Tag: 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?

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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.

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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.

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