Governor Pritzker signed the Workplace Transparency Act in August of 2019 and this January, the new law went into effect. While many people, business owners and employees alike, welcomed the law as appropriate in the #MeToo era, employers are grappling with how to adapt to the new regulations.
The law makes sweeping changes to the Illinois Human Rights Act, providing greater protections for workers and introducing new requirements for employers including mandatory sexual harassment training and changes to confidentiality agreements and arbitration agreements. But while the law is a big deal, it is by no means a threat to Illinois employers. With just a few smart policy changes you can not only ensure compliance, but also make your business run smoother than ever.
Let’s take a look at what the new requirements are and how you can adapt to them easily and effectively, including:
What the Workplace Transparency Act means for employers
How to meet the new training requirements
Navigating other compliance issues from the new law
Best practices to protect your brand and your workplace culture
What the Sexual Harassment Training Requirements Mean for Businesses
What does the new law entail? Broadly speaking, the Workplace Transparency Act and its impact on employers can be broken down into two parts: how companies train their employees and how they treat their employees.
The first part is the biggest one for most employers. All Illinois businesses are now required to conduct sexual harassment training on an annual basis. The law also establishes standards for sexual harassment training programs. Companies must now implement an approved training program or develop their own program that meets the minimum standards. Key standards include:
An explanation of sexual harassment consistent with the definition outlined in the IHRA
Examples of conduct that constitutes unlawful workplace harassment
A summary of relevant statutory provisions concerning sexual harassment including remedies available to victims of harassment
A summary of the employers’ responsibilities for preventing, investigating, and correcting workplace harassment
But the changes to the IHRA are not limited to training. The new law also bans companies from requiring employees to sign confidentiality agreements and from enforcing mandatory arbitration agreements. It also changes how confidentiality agreements are handled and requires employers to report any adverse findings of workplace harassment to the Illinois Department of Human Rights. And the law extends sexual harassment protections to independent contractors and consultants, a move with significant ramifications for the growing gig economy.
Violating the law comes with serious consequences for employers. In addition to damaging your employer brand and workplace, you will face up to a $1,000 fine for the first offense and $5,000 fines for each subsequent violation.
How to Comply with the Sexual Harassment Training Requirements
How can you create an effective sexual harassment training program or modify your existing training to ensure compliance? The good news is that the best practices for bringing your training into compliance are also great ways to build a safer, more productive workplace.
Beyond the four bullet-points outlined in the previous section, it’s important to be as explicit and comprehensive as possible regarding what does and does not constitute workplace harassment, what employees can do to prevent and address harassment, what promises and obligations you have regarding workplace harassment including any and all official company policies, and what employees can and should do if they are harassed.
It can be especially useful to clarify who can be a harasser or harassed (pro-tip: it’s anyone) and to examine power dynamics and unconscious biases that can cause or worsen harassment. Outline specific best-practices for employees to prevent inadvertent workplace harassment and provide clear and helpful guidelines for reporting harassment.
When creating your training program, don’t overlook your managers. You do not want to end up in noncompliance, damage your company culture and employer brand, or lose valuable employees because a manager mishandles harassment on their team. Implement specialized manager training to educate your management team on their responsibilities to protect employees and take action to address workplace harassment, the liability that they can cause if they do not follow proper procedure, how to avoid harassment allegations against themselves, and what to do if a complaint is filed against them.
Other Workplace Harassment Compliance Considerations: Confidentiality Agreements and More
In addition to the training requirement, the new law makes significant changes to how employers can create and enforce confidentiality agreements and arbitration agreements. But while there are new limitations, these are still viable tools to protect your company and its brand. You just need to be more careful about how you use them.
For both types of agreements, the law is focused on making sure that the agreements are consensual. Specifically, confidentiality in a severance agreement or settlement is only valid if the employer takes extra steps to ensure that the employee enters the confidentiality agreement freely and fully informed. So, employees must be able to show the agreement to an attorney of their choice, have 21 days to decide whether or not to sign the agreement and be able to revoke their signature for 7 days after signing. So long as a confidentiality agreement meets those standards, it is valid under the new law. And while employees may subsequently report the unlawful harassment to a government agency, they may be required to wave monetary compensation as a result.
Arbitration agreements are similarly affected rather than prevented by the new law. Employers are no longer allowed to make hiring decisions contingent on signing the agreements and must take steps to make sure that they are consensual. But the requirements are even less stringent than for confidentiality agreements. If employers give employees a brief opt-out period, odds are the arbitration agreements will be considered valid under the new legislation.
Finally, employers should include contractors in their sexual harassment training and policies. It should be clear to employees, managers, and the contractors themselves that contractors are now protected by the law and by company policies.
Workplace Harassment Best Practices to Protect Your Brand and Culture
In addition to requiring companies to conduct sexual harassment training and report violations, and reducing companies’ ability to limit employees’ speech and methods of recourse, the new law makes it more important than ever to prevent and properly address workplace harassment. It represents and reinforces a culture that will not tolerate harassment in the workplace. That means that failing to properly handle any cases of harassment at your company or to foster a company culture that discourages harassment and encourages equality will hurt your ability to attract, engage, and retain the talent you need to succeed.
So, it’s important to do more than follow the letter of the law when it comes to the Workplace Transparency Act and the Illinois Human Rights Act. Unchecked workplace harassment can cause a toxic workplace culture that undermines your employer brand and decreases employee productivity, creativity, and diversity. And it’s not just your employer brand at stake – as companies like Uber, Guess, and Google can attest. If customers find out about workplace harassment at your company, you can see your corporate brand take a hit as well.
Beyond taking employee and manager training seriously, companies should establish firm and comprehensive guidelines for workplace harassment investigations and remedial action. Your employees should know that you are on their side and will take allegations seriously while also providing a fair and transparent evaluation process for those accused.
Once an employee reports workplace harassment, you should start a serious investigation at once, whether they request one or not. Interview both the accuser and accused, as well as any witnesses as necessary, and document all responses thoroughly. If the accused is in a position of power, take steps to keep them out of the decision-making process during the investigation and prevent them from taking retaliatory actions against the employee who made the allegations.
Depending on the results of your findings, it’s important to take prompt remedial actions. Even if you have not found evidence of true misconduct worthy of disciplinary action, you should address areas of concern to ensure that all employees are comfortable in the workplace. But whatever you do, do not transfer the accuser unless they explicitly ask to be transferred. Transfers are often seen as disciplinary or retaliatory towards the accuser.
When determining how to punish misconduct after concluding your investigations, it’s important to consider several factors, including:
Extent and severity of the misconduct
Relative positions of the harasser and complainant
Previous allegations or findings against the harasser
Requested punishment by the complainant and previous punishments for the same behavior
Creating a positive, inclusive culture can go a long way towards preventing incidences and allegations of harassment. But it is equally important to take any allegations seriously, establish standardized approaches towards handling cases when they come up, and to take swift and meaningful action.
Find Out More at Our Comprehensive Webinar
Few issues employers face are as nuanced and potentially damaging as sexual harassment. Especially in light of the new law and changing culture, it’s important to get every aspect of your workplace harassment policy and procedures exactly right. Needless to say, we can’t cover it all in one blog article.
That is why we are holding a free and informative webinar on March 31st to educate employers and HR professionals about how to ensure compliance in light of the new laws. Our first panelist is Heather Bailey, a partner at SmithAmundsen’s Labor and Employment Group and an expert in discrimination, employment, and labor lawsuits, negotiations, and mediation. Heather will be joined by Launchways’ own HR Client Manager and expert in all things human resources, Karina Castaneda.
Heather and Karina will outline how to create an effective and compliant training program and adapt to the other clauses of the Workplace Transparency Act. The presentation will be followed by an in-depth Q&A so Heather and Karina can help you address your specific challenges and concerns.
Imagine the following scenario: an impactful, talented, well-liked employee walks into your office and tells you that they quit. You’re shocked – betrayed, even, and in spite of your best efforts to make things right, that employee is so sure that they’re done working for you that there’s no winning them back.
From a management perspective, it’s easy to say, “I don’t know what happened; they just snapped one day,” but that shows a complete lack of introspection and talent-minded thinking. Those sudden, damaging separations are often the result of a very real condition called employee burnout.
As a business leader, one of your top goals should be supporting your workers’ job enablement and mental health in a way that prevents burnout and keeps the great talent you have plugged into your team.
Moving forward, we’ll explore:
What exactly is employee burnout?
Why burnout management/prevention is crucial to growing businesses
What are the most common factors that lead to employee burnout?
How to proactively address burnout at your organization
What is employee burnout, really?
In a nutshell, employee burnout is work-based exhaustion or frustration that has grown and festered beyond the point of no return.
Burnout is very much a workplace mental health issue because, when someone is burnt out, they can’t cope or connect with their work in a positive way. In our career-centric culture, that can easily erode someone’s feelings of self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-worth.
The problem of burnout isn’t just localized to the office, either. When employees are burnt out professionally, they’re not the same strong, reliable, positive friends, partners, or family members at home or on the weekends.
Burnout isn’t just about being “fed up,” it’s about not being able to continue anymore. If that sounds like a dark place, that’s because it is!
Why is recognizing and preventing burnout a top business priority?
Preventing burnout should be a crucial business priority for two key reasons:
Recognizing and fighting the burnout problem protects your talent and human capital investments as well as your productivity
It’s the right thing to do for your employees
Let’s talk about that second reason first. Given the rising public awareness of mental health and the current social/political climate with regard to labor relations, it’s important to be an organization that treats people right. Part of demonstrating you’re a modern, forward-facing business is considering the whole employee: mind, body, and spirit.
From a bottom-line perspective, preventing burnout is like preventing errors in code or promoting workplace safety: a little proactive investment and effort up-front protects the long-term health and viability of operations.
If you hope to achieve steady, sustainable growth and maximize your talent, you can’t let productivity and quality of work slip due to burnout, and you certainly can’t let yourself fall behind the pace of business due to talent turnover.
What factors lead to employee burnout?
There’s no one thing that burns employees out; it’s generally a combination of factors. Here are the most common problems/situations that contribute to the overarching burnout issue.
Lack of employee agency
Your workers may be “employees,” and that means they’re there to work for you, but they still need to feel like they have ownership of their individual responsibilities and a voice within the organization.
When workflows are over-structured, managers and supervisors micromanage, or company initiatives and directives constantly pull employees in different directions, it’s a perfect recipe for burnout.
The more freedom and self-determination you can give your employees while still providing the structure and accountability to accomplish great work, the better.
Lack of work/life balance
Your employees are yours 40-or-so hours a week, but there are still 125-plus more hours in the week when they are full-time spouses, parents, friends, family members, neighbors, and so on. In order to be a great, employee-centric manager or leader, you need to value your team members’ ability to enjoy their time away just as much as you value the work they do in the office.
When employees constantly have work to do from home or there’s the expectation of staying late into the evenings, it eats into their ability to be a strong, engaged person away from the office. That means too much work (or even too much communication about work) can easily eat away at a worker’s ability to relax or feel fully invested in their families, hobbies, etc.
That frustration from home boomerangs back to the office, where resentment, frustration, and steam that wasn’t able to be blown off quickly combine into the perfect recipe for burnout.
“Suffering in silence”
The vast majority of burnt out employees who quit suddenly (as we described above) didn’t just decide they were done that day. Those folks have usually been suffering in silence for months!
There are all sorts of minor daily frustrations that many great employees simply won’t bring up, either because they don’t want to complain, they fear they’ll be ignored, or it just doesn’t seem worth the effort.
Part of being a proactive manager is recognizing the signs of somebody suffering in silence and reaching out to them to take corrective action before things reach the tipping point. Establishing clear pipelines and resources to address concerns (and honoring that commitment) is crucial as well.
Let’s take a look at some of the minor attacks on workplace mental health that can easily snowball over time and lead to burnout:
Poor communication
Communication is everything when it comes to the employee experience. Employees need to know what they’re expected to do, how they’re expected to do it, who they’re expected to do it with, and what they’re expected to achieve. When you don’t provide that information, you’re setting everybody up for frustration.
Great workplace communication isn’t just about dictating things to employees – in fact, that’s one of the most frustrating and burnout-inducing approaches – but instead maintaining an open, positive dialogue about what’s happening, how people are doing, and where the work is going.
Poor performance management
That great employee who quit out of nowhere probably felt like your managers and organization in general weren’t doing enough to help them get to the next step. Often, high-achieving team members are not included in conversations about improvement, goal setting, etc., and the general assumption is, “They’re doing great. Why fix what’s not broken?”
Often, those employees who are already “doing great” actually see the flaws, weaknesses, or shortcomings of their work very clearly. That’s part of what makes them a great worker – they’re reflective, introspective, and self-aware. As other burnout factors begin to frustrate them or erode their confidence, they start desperately looking for coaching or guidance that never comes.
At the other end of the spectrum, when employees know they are struggling and there isn’t a clear performance management/improvement framework in place, they start getting worried that the axe could be coming at any minute. They wind up with one foot out the door because they would rather get a fresh start somewhere else than suffer through the termination they expect is coming.
Poor human capital management
The way you move employees through your organization should build confidence and make everybody feel like they’re part of a growing community loaded with great opportunities. If your approach to HCM leaves people feeling nervous, left out, or underappreciated, you risk burnout out some of your best core employees.
For example, let’s say an opening has just become available at the marketing director level. You have an excellent content coordinator who has been a member of the marketing team for three years, yet you don’t consult with them about their interest in the job before hiring an outside director who’s worked for a competitor.
That great content coordinator (and the whole team of writers, designers, developers, producers, etc. who know their work and respect their management style) could easily be disappointed, suffer morale damage, and even backslide in terms of productivity. If you had promoted the content coordinator and bumped up other members of the team accordingly, you could’ve boosted morale and generated new authentic engagement and increased buy-in that would’ve improved the quality of work. Making the right decision for everybody isn’t cut-and-dried, but it’s worth thoughtful consideration when it comes time for any human capital decision.
Lack of recognition
When people know they’re doing great work for long stretches, they don’t like to feel that their employer is wringing every last drop of work and energy out of them like a sponge. Feeling “used and abused” without proper check-ins and positive reinforcement is one of the things that burns out great employees faster than anything!
Preventing burnout requires a proactive approach to calling out, recognizing, and rewarding strong work. That doesn’t just mean slaps on the back, friendly emails, and positive callouts during team meetings, either; it means real rewards like bonuses, promotions, new opportunities, and so on.
Lack of proactive mental health dialogue
So often, thoughtful, sensitive, and productive employees don’t realize they’re getting burnt out until they’re typing up their letter of resignation. As their employer (and, from a business/profit standpoint, an investor in their talents), you need to create a support system that gets your team members the help and resources they need to recognize, navigate, and solve mental health issues early-on to prevent burnout.
In any mental health scenario, the most important thing you can do is talk about it. Talking destigmatizes the topic and helps everybody come together and recognize that everyday challenges are a shared experience, not an individual struggle.
Key Takeaways
Workplace mental health is one of the hottest topics in human resources and labor relations right now. Unfortunately, employee burnout is still frequently treated as an individual employee problem rather than a business-wide health issue to be addressed.
Remember:
Employee burnout is a workplace mental health issue (i.e. your responsibility to address as an employer)
Addressing/preventing burnout is part of maximizing your talent investment
Burnout can be caused by a variety of factors, but most of them involve feeling powerless, overworked, out-of-the-loop, or under-appreciated
Most employees who “burn out suddenly” have actually suffered in silence for a long time
It’s crucial to start a dialogue about burnout and mental health issues to eliminate the stigma and connect your employees with what they need to strengthen operations overall
In the twentieth century, employers attracted talent and kept great workers within their organization for decades because the marketplace generally perceived that “good jobs” were rare and precious. As we enter the 2020s, unemployment is at an all-time low, which means that top talent has many options for rewarding, highly-compensated roles.
More than ever, employers need to sell great talent on joining their team and continue to actively delight their best-performing employees in order to keep them around. As an HR professional or a business leader in charge of hiring, that means you increasingly need to think not just about who you need to attract but how you’re going to attract them. We’ve officially entered the era of creative employer branding.
Moving forward, we’ll explore the steps any organization can take to build a strong identity that communicates value to talent and makes people want to be a part of your team. This includes:
Articulating a mission statement and a brand story
Identifying & building around the true value of employment at your business
Honoring and living your brand identity in real ways
Starting with a Mission Statement
Every business’ goal is some version of “Do good work and make money,” but in order to connect with the public in a way that aids recruitment and builds long-term value for your current employees, you need to be able to present your own highly personalized version of a corporate mission statement.
That mission statement should be as succinct as possible and, at minimum, address:
What kind of work you are doing
What kind of a community you are building
How you hope to impact your industry or the world in general
Why people should be excited about your business or team
For example, here’s a sample mission statement:
“Our mission as an employer is to help our team members acquire new skills, take on new responsibilities, and have a meaningful impact on our clients’ businesses and the Chicago community at large while having as much fun as possible along the way.”
This mission statement is strong from a talent attraction/recruitment standpoint because it:
Communicates that employees will grow and thrive with the business (new skills, new responsibilities; implied opportunities for advancement)
Grounds the work in a particular setting (Chicago)
Explains why the work is compelling or relevant (improving the local business community)
Sells the unique, welcoming personality of the company (having as much fun as possible)
Building a Brand Story
With that employer mission statement in place, the next step is to create your brand narrative. By creating a strong mission statement, you’ve actually done a lot of the conceptual groundwork already!
Your employer brand story should take your mission and values and build them out in a way that communicates the world you’re working to create and the methods and mindsets you’re using to get there.
A strong brand story needs to:
Make the talent you’re looking for say “This really speaks to me!”
Identify what kind of mindsets, approaches, and skills you really value
Communicate how your employees, partners, and customers are on a journey together
Leave people wanting to be part of that story themselves
Articulating the Benefits Your Offer
This is one of the critical areas of employer branding that many organizations miss the mark on. You offer employees a salary, healthcare benefits, and a 401k, and believe that should be sufficient, right? The truth is, that’s just the beginning.
In order to fully realize your employer brand identity, you need to find the words to explain what a powerful, valuable experience it is to work for you. You need to ask yourself:
How and why is daily life great for your employees?
How do you help people feel good about the work they do?
How do you ensure your employees feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves?
How do you provide just, fair performance management practices that help great workers thrive and build healthy motivation?
How do you maintain a positive community in our office?
How do we provide support for our team members in times of personal need?
How do you offer employee benefits that make a strong impact in employee’s lives and help them be happier and healthier?
Those questions are really just a jumping-off point, and as you answer them, you will likely stumble upon new questions and new ways of looking at the value and opportunity of your employer brand.
With a strong understanding of the benefits your brand offers, you can immediately strengthen your recruitment and talent attraction efforts.
Framing Core Values
So far, we’ve talked about ideas that you put out into the world: a statement about your goals, a story about your mission, a description of why you’re a great employer; core values, on the other hand, are ideas that must be pushed inward, into the tissue and lifeblood of what you do.
Your values are the things you stand for as employer; things like:
Equality
Conservation
Teamwork
Community engagement
Barrier-breaking
The goal with identifying core values isn’t to show off how forward-thinking you are as an organization. It’s to create a framework for your own accountability. Once values are in place, you need to think about how you will ensure your values are lived every day, both from an over-arching corporate perspective and in terms of person-to-person interactions between or among your team members.
When your values are in place and it’s evident what you’re doing to make them real in the world, you look like a strong, thoughtful organization and employer.
Living Your Brand
All the recommendations above are designed to help you transform your approach to employer branding to resonate and engage top talent in new ways. Through self-knowledge and careful articulation, you can put your best foot forward as a hiring entity and organization.
With that said, the amount of ROI you see on your employer branding initiative is directly related to the effort level you put into making the work real and the honesty with which you present yourselves and engage with talent.
When you articulate corporate values but don’t honor them, it actually hurts your reputation as an employer. When you have a great brand story but it’s just words on a page, your brand doesn’t stand for or represent anything real – it’s just a house of cards that’s doomed to fall at some point.
Once you thoughtfully envision an employer brand, articulate your mission, values, and goals, and put all your effort into making those things real, then you’ll truly be an attractive employer.
How to Learn More
Employer branding is emerging as a top priority for all HR departments and hiring leaders across businesses. In the ultra-competitive talent market, landing the impactful superstars you need to continue growing and innovating requires a powerful, clear employer brand and a dedication toward pushing that brand out into the world while maintaining the internal accountability that makes it real.
If you’re an HR or business leader planning or leading an employee branding effort, Launchways’ Employer Branding Toolkit is a centralized resource designed to help you audit, address, and improve every aspect of your employer brand strategy, including:
How to craft values that aid recruitment and foster a positive culture
How to communicate the value you offer employees in a way that goes beyond salary and benefits
How to manage your website and social media presence in a way that communicates and reinforces your employer branding efforts
How to create an effective hiring process that reflects and strengthens your brand over time
How to refine your interview process with an eye towards landing great talent and leveraging your brand as a selling point
How to onboard in a way that reinforces your brand values, culture goals, etc.
Global coronavirus diagnoses are nearing 100,000, and the international marketplace is beginning to feel the pain as well. Many businesses are unsure how to address worker concerns and are quickly discovering they don’t have pandemic control policies on the books to guide their decision-making.
If you’re a business or HR leader anywhere in the world in 2020, you need to have a proactive plan for how your organization will handle employee cases of coronavirus, minimize the spread and impact of coronavirus throughout your team, and maintain the flow of productivity and work while keeping everybody safe.
Moving forward, we’ll take a deeper look at:
What coronavirus is
How you can address the outbreak with your employees
What you can do to strengthen and protect your business at this crucial moment in public health crisis
What is Coronavirus, Really?
In science and medicine, the term “coronavirus” actually refers to a whole family of viruses that have evolved to cross over from animals to humans. If you remember the SARS (Sever Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) outbreaks of about a decade ago, those were both examples of coronaviruses.
The coronavirus generating so much concern this winter is technically known as “COVID-19”.
COVID-19 is what is known as a “novel virus,” meaning it hasn’t been seen before. Novel virus strains are dangerous because, by nature, they have no vaccine yet. That’s why an up-to-date flu shot, while a best practice for every individual, provides no protection against Coronavirus this year.
What are the Symptoms of Coronavirus?
Generally speaking, coronavirus affects the upper respiratory symptom. Symptoms include:
Cough
Fever
Shortness of breath
Difficulty breathing
In especially severe cases or in vulnerable patients such as the very young, very old, and the immunocompromised, coronavirus infection can lead to:
Pneumonia
Severe acute respiratory symptoms
Kidney failure
Death
How is Coronavirus Transmitted?
COVID-19 is spread primarily through person-to-person means. When an infected person coughs or sneezes, they sends droplets into the air which can land into mouths and noses or get inhaled by other people, leading to infections.
Coronavirus can also be spread through infected surfaces and objects, although it is far less common. If an infected person sneezes or coughs onto an object and someone else touches that object and accidentally communicates the virus to their mouth, nose, eyes, etc., they can become infected.
It’s important to understand that the virus lives and reproduces within the respiratory system. That means that if it’s on your hands, clothes, etc., you can prevent it from entering your body by taking the right precautions.
How Should We Address Coronavirus with our Employees?
Communicate Proactively
Being a great leader is all about strong communication, and that’s never more true than during times when people are worried or confused. At this particular time, you need to communicate with your team in ways that inform them as to what’s going on, reassure them that there’s a plan in place and everything will be fine, and empower them to continue working in safe ways.
Points of important communication during this state of the coronavirus outbreak include:
What is coronavirus?
How does it spread?
How many cases have occurred in your state or local area?
What can employees do around the office to keep everybody healthy?
Who should stay home and when?
What can/should employees do if they’re sick?
You can share this article or any number of other resources to answer baseline questions about what is going on, bust some myths that have people worried, and show that you are taking a proactive approach to protect your employees from the spread of disease. Moving forward, as the virus continues to spread, keep people updated on how your planning is evolving to maintain transparency and keep everybody bought-in.
“Unlock” the Earned Time Bank
One simple, practical, impactful thing you can do during this time is to eliminate limits and restrictions on paid time off. Every flu season, millions of people go to work sick because they’re out of earned time, anxious about running low, or saving time for a vacation in a few weeks. This year, you need to keep those diligent folks away from the office!
Granting your team unlimited PTO increases the chances that employees will act in the best interests of the group and stay away from the office if they fear they may be getting sick.
Expand Remote Work
Given that person-to-person contact is the main vector for the spread of COVID-19, one smart prevention measure is to keep employees from being cooped up in the office together. Consider allowing traditionally office-bound team members to work from home in the coming weeks and months. Expand your use of eConferencing applications and online productivity systems to deliver the structure of the office to your team while everyone is safe and healthy at home.
If you have employees who would rather stay home during the coronavirus outbreak, you should do your best to enable their continued productivity from afar. Even if nobody at your organization ends up contracting COVID-19, you’ll still be respected by your employees for letting them earn their living in a way that protects their health and the health of their families during this crucial time.
Reduce Travel
The ease and ubiquity of international travel have played a key role in the spread of COVID-19, and, as everybody knows, if one person is sick on an airplane, it’s only a matter of time for everybody surrounding them. That’s why this spring could be the time to ease up on your sales team’s tradeshow schedule, minimize all non-critical business trips, and focus on maximizing the work your employees can do from their desks (or from their homes, in the case of remote work).
While this sounds like an attack on your ability to close deals and continue normal operations at first blush, it’s important to note that entire global economy is struggling through this outbreak together, and everybody must do their part to contain and eliminate the threat. Part of that is eliminating all unnecessary travel that could put your team at risk for exposure.
Provide Healthcare Accessibility Reminders
While most of your employees just went through benefits enrollment in November and December, this public health emergency is the perfect example of the scenario that nobody is really thinking about when they select their healthcare coverage. As your team’s employer, it’s your responsibility to provide them with the education they need to connect with responsive care if they are concerned about the health of any of their family members.
This could take many forms, but it’s a good idea to remind employees:
Which healthcare facilities are in their coverage networks
How they can use HSA/HRA funds to cover medical needs during this time
A realistic estimate of what a trip to their doctor would cost to talk about their health
Be Supportive But Serious
It is by no means an exaggeration to say that the whole world is watching as the COVID-19 scare plays out. Many of your employees are likely nervous about their own health as well as that of family members. You need to create an environment in which everybody feels as safe as possible in the moment and trusts that there’s a plan in place to prevent them from getting sick.
You need to project confidence, concern, and compassion at all times.
Creating a Disease Control Plan
If your business does not have a disease/pandemic control plan in place, now would be the perfect time to get working on one.
You need a clear policy that will guide:
How your business will adjust day to day to discourage disease transmission
How your business will address and handle employees who become sick
How your business will address operations if COVID-19 expands to true global pandemic status
How your team will address the needs of traveling employees who become quarantined in other countries
How you will clear team members for return after their illness
At what point you will shut down your office
With those questions answered, you’ll be equipped as best as possible to protect your team, weather the COVID-19 storm, and continue your business’ success into the future.
Takeaways
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak is continuing to spread rapidly across borders and oceans, disrupting life and business for billions of people around the world. Your business can survive and even thrive throughout this time of international concern, but it’s going to take a lot of hard work and strong planning. Remember:
COVID-19 is a new virus which infects the respiratory system
There is currently no vaccine or cure available for COVID-19
COVID-19 is primarily transmitted from person to person through droplets that are coughed or sneezed into the air
It’s crucial to communicate proactively and transparently with employees during this time of international panic
Unlock the PTO bank, extend work-from-home opportunities, and do anything you can to keep sick people away from the office this year
Reduce your team’s travel schedules to keep everybody healthy
Ruprecht has been an essential part of the Chicago
meatpacking industry since 1860. They provide food service businesses and
retail establishments with a stable supply of raw proteins with global sourcing
and exacting standards as a division of Kilcoy Global Foods, complete with five
premium beef brands. More recently, Ruprecht has become the industry’s leading
provider of sous vide cooked proteins that save chefs valuable time and
increase food safety.
In early 2019, Ruprecht prioritized modernizing their HR and
benefits in order to foster an overall more productive and engaged workforce.
The company’s leadership team had recently changed and new CFO Frank Patton and
the rest of the executive team wanted to focus on building a positive
workplace,
“Ruprecht as a company has been around since 1860, so we’ve got longstanding history and longstanding employees in our organization. But it didn’t feel like we were really helping them with their high-touchpoint activities. The CEO and I had come on board at Ruprecht and were very focused on making the culture more employee-centric and started evaluating how we did core things within our organization.” said Frank Patton.
As Frank and the rest of the team looked at what they could
change about how Ruprecht operates to make it more employee-centric, they came
to realize that they needed to overhaul their benefits package and human
resources administration. But while they knew what they needed to change, they
did not know how best to go about optimizing their benefits package and HR
systems. They needed a more proactive HR partner who could guide them through
the process rather than just connecting them with vendors. As Frank elaborates,
“As you would expect, benefits and all things payroll-related are big touchpoints for our employees. And so it was really at the beginning of our time at Ruprecht that we started to evaluate areas of our business that needed some care and feeding. We started to evaluate our partners and realized we didn’t have the right partner for HR administration and benefits who could be a thought-leader for us to help us understand how we should look at big cultural elements such as benefits.”
The Ruprecht team discovered Launchways through a trusted
business referral and quickly realized that the Launchways approach aligned
well with their goals for how they wanted Ruprecht to operate. And, best of
all, Launchways promised to be the active, engaged partner that Frank and the
leadership team was looking for,
“We started having conversations with Launchways and realized that there was very good alignment between how Launchways was approaching business and the business model and what we were looking for. I would say this is a huge differentiation for Launchways. They very much want to embed themselves within their clients’ businesses. If you’re going to be a partner, you can’t be a drive-by partner. You have to be somebody who is actively involved in the discussion.”
Launchways worked with the new Director of Human Resources,
Ryan Klatt, to review and streamline existing HR processes and identify the
ideal HR technology solution to improve the experience for the HR team and the
entire Ruprecht team. Launchways was able to put together a comprehensive
technology suite that met Ruprecht’s needs and fell well within their budget.
Launchways also evaluated Ruprecht’s current benefits package and put together
a proposal for a new benefits package based on employee needs and financial considerations.
As Frank reports, Launchways’ transparency was refreshing and empowering,
especially from a finance perspective,
“Launchways gives you complete transparency. You get a view of here’s what that brokerage fee relationship was and here’s how we drive value. So from a financial person’s perspective, it was wonderful. I know what my spend was, I know what I’m going to spend in the new relationship, and I know the value that I’m going to get.”
This new approach to HR and benefits gave the Ruprecht team
valuable peace-of-mind and clarity regarding their benefits strategy. What used
to be a complex and frustrating expense with limited impact for employees and
unclear ROI became a positive force in building a more engaged workplace,
“For us, it’s transformed our view of how we should look and think about benefits. It’s open-book, completely transparent, and this is a great area to do that with because it’s so mysterious to begin with. It’s a black box. So now we don’t have as much mystery and we can sit down and talk openly and honestly about it.”
Another aspect that the new leadership had to tackle to
align Ruprecht’s workplace realities with the company’s values was workplace
safety. As in the case of benefits, Ruprecht knew they needed to overhaul their
safety processes but were at a loss as to what changes to make. Frank asked
Launchways if we could help evaluate resumes for a new safety officer, which
led to Ruprecht hiring Launchways to conduct a risk assessment and recommend
improvements to their safety systems.
“It was extremely helpful because it meant we could have someone come in, spend some days in our facility and evaluate not only the person we have in that role but also what that person is doing and our highest priority needs. And honestly, I think we will be using Launchways again on the safety front because it helped us come up to speed so quickly and the value that we got from that discussion, I don’t think you could get any other way.”
