTIS CORP. ascentis.com

ORACLE oracle.com/applications/human-capital-management SAP SUCCESSFACTORS successfactors.com

ULTIMATE SOFTWARE ultimatesoftware.com

WORKDAY workday.com

Note: Acendre and Infor did not respond to requests for information; Epicor declined to participate.

Source: Companies. september/october

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45

SECTOR REPORT

Staffing Providers

Technology and the Talent Shortage How staffing agencies are adapting to the supply and demand gap.

By Sarah Fister Gale

L

ittle seems to have changed in the past year for the staffing industry.There is still more demand for talent than there is supply, the gap continues to widen, and there is no end to both complex issue in sight.

“If anything, the skills shortage is having a dampening effect on the industry, because it’s even more extreme,” said Barry Asin, president of Staffing Industry Analysts headquartered in Mountain View, California. Clients are seeking out their services more than ever but they just can’t fill the roles fast enough.

Yet there is a subtle difference from last year as staffing agencies make some innovative changes to adapt to the new normal.

The biggest investments are around agency-hosted reskilling programs to fill a variety of talent needs. At the high end, agencies like Adecco are creating or acquiring coding bootcamps to train promising candidates for hard-to-fill STEM roles — in 2018 Adecco acquired digital retraining firm General Assembly for $412 million.

Other agencies are more focused on training for lower level labor jobs that come with specific skill requirements, said Steve Bercham, chief operating officer of the American Staffing Association in Alexandria,Virginia. For example, last year staffing firm Hamilton-Ryker launched TalentGro, which uses virtual reality to train forklift operators.The technology has led to a 40 percent increase in successful placement of forklift drivers. “These skills can be learned quickly, which helps agencies fill these roles,” Bercham said.

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION: REALITY OR HYPE? Virtual reality is one of many innovative technologies that staffing agencies are adopting to meet client needs. Many others are focused on streamlining sourcing, saidVinda Souza, vice president of global communications for cloud computing company Bullhorn in Boston. “Sourcing is their top priority,” she said.

Bullhorn’s 2019 “Recruitment Trends” report found 57 percent of agencies plan to spend more in tech this year, with 31 percent focused on digital transformation efforts to achieve these goals.

While most believe that artificial intelligence and automation solutions will help the staffing industry in the long run, almost half question their ability to deploy and use these tools effectively.“Only 5 out of 10 staffing processionals understand what artificial intelligence and machine learning are,” Souza said.

This suggests that these digital transformation efforts will take a lot of time and will likely begin with simple automation tools that eliminate manual tasks but don’t optimize decision-making.

Early movers are already using tools like catboats to engage with

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candidate, automated résumé screening tools, and job board posting tools like Jobiak’s AI-based recruitment marketing platform that links job boards to the Google for Jobs ecosystem.

Staffing agencies are also hiring their own AI experts to drive innovation in this space. Bullhorn recently added its first head of artificial intelligence to support development of Cleo, its AI platform. “It is on us as an industry to get to the next level of AI so that we can do predictive sourcing and improve the candidate experience,” Souza said. Bullhorn hopes that adding senior AI talent to its team will help them get there first.

MONEY MATTERS No matter how good the sourcing and recruiting technology is, the lack of available talent means companies need to be practical about who they are looking for and what they can offer.

“For roles that are always in demand, wages need to go up,” Souza said. Bullhorn’s survey shows 78 percent of staffing professionals believe employers must increase pay if they want to compete for qualified candidates.

Employers should also be open to exploring new talent pools, including candidates with a criminal record, Bercham added.

The American Staffing Association is participating in the Getting Talent Back to Work pledge, an effort led by the Society for Human Resource Management to provide employment opportunities to qualified people with criminal backgrounds. “So many companies avoid these candidates for fear of liability,” he said. A big part of the initiative is to educate companies about how the court system and policies makers ensure these criminal histories can be set aside.

“Now is the time to quash the stigma of incarceration,” said Richard Wahlquist, ASA president and chief executive officer. “Employers need to embrace greater inclusivity when recruiting and hiring and give qualified individuals a second chance at success in life — particularly when the U.S. labor market is the tightest in history.”

It’s one of many ways employers and staffing agencies are opening their minds to new talent pools, and where candidates can come from.

“There is qualified talent out there that employers don’t give the time of day,” Souza said.The challenge for staffing agencies is figuring out how to convince employers that these are the right people for the job.

Sarah Fister Gale is a writer in Chicago. To comment email editors@workforce.com.

september/october

2019

HOT LIST Staffing Providers Listed alphabetically; compiled by Francesca Mathewes; fmathewes@workforce.com COMPANY NAME & Web Address

GLOBAL STAFFING REVENUE FOR 2018

AVERAGE NUMBER OF TEMPS ON PAYROLL

NUMBER OF CLIENT COMPANIES

INDUSTRY/OCCUPATIONAL SPECIALIZATION

EXPRESS EMPLOYMENT PROFESSIONALS expresspros.com

$3.56 billion

566,000

85,000

Light industrial; office services; professional staffing

HUDSON RPO hudsonrpo.com

$66.9 million

N/A

70

Financial services; media; medical devices; pharmaceutical; technology

KELLY SERVICES kellyservices.com

$5.5 billon

500,000

Would not disclose

Science; engineering; education; office; contact center; light industrial

MANPOWER GROUP manpowergroup.com

$22 billion

275,000 in the U.S.

11,000 in the U.S.

Innovative workforce solutions

RANDSTAD SOURCERIGHT* randstadsourceright.com

$327 million

670,000

N/A

Industrial

ROBERT HALF roberthalf.com

$4.8 million

212,700

Would not disclose

Accounting and finance; office administrative; technology; legal; creative

TRUEBLUE trueblue.com

$2.25 million

300,000

150,000

Industrial

Note: Adecco, Atwork and Bartech did not respond to requests for information. * Listed as Randstad Sourceright in 2017.

Source: Companies. september/october

2019

w o r k f o r c e . c o m | WorkÆ’orce

47

CAREGIVING continued from page 25 At first, Boer handled things by phone and took paid time off for regular trips to Seattle, but as her mother’s condition worsened the situation became unmanageable.

Her mother would call her at work several times a day confused and agitated, often minutes before she went on the air. Eventually, Boer installed a video camera in her mom’s apartment to keep a closer eye on her. But when she saw her mom lying on the floor in the middle of the night crying out Boer’s name for hours, she reached a breaking point.

“I’d be lying in bed watching her not sleeping with tears falling sideways down my cheeks,” she said. “I’d cry all night and go to the bathroom and throw up. Even though I had a dream job I felt like I was selfish for not being there. So I sacrificed my job and moved to Seattle.”

For employees at smaller companies without caregiving supports or benefits like flex time or Mani Mueller was the primary caregiver for paid time off the burden her father. Photo courtesy of Mani Mueller. of caregiving can be especially crushing.

Amanda Smith, 34, works at a small nonprofit arts foundation on the East Coast that is not required to provide leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. With a toddler who has cerebral palsy along with other disabilities and requires round-the-clock care, managing a career is an enormous challenge.

While her boss was initially accommodating, allowing her to work from home one day a week, he has become impatient with the lack of flexibility in her schedule, she said.

“He’d like me to come in without any warning but our lives our very, very choreographed because of all the doctor’s appointments, services and nursing care that my son needs,” she said. “We can’t just call a babysitter. My husband would have to call in sick or my mother-in-law would need to come because she’s the only one besides us who knows how to take care of him. I don’t think employers really understand how complicated caring for a child with a disability can be.”

But many are trying, according to LuAnn Heinen, vice president at the National Business Group on Health, a coalition of large employers.

“It’s definitely on their radar,” she said. “We did a survey in 2017 and 88 percent of employers think caregiving will be a big issue over the next few years. Paid leave is important but we know that it won’t solve the problem if you’re caring for someone over a number of years. There 48

Workƒorce | w o r k f o r c e . c o m

The Hidden Costs of Caregiving Most employers underestimate the impact that caregiving has on its workers, with less than one-fourth believing that the demands of caring for a loved one affect job performance, while more than 80 percent of employees say it has affected their productivity, according to “The Caring Company,” a 2019 report from the Harvard Business School.

Part of the problem is that few companies track the demographic data associated with caregiving, resulting in a variety of hidden costs. Here are a few identified in the study: • Employee turnover. The report revealed that nearly 32 percent of all employees had voluntarily left a job during their career due to caregiving responsibilities.

• Replacing highly experienced employees. Those at the highest levels of an organization, who are the hardest to replace were most likely to quit because of caregiving demands.

• Presenteeism. Employees who are worried and distracted can’t do their best work. This is especially true for high-achieving employees between the ages of 25 and 35. A vast majority — 88 percent — reported that caregiving regularly impaired their job performance.

• Caregiving affects many generations. While most caregivers quit to take care of a child, more than a third left to take care an elderly loved one and 25 percent quit to care of a disabled spouse or relative.

— Rita Pyrillis

must be more supports like flexible work arrangements, health care navigation, and services to help employees find caregiving services. Employers realize this.”

For those that fail to address the needs of caregivers, Clark warned that companies like Promega will be happy to hire their employees away.

“Unemployment is low and there are great people out there who are not getting their needs met and will want to work for an employer who recognizes them as a whole person,” she said. “You lose so many aspects of what that person can bring to the table when they are trying to take care of their families and are not supported.”

Rita Pyrillis is a writer based in the Chicago area. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.

september/october

2019

MENTAL HEALTH continued from page 35 Data can also educate employers on how much out-of-network behavioral health care employees are getting. Maybe employees are having access issues, or maybe they’re unsure of how to go about finding care. They could be relying on friends’ referrals rather than something more evidence-based.

“If [employees] don’t have a clear way to obtain information about the network, the types of providers and what provider is good for what types of challenges, they’re just randomly picking, and that’s problematic,” she said.

She continued that quality metrics are “reasonably established” for certain areas of the behavioral health system. The type of care people may need ranges from outpatient care for mild or moderate cases to more complex and higher levels of care for more severe conditions. This inpatient care is where quality metrics are consistent, but most people come into contact with behavioral health services at the outpatient level, Kuhn said.

There are some insurance carriers and tech solutions like Ginger.io and Lyra

Health that are using their own measures, but these aren’t consistent with each other, she said. This can lead to inconsistency and member confusion.

“They don’t know if they’re going to a quality provider or not, and oftentimes they don’t know how to judge if they’re improving,” Kuhn said. That may lead to people thinking that if they go to their friend’s therapist, they’ll get the best care.

“There are all sorts of wives tales that come out of there not being a good way to determine quality,” she added.

Employers can also push vendors on how they assess quality, said Conforti.

Many times providers self-report quality to behavioral health centers.Whether they actually have the competencies to do so, they could simply check the boxes that they can work with any disorder.

“There has to be a better way at assessing and making sure that providers are doing good, sound, evidence-based care,” she said.

ADVERTISING SALES Clifford Capone Vice President, Group Publisher 312-967-3538 ccapone@Workforce.com Daniella Weinberg Regional Sales Manager 917-627-1125 dweinberg@Workforce.com CT, MA, MD, ME, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, VT, Quebec, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Europe

Kevin M. Fields Director, Business Development 312-967-3565 kfields@Workforce.com Melanie Lee Business Administration Manager mlee@Workforce.com

Andie Burjek is a Workforce associate editor.

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49

LAST WORD

Rick Bell

TRAINING FOR AN UNNATURAL DISASTER

A

s a kid growing up in the Midwest we practiced tornado drills. After moving to the West Coast it was drop, cover and hold while prepping for an earthquake.

Natural disasters like tornadoes and earthquakes strike with little warning. Sadly, the same is true when a weapon-​toting menace is intent on killing a lot of people.

I experienced my first active-shooter drill in our office building a few weeks back.

It wasn’t unlike the fire drill we practice once a year — alarms flash overhead, we all get up from our desks and move to a designated location for our safety.

DESPITE THE SUCCESS OF OUR ACTIVE SHOOTER DRILL, I STILL CARRY WITH ME AN APPREHENSION THAT I’M NOT SAFE AT WORK. Such preparation is good, and it’s clearly the right thing to do. The exercise leaves participants with a measure of confidence that they are in fact armed with the knowledge that will enable them to survive an incident of workplace violence.

The level of comfort that accompanies training is largely true whether we’re practicing a penalty kick in soccer or cramming for an HR certification test. But there’s also the uneasy notion of failure no matter how much we prepare. Training is good, but it’s just that — preparation for the relative unknown.

Despite the success of our active shooter drill, I still carry with me an apprehension that I’m not safe at work. Oh, we have extremely strong security measures in our lobby to limit a gunman’s ability to burst onto the fifth floor and splay my guts across the office. While the chances of that occurring are minimal, there’s a reason we hold an active shooter drill: It’s still a possibility.

Clearly I am not alone as I try to compartmentalize my fears. According to statistics released this year by the Society for Human Resource Management, 1 in 7 Americans does not feel safe at work.

The SHRM data also shows that in 2012, 36 percent of HR professionals stated their organization had at some point experienced an incident of workplace violence at some level. That’s a pretty scary number, until you read that in 2019 the figure spikes to nearly 50 percent.

The sad realization is that mass shootings are a common occurrence in this country, and that gun violence too often takes place in and around where people work.

50

Workƒorce | w o r k f o r c e . c o m

We are justifiably horrified when we see employees and customers shot up at a superstore in the name of a political, racial or religious ideology professed by someone with a weapon that belongs on a battlefield, not near the checkout line. It sickens us to see a popular entertainment district turned into a shooting gallery.

And we are outraged — although frankly I do not think we are outraged enough — when a religious institution or school is the target. How helplessly, maddeningly shameful is it that it’s come to this — your children, my co-workers’ children, my grandchildren and all those teachers and school administrators regularly must practice active shooter drills?

Frankly it’s absurd that we drill for someone bent on killing us at work. But we do. As if it’s a tornado. Or an earthquake. Active shooters are not natural. But it sure is a disaster.

Some will shrug and contend it’s the new normal.Violence in and around workplaces is woven into our lives so long as someone has a grudge and access to a gun.

That’s hard to dispute when you look at the numbers surrounding workplace violence. The National Safety Council’s figures are downright disheartening. In 2017, workplace assaults resulted in 18,400 injuries and 458 fatalities, with industries including health care, service providers and education more prone to violence than others.

Those are just obscene figures. And there’s no shortage of incidents to make us believe that 2019’s final tally for workplace violence will see a dramatic decline. It was just a few months back that 12 workers were shot dead at the Virginia Beach,Virginia, municipal center by a fellow employee.

And a February shooting at a suburban Chicago manufacturing plant killed five people including the human resources director and an HR intern who were conducting the shooter’s termination when the employee pulled a gun and shot them to death.

To say that elected leaders must act on gun control measures is an understatement. Employers also can be a strong voice for weapons regulations and in the case of some superstores — sporting goods retailer Dick’s comes to mind — end the sale of guns. Internally, employers can adopt and enforce zero-tolerance policies against workplace violence.

Every employee deserves a workplace free of aggression. Granted we can’t control seismic activity or an F5 twister. But through common sense legislation and workplace initiatives, perhaps one day disaster drills will again be for tornadoes and earthquakes, not active shooters.

Rick Bell is Workforce’s editorial director. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.

september/october

2019

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