Managers often feel nervous about having employees work from home, even though many have successfully done it for almost two years now. While managers have a point – some people are slacking off, and there have even been cases where people hold down two jobs at once – the key is balancing your employees’ needs with their overall performance. You’ll find that flexibility helps everyone and employee relations teams can work with both managers and employees to make this happen.

To keep reading, click here: Meet Employees’ Needs and Performance Will Follow

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Here are some answers to questions you may have about handling performance issues when working with a remote or hybrid workforce.

Does the performance improvement plan we had in place before remote work still work?

This depends on what your process was before. Generally, managers and HR work together to write performance improvement plans, and that should still happen. It can be a bit more complex when people aren’t together, but it’s important to have an HR hand in the performance improvement plan (PIP) process. You want PIPs to be consistent across the organization, and this can help.

To keep reading, click here: Performance Improvement Plans for a Hybrid Workforce

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And who is in the middle? HR, of course. HR fights to keep the business profitable and the employees productive and engaged, and happy. Sometimes senior leadership can only see the value of people in seats, and sometimes employees can’t see anything else but their need to work from home in their pajamas. HR needs to help everyone see the best and most productive middle ground. Here are some tips to get started.

To keep reading, click here: Top Tips for a Productive Return to Office

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The #MeToo movement made employees pay attention to sexual harassment in a way they hadn’t before. But, of course, awareness has not brought significant progress as we find out that even nearly four years after the #MeToo movement began, leaders like Bill Gates are covering up sexual harassment.

Ideally, your business is not overlooking serious misconduct like sexual harassment or racial discrimination, but you are probably missing some instances of minor misconduct. Overlooking minor misconduct is a mistake, as over time it can grow into gross misconduct issues.

To keep reading, click here: Overlooking Minor Misconduct Prevents a Safe and Happy Workplace

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But, if your business grows and moves outside the garage where your founders began, you need to start thinking about scaling everything—including employee relations. And when your scaling goes global, that’s a huge change which requires a lot of thoughtful planning.

For instance, let’s think about employee relations. Company culture changes as you grow, and expanding globally presents additional challenges.

From minuscule to tiny

When you have a minuscule company with five people, everyone knows everyone else. Frequently, people who join a startup at this level have known each other from previous jobs and know how to interact with one another in a way that fits with the attitudes and comfort levels of these people. You have a good idea of whether these colleagues will think your joke is funny or rude.

To keep reading, click here: Scaling Employee Relations as Your Organization Grows

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Proper analytics are key for efficiently and accurately illustrating the full story. Humans are terrible at estimating and evaluating probability.  And when numbers start to go up, we often believe the number change is more critical than it is. You may hire one Black person and feel that you’ve made real strides toward diversity, but adding one person of color doesn’t mean your company is now diverse.

Real numbers are essential in general life, but they can be extra important when making diversity and inclusion decisions.

To keep reading, click here: Why Data and Analytics Provide the Best Insight Into DE&I

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If I asked you who handles harassment cases at work, you’d probably all say HR does. Those who know HR well would add that this is a job for the Employee Relations team. While this is true, there’s often a step before HR gets involved, and that’s the manager.

Managers may not know the critical role they play in stopping and preventing harassment at work. You need to train managers, or they may let harassment continue, making employees’ lives difficult and putting the company at risk.

Recognizing illegal harassment.

Do your managers know what illegal actions look like? The good news–they don’t have to. There can be some tricky legalities around harassment. Truth is, you can be a jerk and treat people terribly, and it’s not illegal–as long as you’re an equal opportunity jerk.

But, once you start treating people poorly because of their race, gender, etc., it becomes illegal.

To keep reading, click here: Managers and HR Need to Work Together to Prevent Harassment

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But, here we are. And I have to ask. Are you okay? 

No. Not, are your employees okay. (Although that’s a question we think about all the time.) Are you okay? 

Every time I get a Covid-19 survey on Facebook, it asks if I’ve had any symptoms–one of which is fatigue. And I have to say, “yeah, I’ve been suffering from fatigue. I don’t know a single HR person who hasn’t been.” It’s not Covid-induced fatigue, but we’re tired. 

To keep reading, click here: Checking in on HR & ER Teams

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Why was gym class so awful? It was the team sports, wasn’t it? You threw a group together based on their schedule and nothing else, and no one wanted to be there. Some had talent, some didn’t. But, everyone had to play.

Contrast that with being a member of a team. You have to try out and prove you have skills. Everyone there wants to be there. They are willing to work together to get the ball in the basket. A good coach can build a cohesive team that works as one, even as each individual has different responsibilities.

Employee relations is very much a team sport, and you want it to be a cohesive team instead of the gym class equivalent of picking teams. Here’s how to make your employee relations team win the championship.

To keep reading, click here: Employee Relations as a Team Sport

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Leaving aside that we can’t control world events, let’s focus on the things Employee Relations Professionals can do to make 2021 a great year for ourselves and our employees. (Remember, don’t forget yourself–HR is pretty burnt out, and President Biden is releasing new labor-related rules right and left, so we can’t coast through this year either. Take care of yourself!). Here are ten things you can do!

Encourage (but don’t require) employees to get the Covid-19 vaccination. Ensure that your employees get the time off to get the vaccine and use sick days to cover any recovery time they need. (Some people are sick for a few days after receiving the vaccine.) The more people vaccinated, the quicker this virus retreats into the corner, and the better 2021 will be.

To keep reading, click here: 10 Things Employee Relations Professionals Can Do to Make 2021 a Great Year!

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