Category: Thought Leadership

The below content was originally published on the Insperity blog, a great source of information for business and HR best practices.

Between planned updates, new initiatives and unexpected changes, today’s workplace offers leaders plenty of opportunities to earn their change management stripes.

When leading through change, you must manage your team’s progress toward your goal as well as your employees’ attitudes throughout the experience.

Sometimes managing change calls for grace periods as your staff absorbs and understands a transition. Sometimes it calls for realism that’s not too sugarcoated. At all times, change calls for strong, consistent communication from the top of the organization before, during and after a change cycle.

To help you communicate well during seasons of change in your organization, we’ve assembled a list of the key messages that your employees need to hear throughout the change cycle.

Using these talking points and grasping the change management strategies behind them can help you:

• Get your employees on board with change faster
• Keep them motivated toward a new objective
• Ensure they feel supported along the way

What do your employees want to hear during change initiatives?

“Here’s what’s happening, and here’s why”

When you know a change is coming, share the news with your employees as soon as possible. This initial communication, where you articulate the need for change in your organization, initiates the change cycle.

Your employees may go on to experience:

• Shock
• Denial
• Frustration
• Depression
• Experimentation
• Decision-making
• Integration

To soften the initial news, make the big picture clear, shedding as much light on the situation as you can. Explain why the change is important to your organization and how it will affect your company in a positive way.

The sooner your employees hear from you when change is coming, the more time they have to process it. And the better they understand the reasons behind a change, the easier it will be for them to get on board.

“Here’s how this is going to benefit you”

Don’t stop after you’ve explained how a change will benefit your business, even if you receive more support than resistance. Your employees may not articulate it, but they will probably be wondering: What’s in it for me?

You can gain your employees’ trust by anticipating these natural concerns. Consider how each group and individual will profit from the change. How will it make their work lives better? Be ready to point to these benefits when speaking with your employees. Look for ways to make the changes matter to them on an individual level.

“Here’s our goal”

Are you excited about what your organization will look like on the other side of this change? Invite your employees to envision it with you. Share your chief goal for the future, and reference it often.

Each person must decide to push through the discomfort that change requires – it will take some employees longer than others – and join you in working toward a new goal. Having a clear target can keep your team unified and encouraged even as they process and adapt to change at different speeds.

“I don’t have all the answers, but let’s talk through this”

You’ll speak openly. You’ll speak clearly. You’ll speak confidently. But will you speak vulnerably? And will you ask your employees to share their thoughts, too?

To lead through change well, you should strive for openness. Be transparent addressing the questions you don’t have answers to. Make sure your team is comfortable sharing their thoughts and questions.

If successful, you’ll appear more genuine and trustworthy. Transparent leadership, coupled with the opportunity to share opinions, gives your employees a greater sense of control over the situation, too. The result? Staff who are more likely to feel they’re making changes with you, rather than feeling that something is happening to them.

“Let’s strategize together”

Once your employees have asked their initial questions and shared opinions on the change, it’s time to include them in the transition. Asking for their ideas again – after they’ve had time to process a change – helps further. That’s because your employees are more likely to become invested and collaborative if they get the opportunity to think strategically and offer valuable input.

“Tell me how you’re feeling through this”

Check in on your people at various points in the change cycle. Remember, no two employees are alike in their pace of processing change. Someone who seemed open to the idea early on may struggle later, in the middle of the actual changes. That’s why it’s important to keep checking in, especially if you notice disheartened attitudes.

You can reach out to your whole group during team meetings and to individuals who seem to need it most during one-on-ones.

Dig deeper in these conversations by asking:

• Are you experiencing any roadblocks?
• How can I help you through this?

Mention any resources your organization provides that could help manage their stress and change fatigue, such as an employee assistance program.

“It’s time to join us”

Leaders sometimes run into an individual who won’t accept change and begins to take a disruptive stance against it. If a negative attitude becomes a performance issue, it may be time for a difficult conversation where you insist the employee finds a way to adjust and come along with the rest of the team.

Occasionally, the best choice for everyone might be for the employee to switch teams or otherwise part ways. But hopefully, you can avoid this outcome and even these conversations by leading and communicating well from the outset.

“We’ve gotten this far today”

Celebrate small achievements as your team works to adjust to or implement a change. Notice what has gone well, and bring their attention to it. Show gratitude for your team’s efforts and positivity.

Words of affirmation alone can lift employee spirits; allowing them to break for the day a few hours early or giving another small reward can show that you’re truly thankful for their contributions.

“Well done”

Affirm efforts along the way and celebrate in a big way when your team has brought you through an important change. Rewards could include public recognition, time off, extra help and more. The key to meaningful recognition is understanding what matters most to your team and giving them something that’s important to them.

Be gracious toward yourself, too

To have the emotional energy needed to take care of employees during seasons of change, leaders can’t neglect themselves in the process. Know your personal support system and reach out when your energy or enthusiasm wanes.

Keep reminding employees about how the changes will positively affect them, and show respect for each person’s unique response to the situation.

Summing it up

In today’s dynamic workplace environment, leaders face numerous opportunities to lead their teams through change – and it’s important to have a strategy that will make the process smooth and successful. Articulating the benefits of change at both organizational and individual levels enhances employee buy-in and trust, sets clear expectations and creates cohesion. Ultimately, fostering a culture of inclusivity and support leads to greater employee engagement and resilience in navigating change. For more information on how to lead your team through change, download The Insperity guide to leading through change.

The below content was originally published on the Insperity blog, a great source of information for business and HR best practices.

The era of virtual meetings brings with it a new type of meeting fatigue. While meetings are essential to fostering collaboration and building rapport in a digital work environment, too many can take a toll on team productivity and morale.

So, what do you do when blocked calendars and exhausted agendas impact culture? Here are some tips to avoid meeting overload and strike the right balance.

The drawbacks of too many meetings

Although it may seem like a minor issue at surface level, meeting fatigue carries with it many pitfalls, including:

• Decreased productivity on an individual and team basis
• Loss of focus on critical functions and strategic priorities
• Less time for creative thinking and innovation
• General meeting fatigue, causing attendees to be less engaged during meetings
• Increased stress on the part of employees who may feel overwhelmed by their commitments and workload
• Potential for burnout as a result of lower productivity, impact on work-life balance and higher stress
• Less time for leaders and decision-makers to perform high-priority tasks, do strategic planning and support their team

The benefits of meetings

At the same time, meetings are an essential tool in a collaborative environment. Understanding the benefits of meetings can help leaders and managers use them to their advantage while still allowing their teams sufficient time to get their work done.

Here are some of the upsides of well-planned and well-executed meetings:

• Allow for collaboration, idea sharing and team building
• Enable real-time communication so teams can clarify information, offer feedback and make immediate decisions
• Help teams understand and align with organizational goals, strategies and priorities
• Provide a valuable opportunity for sharing important updates and project progress
• In times of crisis, meetings offer a swift and effective means of communication, ensuring that the team can respond promptly and cohesively
• Provide an opportunity to recognize the achievements of key contributing team members
• Offer a platform for open discussion and transparent communication, reducing the chances of misunderstanding within the team
• Vital for relationship-building with not just fellow team members but also clients, partners and vendors

Tips to combat meeting fatigue

Clearly, meetings have their place in a positive, collaborative team environment. Here’s how to get the most out of them while avoiding meeting fatigue and overwhelm:

1. Ensure a meeting is warranted in the first place

Before scheduling a meeting, take a moment to ask yourself whether the purpose could be effectively achieved through an alternative means such as email, project management tools or a team messaging platform like Slack. If there’s no need to have an interactive dialogue or to resolve an issue that requires input and feedback, skip the meeting and opt for the more time-efficient option.

2. Allocate less time for meetings

Block off shorter time slots for meetings, such as 45 minutes instead of an hour, to keep attendees focused and minimize unnecessary tangents from the main discussion. This promotes efficiency while also allowing participants to have more time in their day.

3. Clarify the purposes of meetings

Create a more intentional meeting by articulating the objective in advance and if possible outline an agenda. This helps attendees prepare and also ensures the discussion stays on track, resulting in a more purposeful, efficient meeting.

4. Whittle the attendee list

Include only the people who truly need to attend the meeting according to the agenda. Not only does this respect the time of participants, but it also keeps the meeting focused and streamlined.

5. Consider no meeting days

Some teams find that designating specific days where meetings are minimized or prohibited (for example, “No Meeting Wednesdays”) can help give the individuals valuable, uninterrupted time for focused work. While this strategy isn’t very workable for businesses or departments that work directly with clients, for internal teams it can help reduce the overall impact of meeting fatigue on productivity.

Another alternative is to simply set one team meeting every morning or on a weekly basis with a set agenda to discuss all the major points that would otherwise necessitate separate meetings throughout the day or week.

6. Create rules for big meetings

In large meetings, establishing clear guidelines is paramount for staying focused and keeping attendees engaged. Such rules should cover when to ask questions, when to take discussions offline, whether or not to have cameras on and whether to keep oneself muted. Not only will these rules make meetings more productive, but they’ll also strengthen team relationships.

7. Encourage time blocking

Keep your calendar up to date and block off times for focusing on project deliverables and tasks that are essential for daily operations. This approach helps individuals ensure they’re maintaining a proper balance between dedicated work time and collaborative sessions.

Pro tip: Align your calendar scheduling with your body’s natural biorhythms for optimal productivity. For example, if you do your best work in the mornings, block off your calendar until noon so you can participate in meetings after you’ve made a satisfying dent in your workload. Alternatively, if you’re an afternoon warrior, block off your calendar for some post-lunch-focused work.

8. Don’t forget to schedule breaks

Don’t forget to give yourself some time for some well-deserved and much-needed breaks during the day, which can help reduce burnout and increase productivity. This is best accomplished by blocking off your calendar for these as well. If you notice a particular day or week is filling up with meetings, schedule a fifteen-minute or half-hour slot to avoid dreaded back-to-back meeting days.

Summing it all up

As we navigate the new world of digital work, virtual meetings have become integral to collaboration and human connection, but the rise of meeting fatigue requires an intentional approach. Incorporate the tips above to ensure that meetings contribute in a positive way without hindering productivity. For more performance strategies, download our free e-book, How to develop a top-notch workforce that will accelerate your business.

The below content was originally published on the Insperity blog, a great source of information for business and HR best practices.

As cybercriminals advance in sophistication, the looming threat of cyberattacks poses a significant risk to businesses. And with a surge in remote and hybrid work setups, the vulnerabilities increase, making it imperative for employers to bolster their cybersecurity defenses.

Employers need to:

• Maintain awareness and vigilance
• Educate employees
• Deploy proactive measures to reduce risks and prevent attacks

It doesn’t matter whether your company is large, midsize or small, and public or private sector – cybercriminals don’t discriminate. In fact, smaller businesses are attractive to bad actors because they typically have lower IT budgets and weaker cybersecurity measures in place.

In this blog, we explore 12 crucial cybersecurity practices to shield your business, ranging from securing remote workspaces and establishing secure connections to thwarting phishing scams and leveraging IT expertise.

What are the consequences of poor cybersecurity?

The impact of cyberattacks on businesses can be widespread and devastating:

• Breach of sensitive personally identifiable data, which can lead to identity theft
• Disclosure of proprietary company information, such as intellectual property, which can harm a company’s competitive advantage
• Loss of confidential employee or client information
• Financial and legal penalties if the company is found to have not properly protected certain data
• Damage to company devices and systems
• Harm to company brand
• Downtime and the associated loss in revenue
• High IT costs to fix issues and improve security measures going forward

12 cybersecurity practices to have in place now

1.  Provide and use only company-issued devices and applications for work

It’s extremely risky to allow employees to use their own devices or unapproved applications when working remotely.

You may not know anything about – nor do you have any control over – the configuration of those operating systems, firewalls, antivirus protection, software updates or authentication requirements.

It can be a risky proposition to allow personal devices to access your company network and resources. Do you want to put sensitive company data at risk of exposure if that device or application is compromised?

If your employees are going to work remotely, a better scenario is to provide them with a company-issued device that’s outfitted with all the necessary protections and vetted to company standards. However, if your organization is unable to deploy company assets, your IT team should consider how they will evaluate personal devices before they can connect to your company network and resources.

2.  Physically secure workspaces outside of the office

When employees work outside the office, it’s often at home or in a public space, such as a coffee shop, library, airport or hotel. Just because these tend to be relaxed, casual environments doesn’t mean that employees can let down their guard and become lax about security. This makes them perceived as easy to exploit and therefore especially vulnerable to cyberattacks.

Tips to secure devices outside office workspaces

• Device usage: Minimize the use of personal devices for work.
• Approved applications: Restrict usage to company-approved applications and hardware.
• Family access: Prohibit family members from using company-issued devices.
• Lock screen: Enable a password-protected lock screen on devices within 15 minutes of inactivity. (Your organization can mandate this when employees use company-issued devices.)
• Secure storage: Store devices securely at the end of the workday – preferably in lockable spaces.
• Visibility: Avoid leaving devices exposed or in a spot where they’re visible through a window to prevent theft.
• Document security: Secure loose paperwork, locking it away at the end of the day.
• Videoconferencing: Be aware of what others can see behind or around you. Make sure no sensitive work-related information is visible. This could include:
  • Schedules
  • Unrelated project or meeting notes
  • Confidential client information
  • Confidential employee information – for which the inadvertent disclosure could violate certain laws
• Voice-activated devices: Exercise caution with voice-activated, digital home devices that can accidentally record the audio of confidential work phone calls or videoconferences.
• Printing: You may also want to consider the ability of employees to print work-related documents at home. Paper records in a home office could cause a retention problem or data disclosure issue.

3.  Establish a secure connection to company systems

To prevent outside parties from eavesdropping on their activity or stealing company data, your employees should use a secure, private Wi-Fi connection when working outside the office.

What does this mean?

The Wi-Fi network should be password protected and the provider of the Wi-Fi should be known. Connecting to “Free Public Wi-Fi” is never a good idea.

Best practices around Wi-Fi connection

• Passwords should be unique and not shared.
• Avoid using a default password on any technology.
• Avoid unsecured, public Wi-Fi networks when working remotely but outside the home.

Additionally, a crucial extra layer of cybersecurity is to use a virtual private network (VPN). A VPN provides a secure connection between your device and your company network. All data transferred between these points is encrypted. The encryption provided by the VPN ensures that criminals can’t eavesdrop on authentication or the data being transferred between your device and your company resources.

An extra benefit of a VPN is the continuity of operations. When employees log into the VPN remotely, if configured correctly, they can access information and perform functions as they normally would in the office but from any location.

4.  Ensure cybersecurity in operating systems and software

Because the nature of cyberattacks is always shifting, operating systems and software become exposed to vulnerabilities as flaws are discovered by hackers. Updates, or patches, are designed to fix those vulnerabilities.

Organizations should keep company devices up to date on patches. To access company systems, devices should run a scan to check that all software is updated. This prevents high-risk devices from connecting to company systems.

When it’s time to update your operating system or software, make sure employees download legitimate, approved patches. To remove any ambiguity, you or your IT department should send a direct link to download the patch.

Under no circumstances should employees scour the internet to identify software. Unapproved software or applications may contain viruses or other malicious code.

Best practices around antivirus software

• Some form of antivirus software should always be activated.
• Purchased or free antivirus software is acceptable.
• Don’t allow users to disable the software.
• Keep the software up to date – similar to patching. If your subscription has expired, obtain or renew your subscription.

5. Don’t permit users to have administrative privileges

Administrative rights need to be controlled, especially in the realm of cybersecurity.

Users of company-issued devices – your employees – shouldn’t enjoy administrative privileges on those same devices. In other words, they shouldn’t be able to download software or otherwise alter the operating system without the approval of you or your IT department.  Otherwise, your systems and devices could be vulnerable to viruses.

Instead, all software updates should be initiated on your end. This helps ensure that company-issued devices operate in an approved fashion.

6. Avoid easily compromised passwords

Some best practices around passwords

• Combine upper- and lower-case letters.
• Include numbers and special characters.
• Make the length at least 10 characters.
• Mandate a password change after a set time period. If your company doesn’t use multifactor authentication, every 30 days is standard. If you use multifactor authentication, changing passwords annually is sufficient.
• Passwords should be unique and complex. Password managers can be a great tool to generate strong passwords.
• Passwords should never be shared.

7. Set up user authentication for company devices and networks

What is user authentication in the context of cybersecurity?

It’s proving to a system that whoever is trying to log in is who they say they are. It requires system users to provide more information beyond a password to verify their identity.

Strong authentication should always be required to log in to company devices and access company networks.

Whenever possible, deploy multifactor authentication – two or more verification steps – for an added layer of security during login. Multifactor authentication is commonly referred to as:

• Something you know (password)
• Something you have (token, SMS pin, digital certificate, software or badge)
• Something you are (fingerprint or facial recognition)

Note: SMS is falling out of favor as a verification method because of increased SIM card attacks.  Now, the most popular verification method is a software authenticator, such as Google Authenticator.

Without multifactor authentication, users who have been phished may allow cybercriminals to access your company systems.

8.  Beware of phishing scams

A phishing attack is when a bad actor disguises as a legitimate source to obtain sensitive data from your company and employees or infect your devices and systems with malware.

With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), these attacks have become increasingly sophisticated and harder to detect as obvious scams.

The latest trends?

• Bad actors – especially those from foreign countries or who speak English as a second language – can leverage AI to compose convincing-looking emails and websites, free of the usual red-flag grammar issues or misspellings.
• AI can even be used to imitate a known party’s voice, such as an employee or customer.  All hackers need is a short clip of someone’s voice and they can recreate it for nefarious purposes. Today, there’s a real risk that the person you think you’re speaking with on the phone is fake.

Tips to help your employees avoid phishing scams

EMAIL

• Have a healthy skepticism about every email that enters your inbox.
• Watch out for email senders who use suspicious or misleading domain names, or unusual subject lines. If you’re suspicious about the sender, don’t open the email.
• Never open attachments or click on links embedded into emails from senders who you don’t recognize.
• Report a suspicious email to your IT department – don’t respond to it.
• Reach out to your IT help desk with questions or concerns.
• Be very careful about entering passwords when being directed by an email. Be confident you know the destination is legitimate.

FAKE WEBSITES

• These sites may provide encryption to enhance the appearance of legitimacy.
• Pay careful attention to website links to confirm that you’re visiting the correct site.  Cybercriminals will subtly misspell website links, so they’re close enough to the site they’re imitating to appear legitimate and fool you.
• Enable multifactor authentication for every account login you can.
• Don’t follow links from within an email. Open your browser and enter the correct link to where you want to go. Don’t trust that the email is taking you to the correct destination.

FRAUDULENT PHONE CALLS

• Authenticate the person you’re speaking with at the beginning of every call – before sharing sensitive information.
• Use some type of outside authentication method, such as a callback, security questions, a rotating key presented by a software authentication app similar to Microsoft Authenticator or visual confirmation of website sign-in.

It’s important that you test how employees respond to phishing attempts in the real world.  That’s why your IT department should try to phish your employees at regular intervals.  Employees who fail the test must undergo anti-phishing training.

9. Stop outsiders from crashing videoconferences

Cybercriminal hacking into conferences has become a major problem. Unwanted attendees often interrupt videoconferences for harmless, albeit annoying disruption, but occasionally it’s to eavesdrop and steal information.

How to stop videoconference intruders

• Don’t use the same personal meeting ID for all meetings. Instead, use a randomly generated meeting ID exclusive to each specific meeting.
• Enable a waiting-room feature when available, which will allow you to grant access to each participant.
• Require a meeting password.
• Once the meeting begins and all participants are present, lock the meeting to outsiders.
• Don’t publish the meeting ID on any public platform, such as social media.

Additionally, avoid downloading unapproved videoconferencing applications, which could be infected with viruses.

10.  Have a disaster-recovery plan

When employees work remotely, you just don’t have the same level of control over the security of your devices as you do when they work in the office.

What will you do if one of these scenarios impacts your devices?

• A fire that destroys hardware, paper records or data backups
• Floods and other natural disasters
• Burglary
• Employee loses a device
• Damage associated with downloading a virus-affected application or resulting from other malicious activity by cybercriminals
• Some other type of preventable damage associated with the home environment (for example, someone spills their drink on a laptop or drops a device)

When any of these events happen, valuable company data can be exposed to outside parties or is lost. This is known as a technology disaster.

Some practices to include in a disaster-recovery plan

• Create a system that will back up or sync data from remote users’ devices to a centralized repository, such as a file server or collaboration site.
• If there’s no central repository, ask employees to regularly back up the content on their devices to company servers.
• Force data and content into a central repository that’s VPN accessible and/or cloud based.
• Don’t permit employees to save data to external drives. You may even consider restricting where data can be stored on company-issued devices.
• In the cases of misplacement or theft, consider implementing a functionality that can remotely wipe the device of all company data and software. Failure to follow this step may lead to a data disclosure and legal action.
• Instruct employees to contact their IT helpdesk as soon as an issue occurs.
• Obtain cybersecurity insurance to mitigate the effects of a cyberattack on your company.

11. Establish cybersecurity remote work and data-protection policies

These policies are important and offer valuable guidance to your employees. Clearly written security policies can reduce the risk and uncertainty during an emergency event.

The cybersecurity issues and prevention tips addressed in this blog could be formalized in a written remote-work policy and data-protection policy. Both should be documented in your employee handbook.

12.  Leverage IT expertise

Your company’s sensitive data and the integrity of your company’s IT infrastructure are at stake.

This is a highly technical, complex area that calls for the involvement of experts. And it’s a full-time job on its own to keep up with the latest cyberattack techniques and stay on top of cybercriminals’ efforts to infiltrate your company.

If you don’t have qualified in-house IT expertise and resources continually managing this for you, you should strongly consider hiring an IT consultant to:

• Optimize your cybersecurity efforts
• Build an in-depth defense
• Promptly resolve attacks when they happen

If your cybersecurity strategy is left to an unskilled resource, you will find that you have a poorly defended infrastructure.

Summing it all up

No business is immune from cyberattacks. The fact is, it’s an escalating threat that will only continue to grow and impact all employees. However, many companies have remote employees, which can exacerbate their cybersecurity risks. Follow the 12 steps outlined here to implement cybersecurity best practices and avoid the many harmful consequences of a successful attack.

The below content was originally published on the Insperity blog, a great source of information for business and HR best practices.

Economic inflation isn’t just an external news story – it’s a painful market condition that affects nearly everyone. It can have a wide-ranging negative impact on your workforce and, ultimately, your business.

How so? Inflation can:

• Diminish the reach of employees’ salaries, making them feel as though they don’t earn as much as they used to
• Affect aspects of their lives as consumers with the rising costs of everything from groceries to fuel to vacations
• Reduce the amount that employees are able to contribute to their 401(k)s, which can result in significant long-term impacts, including delays in plans to retire as expected
• Increase stress and anxiety levels in employees, which can:
  • Distract them from work
  • Cause productivity to plunge
  • Generate tension and conflict and, in worst cases, even violence in the workplace
• Force employees to take second jobs, which can cause burnout and exhaustion
• Lead employees to leave your company for higher pay elsewhere to counteract the effects of inflation

Communicate with employees about inflation: Yes or no?

Although no company is ever obligated to discuss topics that aren’t specific to the organization, be aware that your employees, especially younger workers (millennials and Generation Z), may expect you to acknowledge issues that personally impact them inside and outside the workplace.

In the post-COVID workplace, employees tend to have much higher expectations of their employers, including the frequency and breadth of communications. Therefore, understand the needs and expectations of your workforce.

To maintain strong employee relationships and avoid getting caught off guard, inflation is one of those current events for which you should consider preparing a communication plan. With your workforce, as a general rule it always pays to get ahead of certain issues and be:

• Connected
• Communicative
• Empathetic
• Transparent

Let employees know that you’re aware of their struggles during this challenging time, that you care and that you want to support them. As a result, they are more likely to feel heard and valued, and they are less likely to take any drastic, stress-induced actions.

How to support employees during economic inflation

With that being said, how can you demonstrate your care and support for employees?

1. Promote your employee assistance program (EAP)

Your company’s EAP exists to help employees with a variety of both work and home-life topics by opening up efficient, confidential access to professional resources. Leverage it!

With inflation, your EAP can connect employees to financial professionals in order to become more financially stable and learn how to manage the impact of inflation on their income and household budget.

Additionally, employees dealing with inflation-induced stress and anxiety can find mental health professionals via the EAP.

When you communicate with employees about inflation, remind them of your EAP’s availability and diversity in services, as well as how they can access it.

2. Engage top-priority employees

During times of inflation, it’s a valid concern that employees may leave your company in search of higher pay or better benefits. This is especially true when it comes to talent that you can’t afford to lose.

It can be a smart exercise to identify the most mission-critical talent in your workforce and proactively start discussions with them. Conduct stay interviews with these employees to:

• Find out what they like about your company
• Ask if there are any changes they recommend or concerns they have
• Inquire about what they need that they’re not currently getting
• Get an idea of which scenario(s) would make them more likely to leave

Also train managers to have regular conversations with their direct reports about what keeps them at the company and what might make them consider leaving. Inform managers on what they should look out for that could indicate an employee preparing to leave – for example, a sudden change in behavior or increase in absenteeism.

3. Support managers

Your managers really are the glue that holds everything together in your workplace. But they’re not immune to their own personal distractions and life stressors as well, particularly those resulting from widespread events such as economic inflation.

That’s why you should put extra effort in supporting managers. Educate them on how to deal with unfocused, anxious employees by:

• Offering more training on coaching employees through inflation-induced stress or resolving conflict, including role playing certain scenarios
• Guiding them on how to conduct stay interviews
• Freeing up space on their calendars so they can schedule regular one-on-one meetings with direct reports and keep a better pulse on what’s going on with employees
• Advising them on the behavioral cues, tone and body language to look for when evaluating whether an employee is struggling more than others or might be at risk of leaving the company

4. Increase company contributions to retirement planning

A 401(k) retirement plan is an important benefit that your company pays to provide for employees – and you want to make sure that they know how to take full advantage of it for their financial well-being and future security.

When communicating with employees about inflation, remind them of the long-term benefits of contributing to their retirement plans. Urge them to not give up on their investments or their retirement dreams.

If budget allows, consider upping the amount that you contribute or match to your employees’ plans each month to help ease their stress.

5. Explore other financial incentives

Of course, there’s always the option of raising salaries commensurate with inflation. This would be a popular option with employees.

However, from employers’ perspective, the cost of living doesn’t necessarily equate with the cost of labor – and it’s the latter that determines salaries. Furthermore, many employers have spent much of the recent Great Resignation raising salaries to attract and retain top talent in a super-competitive job market – and many are now stretched thin.

Even during times of inflation, companies cannot become so desperate to retain employees that they overextend themselves and lose sight of their own financial viability.

If increases to base pay aren’t possible, there are alternative approaches that still have the potential to help employees earn more money and ease financial stress without impacting companies’ regular fixed costs. These options revolve around bonus programs and can include:

• Performance bonuses – Focused on an employee achieving a specific goal or objective, or demonstrating a desired behavior in the workplace
  • Retention bonuses – Used to retain employees during transition periods to encourage them to stay
  • Sign-on bonuses – Given upon hire and not based on performance
  • Spot bonuses – Immediate (on-the-spot) recognition for outstanding contributions of individuals or teams

In addition to reducing employers’ financial risk, bonuses act as a powerful incentive for employees to maintain strong performance despite personal distractions.

If you do enact any pay changes, be mindful of internal pay equity. Document all reasons for pay changes in writing.

6. Seek out other incentives as well

In times of stress, employees tend to fixate on base pay. But there is a larger picture. Often, companies are able to offer benefits to employees that, while not costly to the bottom line, deliver value to employees personally while increasing their engagement.

Examples:

• Career development opportunities
• Additional training
• Employee recognition programs

Training and development has the added benefit of making employees more valuable to their employer as well.

7. Allow employees to work from home (if you don’t already)

Still have grand return-to-work plans following the COVID-19 pandemic? Inflation may put a damper on those. With high costs of work-related expenses – for example, gasoline for commuting, eating lunches out, happy hours, dry cleaning professional attire and childcare – many employees in roles that are conducive to remote work may resist coming into the office. From their perspective, why spend all that money if it’s unnecessary?

Depending on your business and specific roles, an easy way to mitigate employees’ costs is to allow them to work:

• From home 100%
• On a hybrid schedule
• On a flexible schedule, such as a shortened work week, to reduce days in the office

This will also align your business with the latest workplace trends and employee expectations, and help you to avoid dreaded post-pandemic turnover. These days, it’s not just a better salary that motivates employees to make a move. Most employees really want more workplace flexibility and will change jobs to attain it.

For employers, this has the added financial benefit of reducing company overhead.

Summing it all up

Economic inflation isn’t an issue that employees leave in the outside world when they walk through your office door – it’s a major issue that can cause employees significant amounts of stress and anxiety. In this way, it very much infiltrates your workplace and can have many negative impacts. Here, we outlined seven tips that employers can put into practice to demonstrate their care and support for employees during inflation and, hopefully, re-engage and retain employees, calm concerns, shift employees’ focus back to work and maintain productivity.

For more information on helping employees navigate tumultuous periods, download our free magazine: The Insperity guide to managing change.

The below content was originally published on the Insperity blog, a great source of information for business and HR best practices.

Cross-training staff has long been viewed as a useful way to train future managers. Today, the practice has moved beyond managerial candidates to all levels.

The intention is to strengthen teams, give employees more opportunities to advance and to have backup in case key team members leave. It can also be useful to prepare a company for dealing with challenges presented by changes, such as economic shifts, a disaster or a pandemic.

While cross-training may seem like a no-brainer, it’s not without risks and requires planning to be carried out well. In other words, successful cross-training requires more than simply teaching employees new skills and plugging them into different or unfamiliar roles as needed.

Although the process takes time to develop and implement, it can help employees, clients and your business thrive and ensure business continuity. Doing it wrong, however, can negatively impact morale – and potentially be costly to your bottom line.

Why is cross-training employees important?

For employees:

Cross-training is about developing employees to improve the business and customer experience. It allows employees to:

• Expand their knowledge of different roles
• Work on new projects
• Gain the skills necessary for specialization
• Prepare for a more senior role

For businesses:

1. Cross-training helps organizations maintain stability and provides valuable flexibility across teams. Any organization without backups for key roles can grind to a halt if key personnel are unavailable. Cross-trained staff can provide safeguards for these contingencies.

2. The company can also benefit from a service perspective by deepening employees’ understanding of the business. Exposure to different roles allows employees to see how what they do impacts the business and how the various roles contribute to the company’s goals.

3. When a key employee goes on vacation or leaves the company, a trained team member can step in to the vacant role. This helps the company, particularly in a service environment, because it allows for better coverage of key jobs.

4. Cross-training staff also helps preserve institutional knowledge through inevitable staff turnover. Imagine if a tenured employee decides to retire after 20 years on the job. That’s two decades of collected knowledge and experience walking out the door.

How to effectively implement cross-training

Are your cross-training processes clearly defined?

Cross-training needs to be consistent, planned and organized.

• Define what makes the role successful: What will be accomplished and what knowledge and skills will be required?
• Be specific: The cross-trained employee should know exactly what the new work entails and what is expected.
• Determine if your process or steps are accurate: Usually the person in the role can validate the process. If not, then make adjustments. Like any new process, things work better after a few iterations.

The goal is to build and fine tune a plan to consistently cross-train employees for a critical role or specific skills. This process is similar to what would occur when onboarding a new employee.

Remember: Employees are learning something new and will need support. There will be a learning curve. Allow for this in the implementation period.

Can you communicate the goals and the risks involved?

Help employees understand your strategy behind why they’re being cross-trained.

From the outset, clearly communicate your rationale and goals. Begin by selling them on how individual employees may benefit:

• Personal career development
• Increased job security
• Potential for advancement as the organization grows

Beyond that, talk about how the experience and training will help the company. Paint the larger picture for them.

If presented correctly, cross-training can be an opportunity to get staff members excited about taking on new types of assignments and growing their careers while helping the company.

Managing resistance

Be especially thoughtful about how you approach employees who stonewall your coaching efforts.

Note that some people may see the addition of another task as punishment, which could lead to dissatisfaction because you are adding to their workload. Or staff cross training others may fear they’re about to be replaced.

Try to anticipate and address these worries upfront. If anxiety arises anyway, work quickly to dispel any rumors. Refocus the conversation on the benefits to individual employees, the team and the company.

Communication is critical. Be honest about your intentions. If employees know they’re learning new skills in preparation for possible advancement down the road, they may be more receptive.

If you don’t get buy-in from your team, cross trainers and trainees alike, negative sentiment of the training program could spread. Consequently, others may not want to participate in future training opportunities. It could be viewed as additional responsibility without a corresponding pay raise.

Another risk: employees who were not asked to cross-train may resent being excluded. In this instance, explain that cross-training must be done incrementally. Work with them to identify in which areas they seek to grow. See if you can help them obtain additional training, whether through cross-training or another avenue. (This all hinges, of course, upon these employees meeting agreed upon performance results.)

How should you select trainers and trainees?

Before you can begin cross-training employees, you must determine which ones would make the best candidates.

Personality, preferences and motivation play a part in cross-training.

Most businesses seek to hire people they can develop into multiple roles within the organization. These individuals have a thirst for knowledge and a desire to advance. Those are also the characteristics you look for in somebody you’re trying to cross-train.

Be advised that a lot of whether cross-training will succeed can depend on the field and whether the person has the capacity for the added responsibility. A new duty may be in their wheelhouse or maybe not. Do they have the passion for it?

Selecting cross-training candidates and pairing them with the ideal trainer can be as much art and science.

A veteran well-versed in the subject matter is a preferred teaching candidate.

Selecting the student should hinge on a several factors:

1. Do they have a base knowledge level of the task or skill?
2. Have they demonstrated abilities in similar or complimentary duties?
3. Are they already a high-level performer?

Some roles may have testing procedures to identify the best candidates. Input from supervisors and human resources may also help in the selection process.

Can someone be too specialized to be cross-trained?

In some areas, it’s not advisable to cross-train. For example, in business where the work is highly specialized or involves compliance-oriented jobs, like a human resources specialist handling employee relations issues, or bank compliance department positions.

By only having on-the-job cross-training in these jobs, you run the risk of less skilled workers attempting to resolve complex issues. Instead, any training should be supplemented with advanced coursework and earning the appropriate certifications.

In these cases, the training should be deeper, not broader.

Summing it all up

In most businesses, people are the biggest expense. When cross-training is done well, it improves employee engagement, codifies institutional knowledge and drives productivity gains that can lead to bottom-line results.

However, cross-training staff is only one way to develop your employees. If you’d like to learn about other strategies for empowering your employees to better succeed and grow your business, download our complimentary magazine: The Insperity guide to learning and development.

The below content was originally published on the Insperity blog, a great source of information for business and HR best practices.

Being proficient at managing remote employees requires a mental leap, especially for traditionally minded managers.

At first, business leaders, used to monitoring productivity based upon workers’ “desk time” and visible activity levels, may find a shift to remote work foreign and unwieldy. Employees, too, may feel out of sorts in the beginning, as they adjust to significant shifts in their days.

That’s understandable.

After all, while everyone seems to grasp what “work from home” means, not everyone has experienced it yet. And there are definitely pros and cons to working remotely.

Expectations when leading a remote team

To lead a remote team well, managers may discover they need to loosen their reins a little while finding ways to continue to hold employees accountable.

Without the ability to continuously monitor employees in a shared office space, they may find success by focusing more on what gets done and whether it meets well-defined quality standards. It’s helpful, too, to be willing to experiment a little with technology and how meetings are conducted.

In other words, successful pivots to virtual work – whether planned months in advance or in response to a natural disaster or a global pandemic – require that managers be willing to recalibrate how they lead their people and move away from the idea of micromanagement.

Leaders should also become familiar with work-from-home best practices and expect a certain amount of trial and error, because the growing trend of remote work is here to stay. To get you started, below are seven basic tips to help business leaders when it comes to managing remote workers.

1. Understand common work-from-home challenges

Typically, there are four main challenges supervisors and business owners encounter when managing a remote workforce.

• Lack of face time with coworkers and supervisors – face-to-face interaction is vital to company culture and workplace encounters. The absence of in-person communication can be strongly felt by virtual teams. Consider collaboration tools to improve employee engagement and increase social interaction between remote team members.
• Video fatigue – On the flip side of the previous bullet, using Zoom all the time to aid connection can have worse consequences. Empower employees to decide as a team and when meeting internally if they want to be on camera or not.  Requiring all cameras all the time – unless client facing – can erode morale and is just another way to senselessly control and micromanage what employees are doing.
• Communication breakdowns and bottlenecks – When working remotely, we can’t peek over the cubicle or slip down the hall to see if a colleague or supervisor is around to answer a quick question. Plus, for all their convenience, slack messages and emails can go unnoticed. Managers can help address these issues by modeling effective communication strategies.
• Surrounding distractions – Whether it’s another coffee shop customer accidentally spilling sugar on a remote worker or a cheerful toddler giving a mighty shout from the living room during a Zoom call, distractions seem to come with the remote work territory.

Assuming such incidents don’t become routine, patience is helpful – especially when remote work is a temporary solution to a short-term event, situation or crisis.

2. Set clear remote work productivity standards

It’s important to set clear expectations when discussing productivity standards with your remote team. Some productivity standards will vary with the job; others may be standard across the company.

Individual standards must be analyzed and documented, however informally. For example, you and your teleworking team may decide that any developer assigned a project must deliver code ready to be tested in five working days, and if a deadline won’t be met there must be 48 hours’ notice.

Meanwhile, a call center employee may need to resolve 10 client calls an hour while ensuring there are no crying babies in the background. A recruiter may need to conduct 20 phone interviews and fill five positions a month.

Although documenting productivity standards may seem like too much of an extra effort, it can help spot trends that need to be addressed. It can help you spot burnout or the need to provide additional training to improve a bottleneck that impacts productivity.

3. Identify and provide the right tools

An important aspect of successfully managing remote employees is to make all necessary tools easily accessible. To meet that need, leaders and teams may have to puzzle through what should be put in place to ease a telecommuting transition.

Remote employees need the same access to things utilized by onsite employees, which may include (but are not limited to):

• Policy and procedure manuals
• Presentation templates and supplies
• Mail supplies and stationery
• Apps and software programs
• Corporate credit card

Remote work technology

Most remote work can be conducted with little more than a computer, internet access, a phone and a headset. However, there may be additional tools and resources you should consider to help employees remain productive such as:

• Access to digital communication tools and files
• A small printer or an account at a local copy shop or mail services center, all with clearly communicated spending limits
• Company laptops
• Reliable internet connection or access to a co-working space
• Digital video conferencing tools like Zoom or Microsoft Teams

Remember: You and your remote employees may find that some tasks must be conducted in the office for security reasons or because it’s simply more efficient to meet in person. Be ready to accept the limits of remote work for some portions of a job or for individual units within a larger division.

Transitioning teams to remote work

In a perfect world, new remote employees would train to use relevant remote technology and protocols six months before implementation.

Yet, even if a shift to remote work is anticipated to take place in a matter of weeks (or days), a four- or 24-hour trial run may reveal unanticipated shortcomings to a seemingly workable remote plan.

Depending on your circumstances, you might have the whole team participating or only one or two members.

4. Set aside specific days, times and methods for team interaction

For remote teams, it may take a little extra effort to recreate common workplace water cooler communication. And when there is a mix of off-site and on-site employees, remote managers should seek team-building opportunities to include everyone whenever possible.

It may seem artificial or cumbersome at first but encourage your remote workers to contact you and other team members regularly – and vice versa. What constitutes “regular contact” depends, of course, on the job and the tasks work-from-home employees must accomplish.

Building better remote team connections

Obviously, email, instant messages and phone or Zoom video calls are essential for remote interaction.

When possible, it’s helpful for employees to keep their workday calendars up to date on a centralized platform or application. Also useful are “away” notifications on software and out-of-office email replies during normal work hours. These seemingly little things help minimize the risks and frustrations associated with those dreadful communications bottlenecks.

For fully remote offices, encourage team members to pick up the phone or schedule short video calls to cut down on the back and forth.

Building better interactions during meetings

To monitor progress and foster collegiality, it’s helpful to establish a set time for group online interactions. Brief daily check-ins or staff meetings help leaders and project managers to assess situations and identify roadblocks with each employee’s work load.

It may be helpful to revisit how to run a successful meeting. There’s not a huge difference between remote and in-person meetings, but generally it’s helpful to:

• Have a clear agenda
• Set expectations ahead of the meeting by adding “be camera ready” or “camera optional” to the invite
• Call roll at the beginning of large meetings so that everyone knows who is present
• Encourage everyone to mute themselves when they’re not speaking
• Schedule no meeting days/time frames for the team to have dedicated flow time to get work done

The agile process, developed within the software community but now applied in several industries, can be useful when managing teleworkers. Many remote teams find the process helps nurture accountability while also helping managers monitor projects.

5. Follow up with remote employees regularly

As with the rest of the advice here, there’s no one-size-fits-all for how often a manager should reach out to remote workers.

Yet the most effective one-on-one calls aren’t just about monitoring productivity. They can also be powerful means of keeping remote employees motivated and engaged.

A great initiative would be to ideally, schedule one-on-one calls – whether daily, weekly or biweekly – this can help a manager:

• Determine if the employee is doing well overall
• Work with the staff member to identify and eliminate bottlenecks
• Discuss plans for the employee’s professional development
• Answer a range of questions relevant to the employee

Depending upon the employee and the nature of their job, more or less routine interaction may be required. For example, Amanda may need a call once a week while Matthew may require daily calls.

Keeping productive workflows in mind and as much as schedules permit, supervisors should be adaptable to staff needs and calendars.

6. Create a video or tip sheet with other remote employees’ suggestions

Staff members or trusted industry peers who have traveled the remote road before may have advice to share, including what software is most helpful or what’s required to set up a home office.

These insights can be shared via PDFs, short videos or informal question-and-answer video calls.

Other valuable remote management tips include:

• How to manage the ebb and flow of ordinary days and peak periods
• Favorite local eateries that deliver
• Maintaining work-life balance while working remote
• How to incorporate healthy behaviors
• Time-management ideas
• Personal strategies for staying on task and organized

7. Remember, remote doesn’t mean cheaper

Budgets play an important side note when talking about remote workers. Some business leaders may assume that instituting remote work and cutting office space by 50% equals a 50% reduction in the expense of housing employees in a traditional office.

However, the formula isn’t so straightforward. Yes, your company will probably spend less on physical office space, but those savings are likely to be spent elsewhere, depending on the remote work that needs to be done.

For instance, your travel budget may increase if remote workers in other states need to travel to the main office once a quarter or more. Or, you may need to invest in new or upgraded software or additional hardware, such as headsets, to properly outfit remote employees.

Remote workers can be just as productive, if not more so, than in-office employees. You just have to set them up for success.

8. Continuously communicate with your team

Virtual work definitely adds complexity to the leadership function, but managing remote teams really isn’t all that different from managing onsite teams. Regardless of location, all managers share the same basic challenges in leading people.

One such challenge that any manager will encounter at some point is engaging in difficult conversations with employees. These types of conversations typically focus on:

• Negative feedback about job performance
• Negative feedback about a specific behavior
• Disciplinary issues
• Demotions or involuntary reassignment of roles and responsibilities

Without a doubt, engaging in difficult conversations with employees can be uncomfortable in any setting. But in an environment in which a manager and subordinate may rarely, if ever, interact in person, both parties are vulnerable to misunderstandings. Successfully navigating these difficult conversations virtually requires a higher level of emotional intelligence and more intention.

Here are some tips to overcome one of the toughest aspects of leading remote teams: engaging in difficult conversations.

• Establish trust. You and your employees should be able to be open and transparent with each other. Your employees should view you as a coach – someone who wants to help them succeed – not as an adversary.
• Spend time getting to know your team members. Learn their personalities, working styles and communication preferences. Engage in remote team-building activities or virtual social gatherings to build rapport and understand who your employees are on a deeper level. Find out how you can adapt your management style to best support each individual employee.
• Set personal expectations. Talk with your employees about their roles and responsibilities, processes for carrying out their work, expected quality of their output, work hours and availability for meetings. Don’t assume that you’ve been clear in outlining your expectations – be thorough and ask your employees if there’s any confusion to clear up. This is one of the most common mistakes that managers of either remote or on-site teams make.
• Review the company’s remote-work policy. This policy should cover the companywide requirements and expectations for working remotely – for example, the technologies that should be used, IT and cybersecurity standards, optimal working conditions, productivity standards, and rules and procedures to protect sensitive information.

You can demonstrate trust in your team by managing outcomes versus people. In other words, don’t fixate on how many hours employees are online each day or how often they check in. When employees work from home, there will always be distractions.

Instead, focus on your employees’ output – what they did well and accomplished, or what they missed or didn’t complete. In a remote work environment, you have to trust your people, because you simply can’t police them from afar.

You can also build trust with employees by owning up to your mistakes and identifying opportunities for your improvement. If an employee’s error or oversight resulted from your actions, be honest. You can say something like:

“I want to give you some feedback on a project you recently completed. To be fair, I did not properly set expectations, so let’s clarify those expectations now and see how we can approach the next project.”

Your team members should also know how to reach you if they have questions or concerns. Be accessible when you say you are available.

Find more tips for how to manage remote employees. Download our free magazine, The Insperity guide to leadership and management.

The below content was originally published on the Insperity blog, a great source of information for business and HR best practices.

Now that your company has fully embraced work-from-home options for your team, it’s time to dive deeper into onboarding for remote employees.

While it takes a bit of extra effort and creativity, successfully onboarding remote employees doesn’t have to be complex. After all, plenty of all-remote companies have been making employees feel welcome and included from a distance for several years.

And the more organized you are when onboarding remote employees, the better the likely outcome for you and your staff.

Below are a few strategies that will help new remote workers:

• Feel clear about their respective roles
• Be engaged with their work
• Make productive contributions to your team

Onboarding remote employees: Same goals, different format

The main goal of employee onboarding is to give your new hires a thorough understanding of their role and empower them with confidence and clarity. This can enable them to put their full energy into their work and truly excel.

Remote employee onboarding should have the same goals.

While you can’t take away the natural anxiety that comes when someone steps into a new role, you can help alleviate worries new hires may feel about learning the basics of their job.

Yes, even in a virtual context, you can scaffold new employee success by providing structure and support, communicating well and helping them engage socially with your team.

Your remote onboarding team

Having a great system for onboarding remote employees means having a great team to support the process and the new hires.

Ideally, each new hire would receive remote onboarding support from three people:

• A designated HR representative (possibly their recruiter) provides continued support related to early HR issues, like selecting benefits options.
• A designated IT representative assists with the new employee’s remote office setup.
• The manager or direct supervisor serves as the primary onboarding guide, helping the employee adapt quickly to the organization and connecting their work to your company’s vision.

For IT and HR onboarding support, it’s best to give new remote employees specific names and contact information, not just a number to call or a link to click. Personalizing these forms of support can help remote employees feel more connected.

Proactive pre-employment strategies

Prepping new hires for day one of any job is an important step for promoting engagement from the start. When onboarding remote workers specifically, being proactive – and collegial – between acceptance of the job offer and the first day, helps sets the right professional tone.

In a remote context, managers should put a little extra effort in helping their new hires get ready to start. Here’s a timeline outlining some important touch points to make during this pre-employment period.

Pre-employment timeline:

1. Two weeks before the first day

Email the employee and let them know the date their office equipment will be delivered (if your company is providing it).

2. Following equipment delivery

Call the employee to ensure they received their office equipment.

3. One week before the first day

Have a video call with the employee to ensure they can log onto their computer and phone systems. This is a good time to see if anything seems to be missing from their setup.

4. One day before

Send a quick “see you tomorrow” message.

Remote employee welcome kit

If you are providing your new remote employee with company-issued office equipment, you can utilize the shipment of their equipment as an opportunity to provide additional onboarding information.

Here are some ideas of things to include in a remote employee welcome kit:

• All necessary office equipment – laptop, phone and any other hardware
• A printed roadmap detailing how to set up their home office and log onto your company’s systems for the first time
• A reminder to have everything set up one week prior to their start date
• Reference guide to all of the tools and resources available to them (e.g., contact information for their supervisor, HR and IT support persons)
• Schedule of meetings for their first day or week

Those are the essentials, but you might also include items or t-shirts branded with your company logo, gift certificates to a meal delivery service in their area or other simple gifts.

The goal? To show your enthusiasm for their pending arrival.

If you put in extra effort to make this package smooth and welcoming, not only will your new remote hires feel reassured that they’ve made the right choice but also they may spread the word in your profession that your company treats its people well.

Down the road, that positive, welcoming vibe might help you lure an elusive purple squirrel and other desirable candidates to your workplace.

First day tips

For your new hire, the first day of a remote position should feel similar to a typical first day working in your office.

At the start, plan for the employee to have one-on-one time with their supervisor in a videoconference. There should also be time available for the employee to meet informally with their immediate co-workers, either in groups or one-on-one.

If you would typically take a new hire out to lunch with other members of your team, consider fun ways you might do this virtually.

For instance, plan a time for a meet-and-greet and have food delivered from a restaurant to the new employee and each member from the team. Then, have everyone get on a virtual call and enjoy dining together.

For new hires in your office, do you typically walk them through your offices, introducing them briefly to people from other departments? You can do something similar virtually, too.

Stroll through the building using a handheld device’s video camera. Or, create and present a pictorial slideshow that outlines important areas and highlights your organizational chart.

Early opportunities

To build on the engagement you worked to establish on your remote worker’s first day, continue to host virtual opportunities for new employees to mesh with your team.

For example, host a Zoom coffee break every Friday morning, assigning one person on your team to lead a discussion of a fun topic. You could also give these meetings a theme (e.g., wear your favorite hat) or center them on a light-hearted contest (e.g., bring your best drawing).

After a few weeks – and once they’ve gotten their bearing, give your new hire a mini leadership opportunity, like moderating your coffee break discussion. This will discourage them from simply listening and hanging in the background on calls, helping everyone to get to know them personally.

Sidestepping a potential pitfall

Silence from a supervisor is probably the biggest mistake you can make when onboarding – and supervising – remote employees.

Without a warm, regular connection to a key point of contact in your organization, it’s easy for a new remote worker to feel aimless and detached from your company’s mission.

Whether they’re scheduled weekly, daily or biweekly, having regular check-ins scheduled from the outset can strengthen ties between managers and remote team members. One-on-one standing meetings can help. Through them, managers and employees can address questions and troubleshoot problems.

Over time and when paired with other retention strategies, these interactions can help keep your latest hire around for years to come – and perhaps minimize staff turnover among your remote team.

The below content was originally published on the Insperity blog, a great source of information for business and HR best practices.

Pay equity is a topic that affects everyone, from first-time job seekers who want a fair employer to experienced leaders who want to attract and keep talent that drives innovation.

It seems simple enough, but implementing fair pay is a complex process that requires:

• Good data
• Ongoing reviews
• A willingness to reexamine assumptions about who fills different kinds of roles
• A cultural commitment to compensating every employee appropriately

Here’s a guide to understanding, implementing and maintaining an equitable pay structure in your organization.

What is pay equity?

The briefest definition of pay equity is the practice of compensating employees the same way for the same work, regardless of race, gender, disability, LGTBQ or other status.

That may sound straightforward, but true pay equity hinges on many factors beyond implicit (or explicit) bias in hiring, promotion and salary offers.

An equitable pay structure must also consider individual employees’ experience, education and level of responsibility. And it must address any imbalances in workforce representation that can exclude some groups from higher-paying leadership roles.

Pay equity is the law

Fair pay is also a compliance issue, one that’s evolving quickly. The federal Equal Pay Act has prohibited sex-based pay discrimination since 1963. However, because the law contains gaps and loopholes, and because the definition of equity has evolved, many states are writing their own pay-equity laws.

The legal landscape is rapidly changing, but lack of awareness isn’t a defense if employees file a complaint or a lawsuit. It’s up to you and your HR team to keep up with any changes in the rules.

Equitable pay is a competitive advantage

Candidates and employees have more ways than ever to learn and share how companies pay and promote their talent. Social media, employer review sites and a growing awareness that employers can’t prevent workers from talking about their pay all contribute to a climate where talent can rule employers out (or in) based on their pay practices.

Paying employees fairly, then, can help you attract and retain talent. It can also prevent internal strife, low morale and turnover if employees discover they’re being paid differently for the same roles.

Implementing or improving your pay-equity policies

Many companies wait until employees file grievances to start reviewing their pay-equity practices. But getting ahead of the problem can reduce the likelihood of complaints – and the legal fees, morale damage and bad PR that come along with them.

Auditing your pay structure for fairness is a major, multistep process. Planning ahead can help you get the most from the process. Here are the steps.

1. Get a quick overview of your pay-equity landscape

If your leadership says they’re committed to fairness and no one’s complaining, do you even need to audit for pay equity?

Most often, the answer is “yes.”

A quick way to take the temperature of your pay fairness is to calculate your company’s pay gap by gender or race.

A further statistical analysis of everyone’s pay may reveal a significant difference in pay between the two groups. If so, your audit should focus on gathering data to understand what’s driving that discrepancy.

2. Gather data on every employee

A full audit requires looking at every employee’s pay, role, responsibilities and education so you can view comparable employees to see if there are gaps in compensation.

As you gather data, be on the lookout for positions that are essentially the same but are paid differently. Jobs that require substantially similar skills, background or experience, responsibilities and working conditions should typically be in similar pay grades, regardless of title.

For example, an administrative assistant and office coordinator may perform the same essential duties, so all other factors being equal, their pay should be similar.

Depending on the size of your company, how easily you can access the data and how much time you can devote to it, the process typically takes at least a week and perhaps as long as several months.

3. Look at your workforce representation

One element of pay equity that’s sometimes overlooked is workforce representation – the percentage of certain roles that are dominated by a particular gender, racial or other group.

When certain roles are dominated by one group that can reduce the possibility of true equity across your organization. It can also raise a flag that some groups are being passed over at the hiring, development and promotion stages.

For example, if your organization’s highly paid senior leadership team is mostly male while female and non-binary employees are clustered in administration, there’s going to be a large overall difference in pay by gender. It also means that your company needs to revisit its commitment to diversity in order to get the recruiting, retention and innovation benefits of a truly inclusive workplace.

4. Consider working with a PEO

What if you don’t have the resources to conduct your analysis in-house?

You’re not alone.

Even large organizations may not be set up to capture the kind of data a pay-equity audit requires.

A professional employer organization (PEO) can handle the heavy lifting of data collection and analysis, interpret the results and help you plan to remediate any problems the audit reveals.

For example, you may find that your company isn’t promoting women of color at the same rate as white women. Is that because of implicit bias, inconsistent talent development programs or something else? A PEO can help you tailor solutions to the root of the problem.

Note: It’s recommended that any pay-equity analysis is conducted under attorney-client privilege.

Put your compensation plan in writing

When you know what needs to be fixed, put it in writing. You may need to write or rewrite your organization’s compensation philosophy and policies to address inequities in your existing pay structure.

Your team should examine, document and make any necessary updates to:

• Job descriptions – they should accurately detail the duties and responsibilities of each job.
• Salary structure, pay grades and bonus plans – ensure objective criteria are used and aligned with job categories.

A documented framework can help managers stay on an equitable track when making pay-raise decisions. That can help prevent disparities in pay between different groups due to implicit bias and siloed decision-making.

Decide how to talk about pay equity

Because pay equity is a sensitive subject, it’s best for senior leadership to decide how and when managers can discuss it with employees, so that everyone is on the same page.

Elements to consider when developing a communication plan include:

• Does your organization currently have equitable pay processes in place?
• What steps is your company taking now to address any disparities?
• What level of transparency does your company have about your written pay policies?

Once leadership has a plan for communicating about pay equity, it’s important to put that plan in writing and ensure that managers are trained on it.

Make equitable pay part of your company culture

Because mapping a plan for equitable pay requires an investment of work and time, the commitment must be part of the culture in order to succeed. That requires leaders who commit to the idea that pay equity is an important element of the compensation process.

Building pay equity into your culture also requires ongoing attention. Regular reviews can show how much progress your organization is making toward equitable pay. They can also help identify other areas like recruiting, promotions and performance review practices that may also need adjustments so your company can succeed at building a culture of equity.

Make sure your other processes are aligned with best practices, too. Download our free e-book: 7 most frequent HR mistakes and how to avoid them.

When your business needs to pivot fast because of changes in your industry or the economy (or both), how do you fill the new roles?

If your organization has laid the foundation for reskilling, you can retrain your current employees to take on those new roles. That can keep your company viable during times of major change – without the additional time and expense of hiring brand-new employees.

However, reskilling isn’t just a way to save time and money when your company needs employees with new skills quickly. Over the long term, reskilling can help you keep your talent, attract motivated candidates and support expertise and innovation that benefit your whole organization.

What is reskilling?

The definition varies depending on the source, but in general, reskilling happens when you help your employees learn the skills they need for a new role within your organization.

For example, a retailer might reskill its in-store salespeople to work as remote customer service agents to support a change in focus from brick-and-mortar to e-commerce sales.

A subset of reskilling, called upskilling, can help prepare your people for major changes in their current roles. For example, the retailer that’s putting more resources into e-commerce might upskill some of its managers with training in data analysis for better inventory planning, logistics and digital marketing performance.

What are the benefits of reskilling your employees?

When you reskill or upskill your people to take on new tasks or roles, you can save time and money in the short term.

You can also build a stronger employer brand, a deeper bench of talent and a wellspring of innovation over the longer term.

1. Reskilling can reduce the cost of filling new roles.

Recruiting, interviewing, vetting and hiring new employees is expensive and time-consuming, even before you get to onboarding. And even with a solid hiring process, there’s always a chance that a hire might not work out.

When you reskill your current employees, you avoid the costs and the long timeline of hiring and onboarding a new person. That frees your resources to help your existing people get up to speed for their next role in your company.

2. Reskilling can help you attract new talent.

A company that’s dedicated to helping its employees build new skills has an advantage when it comes to recruiting. Candidates who want to feel valued at work will often seek out employers with a culture of professional growth that includes reskilling and upskilling opportunities.

What’s more, employees who experience the benefits of ongoing training and development are usually enthusiastic about sharing their experience with others. So, a culture of reskilling can strengthen your employer brand and bring in more candidates who are motivated to keep learning and growing.

3. Reskilling can help you retain your best talent.

There’s a great example of the benefits of reskilling in the life story of Dorothy Vaughan, depicted in the film “Hidden Figures.” She managed a group of women mathematicians working as “human computers” for the U.S. space program in the early 1960s.

When she learned that NASA had bought a new IBM electronic computer that had the potential to replace her team, she got a library book on IBM’s programming language, called FORTRAN, and she taught herself and her team.

By reskilling herself and her employees, she saved their jobs. She then became an expert programmer, worked on NASA’s Scout Launch Vehicle Program and stayed with the agency until she retired.

Dorothy Vaughan’s story is inspiring, but it wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t been motivated to do the reskilling herself. Think about how much talent, expertise and innovation organizations can unlock and retain when they’re proactive about helping their people develop new skills.

How long does reskilling take?

In “Hidden Figures,” it doesn’t seem to take long at all for Dorothy Vaughan and her team to learn FORTRAN. Off the big screen, the amount of time it takes to reskill an employee depends on the kind of training that’s available and the time available for the employee to train.

The best-case scenario is that you see a need for new skills on the horizon and you start training your people early, so that when it’s time to adopt that new technology or practice your people are ready.

The worst-case scenario is clinging to technology or practices that are outmoded, without updating your employees’ skills, until you’re forced to adopt new ways of doing things. Then you may end up having to hire new people with the skills you need, and you may not be able to keep and retrain all of your current employees.

To avoid this kind of crunch, think of reskilling as an ongoing process rather than a short-term project. As a manager or leader, you can make reskilling easier by always keeping an eye out for the next roles your people will need to fill as your business and industry evolve.

How can your organization build a reskilling program?

Like any program, your company’s reskilling efforts will be most effective if they are part of your culture. So, the first step is to embrace a learning culture.

How can you do this? Consider creating a yearly program that you and your employees use to set goals for learning and skill development.

For example, a developer on your team might be watching a new technology that you’re not using yet, but they think it’s on the horizon. They might ask to make learning about that technology part of their growth plan for the year.

To help your employees follow through on their learning goals, your reskilling program will also need some specific resources.

1. Adopt a skills development platform.

If there’s an online educational or certification platform for the skills your business needs, you can use it to help your people identify skill gaps and set learning goals for their current role or a new one they’re preparing to take on.

A platform can track employees’ progress toward their goals. It can also save you time collecting the training resources you need to reskill multiple employees quickly for new roles if you’re making a quick pivot.

2. Seek out specific skills trainings.

A single platform, even a comprehensive one, may not have all the resources you need for a particular reskilling effort. And you may have employees who want training that’s not on your platform’s menu. This is when it makes sense to invest in other employee trainings.

For example, if your industry is senior care, your skills platform might focus on clinical knowledge and certifications for your certified nurse assistants.

However, if you have a nurse who wants to learn data analytics to help improve resident outcomes across your facility, you may need to find nurse informatics resources to support their reskilling goals and innovative plans.

3. Encourage job shadowing.

Many times, we think of shadowing as something that helps interns or new hires get a sense of what a particular role is really like. However, there are at least two ways that shadowing among current employees can help with reskilling and upskilling:

• An employee from one team can shadow another team to learn how they do their work. Then that employee can share their findings with their current team, which helps build the entire group’s skills and knowledge base.
• An employee who wants to transition into a new role may want to shadow a co-worker who’s doing that work now. For example, a quality assurance tester who wants to work as a developer could shadow a developer to see which skills they’ll need to build and how those skills are used.

4. Help employees leverage their expertise.

Sometimes, employees already have the knowledge and skills they need to transition into a new role, based on the work they’re doing now. For example, a payroll expert who handles several of your company’s client accounts may have insights that also make them valuable as a consultant for other clients.

Keep in mind that the evolution doesn’t have to be either-or: stay in the current role or move to the new one. The payroll expert might be able to consult while still keeping a hand in payroll, to keep their knowledge and skills up to date.

Summing it all up

You can build a workforce that’s ready to take on whatever changes your business faces when you:

• Create a culture of learning.
• Keep an eye on new trends.
• Make skills development part of each employee’s routine.
• Stay open to employees’ expertise.

For more ideas on employee training and talent development, download our free magazine: The Insperity guide to learning and development.

The below content was originally published on the Insperity blog, a great source of information for business and HR best practices.

Work-life balance has been an employee mantra for decades. Its meaning has become engrained in our culture, as it’s brought up in discussion in ways like, “Make sure you have a good work-life balance and take time to spend with your family without working too much.” 

But a change is underway that further upends the way work is viewed. Life-work balance is a new term that reflects a shift in how employees perceive the role of work in their lives. The conversation is becoming, “Family and life outside of work comes first. How can you create a work schedule that fits your lifestyle?”

Simply put, the current workforce places the highest value on flourishing in their personal lives. They are scrutinizing whether work positively impacts the equation. But this holistic revolution didn’t happen overnight. 

Why is work-life balance gone?

Prior to the pandemic, people were used to going to the office all day, every day. Everything needed to do one’s job was found within someone else’s brick-and-mortar building. The line was clear here: Work was done at work. There was no way, structure or reason to do it anywhere else.

Then, advances in technology and cultural changes altered the face of the workday, and the line between work life and home life blurred.

To keep on top of increasing workloads, people brought work home and fielded calls from the office. Work encroached on evenings and weekends. Yet, paradoxically, the ability to work at home was still considered a privilege.

As work-life balance became a bigger topic of conversation, the notion that the workplace should be a more comfortable and relaxed place, like home, was an attempt to address burgeoning stress levels. Perks found their way into the office, with tech giants like Google and Microsoft leading the way. Beanbag chairs, foosball tables and free lunches appeared.

But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, working from home became non-negotiable. What used to be a perk for a few was now mandatory for the masses. Employees and their bosses collaborated to make the transition happen quickly.

Many workers not only functioned in their new home environment but thrived. They celebrated their newfound freedom. This is where the sweeping movement in favor of life-work balance gained momentum, leaving work-life balance behind.

What is life-work balance?

Life-work balance is the belief that wellbeing takes precedence over everything. It’s a slight change in mindset, but the impacts are significant.

Work-life balance	Life-work balance
I will take vacations and spend weekends with my family. I will plan time off, so I don’t miss things.	Work will not interrupt the small moments of day-to-day life. I will move my work schedule around, so I don’t miss things.
I will work from home three days this month because I have someone doing work on my house.	I will work in the office a few days this month for our team building event and quarterly staff meeting, otherwise I don’t need to come in.
I like going out to lunch with co-workers weekly to build my community and network. We spend most of our time together, after all.	Social activities at work aren’t as important to me anymore. Although, I do like connecting on occasion. I find my community more in social circles outside of work.
I’m feeling burned out, so I need to try to prioritize my mental health by requesting some time off next month.	I’m feeling burned out, so I am going to prioritize working for a company that values my wellbeing and doesn’t make me feel this way.

Why is life-work balance taking over?

1. Burnout was already well underway

Despite efforts from business leaders to prioritize work-life balance, burnout levels skyrocketed. Employee burnout rates became so alarming that the World Health Organization (WHO) labeled it an occupational phenomenon in 2019. According to Gallup, WHO went so far as to define it as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”

Unfair treatment, heavy workloads and poor communication with management impacted employees’ mental and emotional health. Corporate leaders were on the hook to fix the problem their cultures had created.

2. The pandemic changed employee values

The timing of the pandemic created a perfect storm. It accelerated a movement where the shift from work-life balance to life-work balance became impossible to ignore. The pandemic watered seeds that were more than ready to sprout.

The ongoing Great Resignation is the bellwether of this sentiment. Workers seemed to arrive at life-work balance sentiment collectively.

According to Pew Research Center, the top reasons people leave their jobs are:

• Low pay
• A lack of opportunities for advancement
• Feeling disrespected
• Child care issues
• No flexibility over working hours
• Wanting to relocate
• Working too many hours

What’s this have to do with life-work balance? The reasons people are leaving to find new jobs are directly related to what a life-work balance culture includes:

• Support of family needs
• Flexible work hours
• Remote work opportunities
• Less focus on hours worked and more focus on work completed

3. Preferences of a younger generation of workers

As more Gen Z workers enter the workforce, this life-work shift may be a foregone conclusion. Younger workers grew up having technology at their fingertips. They, too, are less attached to physical locations and more to convenience. Creative and energetic, they love freedom and embrace the spirit of entrepreneurship. They may be the first generation to view work not as a place but as a mindset.

4. Business leaders are supporting the transition

Another reason life-work balance is taking over is because leadership is supporting it. Leaders are actively looking for ways to improve their employees’ wellbeing and discover how to motivate, engage and retain employees effectively.

Employees kept asking, and leaders listened. Flexible workplaces and schedules have become mainstream. Proactive companies are now witnessing glimmers of increased engagement, reduced stress levels and improved employee retention.  

Challenges with life-work balance

1. Distractions

If life-work balance means being a remote employee, there are new distractions that workers don’t normally find in a traditional work environment. Distracting households and below-average workspaces can make the transition to home problematic, and the balance that’s trying to be achieved might actually be unstable.

2. Isolation

Workplace culture can become diluted, and cohesiveness can suffer if employees are working at different times due to flexible schedules. Even the nature of being siloed and not having organic conversations makes a difference in working relationships.

3. Not adapting quickly enough

Companies slow to perceive, identify and address their employees’ desires may suffer from a diminished workforce. A willingness to change is key.

The traditional question of how to mold an employee to fit into the organization is disappearing. A better question is, how does the way we do business fit into the employees’ life?

There is no playbook and no one-size-fits-all solution. Life-work balance means different things to people. Nap pods and pool tables don’t entice people as much as they used to. Perks should be fluid and morph with the employees’ circumstances and phases of life.

What are the benefits of life-work balance to employers?

1. Recruiting and retention

Employers who embrace life-work balance can use it as a recruiting mechanism. Once leaders identify what perks resonate with their talent pool, they can expand recruiting efforts geographically. Eliminating the requirement that employees must be located within 20 minutes of the office opens up candidate pools nationally and internationally, granting employers access to a broader swath of talent. 

2. Potential cost savings

With more working from home, less office space needs to be rented. Employers who downsize or shutter buildings can realize significant cost savings and reduce their carbon footprint.

3. Increased engagement

Acceptance of employee values can pay off by lowered turnover and increased engagement. The goodwill created by listening and responding to needs is an easy way to bolster loyalty and employee satisfaction.

Summing it up

Work is only one piece of a fulfilling life. Increasingly, employees see their mental and emotional health as a priority.

It’s people who keep the company going. Humans are necessary for any business to survive. Every human yearns to be heard and understood. As the workforce changes, companies must care to support the complexity of life-work balance while getting what they need from their team.

Need help navigating other changes that impact your workforce? Download our free magazine, 
The Insperity guide to managing change.