All it took was an exposé, two lawsuits alleging gender bias, sexual harassment and wrongful termination; a walkout and a class-action on behalf of its female employees.

But video games maker Riot Games has committed to fundamentally changing a sexist “men first” workplace culture where women were routinely subjected to harassment and inappropriate behavior.

And the $1.4 billion dollar company (2018 revenue) agreed to settle a class-action suit by paying out $10 million to about 1,000 employees who self-identify as female.

The settlement was announced in August but details have just been released.

Fixing a culture of gender bias and retaliation

The legal battle was launched following an investigative report into Riot’s “toxic culture” by gaming news and review site Kontaku. The report detailed pervasive gender bias experienced by female employees at the company.

Following the report, five employees sued the “League of Legends” video game developer for wrongful termination, claiming gender discrimination, sexual harassment, and violation of the California Equal Pay Act.

The company moved to block two of the suits because the two women had signed arbitration agreements when they were hired.

The suit also alleged that Riot retaliated against outspoken female employees who were “denied promotions, refusals to provide increased compensation or equal pay, demotions, reassignment with significantly different responsibilities, losses of benefits, suspensions, terminations, and other adverse employment actions.”

Riot said in its filings that it’s strengthened its sexual harassment and gender discrimination reporting process.

The company also committed to make its pay, promotion and hiring practices more fair and transparent.

And it promises other moves to show its commitment to “living up to our values and to making Riot an inclusive environment for the industry’s best talent.”

Arbitration still a sore issue for tech

One thing that won’t be changing immediately for the company’s existing workers is the forced arbitration clause in their contracts.

The company’s efforts to force the original gender bias, harassment and wrongful termination suits into arbitration was one of the driving issues behind the May 2019 walkout by about 150 workers.

Despite the pressure from employees and the public, Riot has thus far refused to change its arbitration agreement for workers hired before Jan. 1, 2019.

That’s when a new California law banning such requirements took retroactive effect.

Employers in California are prohibited from requiring “any applicant for employment or any employee to waive any right, forum, or procedure … including the right to file and pursue a civil action or a complaint…“

Tech giants Google and Facebook moved to address the issue earlier this year.

Google announced in February it would end the practice of mandatory arbitration for all employment disputes, including gender bias, sexual harassment and retaliation occurring after March 2019.

Contract workers left out?

That agreement left out contractors, however, who make up about half of its total workforce.

Contract workers at Google locations in California will be covered under the new law.

It is unclear what Google will do for contractors working outside the state.

Facebook so far has followed the lead of other large tech companies and limited its arbitration changes to cases of sexual harassment.

The post Riot Games settles ‘bro culture’ gender bias claim for $10M appeared first on HR Morning.

Tweet This Post

Will the global economy go into recession in 2020? That’s the worry on so many minds. News headlines reflect that concern with stories of trade disputes and that wonky-sounding inverted yield curve.

The validity of those fears is underscored by data from experts, such as the UN’s trade and development body, which recently revealed in its 2019 World Economic Situation and Prospects report that “Leading indicators point to some softening in economic momentum in many countries in 2019.”

Whether the economy is softening or hastening towards its next recession, what HR leaders know is that economic swings hit the workforce hard, and make it tougher to fine tune talent acquisition.

From 2007 to 2009, the Great Recession swallowed up 8.7 million U.S. jobs as unemployment soared to 10%. Job losses were greater than in prior recessions according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. From career setbacks to retirement disruptions, it was a traumatic period for the U.S. workforce and one no talent or business leader wants to see replicated. 

While no one can stop a recession or eliminate its impacts, HR leaders do have the power to fine tune talent acquisition processes ahead of the next downturn.

Here are five ways to fine-tune talent acquisition that, when done in advance, could ease the kind of stress and pain that plagued corporate HR and recruiting teams during the Great Recession.

Embrace a Total Talent, Data-driven Strategy

As company Boards and CEOs look to economic indicators and adjust spending plans, HR leaders need to have broad human capital insight in order to align workforce strategies with those evolving business strategies. While many businesses do a decent job of forecasting talent needs, a recession underscores why forecasting is only one part of the “total talent” picture HR should have in mind. The candidates you plan or hope to hire represent only one segment of the population affected by recession-driven change.

Rather than focusing narrowly on adjusting budgets or the number of new hires in its recession planning, HR needs to think bigger, going beyond typical knee-jerk recession mindsets that hurt businesses over the long term. Instead, HR should gather workforce and business data to analyze the many ways human capital translates into financial and organizational health and infuse those analytics into broader strategic planning efforts. That requires building a total talent picture that takes into account the full range of factors affecting workforce success—from risk management and supply/demand to proactive talent community development, employment branding, and performance management. It also means taking into account the contributions and management of all employment categories, from full-time and part-time employees to contingent staff and outsourced resources and vendors.

This total talent picture gives HR leaders the insight to provide
proactive human capital guidance that can positively affect the financial and
organizational health of the business in the near-term while also safeguarding
the systems that drive workforce productivity, agility and satisfaction over
the long term. With this, they earn a seat at the leadership table.

Ensure Your ATS Can Keep Up

While recruiters and hiring managers are currently struggling with a scarcity of skilled candidates, the deluge of applicants that come with a recession is hard for any team to manage without strong technology. Applicant Tracking Systems (ATSs), however, are only as good as the algorithms behind them and the data you put in them. As applicant volume and quality increase in a declining market, HR leaders need to ensure their systems are fine-tuned to help, not hinder.

The first ATS factor to consider is whether the system and
tech environment have been configured so that recruiters and HR teams are able
to create strong pipelining plans, integrate customized candidate messaging and
deliver a valuable candidate/user experience. Assessing the ATS for these essential
capabilities now, at a time when most businesses are seeing fewer applicants,
is a great way to improve the system ahead of economic changes that cause a
spikes in applications and limit both system and staff bandwidth.

Another consideration is whether the ATS needs to be updated
to capture different skills and qualifications.  Is the job and requirements data being entered
sufficient enough to identify the best candidates rather than simply bringing
in large pools of candidates? Is the ATS feeding talent insights to the right
leaders and managers with good, current reporting data? Are automated
engagement tools current and able to set engagement and timing expectations for
candidates while still promoting a strong employment brand?

An ATS can be an extremely useful support system as hiring
volumes slow and candidate applications increase. An important way to get ahead
of recession challenges is to ensure that the data coming in and the
communications pouring out of the ATS are accurate and valuable.

Assess Incentive and Retention Plans

When unemployment is high and job hopping is rampant, incentive and retention programs swell in the hopes of capturing and keeping talent. As the pendulum swings, HR has an opportunity to strategically (but never callously) re-adjust programs to balance new needs. Those needs might include upskilling internal team members to limit the need for new hires with these skillsets.  

The key in making changes to the scope of programs designed to retain talent is to ensure changes are communicated with grace and honesty. If employees are informed that budget dollars need to be re-allotted to support the development and retention of internal staff, the majority will line up in support of the program. If, however, changes are made behind closed doors and without thoughtful communication, people get nervous and it can ding solid employment brands that should be able to endure upturns and downturns.

Get Employment Brand Creative

A recession can be devastating to an employment brand. Salary, promotion and hiring freezes. Reductions in hours. These are actions businesses sometimes have to take during recessions and, without counter balance, they can erode faith and trust in a company’s employment brand. This is a place where HR leaders need to think creatively.

In which ways is the organization working to nurture strong relationships
with employees and contract talent? Are most of them related to benefits and
compensation?  If so, consider ways to
tap into shared company and employee values that don’t require extensive
investment. Perhaps it’s committing time or resources to community and
charitable programs that employees care about. Perhaps it’s opportunities to
engage with and learn from business leaders. Perhaps its internal mentoring and
apprenticeship programs that support ongoing skill and career development.

Another key to enduring employment brand strength is ensuring consistent, timely candidate communication. Even in these recent years of low unemployment and hard-to-find candidates, many businesses have remained astonishingly guilty of Black Hole Syndrome— behaving like a communication vacuum in which candidates send information, questions and applications and never hear  back. Recession or not, ensuring your business is doing its best to communicate status to candidates and talent is key to employment brand strength and good talent relations.

Evaluate Outsourcing Opportunities and Vendors

Outsourcing recruitment functions to experts has driven growth in organizations around the world. While a recession is a downturn for the economy, many businesses find it can also be a time to infuse greater workforce management effectiveness and execution into their organizations. The recession-focused push to do more with less is still centered on optimization and driving greater efficiency. The need for recruitment and talent management excellence may slow due to economic conditions, but it does not go away.

Take a fresh look at your outsourcing vendors and
opportunities. Are there current vendors that need to be reassessed or fired
because of poor performance or rising costs? Are there models, such as
recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) or managed service providers (MSP), that
could increase quality and scalability and reduce costs? Could current gaps in
HR services be met by an outsourcing partner that can establish a streamlined
system in the downturn that will pay dividends over the longer term? The key is
to identify areas of optimization early, and take action in advance of a
slowdown. Get ahead of the recession in order to emerge stronger from it.

Some economists say a big recession is inevitable markets
rise high and fall big. Others believe that even if there is a recession it
won’t hurt much. While no one knows for sure, HR knows that being prepared is
the best way to support and maintain a committed, high-performing workforce. A
flip in economic fortunes changes a lot. With the right forethought and action,
it doesn’t have to change what makes a good business a good employer.

The post 5 Ways to Fine Tune Talent Acquisition with an Eye on Recession appeared first on HR Morning.

Tweet This Post

With 2019 winding down, HR pros are all wondering what new workplace trends 2020 will bring.

Well, look no further! The experts at Glassdoor have answers for you in their Jobs & Hiring Trends for 2020 report.

Here’s what Glassdoor says you can expect to see in the new year.

1. AI will play a bigger role in the workplace

Between apps to schedule meetings, chatbots for customer service and software to sift through candidates, experts are predicting the use of artificial intelligence to increase greatly in 2020.

Many companies are already using AI in some form or another, but in the new year, Glassdoor is predicting management will be taking advantage of it — specifically to help perform routine tasks such as scheduling, budgeting and communicating.

For example, some managers are using AI to help coach employees in real-time. Software can offer instant help or suggestions to employees, or give immediate feedback to sales and customer service staff.

This form of AI can guide employees without managers physically having to be there.

2. Culture will become the focus of the hiring process

In 2019, a lot of employers became aware of just how important a good company culture is. In 2020, more progress is expected to be made.

With a culture-first mindset, business leaders will be focused on employee engagement now more than ever before.

What’s responsible for this shift? For one, candidates are getting smarter about doing research on companies before accepting offers — and they won’t go somewhere employees are miserable.

But mostly, companies can clearly see the positive effects a healthy culture has on their employees and business overall. Financial performance improves, innovation goes up, and it’s far easier to attract and retain top talent.

Here are some of the key values Glassdoor says contribute to a great culture:

• collaboration
• diversity
• innovation
• integrity, and
• respect.

3. Diversity and inclusion will become a priority

Between the #MeToo movement and the shocking lack of diversity in C-suites across the U.S., employers will certainly be keeping diversity top of mind in 2020.

In fact, a recent Glassdoor survey found that 64% of companies are investing more in diversity and inclusion efforts now than they were before. And between August 2018 and August 2019, job postings targeting diverse candidates rose 30%.

Diversity and inclusion initiatives are nothing new, but employers are now putting money into specifically recruiting and retaining diverse talent. Another key element to success in this area is getting leaders and managers on board, from the top down.

4. Employers will see more baby boomers in the workforce

Nicknamed the “gray wave,” more people over the age of 65 will be working and actively job hunting next year. Over the next 10 years, 61% of the 65-plus workforce will postpone retirement and keep working.

What’s behind the rise of the boomers? They’re healthier and also want the additional income more than previous generations.

5. Job searching will happen on mobile devices

People use their phones for everything from shopping to dating to looking for jobs. And candidates today want a quick and easy way to apply.

In 2020, employers will see the importance of streamlining application processes and making them mobile-friendly. No one wants to miss out on all the talent that’s ditching their desktop computers and searching for employment on the go.

The post How 2020 will reshape HR’s role: 5 trends to watch for appeared first on HR Morning.

Tweet This Post

Even as some surveys show that about 65% workers in North America say they aren’t actively looking for a new job, many of them also report they are not engaged at work. But that doesn’t mean you can relax with your employee retention efforts.

Most of those folks are probably sticking around because they are uncertain
about which way the economy is headed.

But, since they aren’t getting a lot of satisfaction working for you, they
are open to other opportunities that might come around.

At the same time, your company and your competitors are trying to make the
most of the current economic upswing while it lasts and are still hunting for
the best workers.

That creates a double-edged employee retention problem for employers.

Many workers you might not miss aren’t feeling very loyal and are sticking around
just for the paycheck. They’re bored but safe. As soon as things look promising,
they’ll be back on the job websites.

Worse, while they are at work, they are creating an atmosphere that drags
co-workers down into the same “meh” attitude.

Meanwhile, retaining your top performers remains a challenge as they’re still
seeing offers interesting enough to make them jump ship.

The good news is you can attack both problems using the same tool – an
effective and sustained employee recognition program.

Even better news? Employers who’ve invested in employee recognition programs and technology to support and measure those programs say they can quantify links between recognition, engagement and employee retention.

By the numbers

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first.

In a survey conducted by leadership training company OGO Lead, 82% of employed Americans said they didn’t feel their supervisors regularly recognized their contributions.

That tracks pretty well with findings from recognition platform vendor
Acheivers – only 9% of the workers they surveyed ranked their managers
“awesome” at recognizing their contribution.

But 26% of those same workers ranked recognition in the top three factors
for staying in their job and about 20% pointed to a lack of recognition as the
main reason they’d consider leaving for a new job.

And the folks who are staying put but doing just enough every day? OGO
reports 40% of workers they surveyed said they’d put more energy into work if
they were recognized more often.

What does that mean in dollars? A Gallup study put the cost of employee disengagement at work at $960 billion to $1.2 trillion in lost productivity a year in the U.S. alone.

The business analysis and advisory juggernaut has more bad news: Replacing
an employee who quits runs from one-half to twice the person’s annual salary,
bringing the cost of “voluntary turnover” at American companies to $1 trillion.

Astounding figures sure to get anyone’s attention. Even so, dollar figures
that start with a T are pretty abstract.

You’ll need more grounded numbers to get leadership’s support to launch and
sustain an employee recognition program that’ll help stem turnover at your
organization.

Critical factors: support from the top and bottom-up recognition

Here’s some information that will help you make your case that recognition is key to employee retention:

A midwestern grocery chain needed to stem the brutal turnover rates typical
of the retail industry. With more than a hundred locations following a series
of acquisitions, however, it knew that running different programs at each store
and warehouse was never going to be affordable — or effective.

To justify the investment required to build a program, it needed to develop
a centralized, standardized program.

That would help all employees understand that employee recognition was a
core part of the company’s culture and mission.

They would all use the same tools to recognize each other and to see how
colleagues’ work was helping drive the business.

By elevating and praising great work, the program helped to drive co-workers to emulate their colleagues and strive to be recognized themselves.

The company appointed corporate and local champions with responsibility for
making it a success.

Engaging workers and the CFO

And that went both ways – keeping the program fresh and workers engaged and
sustaining executive buy-in over the long term.

To keep the investment coming, the employee recognition program had to be
connected directly to business goals, results and strategy and be able to
change along with them.

The program champion told an HRMorning webinar audience that, for an employee recognition program to elevate a business in a meaningful way, it must be continuously tied to the overarching goals of the business.

And the champion, usually an HR pro, has to have a seat at the strategy table.

“It’s mission critical for the program champion to not only understand the
entire landscape of the company but to be connected to what’s going on,” she
said, “so you’re really able to constantly re-evaluate what’s relevant to the
business that recognition could help drive.”

In addition to giving employees a great way to recognize each other for
great work, the retailer solicits feedback from employees and incorporates
their ideas into programs as much as possible.

The company has also made training on the employee recognition platform a required part of their onboarding process.

And it evaluates managers based on the percentage of direct reports who are
active on the platform and the percentage who receive recognition over the
course of the year.

Showing results in engagement and retention

When it was time to convince leadership to keep investing in employee
recognition, metrics are the key.

For this retailer, teams receiving more frequent recognition have better engagement scores.

Teams with positive engagement scores say they feel more valued through that recognition.

And teams who say they feel valued lose fewer workers to voluntary turnover.

HR is able to show that, when recognition goes up in a location, engagement scores
go up and turnover goes down. Recognition equals retention.

As a specific example, company metrics show that, at locations where managers recognize 1.8x more than their counterparts, the company sees up to 40% less turnover.

And by sharing the data across the organization, managers can see how they
stack up and take steps to increase recognition and improve retention.

“They can look at all the other data including this recognition data for those locations and recognition tends to be something that they can easily control,” the company champion explained, “They can easily put a campaign together and help drive retention at their location. So it’s something that they have a lot of control over that makes a big impact.”

Best practices drive best results

This is just one company’s experience, but it highlights a number of best
practices for leveraging employee recognition to improve retention:

1. Tie employee recognition programs to business goals, results and strategy
2. Find a champion who can manage the program and keep leadership committed. You can’t launch it and leave it
3. Use the employee recognition program to drive desired behavior across the organization – what’s recognized gets repeated.
4. Measure and quantify the return on your employee recognition program investment. Employee recognition drives engagement. Engagement drives performance and retention. And that translates into making and saving real money.

The post Retention drives employee recognition ROI appeared first on HR Morning.

Tweet This Post

With each passing day, the HR industry is under more pressure to get things right. That’s why it’s so essential to keep abreast of what’s new in the marketplace and where HR tech tools are heading. 

Different tools and applications for recruiters and HR are more valuable than never. Hundreds of platforms have been created to improve productivity and to automate HR processes. We have compiled a list of 7 super HR tech tools that will definitely make their lives easier.

Ready? Let’s get started

Textio Hire

This application solves the problem that almost everyone faces in recruiting: poorly written vacancies. The main feature that the system offers is the ability to identify patterns in the language, helping the company better communicate with candidates and thereby improve business results. Textio Hire shows you words you need to use to attract people you want to hire, using language that reflects the very best of your values and culture.

Hero jobs

If you use Instagram, you probably know that Stories are very popular now. To everyone’s surprise, Stories captured not only social networks and messengers but also working applications. How about sending short video messages instead of annoying cover letters? Recruiters will be able to attach short, minute-long videos about their company and upcoming tasks to each candidate, thereby strengthening their HR brand.

Academy Ocean

All this became real with
Heroes Job app. It is positioning itself as a platform where students can find
internships and a first place to work, and startups will select young talented
employees who are open to novelties and an informal style of communication.

The best way to onboard a
new employee in the first month is to make the onboarding process automated.
Have you noticed that recently medium and large enterprises started creating
and using employee onboarding academies? With the help of AcademyOcean, you
will be able to create such an academy. 

Employee onboarding academies are sort of closed portals where the knowledge is stored. Academy may contain both formal information (description of basic processes, checklists, and instructions) and essentials for a beginner – mission and vision of the company, corporate culture, traditions, etc.

If you count the company’s expenses for the onboarding of each newcomer one-on-one, you will get a considerable amount. Automated onboarding academies will help save a sufficient number of person-hours.

Crystal Knows

It is a super handy extension for Google Chrome, which will help you find an individual approach to each candidate. It analyzes the profile and activity of the candidate on LinkedIn, Facebook and other social networks. Consequently, it tells how to address him better and what content of the letter he will appreciate. You can also have a grasp of the type of person’s personality and his preferences and fears.

Revere

Sounds good, right?

With this application, you will never forget what the name of the new employee is, what your boss’s niece loves and when you need to congratulate your colleagues. You can add information from any device, view your “database” before meetings and receive notifications, so you don’t miss anything.  

Krisp

Krisp allows you to
minimize ambient noise during voice and video calls. This free application
works with Skype, Slack, Zoom and many other services for online calls and
conferences.

Using this application it will not be a problem to handle an interview at the airport or on the street. 

Block Clock

It is one more extension for Google Chrome that
blocks the social network for 25 minutes. It saves on days when it is very
difficult to concentrate on work.

So, here were seven tools that will definitely make HR’s life easier. I think everyone will find some useful apps for themselves to optimize their working processes and to make their work more pleasant and productive. 

The post 7 super HR tech tools that’ll make your life easier appeared first on HR Morning.

Tweet This Post

The key to successful recruiting is good interview
scheduling, which is too often an overlooked part of the hiring process. When
done right, good interview scheduling will reflect well on your company,
improving a candidate’s experience and the likelihood the person will reapply
even if they’re not the right fit this time around.

Poor interview scheduling experiences
increase the time and cost to hire and can mean that candidates drop out and go
to competitors. They may also leave a negative review on a site like Glassdoor.
These reviews can make a huge difference to your employer brand and negatively
affect the candidates that apply for a role.

A poor interview scheduling experience also wastes the time of hiring managers and recruiters. They spend longer getting in touch with candidates and coordinating schedules instead of working on bigger, more important tasks. The time they waste on interview scheduling results in them missing targets elsewhere, leading to job dissatisfaction and a greater employee turnover.

When you add in the coordination involved, as well as finding available meeting rooms and equipment, the seemingly small task of interview scheduling quickly ends up taking more time than it should. That’s why successful recruiting depends so heavily on good scheduling.

So how do you claw back that time and create a friction-free interview scheduling process for candidates, recruiters and hiring managers?

Successful recruiting

Here’s how to create a better interview
scheduling experience for everyone.

Get everyone connected

The constant back-and-forth that’s required
to schedule an interview is time-consuming and frustrating for everyone involved.
Candidates may not be able to speak on the phone when at work, meaning that
it’s difficult for recruiters to organize a time that works and the time to
hire goes up.

Hiring managers can only provide candidates
with a handful of meeting times. If a candidate can’t make these times, or two
candidates pick the same time, they must reschedule.

Even just finding these times can be frustrating. Hiring managers and recruiters often must switch between multiple applications to check their schedules. If they forget to check one of them, they may find themselves double-booked, which then leads to them needing to reschedule one of their appointments. Our survey found that 61% of hiring managers often find interviews conflict with other appointments, meaning that rescheduling interviews or rearranging appointments is a regular occurrence.

When a hiring manager connects their
calendar to their interview scheduling software, they don’t need to worry about
the stream of emails or phone calls that interrupt their day. Recruitment
coordinators also don’t get caught in the middle between candidates and hiring
managers, trying to find a time that works for everyone.

Let applicants ‘self-book’

When candidates can self-book their
interview, it doesn’t matter if they work night shifts or can’t have their
phone with them at work. They can book a time that’s most convenient for them
while still factoring in the availability of the interviewer(s).

This creates a candidate-first hiring
process, which helps to improve your employer brand and the likelihood that
even those who are unsuccessful may reapply for future roles.

Hiring managers also don’t need to worry
about taking time out of their schedule to check them. The software can use
their most recent schedule to only suggest times when they’re free.

Think of Calendly. It allows us to schedule appointments with people based on their real-time availability. What if you could generate links like that, tailored to your specific interview needs, whether they were for a panel interview, a group interview or even a multi-part interview?

Schedule everything

When holding an interview, there’s another
key element that needs to be factored in: an available meeting room.

In a busy office, it can be difficult to find a meeting room that’s free, though, especially if there are only a handful available. This can create scheduling conflicts that lead to interviews or internal meetings needing to be rescheduled. For candidates on the receiving end of this, it creates a negative impression of the company that may cause them to drop out of the hiring process.

Calendars can also be set up for meeting rooms. These can then sync with an ATS and suggest times to candidates when both interviewers and a meeting room are free. This ensures that there’s somewhere to meet, removing the risk of double-bookings or any other conflicts.

Interview remotely

When you have a more diverse talent pool,
they may live too far away for it to make sense for them to visit the office
for an interview. Or, if they have other commitments around their interview,
they may be unable to attend in person.

Conducting remote interviews shows you
trust your employees to do their jobs whether they’re at a desk or not. It also
shows you welcome people from diverse backgrounds and are happy to cater to
their needs.

Allowing candidates to self-book their
interview guarantees that a time is chosen that’s suitable for the interview
panel and the candidate. This further improves your employer brand, showing
that you value your employees’ time, but you also appreciate candidates taking
the time to talk to you.

Organize multi-part interviews

Multi-part interviews are a useful way to
test candidates’ skills and company fit, but they’re a nightmare to organize. Finding
a day where candidates, hiring managers, HR staff, equipment and rooms are
available can take longer to organize than the interview itself.

When everything is connected to scheduling software, it can be organized up to 95% faster. The software can work out the best times based on the people, rooms and resources that are required. It can then present the options to candidates in the same way that it would for a normal one-on-one or panel interview.

While this is the most complicated type of
interview to organize, it doesn’t have to take up the recruitment coordinator’s
time. All they need to do is put each step of the interview into the software.

For instance, if they have a welcome from HR that lasts for half an hour, an hour for an assessment, then an hour face-to-face interview, this can be added to the software and the rest worked out automatically.

Recruiters don’t need to constantly
communicate with hiring managers or candidates about what times they’re
available.

It also means that companies aren’t
limiting themselves by only conducting interviews on certain days. This method
risks losing out on the best talent as not every candidate will be able to make
the set day. Companies may end up losing the right person for the role to the
competition because of their inflexible hiring process.

Whatever type of interview you use, the
more streamlined your interview scheduling experience, the easier it is for
everyone involved. It improves your candidate experience, making candidates
more likely to speak highly of your company, even if they don’t get the role. This
improves your employer brand and means that unsuccessful candidates may reapply
in the future, when they’re perfect for the role.

A better interview scheduling experience also helps to reduce the stress hiring mangers face during this period. Recruitment coordinators, meanwhile, have more time to answer candidate questions and help hiring managers to organize the best interview possible.

The post Successful recruiting is all in the scheduling: Here are 5 reasons why appeared first on HR Morning.

Tweet This Post

In a recent case study detailing what worked and what didn’t, Dee Vitale, director of talent acquisition at Sage Therapeutics in Cambridge, MA, shares how her company repaired an ineffective onboarding program:

It’s no secret that onboarding often gets overlooked and lumped together with a new hire’s orientation.

Onboarding programs often fail because there’s no real accountability and no one in charge of them. Too often, it’s viewed as a “check the box” item and nothing more.

With this in mind, we took a closer look at our onboarding process and saw some issues.

The first was that many existing employees didn’t have a ton of knowledge about the company in general or the role they played in the grand scheme of things.

Another problem was that new hires’ managers were often in charge of their onboarding … but weren’t sure what to do.

3 key elements

To address this, HR got together and designed a completely new framework for onboarding.

We really focused on ensuring the process extended far past first day orientation, and involved everyone in the company — not just new employees.

We came up with three key elements of our new program:

1. New-hire orientation: This is typical first day information for new hires, including an official welcome and a rundown of basic company operations.
2. Department-level onboarding: This is where new hires meet their colleagues, learn how their department contributes to the company’s overall success and understand how the team operates.
3. All Aboard: This event is for every employee to attend. New hires and veteran employees get to mix and mingle in a natural setting. It’s a great way for people to meet higher-ups they don’t run into every day.

Trained our leaders

Once we had a solid plan that everyone could follow, we got managers and leaders involved — because it truly does take a village to successfully onboard new hires.

We let managers know that while we designed the process, they were the ones who’d run it and be held accountable.

Not every manager initially felt up to the challenge, so we developed a special leadership training program for them.

The training reinforced basic management fundamentals, directed participants to resources and tools, and sharpened leadership skills.

The big picture

Thanks to our revamp, both new and veteran employees are more engaged and happier.

New hires learn about their role in the company from the start, and current employees are reminded of how important they are to us.

Those who attend our All Aboard events constantly tell us how much they enjoyed meeting colleagues they don’t normally run into, and learning more about the company’s history and core values.

Everyone knows how they fit into the big picture now, and they’re all better employees because of it.

The post We reinvented our onboarding program: Why every employee must attend appeared first on HR Morning.

Tweet This Post

Employees are an indispensable resource – and
in this competitive hiring market, companies can’t afford turnover. So now more
than ever, businesses must work on retaining their best employees to ensure they’re
running as effectively and efficiently as possible. 

There are many ways companies can do this, but getting started out of the gate to improve onboarding with a thorough and welcoming onboarding process is one of the best ways to show your employees what they mean to your business. They’ll know that you value them and they’ll be eager to stick around longer.

Of course, onboarding can be time-consuming, but luckily, the latest HR technology can help you establish a systematized approach to onboarding while carefully monitoring all of its important aspects.

Here are five great ways investing in automation can improve onboarding and help you retain your top talent.

Establish a single source of
communication

The fast pace of modern tech development
has made it difficult for companies to keep track of all the channels where
they can find new employees. Oftentimes, candidates will contact businesses
through multiple channels when searching for jobs making it challenging to
track communication and new applicants throughout all the platforms.
Additionally, it’s difficult to assess potential employees and manage them for
proper onboarding.

To help with this process, you can use software solutions like assessment software to store and manage applications in a single database. That way, you won’t have to work across multiple platforms.

Automate sourcing and screening
tasks

Artificial intelligence is making its way into various software solutions like applicant tracking systems, time clock software, and others. And when it comes to onboarding and hiring new employees, it can help HR pros immensely. Here’s how:

Giving responses to applicants

When there’s a large volume of applicants,
like with bulk hiring, onboarding managers may find it a challenge to respond
to all of them. In these situations, an AI-powered onboarding software can help
generate proper responses and send them automatically.

Performing sourcing and screening

AI software can also help with screening
and sourcing. Through its understanding of job requirements, it can look for
candidates that meet the criteria, shortlist them and rank them properly. This
allows managers to quickly determine which candidates to focus on first.

Getting all relevant information

AI has the power to gather information
about candidates and store it in a structured manner. This structure makes it easier
for HR reps to assess candidates based on the stored data.

Evaluate candidate qualifications

One of the more tedious tasks for hiring
managers is to go through many applications and narrow down the list to people
who are qualified to do the job. Modern technology gives HR managers the
information they need to evaluate candidates based on knowledge, skills,
experience, employment, history, and other relevant information – all displayed
on one dashboard. From there, they can take it one candidate at a time.

Sorting applicants

Some HR solutions come with features,
functionalities and options that make testing candidates easier, giving
objective results that can tell managers whether someone would be a good fit
for the company. Instead of just relying on their subjective opinions, managers
can use these solutions to give unbiased scores and make better hiring
decisions.

Furthermore, these tools allow managers to
sort candidates using different criteria such as:

• Career achievements
• Portfolios
• Education level
• Various demographic factors
• Work experience

Selecting top candidates

Even though applicants are already sorted
neatly, it’s important to narrow down the list and choose only the candidates
who best match your requirements. To do this, you will have to evaluate them in
a meaningful way. A software solution can save time at this step by providing
personalized aptitude test features and quiz makers you can use for your evaluations. 

Improve employee onboarding

Technology can help speed up the onboarding
process by automating manual tasks that are time-consuming. Automation allows
managers to send out all applications and onboarding forms to new hires as soon
as they get the job so that employees get all the paperwork done before coming
in to work. At the same time, the software can send onboarding managers notifications
about which employees have finished their documentation and which haven’t.

With these more
monotonous tasks out of the way, onboarding managers can focus on more
important aspects of onboarding: They can engage new hires, tell them about
their new workplace and get to know them better.

Follow-up

While it’s important to make the onboarding
process smooth, the story of retaining employees doesn’t end there. After
someone has joined your team, follow up with proper practices to keep them
engaged.

Providing employee development

To most employees, the prospect of growing as professionals and acquiring new skills is just as important as the work they’re doing. With the help of HR training software,  or learning management solutions, managers can instantly offer lessons, courses, and training. With training software, it’s easier to create personalized training and adjust it to the employees’ level of knowledge.

Getting feedback from your
employees

Listening to your employees is essential as it shows that you value their opinions and promote transparency within your company culture. HR training software can be used to gather feedback about courses and other essential issues. This information is then shared privately with the manager.

Establishing good onboarding practices will not only help your business handle the hiring process more efficiently, but it will also help you choose the right people and retain them. Engaged employees will stay a lot longer because they find their work meaningful in some way – so grabbing their attention right at the onboarding process will go a long way in keeping them satisfied.  

In this digital age, using modern software
solutions that offer advanced functionalities can advance your business in a
lot of ways. While it can be a bit of an investment, training software and
onboarding platforms will pay for themselves in the end by freeing up busy HR
professionals to focus on the more ‘human’ elements of the job.  

__________________

The post 5 ways HR tech can improve onboarding and help you retain your best people appeared first on HR Morning.

Tweet This Post

The new year is rapidly approaching, which means it’s the perfect time to review your policies and make the necessary adjustments.

There were a lot of new employment trends in 2019, and 2020 will bring even more compliance changes.

Whether it’s legally mandated changes or just suggested ones, experts at the law firm Cozen O’Connor have a few areas they recommend employers pay attention to.

1. Timekeeping and compensation practices

Heads up! A major compensation change is coming in the new year.

The DOL announced a new overtime threshold for exempt employees this year, and it goes into effect Jan. 1, 2020. So, starting on New Year’s Day, employers must either bump up their exempt workers’ pay to $35,568 a year, or be prepared to pay them overtime.

Employers are permitted to satisfy up to 10% of employees’ annual salary through non-discretionary bonuses and incentive pay — including commissions.

As for timekeeping practices that may need adjustments, several lawsuits in the past year brought to light the dangers of employers building unpaid breaks into workers’ schedules.

In Small v. University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, the company ended up shelling out $4.2 million in unpaid wages. Employees claimed they often worked off the clock because a 30-minute break would be deducted from their pay regardless if they took it or not.

This practice isn’t always illegal, but as you can see, it can have costly consequences if not handled properly.

2. Hiring and recruiting

In the coming year, HR pros will need to pay more attention to their job postings and recruiting tactics.

PricewaterhouseCoopers ended up in court for age discrimination after allegedly turning most of its recruiting efforts to college campuses, specifically targeting young prospective hires.

The EEOC also drew attention to age discrimination and gender bias in Facebook job ads, which allowed companies to specifically target men and people under the age of 30.

If company execs are asking for young hires, it’s up to HR to explain the potential pitfalls.

Another thing to be aware of when it comes to hiring: salary history bans. So many cities and states have forbid companies from inquiring about candidates’ past pay, HR pros may want to remove that question from the interview regardless.

Paid sick leave, FMLA and parental leave

Now might be the ideal time to check your leave policies.

Not too long ago, the DOL clarified that FMLA-eligible employees can’t delay the use of FMLA leave. So if your policies allow workers to do that, it’s time to revise them.

Several states have also enacted some unique paid leave laws, such as safe leave — protected leave for those experiencing domestic violence — or paid leave for any reason an employee may choose.

Check your state laws for specifics, but it’s a good idea to consider implementing these paid leaves even if you’re not legally required to, as more states are following this trend.

Another important type of leave to pay attention to? Family leave.

It’s critical to ensure your family leave policies are equal for both mothers and fathers. JPMorgan Chase had to pay $5 million to settle a sex discrimination suit because it offered women more parental leave than men.

To clarify, bonding leave has to be equal for both parents. However, more leave can be offered to women recovering from birth or other pregnancy complications.

The distinction is the amount of leave must be based off a medical event, and not gender.

The post Compliance check from legal experts: Policy changes you need to make before 2020 appeared first on HR Morning.

Tweet This Post

The 14th largest private company in the U.S. announced Nov. 7 that it now offers six weeks of paid parental leave to most of its 28,000 employees following the birth or adoption of a child.

Pilot Flying J’s “gender-neutral” leave benefit is available to all new parents working at its rest stops, retail locations and service centers who have at least one year of service and who’ve worked at least 1,250 hours in the past 12 months.

“We strongly believe that paid parental leave for both mothers and fathers is a much-needed benefit, especially for hourly workers in the retail and convenience store industries,” the company said.

This continues a trend of larger U.S. employers adding paid family leave benefits.

Parental leave benefits still uneven

Recent surveys by Mercer and WorldatWork illustrate how quickly employers are embracing paid parental leave as they look for ways to find and keep employees in a tight job market.

Mercer reports that 40% of U.S. employers offered paid leave for both birth parents as of late 2018.

And WorldatWork survey data bumps that figure to about 52% as of March 2019.

But those employers only accounted for about 16% of all U.S. workers employed by private sector businesses in 2018.

That’s according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data contained in the Congressional Research Service report Paid Family Leave in the United States .

And parental leave benefits are still much more common at larger employers in the U.S..

BLS data shows about 25% of U.S. workers at businesses with 500 or more employees have access to paid family leave that includes both maternity and paternity leave.

However, only 12% of workers at businesses with 1-99 employees have access to the benefit.

And, as Pilot Flying J notes in its press release, “In the retail industry, where many employees are part-time and hourly, this number is even lower at 7%.”

Some states offer parental leave insurance

Meanwhile, six states, along with Washington DC have stepped in to provide parental leave insurance (PLI) that pays cash benefits to workers taking care of family members, including new mothers and fathers.

But two of the states and Washington DC have not yet launched the programs.

The number of weeks and wage replacement rates vary, with existing state programs offer between four weeks (Rhode Island) and 10 weeks (New York) of benefits.

New York plans to increase coverage to 12 weeks by 2021. New Jersey offers six weeks now and will boost that to 12 weeks in July 2020.

California, which launched family leave insurance in 2004, offers 6 weeks of cash payments.

Washington DC will offer 8 weeks of paid family leave and Washington state plans to offer 12 weeks of paid family leave, both starting in 2021.

Massachusetts’ plan calls for up to 12 weeks for family leave beginning in 2021.

All of those plans pay workers a percentage of their regular salary.

Some employers in those states have implemented plans that cover the part or all of the difference between the state benefit amount and workers’ full salaries.

The post 2020 trends: More employers offering paid parental leave appeared first on HR Morning.

Tweet This Post