Category: Small Business

Focus on Heat Safety to Manage Rising Temps

Posted on by AllMyHR
 
  • Rising temperatures are making heat exposures more dangerous
  • But there are things you can do to prepare for heat related illness at work
  • Some factors can make the risks worse employee by employee

Temperatures are getting higher every year. Long-lasting heat waves are becoming more and more common. For anyone who doesn’t work somewhere climate controlled, these widespread temperature increases can be dangerous. All of this underscores a need to focus on heat safety.

In 2019, 43 work-related fatalities occurred due to heat exposure, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics. In fact, between 2011 and 2019, BLS reports that 144 workers died from heat exposure in construction, repair, or cleaning. Another 54 workers died while conducting materials handling operations in extreme heat. In 2016, according to Safety+Health magazine, nearly half of all jobs required working outdoors. That’s a lot of people working in hazardous conditions.

Protecting employees from extreme heat is just as important as protecting them from sharp objects or car accidents. It really could save lives. In fact, OSHA states that employers must provide a workplace free of known hazards, and this includes extreme heat.

But the world can’t grind to a halt simply because it’s hot outside. This is especially true in places where it’s always hot outside. So how can you help make sure your employees stay healthy and safe?

COVID-19 put employee safety at the forefront of many businesses’ priorities. Heat safety should be no different. A safe work environment has become more important than ever. A safe workplace gives employees a lot less to worry about. They can instead focus on contributing their best and being productive each day. A focus on heat safety isn’t just about comfort. It’s about giving your employees clearance to feel safe and valued.

Defining Heat-Related Illness

So, what exactly causes a heat-related illness? According to OSHA, in a warm environment the body relies on heat dissipation to cool itself. Normally this happens from sweat evaporating off the surface of the skin. This is especially important for people who have active, strenuous jobs. And as everyone knows, you can accelerate heat dissipation by moving somewhere cool, like to a shady spot.

However, without adequate heat dissipation, internal body temperatures can rise to dangerous levels. Over time this causes thirst, irritability, cramping, rash, or heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Signs of heat stroke include confusion, slurred speech, and unconsciousness. Anyone noticing these symptoms in a fellow employee should call 911.

According to the CDC, heat can also increase the general risk of injury in workers. It can lead to foggy safety glasses or goggles, sweaty palms, and dizziness. Burns can also occur as a result of contact with hot working surfaces.

It’s paramount that employees and managers watch out for each other while on the job. Being able to recognize the signs and symptoms of heat stress is so important. Safety+Health magazine has some tips on how to recognize and treat heat stress in a fellow employee.

Symptoms of Heat Stress:

  • Feeling faint or dizzy
  • Excessive sweating
  • Cool, pale, clammy skin
  • Nausea or vomiting
  • Rapid, weak pulse
  • Muscle cramps

Treatment:

  • Get to a cool, air-conditioned space
  • Drink water if fully conscious
  • Take a cool shower
  • Use a cold compress

Heat stroke symptoms:

  • Throbbing headache
  • No sweating
  • Body temperature above 103° F
  • Red, hot, dry skin
  • Nausea or vomiting
  • Rapid, strong pulse
  • Loss of consciousness

Treatment:

  • Call 911
  • Take immediate action to help cool the worker until help arrives

For more information on other heat-related illnesses, review OSHA’s heat stress guide.

The Official Guidance on Heat Safety

OSHA states that dangerous heat exposure can happen indoors or outdoors and during any season. Millions of U.S. workers are at risk of dangerous heat exposure in their workplace. This affects both outdoor and indoor occupations as well. Outdoor workers are at special risk, including agriculture, construction, mail delivery, oil, and landscaping workers. For indoor workers, there is heightened risk in bakeries, kitchens, mills, fire service, manufacturing, and more.

For example, according to NBC News, U.S. farmworkers are 20 times more likely to die from a heat-related illness than workers overall. Currently, farmworkers labor through an average of 21 unsafe working days when the heat index reaches above 84° F. As temperatures continue to rise, this figure is expected to grow. Therefore, lawmakers are calling on OSHA to enact an enforceable standard to protect workers from the heat. Currently, OSHA only has regulations and recommendations.

But you don’t have to wait for OSHA to act to make your workers safe. Employers can act on their knowledge about the dangers of heat exposure. They have the power to enforce higher standards to protect workers and be aware of the dangers they face.

This isn’t as simple as saying you can’t let people work outside if it’s hot. It means maintaining awareness of the factors that contribute to heat stress. For example, if workers are wearing clothing that holds in body heat and reduce heat dissipation, that’s a risk. Environmental factors like sunlight and humidity can also contribute to it. Artificial heat sources like machinery, ovens, etc. are also a factor. Lastly, location plays a big part too. Are your workers in a confined space with an oven? Are they working outdoors without shade on a paved surface?

Preventative Measures

Whether the heat is natural or artificial, it can be tricky to know when things have arisen to a point of concern. Fortunately, OSHA recommends this device to measure heat stress in any environment.

Prevention and planning are your best friends when thinking about safety. That’s as true for heat stress as it is for any other kind of injury. Workers new to a job or not yet acclimated to hot weather are at heightened risk. They don’t expect the toll the heat can take on their bodies. Nor have they built up a tolerance to it.

In 2012 and 2013, 17 out of 23 workers who died from a heat-related illness were in their first 3 days of work. Eight workers died during their first day on a job.

Acclimating employees to a hot environment matters. Safety+Health reccomends caps on workloads for new employees, or those returning from time away. It’s recommended they do 20 percent of an average day’s work when they return and increase a little each day. Each increment should be no more than 20 percent.

When a heat wave sets in, employers and managers should follow a similar rule. At the start of the wave, have workers perform just 50 percent of their work that first day. Bump it up to 60 the next day, and 80 the next. This allows a workers’ body to build a tolerance to the heat. It will let them get used to performing routine tasks, such as lifting objects, that might be hotter than normal. Managers should not expect their employees to always output at 100 percent in extreme conditions.

Maintaining a Focus on Heat Safety

Although acclimatization is crucial, there are some other ways to prevent heat-related illnesses in your workplace. In 2005, California set a heat standard for outdoor workers. Their standards included the following recommendations for helping to mitigate heat-related illnesses:

  • Having clean, cool water available for workers
  • Offering shaded areas for when temperatures exceed 80° F
  • Ensuring at least a 10-minute rest break every two hours when temperatures reach 95° F
  • Promoting consumption of 4 cups of water per hour
  • Rescheduling hot jobs for cooler hours of the day, such as before sunrise
  • Monitoring workers wearing clothing that does not allow for much heat dissipation

Guidance for Managers

This guidance is simple for managers and team leads to incorporate each day. There are also ways to decrease the chance of heat-related illnesses on the job with engineering controls. According to OSHA, there are a few ways employers can mitigate heat-related illnesses:

  • General ventilation dilutes hot air with cold air and is usually a more cost-effective option. An installed ventilation system can handle entire buildings. A portable exhaust system can be effective in smaller areas.
  • Air cooling systems reduce the temperature of the air by removing heat (and humidity) from the air. These include air conditioning and local air cooling. Local air coolers are more cost effective and can reduce air temperature in specific areas. Some workplaces have a designated “cool room” in a nearby area for recovery from hot jobs. Another way to reduce heat stress is by placing fans in a workspace to cool workers. However, fans are only effective if the air is already cooler than the workers’ skin (less than 95° F).
  • Heat conduction blocking includes insulating hot surfaces that generate heat and changing the surface itself. Simple devices like shields can be used to reduce radiant heat.

Recommendations from OSHA

In addition to improving a worksite, employers should provide PPE to workers to help prevent heat stress. OSHA recommends the following PPE:

  • Reflective clothing can reduce the amount of radiant heat reaching the worker. However reflective clothing only works if it still allows for heat dissipation and sweating. Reflective clothing should be worn as loosely as possible to allow for sweating and evaporation.
  • Auxiliary body cooling ice vests can be heavy, but they can hold up to 72 ice packs. The cooling can last 2 to 4 hours depending on the heat load. They require frequent replacement as the ice melts, but they’re simple to replace and relatively inexpensive. OSHA also states that ice vests allow for maximum mobility and do not encumber the worker.
  • Wetted clothing is another simple and inexpensive personal cooling technique. It’s especially effective when used with reflective clothing and with good air flow and low humidity.
  • Water-cooled garments range from hoods, vests, or “long johns” which allow for partial or complete cooling. This equipment requires a battery-powered pump, a liquid-ice coolant, and a container. It limits the mobility for the wearer so this may make this option better for low-activity jobs.
  • Circulating air is the most highly effective, yet most complicated, personal cooling system. It directs compressed air around the body from a supplied air system. This improves both evaporative and convective cooling. Circulating air, however, is noisy and requires attachment to an air hose for a constant supply of compressed air. This can limit the worker’s mobility. In addition, because the air circulation feels cool, workers may not drink enough water while using this method.

Communicating a Focus on Heat Safety

You should talk about heat-related illness regularly with your teams. This is true of every workplace, but especially so if you have people working outside. OSHA has some tips on discussing heat safety with your employees:

  • Know the hazards of heat stress
  • Recognize predisposing factors, signs, and symptoms
  • Be aware of first aid procedures, and the potential health effects, for heat stroke
  • Understand employee responsibilities in avoiding heat stress
  • Know the dangers of using drugs, including therapeutic drugs, and alcohol in hot working environments
  • Require the use of the correct PPE

Personal Risks to Focus on for Heat Safety

Workers should be conscious of the risk of heat-related illnesses on the job. There are a number of factors that can increase the risk for heat-related illness. OSHA cites these personal risk factors:

  • Obesity
  • Diabetes
  • High blood pressure
  • Heart disease
  • Lower level of physical fitness
  • Use of certain medications such as diuretics and some psychiatric or blood pressure medications. Some medications limit an individual’s ability to sweat, minimizing a key sign of heat stress
  • Alcohol use
  • Use of illicit drugs such as opioids, amphetamines, or cocaine

Employers should recognize that not all workers can tolerate the heat in the same way. Workplaces should focus on making jobs safe for all employees. OSHA recommends workplace medical monitoring programs. These can identify workers who are at an increased risk of heat stress while maintaining their privacy.

Wrapping Up

There are many ways to help increase a focus on heat safety. You can make simple changes during a workday, like more effective PPE. You could also pay closer attention to air cooling in your work environments. Making heat safety top-of-mind for your employees helps them see risks at work and among their coworkers. Keeping your workers safe should be your top priority. Keeping an eye on heat safety will ensure that your employees stay healthy, happy, and productive in the future.

The Advantages of Skill-Based Training

Posted on by AllMyHR

Often, when employers hear about on-the-job training, the training pertains either to general knowledge or to policies and procedures that are unique to the company. Skill-based training is somewhat different — it focuses on how to do something specific and results in a learned skill that can be put to immediate use. Here are some examples of how this training mechanism can be used:

  • Hazard communications
  • Performance management
  • Keeping your cool during a hostile phone conversation
  • Writing concise emails
  • Cybersecurity

This type of training is beneficial for most companies, but since good courses are often, but not always, an investment, HR professionals should focus on where they can maximize value. Two types of employees come to mind as the best candidates: those who want to succeed but are struggling to meet expectations, and top performers who you feel might be a flight risk.

For the strugglers, your clients must first find out what they need to learn to reach their potential. Are they spending way too much time trying to figure out Excel on their own? Are they a new manager that doesn’t know how to coach? Giving these people access to skill-based training could make a huge difference in both their efficiency and happiness—as well as your clients’ bottom line.

The high achievers, on the other hand, should be asked what they want to learn. Likely, they’ve already thought about next steps at your organization and in what new ways they could contribute. Your clients should give them a chance to shine! Their investment in their employees’ futures won’t go unnoticed; employees who receive training are more likely to be engaged and less likely to leave.

Whatever your clients’ training strategy, AllMyHR is here to ensure compliance, reduce risk, and drive engagement. Our extensive course library covers topics from employee onboarding and workplace safety to harassment prevention and cybersecurity. Expand your offerings through a partnership with AllMyHR. Request a consultation today!

A Safer Workplace is Within Your Reach

Posted on by AllMyHR

We all want what’s best for our businesses and employees. That’s why most employers understand the importance of focusing on health and safety. Sure, safety training and resources cost both time and money. But the longer-term savings of mitigating risks are worth it. Safer employers generally have lower insurance costs. They have fewer time loss injuries that can drain productivity. They have fewer lower risk of reputation and morale damage. However, for many small and medium sized businesses, the realities of time and financial costs can make this math more elusive.

But it doesn’t matter what kind of industry you’re in. Ensuring the health and safety of your staff is a core part of every employer’s duty. Every industry, from retail to construction, and every class of worker from office personnel to landscapers, bear risk. Those risks can act like fires. Left unattended, they can spread and cause catastrophic losses. Also, unless you have the right tools, even small fires can weigh down your business over the long term.

Safety Doesn’t Happen by Accident

As with HR, managing workplace safety hazards and complying with safety regulations can be confusing and time consuming. Many managers and owners just don’t have the time to navigate those complex rules all on their own. Nor do they have the budget to spend on stand-alone safety resources and consulting. 

So that leaves small businesses with a few options. They can bite the bullet and pay for expensive resources awkwardly scaled outside their niche. Or, they can cross their fingers and hope nothing bad happens and face the financial, productivity, and human costs of inaction. Fortunately, there is a third option.

With Employee Health and Safety from AllMyHR, you can offer safety training and resources right-sized for your small business. These resources are integrated with HR compliance tools, alongside personalized advice and guidance from HR, legal, and safety experts. 

Employee Health & Safety from AllMyHR includes: 

  • Personalized advice from a certified safety experts on workplace safety standards
  • Access to a library of safety plans and policies to ensure a safe workplace 
  • Training to educate employees about safe work procedures and more, including microlearning training courses, 5-minute toolbox talks and classroom training presentations 
  • Customizable and downloadable safety manual template to help reduce premiums and workplace accidents 

20 Core Safety Topics Include:

  • Accident Investigation & Reporting  
  • Back Safety 
  • Bloodborne Pathogens 
  • COVID-19 
  • Defensive Driving 
  • Distracted Driving  
  • Driver Preparedness 
  • Emergency Preparedness 
  • Ergonomics 
  • Fall Protection 
  • Fire Extinguisher 
  • Fire Safety and Prevention 
  • Hazard Communication 
  • Infectious Disease (e.g., COVID-19)  
  • Injury / Illness Reporting  
  • Ladder Safety  
  • Office Safety  
  • OSHA 300 Recordkeeping  

If you operate in a high-risk industry like construction, manufacturing, or utility work, we have you covered. You can choose from one of two add-on packages with expanded coverage for up to 70 specialty topics: 

Basic Client Package (30 Topics)

  • Aerial Lift Operation
  • Asbestos Awareness
  • Cal IIPP – Injury and Illness Prevention
  • Cold Stress
  • Compressed Gases
  • Confined Space Entry
  • Contractor Safety
  • CPR
  • Electric Pallet Jacks
  • Electrical Safety (General)  
  • Emergency Eyewash / Shower
  • Ergonomics
  • Eye / Face Protection
  • First Aid Responder
  • Flammable Liquids
  • Hand / Skin Protection
  • Hand And Power Tools
  • Head Protection
  • Hearing Conservation
  • Heat Stress/Stroke
  • Job Safety Analysis
  • Liquefied Petroleum Gas Safety
  • Loading Dock Safety
  • Lockout Tagout (Affected)
  • Lockout Tagout (Authorized)
  • Machine Guarding
  • Office Safety
  • Powered Industrial Truck
  • Respiratory Fit Test
  • Respiratory Protection

Premium Client Package (70 Topics)

  • Accident Investigation & Reporting
  • Aerial Lift Operation
  • Arc Flash (Electrical)
  • Asbestos Awareness
  • Back Safety
  • Behavior Based Safety
  • Benzene
  • Bloodborne Pathogens
  • Cal – Proposition 65
  • Cal IIPP – Injury and Illness Prevention
  • Chemical Process Safety
  • Cold Stress
  • Commercial Motor Vehicles
  • Compressed Gases
  • Confined Space Entry
  • Contractor Safety
  • COVID-19
  • CPR
  • Defensive Driving
  • Distracted Driving
  • DOT Placarding /Storage
  • Driver Preparedness
  • Electric Pallet Jacks
  • Electrical Safety (General)
  • Emergency Eyewash / Shower
  • Emergency Preparedness
  • Ergonomics
  • Eye / Face Protection
  • Fire Extinguisher
  • Fire Safety and Prevention
  • First Aid Responder
  • Flammable Liquids
  • Food Safety
  • Hand / Skin Protection
  • Hand and Power Tools
  • Hazard Communication
  • HAZWOPER
  • Head Protection
  • Hearing Conservation
  • Heat Stress / Stroke
  • Hot Work (Welding and Cutting)
  • Hydrogen Sulfide
  • Infectious Disease (e.g., COVID-19)
  • Injury / Illness Reporting
  • Job Safety Analysis
  • Lab Safety 
  • Ladder Safety
  • Lead Awareness
  • Liquefied Petroleum Gas Safety
  • Loading Dock Safety
  • Lockout Tagout (Affected)
  • Lockout Tagout (Authorized)
  • Machine Guarding
  • Material Handling and Storage
  • Mechanical Power Presses
  • Mold Awareness
  • Office Safety
  • OSHA 300 Recordkeeping
  • Overhead Cranes & Hoists
  • Personal Protective Equipment
  • Powered Industrial Truck
  • Respiratory Fit Test
  • Respiratory Protection
  • Scaffolding
  • Silica
  • Slips, Trips, and Falls
  • Trenches
  • Workplace Violence


Get Started with Employee Health and Safety Today   

Like we said, safety doesn’t happen by accident. If you are ready to start making a difference in your workplace safety culture, talk to your broker or partner, or contact us today to learn more about Employee Health & Safety from AllMyHR.  

Four Ways to Make Terminations Less Stressful


Posted on by AllMyHR

Nothing you can do will make terminations entirely stress free. But terminations are often far more challenging than they need to be. Good preparation and the right attitude will make a big difference. Here are four general practices we recommend.

In the 2009 movie Up in the Air, George Clooney and Anna Kendrick play corporate downsizers—HR consultants that companies across the country hire to terminate employees for them. The practice wasn’t exactly common at the time, and fortunately never took off, but it was believable.

Terminations are nerve-wracking. You’re doing something that’s going to cause another person incredible stress and financial hardship. It’s not easy to do, even when it’s deserved.

Nothing you can do will make terminations entirely stress free. But terminations are often far more challenging than they need to be. No, we don’t recommend flying in Anna Kendrick and George Clooney to conduct your terminations, as tempting as that may be. But good preparation and the right attitude will make a big difference. Here are four general practices we do recommend.

Know Your Compliance Obligations Ahead of Time

Look up applicable laws regarding termination procedures and paperwork, accrued paid leave, severance pay, COBRA, and final paychecks before conducting a termination meeting. If you’re laying off a number of employees, you may have specific notice obligations under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) or a similar state law. You don’t want to miss any steps or deadlines. If the employee works in a different state, refer to that state’s laws.

You should also understand how antidiscrimination laws work in practice and take steps to reduce the likelihood that the terminated employee will file a discrimination claim. While at-will employment allows either the employer or the employee to terminate the employment relationship at any time, with or without notice and with or without cause, it does not permit you to terminate employment based on the employee belonging to a protected class (e.g., race, sex, religion, national origin).

Along similar lines, screen the termination to make sure it’s not based on a protected activity. Myriad state and federal laws protect employees from being discharged for certain reasons. For example, Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act entitles employees to talk about their wages or complain about working conditions with each other. A handful of states prohibit employers from terminating employees for engaging in lawful activities outside of work. Reporting unsafe working conditions is protected. And don’t forget about the many leave laws that vary from state to state: from sick leave to military leave to school-involvement leave and more, you may be surprised by the types of absences that are protected.

There’s even some risk when the termination is for cause. A terminated employee could claim your reasoning is just for show, and they were actually terminated for an illegal reason. That risk grows exponentially when you don’t provide the employee with a sensible reason for the termination or when you’ve been inconsistent in applying your discipline policies.

Consequently, the safest way to terminate employees is to communicate performance issues to them, give them a chance to improve, and have documentation that justifies the legitimate business reasons behind the termination. This documentation would include policy violations, instances of poor performance, and any disciplinary or corrective action taken. The documentation should indicate that the company communicated the issues to the employee. The more you can do to show you had a legitimate business reason and gave them an opportunity to improve, the harder it will be for an employee to fill in the blank with their own illegal reason for termination. The termination will be less risky, and you’ll feel better about the decision because you treated the employee fairly.

Approach Terminations with a Positive Mindset

Painful as they are, terminations can be a good thing. Yes, even for the terminated employee. Let’s say you have an employee who’s continually struggled to meet your performance expectations. Guidance and training haven’t proven fruitful. No amount of coaching has or would enable them to do the job better. There’s no other job in your organization they could do. So now you have a choice. You can keep them on, tolerating subpar performance and accepting its consequences for your organization, or you can let them go. In this case, letting them go is probably the better option for both parties.

You’re not doing this struggling employee any favors by keeping them in a position where they can’t be successful. You’re also setting them up for failure in future roles. Months or years of experience listed on their resume may help them land a future job, but if it’s a job they actually can’t do, their future employer will have the same choice you’re facing. And the employee will be no better off.

This employee has their own hard choices to face. They may need to develop skills beyond what you can provide, rethink what kind of work they’re suited to do, or make better choices about their future. Whatever the case, if you allow them to coast along, they’ll never thrive. Termination is in the employee’s best interest in these types of situations. We wouldn’t recommend telling the employee this, but it’s something to keep in mind when making this difficult decision.

In the case of layoffs, where the employee is not at fault, figure out a few ways you can help them land on their feet. Provide a severance if that’s an option. Remind them that they can apply for unemployment. Help them update their resume. Inform them of any opportunities you know about and facilitate networking connections if you can. In short, make the layoff meeting a productive discussion about their future. That’s going to be a hard discussion, no doubt, and it’s possible the employee won’t want to hear it. You can honor that too.

Be prepared for strong emotions like sadness and anger to surface during the termination meeting so that you can respond with confidence. While there’s a fine line between allowing space for initial processing and unnecessarily prolonging the meeting, you can acknowledge and validate the employee’s feelings without changing the end result. Although escalations into violence are rare, review your company’s procedures ahead of time for dealing with such situations.

Don’t Let Terminations Be a Surprise

Have you ever gotten an email from a boss saying something cryptic like “We need to talk”? You may immediately begin to worry. Are you in trouble? Are you getting fired? Until you have that talk, you can’t breathe a sigh of relief.

Why would your mind go there? It might be because you’re not clear on what could get you into trouble at work and you don’t feel safe. Vague out-of-the-blue messages are seldom a good idea. They’re a terrible practice when people believe that they could realistically lose their job for reasons unknown to them. That belief puts people on edge, inclining them to assume the worst when their manager reaches out without any context. Surprise terminations encourage everyone to adopt that belief and incentivize a culture of fear.

Terminations should never be a complete surprise. Yes, at-will employment allows you to terminate employment for any reason or no reason at all (as long as it’s not an illegal reason), but please don’t fire someone for any reason or no reason at all.

Clear rules and consistent practices are your friends here. Inform employees what’s expected of them and what could result in their dismissal—the employee handbook is a good place to do this. Enforce your rules consistently, not willy-nilly. If you let employees get away with policy violations, but then suddenly switch to strict enforcement, you’ll only create confusion and fear. You don’t need to follow the same process for every kind of offense—some behaviors may warrant immediate termination, for example. But don’t bend the rules for some employees and not others.

A coaching culture can also be your friend, especially with employees who are struggling to perform to expectations. If managers regularly work with employees on improving their performance and enhancing their skills, they’re in a good position to spot signs early on that a struggling employee may be more successful and happier doing something else. In some cases, good coaching means guiding an employee out of the organization. A loss is a loss, but guiding employees toward more suitable work elsewhere is usually much smoother and less disruptive than an involuntary termination. Plus, they leave with goodwill towards you. In situations where termination is the right call, if managers have had conversations with employees ahead of time about the consequences for failing to improve, they’ll have softened the blow when it eventually comes.

Lastly, don’t hide bad financials from employees. If business is slow and a layoff is possible, employees need to know so they can make informed financial decisions and contingency plans. They’ll be extra angry if they feel they’ve been lied to or misled. In an age where companies go viral on the internet for poorly conducting layoffs, it’s in your interest to be transparent and honest.

Stay Organized

Develop a checklist ahead of time of things that need to be covered. This list might include specific equipment and keys that need to be returned, passwords and access cards that will need to be disabled, coverage of the employee’s workload until a replacement is hired, notification to coworkers, vendors, and customers, COBRA information, a current address for W-2s, and what you’re going to say during the termination meeting.

Checking off boxes may feel impersonal, but the day of a termination is at the very least challenging for all involved, and at the worst chaotic, especially if you’re disorganized. Keeping the process smooth and orderly is both kind and professional.

Whether you’re facing a challenging termination or that new key recruit, you need to do it right! AllMyHR provides the tools and support you need to make sure your decisions are safe and best practices. You cannot be too careful… Contact us to schedule a free consultation and quick tour of our system to see how our HR solutions can create a compliant and stress-free environment for your organization | 540-373-2121 | AllMyHR.com

In a Strong Safety Culture, Safety is Everyone’s Responsibility

Posted on by AllMyHR
  • Safety cultures aren’t something you can create by just writing a check. They take dedication, time, and commitment.
  • In fact, a successful safety culture also depends on having the right systems, processes, and tools.
  • But the rewards for a strong safety culture abound. Lower risks. Higher productivity. Greater collective sense of ownership.

There’s a lot of talk these days about safety culture. It’s a popular buzzword, and it’s easy to see why. The term culture implies that ownership for safety is shared broadly. It shifts the onus from leadership to membership. It also wraps up a lot of complex elements into one easy term. This lends to the idea that a safety culture is something you can create overnight.

But safety culture isn’t something you can switch on and off. Nor is it a state of being you can achieve. Think about the word culture and what it means. As a noun, culture refers to a collection of practices, thoughts, and routines that are shared within a group. As a verb, to culture something means to provide resources and maintenance to encourage growth. Both of those uses are very apt when talking about a safety culture.

Cultures must be fed to thrive. There are critical elements that go into a successful safety culture. Some of these things cost money, others need time. What they all require, though, is commitment. Here’s a rundown of the critical resources you need for a strong Safety Culture.

Critical Safety Culture Resources

Employee Engagement

Your employees must have to be engaged if your safety culture is going to thrive. In a highly engaged team, the entire org is looking out for their well-being and the well-being of their team. Their eyes, hands, and brainpower make a huge difference.

A study conducted by the American Society of Safety Professionals found that highly engaged workers were far more likely to follow safety procedures and use the right PPE. In fact, they are even more likely to confront colleagues engaging in unsafe behaviors.

Of all the resources we’re listing here, this may be the most difficult to deliver. Employee engagement is a sort of capital for which you can’t just write a check. It comes from good management, excellent HR practices, and a strong sense of duty to the well-being of your staff. If you don’t demonstrate through actions that safety is important—why should an employee take it any more seriously?

The irony is that stronger engagement could very well save a disengaged employee from injury. Engaged employees are more likely to follow every safety rule. They’re more likely to take wearing PPE seriously. They understand the perils that come with performing tasks that they’ve done many times. They know that just because a task is routine, doesn’t mean they can take their own safety for granted.

But employees are people. And people are often victims of the Optimism Bias, which lends us to think that because nothing bad has happened in the past, nothing bad is likely to happen in the future. This is the same cognitive bias that often leads people to undertake risky behaviors. It’s a leader’s job, in fact it is everyone’s job, to remind our colleagues that safety isn’t something we can just assume.

Time

One of the most key elements of any safety program is time. Your Safety Committee and leadership teams need the time to fulfill their mandates. Also, think about all the steps necessary for them to fulfill their mission. Your teams will have to meet regularly to:

  • Identify new and existing hazards around your workplace
  • Find reasonable ways to mitigate or eliminate those hazards
  • Develop safe work practices and procedures, training, and guidance
  • Monitor the outcomes and push for continual improvement

At minimum, you need to apportion the time for your Safety Committee to meet regularly. Then, unless you have a team member dedicated to safety, they will need time to make the fixes they suggest. That might not be very much time at all—but it is time that must be set aside by the business.

Information

It’d be hard to form a robust safety culture without providing the info your team needs. This information could include:

Safety training that is related to every aspect of a role. This could include chemical, power tool, kitchen/food, forklifts, and proper lifting safety. Training should be delivered regularly to everyone, not just the Safety Committee. It can be handled through an online system, DVDs, or through training delivered by a visiting or in-house expert.

Trends in industry safety. You’ll want to share news about newly identified hazards and trends in safety. Trends from the past have included ergonomics, silica dust, and even mold awareness. These can be worked into incident reviews and meetings.

Safety work instructions. Whether your team is lifting with a forklift, a pallet jack, or their own back, there is a right way to do it and a way to hurt themselves. Be sure clearly written best practices are saved in a spot where they can be referenced later if needed. A good place to put them is in the work area where employees will see them daily.

Equipment: You probably already have a good bit of PPE and other safety equipment. This is your cue to see where you could invest in additional tools and equipment to make your workplace safer. Some examples include lighting, anti-fatigue mats, lift
equipment, new carts, storage/racking supplies, safer forklifts, insulated tools, stand-up desks, etc. It’s also a good idea to examine your equipment and facilities to identify anything that is worn or unsafe. Common things you will want to look for include:

  • Gloves with holes and excessive wear
  • Dulled box cutter blades
  • Broken chairs and stools
  • Dirty drinking fountains and restrooms
  • Vehicle issues such as worn tire tread, poorly conditioned brakes, or compromised restraints
  • Misplaced or expired fire extinguishers
  • Slippery floors, loose handrails, and other trip and fall hazards
  • Deteriorating plumbing, HVAC, and electrical infrastructure

Systems

When we say systems, we don’t (necessarily) mean software. You simply need to have administrative mechanisms in place that facilitate a strong safety culture. Whether you use a binder, a spreadsheet, a program, or a whiteboard, a strong system will ensure your safety programs are effective. These are the types of outcomes you could systematize:

  • Employee suggestions
  • Hazard reporting
  • Safety corrective and preventive action tracking
  • Equipment inspections (fire extinguishers, eyewash stations, exit signs, emergency lights, etc.)
  • Safety discussions in team meetings
  • Work procedures: Include how to do each step safely (is PPE required, do you need to unplug equipment first, are there guards or barriers that need to be in place, do you need tools or safety equipment on hand? Like with best practices, these are codified methods for handling things like leaks/spills, injuries, car accidents, or damaged equipment.)
  • SDS updates – Have a system in place to maintain your chemical safety sheets. It could be software, or it could be a binder with paper.
  • Workplace assessments – Check your worksites routinely. Look for hazards, improvements, maintenance standards, and double check locks on supplies.
  • Tracking for near misses and hazards – Just because something didn’t get broken, and no one was hurt doesn’t mean that a safety incident isn’t worth tracking. Keeping an eye on near misses and other hazards is a great way of preventing an injury or incident. You might notice that, for example, there are always puddles in one specific area when it rains. In response, you can put a larger walk-off mat, put up wet floor signs when it rains, or add additional awnings to the entrance.

Management Investment in Your Safety Culture

As with employee buy-in, commitment from managers and owners can be a tricky commodity. The human and business tolls for workplace injuries are immense. They increase employee turnover and worsen skilled labor shortages and supply chain issues. They increase the risk of lawsuits and workers’ comp claims. So you’d think it was a no brainer that leadership would be all-in on ensuring that every workplace is safe.

But running a business isn’t easy. Safety is another moving part. It’s another chance to fall victim to the Optimism Bias, too. So sometimes owners, managers, supervisors, and other leaders need a reminder about why they need to stay invested in safety.

You can view safety, of course, as a duty set by outside regulators like OSHA. Workplace injuries are potentially costly from a legal point of view. But this is also about showing your team that you are personally, professionally, and financially invested in their well-being. It’s about using actions, not just words, to encourage good behavior, safer outcomes, and better success for you, your team, and your business.

Summing Up

Buzzword or not, a strong safety culture is an excellent barometer for organizational health. It’s a demonstration of your business’s commitment to the safety of its employees and customers. A vital safety culture shows through action, resources, information, and accountability just how highly you value safety and organizational health.

At AllMyHR, we are committed to helping your company develop a culture of safety. With well over 125 safety courses, our training specialists can help you structure a training program, customized for your industry and Staff. Enjoyable, effective, and easy to administer, your training system will be on autopilot! We do all if the heavy lifting for you Just give us a call (540-373-2121) to discuss or schedule a short demonstration of our capabilities.

The Top 4 Ways to Develop a Great Manager

Posted on by AllMyHR

Think about your favorite manager. Now think about what made them your favorite. Was it the success you earned while working with them? Your employer may have evaluated them based on metrics like team productivity or turnover rates. Great managers are usually good at leading productive, low-turnover teams, but those aren’t the things their employees remember.

So what about them left such an indelible mark on you? Perhaps this manager was easily approachable and worthy of your trust. Perhaps they effectively led your team through a major change and had your back the whole way. Perhaps they were always laser focused on developing their team—on developing you.

In our view, the success of a manager is defined by the success of the people they lead. We rate a manager’s performance based largely on how their team is doing.

Bad Management Practices Are Rampant, But That Can Change

Unfortunately, the terrible manager remains a popular character in our collective consciousness—and for good reason. There’s no shortage of managers unwisely promoted into the role or given insufficient training to manage people well.

You’ve got the micromanager, the bully, the leader who plays favorites, and the boss who emails subordinates in the middle of the night only to not be available for clarification or responses during the workday. You’ve likely met or heard about the manager who frequently blows off meetings, neglects to give needed details on a project, or takes credit for the work of others. Horror stories abound in review sites, online communities, and conversations across the land.

With bad management practices so rampant, it’s easy for people to forget that there are lots of managers who do their job well. Many do it exceptionally well. That’s why we want to look at the characteristics of the best managers and what businesses can do to hire, promote, and develop these leaders.

Qualities of the Best Managers

The best managers work hard to improve the work lives of their team members. A big part of that is setting and communicating clear expectations. Good managers focus on performance, so their people get better at what they do. This includes empowering employees to identify development areas that matter the most to them. Another big part is facilitating cooperation so that their reports work better together and better with other teams. The best managers also recognize and advocate for their people. They listen carefully to know what their people need to be successful, and they aim to deliver it.

These managers are empathetic, understanding, and supportive. They listen to their people and have a keen understanding of what motivates and inspires them. They’re available to troubleshoot problems, brainstorm ideas, and provide guidance on projects. They communicate effectively and correct mistakes in ways that build people up rather than tear them down. They teach what they know and always seek to learn. They have an eye for equity.

Developing the Best Managers

If your managers—or the people you intend to promote into management—don’t have all of these qualities, don’t worry. These traits and behaviors can be taught and nurtured. Managers also need to be managed. Here are some ways you can build more effective managers and nurture the traits that make managers great.

1. Train New Managers After You’ve Promoted Them

When you promote a stellar employee into a managerial role, you also must give them the tools to successfully manage people. They may feel ready to lead a team, but it’s up to the employer to be certain they know the responsibilities involved, and how your organization wants them to execute those responsibilities. Also consider managers that are building a new team. Do they have the resources to successfully interview candidates? Perform tasks in your applicant tracking software? Communicate with HR or recruiting about the process? Your newer or less experienced leaders may have ideas about the way they want to manage based on their experience as employees—but that’s not enough.

To build truly successful managers, leadership may need to go back to the basics and provide not only base-level training, but clear avenues for answers, guidance, and support. Should new managers go to their own managers first or to HR with questions or problems? These are things that should be spelled out and communicated, even if you think they might be obvious or rudimentary.

It also doesn’t hurt to prepare new managers for the role before you hire or promote them into it. Talk with them about what the job will be like, especially if they haven’t managed before. Go over what’s needed and what’s nice to have. Be open about the struggles and the stress the new manager can expect to experience. Make sure they have the desire to manage.

2. Practice Presence

Most managers don’t want to or have the time to micromanage. They hope their reports have the skills and knowledge to do the job they were hired to do, and so they take a hands-off approach and let their reports get to it. Or they’re too busy with their own projects to do anything more than basic managerial duties. But that’s a sure way to see projects or tasks go off-track, especially if managers don’t make themselves available for troubleshooting, or provide clarity on instructions.

Remind your managers to treat silence from their reports as an opportunity to check in, offer an ear, problem solve, or simply cheerlead. Check-ins don’t have to be formal, overwhelming, or take more time than necessary. Software programs that allow employees to note what they’re working on or bring up obstacles and share these with their manager can be a great tool and don’t have to take anyone more than a few minutes at a time. Less formal but still as productive, a scheduled check in call (at an agreed-upon frequency) gives managers insight into projects and helps employees feel heard and celebrated.

3. Guide the Guiders

Good managers don’t necessarily have all the answers—but they know where to get them. Company leadership should aim to provide managers at all levels with the resources and training they need to do their best for their reports. Do your people leaders have access to mentors either inside the company or with partners or resource groups, and do you encourage these relationships? Mentorship programs, “day-in-the-life-of” presentations, or even informal programs that connect managers from different departments can provide managers with inspiration and support.

Newer managers might not know immediately how to handle a situation where an employee has a health crisis or family issue that suddenly takes them away from work. Do your managers know where to turn? Is there an online repository for information and guidance for situations managers may be presented with (and do all managers know about it)? Or would you rather they immediately bring the issue to HR?

Programs can be robust, such as mandatory manager trainings scheduled throughout the year, or as simple as setting up an internal messaging process (e.g., Slack, Skype, text messaging) or smaller interdepartmental groups of managers that can provide informal support to one another. Whether your company has the budget for a formal training program or not, connections can and should be made to support managers.

If you’re not sure where your managers could use guidance or development, ask them. They’re more likely to be engaged in their development if they have a say in what they’re learning.

4. Promote Teamwork Among Managers

Are your managers operating as a team? Each of your managers has a distinct personality and approach to management that affects their leadership style. One may be highly self-driven while another needs deadlines to motivate action. One may focus on building their team’s strengths, another on correcting their team’s weaknesses. One may communicate a lot, another only a little.

These differences can work, but they can also cause confusion and inequality, whether real or imagined. For instance, employees who report to or work with more than one manager may not know what is expected of them. Or they may find themselves overworked if managers don’t coordinate workloads. Cross-team efforts may be delayed or even ruined due to misunderstandings or failures to communicate. The company may be guided by several conflicting personalities instead of a single, unified company culture. In extreme cases, inconsistent management practices may lead to discrimination claims.

To bring managers together, you need something to unite them around. This is your company culture—the personality of the organization, its mission and values, working environment, policies, and practices. Ensure your managers are following consistent management practices, making decisions aligned with the values of the company, and regularly communicating with one another about their needs, obstacles, and workforce changes.

Neither good managers nor bad managers exist in a vacuum. They either have the support or the inattention of company leadership—the latter to dangerous consequences. A culture of poor management can lead to employee dissatisfaction, burnout, and increased turnover, all of which can be costly. An investment in selecting with intention and training your managers is not just an investment in them, but an investment in the company.

How to Make the Best Use of Your Employee Handbook

Posted on by AllMyHR
employee handbook - blog header

Employee handbooks are a nifty communication and reference tool for the workplace, but only if they’re used and not collecting dust on some physical (or digital) shelf. A handbook is only as good as what it does. At the minimum, it should do the following:

Introduce employees to the fundamentals of your organization’s culture—the beliefs and values that members of the organization are expected to share. This introduction explains what you do and why you do it. It may also give employees a look into the history of your organization, how you got to where you are, and where you intend to go. Last but not least, it gives employees an idea of how they can contribute to the culture.

Communicate to employees what general behaviors and procedures are expected of them. These include general safety responsibilities, confidentiality expectations, timekeeping processes, reporting procedures, dress codes, and any other ways of doing things at your organization.

Educate employees about what they can expect from the organization’s leadership. Executives, managers, and HR departments have obligations to their employees—both those they’ve established themselves and those required by law. A good handbook tells employees what those obligations are and how they will be met. If your employees are entitled to leaves or accommodations, for example, your handbook should explain these.

Support consistent enforcement of company policies. Employers expose themselves to risk when they interpret, apply, or enforce policies inconsistently. Transparency about policies and how they are enforced helps keep everyone accountable and the enforcement of rules consistent across the company.

Showcase the benefits the organization offers. Does your organization offer vacations, 401(k), health insurance, paid parental leave, or other employee benefits? If so, your handbook should outline these programs and their eligibility requirements.

Let employees know where to turn for help. Employees should feel safe turning to HR or a manager to report workplace violations, get workplace-related assistance, and get answers to any other questions they may have. The alternative is for them to turn to an outside third party, like the EEOC, the DOL, or an attorney, which could trigger a costly and time-consuming investigation. When a handbook provides multiple ways for an employee to lodge a complaint (ensuring they won’t have to report the problem to the person creating the problem), they are more likely to keep their complaints in-house.

How do I keep my handbook compliant?

Our tools are designed to streamline your workday.

Schedule a Demo and see how AllMyHR works for you.

Schedule a Demo

Avoiding Burnout When You Work in HR

Posted on by AllMyHR
avoiding burnout

If you work in HR, you know that employee burnout remains pervasive. You also know that the task of supporting overly stressed employees often falls on your shoulders. But you’re exhausted too. Burnout isn’t just a problem you have to help others solve; you also have to solve it for yourself. Here are seven ways to do that.

Set Boundaries

First and foremost, set boundaries. You cannot possibly be all things to all your people, available at all times no matter the cost. That’s not your job. More to the point, your job is not the supreme ruler of your time. Having a job means that you’ve committed to using some of your time to complete a certain amount of work, but you should still think of that time as yours. After all, it’s your life, your energy, your health. Don’t feel bad about giving time to your needs just because you’re working. The mindset that you can never prioritize your needs while on “company time” is an unhealthy one.

Place boundaries around both the time during which you work and what you spend your time doing while working. If you say that you’re done with work at 6 p.m., don’t do any work after 6 p.m. Emails and Slack messages can wait until the next workday. If people at work need to be able to reach you in an emergency, establish a specific way for that to happen (e.g., a call or text to your cell) and make sure the people who may contact you know what qualifies as an emergency and what doesn’t.

You can set boundaries during the workday by delegating tasks that don’t need to be done by you. HR is a big job for one person or even one department. Not every personnel issue even should be handled by you. Managers and department heads should be able to handle a lot of those issues themselves, and only come to you for help if it’s actually needed. If they are bringing you so many small problems that you don’t have time to resolve the big ones, you may need to set different expectations or train managers to resolve certain issues themselves. If you’re having to manage employees for them, they’re not doing their jobs (and may need to be developed or replaced).

Know What You Can and Cannot Control

In HR, we often feel responsible for everything related to employees. If there’s an issue, it’s on us to address it. A problem? We own the solution. Something not improving? We’re at fault. This belief that we are responsible for all the things causes stress to mount and leads to burnout. It also isn’t true.

We can’t be responsible for what we can’t control, and so much that happens in the workplace is simply out of our control. It’s vital—both for our work and our mental health—for us to know what is and isn’t in our power to change. If employees are quitting as a result of ineffective workplace policies, and you have purview over those policies, you can probably do something about this attrition. But if they’re quitting because there are better opportunities for them that your organization can’t match, there may be nothing you can do. Spending time trying to solve unsolvable problems isn’t going to have a good return. Or, as the old saying goes, if there is no solution, there is no problem.

Implement Clear and Simple Policies and Practices

The more ambiguous or complex your workplace policies and practices are, the more questions people will have about what they mean or require. If you find that your people often come to you asking what they’re supposed to do in a given situation, look at what you can do to answer their questions proactively. Do you have an employee handbook? Standardized practices for managers? Granted, some employees aren’t going to read any policy documents you give them, but in general you can save yourself (and others) a lot of time by defining policies and practices so that they are clear, accessible, and easy to follow. Accordingly, you should ensure that leaders are aware of where the handbooks, policies, and guidelines reside so that employees may self-serve whenever possible.

Train Your Colleagues

Being the only one who can do a certain essential task may be good for your job security, but it isn’t good for your health. If no one else can do what you do, you can’t truly get away or be guaranteed to focus on one task to the exclusion of all others. People can only cover for you if they have the knowledge and skills to complete the tasks you need covered.

Realistically, you can’t plan for every contingency, but teaching colleagues the skills and knowledge they’d most likely need when covering for you increases the likelihood that they’ll be able to handle whatever arises while you’re away or focused on an urgent project.

Take Time Off

Speaking of getting away, take time off. You need a break from work as much as anyone—maybe more so—and you don’t need to justify it. You don’t have to feel sick or especially overwhelmed or have something special planned. Breaks from work are good for you, period. If you feel the need to justify a break from work, take time off to set a good example to everyone else that they should be taking time off too.

When employees see leaders in their organization taking ample time away from work, they feel more confident taking time off themselves. That helps save those employees from burnout, which in turn saves their leaders’ time.

Connect with Other HR Professionals

Working in HR can be a lonely profession, especially if you’re a department of one. When you’re in HR, friendships at work range from tricky to ill-advised. You may not have anyone at work you can really open up to or who appreciates the challenges of your job. Fortunately, there’s an active community of HR professionals online who are more than happy to share ideas, answer questions, or just listen. You can find them on LinkedIn, Twitter, and elsewhere by searching #hrcommunity or #hr. They’re a friendly and chatty bunch, eager to converse about the latest trends, specific pain points, and the generally daunting challenges of working in HR.

Consider following a few HR practitioners, participating in a conversation, or just watching from the sidelines until you feel more comfortable. It’s not quite the same as having a close friend at work, but what it lacks in close proximity, it makes up for in shared experience.

Treat Yourself

“I’m going to let you in on a little secret,” Special Agent Dale Cooper says to Sherriff Harry S. Truman in the television series Twin Peaks. “Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don’t plan it. Don’t wait for it. Just let it happen.”

The present doesn’t have to be extravagant. Cooper’s examples include a catnap in one’s office chair and taking a few minutes to enjoy a nice hot cup of coffee. Yours might be a 20-minute walk to get some fresh air and Vitamin D. The point is to be not just reasonable, but generous with yourself every day. The work we do in HR is stressful, emotionally taxing, and tiring. We spend our days supporting others in difficult situations. Our job is giving time, comfort, and care to others. It’s important to give those things to ourselves too.

Our tools are designed to streamline your workday.

Schedule a Demo and see how AllMyHR works for you.

Schedule a Demo

Turning the Great Resignation Into a Great Re-engagement for Your Company

Posted on by AllMyHR
great resignation

“Help Wanted” signs – virtual or storefront – are everywhere. In 2021, millions of American workers quit their jobs, including a record 4.5 million in November alone, a 30% increase over the same month last year. Perhaps more startling, another 65% of Americans are looking for a new job. Predicted back in May 2021, the Great Resignation is underway.

But that’s only half the story. Business hiring is also at record levels. Most Americans aren’t simply quitting their jobs and leaving the workforce. They’re pursuing new roles and companies, or opportunities in new industries altogether.

There are many theories for what’s causing Americans to do this. One of the most prevalent I’ve seen is the “epiphany” theory. The COVID pandemic, like other disruptive events, caused people to reexamine their needs and priorities, and make life changes accordingly. Perhaps it’s spending more time with family, aligning their work with their personal values and interests, staying home to take care of children, having more flexible hours, or moving somewhere new.

Employers are scrambling to keep up. In the face of unprecedented employee turnover, supply chain challenges, new federal and state regulations, and pandemic protocols, their patience is wearing thin. It’s tempting for businesses to bemoan their employees’ reordering of priorities – and willingness to leave their jobs because of it – as entitled, short-sighted and ill-timed. The Great Resignation, the prevailing wisdom says, is a thorn in employers’ sides.

But what if the Great Resignation wasn’t just an opportunity for employees to build a more purpose-driven and engaging career and life? What if it was also an opportunity for employers to build a more purpose-driven and engaged company?

Over a decade ago, online retailer Zappos gained fame when it pioneered the “pay-to-quit” concept: paying employees a bonus if they left their jobs. Zappos believed it would be better off if employees who weren’t dedicated to the mission, values, and work simply opted-out. As then-CEO, Tony Hsieh, wrote in his book Delivering Happiness, “Our goal at Zappos is for our employees to think of their work not as a job or career, but as a calling.”

Now the pandemic is doing organically what Zappos and other businesses have been doing artificially: prompting workers to ask themselves whether their jobs and companies are the right fit, and causing them to make changes if not. If managed effectively, employers can turn The Great Resignation into a renaissance for their teams and companies, creating a more engaged, productive, cohesive, and loyal team in the process.

Here are 6 steps business leaders can take to turn the Great Resignation into a Great Re-engagement for their companies:

  1. Embrace the Change. The labor market will not always be as tight as it is today, but the world of work is fundamentally and permanently changing. For companies to emerge stronger from this period than they were when they entered it, leaders need to embrace the idea that employees are key stakeholders in their organizations. And just like shareholders or customers, employees’ needs and goals need to be understood and addressed as a strategic and cultural commitment. Only then will businesses be able to leverage the current environment and maximize organizational success.
  2. Conduct Stay Interviews. Many companies conduct “exit interviews” to learn why employees leave the organization. It’s important to invest the same time, attention, and curiosity in employees who have not chosen to leave. “Stay interviews” are 1:1 meetings between managers and their employees to discuss what’s going well, what’s not going well, and what changes the employee, the manager, or the organization could make to strengthen the relationship. These meetings require a foundation of trust between the employee and their manager, and are most effective if they are recurring, not one-off, conversations.These conversations should also not be constrained simply to job responsibilities. To achieve a Great Reinvigoration, managers and employees need to open lines of communication about employees’ life goals and values, and how both can be furthered at the organization, or even at a different organization. For example, a manager might learn that one of their employees has a dream of writing a novel or has a family member they need to care for. By opening the dialogue, the manager can help the employee connect or adapt their current role to their goals and needs, or discuss whether there are other roles or even other opportunities that might be a better fit. Sometimes the most powerful conversations occur in discussing opportunities outside the company, as that’s when an employee understands their manager is truly invested in their success.
  3. Don’t Chase. If an employee has decided that they don’t want to stay with the company, it’s generally better to support them in departing gracefully than in pulling out the stops to keep them. The pay-to-quit programs at Zappos, for example, not only don’t chase employees, they nudge them out the door. The key, of course, is to make sure the employee has full information about the direction the company, their team, and their role is heading. If they do, and they choose to leave anyway, trying to “save” an employee risks retaining employees who are not fully bought in, putting a band aid over underlying issues, and undermining the company’s ability to achieve a Great Re-engagement.
  4. Be as Intentional in Hiring as Your Candidates are in their Job Search. American workers are reevaluating their priorities, values, and goals, and are looking for opportunities that better support and align with them. This is a perfect environment to hire employees who will engage in their work at a deeper level and for a longer period of time, assuming you find a match. The key is to adapt your recruiting and hiring processes to find these people. For instance, make sure the interviewing process invites a dialogue with the candidate about not just having the right competencies and capabilities, but also about what’s important to them from a culture, values, team, expectations, and responsibility perspective, so both you and the candidate have confidence that the company and role fit their reexamined priorities.
  5. Shift Dollars from Recruiting to Training. After factoring in recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and lost productivity, the cost of replacing an individual employee is at least 50% of that employee’s annual salary. For employees who are performing well, consider reallocating a portion of what you would spend to replace them from your recruitment budget to expand your training budget. The training could focus on upskilling an employee who is looking to advance their current focus, or reskilling an employee who would have better opportunities in a different career track. Most workers want to grow their skills and will value an opportunity that allows them to do so. Set aside an annual training budget and engage your employees in discussing the best ways to use those resources to further both their and the organization’s goals.
  6. Invite Your Employees to be Co-Creators. Ten years ago, researchers discovered that consumers more highly value products they invest their own time, energy, and creativity in than “off-the-shelf” products. Called the IKEA effect, this same principle also applies to employee engagement and retention. People value organizations more highly if they are part of building them, whether it be their culture, processes, innovation, team, or strategy. To turn The Great Resignation into a Great Reengagement for your company, engage your team more fully in the process of building an organization that serves both their and your customers’ and shareholders’ needs. Turn organizational decisions or initiatives over to employee task forces or informal leaders, or simply empower employees to do things such as define the company’s values or develop programs. Given that people are investing so much though in their lives and work, now is an ideal time to hear their ideas and engage them in bringing them to fruition.

Make no mistake: with millions of American workers leaving their jobs each month, it’s a challenging time for employers. But it’s also an opportunity, one that leading employers like Zappos have previously invested in.

By embracing the moment, rather than ignoring or trying to resist it, employers can turn the Great Resignation into a Great Re-engagement for their businesses, and emerge with a new strategic advantage: a more engaged, productive and loyal workforce.

Our tools are designed to streamline your workday.

Schedule a Demo and see how AllMyHR works for you.

Schedule a Demo

The Rewards of Trust and How to Get Them

Posted on by AllMyHR

Why do people stop trusting in one another? And what happens to a team when trust disappears? To answer these questions, let’s start with a fable.

About a year ago, Abigail began her first day on a new job. She was a software engineer, new to the workforce, and eager to make a good impression on her colleagues. At the end of the day, she noticed a fine, jagged line on the floor of the office, stretching the length of the building. She examined it, puzzled. She was pretty sure she hadn’t noticed it earlier, and almost as sure that it hadn’t been there when she’d arrived. For a moment she considered asking someone about it, but she didn’t feel comfortable inquiring about structural integrity on her first day.

Truth be told, she wasn’t the only employee who noticed the jagged line, and it had just appeared that day. But no one else had brought it up.

The next morning, the line had grown to an unmistakable crack. Javier, another software engineer, saw it straight away and thought about mentioning it to his supervisor, but the last time Javier spoke up about a problem, his supervisor had scolded him for not also presenting a solution. He had no solution, so he said nothing.

Dipendu thought he had an easy fix for the ugly crack, but he too was hesitant to speak up. The last time one of his designs hadn’t worked out as planned, the executive team was livid, and his manager threatened to demote him if his work ever failed again. Lupita, a senior designer, also had a solid idea for repairing the crack, but she’d seen too many of her good ideas stolen by others in the company, who received the credit for her ingenuity. Both Dipendu and Lupita kept quiet.

As the days passed, the crack expanded several inches. Everyone stepped over it as nonchalantly as they could so as not to acknowledge its existence. After a few weeks, the rift was several feet wide, and HR quietly updated job descriptions to say that the physical requirements of every job might entail some jumping.

Finally, after office supplies, a laptop, and Fred got lost in the rift, management decided to acknowledge the issue. But its message was inconsistent. In some instances, management seemed to take the gap seriously and promised it prompt attention. At other times, management seemed less committal. Only after an OSHA inspector showed up on an anonymous tip and summarily disappeared into the rift did company leadership clarify their position. Whatever the cause of the still-growing crack, employees were at fault for not speaking up sooner, and they’d just have to live with the consequences.

The consequences, however, were not sustainable. Valuable team members and intellectual property got lost in the abyss, electrical wires and phone lines got disconnected, and team meetings involved a lot of shouting over the gap. Soon everyone only communicated if they absolutely needed to, and oftentimes not even then.

What happened to this company may sound farfetched, but the rift is real . While you probably won’t find gaping holes in workplace floors, you will find trust destroyed by broken promises, lies, spin, retaliation, and inconsistency. And when trust is lost, relationships and teams break apart. In the workplace, people keep their distance from others, withholding information, refraining from identifying problems, and erecting barriers to protect themselves. In short, they stop working together.

Benefits of Trust

The whole point of forming a team is to facilitate cooperation. Trust is the foundation of that cooperation. With trust, teams increase their productivity, improve their ability to communicate and collaborate effectively, act more creatively, delegate work more easily, and achieve greater financial success. Trust enables teams to accomplish what they’re designed to accomplish. Trust creates a sure footing for success. But without trust, cooperation cracks, shatters, and dies. People can’t act as a team.

Building Trust

Trusting your employees and gaining their trust isn’t easy. As Wendy Dailey says, it takes time and effort. It’s work.

But trust is achievable. And worth it. We human beings are social animals, after all. It’s normal for us to trust one another. All of our social institutions require it. That’s one reason violations of trust feel so wrong and hurt so much. They cause rifts in friendships, romantic partnerships, families, neighborhoods, churches, teams, and other organizations. And yet those rifts are not the norm. They’re not what we typically expect. In the workplace, we expect to be able to trust our teammates, at least as far as work is concerned. So how do we get there? Let’s examine a few practical ways to build trust at work.

Learn What Trustworthiness Means to Your Employees
Laurie Ruettimann, author of Betting on You and host of the Punk Rock HR podcast, advises organizations “to learn more about how their employees define, value and evaluate trustworthiness — and act on it.” What establishes and strengthens trust with one employee may be different than what builds trust with another. For one thing, every employee has their own reasons for being an employee of their organization and expectations for what that relationship entails. For another, everyone has their own experience with building and losing trust. All else being equal, gaining the trust of someone who’s had their trust in others betrayed will be more difficult than gaining the trust of someone who’s not experienced such devastating betrayals. It’s vital to understand these differences.

Build Relationships on Authenticity, Logic, and Empathy
Executive coach Sarah Noll Wilson offers similar guidance. There is “a complexity to trust because what everyone values and what they need is going to be different based on every situation,” she writes. Her team recommends a framework they call the ‘Trust Triangle.’ We build high-trust relationships at work by being authentic about our values and impact, logical in how we’ve come to our conclusions, and empathetic in all our interactions.

Give Employees Your Time and Attention
Consider this simple advice from HR author and speaker Steve Browne: show “a little respect.” Respect brings people together. It empowers people to trust. We show people respect in the workplace by “acknowledging that their efforts make an impact and meaningful difference to the success of the company.” For Browne, we engage people with respect by giving them two things: “our time and attention.”

Acknowledge People’s Emotions
Researchers Alisa Yu, Julian Zlatev, and Justin Berg arrived at much the same place. Writing in Harvard Business Review, they explain that the best way to build trust at work is to acknowledge other people’s emotions. Acknowledging another’s emotions communicates that you “care enough to invest in that relationship.” Interestingly, the authors found that “acknowledging negative emotions boosts trust more than acknowledging positive emotions.” Why? Because most people “see acknowledging negative emotions as being more costly in terms of time, attention, and effort.” Acknowledging emotions can backfire, however, if “your coworkers believe your actions are motivated by selfish reasons.”

Act with Transparency, Clarity, and Consistency
We trust others when we believe that they are worthy of that trust — when we believe that they are honest, good, reliable, faithful, compassionate, and fair. How do we inspire others to believe that we are trustworthy? By keeping our promises. By being transparent about our decisions, clear about our expectations, and consistent in our practices.

Believe in Your People
Trust can’t go just one way. Rifts in the workplace will form if trust isn’t reciprocal. That means that we also have to show employees that we trust them. This can be challenging because we’re often inclined, and not unreasonably, to perceive employees as costs, risks, and liabilities. And yes, they certainly can be, but they’re also any company’s greatest asset. If we treat employees only as a danger, we tell them loud and clear that we don’t trust them.

The alternative? Find strength in vulnerability. Acknowledge the rights of your employees and your responsibilities to them (the employee handbook is a convenient place to do this, but your overall attitude matters too). Invest in their growth and success. Celebrate their wins. Give them reasonable opportunities to mend mistakes and make up for failures. In sum, treat employees like you trust them to do good work. Will some betray that trust? Yes. But that’s on them. Believe in them, and you’ll inspire trust. Assume betrayal, and you’ll get something else.

Trust enables people to work together. Pour everything you can into that foundation. You’ll build stronger and more productive relationships with your employees, notice and mend cracks more quickly, enhance the capabilities of your team, and achieve greater success.

Our tools are designed to streamline your workday.

Schedule a Demo and see how AllMyHR works for you.

Schedule a Demo
AllMyHR

Schedule A Demo

The simplest, most cost-effective way to streamline HR, reduce compliance risks, and focus on growing your business.

Contact Us Today

©2025 AllMyHr Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms & Conditions. Website By Commonwealth Creative