Resources
Recruiting Tactics
3 min read
Talent Acquisition Strategies for 2022
Talent acquisition in 2022 is going to be more challenging than ever. That’s why your strategy for attracting candidates needs to “get real” about putting together creative strategies that can move the hiring needle. There is essentially a new normal when it comes to recruiting. The 2022 Hiring Trends Report from Modern Hire offers some insights for hiring practitioners in what they define as the “next normal” in talent acquisition. They have identified several trends that will be most important to hiring teams this year. Adjust your talent acquisition strategies accordingly. Set up for long term agility in hiring. Organizations can’t expect today’s labor shortage to solve itself; rather, staffing needs to change to adapt to the market to remain competitive. Recruiting teams need efficient, agile, responsive recruitment and hiring technology to deliver a winning model for hiring performance today and in the future. This includes AI and predictive analytics to enable data driven hiring decisions and the tracking and measurement of outcomes necessary for continuously improving hiring. Hire for potential over current skill. Unquestionably, technology today advances faster than ever before and as a result existing skillsets become outdated much quicker than in past decades. To combat this, organizations are wise to focus more on candidate potential than current skill. Job relevant competency-based assessment tools using advanced technology can help employers narrow the candidate pool quickly to those who will be able to learn and adapt to meet the challenges of your organizational future, while also having a more positive impact. Focus on the job in the candidate experience. By combining the right technology with human touch, recruiters can create personalized hiring experiences that effectively represent their organization. Giving candidates a realistic preview of the job enables them to be informed and engaged in the process, promoting a positive hiring experience, and encouraging employees to be their true selves. This includes providing job relevant information as opposed to games that don’t clearly connect to the job, and personality tests that aren’t predictive of on-the-job success. Organizations that paint an honest picture of the job are more likely to hire candidates who will stay for the long haul. Continued adoption of AI tech. Forward thinking hiring teams are already using AI-powered tools to anticipate hiring needs, identify internal opportunities, reduce hiring costs and turnover, and measure the progress of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. In 2022, AI-equipped hiring solutions will be essential to enabling data-driven hiring decisions and for tracking and measuring outcomes necessary in the ever-changing job market. Recruitment teams will look to advanced, science-based AI solutions that include predictive analytics, automated interview scoring, and natural language processing to further boost new-hire performance, retain employees, and increase efficiency. These tools will be the clear differentiator for delivering ROI. “We will likely continue to see unprecedented recruitment and hiring challenges in the coming months which can only be met with a continued focus on impartial, efficient and effective virtual tools and data-driven techniques in 2022 and beyond,” said Borchert. “Enterprises must take action to modernize their hiring processes to ensure more personal, improved experiences for candidates and hiring teams, ultimately increasing hiring performance for greater success.” That quote pretty much sums it up for 2022. But I would add a few more talent acquisition strategies to this list. Bigger Focus on Mission/Purpose Today’s candidates are looking for more meaning from their work. The pandemic has changed the way look at their jobs. Employers must adapt to this by changing their messaging that leads with mission driven elements. Some experts are calling it the ‘great reset’ because many workers are taking stock of how, why and where they work. Your messaging will need to resonate with these job hoppers. Becoming a Remote First Company Some say remote first companies will eventually outpace their rivals. Maybe, maybe not. But what you can be sure of is that the 9-5, ‘in the office every day job’ is just about gone. In its place is flexible or ‘hybrid work’ that allows your employees to determine how and where they want to work. In person work will be relegated to just 2 days a week on average in my opinion. We’ll also see an increase in quartely all company meetings where the entire company can come together in person for a week. So get ready for another bumpy ride in the world of recruitment. It’s going to be interesting to see how companies talent acquisition strategies adapt in 2022.
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Recruiting
2 min read
Quality of Hire Should Correlate to High Performance!
We have an obsession in talent acquisition about Quality of Hire (QoH). We try to tie everything we do to the fact if we do “this thing” it’s going to increase our QoH. If we just use this one source more, our QoH will be better. If we use this one assessment our QoH will be better. If we interview better our QoH will be better. Sound familiar?! The problem is, most of us don’t even really measure our quality of hire! We’ll measure our 90-day turnover and call it quality of hire, but just because someone stays for 90 days has zero correlation to whether they are actually a good hire or not. They just stayed around for 90 days! Our reality is quality of hire actually correlates to high performance. Meaning, if you hire better, the better higher, on average, should have higher performance. So, the only true way you can measure quality of hire is to correlate the performance of an employee to their hire, source, etc. This means you really don’t know your quality of hire until you have some sort of measurable performance from an employee you hire. Do you really mean Quality of Applicant and not Quality of Hire? What I find is most organizations actually mean Quality of Applicant, but use the term Quality of Hire. Quality of Applicant can be measured by a simple metric of what percentage of the applicants you forwarded onto a hiring manager does the hiring manager choose to interview? Example: A recruiter screens ten applicants and passed them onto the hiring manager. The hiring manager decides to interview five of the applicants. The QoA measure would be 50%. I get asked a lot about what level of QoA should an organization or recruiter strive to achieve. In my mind, if a recruiter is good at screening and has a great relationship with the hiring manager, that QoA should be 90%! There really should be very many reasons a hiring manager doesn’t interview someone I send them if we are both doing our jobs at a high level. As a recruiter, if I know the job and the type of candidate the hiring manager wants, and the hiring manager has told me everything I need to know, there really shouldn’t be any reason for them to turn down a candidate I send them. The problem is, most recruiters and hiring managers aren’t giving each other what they need to be successful at a 90-100% level. Quality of Applicant is a Recruiting Measure, Quality of Hire is Not! In most organizations, a Recruiter does not make the final candidate selection and that same Recruiter does not manage the onboarding, training, and performance of the employee. Thus, Quality of Hire is a Hiring Manager metric, not a recruiting metric. Almost all organizations get this wrong. Quality of Applicant is by far a better measure for recruiting and for measuring the recruiting function effectiveness. As a recruiter, if I’m sending candidates to a hiring manager that they don’t want to interview and hire, I’m not doing my job very well. QoA is a direct measure of how well a recruiter is doing. Okay, I hear you, “but, Tim, what about a recruiter who finds great candidates but the hiring manager is just super picky!?” You are still not doing the job! Part of the job of recruiting is not just finding great talent, but having a relationship with the hiring manager so you are not wasting valuable resources of the company. The better relationship you have, I guarantee you the fewer misses you’ll have when sending applicants to that hiring manager. What did we learn today? QoH correlates directly to employee performance, but doesn’t correlate at all to recruiter performance! QofA directly correlates to recruiter performance. Recruiter performance also correlates rather high to the positive relationship they have with the hiring managers they support.
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Human Resources
3 min read
Relocation Benefits Less Attractive in Remote Era
Just as Covid is changing the nature of work, it’s caused workers and their employers to rethink the meaning of employee relocation and just what kind of benefit it still is. Before 2020, relocation meant geographically reassigning workers as part of a promotion, or because they had special skills needed elsewhere, or to grow the business, or some combination of these. Relocation for new workers meant covering moving expenses and maybe some additional help with housing. Especially overseas relocation was a plum benefit that could be counted on to attract and retain the best talent. Fewer Workers Willing to Relocate Since the pandemic, some of the luster of relocation has worn off. The relocation benefit in a time of labor shortage and remote work isn’t as exciting a benefit as it was just a few years ago. For many workers, accepting a new job across town or across the country doesn’t have to mean relocating and insisting on it could be a deal breaker for the company. According to the 54th Annual Atlas Corporate Relocation Survey, 60% of companies had workers refuse a relocation om 2020. A third of respondent report the number of workers turning down a move has increased from previous years. Why, is hardly a surprise – Covid. “The COVID-19 pandemic eclipsed all other factors impacting relocation last year,” the survey report said. “In 2020, the most frequent reason given by employees declining relocation was health concerns/illness/the COVID-19 pandemic, both overall (52%) and internationally (44%).” That doesn’t mean workers haven’t been relocating. Since the pandemic and increasingly in the last year, workers are relocating on their own, bypassing corporate relocation benefits and policies. Meanwhile, cities and towns, states too, have jumped at the opportunity to lure workers by offering their own relocation benefits. Hints of this can be seen in the Atlas survey. It found a sharp decline (from 52% to 32%) in the percentage of employees declining corporate relocation because of the employment of their spouse or partner. “This shift downward may reflect the impact of higher unemployment levels during the COVID-19 pandemic (fewer dual-income households), as well as flexible work arrangements (telecommuting/work from home) being leveraged by many companies during this time.” Mobility, the relocation trade association’s magazine, pointed out that, “Workforce mobility is no longer just about the relocation of employees. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift toward more remote work, which has become a key aspect of mobility and requires the use of technology to facilitate that increasing aspect of the industry.” The impact of remote work on the relocation industry and corporate relocation benefits was a key topic at the trade association’s conference last fall. “How does the rise of remote work affect who needs to move and why?” was key discussed topic at Worldwide ERC’s Global Symposium. As the relocation industry wrestles with the changes accelerated by the pandemic, companies are worrying about a different type of relocation. Call it remote work’s do-it-yourself relocation benefit. A Harris Poll survey in March 2021 found 11% of the US population moved during the first 12 months of the pandemic to take advantage of options afforded by remote work. “Among those recent movers, three quarters (75%) say they moved for positive reasons, such as being closer to family or friends or living in an area they’ve always dreamed of,” reported Zillow, the digital real estate company that sponsored the survey. Most did that without help or even the knowledge of their employer. That’s causing headaches for corporate managers, says the Society for Human Resource Management. When companies relocate workers they know where they are going and when and how they’ll work. With DIY relocators, companies learn this only after the fact, if at all. “Managers need to know where their employees are working and when they are working, so they can stay in compliance with the laws of the jurisdiction where the employees are doing their,” says the SHRM article. Given the current labor shortage, companies are casting a wide net to attract workers. For many candidates, dangling generous relocation benefits is not much of a lure and may even be a negative. Instead, companies are promoting jobs as being remote; no need to relocate. The number of jobs advertised on Indeed.com doubled in the first year of the pandemic and continues to rise. Cities Now Offering Relocation Benefits Cities, towns and some states are taking advantage of workers newfound mobility, paying them $10,000 or more to relocation. The AARP listed six areas of the country – including the entire of West Virginia – offering relocation benefits. So eager are communities to attract well paid, remote workers that they’re sweetening the deal with all sorts of perks. Move to southwest Michigan and the Move to Michigan program will give a worker $15,000 toward the purchase of a house. And an annual memberships at fitness clubs. And a membership at a driving range. And a coworking space and free car service to the airport. In northwest Arkansas, relocating workers get the $10,000, membership to local cultural organizations and their choice of a bike.
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Human Resources
2 min read
Remote Work is Changing Performance Evaluations
Performance reviews are no one’s idea of fun, as useful and valuable they may be when done well. But since the Covid pandemic they’ve become a critical tool and a difficult challenge as entire teams are now working entirely remotely. The continuing pandemic has forced companies to adopt new ways of managing workers and maintaining some semblance of corporate culture. Techniques like the famed “management by walking around,” in-person check-ins, stand-ups and informal team lunches and meetings have been radically adjusted if not abandoned in the face of a dispersed workforce connected only by technology. In this new world of work, performance evaluations of remote workers require a different, more consistent, and more frequent approach. Instead of an annual or quarterly review, “Systematic, frequent, and brief reviews focused on task performance, effective feedback and coaching, and guidance in wise decision-making will replace it in organizations that want to survive and thrive in the post-COVID world,” writes behavioral economist and author Dr. Gleb Tsipursky. His advice and that of writers at Fobes, the Harvard Business Review, Reworked and elsewhere echoes what companies have been hearing for years: Performance reviews should be frequent and focused on coaching and goals, and less on critiquing. Remote work has made this more essential and put far greater emphasis on communication and cultural reinforcement. Remote Work Is Killing Old School Reviews “Performance evaluations are one of the strongest anchors and artifacts of your corporate culture,” says Mark Mortensen, associate professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD. His point is that managers need to communicate the company’s long and short-term goals as part of the evaluation process. “What leaders do and say now in these times is going to be remembered,” he insists. Communication, frequent and both formal and informal is how to hold together a team. Regular communication with every employee was always important. But without those impromptu “water-cooler” conversations, managers must make an intentional and deliberate effort to speak regularly with each of their reports. “Don’t allow remote workers to operate within an information vacuum — you might need to communicate (or even over-communicate) far more than you did previously. Remember, the goal of a performance review is to improve performance by influencing behavior,” says Paycor’s Guide to Conducting Remote Performance Reviews. The tendency is to still think of a performance review as a formal, once a year structured event documenting (almost always imperfectly) a worker’s performance, often by assigning numeric scores. That old school approach didn’t work so well when workers were mostly all in one place. Gallup made that clear reporting, “Traditional performance reviews and approaches to feedback are often so bad that they actually make performance worse about one-third of the time.” Remote Work Check-ins With a distributed workforce toiling off site, the traditional approach is replaced with short, frequent conversations as brief as a 15-minute weekly check-in. That shouldn’t be the only conversation of the week, but it should be the one not sacrificed for convenience. “Schedule uninterrupted time without distractions to ensure the employee knows he/she is the priority during that window of time,” says Jennifer Preston, HR consultant at FlexHR. If this advice about performance evaluations for remote workers sounds so much like basic good management, it is. It’s effective even for organization that still cling to the practice of annual reviews. Managers who regularly communicate with their team members, check in with them formally, and note their achievements and accomplishment will have a strong record to rely on when the yearly evaluations are due. But even better, they’ll also have a successful team of remote workers. Contribution by John Zappe
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Human Resources
3 min read
The Great Resignation Wave
The Great Resignation Wave became a meme in 2021 and is poised to stay in the news as we head into 2022. There are lots of reasons for this trend. And after holiday bonuses are paid out in the new month the resignation will become even bigger, experts predict. A new report from GoodFirms, entitled “Who Can Stop This Unstoppable Great Resignation?” uncovers the reasons for the mass exodus of employees in the as the pandemic continues. The research reveals some of the most shocking trends and employee work-life metrics leading to the great reshuffling. “Pandemic’s greatest impact on the business world was ‘shift to remote work.’ The pandemic afforded unprecedented flexibility. People accustomed to it cannot fathom returning to work from office mode. Therefore, inflexible employers are struggling to keep up their workforce.” says GoodFirms. Quit Rates Driving Resignation Wave Their research also iterates how the attrition rate has increased in the pandemic era, with most employees quitting voluntarily. 4.4 million quit in September. This wave shows no signs of slowing. Life shocks, acquiring new skills, desire for upward mobility, and changed priorities are some of the elements driving the great resignation. The research also dives deep into how vaccine mandates from employers and fear of infection are affecting employee psychology. The research concludes with a commentary on how the great revolution mirrors the worker’s revolution in the newfound world. Employers that wish to retain their workforce will have to go the extra mile to survive amidst the biggest turnover in the modern business environment. Companies will have to restructure their compensation plans, rethink recruitment, invest in the human resource management systems (HRMS), strategize employee well-being programs, implement flexible work models, and allow employees space to create a better work-life balance. A Great Re-imagination “Whatever the trigger may be for this great resignation, the market will soon witness an improvement in the work world, and workers are likely to bring the best out of them, crafting a career that best fits their lives. It is surely a great re-imagination,” concludes GoodFirms. Here’s the key takeaways from the GoodFirms data: Pandemic changed employee perception and compelled employees to rethink their priorities. 33.7% of employees still want WFH(Work from Home) 21.2% of employees are planning to quit their jobs while 29.8% are not sure about it 37.50% of employees fear infection while working from the office 21.1% of employees think their current salaries are not enough 25.9% of employees remain discontent with their increments and promotions 21.1% are not happy with career development opportunities 19.2% of employees are indignant about their managers’ role and behavior towards them. 30.7% of employees cited frequent stress and work-related burnout 23.08% of employees are struggling with mental depression 17.31% of employees think they can do better if they leave the current job There is a sudden talk about the flexibility in work hours, mental health, and well-being equations. Workers are craving flexibility in jobs. Prospective hires and employees are now negotiating more easy-to-handle work hours and shunning companies with a rigid job hour policy. If you can’t offer flexibility in your roles you are going to lose out on the best talent. Other data shows that many employees are also quitting to work for themselves. Since 2018, new business applications filed per week averaged 67,000, but that number has skyrocketed to 100,000 new business applications per week since June 2021. A lot of folks want to take control of their lives and be their own boss. I expect employers to do the following in 2022 to help counteract the resignation wave; Increase salaries and hourly wages for incoming workers while also incentivizing employees to stay. Increase flexible work options, such as hybrid, fully remote or flexible hours for new hires and existing staff. Increase recruitment advertising around job vacancies. Chief People Officer, Amy Zimmerman of Relay Payments told me that she thinks the biggest challenge with hiring right now is that there are so many companies doing it. Strong candidates have more options now than they probably ever have before. Employer brand has never been so important and differentiating. Hiring teams need to approach the process by putting their best foot forward — there’s no margin for error. The companies who present strongest will attract the best candidates. She thinks the challenges will continue into this year. “As long as the job market is as hot as it is and companies aren’t doing the work it takes to retain, the struggle remains. Companies who are intentional about their cultures, invested in their peoples career growth, and differentiating in the market are generally not the ones losing above average number’s of team members.” The pandemic has taught them a lesson about controlling your career path. I think this period is a sea-change in the mindset of job seekers. Of course a recession could put the brakes on that but even if we get a slowdown, I don’t think job flexibility is going to disappear from job hunters radar. It’s the next great benefit.
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Recruiting
3 min read
The Benefits of Hiring International Employees
It wasn’t that long ago it was rare for any but large, multinational corporations to hiring international employees. Now, with domestic labors in short supply and remote work the norm, even smaller employers are looking to a global market to fill vacancies. While nowhere nearly as commonplace as hiring overseas contractors, hiring international employees is becoming more so every day. And why not? By hiring international employees companies benefits by sourcing talent from a global pool, almost guaranteed they’ll find candidates with exactly the specialized skills they want. That might be reason enough to hire internationally, but G2.com, the technology and software peer review site, lists four other benefits of hiring international employees: Gaining a competitive edge because of the diversity of culture and experience. Increased problem-solving prowess due to the variety of perspectives and problem-solving approach. Greater productivity as a result of having workers across multiple time zones. Opening new markets. Growth, diversity, and innovation, says WeHireGlobally, a global PEO (professional employer organization), are the primary reasons for hiring international employees. As U.S. businesses have discovered the advantages of sourcing talent globally, they’ve also discovered that hiring international employees can involve a maze of legal requirements and regulations. Even in the EU where there is some standardization, each country has its own set of hiring and employment rules. A September update of labor laws and regulations across the globe by the international business legal firm Eversheds-Sutherland runs to more than 70 pages. There’s also the challenge of sourcing and vetting candidates. Steps to Hire Internationally Indeed.com, the global recruitment marketplace, says the first steps to hiring international employees are to clearly define the role, the requirements and whether it’s a temporary job or permanent, full or part-time. The six-step guide to global hiring is an overview, providing employers a broad sense of the challenges involved in hiring international employees. So important are the preliminaries, that it’s only after touching on the importance of meeting the legal requirements of each country and those of the U.S. does Indeed mention developing recruiting and onboarding plans. A more detailed discussion of how to evaluate remote international candidates by the global PEO firm Safeguard Global offers advice about the differences in hiring international employees. The firm cautions, “With many cultural differences in resume style and work style to account for, extra care must be taken when assessing a foreign worker at a distance.” Amon the suggestions the Safeguard Global article makes is to have candidates record video responses to interview questions and to insist on skills testing. The latter is especially important because training and mentoring remote workers is difficult. For that reason, “Skill related tests can help you determine if someone already has most, if not all, of the experience and academic training required to excel in a certain position.” Employers can avoid the difficulties and limit the risks of the do-it-yourself approach to hiring international employees by working with a local employment agency or with a global PEO that provides recruitment services. International Hiring Vendors Describing what a global PEO does, Craig Dempsey, found and managing director of a Latin America PEO, says, “A PEO will hire and manage staff on your behalf in the foreign country via a co-employment model.” In that way, the services of a global PEO are just like those of domestic PEOs. G2 has a list of global PEOs, some of which also have U.S. operations. Many are members of the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations. While a global PEO will handle all the details of employment management including hiring international employees, a local agency offers highly specialized recruitment services. As Global Expansion, a PEO itself, explains, “As the recruitment agency will be local, they will speak the local language and understand the job market better.” There’s also a new crop of vendors that specialize in international payroll. These companies have established business entities in various countries across the world to allow employers anywhere to pay them. Companies in this space include, Deel, Oyster HR and Remote.com. This approach is best for employers already experienced in hiring international employees and willing and able to deal with the legal regulations and tax issues. Even with multiple options for hiring international employees, “sourcing great hires across borders can be challenging at the best of times,” writes Julie Torres in Forbes. “Employers shouldn’t have to go it alone.” Contribution by John Zappe
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Human Resources
3 min read
Companies Plan Biggest Salary Increase In Years
Beset by rising inflation and hiring difficulty, companies are poised to give workers the largest salary increase in 14 years. The Conference Board is projecting an average salary increase of 3.9% for 2022, the largest since a similar hike in 2008. “Faster growth in wages for new hires and accelerating inflation are the main causes of the jump in salary increase budgets in recent months,” said Gad Levanon, the Conference Board’s vice president for labor markets, in an announcing the results this month. The forecast comes from a survey last month of 240 compensation executives at the nation’s largest companies. They were asked what they were budgeting and what they were projecting for salary increases in the coming year. Six months ago, they reported planning for a 3% average rise. But as the labor shortage continued to worsen, businesses were forced to boost new hire pay to attract workers. The most recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows job openings went from a seasonally adjusted 6.4 million in January to 10.1 million in October. In the two decades the Bureau has tracked job openings, only the 10.7 million openings recorded in July was higher. At the same time, unemployment has plunged from a pandemic high of 14.2% in April 2020 to 4.0% in November. Salary Increases To Remain at High Levels Saying “It is likely that severe labor shortages will continue through 2022,” Levanon anticipates that, “Overall wage growth is likely to remain well above four percent. Wages for new hires, and workers in blue-collar and manual services jobs will grow faster than average.” In addition, with no sign of a slowdown in inflation, Levanon predicts cost-of-living adjustments will increase. “In this environment, the upward momentum for salary increase budgets is likely to continue into early 2022.” Mercer, a global human resources consulting firm, estimates a more modest salary increase of 3.5%. Like the Conference Board, Mercer, too, upped its estimate from an August survey when the salary increase came in at 3.3%. Even that forecast, the result of surveying some 950 employers in October, may turn out to be low, Mercer suggests. “The reality is that these numbers may still change, particularly with the economic uncertainty surrounding Omicron.” “Pressures have continued to mount over the past several months with both inflation and quit rates being at 20-year highs. This has resulted in many employers taking a harder look at compensation plans for 2022.” Bonuses and Merit Pay Increases to Remain And, in fact, Mercer found that the percentage of employers increasing their merit pay budgets by 3.5% or more doubled since August, going from 13% to 27%. The percentage of employers increasing their bonus payouts by 10% or more is 24% higher than in 2020. With the labor shortage and rising inflation, Mercer says “employee expectations are still running high… the tough reality is, at the moment, most employees would likely have no trouble finding a new role – and likely command a premium for job switching.” To limit attrition and be competitive when recruiting workers, Mercer advises employers to: Prioritize their hourly workforce – “Our research has shown that this is the segment of the workforce driving the continued attrition in the workforce — and wages are moving fast.” Address gaps in merit pay – “Organizations should ensure that their merit budgets are sufficient enough to close gaps in competitiveness — and also ensure that the budget is distributed where it’s most needed.” More than pay – “While pay matters, a lot, in many cases it’s when the broader employee experience falls short that employees will start to shop their options.” One other survey, this one from Empsight International, found the average salary increase to be 3.7% with half of the responding companies budgeding more than 3.5% and half less. 2022 Salary Predictions Emspight forecast merit pay increases to average 3.25%. Here, half of the 122 responding companies budgeted less than 3% and half budgeting more. Commenting on 2022 salary increases, Angelo Kostopoulos, CEO of the business data and survey development firm Akron Inc., told The Washington Post, “Companies now see inflation as something they’re going to have to deal with for the next several years. If you combine that with the Great Resignation, plus a heavy focus on technology and related skills, I think that’s where a lot of your overall budget planning increases are coming from.” Contributions by John Zappe
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Human Resources
2 min read
Mental Health Benefits Are a Recruiting Edge
Well before the Covid pandemic, the importance of mental health benefits was becoming apparent to both employers and workers. Employers expanded coverage and began offering stress reduction and access to mental health counselor and other programs as part of the growing focus on workplace wellness. Still, as late as 2019, mental health benefits were only just moving from perk to benefit, as an article on the Society for Human Resource Management website said. Now, mental health benefits have gone from “from a nice-to-have to a true business imperative,” write two CEOs in the Harvard Business Review. Citing data from surveys conducted in 2019 before Covid and again in 2021, the authors report a rise in mental health related attrition, especially among millennial and Gen Z workers. Mental Health Challenges Among Employees The pandemic, the authors observe, has exacerbated stresses of all types. “Mental health challenges are now the norm among employees across all organizational levels.” Employers have responded by improving and broadening their mental health programs. Reporting on how businesses responded to the mental health impacts of the pandemic, the Kaiser Family Foundation said, “The social and economic disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have placed an unprecedented level of stress on people all over the world. Many employers took steps to assist employees and family members facing these stresses.” In a survey of companies with more than 50 workers, the Foundation found that 39% have made changes to their mental health benefits since the start of the pandemic. Among firms with more than 200 employees, 49% made improvements: 5% increased coverage for out-of-network services 8% waived or reduce the cost to employees for these services 17% developed new resources such as an EAP program. By far the most popular change was to expand access to mental health and substance abuse services: 36% of business under 200 employees and 43% of larger ones added new services such as telehealth and direct access to counselors. Mental Health Benefits Often Limited These resources, most often through online mental health providers, supplement the often limited coverage in typical employer health plan. For example, Learn to Live is an online provider that uses cognitive behavioral therapy to help employees with anxiety, depression and some other mental health issues. Clinicians conduct live coaching sessions and access is 24/7. Another online service, Talkspace matches users with licensed mental health workers for therapy, medication, assessment and healthy living support. Citi, Lionsgate and the LPGA are among the company’s customers. Lyra Health works with companies like eBay and Morgan Stanley offering a broad range of mental health services. Employees can work online or in-person with a therapist. Therapists are also available to work with individuals and groups of employees on-sire. Coaching for short-term support, medication and supportive mental health tools are also available. Since Covid, the numbers of employees using mental health benefits has increased by double-digit percentages. The Kaiser survey found that overall, companies have seen a 12% increase in the number of workers taking advantage of these services. At companies with more than 1,000 employees, 38% more workers are taking advantage of the mental health benefits their employer provides. Despite the attention employers are giving to mental health benefits, workers say it’s not enough. An October Calm for Business survey of 3,000 full-time workers found 40% feel their employer hasn’t done enough to support their mental health. Ironically, workers are hesitant about taking advantage of even the simplest of self-care. The Calm survey found three-quarters didn’t take a metal health or sick day in the last month even though they knew they should have. With just a little encouragement from management, 78% said they’d find time during the workday to take a mental health break. Perhaps the most telling point for employers is the importance of mental health benefits in recruiting: 76% of workers in the Calm survey said metal health benefits are one of the critical factors they consider in evaluating a new job. Contributions by John Zappe
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Human Resources
2 min read
Employee Burnout Is on the Rise
Workers are feeling more burned out than they have in years and the Covid pandemic is why. A survey by the job search site Indeed.com of 1,500 workers found 52% of them reporting feelings of burnout. That’s up from 43% in a similar survey in January 2020, two months before Covid caused the shutdown of most businesses worldwide. In October, a broader survey by the American Psychological Association found a third of all Americans feel so stressed by the pandemic they sometimes struggle to make even the simplest of decisions. “Pandemic stress is contributing to widespread mental exhaustion, negative health impacts and unhealthy behavior changes — a pattern that will become increasingly challenging to correct the longer it persists,” said Arthur C. Evans, Jr., the organization’s CEO. Difficulty making decisions, along with a loss of motivation, a higher level of irritability, tiredness, difficulty concentrating and other behavior changes are all among the classic symptoms of employee burnout. Employees Feeling the Stress The World Health Organization describes employee burnout as a “syndrome” characterized by: “Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and Reduced professional efficacy.” While research and personal experience tells us we all have feelings of job stress from time to time, Covid has made employee burnout worse. Two-thirds of workers in the Indeed survey blame the pandemic for worsened those feelings. Over the years, research by Gallup, Deloitte and others found that lack of recognition and management support, consistently long hours and an unmanageable workload were the leading causes of employee burnout. Those same reasons – especially feeling overworked — are behind the stress employees are feeling now. Concerns over health (25%) and finances (33%) are adding to it, according to the Indeed survey. Employee Burnout Syndrome Those working remotely are more likely than their counterparts working onsite to feel Covid’s effect on employee burnout more strongly. 38% of remote workers says burnout has worsened since the pandemic, compared to 28% of those who worn onsite. One reason for the difference could be that those working from home have a harder time stepping away from work. While both virtual and onsite workers report putting in longer hours, 61% of those working remotely say they find it more difficult than ever to unplug from work. Among onsite workers, 53% find it harder to unplug when they leave the office. And regardless of whether they work remotely or onsite, if they have access to office communications on their phones, 8-in-10 say they’re more likely to work after hours. No employer can afford to ignore the impact of employee burnout. The World Economic Forum a few years ago estimated the cost of burnout at $335 billion globally. Stanford researchers put the cost of workplace stress on the U.S. healthcare system at $190 billion. Gallup estimates burned out, disengaged workers cost companies $3,400 out of every $10,000 in lost productivity, absenteeism, retention and medical expenses. Employers can reduce employee burnout by emphasizing the importance of work-life balance and backing that up by limiting after hours work and encouraging employees to take time off. Better than a third of workers told Indeed that more time off, greater flexibility in scheduling and remote work would all help ease employee burnout. Gallup detailed a more comprehensive approach in Employee Burnout: Causes and Cures. The report proposes three broad strategies for companies: Emphasize wellbeing in the company culture; educate manager to identify signs of burnout and equip them to prevent it, and improve the employee experience. Echoing the Gallup recommendations, Indeed concludes its report with this advice for employers: “Awareness of the employee experience can help you develop an action plan to mitigate feelings of burnout, prevent costly churn and protect workers from burnout in a post-pandemic future.” Contribution by John Zappe
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