Wave HR Solutions

01/27/2024

Here’s your HR moment for today:

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/4h3X1fcqGGEeASgz/?mibextid=p280aw

07/14/2023

Reposting this from SHRM as it might help some of my clients think differently about what they offer to a younger (GenZ) workforce.

A majority of Generation Z job seekers are looking for positions in sales and account management, as well as marketing—and they may have lowered their hoped-for starting salaries to boost their chances of finding a new role, according to new data.

08/25/2022

Common Mistakes Made in Handling I-9 Forms

Mistakes on I-9 forms or with I-9 documentation can be costly – especially for a small business. For each violation, the fines range from $252 - $2507. With the fines increasing and ICE actively pursuing new inspections, it is important for employers to review their Form I-9 practices and ensure their compliance efforts!

Recommendations:
1. Make sure that only well-trained employees handle the Form I-9 process for the employer.
2. Complete periodic internal I-9 audits to address mistakes or missing documents before ICE issues the Notice of I-9 Inspection.
3. Make sure that all new employees properly complete Section 1 entirely.
4. Double-check the documents to make sure that they are valid and on the approved document list.
5. Record the document title, issuing authority, and expiration date correctly on the I-9 form.
6. Make copies of the I-9 documents to keep on file with the I-9 form.
7. If you make corrections on the I-9 form, initial and date the corrections.
8. Make sure you list the date of hire in Section 2 under the certification clause and sign/date in Section 2.

It’s also important to keep the I-9s separate from the employee’s HR files. It is recommended that you track the expiration of all I-9 documents and reverify when a document expires, but it is MANDATORY if the document is a work permit or work visa. If a foreign national has an automatic extension of their employment authorization document or not can have series consequences if the employee complains to the US Department of Justice, so make sure you track this accurately!

It is the hope that one day the I-9 form will be replaced by a mandatory E-Verify for all employers across the US along with a smart Social Security card that can be swiped like a credit card. The employer would then see a green light or a red light, and the enhanced system would determine work authorization and duration. However, until Congress legislates that change, the manual I-9 process is necessary.

There are some possible changes coming for virtual verification of documents, so keep watch for updates!

06/28/2022

Workplace Microaggressions

Women are more likely than men to face microaggressions that undermine them professionally. These microaggressions include being interrupted and having their judgment questioned.

Women of color experience a higher rate of these microaggressions. They are more likely than white women to face microaggressions that reinforce harmful stereotypes or cast them as outsiders.

Women who regularly experience microaggressions are twice as likely to burn out, more than twice as likely to report feeling negatively about their job, and three times as likely to say that they have struggled to concentrate at work because of stress.

According to a 2017 Pew Research Center report, 4 in 10 women have experienced discrimination at work because of their gender. This includes being treated as if they are incompetent, receiving less support from senior leadership, being passed over for important assignments, and experience repeated slights at work. Additional examples of gender discrimination include women being paid less then men despite having similar job responsibilities, being evaluated or held to a different standard, being excluded from important meetings, being fired or demoted due to a pregnancy, and being subjected to sexual harassment or sexual advances.

Gender discrimination has shown to erode women’s confidence and decreases self-efficacy. Many of these gender discriminations stem from patriarchal assumptions about women’s lack of competence and suitability for the workplace and/or leadership roles. These assumptions can be perpetrated by both male and female leadership. This lack of confidence and low self-efficacy is associated with low motivation, disengagement from work tasks, and other negative outcomes that can harm work performance. Ultimately, these outcomes impact women’s careers and organizational outcomes.

Gender discrimination also erodes collegiality, collaboration, and teamwork. If left unresolved, it can create a toxic work environment that could undermine the success of the organization.

While gender discrimination is the most wide-spread, other forms of discrimination such as age discrimination, sexual orientation discrimination, racial discrimination, and disability discrimination (just to name a few) can have similar effects. Microaggressions towards any group of people has a detrimental impact on the employees and the organizational goals. Strengthening diversity, equity, and inclusion programs can improve a company’s culture and create a welcoming environment for people of all backgrounds. It can also improve recruiting and retention efforts. Education, promotion, and equal pay can help alleviate perceived workplace discrimination and avoid the risks associated with pay equity as well.

06/21/2022

On May 22, tech professional Patrick Shyu admitted that he used to trash the resumes of female applicants on front of them during job interviews and immediately reject them. Sometimes he told them, "Go home and have some kids." After some criticism for the now-deleted tweet, he went on to say "Women shouldn't work as coders and should instead prioritize being a good mother and a wife." He also suggested that misogyny is a myth and an excuse for "incompetent women who spent too much time researching misogyny instead of improving themselves." On May 26, he deleted the tweets stating that this is an example of how we never stop learning and growing as people.

Unfortunately, these "opinions" are far too common, particularly in male-dominated industries or when the executive management of a company is male-dominated. While most do not go as far as Shyu's reported behavior, many do ask female candidates inappropriate questions that can be perceived as discriminatory and could result in a lawsuit against the company. These questions not only are illegally used to prevent them from becoming employees, but, in some circumstances, have been used to target them for future inappropriate actions.

Inappropriate questions include:
Are you married?
Do you have kids?
Who is responsible for taking your kids to and from school?

They have nothing to do with the candidates qualifications for a position, and they are illegal to ask during an interview or hiring process. They can also tarnish a business' reputation and compromise its ability to recruit and retain talent.

For those who are interviewing potential employees, it is imperative that you have a basic understanding of what questions are appropriate and the context behind why certain questions are problematic and potentially discriminatory.

Some suggestions for avoiding bias in hiring include removing adjectives from a job listing that may be closely associated with a particular gender, control your personal feelings about a candidate by giving likability a numerical score, use a software program or screening process that blinds the surface demographic information and ensures a level playing field, set diversity goals and track your progress, use standard interview questions for each candidate of the same position, and ask candidates to take a work-sample test to compare applicants and predict future job performance.

You can also check yourself prior to the hiring process by reflecting on these questions:

1. Do I typically hire similar types of people or people who are like me?

2. What do I mean when I say a candidate is not the right fit?

3. What do I do if my candidate pool is not sufficiently diverse?

4. What can I learn about my past hiring choices, both successful and unsuccessful?

06/14/2022

Video meetings are a part of our work culture now. During COVID, many businesses found that it is financially beneficial to offer remote work opportunities, have hired staff in multiple locations, and/or have found that they can incorporate more people in meetings if they use video conferencing. However, some employees may frequently go on mute or turn their cameras off during video calls. According to a study by Vyopta, 92% of the executives surveyed state that those who frequently turn off mics or cameras during meetings “probably don’t have a long-term future” with their company.

According to the study, managers who run video calls feel that by turning off mics or cameras, employees are displaying a lack of engagement “along with a sign of poor performance to come.” 73% of these executive believe that employees are scrolling through websites, using social media, texting, or chatting. However, employees may have other reasons for muting or turning off their cameras. So how does a manager who wants to see faces deal with these issues?

Get creative and persuasive. Here are some ideas:

Encourage employees to turn on their cameras, but if they resist, have a private conversation with them to understand their concerns. Perhaps there is a way to meet in the middle, such as using different filters or backgrounds to hide a messy room, allowing microphones to be off unless talking as long as the camera is on to keep barking dogs or crying children noise at a minimum, or allowing for the camera to be off except for when the employee is talking.

Offer incentives like camera-free Fridays (like casual Fridays in the office) if everyone is participating on camera during the week. Another option is to offer casual Fridays on camera if you require your employees to be professionally dressed for meetings the rest of the week.

Turn one meeting a week into a reason to have the cameras on – such as having a contest for the best Halloween costume, awarding a “fanatic” prize for support of a local sports team, sharing a childhood photo day, sharing important personal goals/,milestones, or even opting to share recipes or hobbies.

Acknowledge those who “flip the switch.” Try to help employees understand the value of being “face-to-face” virtually. When they turn on their cameras, celebrate their choice. Send a note, a virtual sticker, or even create a raffle prize where each meeting with a camera on becomes an entry for the raffle. Let employees know you understand that this is difficult for some, and that you truly appreciate them turning their cameras on.

Teach employees to use the “hide self-view” if they don’t want to see themselves on camera. Research shows that 30% of people spend more than half the time they are on a video call looking at their own faces, so you can minimize this and help employees engage one another by using the hide self-view option.

Lead by example. If a manager is excited to be on camera, it will positively influence their employees’ attitudes toward being on camera as well.

Remind employees that “going dark” is similar to not showing up for a meeting when everyone was meeting in person. It can impact career advancement opportunities as well as chances to network. If the management never sees your face, your intentions, or your engagement, it is unlikely that they will think of you when considering special projects or promotions.

Remind employees that “if you can do your job in person, you can do your job on camera.”

If the company has a mandatory camera-on policy, follow through with warnings and disciplinary action consistently as per company policy.

06/07/2022

Ways to Engage a Dissatisfied Employee

Good employees – sometimes even your best employees – are handing in resignation letters frequently these days. Convention wisdom says to “bribe” these employees to stay by offering bigger paychecks and better perks, but if your business cannot afford to do these things, what do you do?

The truth is that bigger paychecks and better perks may hold off the resignation for a period of time – typically six months to a year – but those are not the keys to keeping your employees if they are dissatisfied with their jobs. Just 38.2% of workers aged 25-45 say that pay is the most important factor in their job satisfaction.

In 2021 and 2022, mid-career employees (30-45 yrs old) resigned at a rate 20% higher than in 2020. But this worker dissatisfaction started long before the pandemic. It seems that the pandemic just gave workers the opportunity to make the move to leave the jobs they no longer like.

What employees want more than anything else is work that inspires them and creates harmony between who they are and what they do. When they are inspired, they are more engaged, more productive, and more loyal. Employees want to feel like they are working toward something larger than themselves, understand how their day-to-day job makes that happen, and have autonomy to shape their role in it all.

I was one of these dissatisfied workers. I stayed with a company that treated me poorly, limited advancement, and paid well below market value simply because I felt like our agency was making a difference in the lives of people. When that agency started to make it clear that the people we served were nothing more than money for the agency, I wanted nothing more than to leave and go somewhere else. Suddenly the 10-18 hour days, the requests for assistance while I was on PTO, and the constant need for me to handle situations for others was no longer balanced by making a difference. So what could my employer have done to keep me there?

They could have created a way for me to have a better work-life balance and to have a work-life alignment. I don’t mind working long hours if it means something, but it matters how much the work detracts form the time that employees spend away from it too. In a recent poll from SHRM, 65% of workers wanted to have more control over the teams to which they were assigned, the projects on which they worked, and their ability to influence hours or earnings. While one would expect to see workers gain more control as they risk through the ranks, the opposite is true for women in particular. The higher the rank of a woman, the more likely she had less control over her work and her work-life balance. This causes women like me to leave the workforce at higher numbers than their male counterparts.

Ask your employees how the work they do each day allows them to achieve the career advancement the seek, nurture their families, or manifests their values on a daily basis. If they have pain points where their work is counter to these things, it gives you a place to start to address their dissatisfaction.

The biggest deficit seen in the recent poll was the employees’ relationships with their leaders. Almost all workers said they want to work for a leader who inspired them, but only 36% said they actually do. Investing in your relationship with your employees is one to bridge the divide and unlock their motivation. Take time to find out what brought the employee to the job, what energizes them, and what excites them about your company. This will deepen your understanding of what inspires them so that you, in turn, can better create a connection for them between the company’s work and their personal needs in the future.

Incorporate your current employees in recruiting efforts. Managers should ask current employees if the vacated position is still needed and if the job description is still relevant. Ask for their help improving it or filling gaps on the current team. This process has both external and internal benefits. Position descriptions are scanned by employees, and a great job description connects the position’s responsibilities to your organization’s purpose. Reading it will help your current staff rekindle the excitement that brought them to your organization and will remind them of how their day-to-day work fits into the bigger picture.

92.4% of respondents reported that they do better work when they see how the quality of their work matters in the big picture. Rather than simply passing on organizational imperatives, how can you connect the dots for team members who wonder, “How does this affect or benefit me?” Help employees see the connection between their day-to-day and the long-term goals of the company.

Rather than letting your best workers consider resignation, offer them an alternative and personally compelling path. By giving people more agency, re-engaging them, and re-inspiring them, you can create work environments that help them feel like the best versions of themselves. When this happens, they reinvest themselves into their organizations and amplify their own team-building behaviors. Instead of job searching and resigning, they’ll be there with renewed dedication, increased investment, and elevated energy.

06/01/2022

As we enter Pride month, Wave HR Solutions is proud to support a number of businesses owned and operated by members of the LGBTQ+ community. To help employers who also support the LGBTQ+ community, today’s post is about misgendering nonbinary employees and how to correct that error!

Nonbinary is the umbrella term for individuals who do not identify as exclusively male or female. They may identify as more than one gender (bigender), partially with one gender (demigender), with no gender (agender), or as one having a fluctuating gender identify (genderfluid). Individuals who are nonbinary are not constrained by binary gender labels, and they may present in a more genderfluid manner or may present with traits that we typically associate with masculine or feminine. It is important for employers to understand that coming to terms with one’s gender identity is a process, and it often requires flexibility and respect of the internal process while at work.

Businesses with 100 or more employees must submit an annual EEO-1 form which asks for information from the previous year about the number of employees who worked for the business, sorted by job category, race, ethnicity, and gender. When nonbinary employees disclose their gender identity to their employer, the employer should seek to reflect this information accurately and appropriately in all systems and reports, including on the EEO-1 report.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has not yet added a box on the EEO-1 form to designate the gender of an employee who is nonbinary. Employers are often unaware of the option to use the comments section to note nonbinary employees rather than checking the “male” or “female” box. This means that employers do not have to force employees to select “male” or ‘female” as a gender or primary gender. While it takes time to manually add the demographics in the notes section of the form, this will ensure that the report accurately reflects how many nonbinary employees they have.

This allowance may seem like a half measure to move away from a binary concept of gender while not truly establishing another gender category for this data collection purpose; however, including nonbinary employees properly in the report will assist in moving the EEOC towards a full and accurate reflection of employee genders on future forms. If you have fill out an EEOC-1 form, take a stand and support gender identity rights and help increase the legitimacy of a nonbinary category on government forms.

05/24/2022

What Every Employer Needs to Know About I-9s

Lately I've had several clients asking about I-9s. Incomplete and missing forms, failure to provide supporting documentation, and many other errors can lead to potential fines if your organization is audited. You can improve your process and help avoid these errors with just a few simple pieces of information. Here's what you need to know:

1. Federal law requires that every employer who recruits, refers for a fee, or hires an individual for employment in the U.S. must complete the Form I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification, must physically inspect the I-9 documents produced by the employee, and must verify the authenticity of such documents. This helps verify the employee's identity and authorization to work in the U.S.

2. Due to COVID-19, those who work remotely or do not work in the office's physical location may submit their I-9 documents in a digital format for inspection and verification prior to beginning work or on the first day of work. If the employee returns to on-site work, they must produce the I-9 documents within three (3) days for physical inspection, and the employer should mark the date of the physical inspection and COVID-19 as the reason for delay on the bottom of the I-9 form.

3. If the employee is working on-site or at the employer's physical location, the employee must present the I-9 documents to be physically inspected within three (3) business days. The employee must complete Section 1 of the I-9 form by the first day of work.

4. Making a copy or getting a picture of the I-9 documents DOES NOT meet the compliance standard. While it is a good practice and provides supporting documentation, the Form I-9 and verification must be completed to be in compliance with the practice.

5. Social Security Numbers can be verified for free online. You must register (once) for the service, and can do so at https://www.ssa.gov/bso/bsowelcome.htm

The fines per individual for paperwork or technical violations ranges from $252-$2,507. If you knowingly hire or continue to employ unauthorized workers, the range for a first offense is $627-$5,016, and additional offenses range from $5,016-$25,076.

05/17/2022

Often as an HR professional, people come to me for assistance with conflicts. I’ve found that most people prefer to avoid conflict at all costs, and this often turns what could have been a win-win situation into a toxic relationship that cannot be restored. Former employment attorney and author Jathan Janove has termed this “the instinct to avoid.”

When something goes wrong at work, there’s an immediate fear of confronting the person responsible for the issue. For example, an employee makes some inappropriate comments to a client. The manager should take immediate corrective action to prevent this from happening again and possibly losing clients. However, the manager worries, “How might the employee react? Will the employee get mad? Will they retaliate by undermining me with other employees or turning away other clients? The employee is popular with the other employees; will I become the topic of every whispered conversation? What if the employees go to HR and say I have been unfair or unreasonable?”

With each new question or possible scenario, the fear is exacerbated. If your company doesn’t have a culture that invites and fosters open communication, this becomes even worse. Particularly in cultures where employees have seen others punished for speaking up, they become even more fearful of confrontation – or even speaking to a supervisor about the problem. It becomes natural and self-protective to simply avoid the threat.

Inevitably, instead of resolving the problem, the avoidance instinct makes it worse. The problem fester and grows until it becomes unmanageable. Eventually someone has to deal with that employee who is making inappropriate comments and pushing away clients, and by then, the manager may be so upset, angry, and/or frustrated with the employee, that the exchange becomes hostile. The manager can’t let it slide anymore – or is told by upper management to deal with the situation. The manager tends to release pent-up frustrations and is more forceful than perhaps is warranted. The employee is caught by surprise because they have been allowed to continue this behavior for weeks or months or years. In the employee’s mind, this is an unfair action – adding insult to injury – and often seeks to strike back via the legal system.

Instead of avoiding, confront issues without delay. Confront the individual directly, preferably face-to-face and in real time, with all of the key players present but not including additional team members who do not need to be part of the solution. Approach the conflict with a solution-oriented mindset: “How do we fix this problem and move forward to be better and stronger together?” This isn’t about blame; it’s about making progress!

While it may be uncomfortable in the moment, this will save both you and the employee a potentially irreparable situation in the future. Working towards solutions rather than blaming will also create a better relationship with your employees.

05/10/2022

Reassessing Your Employee Experience

We need to recognize that we are functioning in an entirely different world than we lived in 2.5 years ago. Much of the US workforce either has reassessed or is in the process of reassessing their lives after a two-year upheaval of everything that was once considered “normal.” Employees are no longer considered their “work self” and their “non-work self” as they once did. The pandemic forced employees to consider lives as a full-time person rather than a full-time employee, and employees are now looking at themselves as a person with work, family, personal, social, and community responsibilities. As employees think back to how things were – and often how employers are trying to make things once again – they are expressing, “This doesn’t work for me anymore” and moving on to opportunities that meet their needs.

“What got us here” or “How we’ve always done it” won’t work for employers anymore. A better guiding principle now is “What got us here won’t get us where we want to go.” Creative approaches and reassessing the employee experience is critical for businesses as we move out of the pandemic and into the future of business in this new world.

It's about people, process, and technology – in that order. Intellectual capital and skills – not computers, automation, or other resources – are your most valuable asset as an employer. All business decisions are people decisions because if your employees aren’t happy, they go to sites like Glassdoor to comment, making it harder for you to find new employees when your current employees get fed-up and go find a new job. So as an employer, it is important to convey to your employees the following:
1. You matter.
2. You matter here.
3. Here’s why.

05/03/2022

Building Employee Loyalty Series #6 of 6

TIP #6: Avoid quick money fixes that lack lasting impact.

I once worked for a company that routinely ignored employees’ needs and concerns, but when they felt that they were in danger of losing key employees, they would give the valued employees a one-time bonus. There was a time when offering bonuses could deliver a lasting boost to loyalty and retention, but no that impact fades very quickly.

“What have you done for me lately” has become a mantra during the pandemic. When employees got a one-time bonus check or even a once-a-year bonus check, it raised the question of why the company didn’t pay them better sooner. Now, a more effective loyalty-building strategy is a sustained commitment to pay and treat people well. Ongoing financial incentives need to be woven into your operational strategy rather than relying on an annual pay bump, occasional promotion, or random bonus.

Whether you offer your employees an opportunity to purchase immediately vested shares of company stock, offer a higher salary, set up increases based on performance goals or objectives as they occur (rather than waiting for the end of the year), or offer non-monetary benefits such as flex time, alternate holiday options, opportunities for in-house training or cross-training, or the ability to buy into company perks, long-term strategies are the key.

Just to recap the points over the series: if you want to build loyal, committed, and motivated employees, you need to provide meaningful work or purpose for your employees, listen to them, meet their needs, address their wants, assist them with their career goals, and find ways to be flexible and help people connect. Generally, people want to be valued as people who contribute something meaningful to the business, rather than treated like someone who “just” works for you. Show your employees that you value them, that you appreciate what they do, and that they are making a difference. If you can do that, you will build strong employer-employee relationships that garner respect and loyalty even if the business down the street is offering a higher salary.