Top 5 Ways to Attract Quality Hires During the Employee Shortage Crisis Posted by AVCU on 11:54 AM

 At the time of writing in late 2021, the U.S. has more than 10 million open jobs, a record-setting number. Job vacancies are so high, they surpass the number of unemployed Americans looking for work. In fact, there are over one million more unfilled positions than unemployed people. For companies trying to hire, there’s a lot of competition. 

Job seekers have the upper hand due to more demand than ever — but what do they really want? A bigger paycheck? Yes, but their salary isn’t the only priority. We’ve researched the reasons behind the employee shortage crisis. Here are some of the top ways you can encourage quality hires, and retain current employees, during a worker shortage:

Market your business with the help of current employees 

Employer reviews are extremely valuable for job seekers, especially while choice is abundant. 86 percent of applicants research company reviews and ratings in their job search. This includes reading customer reviews, but more than likely, they’ll be looking for existing and previous employees’ opinions. 

To provide job seekers with a behind the scenes look of your workplace, ask your current employees to share their experiences online through a Glassdoor account, Google reviews or even via social media. You should even go so far as to encourage candidates to check out your reviews — this not only demonstrates a level of confidence in your employees’ satisfaction, it shows that your company is comfortable publicly acknowledging their opinions. Reviews will provide an internal benefit as well — by providing a review, employees can help to shape company initiatives and attract talent similar to themselves. 

If you’re worried about negative reviews, you might have a longer project on your hands. Applicants and current employees alike are looking for perks such as flexible workspaces, competitive benefits and positive company culture (spoiler: we talk about these factors in other tips) and they’ll look for evidence of these in employees’ reviews. 

Use your job descriptions to show off your company culture 

Company culture is important to nearly 1 in 4 Americans, so be sure to show off yours. First things first though, you need to have a positive company culture to market one. So, what should you be doing to ensure you do? Value your employees’ time and effort, encourage feedback, promote wellness and invest in your employees through training and mentoring — there are many more great tips online. Company culture is important for job retention too, with 47 percent of job seekers pinpointing a lack of company culture as the main reason for wanting to leave their current position. 

One of the first places you should speak about your company culture is within your job descriptions. Job descriptions shouldn’t just be a list of your expectations and requirements for the role. It’s imperative that you highlight what the candidate can get out of working for your company. You can even go a step further and include employee testimonials or videos of current employees within the job posting. Going the extra step and providing detail about employee perks could be the differentiating factor between your position and a competitor’s.

Showcase a flexible workplace within the recruitment process

Around the world, office workers have replaced long commutes with a short walk from the bedroom to the living room or the equivalent. On top of this, the 9-5 workday has been pronounced dead by Salesforce, which added that “the employee experience is about more than ping-pong tables and snacks.” People have gotten used to working remotely — it frees up time, saves money and often allows for more flexibility around work hours. As we move past the pandemic, more and more leading companies are rolling out plans to permanently allow staff the choice to work from home due to the demands of employees and job seekers.

Some researchers believe job flexibility, such as having the choice of where and when to work, has become more important than pay. A recent survey showed that 56 percent of respondents said flexibility was their primary reason to look for a new job. Even where money can be tight, the survey noted that flexible work conditions were the top concern for the lowest-paid Americans (earning less than $30,000). 

Businesses that are serious about providing a flexible workplace should demonstrate its priority within their recruiting process. Surveys have shown that over 78 percent of candidates say the candidate experience indicates how a company values its people. Consider utilizing recruitment tools such as candidate-scheduled video interviews — this shows the candidate that you value their time, and can easily adapt the hiring process to their schedule. 

Highlight the importance of mental health in your workplace

If you’re in a good position to offer competitive benefits, you should certainly do so. Mental health awareness has skyrocketed in the last few years, and for good reason. A report that compared the mental health of workers in 2020 to 2019 showed that 46 percent of respondents were struggling with mental health issues, compared to 39 percent a year earlier. Uncertain working conditions and the risk of employee burnout while juggling other commitments can be tremendously tough, and job seekers are aware of challenges. 

Candidates can grasp the importance your workplace puts on mental health through the information online. Evidence should be available in employee reviews from past employees and even be a benefit that’s listed in your job description. Perhaps you even have additional information listed on your website.

If mental health hasn’t been a big factor in your business so far, don’t let that hold you back. There are ways to promote mental wellness without costly investments or timely rollouts. Promote a healthy work/life balance with a few of the following examples; remind workers that they don’t need to answer late-night emails, tell employees to step away from their desks and stretch or offer meditation sessions or breathing exercises. There is an abundance of ideas out there that can help you to improve the emphasis you put on mental health.

Pay a highly competitive wage for low paid workers

Yes, we’re ending our list with the obvious one. But it’s important to understand why you should be upping wages if you can. The pandemic has changed the way people work — particularly in low-paid, labor-intensive jobs. At the beginning of the pandemic, front-line workers such as healthcare staff, long-term home care workers, truck drivers and cashiers were celebrated for their service during a tough and unpredictable time. As time passed, the applause didn’t cut it anymore, especially when they were risking their health (and chances are, with no or little sick pay) and wages remained too low to adequately cover living expenses. 

If you can afford to increase wages, even fractionally, it may be a very effective way to improve your applicant pool. Additionally, the demand for workers has given applicants and employees a bargaining power they haven’t had before, which is pushing up wages. Companies that don’t comply risk being sidelined for better-paying positions. For example, the hospitality and healthcare industries (two industries that house many low-paid positions) have seen average hourly wages increase well above the trend line. In 2021 (January to August), wages in the hospitality sector rose by 12 percent after dropping by 1.2 percent in 2020. Healthcare and education wages increased by 5.7 percent in 2020 and continue to rise in 2021. In comparison, these wages only increased by 1.4 percent in 2019. 

Of course, not all businesses can afford to increase their wages, especially with supply prices also rising. That’s why we made sure to cover four effective ways to attract applicants that don’t require such a large investment.  

6 Strategies to Boost Retention Through the Great Resignation Posted by AVCU on 9:01 AM

 There is a widening mismatch between the job environment employees want — and now expect — and the one their organizations have. That’s the finding of conversations we’ve had with top executives of dozens of companies over the last several months, multiple global surveys we’ve conducted to learn what employees want, and our examination of 20 years of data on the expectations and workplace satisfaction of 800,000 employees from a wide range of industries and job categories.

This may explain why so many workers have been quitting their jobs and why companies are having trouble filling the millions of current openings across the U.S. economy. It also may hint at an immediate, though partial, remedy to the talent squeeze: reduce employee attrition by making your company a more attractive place to stay. In this article, we offer six ways to do so.

How bad is it?

The challenge is severe. Some of our clients have told us they’re seeing upwards of 30% attrition in certain job categories. Some industrial clients have told us that some of their plants have had more than 100% employee turnover since March 2020. In other segments, especially technology and data science, employers describe the turnover and churn as “unrelenting.” At the end of the day, they say, there are always empty chairs. Data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, showing steady and significant increases in voluntary “quits” during the pandemic in a wide range of sectors, seems to confirm the anecdotal reports.

The current turmoil in the labor market isn’t likely to subside any time soon. Indeed, 57% of the respondents to our latest survey of more than 10,000 knowledge workers across the globe, conducted in partnership with Future Forum, said they’d consider taking a new job in the coming year.

What’s the solution?

Employers need to recognize that it takes significantly longer to recruit someone than it does for them to give their two-week notice and depart. The solution, then, is to immediately bolster retention while ramping up recruiting. To do so, companies need to get on the same page with employees by reconceptualizing what it means to be part of their organization.

We have some 800,000 data points collected over 20 years telling us what people value at work. The responses, from both white- and blue-collar workers in a wide variety of industries, fall into four broad categories: value, purpose, certainty, and belonging.

All four apply to both the retention of existing employees and the recruitment of new prospects. But recruitment and training costs and the time it typically takes for new hires to reach the same level of expertise as the people they replaced make it imperative that employers focus immediately on retention.

How? Based on our research, we believe taking the following six measures can have the greatest impact:

1. Incentivize loyalty

You have to pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table. So, in addition to updating your overall compensation package, consider offering employees one-time bonuses, helping them pay down their student loans, and providing them with work-from-home stipends. An added benefit of re-leveling compensation is that it gives you an opportunity to detect and correct pay inequities for people of color and women, including mothers of young children. We are also seeing some companies offering “boomerangs,” which are bringing back people who have recently departed by offering to immediately vest them in long-term compensation plans.

2. Provide opportunities to grow

Pretend your best people just handed in their resignation notices. How would you change their minds? Ask them, “If you could shape your dream job here what would it be?” Then look for ways to make it happen. Forward-thinking organizations have been doing retention interviews for the past months — asking each employee what it would take for them to stay.

In forthcoming BCG research based on employee-engagement-survey data we found that a significant predictor of whether employees are engaged is how enthusiastically they answer the question, “Does my job make good use of my skills?” In short, show current employees that you value them even more than potential new hires by providing them with new opportunities to grow and advance. Workers are hungry for this vote of confidence. Our survey data shows that 68% of workers around the world — blue- and white-collar alike — are willing to retrain and learn new skills.

3. Elevate your purpose

Purpose is the timeless reason that your organization exists. It’s the reason people join and choose to stay. Our analysis shows that in turbulent times a belief in what an organization is trying to achieve is even more important than in quieter periods. Prove to employees that there’s more to your organization than the bottom line. And don’t just talk purpose; use it to shape what you do and how you do it.

4. Prioritize culture and connection

Put your work aside and make time to connect and build relationships with — and among — your people. Not only will this solidify their relationship with your organization, but our research during the Covid-19 pandemic indicates that social connection also has a significant positive impact on productivity. Our Covid-era survey data show that both blue- and white-collar workers around the world place a higher priority on having a “good relationship with coworkers” than on many other job attributes.

5. Invest in taking care of your employees and their families

Provide mental health resources, acknowledge the personal sacrifices everyone has made during the pandemic, help parents with small children by providing or subsidizing day care, and give more paid time off. Sure, some employees will need more than others. So? Do whatever is required to take care of them.

6. Embrace flexibility

The future of work is going to be providing flexible work environments in terms of place, time, job description, and career paths. Embrace it. Better yet, have employees form teams to create their future of work. If people help build their dream home, they’ll want to live in it.

And speaking of flexibility: loosen up on “qualifications.” Consider hiring candidates who don’t quite fit your profile; if they have 75% of what you’re looking for, grab them. More than half of technology giant IBM’s U.S. job openings do not require a four-year college degree. With the right mindset and support, people who come up a bit short on paper can learn what’s missing.

We don’t have to resign ourselves to the empty chairs and a continuing tide of resignations. Decisive action is what’s needed, and it’s needed now.

Record-breaking 4.3 million Americans quit their jobs in August, new data show Posted by AVCU on 4:27 PM

 Across the country, people are leaving their jobs at record rates.

According to data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday, 4.3 million Americans quit their jobs in August. The nationwide quit rate increased to 2.9% of the workforce. That's the highest percentage ever reported by the BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey series.

To put August's numbers in perspective, the number of workers who quit their jobs rose by 242,000 from July — and by around 1.3 million since August 2020, which recorded a total of almost 3 million quits.

Experts stress that people are leaving their jobs as workers across the country are demanding higher pay, better employment conditions and critical support in their daily lives.

Where are the workers?:What’s going on with jobs? 5 takeaways from September hiring trends

"There is no 'labor shortage.' There's a child care shortage, a living-wage shortage, a hazard pay shortage, a paid sick leave shortage, and a healthcare shortage," Robert Reich, UC Berkeley professor of public policy and former U.S. Secretary of Labor, wrote on Twitter Tuesday. "Until these shortages are remedied, Americans won't return to work anytime soon."

'Crisis level':Child care providers grapple with a worker shortage as federal relief is slow to help.  In addition, job openings declined to 10.4 million by the end of August — dropping by 659,000 from July. 10.4 million is still a high number, especially in comparison to last year. In August 2020, there were about 6.5 million job openings.

Julia Pollak, the chief economist at ZipRecruiter, says the high number of job openings can contribute to the quit rate.

"There are now about 50% more job openings than there were before the pandemic," she told USA TODAY. "Someone who was passively looking for a new job before might have seen five or six job postings that are relevant. Now they're seeing 10 or more. There's just more attractive alternatives."

Pollak acknowledged there may be potentially positive effects that come with these employment shifts, with pressure gaining on companies to create healthier work environments and competitive pay and benefits, for example.

Pollak added that there's been a significant increase in demand for remote positions since the beginning of the pandemic. More than 50% of surveyed job seekers on ZipRecruiter are looking to work from home.

"That's a staggering number because typically only about 10% of jobs offer that opportunity," she said. "Only about 37% of jobs in the U.S. could theoretically be done from home. The majority of jobs must be done in person, on-site... [And] those major industries that require people to work on-site, in close contact with other people, those are the ones that have seen the steepest increases in quits."

According to the recent JOLTS report, the rate of total separations (including quits, layoffs and discharges) nationwide rose from 3.9% in July to 4.1% in August. Industries that saw the highest separation rates in August included accommodation and food services, leisure and hospitality, and retail trade.

The number of hires also decreased in August, to 6.3 million — down by 439,000 from July. The rate of layoffs and discharges decreased slightly, from 1% in July to 0.9% in August.

Will these trends continue? Pollak noted that it's important to prepare for lasting impacts.

"Anyone who expects that these things will be really short-lived and transitory has been proved wrong," she said. "[Think of] the companies that told their workers to go work from home in March (2020) for the next two weeks — there's two weeks clearly turning into two years, and possibly more. So this is not just a short term issue."

5 Common Mental Health Challenges in the Workplace Posted by AVCU on 5:05 PM

 Mental health issues are afflicting people in your office, too, Andrea Sides Herron, SHRM-CP, said. Pre-pandemic, 1 in 5 people in the U.S. had some form of mental disorder; the numbers have skyrocketed since then.

Identifying Employees Who Are Experiencing Mental Health Challenges

"Many of you are being squished by mental illness," Herron said. "You have more than you can handle."

One way HR teams and supervisors can identify staff members experiencing mental health challenges, she said, is by paying attention to each person's base lines. What is the person's typical behavior? Learning this becomes more difficult with remote workers, she said, but there are signs that should cause concern.

"Have you noticed that a person's appearance has shifted?" she asked. "Are they choosing not to have their camera on during videoconference meetings when they usually did? Is there evidence that they're drinking too much or [have] picked up smoking again? Maybe they've told you about the 12 Amazon deliveries that show up at their house each day. These are signs."

Herron, a seasoned HR executive, author and host of the HR Scoop podcast, advised HR and managers to be careful when reacting or responding to an employee's changed behavior. "Do not add to the shame that can come with mental health's stigma," she said.

Addressing Struggling Employees

Herron described five fictional employees, explored some of their behaviors and suggested ways of dealing with those behaviors.

Masa: He's been an employee at the company for three years. He's been a solid performer, but his manager has noticed changes in his behavior and there are rumors that he's getting a divorce.

Check in with him. Managers should keep an open-door policy and let employees know they are there for support, Herron said.

"Employers should never make that first one-on-one meeting … because an employee did something wrong," she said. "Try to meet earlier on with employees under friendly terms to help to establish a better relationship."

Carlyn: She's been working at the company for two years. She's a high-performer, and she has asked for an off-cycle raise. You sense that she's under financial strain.

It turns out her partner was fired and her household is lacking income. She's become uncharacteristically angry at her co-workers.

"We know there is a strong link between financial stress and mental health," Herron said.

Herron suggested that the employer might:

• Offer her a promotion with more responsibilities since she is a high-performer, if it makes business sense.
• Think about whether the company is doing enough to offer resources that support financial wellness.
• Consider offering tuition reimbursement or student loan payoffs or other benefits in addition to a traditional 401(k).

Employees can be high-performers and have mental illness, Herron said. They may or may not have an official mental health diagnosis.

Ricardo: He has delivered seven years of solid service. Ricardo's manager, however, noticed a decline in his performance. He's up one week and down the next. It depends on the day. Does he have one foot out the door? If so, should he simply be managed out?

Herron suggested that the supervisor be curious about Ricardo. "Show empathy and care," she said. "Maybe offer him some noise-canceling headphones so he can better concentrate if that's a concern. Ultimately, you can be empathetic and also have a discussion about the performance issue if it doesn't improve."

LaVonda: She's new to the company with only six months of service working by herself in the retail section. Things have been OK so far, but LaVonda recently disclosed post-traumatic stress disorder, triggered by being alone in small spaces with men.

Herron suggested giving her a radio code word to speak when she is anxious or perhaps moving her to another equivalent position in the company.

"Work together to find some middle ground and a solution," Herron said. "Keep in mind, these employees don't like surprises. They like to be given a head's-up. Be transparent about the reasons behind the actions you take. Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind."

Some employees with psychiatric disorders (diagnosed or undiagnosed) will experience episodes of disruptive behavior at work. When facing a crisis of emotions, they can go from anger to tears. 

"As the supervisor, you must stay as calm as possible while they rage," Herron said. "Hopefully this brings down the temperature. Don't join their emotional level. Show them, 'I didn't come to your anger party.' And, of course, document everything, following up with any and all witnesses to the event."

Ted: He has two years of service. He's an average performer and has the reputation of being aggressive in tone and body language. Suddenly one day, Ted yells and throws a chair across the room.

Herron said the behavior must be addressed but not head-on by accusing him of having mental health issues. First you must de-escalate the situation and make sure everyone remains safe, she said.

If you're worried about legal implications when discussing mental health concerns, "a rule of thumb is to tie any questions you ask to observable behaviors that are related to work performance," Herron said. For example, questions that probe wanting to understand why performance has dipped, a new or noticeable level of disengagement, or speaking more often in a sharp tone are on the right path.

She said to steer away from rumors, personal assumptions or detailed health questions. Don't make comments that offer a medical diagnosis or ask questions about relationship status or medications.

Inappropriate dialogue would be, for example, "Are you depressed?" "Why are you so angry?" or "Have you been taking your meds?"

Nothing Positive About Toxic Positivity

A recent trend starting to pop up is toxic positivity. It's one when office workers must only—and always—express positive feelings.

"These can't be the only emotions that are allowed, because this does not demonstrate a full range of emotions," Herron said. "Not everything deserves a silver lining. Everyone can't always be feeling great all the time."

Herron said one way to modify that environment is to tell employees, " 'Your feelings are valid and are allowed. It's OK to feel bad sometimes. Things can get really tough. I'm here for you.' Not every circumstance needs a silver lining. You can acknowledge someone's experience even if it's different from your own.

"And then when employees come to you and start to unload, don't try to solve things for them," she added. "Ask, 'Do you just want me to listen or do you want me to help you solve it?' "

To show you are a reliably compassionate listener, stay 100 percent focused on the other person. "People know when you're distracted," Herron said. "Practice being present for best results. Don't talk over others when they are unloading. If you do, they know you are not really listening."

HR's Heavy Burden

Some industry professionals experience compassion fatigue. It is characterized by physical and emotional exhaustion and a profound decrease in the ability to empathize. 

"If this happens, take time off," Herron said. "Things have been steadily difficult for many for a long time. Know your limits. During the pandemic and beyond, we see that resiliency practices are needed."

She suggested those who feel overburdened can improve their resiliency by journaling daily, taking breaks, paying attention to self-care, prioritizing sleep, setting and achieving exercise goals, and forming tiny habits that can help with coping.

Peer connections have never been more valuable, she added. "It's a wild time to be in HR," she said. "And remember, you don't have to go it alone. Connect with your peers. Remind yourself you are making a difference."

Why everybody’s hiring but nobody’s getting hired Posted by AVCU on 4:07 PM

 Patrick Healy says he did everything right in his job search. After being laid off as a designer early on in the pandemic, Healy, 36, tried his hand at a couple of entrepreneurial ventures before looking for a new full-time position at the start of 2021. He estimates he applied for hundreds of positions, relying on nearly a dozen jobs boards, researching potential employers, and writing personalized cover letters to accompany his résumé.

For the most part, he heard nothing back, regardless of how qualified he was.

“You get no feedback. I was still trying to experiment with what I was doing, but I just had no idea what was happening, why I wasn’t moving forward,” Healy said. “That was both stressful financially and heartbreaking psychologically.”

It took nearly six months for Healy, who has a decade of experience in industrial design, to find a new job. Meanwhile, headlines touted a record number of job openings, and many employers said they were doing everything in their power to entice potential employees.

For Healy and many others, the situation just doesn’t make sense — there’s an incongruity between what they are hearing about jobs and what is actually happening.

For some of the jobs available, people don’t have the right skills, or at least the skills employers say they’re looking for. Other jobs are undesirable — they offer bad pay or an unpredictable schedule, or just don’t feel worth it to unemployed workers, many of whom are rethinking their priorities. In some cases, there are a host of perfectly acceptable candidates and jobs out there, but for a multitude of reasons, they’re just not being matched.

There are also workers who are hesitant to go back — they’re nervous about Covid-19 or they have care responsibilities or something else is holding them back.

The result is a disconnected environment that doesn’t add up, though it feels like it should. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are 8.4 million potential workers who are unemployed, but it also says there are a record 10.9 million jobs open. The rate at which unemployed people are getting jobs is lower than it was pre-pandemic, and it’s taking longer to hire people. Meanwhile, job seekers say employers are unresponsive.

There’s no single party to blame here. Corporate hiring practices can be convoluted and too reliant on machines, and many applicants aren’t being realistic or strategic enough in their work search efforts. For employers, job seekers, and the American economy in general, it’s worth figuring out what’s going on and addressing it. Because although these trends have been exacerbated by the pandemic, many of them pre-date it, and they’re not going away.

The difficult, undesirable job market

Essentially anywhere you go in the United States right now, you’re going to encounter “help wanted” signs. But just because a bar or restaurant or gas station wants a worker doesn’t mean a worker wants to work for them. The millions of jobs available aren’t necessarily millions of jobs people want.

“A lot of what people are seeing are low-paying jobs with unpredictable or not-worker-friendly scheduling practices, that don’t come with benefits, don’t come with long-term stability,” Shelly Steward, director of the Future of Work Initiative at the Aspen Institute, told Recode. “And those are not the types of jobs that any worker is eager to take on.”

A survey of workers actively searching for a job on FlexJobs, a jobs website that focuses on remote and flexible work, found that about half of job seekers said they were not finding the right jobs to apply for. Some 46 percent of respondents said they were only finding jobs that are low-paying, while 41 percent said there weren’t enough openings in their preferred profession.

Arlethia Washington, who worked as a legal secretary in New York for 40 years, took an exit package from her job early in the pandemic and, given her experience, assumed she’d be able to easily find a new position after things reopened. Instead, she found herself in a maze: It was hard to tell if recruiters who reached out about jobs were serious. For a lot of positions, she just didn’t hear back, or somewhere in the process, she’d be screened out.

Washington, 68, chalks it up to a combination of age discrimination and not having a college degree, which many positions were requiring even when it didn’t seem necessary. When she did get replies, jobs would offer her much less than what she was paid before, sometimes even less than what was advertised. Or, they would offer to pay her requested hourly rate — but only for part-time work. “It was a grand opportunity to push the secretarial opportunities and incomes back,” she said.

Tim Brackney, president and COO of management consulting firm RGP, refers to the current situation as the “great mismatch.” That mismatch refers to a number of things, including desires, experience, and skills. And part of the reason is that the skills necessary for a given job are changing faster than ever, as companies more frequently adopt new software.

“Twenty years ago, if I had 10 years experience as a warehouse manager, the likelihood that my skills would be pretty relevant and it wouldn’t take me that long to get up to speed was pretty good,” Joseph Fuller, a management professor at Harvard Business School and co-author of a recent paper on the disconnect between employers and employees, said. “The shelf life of people’s skills for a lot of decent-paying jobs has been shortening.”

That’s especially the case if someone gets laid off or is otherwise out of the workforce for any period of time — say, during a pandemic. The pricing tool or order entry software necessary for logistics workers to perform their jobs, for example, will likely be different one year to the next.

The pandemic has also made the specter of in-person work less attractive — if not dangerous — so many people are now looking for jobs where they can work from home. The vast majority of workers, regardless of industry, say they want to work from home at least some of the time. While the number of remote jobs has certainly risen, they still only represent 16 percent of job listings on LinkedIn, though they receive two and a half times as many applications as non-remote work.

The problem, however, may not only be on the hiring side. The pandemic has made people rethink their lives and their work, and some individual job seekers may be applying for jobs they want but aren’t suitable for. About half of the FlexJobs respondents searched for jobs outside their current field.

“A lot of reasons that job searches fail is people want to go from unemployment to the next job they would have had if they kept their old job,” Fuller said. “You know, ‘I’m going to not only get a new position, but I’m going to get promoted to boot.’”

Hiring lacks a human touch — sometimes literally

As much as employers say they’re looking hard for employees, they’re often not looking in the right places or in the right ways. HR departments are leaning too heavily on technology to weed out candidates, or they’re just not being creative enough in terms of how they consider applications and what types of people could be the right fit.

Hiring software and the proliferation of platforms like Indeed, LinkedIn, and ZipRecruiter have made it super easy for employers to list countless positions and for jobseekers to send in countless résumés. The problem is, they’ve also made it super easy for those résumés to never be seen. Artificial intelligence-powered software scans résumés for certain keywords and criteria. If it can’t find them, the software just filters those people out.

“We think that we made it easier 20-something years ago when Monster started posting jobs. It makes it easier for the employer, it doesn’t make it easier for the job seeker,” said J.T. O’Donnell, the founder and CEO of career coaching platform Work It Daily, who runs a popular TikTok account with work advice. “You’re not getting rejected, you’re just never getting past the technology.”

Sometimes, what the software is scanning for doesn’t even make sense — as the Wall Street Journal recently noted, it will look for registered nurses who also know computer programming when really they just need data entry.

“Applicants think they’re talking to another human being when they write a description of their experiences,” Fuller said. “If they start explaining something at length or describe it the way they imagined it that doesn’t fit with what the system is trawling for, you have a possibility for a disconnect, literally because of word choice.”

Making things worse, companies have the tendency to add to job descriptions rather than subtract from them, meaning job requirements have ballooned beyond people’s ability to actually meet them.

The increasingly AI-focused application process makes it even harder for applicants to be assessed by a human being. According to Glassdoor, the average number of applications for a job at a publicly traded company is about 250; the average number of people interviewed is five.

There’s a lack of imagination on the employer side. They assume that what people are doing is what they are qualified for, even if that current job is unsuitable for them. Say a person is working part time as a shift manager but wants to be a full-time sales manager — doing the first job might harm their chances of getting that other job.

“What they’re doing is building a résumé that says to the next hirer, ‘This person is a shift manager, that’s what they do. We’re looking for a sales manager, why would we hire them?’” Fuller said.

This system is also not good at understanding what a person might have the potential to do. Fuller gave the example of a former Army Corps of Engineers employee applying for a job as a cable technician, which increasingly requires workers to not only hook up people’s cable but also to upsell them on cable packages. While the engineer would be perfectly capable of doing the technical part of the job, if she didn’t have sales experience, she might be overlooked, even if she’d actually make a good saleswoman as well.

Part of the issue is a lack in the amount of on-the-job training that employers offer. Steward blames declines in unions that would fight for such perks and an ongoing shift of risks and responsibilities — including career development — from employers to employees.

“People are expected to come onto the job and have the experience, have the skills, have everything, and few people do,” Steward, from the Aspen Institute, said.

The endless quest to make hiring efficient has rendered it inefficient. Candidates who are great fits for 90 percent of the job are screened out because they’re not perfect for the other 10 percent. Recruiters are so inundated with résumés flowing in online that they only look at the first few, hiring the people they can get the fastest instead of the people who are the best fit.

Meanwhile, for candidates, the entire process is a black box. Healy, the designer, ended up getting two job offers in less than a week after not hearing anything for months. He still has no idea why.

As for Washington, the legal secretary, she says she finally “released herself” from her job search on LinkedIn after months of trying. She decided to switch gears and pursue a different line of work. In the spring of this year, she moved to Florida, where her son lives, and after tweaking her résumé, she got a job working in customer service for a pharmacy. The pay is much less than what she’s used to — around $17.50 an hour — but she’s able to work from home, and her cost of living is lower now, too.

What’s your return-to-work plan? Posted by AVCU on 7:52 AM

 A recent CUNA Councils Virtual Roundtable explored how credit unions are preparing employees to return to work as coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccinations ease safety restrictions.

BCU in Vernon Hills, Ill., gauged employee willingness to return to work through pulse surveys, says Warren Iskowitz, director of talent management at the $5 billion asset credit union.

Survey results showed that while employees have mixed emotions about returning to work, many are excited about the prospect.

“Every situation is different,” Iskowitz says. “If you’re a parent with kids age 11 and younger who aren’t eligible for vaccination, your situation is different than a single person who is vaccinated.”

In preparing employees to return to work, BCU provided managers with a discussion guide and asked staff to come up with individual plans.

Among the discussion points covered in the guide:

• Show appreciation to your employees, including for their willingness to come up with a workable return-to-work plan.
• Acknowledge that the plan is a work in progress that will require adjustments and refinements along the way.
• Set a specific date and time to determine if the plan is working.
• Acknowledge that what works for one person may not work for another.
• Reinforce that those with performance and/or technical issues will need to work at the office, and that some jobs don’t lend themselves to working from home.

Once employees had a written plan in place, they signed the document and verified they were comfortable with policies regarding their return to work.

“Once employees return to the office, they should be empowered to raise any concerns or questions to be sure they feel welcomed and safe,” Iskowitz says.

He says the credit union celebrated the return to work by hosting a cookout, hiring a barista, and bringing food trucks onsite.

Telecommuting policy

Remind employees who want to continue to work from home that telecommuting is a benefit, not an entitlement, adds Kameron Melton, an employment and cybersecurity attorney with Wood Rodgers PLC. 

Among the areas a telecommuting policy should cover:

• Defining eligibility to telecommute.
• Providing procedures for requesting approval to telecommute.
• Explaining employee and employer responsibilities.
• Defining compliance with all employer policies.
• Detailing credit union-issued equipment and cybersecurity programs.
• Establishing communication methods.

Melton says credit union telecommuting policies are a work in progress. 

“We’re still in flux in regard to the pandemic,” Melton says. “That will require you to continually adjust what you do at your credit union. Have mechanisms to check in with employees.”

Mental health: Pressure to return to the office could be making employees more anxious Posted by AVCU on 5:08 PM

 A new study has found that all 4,000 office workers asked about returning to the office reported feeling anxious.

It's vital employers are understanding and don't pressure employees into something they're not comfortable with, writes management expert Sunita Sah.

Employers must work alongside their employees to create an environment that works for everyone.

After a year of social distancing, mask wearing and – for millions – working from home, many employers are eager to bring their staff back to the office. But for many, the prospect of readjusting to in-person work is a daunting one.

A recent survey found that out of 4,553 office workers in five different countries, every single person reported feeling anxious about the idea of returning to in-person work.

Employers face a conflict of interest. On the one hand, they want to look after their employees’ health and reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission. While on the other, they’re motivated by financial incentives to justify expensive office rents and have their employees physically on hand for meetings and discussions or to simply monitor their working time.

But putting pressure on employees to return to the office might be creating more anxiety. For those surveyed, the top causes of return-to-work stress included being exposed to COVID-19, the loss of work flexibility, the added commute, having to wear a mask while in the office, and a need for childcare.

Some managers recognize working from home doesn’t necessarily mean reduced productivity, and a “work-from-anywhere” approach could drive greater equality, unlock new growth opportunities, and lead to greater ethical behavior. When people aren’t wasting hours in traffic, the free time unlocked from commutes can lead to more rested, happier, healthier and productive employees.

What’s worrying, though, is that 56% of respondents in the recent study reported that their organisation hadn’t asked for their opinions about return-to-work policies and procedures. Such a breakdown in communication between employees and employers could create anxiety for those employees who don’t want, or are not yet ready, to return to their physical workplaces. They may worry that voicing their concerns to return to work will signal distrust in their managers’ decision to reopen for in-person work.I’ve studied advice-giving and advice-taking for over a decade and found that people getting advice often struggle to signal distrust to their advisor. People often feel anxiety to express disagreement with or defy an advisor, a boss, manager, leader or authority figure. Rejecting advice makes employees anxious because it can insinuate that they think the other person is incompetent, biased or even corrupt.

I call this distinct type of anxiety insinuation anxiety. It arises when people worry that not complying with another person’s wishes may be interpreted as a signal of distrust.

Insinuation anxiety

Across a series of studies investigating this type of anxiety, my collaborators and I found that patients frequently follow medical advice, even if they believe their doctor to have a conflict of interest.

Imagine someone’s trying to sell you some advice, an opinion or a product, and the seller says: “I have a conflict of interest. I recommend you follow my advice, but I should let you know that I get paid more if you follow my advice.” You might think such a disclosure would decrease trust and compliance with such advice – after all there’s now some uncertainty as to the quality of that advice.

However, I found that although conflict of interest disclosures do indeed decrease trust in advice – arguably the “correct” response to such disclosures – they can also counterintuitively increase compliance with that distrusted advice.

Why? Because the other person now feels greater pressure to comply with advice they do not trust, as rejecting it insinuates that the other person has been corrupted by the conflict of interest and is untrustworthy. People are reluctant to signal distrust in another person. Insinuation anxiety persists regardless of the size of the conflict of interest, but it can be reduced if people can make their decisions in private, away from the pressure of their advisor or employer.

As employees navigate the shift back to in-person work, employers should consider the role of insinuation anxiety increasing pressure on their workers to reluctantly comply with new in-person work policies. If employees feel unable to express their discomfort or choose more flexible working options, organisations may end up losing their best talent to workplaces with more open communication and flexibility.

How to Set Up a Remote Employee for Success on Day One Posted by AVCU on 8:06 AM

 Most managers know that onboarding new employees virtually is just plain hard, and many recognize the long-term impact a poor onboarding experience could have on their employees. Onboarding is more than logistics, such as making sure your new employee has a computer. The more critical, make-or-break parts of onboarding include:

• 
  Getting off to a fast start to give your new colleague early comfort and confidence — making him or her feel welcome.
• Establishing a foundation for strong relationships across the organization.
• Building an understanding of the culture and how work gets done.
• Setting clear expectations and connecting the individual’s work to the broader organizational mission, vision, and goals.
  

It turns out that the biggest barrier to creating an intentional, differentiated onboarding experience is often mindset. In the same way it took television time to find the best ways to exploit the new medium (and grow beyond the earliest TV shows, which were really just radio shows filmed with cameras), so too will companies need to develop onboarding programs that are tailored to the times and the technology.

Whether a company is small and onboards new employees one at a time, or is a larger firm that brings in bigger cohorts of new hires that go through onboarding together, the following four recommendations can help onboarding programs succeed:

1. Get off to a fast start.

Think about your first day at your current job. You probably didn’t sleep well the night before. Your mind was spinning with anticipation, doubt, and uncertainty. This may be especially true if you were starting a new job in the ambiguity of a virtual environment. The few moments of comfort that would typically present themselves in the early day — the quick bonding with a colleague in the hallway, or your new boss or teammates taking you out to lunch — aren’t available in a remote context.

It is also unlikely that a new employee joining your organization today has ever experienced a fully virtual onboarding process, since even companies with remote workforces frequently opted to do their onboarding in-person before the pandemic. With this sensitivity in mind, create a plan to leverage a variety of strategies that can mitigate first-day nerves and allow your employees to feel welcome and gain confidence from the start.

Identify, appoint, and communicate a dedicated onboarding liaison. Even in the office, it’s a good idea to have someone fill the role of informal mentor to support a new hire, but it’s even more critical remotely because the new leader won’t have colleagues around to spontaneously ask questions as they come up. It’s important that this informal mentor be a different person from the person’s manager, so that the new employee feels comfortable asking any question, large or small. Any new employee will and should have endless questions, and the last thing you want is having them feel uncertain about who to ask. Ideally, the onboarding liaison will proactively reach out to the new employee prior to the first day and establish themselves as the new individual’s go-to person.

Create a connection to the company before the first day. As soon as a candidate accepts the job offer, find an opportunity to make them feel a part of the family. Reckitt, the global consumer products company, sends a care package to new employees’ homes before their start date. It’s filled with the company’s products, and a warm note linking the products to the company’s mission.

Set up technology before the start date. Offering each new employee a session with IT to show him or her how the videoconferencing platform, communication channels, and other company systems work can alleviate first-day anxiety. Doing this before the start date minimizes technical issues and allows new employees to be fully present and more comfortable on day one. Some organizations send new employees a new laptop and or phone before the start date, fully set up with the right company configurations and security protocols. This creates a connection to the organization and reduces new employee anxiety.

2. Establish strong relationships across the organization.

In a virtual setting, you can’t rely as much on the organic and spontaneous relationship-building that happens in hallways, over lunches, and at office events. That’s why it’s best to be proactive and intentional about setting up a mix of formal and informal one-on-one interactions between the new hire and other individuals. Additionally, it’s important to organize a mix of different group discussions so that the new hire can develop contextual understanding of team dynamics. Lastly, one risk of virtual work is that it can make it easy for an individual or leader to operate in silos or with the same network of people on a regular basis. Creating both a strong core network and a broader network across the organization will allow the executive to be more successful long-term. To do this, create a blended series of informal and formal experiences that aim to create community and build in touchpoints.

Build strong 1:1 relationships. To combat the lack of spontaneous opportunities for small talk and other relationship building that would typically happen in an office, encourage your new hire and their teammates to set up a mix of formal conversations, to cover rules, responsibilities, and business objectives, and shorter, informal interactions over coffee, lunch, or debriefing on a recent meeting. Just as in virtual interviewing, one advantage of virtual onboarding is the general availability of colleagues over video, so these meetings should be readily easy to schedule.

Recognize team dynamics and build a broader network. Research shows that it’s more powerful to have a broad network than a deep network, especially as one becomes increasingly senior in an organization. Particularly when a new leader onboards, the organization should help him or her intentionally build a broad network, starting internally. While one-on-one meetings are powerful for establishing foundational relationships, trust and rapport, having your new hire begin sitting in on group discussions from day one can help this person put individuals into the context of how work gets done. Some companies set up a “shadow week” in which the new hire attends a wide variety of team and stakeholder group meetings, even those that may feel less directly relevant to that new hire’s core responsibilities.

3. Explain the company culture and how work gets done.

New employees must learn about the company’s culture from the outset. Spend more time than you generally would in a face-to-face environment talking about what is typical and atypical across various cultural dimensions. Create the space for your new colleagues to ask about the way things are done as well.

Make unspoken assumptions explicit. Many organizations rely on organic ways of communicating shared history and norms. Whether virtually or not, memorializing a company’s history in videos, in the “about us” section of your website, and in documents can help accelerate a process that might otherwise take longer to capture over a series of many interactions with longstanding members of the organization. Even if it feels awkward, explicit guidance around norms that are often taken for granted — the company’s tone and level of formality, dress code, virtual etiquette on videoconferences, messaging norms, and working hours — can be helpful. Don’t leave new employees to guess at these issues; doing so can create ambiguity and stress.

Designate a culture buddy. Assigning an individual whom the new employee can go to with questions about the culture can be especially effective. The buddy might debrief after an important group discussion, flagging to the new employee on actions that aren’t in line with the culture or how his or her style may be perceived by others.

4. Set clear expectations and connect the individual’s work to the broader organizational mission, vision, and goals.

A new hire should have a clear picture of what success looks like for the first 100 days and beyond. New hires should recognize how their responsibilities fit into the overall success of the company. When an individual joins the team, the hiring manager should share key communications and presentations that have been done by the leadership of the organization on the direction and goals of the company so the new hire can put his or her work into the context of the whole.

Having a clear set of responsibilities and outcomes can be critical to helping a new employee prioritize and sequence work and accomplish some quick wins that create a strong foundation and momentum for the individual’s future success. Over the long term, while a role can evolve, adapt, and become more complex and ambiguous, having clarity from the start will create a foundation from which the individual can more readily adapt.

Onboarding is one of the most important drivers of employee success. Getting off to a strong start creates momentum. Getting off to a poor start breaks a new employee’s confidence and leads the organization to question the wisdom of the hire. What separates firms that do onboarding best — whether in-person or virtual — is that the work is intentional, and it does not end after the first week, the first 30 days, or even the first 100 days. Your onboarding program should just be the beginning of an ongoing developmental foundation that continues to strengthen your employees’ cultural alignment, relationships across your organization, and performance in their role.

Vaccinations, return to work highlight employment law update Posted by AVCU on 9:51 AM

 Employers can require shots but shouldn’t ask why employees don’t get vaccinated.

Employers can't ask why employees decide not to get vaccinated, says Aaron Zandy, partner with FordHarrison LLP.

Legal issues surrounding how to handle coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines and returning safely to work post-pandemic topped the agenda during an employment law update Thursday at the 2021 CUNA HR & Organizational Development Council Virtual Conference.

While employers can require employees to get a COVID-19 vaccination, they can’t ask why employees decide not to get vaccinated, says Aaron Zandy, partner with FordHarrison LLP.

Employers considering setting up employer-sponsored vaccinations need to be aware of related legal hurdles, such as documents becoming medical records under Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) rules and questions turning into medical inquires under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“It’s much safer to require employees to get the vaccine on their own as opposed to you as an employer providing it for them,” Zandy says.

Credit unions aren’t accustomed to having much contact with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), but Zandy says that will change in the wake of COVID-19.

OSHA—which protects workers from health and safety hazards on the job—currently does not have standards in place that address what steps organizations need to take to maintain a safe and healthy workplace, or statutes or regulations that impose penalties for companies that fail to do so.

But OSHA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have released guidance on safety measures, such as maintaining social distance and wearing masks. Zandy says organizations that follow that guidance are well-positioned to defend themselves against complaints filed with OSHA that claim the workplace isn’t safe or healthy.

“It’s the organization’s obligation to maintain a safe workplace,” Zandy says. “How do you achieve that? Follow the guidance and ensure employees are being safe and sensitive to others.”

Senate Bill Would Help Workers Build 401(k)s While Repaying Student Loans Posted by AVCU on 9:47 AM

 Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., reintroduced legislation Thursday that allows employers to make “matching” contributions to a 401(k) retirement plan while their employees make student loan payments.

Under the Retirement Parity for Student Loans Act, recent college graduates who cannot afford to save money above their student loan repayments would no longer have to forgo the employer match.

“Right now, generations of Americans are struggling under the crushing burden of student debt,” Wyden said in a statement. “They are putting off buying a home, having children and saving for retirement to pay down their student loans. As the cost of higher education continues to skyrocket, so does the debt.”

The voluntary benefit that employers may elect to provide to workers applies only to repayment of student loan debt that was incurred by a worker for higher education expenses, according to a summary of the bill.

A worker must certify the amount of student loan repayments that have been made during a plan year to receive the benefit.

The rate of matching for student loans and for salary reduction contributions must be the same, the summary states.

“For example, if a 401(k) plan provides a 100% matching contribution on the first 5% of salary reduction contributions made by a worker, then a 100% matching contribution must be made for student loan repayments equal to 5% of the worker’s pay,” according to the summary.

Special rules apply if a worker makes both salary reduction contributions and student loan repayments.

“Under those rules, student loan repayments are only taken into account to the extent that the worker has not made the maximum annual contribution to the retirement plan — for example, the annual maximum contribution limit per worker is generally $19,500 for 2021,” the summary states.

The Retirement Parity for Student Loans Act “would give employers the ability to make matching contributions to their employees’ retirement, as the employees simultaneously make their student loan payments,” Wyden said.

Wyden added that while he supports student debt forgiveness, “it’s important to put every option on the table to relieve this burden for millions of Americans.”

He cited research from the Employee Benefit Research Institute that found that households headed by a person age 35 or younger with a college degree and no student loan debt report median defined contribution account balances of $30,000, compared with $15,000 for similar families that have student loan debt.

The bill, first introduced in 2018, is cosponsored by Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.; Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.; Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; and Ben Cardin, D-Md.

Can Employers Force Employees To Get Vaccinated Or Return To The Office? Posted by AVCU on 9:03 AM

 As companies across the country announce their return-to-work plans, leaders should consider their employees—and the fact that they may not want to go back to the office.

The latest 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer shows that 60% of 2,500 Americans surveyed believe employers should not force employees to go back to the workplace before they are ready. And though much of the nation’s pandemic response has been politicized, 48% of people who voted for former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election agree with this sentiment, as do 68% of those who voted for President Joe Biden.

If companies want workers back in the office, they need to first identify legitimate reasons for their return, says Denise Rousseau, a professor of organizational behavior and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College.

“What are the real motives to invite people back? If that’s to legitimize pre-pandemic decisions we made to buy office equipment or lease building space, it’s not rational,” she says. “You are not supporting your organization’s goals or supporting your people well [if so].”

And while more than 110 million people have received a Covid-19 vaccinate, 69% of survey respondents believe the decision to get vaccinated should be a personal one, not to be made by an employer. Of those 69% of Americans, 41% think those who choose not to get vaccinated should be allowed to return to the workplace, as long as they take precautions.

Legally, employers can require at-will employees to get vaccinated, says Kevin Troutman, a partner at labor and employment law firm Fisher Phillips. There are, however, two exceptions to this rule, the first being for employees who cannot get the vaccine for medical or religious reasons. State and local laws that may also restrict employers’ ability to enforce vaccine mandates.

Covid-19 vaccine mandates—and the associated legal challenges—are still in their infancy. In February, a corrections officer reportedly sued a New Mexico county over a vaccine requirement for first responders and other employees. The officer is allegedly facing termination for declining a vaccination, though the county’s attorney told the Associated Press that the county stood behind its policy, pointing to FDA guidance.

This, Troutman says, is why employers need to be prepared to explain why it’s necessary to have workers in the office. “As a practical matter, employers have to consider how many of their employees will have reservations about that and not do it because they are worried about safety issues,” he says. “Do you want to have a fourth or a third or a fifth of your workforce that is distracted, upset or afraid to come to work?”

There is one thing most everyone can agree on: 81% of respondents want their employers to share coronavirus and vaccine updates weekly, if not more frequently. In fact, more people trust their employers to respond effectively and responsibly to the pandemic than national health authorities or the government, the survey found.

“My advice has continued to be to listen to your employees to find out what their concerns are. Try to meet them where they are. If they are worried about specific issues, try to provide information,” Troutman says. “Work with your employees as much as you can rather than coming across as strictly dictating.” 

I’ll be right back. How to protect your energy during Zoom meetings Posted by AVCU on 2:56 PM

 I knew that working from home would be a massive shift, especially as spouses and kids became new “coworkers” for many individuals.

A problem I didn’t anticipate, which is coming up frequently for my time management clients with heavy meeting schedules, is Zoom fatigue.

Individuals that could make it through a day of in-person meetings with minimal issues have found themselves incredibly drained by a full docket of video calls. Many of us have been problem-solving for solutions to reduce the fatigue  that can hit hard at the end of the day. Here are some of the most common culprits of the remote-work energy drain, as well as ways you can combat it.

A “ZERO BREAK” SCHEDULE

Even if it felt like you had no breaks between meetings before the coronavirus—you did. In order to get from one room to another, you had at least a few minutes of physical movement and a quick mental break. Now, with videoconferencing, you literally have no time between meetings and to go from one call to the next.

This marginless schedule saps your mental batteries. To avoid this issue, schedule your meetings with some short gaps in between, or make it a rule to wrap up one call 5-10 minutes before the next one begins. This gives your brain a short span of time to process the meeting’s substance, make note of next steps, and prepare for the next conversation.

ONE POSITION FOR ONE SCREEN

Another reason that video calls can be exceptionally tiring is that you need to physically hold yourself in one position. In an in-person meeting, you’d likely shift from side to side, tilt back in your chair, swivel from looking one way to another depending on who is speaking, and lean over to take notes. Unfortunately in a video call, you’re stuck in one place trying to stay in the center of the screen, and moving in any other direction can cause your face to become awkwardly cropped. Furthermore, if you move backward and have a virtual background on Zoom, your face will literally disappear into the ether.

There aren’t a whole lot of ways you can overcome this challenge during your calls unless you shut off your camera for a while. But you can work on intentionally moving your body more. One small shift is to alternate between standing and sitting during your video calls. You can do this using a standing desk or simply place your computer on a bureau to elevate it. Also in between calls, walk around and do some gentle stretching of your back, neck, shoulders, and arms. This will get your blood flowing and reduce mental fatigue caused by the physical fatigue of your muscles.

EYESTRAIN INCREASE

With the shift to virtual, you’re all of a sudden receiving a double dose of time in front of the computer. Not only are your work meetings shifted to all virtual meetings, but your personal time may be filled with video calls, as well.

Research says we blink half as often when we watch things on screens as we normally would with face-to-face interactions. This means our eyes have a higher probability of getting dry, irritated, and tired. A few suggestions seem to help. One is to practice the “20-20-20” rule where every 20 minutes you take 20 seconds to look at something 20 feet away. Another recommended tip is to take a break every two hours for 15 minutes so your eyes can have a rest.

VISUAL OVERLOAD FROM CONSTANT STARING (EVEN AT YOURSELF)

Unless you’re watching a panel discussion, it’s usually impossible to look at everyone in a group during in-person interactions. Typically, your gaze rests on the one main speaker and then everyone else is in the periphery or even behind you. But thanks to the glories (and more concerning attributes) of Zoom, you can see everyone all at once, along with one person you never usually observe—yourself.

This creates visual overload because when we look at a screen, whether it’s a computer or a TV screen, our minds are accustomed to processing what is in front of us as a unified whole. But a Zoom meeting in gallery view isn’t one unified whole. It’s the equivalent of trying to watch 5, 10, 20, or more different TV shows, side-by-side, meanwhile checking a mirror to see how you look. This is incredibly exhausting.

To overcome this visual fatigue, you can start by putting your Zoom into speaker view instead of gallery view. That way you’ll have the more “natural” sensation of having your focus on one main person at a time.

Another step you can take, depending on the meeting and your role within in it, is to stop your video camera for part or all of the call. This can give you the ability to change position in your chair like you normally would in a meeting and reduce the visual overload from looking in a tiny mirror throughout the call.

Finally, if it’s possible, do a phone call. When you’re looking to connect, video calls help a great deal. But when you just need to work through some practical items, oftentimes a phone call suffices and takes much less energy. With a phone call, you automatically eliminate three of these four issues. You’re not stuck in one place; instead you can at least shift in your chair or at times walk around the room while you talk. You don’t need to look at a screen. Most importantly, you don’t need to take in anything visually.

Until we can go back to in-person interactions, the increased fatigue from video calls won’t be fully eliminated. But by paying attention to these top drains to our reserves and appropriately addressing them, you can end your day on a higher, more productive energy level.

Employers Have a Crucial Role to Play in Covid-19 Vaccinations Posted by AVCU on 7:58 AM

 Now that the first vaccines are being rolled out to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, a major challenge is persuading people to take them. Getting 70% or more of the public vaccinated or recovered from the Covid-19 virus is critical to containing the disease and creating herd immunity. However, recent surveys indicate that a considerable number of people across the United States are hesitant to take the new vaccines. Overcoming this reluctance — which cuts across geographic, political, religious, and demographic groups but is more prevalent in certain subgroups, especially Black Americans — is critical to ending the pandemic in the United States.

The reasons for this hesitancy are varied — from skepticism about the science to worries that the approval process has been too fast or politicized to safety concerns about being first for something so new. Others distrust all vaccines.

While federal and state public health agencies are leading the charge in educating the public, their efforts can be dramatically amplified if employers join the effort. Working together, public health agencies and employers can increase transparency about the data, the allocation process, and vaccine efficacy while fostering trust and confidence in the process and safety of the vaccine. Here is a playbook that can help employers design and implement their campaigns to drive vaccination and address health equity issues.

1. Understand your population and focus on inequities.

Spend time to understand the cultural beliefs that may dissuade employees from getting vaccinated. Engage your diversity, equity, and inclusion professionals to connect with all demographics in your employee base, and conduct surveys now to understand employees’ attitudes toward and beliefs about vaccination. This information will help you develop a more targeted education and engagement plan, leveraging existing public health materials. Once you have a baseline, you can continue to conduct pulse surveys of your workforce over the coming months to see what’s changed and how to target interventions most effectively.

2. Make it local.

Personalized communications will be crucial in the campaign to foster trust. In addition, employers, working in concert with or in parallel to public health officials, should try to identify the right parties and channels in the company and local community to deliver those messages to each subgroup. Leaders can set an example by publicly supporting vaccinations and when they are eligible, getting vaccinated themselves.

3. Educate and be transparent.

Create a dynamic program to engage with your people and customers about the goals, safety, and benefits of vaccination. Provide the latest information and be transparent in terms of access challenges and other concerns. Messaging will need to be agile to respond to changing local conditions and should be delivered in a nuanced, culturally sensitive fashion.

4. Leverage data and analytics.

Analytics platforms distill data into meaningful insights and support decision-making. They can help you stay on top of evolving sentiments and behaviors, allowing you to rapidly respond with targeted tactics.

5. Address hurdles and incentivize positive behaviors.

Make sure that people in your workforce do not have to choose between getting paid and getting vaccinated and create policies that protect wages and provide paid time off for vaccination. Recognize the challenges for employees with children and facilitate vaccination during times that are both convenient and feasible. You might provide child care options. When vaccines become more broadly available, you might set up an on-campus vaccination site. If employees are getting a vaccine that requires a second dose, educate them about the importance of getting both doses and provide incentives to do so through your employee recognition and rewards programs.

Now is the time for employers to step up and be a part of the solution to ending the worst public health crisis in a century and addressing the inequities in our health system and society that the pandemic has exposed. Taking the actions that we have laid out will pay dividends now by getting people back to work faster and reviving our economy and down the road by building the infrastructures needed to overcome similar challenges in the future. By joining the campaign to persuade people to get vaccinated, employers will not only help themselves, they will also help society overcome deep-seated anti-vaccination sentiments that are a danger to us all.

How to Lead When Your Team Is Exhausted — and You Are, Too Posted by AVCU on 9:10 AM

 “What happened to my resolve?” a leader remarked in the middle of a session.

We were discussing how he and his team were navigating the second wave of the pandemic and responding to the breaking news that a vaccine might be on the horizon. On the surface, everything was fine: The business was thriving and his company was in a good position.

Still, that remark captured his true concern: On a personal level he was experiencing a loss of agency, determination, and energy. The “steady hand” approach and rapid action mindset that had characterized his leadership during the first wave were becoming fuzzy, less ingenious, and much more volatile.

As we dug through the layers of the organization, it turned out that the feeling was widespread among other leaders and managers. Stress incidents were on the rise, people’s emotional reactions were becoming more polarized, and there were more team defections.

The same is likely true across a broad range of companies and sectors. It goes by different names: “pandemic fatigue,” “mental fog,” “work/life blur,” “extended vacuum,” and an “endless wait,” just to mention a few phrases I have heard leaders use. Clients mention that they are fed up and bored and that “2020 has been beyond heavy.” Even those working in booming industries report that they feel “emotionally amputated.” “The other day I cried for no reason,” another (usually hard-nosed) client told me. Others struggle with not being able to do things like exercise with great enthusiasm, as they did during the first wave of the pandemic. Their brand-new collection of home fitness gear is gathering dust. And no one gets a kick from yet another virtual “happy hour” at work.

It feels like the whole world is tired. Even though the vaccine shines a light at the end of the tunnel, the home stretch will be long and perhaps take a greater toll on our professional and personal lives than we expect it to.

To move through the second wave successfully, leaders need to reexamine their personal resilience and that of their team members: the ability and strength to overcome obstacles, bounce back, and recover in the face of challenges. How strong are you under pressure? How quickly do you bounce back from defeat?

Most importantly: How can you find the mental strength to lead through the last mile?

How to Lead When the Whole World Is Tired

Compared to the adrenaline-fueled response in the spring and the false dawn about the recovery over the summer, the second wave requires a new understanding of personal resilience. In the first wave, personal resilience relied on a psychological emergency response called arousal. Shocks, threats, and sudden uncertainty make us super alert and we activate resources that are skin-deep: Adrenaline, fighting spirit, and pulling together. This response is impulsive, almost universal, and immediately recognizable across many teams.

Personal resilience in the second wave is a different story because it relies on psychological stamina. Psychological stamina rests on more deep-seated emotional patterns shaped by our individual needs, histories, and experiences. Stamina is required because, frankly, the second wave is not exciting at all. People report feeling bored, disconnected, and unnerved. In contrast to the skin-deep reactions of the first wave, the second wave requires perseverance, endurance, and even defiance against the randomness, gloom, and burden of the pandemic.

Cultivating resilience requires some emotional rewiring and calls for a different kind of appeal to team members and colleagues. The essential task is to identify your biggest challenges over the next year and then tap the psychological stamina you and your team needs to get there. There are three key steps: understanding the difference between urgency and importance; balancing comfort with containment; and finding new ways to energize yourself and others.

Understanding Urgency vs. Importance

This may sound self-evident, but it is amazing how much entire organizations avoid facing up to the toughest challenges ahead. One reason is our natural response to crises: We become short-sighted and push aside all that is not urgent. Once we have fixed what is urgent, we feel we deserve a good rest. In several of the top teams I currently advise, there is a tendency to either fail to see the coming challenges or to rationalize, “When Covid-19 is over, we will address the problem.”

Leaders and teams must avoid this temptation. While rest is vital outside the workday, inactivity during it can backfire. In military units, for example, boredom and waiting time are perceived as more stressful than actual combat. In the study “The Challenges of the Disengaged Mind,” researchers found that when people were ordered to sit in a room and do nothing, they chose to give themselves electric shocks rather than pass the time in silence. Most people seem to prefer to do something rather than nothing, even if that something is unproductive or harmful. As a high-ranking officer in NATO told me for my book Battle Mind: “It is better to act and make a decision than not to act. In other words, the consequences are often greater if you decide not to act than if you do act. A willingness to take risks is a precondition for being able to act under pressure or in demanding situations.”

The way ahead may be to follow the example of a CEO I advise. Even though her business has been successful throughout Covid-19, she chose not to rest on her laurels but to ask: “How do we turn the short-term momentum into long-term advantages?” She asked her executive team to come up with ideas for the future and set up a task force with high-performing talents from across the organization. Specifically, she asked them to consider the steps they could take here and now, steps that would in the years to come eventually become longer-term competitive advantages.

Another approach would be to ask yourself and your colleagues whether you are in fact fully prepared for the feeding frenzy that will inevitably kick off in the wake of the vaccine. Companies will clamor to win back lost business and reclaim lost customers.  For many businesses, dealing with the aftermath will be just as intense as dealing with the crisis.

Ask yourself and your teams: Are you doing all you can do to emerge from the crisis as a stronger company? The window for change may be closing and the time to turn good intentions into action is now.

Balancing Compassion and Containment

In order to act, you and your employees must be motivated to act. Specifically, action requires both compassion and containment.

First, let’s look at compassion. At this point in the crisis, the conditions that breed depression, loneliness, and anxiety are present: Working in isolation, health concerns, job insecurity, heavy workloads, and rapidly shifting priorities. A global survey conducted by Mercer found that the majority of the 270 insurance companies surveyed now rate mental health as being as much of a risk as smoking.

Leaders need to be serious about mental wellbeing and intervene sooner rather than later. This means that your employees need more warmth and comfort than they might have prior to the pandemic. But you can’t soothe your team with spreadsheets and plans; that takes listening and daring to stay in the hardest moments –daring to talk about doubt and discomfort — instead of skipping ahead to the next item on the agenda.

There are a couple of ways to approach this. One involves saying “I don’t know” or sharing your own feelings of discomfort. I see an enormous difference in leaders who express their insecurities, because it goes both ways: When you dare to tell your team about the issues you struggle with, they will follow suit.

Another approach involves encouraging the fundamental feeling that people are good enough, that they have earned their place, and that their worth is not just a function of their actions and results, but of who they are and how they carry themselves. So, don’t only talk about “getting things done” in your conversations with your colleagues, but also recognize “who they are” using specific examples of their personal contributions and human qualities. This will reduce anxiety and second-guessing.

Compassion, though, must be balanced with containment. Containment is described by IMD professor Anand Narasimhan as “the ability to observe and absorb what is going on around you, but to provide a sense of stability.” Stability comes from setting limits, raising the bar, keeping the pressure at the optimal level, and helping each other snap out of self-pity and moodiness.

In fact, too much caring and compassion can drive people into a learned helplessness trap, believing that they can’t perform without help and support from others. As the father of modern positive psychology professor Martin Seligman demonstrated, we experience learned helplessness when we face uncontrollable and inescapable stress. We simply stop trying to respond to dangers and passively accept whatever harm befalls us.

So, once you lift people (or yourself) up, the goal is not pampering. Rather, it’s about using your connection to catch a second wind. And as any boxer will tell you, a second wind is brought on by defiance, anger, fear, and frustration. Feelings that we usually suppress or intellectualize in our professional lives.

So instead of lowering the temperature completely and feeling the effect of exhaustion and boredom, it might be a good idea to turn up the heat and go into fight mode. Take a good look at the battles that will meet you next year. How can you stay ahead of the curve? How can you prepare for the next stages? How can you mobilize and be able to attack before dawn?

In my conversations with a wide range of leaders, they repeatedly emphasize how important it is to be able to do something instead of letting go. Perhaps you feel like staying in bed all day watching Netflix and eating pizza, or “snug under the duvet,” as one of my clients describes this type of reaction. Once in a while this may even work well with a bit of constructive denial and self-indulgence, but not every day and not every time things get hard.

Yes, the current moment calls for compassion, but it also calls for a little more edge and collective defiance against the injustice of the virus. You want people to say “enough is enough” and rise to fight against the gloom. As with good parenting, the key is to find the right balance between caring and challenging, between compassion and containment, between saying “you are good enough as you are” and “get moving and get to the next level.”

Energize Everyone, Every Day

“I’m surprised that the hardest part right now is managing my own mind,” the CEO of a large cap company concluded with a sigh near the end of our session.

As we enter the last stretch, the greatest challenge for leaders may be to sustain energy in themselves and in their teams. We don’t quite know how long it will take to finish the last mile and we cannot rely on the urgency of the crisis any longer. Patience with feel-good language like “we need to pull together” or “we will get through this” is now close to zero. The appetite is for specific and actionable communication — what to do now to pull together and how to get through it.

The key is to get the energy flowing and never accept that meetings and interactions become stale or boring. Energy is not a given and must be generated and channeled internally. For example the LEGO Group has defined the goal to “Energize Everyone, Every Day” as a central leadership principle.

There are many ways to energize: Sharing success stories, setting up competitions, dividing long projects into sprints, communicating. But also shortening endless zoom meetings, cutting tumbleweed projects, and allowing constructive conflicts and honest feedback in your teams. How you do it matters less. That you do it matters immensely.

Further, people with a high degree of resilience tend to prevail because they interpret setbacks as temporary, local, and changeable. When something is viewed in this way, it leaves us able to think: “It will go away sometime, it can be curbed, and I can do something about it.” This enables us to act. It is the mindset of the resilient leader. Resilient people are more willing to make decisions because they believe they have a real impact on their situation and are not afraid to influence it.

Alternatively, if we face an obstacle thinking, “It is permanent, it is a general problem, and there is nothing I can do about it,” it leaves us with little or no power to act. People lacking resilience also tend to internalize the problem by ruminating and having thoughts like, “It is probably me. I am no good. I can’t do anything right.” This leaves the person paralyzed. You can probably imagine how these thoughts can spin out of control and end up in pure self-destruction.

Resilience is the most fundamental quality for navigating through chaos. The belief that we have the ability and the strength to overcome obstacles and perform involves a constant balancing act, and for most it is a lifelong challenge. Without resilience we tend to act indecisively or follow directions blindly. If we are not confident that we have the necessary abilities, we risk getting paralyzed or subjected to forces beyond our control. Managing your own mind and deciding to take charge of your destiny (and helping others do the same) is where you find mental strength for the last mile.