Workforce - November/December 2019 by Workforce

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November/December 2019

2019

2019 OPTIMAS WINNERS

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratoryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s intern program is a poster child for success.

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isn’t thinking about his benefits right now. And that’s exactly how it should be. Because he’s got more important decisions to make today. Like vanilla or chocolate? (Or both?) After all, teeth are made to last a lifetime. So, what’s one afternoon of sugary indulgence? Nope, Patrick isn’t worried about his benefits. Because his company has Unum, to help close the gaps in coverage and keep his family in smiles through the years. Go big, Patrick.

From dental and vision plans to income protection, get benefits that keep your employees going at unum.com/patrickWF

Insurance products are underwritten by the subsidiaries of Unum Group. ©2019 Unum Group. All rights reserved. Unum is a registered trademark and marketing brand of Unum Group and its insuring subsidiaries. NS18-231

From Our Editors

FROM PERSONNEL TO WORKFORCE

For many, work is a source of necessary income. It’s also what gives the day structure and purpose. Unfortunately, all too often it’s also a never-ending journey through and around a series of organizational barriers and procedural hoops.The way we do work gets in the way of getting the job done. The rise of employee experience software and apps to make that even just a little bit better is welcome. But there’s a lurking problem for HR. One HR executive told me his team navigates a dozen software systems a day, most of which don’t share nicely. The employee experience for HR? Not so fun, it turns out. AI and sophisticated software and apps promise to make work less clunky for employees — to get processes out of the way and let them do more of what they’re good at. Let’s make that a priority for the HR department, too. — 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.

All About Ethics,

MARCH 2004

It was 15 years ago when Workforce Management introduced a new Optimas Award category. Ethical Practice (which has since morphed into Corporate Citizenship as an Optimas category) became a thing that year. Considering that the corporate landscape had been wracked by massive scandals the previous three years involving Enron,Worldcom and Freddie Mac, to name just a few, celebrating companies that did business the right way came none too soon.The winner of that first Optimas Award for Ethical Practice was aerospace giant Lockheed Martin. Ron Covais, then a VP of business development, became something of a celebrity after rejecting “an inappropriate request for payment” (i.e., a bribe) from a foreign customer and immediately withdrew his company from bidding on a project, helping to highlight Lockheed’s commitment to ethical standards. A separate story headlined “Clean Slate” told of the redemption of another corporate bad boy.Tyco International suffered a scandalous affair but began a revival with the help of the new senior VP of HR, Laurie Siegel, who was described as a “48-year-old straight arrow,” was tasked with establishing a corporate-governance and compensation systems and controls. Unfortunately one Optimas winner that year was destined for a date with corporate scandal.Wachovia was the Optimas winner for Service. Four years later it was embroiled in the subprime mortgage meltdown. If only they had paid attention to Lockheed’s ethics. — Rick Bell

Tech Shortages and the Space Race, FEBRUARY 1963 Frenzy surrounding tech worker shortages isn’t something unique to modern-day Silicon Valley. During the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy stressed that “one of the most critical problems facing this nation” was the inadequate amount of talent with tech skills, according to the 1963 article “Use of Scientific and Engineering Brainpower During This Decade.” Author William G.Torpey, a consultant to the federal government’s Office of Emergency Planning, laid out eight different national and global trends that impacted the U.S.’ increased need for tech talent.These trends included the country’s defense buildup, recent United Nations programs and the manpower needs of the Peace Corps. Most notably, however, Torpey stressed the role tech talent would play in placing a man on the moon by the end of the decade. A NASA official had recently said that the organization was actively recruiting 2,000 scientists and engineers at the time. This issue of Personnel Journal also included “The Employee Bill of Rights,” which argued that employees have the right to know a detailed job description of their position and the minimum, midpoint and maximum salaries for their job. “The major reason for this lack of knowledge is many companies are still operating under the mistaken idea that giving salary information is dangerous,” the article stated. — Andie Burjek november/december

2019

your

talent game

is not a

Machine Learning. Gamification. Artificial Intelligence.

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A PUBLICATION OF November/December 2019 | Volume 98, Issue 6 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 DATA SCIENTIST Grey Litaker glitaker@workforce.com VIDEO AND MULTIMEDIA PRODUCER Andrew Kennedy Lewis alewis@workforce.com MEDIA & PRODUCTION MANAGER Ashley Flora aflora@workforce.com

MARKETING DIRECTOR Greg Miller gmiller@workforce.com MARKETING SPECIALIST Kristen Britt kbritt@workforce.com REGIONAL SALES DIRECTORS Ana Dirksen adirksen@workforce.com Daniella Weinberg dweinberg@workforce.com TECHNICAL OPERATIONS MANAGER Skyler Gold sgold@workforce.com DIGITAL & AUDIENCE INSIGHTS DIRECTOR Lauren Wilbur lwilbur@workforce.com

VP OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT FOR EVENTS Kevin Fields DIGITAL COORDINATOR kfields@workforce.com Steven Diemand 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 Yasmeen Qahwash Vince Czarnowski yqahwash@workforce.com vince@workforce.com

WEBINARS

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Jennifer Benz Matthew C. Berger Cheryl L. Blount Carol Brzozowski Allison Czerniak Kris Dunn Mark Feffer Sarah Fister Gale Jon Hyman Patty Kujawa Francesca Mathewes Rita Pyrillis Michelle V. Rafter Rachel L. Schaller Erin Stanis

AUDIENCE INSIGHTS COORDINATOR Micaela Martinez mmartinez@workforce.com LIST MANAGER Mike Rovello hcmlistrentals@infogroup.com BUSINESS ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGER Melanie Lee mlee@workforce.com

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The use of this seal is not an endorsement by the HRCertification Institute™ of the quality of the program. It means that this program has met the HR Certification Institute’s criteria to be pre-approved for recertification credit.

Workforce (ISSN 2331-2793) is published bi-monthly by Human Capital Media, 150 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 550, Chicago IL 60601. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, IL and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workforce, P.O. Box 8712 Lowell, MA 01853. Subscriptions are free to qualified professionals within the US and Canada. Digital free subscriptions are available worldwide. Nonqualified paid subscriptions are available at the subscription price of $199 for 6 issues. All countries outside the US and Canada must be prepaid in US funds with an additional $33 postage surcharge. Single price copy is $29.99 Workforce and Workforce.com are the trademarks of Human Capital Media. Copyright © 2019, Human Capital Media. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Reproduction of material published in Workforce is forbidden without permission. Printed by: Quad/Graphics, Sussex, WI

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CONTENTS

ON THE COVER 2019 OPTIMAS AWARDS

Workforce announces the Optimas Gold, Silver and Bronze winners in this, the 29th anniversary of the Optimas Awards.This year, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory took home top honors. COVER PHOTO BY BRITTNI KIICK

32 SECTOR REPORT

2019

FEATURES

48 RELOCATION

22 DIVERSITY SCHOOLING

50 FINANCIAL WELLNESS

28 ON THE JOB (BOARD)

Internal mobility is the hot new employee engagement tool giving relocation vendors a chance for reinvention. Financial issues among the employee population is causing some to experience plan fatigue.

Workƒorce | w o r k f o r c e . c o m

A diverse talent pipeline should be filling the C-suite. Based on research from Workforce’s research arm, it’s not. Some have tried to bury the traditional job board for several years. Put away the shovel for now.

34 SCIENCE FLAIR

From high-tech VR to a low-tech poster program, HR ends the ‘teens’ with a series of noteworthy initiatives. november/december

2019

ON THE WEB

SPEAK UP!

The Workforce online community provides you with virtual meeting places to chat about issues and trends affecting you and your workplace. LIKE US: workforce.com/facebookpage

JOIN THE GROUP: workforce.com/linkedingroup

WATCH US: workforce.com/youtubechannel

FOR YOUR BENEFIT COLUMNS 4

YOUR FORCE

The Way We Do Work Gets in the Way of Getting the Job Done.

13 WORK IN PROGRESS

An Assist in the Search for Your First HR Leader.

14 E-CIGS UNDER FIRE

Fresh health concerns form a smokescreen surrounding vaping in the workplace.

15 EMOTIONAL MONITOR

Emerging technologies help employees assess the impact of their emotional state on performance.

17 BENEFITS BEAT

Easing the Access to Benefits Information.

20 THE PRACTICAL EMPLOYER

Ban the Box Laws Hurt Minority Candidates.

54 THE LAST WORD

Endorsing a Workplace Nip and Tuck.

november/december

2019

15 HOORAY FOR HRAs

New tool provides workers with pretax dollars in the individual market instead of a group plan.

16 GIFT-WRAPPED PAID TIME OFF

It doesn’t hurt to give employees some end-of-year holiday cheer with extended paid time off.

TRENDING 10 BOOM GOES HR TECH

HR tech funding will reach $5 billion in 2019.

11 PEOPLE MOVES AND BY THE NUMBERS

Sodexo names Payne CHRO; reviewing the managers.

12 DEFINING NINCOMPOOPERY

Author John R. Brandt helps correct workplace ineptitude.

12 GOOGLE HIRE FIRED

Google announced it was officially shutting down Google Hire.

LEGAL 18 AVOIDING HARASSMENT

Taking a look at recently implemented laws in six states.

19 LEGAL BRIEFINGS Collective action; Bonus pay.

w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

TRENDING

VC Funding Frenzy Over HR Technology on Record Pace Despite HR tech investments predicted to reach $5 billion in 2019, change is anything but assured. By Sarah Fister Gale f you haven’t started your own super-successful HR technology company it’s not too late. Venture capitalists’ love affair with HR tech firms is on track to break records as they dole out millions of dollars to entrepreneurs who promise to transform the human resources landscape. According to HRWins by LaRocque LLC, venture firms invested $1.448 billion in the second quarter of 2019, and another $964 million in the third quarter, putting the year’s total at $4.18 billion with fourth-quarter results yet to be tallied. While third-quarter totals show a slight dip, the quarter saw four mega-rounds of at least $100 million, including $200 million to Gusto, the payroll startup for SMBs. “With a quarter left to go, 2019 is surging beyond investments made in 2018,” according to LaRocque. The continued investment interest in this space makes sense. Despite years of VC investment into promising HR tech companies, there are still a lot of problems that current vendors haven’t solved, like: • How can we recruit strong candidates when unemployment rates are so low? • Why does our candidate experience still lag despite our cool new interactive recruiting page,YouTube recruiting channel and automated email response tools? • Can I hire freelancers instead of fulltime staff, and where do I find them? • How are we supposed to reskill an entire workforce when we don’t know what skills they are going to need? These are big, difficult questions and VCs are eager to support entrepreneurs who claim to have the answers particularly because the market is strong, said David Mallon, chief analyst at Bersin, Deloitte Consulting LLP. “Companies have set aside healthy budgets for the right solution and VCs sense that there is money to be spent.”

TA and Training Lead the Pack This year’s deals are tipping heavily toward recruiting technology firms. “Talent acquisition is a massive problem in orga10

Workƒorce | w o r k f o r c e . c o m

nizations today,” said Jason Corsello, founder and general partner of Acadian Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm specializing in the future of work. This year alone Jobcase, a social media recruiting platform for blue-collar workers, secured $100 million; Built In, a Chicago-based tech recruiting and media platform received $22 million; and AllyO, an artificial intelligence conversational recruitment platform received $45 million. The current spending spree follows at least a half-decade of heady HR tech investment. Funding and deal activity hit new highs in 2015, with firms landing $2.4 billion across 383 deals. That follows similar high rates of investment in 2013 and 2014 alike. This year, start-ups offering solutions to find and manage gig workers are also gaining a lot of attention because “no one has figured out how to manage the entire workforce yet,” Corsello said. He pointed to Jobble, Sense, and Instawork — all gig recruiting platforms that secured healthy VC deals in the past few months. “It’s a huge area of interest.”

THE CURRENT SPENDING SPREE FOLLOWS AT LEAST A HALF-DECADE OF HEADY HR TECH INVESTMENT Skill development is also a hot area as companies attempt to prepare for the “future of work.”The biggest deal of 2019 is Coursera, the online learning platform that offers degrees and certificates, which secured $103 million in April to push its value past $1 billion. Other learning and development companies are drawing attention and investment, though this space has been less innovative, said Mallon.“We still need a philosophical shift in how we

think about developing people before the technology can catch up.” That’s not stopping VCs from investing in this space, though a lot of these deals still feel like investors throwing money at the problem to see what sticks. Mallon points to past investments in companies offering MOOCs — massive online open courses — and microlearning formats. “It wasn’t because they were so effective as learning tools,” he said. It was about trying new solutions. And even the biggest deals shouldn’t be seen as proof that this technology will be disruptive. “A lot of companies are still only tackling the easy stuff,” said Chris Havrilla, vice president of HR technology and solution provider strategy at Bersin, Deloitte Consulting LLP. Whether it is high-volume recruiting platforms or chunky content training apps, these tools may solve problems, but they aren’t reinventing the workflow — “at least not yet,” she said. Mallon believes innovations will come sooner in talent acquisition than in learning and development, and he expects VCs to continue investing across this space. While not all of these VC investments will pay off, HR leaders shouldn’t be afraid to experiment, added Corsello. He suggests earmarking 20 percent of their budget to pilot new solutions. “You can test software at a relatively low level of risk to figure out what works for you.” november/december

2019

TRENDING

By the Numbers

PEOPLE KORI S. CAREW Law firm Seyfarth Shaw LLP has named Kori S. Carew as chief inclusion and diversity officer. In this newly created role, Carew is responsible for advancing Seyfarth’s in clusion and diversity strategy and accelerating its existing portfolio of programs and external partnerships. Carew previously was director of strategic diversity initiatives at joins from Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP.

moves

STEVENS J. SAINTE-ROSE Surterra Wellness named Stevens J. Sainte-Rose as chief human resources officer and as a member of its executive leadership team. Sainte-Rose will lead Surterra’s global human resources and be responsible for developing and executing human resources strategy in support of the company’s overall business plan and strategic direction.

DONDI DIX Insurance firm Lockton named Dondi Dix as its new senior vice president-chief people officer. In this newly created executive-level position, Dix will focus on strengthening Lockton’s human capital strategy to continue attracting and developing top talent. Dix will also partner with all offices across Lockton to enhance the company’s LocktonLife program.

FRANK STEINERT Consumer-goods company Henkel named Frank Steinert as senior vice president, head of human resources North America. He also will serve as a member of Henkel’s North American leadership team. Steinert will be based at Henkel’s Consumer Goods North American headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut.

STEPHANIE PAYNE Food-services company Sodexo named Stephanie Payne as chief human resources officer for North America. Payne most recently was the head of human resources, Americas region, for the ABB Group, a Swiss multinational company. Before that she held human resources roles for Eaton Corp. and Visteon. Payne is a graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta and Ohio Northern University, where she received a law degree.

CARLECIA WRIGHT Tech startup BiasSync named Carlecia Wright as vice president, business development. Wright will report to CEO and co-founder Michele Ruiz and will be based in Houston. Wright has served as chief diversity officer for the city of Houston and was appointed by the mayor as city department director for the Office of Business Opportunity and served on the Harvey Recovery Executive Team.

To be considered for People Moves, email a brief announcement and a high-resolution color photo to editor@workforce.com. Include People Moves in the subject line. november/december

2019

compiled by Grey Litaker and Rick Bell

Call the Management Who’s doing the managing and what they make.

The Digit: 1 out of 20 workers are in management positions

Age Spot The median age of managers

46A.R6 S YE

Gender Management Managers, by gender and race 40%

77.9% White

22.1%

Women

People of color

60% Men

Money Management Average Income – $121,560

Median Income – $104,240

More Managers! 6.9% Predicted increase in management occupations by 2028.

g•

• Now Hirin

00 ly 955po,0 al sitions annu

Average open

SOURCE: Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2018, prepared by Talent Tracker data scientists.

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

TRENDING

Google Hire Fired By Sarah Fister Gale

BESTING NINCOMPOOPERY By Rick Bell John R. Brandt is a rarity among leadership John R. Brandt, author experts. Currently the CEO and founder of the MPI Group, Brandt also toiled in the journalistic trenches as the publisher and editor in chief of IndustryWeek. So not only can he speak authoritatively on leadership, he can also write with wit and vision. Brandt’s new book “Nincompoopery:WhyYour Customers HateYou — and How to Fix It” blends corporate expertise with an acerbic yet insightful eye. Workforce Editorial Director Rick Bell caught up with Brandt via email. Workforce: A nincompoop is defined as a foolish or stupid person. Define nincompoopery. John R. Brandt: We’re all nincompoops at one time or another; just ask your spouse, or if you’re really brave, your kids. But nincompoopery is different: It’s the corporate stupidity that drives customers crazy, and keeps everyone — customers, employees, managers and business owners — from getting what they want. It’s what happens when you expect a service or product or process to work, but it doesn’t — and nobody can seem to fix it, even though everybody knows what’s wrong.

WF: Does nincompoopery begin with any one foolish person or department? Brandt: It’s usually much broader than that. It typically starts when senior leaders create a culture in a department or across the organization in which legitimate concerns or complaints, whether from customers or employees, aren’t heard or tolerated. This can be due to suppression, when leaders stifle dissent or disagreement because they see them as challenges to authority; or it can be slower and more insidious, as leaders avoid the gemba where real work is done (the production line, a service call) and where real customers live and work (in homes or businesses).

WF: How might HR contribute to corporate nincompoopery? Brandt: HR is incredibly well positioned to either fix or foster nincompoopery. When you see companies struggling, you often find an HR function relegated to focusing on forms and policies instead of being unleashed to identify, attract, hire, develop and retain the best talent. By contrast, at great companies doing great things, you typically find a team that’s included in visioning for the future; in creating goals, objectives and metrics for the organization beyond simple profit and productivity; and in making sure that a culture of respect, fairness and accountability is nourished.

WF: So we’ve defined it. Is there a remedy for nincompoopery? Brandt: Leaders at great companies organize their cultures around three simple strategies: innovation, talent and process. Each strategy incorporates broad principles that successful organizations embrace, but those principles have to be implemented in customized ways that celebrate and reinforce an organization’s unique mission, culture, structure and market. Leaders often underestimate how smart their employees are; when management-by-desperate-adoption-of-a-new-system happens repeatedly, often on a two- or three-year cycle, employees learn that they can usually wait out either the system or the dimwit who invested in it.

Workƒorce | w o r k f o r c e . c o m

pplicant tracking systems providers breathed a small sigh of relief in September when Google announced it was officially shutting down Google Hire, the cloud-based applicant tracking system that the search-engine giant launched barely two years ago. It’s a fitting end to a product that was never a good fit for Google’s portfolio of solutions, said Othamar Gama Filho, CEO of recruitment marketing automation platform Talentify. “I was more surprised when they launched it than when they ended it.” Google Hire promised to simplify the hiring process for recruiters. By utilizing Google’s powerful search capabilities, open API environment and G Suite tools, including Gmail and Google Calendar, recruiters would be able to more easily find and communicate with candidates and schedule interviews. At least that was the pitch. But in reality it didn’t offer a lot to make it stand out in an already crowded market. “The global ATS market is small compared to what Google is used to,” Gama Filho said. It’s projected to be a $2.34 billion by 2026, which may be exciting for a burgeoning tech startup, but is hardly worth the attention of a company that generates billions of dollars in revenues every year. Google also never explained how the global platform would accommodate the unique data privacy regulations in every country where it was offered. Gama Filho noted that Google is already facing antitrust investigations in the European Commission for its Google for Jobs app, which could have chilled its interest in the recruiting space all together. The real truth is Google Hire never found it customer base. “A lot of ATS platforms integrate with G Suite, so there was not a lot to differentiate the offering,” he said. november/december

2019

TRENDING

HOW TO HIRE YOUR FIRST HR LEADER By Kris Dunn |

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

o, business is good, growth is strong and you’re ready to hire your first HR leader.That’s great news. Congrats! Now comes the hard part. This column is not meant to help those looking for their first HR hire, which is generally an individual added by small to medium-sized business when transactional items like payroll and compliance overwhelm an office manager or similar administrative employee with another job to do. That was your first HR hire.You’ve likely made that hire at least a year or so ago.You thought that person was going to shore up your recruiting issues and get to needed projects in performance, training and other areas.You were wrong. So here we are. You just posted an opening for an HR manager/director — your first HR leader. If you’re going to invest the money, you need the person to innovate and deliver the return in all your areas of need related to talent. Finding the right hire in this situation is hard, and misses occur often. Here are ideas to assist in your search: Experience matters, so prepare to dig. If you’re looking for someone to come in and build your next-level HR platform, you’re going to need to make sure they’ve done it before.The biggest lie the devil ever told the world about HR is that titles equate to ability.That’s not only false in the world of HR, it’s dangerous. There’s a high degree of variability across HR manager/ director candidates. To ensure you end up with what you need, pick your top three HR areas of need, then prepare to interview candidates purposefully on how they have built strong programs in those areas. Ask candidates to bring a portfolio of examples of their work in each domain. Make sure the experience is real, not hypothetical or you’re going to be less than satisfied in under a year. Company size of current and past employers is important. As a growing company, you’re going to be naturally attracted to HR leaders in small companies. While that’s one path to success, you shouldn’t discount HR pros who want to downshift from a mega-company existence to the SMB life. Big company HR pros have the benefit of growing up with great tools and resources in the areas important to you. The best ones (who are a motivational fit for life in a smaller

company) can use that experience to build your HR platform in a meaningful, progressive way. Consider recruiting backgrounds as an alternative. Most growing businesses seek to add their first HR leader at around the 100-employee mark.You’re likely adding this leadership team member due to growth, which means recruiting is almost always a pain point. For best results, look to add candidates to your hiring process that have been pure recruiters in their past in addition to holding pure HR positions. Interview to understand their success and satisfaction in the former recruiting role. If your first HR leader has past success as a recruiter and enjoyed that life, you’ll be set up for success. Of course, all of those tips are related to candidate backgrounds and what you’ll see on résumés. To truly win with your first HR leader hire, you’re also going to have to be brutally honest with yourself related to your company environment and the behavioral DNA you need in a candidate that provides the best match. My new book, “The 9 Faces of HR,” digs deep into the behavioral DNA of HR pros. Here’s the must-haves I’d recommend for anyone seeking to hire their first HR leader: Quick on the draw. Taking in large amounts of data/ feedback and making quick, accurate decisions is key.Things move pretty fast at a high-growth company, and the right candidate for you will need to match the speed. Fearless. Your new HR leader needs to be naturally inclined to deal with challenges head on.The right candidate for you will have a bias toward action. Loves chaos. Let’s face it, you have a cool company but it’s a freak show, as all high-growth organizations are. The right candidate is going to view chaos as a ladder, not a barrier. Successfully hiring your first HR leader is about finding a candidate in the sweet spot — the intersection of hustle, hard work, innovation and the ability to create product and services others will use to move your company forward. The right one is out there, but only if you go into the search with a clear plan of what you are looking for. Don’t settle!

THERE’S A HIGH DEGREE OF VARIABILITY ACROSS HR MANAGER/ DIRECTOR CANDIDATES. PICK YOUR TOP THREE AREAS OF NEED, THEN INTERVIEW PURPOSEFULLY.

november/december

2019

Kris Dunn, the chief human resources officer at Kinetix, is a Workforce contributing editor. To comment, email editor@workforce.com.

w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

FOR YOUR BENEFIT

New Concerns Form Smokescreen Over Vaping at Work With more health and safety questions than answers, employers are examining policy options. By Rita Pyrillis

he surging popularity of e-cigarettes and the recent spate of illnesses associated with them have caught public health officials and health care providers by surprise and left many employers wondering whether to allow their use in the workplace and what kind of policies are needed to manage the practice. An e-cigarette is an electronic device that heats up small amounts of liquid nicotine and other substances into an aerosol that can be inhaled, also known as vaping. E-cigarette use among teenagers has skyrocketed in recent years, but others see vaping as a safe alternative to smoking and a tool to quit, an issue that is up for debate. “Given the recent stories, employers are catching up with how to think about vaping,” said Dr. Mary Kay O’Neill, senior clinical adviser in Mercer’s Total Health Management practice. “E-cigarettes kind of exploded. An early sales pitch was that it’s a safer way to use tobacco than smoking but I think that was more marketing than science. We’re finding a lot problems with that theory.” While the Food and Drug Administration has not found e-cigarettes to be a safe or effective smoking cessation method, a 2019 study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that smokers who vaped were more likely to quit smoking than people who used nicotine patches, gum or similar products. On the downside, those who quit often became hooked on e-cigarettes.

“DO WE ADD IT TO OUR SMOKING POLICY? WHAT IF WE HAVE A SENIOR LEADER WHO BELIEVES IN VAPING? HOW DO WE HANDLE THAT? IT’S IMPORTANT TO HAVE CONSISTENCY IN THE HANDLING OF ALL TOBACCO PRODUCTS.” The largest group of e-cigarette users, however, is teenagers — a trend that has alarmed school and public health officials. In 2018, 37 percent of high school seniors reported vaping, compared to 28 percent in 2017, according to a University of Michigan study. In response to health concerns, a number of states have banned e-cigarettes and vaping in workplaces and public areas. So far, 17 states have passed general workplace bans — most recently Minnesota, South Dakota, Florida and New Mexico. In June, San Francisco officials voted to ban the sale of e-cigarettes in the city. San Francisco is the headquarters of Juul Labs, the nation’s largest producer of vaping devices. While most employers ban smoking, few have policies around e-cigarettes, according to Amanda Graham, head of the Innovations Center at Truth Initiative, a national public health organization that also offers a smoking cessation pro14

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gram, called the EX Program, to employers. “There’s a lot of interest and questions from employers around what to do with vaping,” Graham said. “Do we add it to our smoking policy? What if we have a senior leader who believes in vaping? How do we handle that? It’s important to have consistency in the handling of all tobacco products.” Mark Johnson, an employment law attorney with Ogletree Deakins in Milwaukee, advises employers to review their current smoking policy and make sure that it complies with state and local laws and that it clearly addresses vaping. Some employers add the use of electronic smoking devices to the definition of “smoking” in an existing no-smoking policy, according to Johnson. A separate policy is not always necessary, he said. “The number of states and municipalities that have banned vaping in the workplace continues to grow and even if applicable law does not expressly ban vaping in the workplace, laws prohibiting smoking in the workplace may be interpreted to include vaping, Johnson said in an email. “For other locations, it may not be clear whether vaping is regulated. There does not appear to be any location that requires employers to permit vaping at work.” For employers weighing whether to allow vaping at work, the effects of second-hand exposure to e-cigarettes also need to be addressed, according to Graham. Much about the health effects of vaping remains unknown and for that reason employers must educate themselves on the risks, O’Neill said. “We’ve studied tobacco for a long time but not what’s in the liquids found in vaping,” she said. Employers should consider offering smoking-cessation programs to help employees quit through methods that are safer and more effective, according to O’Neill. november/december

2019

FOR YOUR BENEFIT

Hooray for HRAs

Monitoring Emotions at Work

A benefit for smaller companies.

New tools go above and beyond wearables like watches.

By Rita Pyrillis

By Carol Brzozowski

tarting in January 2020 employers will have a new tool to provide workers with pretax dollars for purchasing insurance in the individual health care market instead of offering them a group plan. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Labor and the Department of the Treasury in June issued a new policy that expands the use of health reimbursement arrangements. Previously, HRAs could be used only in combination with an employer-sponsored group health plan. The new individual coverage HRAs, or IHRAs, could be used to pay for out-of-pocket expenses, Medicare premiums or individual policies purchased through or outside the health exchanges formed by the Affordable Care Act. The rule is a reversal of 2013 IRS rule requiring account-based plans like HRAs to be integrated with an employer group plan. Standalone arrangements were in violation of the ACA’s market reform rules.While critics see the rule change as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the ACA, benefits consultant Gary Kushner sees it as a win for smaller employers that want to offer a defined-contribution health plan. “Before the ACA, it wasn’t unusual for small to mid-size employers to say, ‘We can’t afford group coverage, but we can reimburse employees, for example, up to $400 a month to buy individual coverage tax-free,” he said. “For smaller employers that made a lot of sense but that option was taken away in 2013 and the penalties were extremely severe. Now they have that option again.” The rule also created an excepted benefit HRA that allows employers that offer a group health plan to provide an HRA of up to $1,800 a year to help pay for vision care and dental premiums and other qualified expenses, according to a Department of Health and Human Services media release. The Trump administration estimates the expansion of HRAs will benefit 800,000 employers and more than 11 million employees and family members. “Now we have another arrow in our quiver to think about benefits and attraction and retention,” Kushner said. “It’s a significant enough change to cause employers to rethink their benefits strategies.” november/december

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ith emotional well-being in the workplace, “prevention is better than intervention,” said one author and entrepreneur. Marc Brackett, founder and director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, argues in his new book “Permission to Feel” that the workplace tends to deny healing. “You check your feelings at the door because you’re there to do business,” he said. “What people have to realize is emotions don’t get checked at the door. They are at the seat of every table. They’re on the phone with every client and are influencing all aspects of performance.” Emerging technologies are helping employees assess the impact of their emotional state on work performance. One platform in the development stage, Evolve Biologix, uses the heart’s electrical signals through an ECG measurement tool wrapped around the chest to correlate with a range of emotions to develop emotional awareness and learn techniques to manage it individually and in relationship to others. People already are using devices connected to the body such as a watch, but having something connected closer to their heart is new, said Evolve Biologix CEO Steve Curtis. Evolve Biologix differs from other platforms in that while others are self-reporting, its focus is on gatherSteve Curtis ing real-time electrical signals from each heartbeat. “An ECG wave has different peaks with electrical signals firing through our brain,” said Curtis, whose company is in a corporate environment beta stage as Curtis seeks partners to collaborate on the notion that it can serve as a health benefit. “We’re utilizing data science and machine algorithms to understand the specific signatures of these body systems to draw out emotions, build a group performance dashboard and optimize algorithms that drive content interventions and suggestions at an organizational level.” An Evolve Power Index score, which is displayed on a phone, represents the user’s emotional level. The higher the score, the more the end user is believed to be in alignment with their emotional state, which can range from shame and guilt to peace and enlightenment. Regarding privacy concerns, Curtis said results aren’t connected to individuals but provide a picture of group dynamics down to work groups of three. “[HR] departments are continually challenged with how to keep innovation alive in their organization, increase the change readiness, manage empathy in environments where people are becoming progressively more technical in nature and how to get people to care about each other and function as a cohesive team,” he said. “It’s imperative to be able to view these kinds of metrics.” Marc Brackett Brackett foresees a time when employee benefits will include more emotional wellness technologies. “There’s a benefit-cost analysis to taking seriously people’s development of skills, teaching emotional self-awareness and emotion regulation as opposed to treating it once you have a full-blown anxiety disorder or depression,” he said. w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

FOR YOUR BENEFIT

Eggnog With a Splash of Paid Time Off Firms are gifting employees with extra holiday cheer through extended end-of-the-year PTO. By Andie Burjek

roviding employees extended time off at the end of the year is one way to add a bit of holiday cheer. Office closures during the holidays — typically the days between or immediately around Christmas and New Year’s Day — can enhance employee productivity, according to a November 2018 survey of 2,000 full-time employees conducted by Chicago-based consulting firm West Monroe Partners. The study explored employee productivity during the holiday season and gauged how additional days off during the holidays affected that productivity. It found the “employees at offices that close additional days during the holidays are significantly more likely to report higher productivity during the time that they’re actually in the office” — 42 percent compared to 17 percent in offices that don’t shut down outside of federal holidays. The study suggested that employers close the office on days beyond federal holidays, when feasible. Some employers look at this potential benefit and can’t see past the missed productivity of those three or four days between Christmas and New Year’s, said Michael Hughes, a managing director with West Monroe and lead of the firm’s Operations Excellence practice. But they’re not considering the return on investment. “In a tight job market, the ROI from deciding to Michael Hughes close the office becomes very real,” he said. “We’ve tried this at our own company and [we] see the benefits of it year after year in terms of retention and productivity.” According to the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans’ 2018 “Employee Benefits Survey,” 12 percent of organizations offer the full week between Christmas Day and New Year’s 16

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Eve as a paid holiday, compared to 9 percent of organizations in 2016. Especially at a time with a tight labor market, employers are looking for new, innovative ways to attract talent and increase morale, said Julie Stich, vice president of content at the foundation. An extended vacation during the holiday season is one way to vie for candidates’ attention. This makes sense in some industries more than others. The top three industries that offer holiday time off perks include education, technology and manufacturing. Conversely there are many industries in which virtually no companies offered such perks, including banking, finance, food service and health care, Stich said.

IF A COMPANY CAN WITHSTAND THE HIATUS FROM THE CLIENT DELIVERY AND SERVICE PERSPECTIVE, IT SHOULD STRONGLY CONSIDER DOING SO. The top three industries provide examples for the type of environment that can more naturally offer this perk, Stich said. People in education may already have that downtime over winter break. Tech companies tend to be innovative in the benefits they offer. And manufacturers sometimes need to shutter their shops and turn off the machines for a week for maintenance. Offering that week between or around Christmas and New Year’s Day could fit in with a business need as well as give many employees the perk of a longer break, she added. Hughes said that if a company can withstand the hiatus from the client delivery and service perspective, it should strongly consider this time off. At West Monroe Partners, the finance and accounting teams are often working at the office or at home during this time of the year to meet end-of-year deadlines. The same goes for IT, as cli-

ents’ expectations of getting the necessary tech guidance does not stop just because it’s the holiday season. One year a client experienced a ransomware attack the week between Christmas and New Year’s, Hughes said, and employees on the cybersecurity team stepped up, working on Christmas Eve and the days following Christmas. Instead of time off, these employees were recognized and rewarded in other ways for going above and beyond in their jobs. “Folks in these positions understand this is a busy time based on their role in the company,” Hughes said. “As long as you provide them with a similar benefit — paid time off during another nonbusy time in the year — or rotate who’s ‘on call’ from year to year, they are less affected by the decision.” “If it’s not possible for your business to close for additional days during the season, then it’s even more important to offer workers alternative ways of disconnecting and recharging, such as greater scheduling flexibility,” he added. Customer relations are something else to keep in mind. Organizations need to let their clients or customers know in advance that they will not be providing services over a certain period of time. They can’t just rely on an update on their website to get the message across, Stich said. november/december

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FOR YOUR BENEFIT

PERSONALIZATION VERSUS EASE OF USE By Jennifer Benz |

Benefits Beat

recently had coffee with a benefits leader who is implementing a new technology platform for her organization’s employees and spouses. Her scenario is much like that of many of our clients: She works for a big organization with employees all over the United States and in many locations around the world.The company’s benefits and HR programs are complex — and getting more so as it seeks to meet the needs of different employee segments and an increasingly diverse population. Data is used for everything in the organization, and HR is catching up to the rest of the enterprise. Their goal is to provide a better experience for employees, driven by data. Her team is looking at consolidating all benefits information from existing channels (including the intranet, external sites, vendor sites, email newsletters and more) into a personalized portal. But she has a lingering concern: As we look to offer employees a highly personalized experience, do we unintentionally make it harder to access benefits information? This is a critical question. Ease of access and ease of use need to be the highest priority if we are going to get the right people to use their benefits at the right time. It’s also an often-overlooked question when pursuing personalization. And it becomes even more important to consider when you’re using personalization and engagement to drive health strategy. Personalization is among large employers’ top health care initiatives for 2020, according to the National Business Group on Health’s latest survey. Some 26 percent of respondents said they plan to “implement an engagement platform that aggregates point solutions and pushes personalized communications to employees.” That initiative follows employers’ top three strategies, which are largely focused on changing the health care experience: implementing virtual care solutions, a more focused strategy on high-cost claims, and expanding centers of excellence to include additional conditions. So, why are personalized tools getting so much attention? Personalized portals and apps are good at doing several important things. They can serve up data-driven content, send just-in-time notifications, and help identify missed opportunities in a very relevant way. They can also deliver recommendations, which helps create the “Amazon” experience so many plan sponsors are looking for. Amid all this incredible promise, it’s important to remember that these tools can deliver customized content only if and when people use them. By their nature, person-

alized tools have more access barriers, because all that personal information needs to be protected. It is easy to underestimate the amount of effort it takes to get people to engage frequently with even the most cutting-edge and appealing platforms. You must have a compelling reason to check anything out.You must have an even better reason to go back. If you’re asking someone to download an app, authenticate with personal information, keep that app up to date, allow notifications, and go back to it frequently, is that actually easy? Each one of those action steps is a specific user behavior that has to be promoted and encouraged. Think about when you log in to a website and have forgotten your password. Are you always motivated to track it down? Or do you file that for “do later” and move on to something else? We all have a lot of to-do’s and a lot of distractions — especially on our phones. When you’re considering a personalized app or platform, you need to take into account the ease of access and the amount of resources you’ll need to drive ongoing use. Of course, we have clever ways to encourage engagement. And this is where we can really use HR’s unique advantages. First, we can make something so enticing that you can’t resist going there often. The best example of this that I’ve seen recently is a large retailer that puts their employee discount in their benefits engagement app. The only way they can use their discount is to have the app on their phones.You can bet all their employees are using that app. You can also make the app so critical to an individual’s day-to-day job that using the platform becomes a de facto job requirement. Some large companies have built their HR apps to include core functions like scheduling and time tracking. If you have to use the app every day you work, it’s an ideal channel for serving up key benefits and HR reminders. There is tremendous promise with personalization. But that promise can only be fulfilled if people have a good experience with personalized tools and use them frequently. It is our job to use all the tools we have to make that desirable — and most importantly, easy.

AS WE LOOK TO OFFER EMPLOYEES A HIGHLY PERSONALIZED EXPERIENCE, DO WE UNINTENTIONALLY MAKE IT HARDER TO ACCESS BENEFITS INFORMATION?

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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 editor@workforce.com.

w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

Legal 6 States Now Mandate Sexual Harassment Prevention Training Groundwork is laid but ongoing efforts are required for widespread acceptance. By Matthew C. Berger

he #MeToo era has prompted an increasing number of states to mandate sexual harassment prevention training in the workplace. California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine and New York all have such laws in place. Here is a look at the laws in these states, noting which employers are covered, deadlines for completion and other nuances. California mandates training for employers with five or more employees. By January 2020, training must be provided to supervisory and non-supervisory employees within six months of employment or assuming a supervisory position. For seasonal/ temporary employees or those hired to work for less than six months, training is mandated within 30 calendar days of hire or within 100 hours worked, whichever occurs first. Excepted are employees of temporary services employers, which must provide training to seasonal/temporary employees. Supervisors must receive two hours of training, and nonsupervisory employees receive one hour in a classroom setting with an in-person trainer. An interactive method (such as a webinar or e-learning) is also permissible. Employers may develop their own training modules or use the California Department of Fair Employment and Housingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s online training course. Employer-created training must be conducted by a trainer with expertise in the topic. After Jan. 1, 2020, employers must provide training to each employee in California once every two years and maintain training documentation for at least two years. Connecticut mandates training for employers with three or more employees. Those with fewer than three need only train supervisors. Existing employees must receive training by October 2020. Employees hired on or after Oct. 1, 2019, must receive training within six months of hire. Employers with fewer than three employees must train supervisors by October 2020. New supervisors must receive training within six months of assuming a supervisory position.Those hired on or after Oct. 1, 2019, also have six months to receive training. Training must be two hours in a classroom-like setting and allow for questions. The Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities is developing online training, but employers may develop their own curriculum. 18

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Employers must provide updated training every 10 years. Training records should be maintained at least one year and, if a complaint is filed involving someone the employer trained, until that complaint is resolved. Delaware mandates training for employers with 50 or more employees (not including applicants or independent contractors). Supervisory and nonsupervisory employees must receive training by January 1, 2020 or within one year of hire for new employees. No training is mandated for employees with less than six months of continuous employment or those employed by employment agencies. While no minimum length or trainer requirements exist, training must be interactive and occur every two years. There is no recordkeeping requirement, but it is recommended employers retain documentation for two years. In Illinois, beginning Jan. 1, 2020, employers with 15 or more employees, and all restaurant and bar employers (restaurants, coffee shops, cafeterias and sandwich stands that give or sell food to the public, guests or employees, as well as kitchen/catering facilities where food is prepared on premises and served elsewhere) must provide annual sexual harassment prevention training for all employees, regardless of classification. The Illinois Department of Human Rights will offer a free model training program. While employers may use their own november/december

2019

program, it must meet or exceed the minimum standards of the model program. Restaurant and bar employers must include supplemental training material (to be prepared and released by IDHR in both Spanish and English) that addresses sexual harassment issues seen frequently in their industry, includes an explanation of manager liability and responsibility under the law. Illinois does not have requirements for training format, trainers or retention of records. Maine mandates training for employers with 15 or more employees. New employees must receive training within one year of hire, and supervisory and managerial employees must have it within one year of hire or starting a supervisory/managerial role. Maine does not have requirements for format, trainers or frequency. Employers must keep records for at least three years. New York mandates that as of Oct. 9, 2019, all employers must provide training to all employees who work any portion of time in New York, regardless of immigration status: exempt; non-exempt; parttime; seasonal; temporary; interns who work more than 80 hours in a calendar year and have worked at least 90 days; and independent contractors who have performed work for the employer for more than 80 hours in a calendar year and more than 90 days and have not received the training elsewhere. New employees should receive training as soon as possible if they start after the October deadline. New York employers must use the model sexual harassment prevention training program provided by the New York State Division of Human Rights and the New York Department of Labor, or establish a program that equals or exceeds the minimum standards of the program. The training can be in person or online but must be interactive. Employees cannot merely watch a video or read a document without a component of feedback or interaction. The state Division of Human Rights recommends a live trainer, but the trainer need not be certified. New York does not currently certify or license training providers. Employers may use third-party vendors or organizations or existing employees or managers to deliver the annual training. Employers are encouraged to keep records. New York City employers must keep records for three years. While the states identified here have passed laws mandating sexual harassment prevention training in the workplace, employers should contact its counsel for additional information and to conduct trainings that comply with all applicable laws. Matthew C. Berger is an associate in the labor and employment practice of Fox Rothschild LLP.

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Legal Legal Briefings OPTING IN ON PENDING COLLECTIVE ACTION In Cordúa Restaurants Inc., a restaurant was accused of violating the National Labor Relations Act when it fired employees who opted into a Fair Labor Standards Act collective action. Each employee signed an arbitration agreement requiring them to waive their right to “file, participate or proceed” in a class or collective action, but it did not specifically bar employees from opting in to collective actions. After a number of employees began opting into the FLSA suit, the employer issued a revised arbitration agreement requiring employees to also waive their right to opt in to collective actions. The National Labor Relations Board, which has authority over most nongovernmental employers, expanded on the U.S. Supreme Court’s Epic Systems decision to find that the revised arbitration agreements were enforceable. While the NLRB held the employer violated the NLRA by discharging the employees who engaged in the protected activity of filing an FLSA lawsuit, it concluded the employer did not violate the NLRA by conditioning continued employment on the execution of a revised arbitration agreement even after the initiation of the FLSA suit. Cordúa Restaurants Inc., 368 NLRB No. 43 (2019). IMPACT: Under the decision, employers can condition continued employment on the execution of a mandatory arbitration agreement, even when done in response to a pending collective lawsuit.

COURT DRILLS COMPANY OVER BONUS PAY Bristol Excavating entered into an agreement with Talisman Energy. Talisman paid all workers on its drilling sites bonuses for safety, efficiency and completion of work. At some point, Talisman and Bristol agreed that Bristol’s workers were eligible to receive the bonuses; however, this arrangement was never codified. The Labor Department found Bristol should have included the bonuses in workers’ regular rate of pay for purposes of overtime compensation. In rejecting this, the Third Circuit emphasized an employee’s regular rate of pay is between the employer and employee. Then it assessed the employer’s involvement in the bonus program: (1) whether the specific requirements for receiving the payment are known by the employees in advance of their performing relevant work; (2) whether the payment is for a reasonably specific amount; (3) whether the employer’s facilitation of the payment is significantly more than serving as a pass through vehicle. In applying the test, the Third Circuit found there was not enough clarity about the requirements or amounts of the efficiency or completion of work bonuses to require Bristol to include these bonuses in overtime compensation. However, the terms of the safety bonus were sufficiently clear. Bristol employees knew the criteria for earning the bonus and how much they would receive, and Bristol invoiced Talisman for payment of the safety bonuses on behalf of its employees. Bristol should have included the bonuses in its employees’ regular rate of pay. Sec’y United States Dep’t of Labor v. Bristol Excavating Inc., No. 17-3663, 2019 WL 3926937 (3d Cir. Aug. 20, 2019). IMPACT: Employers with leased employees in the Third Circuit (New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania) should audit their compensation practices in light of the new test announced in this case. Rachel Schaller, an attorney at Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, and Allison Czerniak, an associate with Taft, are the authors of Legal Briefings this issue.

w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

Legal

A Pox on Ban the Box Jon Hyman |

The Practical Employer

am a podcast fanatic. It’s the best way to spend time on my daily commute and to fill the speakers of my car stereo, I have an unending list of podcasts to which I subscribe. They run the gamut from music related (“Wheels Off With Rhett Miller”), human interest (“Terrible, Thanks for Asking”), travel (“Bittersweet Moment”), and technology (“Reply All”). But my favorite is “Ear Hustle.” “Ear Hustle” is a podcast about “the daily realities of life inside prison shared by those living it, and stories from the outside, post-incarceration.” One of its recent episodes discussed the realities and difficulties the incarcerated face trying to find employment upon their release from prison. Bottom line? Once an employer finds out you committed a felony and spent time in prison, your employment prospects drop dramatically. And most learn of this information by an applicant checking the “Yes, I’ve been convicted of a felony” box on their employment application. Earlier this year, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an injunction that blocked the EEOC’s guidance on criminal background checks as unlawful and banned its continued implementation or use. That injunction is significant for many reasons, not the least of which is that the EEOC’s guidance opined that employment applications that ask whether an applicant has ever been convicted of a felony violate Title VII on their face.Why? Because blacks and Latinos are incarcerated at a rate that is statistically significantly higher than whites. The movement against employers asking this question on job applications is called “ban the box” — cleverly titled after the box applicants are asked to check if they’ve been convicted of a felony. Nationwide, 35 states and over 150 cities have adopted ban the box laws. So what’s wrong with laws that are intended to give those with felony convictions in their background a chance at getting past the application stage of their employment search? The laws don’t work. As illustrated on “Ear Hustle,” ban the box merely moves the criminal background check from the application stage to the formal background check stage. Employers that are predisposed not to hire felons are not going to hire felons.They will just ding them later in the hiring process — after the expense of a formal criminal background check.These laws aren’t changing employers’ minds or attitudes. They are just giving felons false hope.

Moreover, according to two recent studies, ban the box laws are causing more racial discrimination by improving the hiring prospects for whites, while making them worse for blacks and Latinos. The conclusion drawn by these studies is that when employers can’t see who has a criminal record, they still avoid people they think are likely to have criminal records by resorting to guesswork. As a result, racial discrimination against black and Latino job applicants (especially men) replaces discrimination based on criminal record. In other words, banning the box doesn’t just fail to help those its intended to help, but it also might hurt anyone who happens to be black or Latino. Thus, if ban the box laws either create a more damaging reliance on unconscious racial biases (as these studies suggest) or push the consideration of criminal backgrounds to later in the hiring process, where employers will still use them to disqualify candidates (albeit with higher transaction costs in the hiring process), why do we have them? If ban the box laws aren’t working toward their intended results of opening job opportunities for ex-cons, then what should we do to achieve this laudable goal? I suggest a three-pronged approach: • Job training within the prison system to provide the incarcerated with transferable real-world job skills and a certification they can provide to a prospective employers upon their release. • Tax credits to incentivize businesses to hire these felons. • A privilege from negligent hiring and other liabilities for employers that hire certain felons for certain positions (i.e., We still don’t want sex offenders working in schools, but they might able to work in a manufacturing facility if they are otherwise qualified and sufficiently rehabilitated). We need something to break the cycle of crime, and that something is jobs. Stable employment and steady income will help stem recidivism and keep people from returning to crime as a means of support. If ban the box isn’t working toward this goal, then local, state and federal governments need to abandon ban the box and look for other solutions to this problem.

Once an employer finds out you committed a felony and spent time in prison, your employment prospects drop dramatically.

Workƒorce | w o r k f o r c e . c o m

Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editor@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.

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november/december

2019

Getting Schooled

on Diversity The lack of diversity in leadership positions does not coincide with the pool of MBA graduates. What can organizations do to address this concerning representation gap? BY ANDIE BURJEK

s the 21st century dawned, enrollment in university MBA programs was a virtual rainbow of diversity. In the early 2000s, MBA graduates were comprised of 36.2 percent people of color and 40.7 percent of grads were women, while 39.1 percent were white males. At about the same time, chief executive roles were predominately occupied by males, most of whom were white. More than 89 percent of white men and women occupied the chief executive’s chair as of 2005, with 76 percent of those executives being male. Considering that getting an MBA is generally a key element to a career path leading to the C-suite, the following years should have seen a succession of female and minority executives ascending to leadership roles. That doesn’t appear to be the case, according to the research department of Human Capital Media, Workforce’s parent company, which compiled data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the National Center for Education Statistics annual digest.The data show that diversity in the C-suite has not kept up with MBA graduation patterns of the past two decades. In fact, little appears to have changed since that graduating class of 2000-01. As of 2018, the most recent data available, the numbers have barely budged, with 73.1 percent of chief executives who are men and 89.5 percent who are white. Yet mounting evidence points to diverse leadership as an economic driver. “Delivering Through Diversity,” a 2018 study by consulting firm McKinsey & Co., found that gender-diverse companies are 21

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percent more likely to outperform their non-gender-diverse peers financially, and that the number for ethnic and cultural diversity is 30 percent. A September 2019 report released by global communications company Weber Shandwick meanwhile found that when diversity is closely aligned with the overall business strategy, companies see a positive impact on reputation, employee retention and financial success. Among organizations that align their diversity strategy with their business strategy, 66 percent of diversity leaders said that D&I is an important driver of financial performance, the study found.

WITH RESEARCH SHOWING THAT THE EXECUTIVE PIPELINE HAS BEEN FILLED WITH DIVERSE MBA GRADUATES FOR TWO DECADES, IT BEGS THE QUESTION OF WHERE DID THESE CANDIDATES GO? Even so, government data show that a diversity shortage continues to afflict executive level positions. With research showing that the executive pipeline has been filled with diverse MBA graduates for two decades, it begs the question of where did these candidates go? And if diverse leadership indeed pushes the financial needle, as the evidence shows, then why has corporate America turned its back on this pipeline of ready-made diverse executives? “In the 1960s, we had begun to see change. The doors were finally open to people who had historically Pamela Newkirk been left out,” said Pamela Newkirk, a professor of journalism at New York University whose new book “Diversity, Inc.” takes a deep look into how workplace diversity efforts have done little to bring equality into America’s major industries and institutions. The 1960s specifically saw efforts like affirmative action implemented to make up for the legacy of slavery and the legal discrimination that followed the end of slavery, she said. These efforts were beginning to see positive results but ultimately saw adverse responses from people who challenged affirmative action with claims of reverse discrimination. By the 1970s, diversity numbers were barely seeing change in fields from corporate America to higher education to major media. “Society has not been able to come to terms with ways to address this that don’t trigger the kind of backlash we’ve seen time again,” she said. 24

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Rethinking the Talent Pool Most leaders don’t know what it means to lead diversity, said Courtney Hamilton, managing director at The Miles Group, a management consulting company based in New York. Consciously or not, they may lean toward conformity and then lose the wider talent pool along the way. Building a diverse pipeline for organizational leadership comes down to what companies are doing in hiring and promotions, she said. Many companies try to “reverse engineer” diversity in their teams when a position opens up, she said. While it’s not bad to think about diversity when looking to hire, that is more of a reactive than a proactive strategy. “What people miss in building a diverse pipeline and leading inclusively [is that it] needs to be front and center for organizations every single day. There is no Band-Aid. If you want that pipeline of talent, it needs to be a value and priority,” Hamilton said. Kevin Groves, associate professor of management at Pepperdine University’s Graziadio Business School, said that many organizations fall into the trap of allowing boards or management teams to follow their intuition to pick new members of the leadership team. This intuitive judgment leads to a less diverse talent pool. There is a way around this trap, he said: a standardized review process that is not exclusively based on the board’s judgment. This formalized talent review should be parallel to but separate from the annual performance review. It’s a tough hurdle to overcome, Groves stressed. It comes naturally to employers to believe that they know their talent best and can be reliant on their own judgment for these big decisions. This isn’t to say that the executive team should ignore their judgment completely, but the starting point for the candidate pool should be something standardized and data-driven rather than intuitive. What’s especially helpful in diversity hiring is casting a wide net and “not assuming that when it comes to placement of key executive roles, the only place that can come from is an heir apparent,” Groves said. Deloitte is one organization that has worked to expand its talent pool. While the professional services industry has historically looked toward a small set of specific universities to recruit from, Deloitte is making room for those schools previously Terri Cooper overlooked like state schools and historically black colleges, said Terri Cooper, the firm’s chief inclusion officer. Opening the search to a wider range of people allows for a more diverse group of candidates. But the benefits go beyond that, Cooper said. Looking toward the future of work, candidates with specific skills — rather than candidates with degrees from a specific school — are likely to be the right fit for a role. It’s important to “make sure that your aperture isn’t so spenovember/december

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Diversity in Business Programs

White women

White men

POC women

POC men

Master’s in business

Bachelor’s in business

39% 38% 34%

34% 29% 26% 26% 24% 21% 21% 19%

25% 20% 16% 16% 13% 2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

Start of academic year Note: POC = People of color. Source: National Center for Education Statistics.

cific that it’s preventing the opportunity to bring that greater diversity into the fray,” Cooper said.

Diversifying the C-Suite Rising to a C-suite position is the culmination of many experiences that start much earlier in a person’s career, like the opportunity to rise through the ranks in management positions. Such management roles are not particularly diversity-friendly. BLS data show that 60 percent of those in management positions are men versus 40 percent who are women, and 77.9 percent of those in management are white while the numbers are much smaller for black, Asian and Latinx populations. Moving to positions higher up the corporate ladder, the gap becomes wider, with a chief executive population that is only 26.9 percent women and 14.8 percent people of color. There’s more opportunity to tackle diversity at the management level than the executive level because the population is larger and less competitive. While management positions make up 5.3 percent of the total workforce, chief executives only make up 0.1 percent, according to 2018 BLS data. Studies show that people in underrepresented groups face many Molly Brennan opportunity roadblocks such as fewer mentorship or sponsorship opportunities and fewer opportunities for growth within the organization, said Molly Brennan, founding partner and executive vice president of Boston-based executive search firm Koya Leadership Partners. “This idea that there’s not a lot of qualified candidates [from] underrepresented groups out there is a false one,” she said. “There’s a whole host of diverse, qualified people who are ready, willing and able to take on leadership roles.” Cooper said recruiting diverse talent is not the biggest november/december

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challenge most organizations have. Rather, it’s advancing them within the organization to higher positions. A key component to ensuring that talent advances is that companies must be more intentional about what an inclusive leader is and how the organization can hold leaders accountable to supporting diversity. This doesn’t mean just the most senior level of leadership but anyone who is in charge of managing people. Deloitte relies on six components of an inclusive leader, Cooper said. They include a personal commitment to diversity, creating a work environment that allows people to identify bad behavior and being curious about others’ backgrounds and heritages. The fundamental component here is that leaders make sure individuals can be their most authentic self at work, she said. If people are experiencing bias, it has a negative effect on their productivity, happiness, confidence and well-being, she added. “Ultimately, if you’re experiencing that, of course you’re going to leave the organization.You’re going to look to find somewhere else where you feel you’re accepted for who you are,” she said. There are many ways in which organizations can hold leaders accountable, Cooper said.They can set specific diversity goals for leaders and measure their success reaching those goals.They can also have leaders share specifically what initiatives they have taken to create an inclusive environment and what their recent experiences have been on mentoring or sponsoring people who don’t look, think or sound like them. Further, other people should be able to comment on their leaders, Cooper said. Deloitte holds an expansive talent survey annually, and eight to 10 questions are specifically geared toward how inclusive of a culture they experience. Questions include: Do you feel like you’re being professionally developed? And do you feel as if you belong on your team? DIVERSITY continued on page 52 w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

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Reports of the Death of the Job Board Have Been Greatly Exaggerated. 28

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ff k Fe M ar

Some have tried to bury the traditional job board for several years in favor of new technology.

Put that shovel away … for now.

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he old-school job board model, where employers pay a website to post open positions and hope that qualified candidates will find and apply for them, may not be as flashy or talked about as some of today’s bright, shiny Generation Z gig-workermarketplace products. But since the dawning of the job board as we know it some 30 years ago they appear to remain a viable business model with plenty of life. In 2018, online job advertising companies earned a total of $22 billion, according to Staffing Industry Analysts, an increase of 15 percent. And while many companies offer advanced services such as programmatic job advertising or social media tools, the leader in many markets “is a traditional job board that makes 70 to 80 percent of its revenue from job postings,” said Jeff Dickey-Chasins, principal of the industry consulting firm JobBoardDoctor LLC. That doesn’t mean the industry has been complacent. Especially in markets like the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union, job boards have been exploring new revenue models, new technology and new features. They have little choice, observers say. Recruiting practices are changing, the use of data has become more sophisticated and the demands of job seekers are continually evolving. Also, the very culture of “being online” has changed. It’s now anytime, anywhere and includes multiple channels such as websites, email, social media and chat. That dynamic can work either for or against the job boards, said NelsonHall Principal Research Analyst Nikki Edwards.Those job boards that have mobilized their platform, integrated with social media, and incorporated other channels “will have greater audience reach, and are more likely to survive, than those who do nothing to adapt or who rest on their laurels.” It seems like a far cry from the industry’s early days, when job boards were essentially “the old newspaper classifieds,” said Gerry Crispin, founder of CareerXroads, a recruiting-technology consulting practice. “Certainly, a lot of changes have gone on, but the fact of the matter is job boards are essentially the 21st century extension of classified advertising.” w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

Technology Draws a Circle Initially, online job searching was relatively simple: Candidates searched, clicked on a job and applied to it — all without ever leaving the job board. Because applicant tracking systems were just gaining traction, companies around the turn of the 21st century relied on job boards to attract candidates while job seekers used them to deliver their applications to employers. Then, as ATS technology gained traction and more organizations built their own candidate databases, job boards began serving as gateways to corporate career sites. However,“we’ve come full circle,” said Chad Sowash, a talent acquisition consultant and host of the recruiting-focused “Chad & Cheese Podcast.” Today’s corporate career sites, he said, are often clunky and not particularly attractive. That encourages job boards to work harder to retain traffic. Rather than charge for how long a post remains online, payper-click plays a larger role in their business models.That, too, incites job boards to create simple, effective user experiences. On another level, the evolution of the ATS changed many job boards from hunter-gatherers to sourcers.“There’s always been that component where if a company wants to source candidates instead of advertise jobs, they could go and look through a résumé database,” said Dickey-Chasins. “There are now job boards whose primary focus is sourcing candidates.” As an example, he cites Hired. Founded in 2012, Hired offers seekers free profiles designed to match them with employers looking for a particular set of skills and experiences. It then screens those profiles to match a company in, say, Chicago with developers who’ve known the programming language Ruby for 10 years and previously worked at a video game studio. “They’re essentially doing what recruiters used to do, but they do it at a lower price point and in a more automated fashion,” Dickey-Chasins said. Hired also illustrates how creating the right experience for recruiters is as important as attracting the right candidates. “We have to make sure that we have a seamless experience for the recruiter because they can’t be going to 12 different websites to look at stuff,” Sowash said. “What we need to do is integrate those platforms into whatever your core system is — if it’s an applicant tracking system like iCIMS or a CRM like SmashFly.” Given the sophistication of today’s data-management systems and application programming interfaces, or APIs,“there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to funnel all of these vendors into one core piece of technology,” Sowash said. The term “job board” has become a bit of a misnomer. For instance, Indeed describes itself as an aggregator that compiles jobs from a number of sources. BioSpace, which focuses on the life sciences industry, says it’s “a digital hub for news and careers.” LinkedIn is “an online professional network.” These and other companies offer services designed to streamline their customers’ talent acquisition process, or at least portions of it. Such features include diversity products, job-advertising packages, employer-branding packages and other features that get folded into annual subscriptions, Dickey-Chasins said. LinkedIn Group Product 30

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RATHER THAN CHARGE FOR HOW LONG A POST REMAINS ONLINE, PAY-PER-CLICK PLAYS A LARGER ROLE IN TODAY'S JOB BOARD BUSINESS MODELS. Manager Kevin Chuang said his company is testing a short-form skills assessment to help it uncover more accurate matches.

Rise of the Lifestyle Platforms Among the most fundamental drivers impacting the job boards’ landscape is the ever-changing dynamics of technology products, experts say. When sites like Monster.com first appeared in the mid-1990s, not only did the ATS not exist but the mobile phone was still a large plastic brick and the internet had yet to squash America Online. Today’s world looks a lot different: Smartphones are ubiquitous, Amazon’s Alexa looks up recipes on command and Google’s Nest manages temperatures and monitors for smoke in homes around the world. Because of this, features like convenience, ease of use, speed and mobility count toward a job board’s success more than they ever have before. In particular, improved usability has become critical as candidates — who are essentially consumers — have come to expect simpler, slicker user experiences, Sowash said. Advancing technology also spurred the rise of what Sowash calls “lifestyle platforms” — sites like Google and Facebook that fundamentally changed the way consumers regard online communications. “As soon as we roll over in the morning, we jump into them,” he said. Job boards can’t make the same claim because consumers “aren’t looking for a job every single day of their life.” Job boards, then, must look for ways to leverage both consumer technology and lifestyle platforms. “If you’re a job board today, you have to realize that people aren’t waking up in the morning thinking, ‘I’ve got to go to Indeed or I have to go to whatever your brand name is,’ ” Sowash said. “They’re thinking, ‘I have to go to Google, I have to go to LinkedIn.’ ” As a result, job boards “really have to think much smarter than they ever, ever had to before.” For the industry’s big names — like Indeed, LinkedIn and IT-focused Dice — that’s meant building suites of talent acquisition tools, facilitating messaging between candidates and recruiters and aggressively developing AI-based search mechanisms and data-visualization features. At the same time, a number of startups are at work trying to solve different talent-acquisition pain points of specific industries. november/december

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Not only that, said Chuang, but the process of job searching has become more social and thus more personal. Social networks, for example, allow candidates to connect with workers at prospective employers or ask for referrals. “The job post itself has become one step in the overarching process of the job search,” he said. “Job boards that are still exclusively focused on job postings and a singular product versus a [fuller] solution are the ones that are really struggling right now,” said BioSpace CEO Joshua Goodwin. “They’re not experiencing the uplift that we’re seeing from this labor market because of a very simple business principle: It’s about really understanding your customer’s pain point and their end goals. Our customers are about trying to hire the right candidates and not about trying to post an individual job posting.”

The Beauty of the Niche With that thought in mind, niche job boards like BioSpace often focus their product development efforts to align with the behaviors and habits of their audience. Sites that serve truck drivers or skilled tradespeople tend to lean heavily on mobile-first approaches along with texting and universal application models, Dickey-Chasins said. “They try to do things like text-based assessments, to fit the way these people work,” he explained.“In certain sectors it’s super hard to find people, so you basically do whatever it takes to pull those people out.” Goodwin agrees. “We tell clients that job postings are foundational,” he said. Besides posting open positions and publicizing them, he believes effective job boards provide solutions suites that help companies proactively identify and contact candidates on platforms they might frequent. That’s particularly important in a job market like today’s, where the candidate pool is small and the most desirable workers are often “passive,” open to opportunities but only the right opportunities. Because those candidates don’t, to paraphrase Sowash, wake up and surf to a job board, sites must think of themselves more as what Goodwin calls “recruitment web sites” that offer “a lot more than job postings.” On his site, that “a lot more” is content. BioSpace was founded in the late 1980s as a life-sciences media firm.Today, around 700,000 unique visitors access the site each month, mostly to read domain-related content.“They want to know about what’s happening in the industry.They may not necessarily be looking at jobs,” Goodwin said. However, BioSpace’s specialized information provides employers with a launching pad from which to reach candidates. Successful niche boards, adds John Sumser, principal analyst for HRExaminer, succeed not because of better technology but “because they understand the niche that they’re operating in and they don’t go outside of it.” The moment they attempt to expand beyond their core market,“things fall apart because their expertise is narrow.” Mark Feffer covers HR, analytics and related technologies from his base near Philadelphia. To comment, email editor@workforce.com.

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4 Challenges Facing the Job Boards Not all of the challenges job boards face stem from the worlds of talent acquisition and technology. Business and political developments are in play, as well. Privacy. Privacy will pose a significant challenge, Jeff Dickey-Chasins believes. The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, significantly impacted a number of his clients in Europe, and he anticipates U.S. regulations will be implemented to protect candidate data. Competition. Then there are Goliath-like competitors entering the space from different industries. Google, for example, has been moving aggressively into the market with Google Jobs and Facebook is chasing small-business job postings. However, despite the tech giants’ power and potential, companies like Indeed continue to grow at a healthy clip, Dickey-Chasins notes. Growth. Meanwhile, the growth of programmatic tools have commoditized job postings “and that seems to be accelerating over the past five-plus years,” said Joshua Goodwin, CEO of BioSpace. That trend won’t be helped if the economy slips, though Goodwin believes many job boards are beginning to develop strategies for adding value to both customers and candidates if the labor market loosens up. Adaptation. In terms of technology, keeping up will always be a challenge. Not only must job boards develop new systems, they must adapt those used in other sectors to the specific needs of recruiting. As an example, programmatic advertising tools began moving into the recruiting space around 2013. Such technology intelligently distributes jobs to a number of boards simultaneously, maximizing their reach and effectiveness. Social media management tools can do the same thing among social networks, said Nikki Edwards, principal research analyst at NelsonHall, while email campaign tools track opens in real time so recruiters can follow up with candidates right away. “Job boards need to adapt to the market to compete,” Edwards said. That will involve areas of diversification, collaboration or specialization. “But whatever channel is used to hire talent, there is no panacea,” she said. Feedback on the success of eagerly anticipated services like LinkedIn Jobs, Google for Jobs and Facebook has been mixed. — Mark Feffer

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Introducing 2019’s

Optimas Award Winners

Capping a

Distinguished Decade

From high-tech VR to a low-tech poster program, HR ends the ‘teens’ with a series of noteworthy initiatives.

et’s leave the 2010s with a bang. Now in its 29th year, the Workforce Optimas Awards celebrate HR’s success at solving some of the biggest business challenges of our time. Each year, the Optimas Awards are given by Workforce to recognize human resources and workforce management initiatives that achieve business results for the organization. Clemson University’s talent acquisition team blended high-tech and recruiting by using virtual reality alongside its campaign to build a national pool of candidates.The Panda Restaurant Group Inc. sought to strengthen its leadership pipeline through a new training program that caters to the different ways in which employees learn. The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, our Gold winner for Partnership, worked with the Ohio Board of Education in a recruiting and mentoring program with a noble goal: making high school students workplace-ready. Not only does this aid young people looking for real-world experience, but it also aids the state in shaping young professionals who are well prepared when they enter the workforce. After winning two awards in Managing Change and Vision in 2018 and one award for Recruiting in 2016, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has finally brought home the General Excellence award for its Student Poster Symposium. The fierce competition for STEM talent meant that the national security laboratory is constantly looking for new ways to provide opportunities for and create relationships with high-level tech talent.This past year the organization took its annual student symposium to the next level. Congratulations to all our 2019 Optimas Award winners! — Andie Burjek

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xxxxx

Science Fair

With Flair

BY ANDIE BURJEK

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Lawrence Livermore’s Student Poster Symposium is more than just an internship exercise. It’s an Optimas Award-winning workout in training future scientists.

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PHOTOS BY IAN CURCIO

From left, Jan Patrick Lehr, Elizbeth Grace, Christopher Lam, Michael Wadas, Susan Lowder, Sam Iaquinta, Trevor Pollack and Courtney Quinn. Lowder oversees the student hiring program and the interns participated in Lawrence Livermore's Student Poster Symposium.

2019

xxxxxx

ach year during Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Student Poster Symposium, interns make posters representing the work they’ve accomplished during their tenure at the Bay Area federal research facility. The sheer number of 2019’s interns, however, took the annual event to an entirely new level. Compared to 278 students who presented their work last year, 2019 boasted 382 students presenting work in STEM topics such as global security, computing, engineering and other related topics. This year the symposium took place in three

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sessions over two days in August followed by the awards ceremony. The event is the culmination of a three-month project that encompasses much of the organization while partnering Lawrence Livermore with regional schools. It also bolsters the lab’s future workforce. For excelling in at least six out of 10 Optimas categories, Lawrence Livermore National Labora-

w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

General Excellence

Susan Lowder, right, with Elizabeth Grace, a fourth-year graduate student at Georgia Institute of Technology majoring in physics, and her poster submission. Grace's research focus is in ultrafast optics and digital holography, and laser-plasma interactions.

tory is the 2019 Optimas Award winner for General Excellence. Its efforts to enhance its internship program and improve its hiring pipeline through a comprehensive and inclusive internship program showed excellence in Corporate Citizenship, Innovation, Managing Change, Partnership, Recruiting, Training and Vision and place it among this elite group of organizations. Susan Lowder, scholars and visiting scientists group lead at Lawrence Livermore, coordinates the event so that everyone on her team and employees in other departments know their roles and responsibilities to ensure that everything gets organized for the symposium. “We didn’t know if we’d have enough space for everyone, but we managed to get them in. Next year we’re probably going to have to do four sessions. It just keeps growing,” said Lowder, who has been involved with the event for a decade and oversees the student hiring program at Lawrence Livermore along with her staff of nine. In addition, 250 volunteers also help make the symposium run smoothly.

A Long-Term View on the Hiring Pipeline The program enhances Lawrence Livermore’s hiring pipeline, said Lisa Hsu, operations manager at Lawrence Livermore, in the organization’s award application. “To ensure we recruit a talented workforce on behalf of national security, the lab aims to attract strong talent early on in a person’s career,” she said. 36

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For the Student Poster Symposium, interns — typically undergrads or graduate students — make posters and present the project they’ve been working on for the threemonth internship, according to Lowder. Students mostly intern in the summer but may also in the fall or spring. Mentors assign projects to students and help them finish on time, and finding interested mentors is an organizationwide process. Employees who work in any one of Lawrence Livermore’s six departments — physical and life sciences, global security, weapons and complex integration, National Ignition Facility and photon science, computing, and engineering — will put up their own job posting, go through résumés and find a student to mentor. “The work [students] do is sometimes work we want to do, but for some reason we haven’t been able to. And it’s important work,” Lowder said. “They get assigned this project, and many times something they might create we later use.They’re doing things that are very noteworthy.” Mentors aren’t the only ones who help students with their projects. After students complete the work, they must go through a “review and release process” — an efficient and customer-friendly review process which the information management team provides to manage, protect and disseminate the Laboratory’s valuable information before it is released to the intended audience, Lowder said. Experts within the organization who know the ins and outs of the process offer guidance to students, helping them learn this valuable skill for their chosen field. november/december

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General Excellence Further, a team with doctorates who are experts on the presentation of technical posters teach students how to create and present their posters. The program helps Lawrence Livermore develop its workforce, Lowder said. At the end of summer, departments can look at graduates with bachelor’s or master’s degrees as potential candidates. This can be helpful for competitive positions, like those in the computing or engineering, Lowder added. With a degree in computer science, for example, candidates are employable and ready to work with a bachelor’s degree. “Many interns, once they come here, they want to stay,” Lowder said.

“MANY TIMES SOMETHING THEY MIGHT CREATE WE LATER USE. THEY’RE DOING THINGS THAT ARE VERY NOTEWORTHY.”

— SUSAN LOWDER, SCHOLARS AND VISITING SCIENTISTS GROUP LEAD, LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABORATORY

Neurodiversity in the STEM Pipeline

versity efforts, Lowder said. Lawrence Livermore has created a committee called The Abilities Champions, which is vital in finding mentors who are interested in mentoring neurodiverse students. The people in this committee have a passion for this diversity initiative, Lowder said. They have connections with people in various departments and use their strengths to network and find employees who have the competencies to take on a mentee with autism spectrum disorder or who has a different way of thinking. It’s amazing how many Lawrence Livermore employees are willing to help, Lowder said. For example, two neurodiverse students worked in the weapons integration complex this summer with engaged mentors, she said. The Abilities Champions also found a source that can help fund neurodiverse students’ internships for a period of two to three months through an organization called the Regional Center of the East Bay, a nonprofit that works in partnership with individuals and agencies to coordinate services and support systems for people with developmental disabilities. This year, Lawrence Livermore found 20 neurodiverse students through this program, Lowder said. Looking at this population, many people with autism spectrum disorder are unemployed or not employed to their full capacity, she added. But their differences are Left (back): Sam Iaquinta (arm of chair), Christopher Lam, Courtney Quinn, Elizabeth workable, and other companies like Grace and Susan Lowder. Front: Michael Wadas, Jan Patrick Lehr and Trevor Pollack. EY, SAP and Microsoft are recognizfor creating the iPad app that judges still use to evaluate ing this, as well. student posters at the symposium. The app calculates who “We just have to find ways to understand each other. It’s the symposium winners will be based on the judges’ scores. a joint partnership. They adapt and we adapt, and then we Previously, scores were recorded on paper and judges had have a wonderful partnership,” Lowder said. to calculate winners manually. GENERAL EXCELLENCE continued on page 52 Since then, the organization has expanded its neurodiDiversity and inclusion is one key factor in the success of this program, and neurodiversity — the acceptance of people with neurological differences such as autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, ADHD and Tourette syndrome — has been a strong area of focus for the past several years, Lowder said. Lawrence Livermore partnered with the Orion Academy, a prep school for students with neurocognitive disabilities such as learning disorders and Asberger syndrome, four years ago.That’s how it came to hire an intern named Sam, who is responsible along with his mentor Matt Toomey

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Benefits GOLD

O.C. Tanner Employee Benefits Package

mployers don’t need to choose between strong traditional benefits like health care and more innovative perks. At O.C.Tanner, the nontraditional perks are just as important as the traditional. Company leadership asks employees directly what they needed to be successful, both at work and at home.The organization’s benefits package reflects this mission to offer more thoughtful benefits offerings that could “genuinely improve employee well-being,” spokesman Kameron Baetge stated in the Optimas Award application. These offerings include pet insurance, tuition reimbursement and adoption benefits. The company supports health through a variety of means, including hosting onsite dental and mammogram services, sponsoring health fairs and hosting monthly lunch and learns geared toward physical, mental, emotional and financial well-being. O.C.Tanner has also partnered with organizations like One Refugee and The Refugee Education Initiative to further their decades-long priority of employing refugees and supporting their growth in the workplace. Further, the organization improved its paid parental leave policy in 2017. While new parents used to get five days of paid time off, now new mothers get six weeks and new fathers get two weeks. This new pol-

icy has received positive feedback from both current employees and helped elevate O.C. Tanner’s recruiting efforts, Baetge said. O.C.Tanner, as an employee recognition company that is headquartered near Utah’s tech hub known as the Silicon Slopes, finds it especially necessary to attract and keep good talent. A competitive benefits package and a culture that supports employee well-being helps. Many organizations have relied on perks like snacks in the common area and in-office pool tables to stand out, Baetge said, but O.C.Tanner wanted to go a step further with thoughtful nontraditional benefits that genuinely impact employee well-being. “O.C. Tanner has strived to provide benefits and amenities that help employees focus on work while they’re at work, as well as be able to enjoy their time at home without worrying about or putting off tasks such as routine medical checkups and financially preparing for their future,” Baetge said. For its ongoing work to work to inspect and improve its employee benefits package, O.C. Tanner is the 2019 Optimas Award Gold winner for Benefits. — Andie Burjek

SILVER

HVFCU Wellness Programs

inancial cooperative HVFCU has earned the designation as an “Employer of Choice” in New York’s Hudson Valley, and its wellness initiative has helped to earn that title. HVFCU, with about 900 employees, is one of the Hudson Valley’s largest employers and part of its strategy to design its wellness program was to get employee feedback on what they wanted to see. The organization sees the program as a key differentiator from other financial institutions and employers. A committee of employee representatives from all locations administers the wellness program and works on staying on top of industry trends, continually enhancing the program to support employees’ needs and wants. In 2018, HVFCU paid over $16,000 in gym reimbursements and $1,500 in preventative care incentives.

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Meanwhile, those who have participated in the Weight Watchers at Work program have lost over 400 pounds. For a wellness program that stands out, HVFCU is the 2019 Optimas Award Silver winner for Benefits. — Andie Burjek BRONZE

Cumberland (Wisconsin) School District

or its success in partnering with a new health insurance plan that helped reduce health care costs by $500,000, the Cumberland (Wisconsin) School District is the 2019 Optimas Award Bronze winner for Benefits.

— Andie Burjek november/december

2019

Business Impact GOLD

Mercer Consulting (India) Pvt Ltd Make in India

fter doubling its customer base following an acquisition, Mercer Consulting needed to adjust its workforce to accommodate the brisk expansion. Rather than consider customer-service bots or hire new staff by the dozens, Mercer saw the solution in its existing talent pool.

“MAKE IN INDIA TOTALLY ALIGNS ITSELF WITH WHERE WE WANT TO BE GLOBALLY. THE PHILOSOPHY AND STRATEGY BEHIND THE PROGRAM BREAKS THE SILOS THAT WE HAVE BEEN WORKING IN.”

SHANE KELLY, TRANSFORMATION MANAGER The Make in India program was designed to create a cross-location operating model between Mercer and its partner of 13 years, Global Operations Shared Services ANZ.The partnership emboldened Mercer in creating the strategy for Make in India.The program was an answer to challenges faced by Mercer such as inadequate workforce, depleting support structure and process in-

efficiencies in its business. By creating a multiskilled and engaged team, Mercer was able to save over $3 million in one year. Mercer and Global Operations Shared Services ANZ have worked together on more than 50 projects, and according to the Optimas Award application, Make in India has been their most ambitious and transformational. By cross-skilling, upskilling and reskilling its current employees, Mercer was able to transition 120 positions to the India office. Boundaries between roles evaporated as Mercer shifted focus to create a task force equipped to find solutions for whatever problems they may face. Digital fluency, rather than literacy, was also one of the key strengths Mercer wanted to instill in its staff in India. Creating actual consultants instead of administrators was key for ensuring dexterous personnel. “Make in India totally aligns itself with where we want to see ourselves globally. The philosophy and strategy behind the program breaks the silos that we have been working in,” said Transformation Manager Shane Kelly. “It outlines setting up seamless streams of work to ensure minimum handoffs, oriented toward innovation to achieve best possible outcomes.” For its efforts to use its Make in India initiative to invest in their employees through multiple channels of culture and skill, Mercer Consulting is the 2019 Optimas Award Gold winner for Business Impact. — Kerry Snider

SILVER

Turner Bold Hiring

hrough online seminars, hiring managers and leaders at Turner are able to not only build a pool of talent from varied backgrounds but also create an inclusive culture so that talent is motivated to stay. The Bold Hiring initiative began in 2017 and is expected to expand to parent company WarnerMedia during company restructuring. “If Turner is to compete with both traditional and nontraditional competitors, it’s important that every-

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2019

one involved in talent selection understand key moments of choice where we have the opportunity to challenge assumptions and think about candidates in different ways,” Turner stated in its application. For its efforts to use its Bold Hiring initiative to optimize a workforce based on celebrating diversity rather than the status quo,Turner is the 2019 Optimas Award Silver winner for Business Impact. — Kerry Snider w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

Corporate Citizenship GOLD

Ultimate Software UltiPro Giving

ltimate Software is a cloud-based human capital management and employee experience solutions provider. Its human capital management suite, UltiPro, delivers a variety of services including human resources, payroll, time reporting, talent recruitment, surveys and other HR solutions. “Since we founded Ultimate Software, our mission has been to care for all people beginning with our employees, continuing to our customers and extending into our communities,” said Vivian Maza, chief culture officer at Weston, Florida-based Ultimate Software. The company’s UltiPro Giving initiative is an internal application that’s been available to Ultimate Software’s 5,200 employees.That program now will be offered free to all of Ultimate Software’s North American customers. UltiPro Giving facilitates voluntary employee donations to company-sponsored causes by automatically deducting the donation amount from employees’ paycheck. “Throughout our 29-year history, we’ve been extremely fortunate to be able to give and serve others across our communities. And now with UltiPro Giving, we can pay it forward by helping our customers and their employees make a meaningful difference on a global scale,” Maza said. The initiative expands upon the Ultimate Software’s “People First” founding philosophy, and in 2018 Ultimate Software utilized UltiPro Giving to raise $1.27

million for causes and charities such as the Make-aWish Foundation, the American Red Cross, the Los Angeles Fire Department, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Campaign and other charitable causes. UltiPro Giving also enables employees to come together to support co-workers experiencing sudden or unforeseen hardships or tragedies. In the past this has included raising $68,000 in honor and memory of a co-worker and all employees affected by illness requiring hospice care; and donating $60,090 to the University of Miami’s Health Systems Neurological Department in support of a colleague diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Integrating UltiPro as part of the overall employee experience has helped Ultimate Software maintain a 94 percent retention rate and a 96 percent customer retention rate. For its efforts in charitable giving and now extending the program free to its customers, Ultimate Software is the 2019 Optimas Award Gold winner for Corporate Citizenship. — Francesca Mathewes

SILVER

Tata Consultancy Services Ignite My Future in School

ata Consultancy Services is an international IT services company that understands the value of education in STEM subjects. The implementation of its Ignite My Future in School initiative has served as a proponent of STEM education since September 2017 and uses a multilayered engagement model to support students, teachers, parents, administrators and schools, emphasizing students from marginalized groups and under-resourced school districts. The initiative provides in-person teacher professional development, and ensures that the content provided is aligned to Next Generation Science Standards, Common Core State Standards Initiative and other frameworks so that the ed-

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ucators can easily integrate it into their lesson plans. There also is a free open-source platform, ignitemyfutureinschool.org, that provides yearround support through knowledge-sharing sessions, webinars and access to self-paced learning modules. Because of its commitment to educational causes such as Ignite My Future in School, Tata Consultancy Services is the 2019 Optimas Award Silver winner for Corporate Citizenship. — Francesca Mathewes november/december

2019

Global Outlook GOLD

Valmont Industries Inc. New Employee Onboarding

almont Industries Inc. knows the weight of a first impression. Rather than a dry, daylong PowerPoint presentation, the Omaha, Nebraska-based manufacturer of infrastructure and irrigation equipment created a new-employee orientation program from the ground up for every individual role in the multinational company. Training courses for new employees were designed to be easily translatable so employees at international sites could hear important safety information in their native language, since Valmont manufactures products in over 80 different facilities spread across six continents and does business in over 23 different countries. Rather than have a manufacturer in Vietnam watch American executives in an office setting, each work site has its own specific videos so workers can see themselves in their own workplace. Managers also took on a more significant role in training. Tracking new hires’ progress with online learning modules gave managers a hands-on role in shaping their team. Holding managers accountable was also a new facet within the updated curriculum, creating a consistent training experience from employee to employee. “With this new program, we give people a view of what you’re a part of, to be part of something bigger

than yourself, how your little piece fits in the organization,” said Kendra Davis,Valmont’s e-learning instructional designer. “It makes you want to stick with that organization because you see how you’re making a difference.” While the importance of safety was fundamental teaching in previous training seminars, company culture previously was more of an afterthought.Valmont realized if they wanted a workforce to share their commitment to continuous learning, methods of learning would have to change. A program comprised of both online and face-toface lessons that tailors to every employee’s role function ensured that different types of learners could retain the knowledge necessary for getting their own job done. Going forward, Valmont looks to expand this program in Chinese, Danish, French, German, Portuguese, and Russian. For its efforts to use its New Employee Onboarding initiative to make orientation more engaging and universal for new hires,Valmont Industries Inc. is the 2019 Optimas Award Gold winner for Global Outlook. — Kerry Snider

SILVER

Turner One World One Team

hile the media landscape transitions swiftly, the ability to quickly adapt is vital. That’s why Turner decided to focus on its One World One Team initiative, which had a global reach that eliminated jobs in some regions and created jobs in others. Global implementation of six significant organizational transformations at the same time included the creation of 40-plus positions in Argentina from 2017 to 2019 while several positions were eliminated in APAC and EMEA regions. With developments in leadership, training and communication, the One World One Team strategy saved 10 percent of costs from 2017 to 2018. “Turner has focused on maximizing efficiencies and reducing operating costs to enable innovation and investment,” Turner stated on its Optimas Award application. “By streamlining accounting functions, the organization can create expense efficiencies that will allow us to invest in content creation and innovation.” november/december

2019

For its efforts to use its One World One Team initiative to build a solid foundation to fit its expansive global organization, Turner is the 2019 Optimas Award Silver winner for Global Outlook. — Kerry Snider BRONZE

Philanthropy U

or its efforts to expand accessibility for educational courses in nonprofit management and utilizing technology to extend training opportunities globally, Philanthropy U is the 2019 Optimas Award Bronze Winner for Global Outlook.

— Kerry Snider w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

Innovation GOLD

Teachers College, Columbia University From No Code to Low Code App Development

eachers College at Columbia University is a graduate school of education, health and psychology in New York City and has served as the faculty and Department of Education of Columbia University since its affiliation in 1898. It functions on the founding idea that education alone cannot correct society’s problems. Teachers College seeks to maximize the opportunities of all people while focusing specifically on supporting under-resourced communities with physical and nutritional health, education, special education, conflict resolution and spirituality through its curriculum. The No Code to Low Code app development initiative brought app design to noncoding professionals and entry-level talent about to enter the workforce in various industries.The initiative explores how noncoders can design apps for web or mobile health apps.With the growing need of businesses, and various industries including health, to meet their clients and patients where they are at — on their mobile phones — there is a dearth of coders. Offering subject-matter experts the opportunity to de-

velop their app ideas with no code and low code will not only empower these experts but also help combat the lack of coders, reduce cost and offer faster app deployment, according to the Teachers College Optimas Award application. The overarching goal was to provide future health workers with a better understanding of how to apply learning theories in a practical manner accompanied by design strategies used for mHealth via mobile phones. “All of this was in pursuit of maximizing mobile health learning and for promoting technological skill development in their work and life in the mobile era, utilizing technology for the benefit of staff and people as patients,” said Dominic Mentor, director at Teachers College. For its work in technological advancement and innovation through the use of the From No Code to Low Code initiative in the mobile health field, Teachers College of Columbia University is the 2019 Optimas Award Gold winner for Innovation. — Francesca Mathewes

SILVER

Riverside Healthcare Focused Provider Rounding

iverside Healthcare is a health care system serving the needs of individuals and communities in central Illinois. As part of the Riverside Healthcare system, Riverside Medical Center — a 312-bed hospital — provides a full scope of inpatient and outpatient care and is a nationally recognized Level II trauma hospital focusing on heart care, cancer care, neurosurgery and orthopedics. Studies have shown that long-term, high-touch care in the health care profession can ultimately result in provider burnout if not sufficiently identified, addressed and managed. In an effort to effectively affect provider burnout through a more preventative approach, the Riverside Healthcare Well In Mind Employee Support Program has implemented the Focused Provider Rounding initiative to complement the current infrastructure of well-being programs. This workforce management initiative provides the health care organization’s doctors and advanced-care providers with the knowledge, skills and resources necessary to

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address the signs of provider burnout, improving the working experience of the entire staff. For the Focused Provider Rounding initiative, Riverside Healthcare is the 2019 Optimas Award Silver winner for Innovation. — Francesca Mathewes BRONZE

DailyPay

or its work through The DailyPay Benefit initiative, DailyPay is the 2019 Optimas Award Bronze winner for Innovation.

— Francesca Mathewes november/december

2019

Managing Change GOLD

LaSalle Network Training & Development Program

xpanding the workforce can be daunting, especially when hiring en masse, but LaSalle Network saw the challenge as an opportunity. LaSalle Network has hired 200 new employees in the past two years, with 48 current staff members promoted from within. But without a formal training and development program in place, company leaders were seeing some of their new hires resign within the first three months. They felt ill-equipped to do their job and were unhappy as a result. In order to ensure they were hiring the right people and equipping them for a successful first few weeks and months, they invested time, money and resources into revamping their new-hire onboarding and training program to better train and retain new hires. That meant hiring a head of training and three trainers as well as working closely with executive leaders to craft a program that was impactful and engaging. When revamping its initial training program to accommodate their recent hires, Chicago-based LaSalle Network decided to pull out all the stops with ongoing training and an accreditation program for all employees. The team of trainers helped ensure that the company’s core values were understood and implemented through every step of the orientation or accreditation process. The new onboarding system isn’t the only tool being used to maintain the company’s 91 percent overall employee engagement rate.

Alongside the two-week intensive new-hire onboarding system, the training team also implemented specific programs in mentoring, coaching and supervisor development. “We’ve found when we outsource these core functions, they aren’t executed at a level that we believe they can be, and the level of service isn’t what we expect,” said Sirmara J. Campbell, chief human resources officer at LaSalle Network. “So we made the decision and the investment to hire and develop a training team. We believe in promoting from within and creating career paths for our employees who show they have the work ethic and commitment to the company. Our training team is no exception.” One of the skills emphasized in LaSalle Network’s training and development program is communication. To develop everybody’s speaking skills, every morning employees share with their team members their priorities for the day. For its efforts to use its training and development program to provide their workforce with continuous learning opportunities, LaSalle Network is the 2019 Optimas Award Gold winner for Managing Change. — Kerry Snider

SILVER

Tata Consultancy Services iBelong

aced with low attrition rates while trying to expand its workforce, Tata Consultancy Services needed a new onboarding program that would encourage talent to stay. The iBelong initiative set out to thoroughly welcome new employees while training them, even when working remotely. The online program not only allows for learning company policies, but also creates opportunities for building a network with both customers and fellow employees. “With the growing number of lateral hires comes the challenge of having them ‘feel’ the same as someone who has always been a TCSer. ... With this

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initiative the new hires associate and identify with TCS although they have to work at customer locations,” TCS stated in its Optimas Award nomination application. For its efforts to use its iBelong initiative as a means of integrating new employees to their company culture, Tata Consultancy Services is the 2019 Optimas Award Silver winner for Managing Change. — Kerry Snider w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

Partnership GOLD

Columbus Zoo and Aquarium Edge Program

he Columbus Zoo and Aquarium is a nonprofit conservation organization based in Columbus, Ohio. It aims to lead and inspire in connecting people and wildlife. Its facilities include a zoo, water park, safari park and golf course, employing about 2,000 people each year. Its Edge Program initiative partners with the Ohio Department of Education and the governor’s office to recruit high school students to work at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium.

“THE COLUMBUS ZOO AND AQUARIUM IS VERY PROUD OF THE OF THE PARTNERSHIP WITH THE OHIO BOARD OF EDUCATION.” CARMAN WIRTZ, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES

“The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium is very proud of the partnership with the Ohio Board of Education and being one of the pioneer employers to assist with this very important initiative.We are delighted to offer Ohio high school students an opportunity to develop job readiness skills,” said Carman Wirtz, senior vice president of human resources.

The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium does this by specifically filling a mentorship requirement in the Readiness Seal, a formal designation that high school students can earn on their diploma by demonstrating the professional skills that are required for success in the workplace. The Edge Program sets up supervisors with students that work together every day, and are responsible for providing feedback on a variety of readiness skills. Throughout their employment with the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, students in the Edge Program will receive feedback and at the completion of 300 hours of work, have official forms signed and submitted to their high school. The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium seeks to be not only a partner in fulfilling requirements for the Readiness Seal, but active partners in developing the skills and eventually the careers of young people in the state of Ohio. For its partnership with the Ohio Board of Education and commitment to educational and community development, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium is the 2019 Optimas Award Gold winner for Partnership. — Francesca Mathewes

SILVER

DPI Specialty Foods DPI Specialty Foods Journey

PI Specialty Foods is a specialty food distributor, supplying perishable and non-perishable food products across five continents in varying temperature ranges. DPI also provides sales and other services to food providers, retailers and independent operators across the United States. Through its partnership with Ceridian’s Dayforce human capital management system, DPI was able to achieve higher levels of consistency, transparency and reliability from recruitment through onboarding and retention. This partnership has streamlined numerous DPI Specialty Foods’ pro-

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cesses, particularly onboarding, as well as collecting data-driven insights and providing more visibility to employees to create a more connected, engaged and satisfied workforce. For this partnership, DPI Specialty Foods is the 2019 Optimas Award Silver winner for Partnership. — Francesca Mathewes november/december

2019

Recruiting GOLD

Clemson University – Human Resources (Talent Acquisition) Picture Yourself Here

s the Clemson University employee family continued to grow, the human resources department realized a new recruitment initiative was needed to reach a wider spectrum of candidates and promote the unique aspects of working at the South Carolina university.Thus, the Picture Yourself Here campaign was developed. The campaign bridges the gap between hiring managers and candidates while broadening recruitment from regional to nationwide. It created “a cohesive and consistent way to reach candidates regardless of location, position or hiring department,” according to its award application. The Picture Yourself Here campaign focuses on three tiers of recruitment materials that correspond with the salary levels of the offered position. As the salary increases, prospective employees can expect to receive a benefits booklet, a Tiger Rag (Clemson’s sports mascot is known as The Tiger), a personalized interview itinerary and a Clemson-branded virtual reality viewer. The VR viewer provides the candidate a chance to picture themselves on the university’s campus in the city of Clemson. Josh Brown, director of talent acquisition at Clemson, said, “Oftentimes we aren’t only recruiting just the

SILVER

Interim HealthCare Inc. Project: ROR (Recruit, Onboard, Retain)

n an industry with a high turnover rate, Interim HealthCare set itself apart from the competition with Project: ROR, short for recruit, onboard, and retain. The program strives to not only hire the best candidates but also increase productivity and employee satisfaction among current employees. Project: ROR focuses on three primary components: achievement dashboards, biannual contests, and professional development courses and certifications. The achievement dashboards assist applicants, track patient encounters and workforce utilization. Biannual contests create friendly competition between franchises and encourage an increase in hiring and utilization. In addition, professional development courses and certifications can lead to incremental pay increases and have improved retention and caregiver satisfaction. Through the achievement dashboards, Interim

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2019

candidate but their family as well. Having the capability to do a virtual tour provides a unique experience for everyone involved.” Since the inception of the campaign one year ago, Clemson has received glowing reviews of the program from candidates. One candidate, M. Floyd, stated, “I was so impressed by the materials and the positive impact they had on shaping my perceptions of the university as a candidate, I shared the materials with my then HR team to explore how we might be able to implement a similar program for high-demand and hard-to-fill positions.” Results include a revenue of $33,000 from local companies’ advertisements on the Picture Yourself Here materials. This revenue was distributed back into the budget to support Clemson employees. In addition, the university’s acceptance rate is currently at 98 percent. “This campaign helps to leave candidates with an impression of Clemson that will last for years, and makes Tiger Town the place they want to be,” Brown said. For its efforts on the Picture Yourself Here campaign, Clemson University-Human Resources (Talent Acquisition) is the 2019 Optimas Award Gold winner for Recruiting. — Erin Stanis

HealthCare has five times the number of candidates. Additionally, turnover continues to decline while engagement continues to rise. For its efforts on Project: ROR, Interim HealthCare is the 2019 Optimas Award Silver winner for Recruiting. — Erin Stanis BRONZE

CDW

or CDW’s creation and implementation of its Technology Sales Bootcamp, the technology solutions provider is the 2019 Optimas Award Bronze winner for Recruiting.

— Erin Stanis w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

Training GOLD

Panda Restaurant Group Inc. Store Leadership Training Program

he University of Panda’s Store Leadership Training Program was a solution to a paper-based and outdated training program that did little to prevent the shrinking talent pool and increasing turnover rates of managers for the Panda Restaurant Group. Part of the Rosemead, California-based Panda Restaurant Group Inc.’s corporate university, the University of Panda offers a series of instructor-led, video, e-learning and on-the-job training modules specific to different levels of associates at Panda’s more than 2,200 locations. The program is set up to be a road map for users to determine necessary steps for their individual career paths, with courses focusing on operation skills and leadership training, as well as the opportunity to practice running a store. “We are honored and humbled that Workforce has recognized our University of Panda Store Leadership Training Program and the way it supports our company’s mission to inspire better lives,” said Leonard Yip, chief people officer for Panda Restaurant Group, parent company of Panda Express.“We believe the unique mix of personal and professional development courses that

SILVER

AbbVie People Leader Quick Guides

t AbbVie, the People Leader Quick Guides were developed to help company leaders approach and engage in meaningful conversations with their direct reports. Conceived in October 2017, AbbVie’s talent development team began working on the initiative in April 2018 after identifying a hesitancy and lack of confidence among leadership when it came to having conversations with direct reports because they feared how the report would respond, using feedback from both the employee engagement survey and the people leader index. Data also revealed that employees wanted more transparency from their managers. AbbVie wanted to create an initiative that would allow leaders to experience situations with positive, neutral and negative outcomes before they happen in real life, so they in turn feel more prepared and confident for whatever the outcome. The end result is a series of short videos demonstrating various scenarios — informal and formal feedback, development planning, coaching and career discussion — based on real situations.

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comprise our University of Panda curriculum encourages current and future leaders to see and realize new possibilities for themselves.” This new training program has been in place for one year, and Panda Restaurant Group plans on maintaining it as the organization grows. Changes to the program will be made “on demand” based on feedback from training leaders, trainees and department leaders regarding its ability to meet their learning needs and expectations. So far, Panda Restaurant Group has seen improved retention rates with internal general managers and an increase in employee satisfaction since launching the initiative. For its efforts in strengthening its core L&D program for all its employees, the Panda Restaurant Group is the 2019 Optimas Award Gold winner in Training. — Elizabeth Loutfi

“The People Leader Quick Guides offers insight to them in a private, self-paced manner so they can see themselves in the role and actually doing this work. The workforce management initiative was integral to the solution because it removed the mystery, mystic and myths about how to do these things,” AbbVie stated in its application. For its efforts in leader and manager training, AbbVie is the 2019 Optimas Award Silver winner for Training. — Elizabeth Loutfi BRONZE

Tata Consultancy Services (Emerge)

or its efforts in launching Emerge, a one-day leadership development and networking program for U.S. employees that is part of it’s larger North American initiative, Inspire,Tata Consultancy Services is the 2019 Optimas Award Bronze winner for Training.

— Elizabeth Loutfi november/december

2019

Vision GOLD

Turner Make You Matter Week

edia company Turner’s people development team is responsible for creating iniatives and strategies that put “employees first by creating relevant, easily consumable content,” while also “leveraging existing ‘core’ offerings and evolving offerings as necessary,” according to Ashley Costine, manager of learning culture at Turner, a division of WarnerMedia.

MAKE YOU MATTER WEEK IS A GLOBAL LEARNING, INSPIRATION, WELLNESS AND RECREATONAL EVENT ACROSS ALL TURNER LOCATIONS, WHICH SPAN EUROPE, ASIA AND NORTH AMERICA. One such creation is the Make You Matter Week initiative, which follows significant changes that Turner experienced in 2014, including changes to organizational structure and reduction in its workforce. At the time, the people development team created a new strategy to address the shifting needs of the organiza-

SILVER

Sagicor Group Jamaica Ltd. Sagicor Group Jamaica Pro-Millennial Mentorship Society

agicor Group Jamaica Ltd., a full-service financial institution based in Kingston, Jamaica, offers a wide range of products and services, including pension and insurance services, real estate, banking, investment and other financial solutions. Its Sagicor Group Jamaica Pro-Millennial Mentorship Society initiative aims to focus and customize professional development for the organization’s millennial employees through interactive training and real-world problem solving. This mentorship program embraces a more collaborative, group approach to mentorship, moving away from more

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2019

tion. It was discovered that “employees prioritized the demands of their day-to-day jobs over their own learning and development,” according to Costine. The Turner People Development team sought both internal and external inspiration for their new program, looking to learning and development programs such as Ogilvy’s daylong personal and professional development event, as well as CNN’s “eventizing” of their onair content during the 2016 election. Moving forward with these ideas, they created Make You Matter Week, a global learning, inspiration, wellness and recreational event across all Turner locations, which spans Europe, Asia and North America. During the weeklong event, which is structured like a conference, employees are encouraged to engage with speakers and workshops to expand their personal and professional development while prioritizing and discussing self-care. Each year, Make You Matter Week has a central theme that is relevant to business, including innovation, collaboration and resiliency.The creation and evolution of this event has encouraged employees across all of Turner’s locations to prioritize their personal needs and improve company wellness culture. For the Make You Matter Week initiative and strides in wellness education,Turner is the 2019 Optimas Award Gold winner for Vision. — Francesca Mathewes

traditional oneon-one programs, specifically fostering vibrant intergenerational professional relationships between employees across the four generations represented in Sagicor Group Jamaica Ltd. For its implementation of their Pro-Millennial Mentorship Society initiative, Sagicor Group Jamaica Ltd. is the 2019 Optimas Award Silver winner for Vision. — Francesca Mathewes w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

SECTOR REPORT

F i n a n c i a l We l l n e s s P r o v i d e r s

Financial Wellness Plan Fatigue An always-complicated field has grown more complex in recent years, necessitating greater use of consultancies to help employers find the right plans and options for their workforce. By Patty Kujawa

JC HealthCare launched a brand new financial wellness program for its 32,000 employees in early 2018, only to have the provider pull the product at the end of the year because of low take-up rates. Conceptually, BJC thought the program was going to make a big difference for employees with financial issues, said John Higdon, manager of BJC’s retirement plans. Employees could log into their devices and choose from a host of vendors on one platform and get help with their particular money issue. “We thought it was a worthwhile product,” Higdon said.“But we experienced what a lot of other clients experienced: For whatever reason, people didn’t do anything beyond registering.” Today, the St. Louis-based nonprofit health care company is in the final stages of contracting with a new financial wellness provider. Higdon said the provider marketplace is even more confusing today than it was when they did their first search a couple of years ago. BJC is working with Shortlister, a Park Ridge, Illinois-based consulting firm that helps clients find service providers in the wellness, HR technology and benefits sectors. “If you are trying to figure this out on your own, it doesn’t seem like that is an effective way to narrow the field,” Higdon said. “It does seem like there are more and more organizations offering financial wellness products.” Higdon is right. In its “Workplace Wellness Trends Report,” Shortlister reported that the vendor fatigue HR buyers are experiencing is a result of the rampant run of providers entering the space. Financial wellness is ballooning to include myriad point solutions including student loan services, on-demand pay apps, investment advisory services and budgeting tools. “Today’s HR buyer is inundated with options,” said Tom Ciccotti, Shortlister’s co-founder and executive vice president. “It is a vast and rapidly growing landscape and unfortunately, the responsibility for figuring this out all rests on the employer.” The number of providers is growing because the demand is definitely there, experts agreed. Bank of America’s “Workplace Benefits Report” showed that more than twice as many companies are offering workplace financial wellness solutions today compared to four years ago. Employers are scrambling because workers are feeling more stressed than ever before, said Aaron Harding, managing director at PwC. Despite a strong economy and low unemployment, 59 percent of respondents to PwC’s 2019 “Employee Financial Wellness Survey” said financial issues cause them more stress than any other life stressor combined. Only 40 percent cited financial stress in 2018.

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The fear of a recession and issues like trade wars with China are causing a lot of uncertainty, Harding said. In addition, not as many employees felt the 2017 tax cut benefits as predicted. “When we hear the economy is great, but be on the lookout for a recession or something about the trade war with China, it makes people worry about their financial situation,” he said. PwC’s report added that employee financial stress is rising because many employer programs are still failing at addressing the key financial challenges employees have today.

GROWING PAINS Even though financial wellness has been around for more than a decade, the term is still not well-defined, experts agree. Because of this, many plan sponsors think their 401(k) plan or employee assistance program qualify as financial wellness benefits, Harding said. In addition, financial wellness has no single definition, Harding said. Some providers use the term financial well-being, which is often used as a broad term to include health and wealth. The PwC survey showed that respondents had six definitions for the term.A third said financial wellness meant not being stressed about finances. Only 4 percent said the term meant being able to retire when they wanted. Employers realize that one financial wellness provider isn’t going to address all issues, but it is difficult for employers to get all the niche providers they need on one platform, Ciccotti said. In Shortlister’s survey, 37 percent of respondents believe point solutions will help improve the effectiveness of corporate well-being programs overall. Offering multiple solutions to a workforce can bring a lot of communication and integration issues, so many employers are looking to use hub platforms that are preloaded with a menu of options for the user.While the hub option can cover a lot of issues, it may not cover all that a particular workforce needs, Ciccotti said. “Any time you have an area that is young like this, you are going to see some growing pains,” said BJC’s Higdon.

NEED ADVICE? ASK YOUR POPULATION Ciccotti and Harding agreed that employers should go to the source — their employees — to determine the financial wellness needs of their workforce. From there, employers should create a priority list that pushes the greatest needs of the population to the front lines. november/december

2019

Ciccotti said companies don’t have to address all the needs simultaneously. In fact, offering one benefit, seeing its results, then going back to the list and offering the next one may build a lot of loyalty with a workforce. “Nothing is more of a positive reinforcement to an employee than to see an employer listen and act,” Ciccotti said. Harding added that employers could offer a program more heavily to a division of the population that needs more financial tools compared to other segments. Higdon said his committee did not ask employees about their

financial needs. They thought it would be a waste of time because they didn’t think people would tell the truth about their financial situation. “We are confident that we are not so unique that our population doesn’t suffer from general financial issues,” Higdon said.“A lot of employees are going to face at least one area these vendors can help them with.” Patty Kujawa is a writer in the Milwaukee area. To comment email editor@workforce.com.

HOT LIST Financial Wellness Providers Listed alphabetically; compiled by Yasmeen Qahwash; editor@workforce.com

COMPANY NAME & Web Address BEST MONEY MOVES bestmoneymoves.com

EDUKATE edukate.com

KASHABLE kashable.com

MERCER mercer.com

PRUDENTIAL FINANCIAL prudential.com

YEAR FOUNDED

2016

2013

1937

1875

% OF COMPANY FOCUS ON FINANCIAL WELLNESS SERVICES FOR EMPLOYERS

SERVICES OFFERED

# OF CLIENTS

NOTABLE/KEY CLIENTS

100%

Online financial wellness platform and money coaches.

100

SAP SuccessFactors; Equifax; American Medical Association; California Credit Union

100%

A financial benefits platform with personalized financial benefits and guidance.

68 active employers, with 36,000+ users

NFP; Buffalo Bills; The Breakers Palm Beach; M.C. Dean; Spire Hospitality; ProHealth Care

100%

Socially responsible credit for employees; financial literacy.

150

XPO Logistics;Vera Bradley; HUB International; Benefitfocus; Samsung

WND

Development of integrated strategies to improve workforce financial wellness.

28,500

Would not disclose

100%

Defined contribution, defined benefit and nonqualified deferred compensation.

2,567

Cigna; AutoZone; Boyd Gaming

Note: Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Transamerica did not respond to requests for information. Source: Companies. november/december

2019

w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

SECTOR REPORT

Relocation Providers

Relocation Moving to Benefit Status Internal mobility is the hot new employee engagement tool, giving relocation vendors a chance to reinvent themselves. By Sarah Fister Gale

f you can’t fill critical roles through new hires, why not recruit for them internally? It is a question that many companies are pondering as they consider their global talent gaps, and it is driving changes in the way they think about relocation. Internal mobility is becoming a priority for companies as a tool to attract and keep top talent, said Vince Cordova, principal at Mercer focusing on global mobility. “They are thinking about it more as a way to create an employee value proposition than as a tactical tool to address a resource gap.” The good news: Millennials and Generation Z are eager to move for new opportunities, and they don’t require a lot of money to get them there. Fully 42 percent of millennials say they would “definitely move” for a job, compared to just 18 percent of Gen Xers, according to a recent Indeed survey. “They see relocation as a benefit of employment,” Cordova said. Companies are capitalizing on this trend by making relocation part of their recruiting pitch, promoting opportunities to move as a reason to join. That is changing the role of internal mobility professionals and the vendors they work with. When companies make mobility part of recruiting, vendors have to partner with the recruiting team, and get involved with candidates before they are even employees, Cordova said. “It changes how these vendors interface with the groups facilitating relocations.”

are becoming more aware of the compliance and tax risks these employees create,” Kramer said. Companies have increasingly embraced these business travel models as an alternative to requiring long-term relocations, but when employees cross borders for work they face compliance and immigration issues that may not be getting addressed. The laws aren’t complicated to comply to, but because these employees fly under the radar no one takes ownership of that process, Cordova said. It is an opportunity for vendors to add new value, by becoming a centralized resource to support every kind of relocation for every business unit, he added. “Organizations are supporting more types of mobility than they did in the past, and they need policies that allow everyone to access vendors, and to leverage the right resources.” Kramer agrees.“Flexibility is the word of the day,” she said. Companies realized that relocation packages today have to be fit for purpose and flexible enough to accommodate the specific needs of the employee, the business unit and the project.

OF EMPLOYEES WOULD “DEFINITELY” MOVE IF THEIR COMPANY OFFERED A VOLUNTARY RELOCATION OPTION.

FLYING UNDER THE RADAR

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CUSTOMIZATION AT SCALE

That’s putting pressure on vendors that are accustomed to achieving scale through repeatable processes. “When five people need five different relocation packages, it requires a more nuanced service,” she said. In response, many vendors are developing more sophisticated user portals that give employees access to tools to plan their own moves with minimal human interaction. “It’s a way to build repeatable processes even if every package looks different,” Kramer said. This also appeals to younger workers who like the DIY approach to mobility. Though not every employee will appreciate a totally hands-off approach, said Cindy Madden, director of consulting solutions at Cartus, a global relocation services provider.

OF COMPANIES HAVE INCREASED THE OFFERINGS IN THEIR RELOCATION FOR TOP CANDIDATES OUTSIDE THEIR GEOGRAPHIC AREA.

Companies are also facing increasing pressures to rein in “stealth ex-pats” who don’t fall under the traditional relocation umbrella, said Taryn Kramer, vice president of global consulting for Sirva Worldwide, a global relocation and moving service provider. These include employees who travel to the same location several weeks per month, or live in a different city five days a week. “It’s not a new phenomenon, but organizations

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2019

Last year the industry anticipated seeing more lump sum relocation packages after President Donald Trump passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which eliminated tax exemptions for many aspects of employee relocation programs. But that prediction didn’t pan out. “While some companies did more lump sums for middle management it hasn’t become the norm,” she said. Instead, many companies are trying to rein in costs by combining options, offering partial lump sums with a selection of services or capped moves. “Companies realize that they can’t send their people on assignment without support or they will end up with unhappy employees.”

The best response to all of these trends is to create a centralized mobility office, Kramer suggested. Then partner with vendors who can provide a customizable selection of tools and support for every kind of employee. Whether it’s a junior team member looking for an opportunity to work abroad, a manager who is needed on a project site but doesn’t want to uproot her family, or an executive who’s transferring to a new office indefinitely, they all need resources and support to be successful. Sarah Fister Gale is a writer in Chicago. To comment email editor@workforce.com.

HOT LIST Relocation Service Providers Listed alphabetically; compiled by Yasmeen Qahwash; editors@workforce.com

NUMBER OF CLIENT COMPANIES FOR MOST RECENT FOUR QUARTERS

EMPLOYEE-ASSISTED MOVES IN MOST RECENT FOUR QUARTERS

PERCENTAGE OF CLIENTS THAT ARE FULL-SERVICE RELOCATION CLIENTS

ALTAIR GLOBAL altairglobal.com

160

80,000

91%

CARTUS cartus.com

661

169,574

WND

NUCOMPASS MOBILITY SERVICES INC. nucompass.com

100

7,000

93%

SIRVA WORLDWIDE RELOCATION & MOVING sirva.com

1,936

198,588

WND

COMPANY NAME & WEB ADDRESS

Note: Impact Group declined to participate. Source: Companies. november/december

2019

w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce

GENERAL EXCELLENCE continued from page 37

And the Winner Is ... Just as a lot of work goes into setting up the students for success, the symposium itself requires a lot of organization and collaboration. The scholars team that organizes the event sees involvement from other departments as well, Lowder said. The IT department ensures that judges have enough iPads to input their scores. Someone also needs to make sure the scoring app is updated. Lowder and her team work with the head of each department, who finds up to 35 employees who will be judges from that department — bringing the 2019 judge count to 150 people. Judges take an hour each to evaluate six different projects and even more time to deliberate the winners. “It’s like an orchestra; everyone has their piece,” Lowder said. This year students from all departments did some impressive work, she added. Makayla Arcara, a student from the University of California, Berkeley, with an internship in the global security department, presented her research on “recovery efficiencies of DNA-tagged particles,” Lowder said, adding that the judges were impressed. Previous interns have also created impressive projects, she said. An intern in the environment restoration group created a geographic information systems mapping tool that can be plugged into certain tools to provide locations. A returning environment restoration student created a new look and feel for the system. Meanwhile, a student in the radioactive and hazardous waste management program developed the mobile capabilities for their website. This year, the winners got a little extra recognition for their success. Lawrence Livermore partnered with the nonprofit Livermore Lab Foundation — which is not associated with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory — to help enhance the symposium. The two organizations cobranded T-shirts for the students to wear, and the Livermore Lab Foundation provided the funds to give a monetary reward of $150 to each of the students in the top 10 percent.This year that meant that 38 students received the prize. Whether the students end up employed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,“Our main focus with the poster symposium is to give students practice presenting their work, have them leave with something tangible that they’ve done over the summer, and leave with some experience they can apply in their careers,” Lowder said. For its workplace initiative demonstrating excellence in the Optimas categories of Corporate Citizenship, Innovation, Managing Change, Partnership, Recruiting, Training and Vision, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is the 2019 Optimas Award General Excellence winner. Andie Burjek is a Workforce associate editor. To comment, email editor@workforce.com.

Workƒorce | w o r k f o r c e . c o m

DIVERSITY continued from page 25 Dissecting this talent data allows Deloitte to see aggregate data at a particular client site, for example, and identify the lead partner there.They can help show if this partner is truly creating an inclusive work environment for their employees. Deloitte is careful with this data so that no one can be identified based on their answers, and the information “enables us to determine where we need to focus to move the needle,” Cooper said.

A Partnership Between D&I and Recruiting Focusing on the relationship between the diversity and recruiting teams is key to Deloitte’s strategy, Cooper said. Deloitte spends a lot of time looking at available candidates and also expanding their awareness of diversity beyond gender and race. How is the company making sure that it considers talent from different socioeconomic backgrounds or neurodiverse candidates, for example. What’s critical from the recruiters is that they’re aware of their biases, Cooper said. Her department pushed unconscious bias training for the recruiting team, and there has been positive feedback to this. Chevron also has recruiters participate in bias training, said Lee Jourdan, the energy giant’s chief diversity officer. It’s part of the influence that employee resource groups have had on recruiting. Such groups have been a part of Chevron for 20 years, and they work with hiring teams by helping them communicate with a broader range of candidates and lead interviews.There are 63 chapters in 12 countries, and the groups represented include women, people of different races and ethnicities, people with disabilities and those from indigenous tribes. Through bias training and their relationship with the resource groups, recruiters work on mitigating their biases. Jourdan said they have removed the requirement that a candidate has a specific number of years of experience to get a role.This can exclude people who have not been given the opportunity in the past to gain certain experience, he added. Employee groups have also helped the global company consider different types of diversity per region or country, Jourdan said. For example, there are three major tribes in Nigeria, and people may be marginalized if they are not a part of one of these tribes, he said. Chevron’s diversity efforts there could partly be geared toward this group.

Making Diversity a Business Imperative At executive search firm Koya, which mostly recruits for leadership positions at nonprofits, clients increasingly are expecting and requiring a diverse pool of talent, Brennan said. Their focus on making diversity a priority has seen promising results. Forty percent of its placed candidates are people of color, she said. This number is much higher than the general leadership population. Brennan believes this is because they purposely and consciously set out to make this number high. It’s both what the client and the search firm want. november/december

2019

Aspirational diversity goals help Chevron continually create a more even playing field, Jourdan said. Rather than having specific diversity targets for individuals of underrepresented groups, he believes that aspirational numbers, whether or not they are reached in a given year, help the organization take on certain behaviors and move in a positive direction. One place to look for these aspirational numbers is the demographics of individuals graduating from business school, Jourdan said. “We believe that [diversity targets] drive the wrong behavior. We’re vocal about the fact that we don’t do those,” Jourdan said. Rather, he said that Chevron holds leaders accountable to move toward improving numbers to achieve the aspirational goals. Most importantly, it takes leadership and intention for diversity to work, author Newkirk said. She stressed something that Columbia University President Lee Bollinger said in an interview for her book. There must be a sense of justice, especially given the history of slavery and discrimination in the U.S. “This is also an issue of justice. Without that mindset many diversity initiatives won’t really work,” Newkirk said. Andie Burjek is a Workforce associate editor. To comment, email editor@workforce.com.

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LAST WORD

Rick Bell

A WORKPLACE NIP AND TUCK

recently received a story pitch with the subject line,“Do Baby Boomers Need to Go Under the Knife to Keep Their Edge at Work?” Sure, roll your eyes. Scoff at a pitch with a pandering subject line that cries “Open me!” like a pricey bottle of booze at a five-dollar white elephant holiday gift exchange. Crinkle your nose and sniff a haughty sniff at the thought of someone actually undergoing plastic surgery to keep an edge at work.

TWO MONTHS AGO YOU WERE A HIGHLY RESPECTED SENIOR VP OF PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT. NOW YOU’RE UNEMPLOYED. I don’t think it’s a silly question at all. But you do. Then again you look like an Olympian thanks to that Lagree ultimate strength workout in the corporate fitness center. If Adonis was your co-worker he’d stare slack-jawed at your chiseled body as you passed by in the company cafeteria with your meatless burger, bowl of elderberries and glass of oat milk. Perfect hair, stylish glasses (not that you need them; it’s just accessorizing to make you look smarter), glowing skin (of course you use product, doesn’t everybody?), and the shoes.Yes, it’s all about the shoes. You’re at the top of your game.You crush it daily. Until, well … until you’re getting ready for work one early spring morning and the bubbly yet acerbic TV personality on your go-to morning news program blurts out that your company has been acquired. The deal is just a passing mention following the always informative “Mr. Fix-It” segment but the chill racing down your spine buries a big fat pit in your stomach. Your knees buckle and your cup of freshly brewed raspberry chai tea trembles like a swimming pool in an earthquake. Your company was acquired by an out-of-state competitor. You’re stunned. And you’re angered because you didn’t hear about the multimillion-dollar acquisition from the CEO via a hastily called all-hands teleconference call, or a posting through the corporate intranet. Not even a terse, one-paragraph companywide email announcing the deal. No, it was a giggly morning news show delivering a body blow that radically alters your perfectly coiffed life. It’s been your corporate casa for nearly three decades, which makes sense given that its inviting, folksy motto is “It’s our business to make you feel at home!” 54

Workƒorce | w o r k f o r c e . c o m

Sure you’d bounced from job to job early in your career searching for the right fit. I mean, who hasn’t? And after a quarter-century it’s OK to admit that you’ve toyed with the thought of retiring — not immediately mind you. There’s still a lot left in the tank. Your “home,” however, has other ideas that don’t take into account your distant fantasy of spending part of your golden years mountain biking across the Peruvian Andes. The mentoring of junior executives whom you suspected were already at your pay level despite being half your age has come to mean nothing. The weekends spent hitting near-impossible deadlines, all the sweat equity dripping from that slightly wrinkled brow onto your place of employment — wow, reality sure bites sometimes. Within a month it’s clear your job is in peril. A week after regulators were pleased and stockholders were paid out you also are out … out of a job. Because you know, as the new CEO proudly boasted on your go-to morning news show, “After any acquisition, there is a duplication of efforts, which results in some synergies, and unfortunately for a lot of people today, we’re realizing those synergies. These synergies will ultimately provide a better experience for the consumer.” Well naturally. I mean, synergies. So now you are just another older worker in the job market. Self-doubt creeps in as you realize after your third rejection notice that ageism is a cold, cynical, perpetual workplace cycle that many employers flaunt in their never-ending search for younger, cheaper labor. Where once you dismissed studies that found more than half of full-time workers in their early 50s were at some point forced out of their job and then experienced long-term unemployment or a huge cut in pay for years after, you now see that you are its living embodiment. Two months ago you were a highly respected senior VP of product development. Now you’re unemployed, trips to the gym are infrequent and toast with butter and jam has replaced elderberries. Those kids you mentored, the ones you took under your wing, not to mention out for happy hour? They are the ones interviewing you now. They all look so young and vibrant. You’ll do most anything to get back in the game, because you still have a lot to offer! And, well, a nip here or a shot of botox there is justified to level the playing field. Going under the knife? Given your life’s new realities it’s not so silly after all. I mean, synergies, right? Rick Bell is Workforce’s editorial director. To comment, email editor@workforce.com.

november/december

2019

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