Catherine Mattice's Blog, page 27

4 Ways to Measure Success of Flexible Work

Employers around the world jumped into flexible work last year without planning, preparation, or resources. In an unprecedented worldwide transformation of work, millions of people’s lives turned on a dime. As COVID winds down (I hope) employers are at an impasse. According to… well… every article there is… employees want to keep working from home and CEO’s want employees to come back to the workplace. That’s why LinkedIn Learning asked me to create this short course on flexible work. While you may have already done that in emergency pandemic panic mode, this course is about resetting and starting fresh in non-emergency mode so you can revise and move forward in a more thoughtful way. Your CEO might appreciate that endeavor; being forced into something that wasn’t wanted or planned never lands well with CEO’s. And they weren’t paying that big mortgage or rent bill each month because they liked it, they did it because they thought being in person was important to relationships, culture, innovation, communication, and collaboration. CEO’s must also empathize with employees. This experience has proven that work is no longer a place where you go every day; it’s an experience that can be had from anywhere in the world. Being forced into something that wasn’t planned has proven to be really great and highly desirable for many employees. So check out my new LinkedIn course on implementing flexible work. I cover types of flexible work, how to balance employer and employee needs, tips for successful virtual teams, building trust, and more. To celebrate its release I’m sharing a little nugget on measuring success. Below are four areas to consider with examples of what you might measure in each. COST:RentUtilitiesMaintenanceSnacksJanitorial servicesOffice suppliesEquipmentPRODUCTIVITY:Sales dollarsNumber of units or products soldClientsCustomer transactionsErrors/mistakes madeAbsencesPhone dials out or inHours workedRECRUITING:Time to fill open positionsCost per hireQuality of candidatesDiversity of candidatesRetention/turnoverTime to reach various performance quotas (e.g., billable hours)More metrics are here in another one of my LinkedIn coursesEMPLOYEE PERCEPTIONS:EngagementJob satisfactionWork/life balanceStress levelsInternal communication effectivenessTrust in leadershipRelationshipsI’d love to hear from you on this! What are you doing in the new world of flexible work, how’s it going, what are you measuring, and are employees loving or hating it?Sincerely,Catherine Mattice

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Defining and Investigating Bullying Behavior

Bullying behavior can take a tremendous toll on targets and witnesses—causing depression, burnout, and even symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. Organizations with employees that report bullying behavior commonly experience reductions in work quality and production, as well as decreased employee collaboration, safety, loyalty, and retention. Investigators are sometimes called upon to investigate alleged bullying behavior, and those who serve in HR roles or as employee trainers and coaches may be asked to assist organizations in implementing corrective action.

There is clear legal guidance as well as clear definitions when investigating harassment or discrimination complaints. However, “bullying” is typically not legally prohibited and is often more subjective behavior, so there is less guidance for determining whether bullying behavior has occurred or for corrective actions an organization can take when it exists. Compounding the problem is the lack of common nomenclature used to describe bullying—which can include abusive conduct, emotional abuse, and aggression—along with the fact that most employers are not savvy
in addressing it.

This article assists investigators and organizations in identifying
and correcting bullying behavior by:

Defining bullying;Describing categories of bullying behavior to assist in identifying it;Providing guidance for investigating allegations of workplace bullying; andOffering advice for organizations to help manage and minimize workplace bullying.

Read the rest of the article (and the Association for Workplace Investigators Journal) here.

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[CASE STUDY] Transforming Organizational Culture

We recently put together a case study regarding one of our clients, Rainbow Municipal Water District (RMWD), and thought we’d share it in case you were looking for ideas on improving your own workplace culture.The HR Manager and Executive Director came into a negative culture when they started at RMWD, where behavior was already out of control and clear signs of distrust existed. Because they paid attention to the subtle signs that something was brewing, they knew change was needed.Civility Partners was engaged to deliver training around civility and allyship, and due to comments received during the training, RMWD decided a climate assessment was in order. Once we completed our tailored and custom assessment (we always do them that way), we worked with RMWD to develop a plan of action.Some items on the strategic plan included leadership coaching, working with a specific department to address a culture of bullying, implementing a company-wide newsletter, more frequent one-on-one’s so that managers could stay on top of employee needs, company-wide training and a written guide to facilitate better one-on-one’s, and a whole lot of transparency.The results of our second survey – conducted two years later in 2020 – showed that all of RMWD’s hard work paid off. For example, when asked to rate the statement, “I’m inspired to do my best as often as I can when I’m at work,” we saw a 100% positive response! Now that’s employee engagement right there – 100% of employees giving maximum discretionary effort as often as possible.Annnddd… their net promoter score (NPS) went from 80% to 96%! Wow. (NPS refers to the likelihood that your workforce would recommend your organization to others as a good place to work.)For more insight regarding RMWD’s action plan, take a peek at the full case study on our website and check out this 6 minute conversation with Karleen Harp, the HR Manager who made it all happen. You can also watch/listen to our entire 30-min conversation here. Karleen explains more about what inspired her to seek outside help, the various action items RMWD engaged in, and how she led the organization through a culture transformation.Sincerely,Catherine & The Civility Partners Team

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Are You Effectively Managing Performance?

Happy Wednesday! This week we’re sharing an interview I did with my friend and business coach, Karie Kaufmann, on the topic of Managing Workplace Behaviors Beyond Job Performance. We discussed how employees are often promoted to management positions because they are good at their job responsibilities, and not necessarily at managing. These managers are so focused on performance of the job responsibilities that they lose sight of the workplace behaviors required to not only create a positive work environment, but to get the work done efficiently via positive relationships. As Karie and I discuss, performance management isn’t just about performance of the job – it’s about building up employees to help them be successful in what they do (job tasks) and how they do it (behavior).  And so, managers should be trained and supported in managing people and the behaviors they engage in, not just job tasks. (Karie would call that a BFO, or blinding flash of the obvious.) Teaching managers how to address microaggressions, or provide ongoing feedback to boost employee success, can have a major impact on your workforce. Managers need training and support to understand that, “Performance management isn’t a hammer. It’s an opportunity to use all of the tools in the toolbox” (Forbes). It’s an opportunity to help people grow and learn. Watch the interview with Karie here to learn more about how managers can influence positive behavior – and thus team success. Sincerely, Catherine & the Civility Partners Team P.S. We also provide manager training on these very topics. Contact us if you’d like to get your managers trained in managing job performance and behavior.

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9 Tips for Increasing Psychological Safety at Work

Civility Partners has been talking about psychological safety since its inception, and we’ve been doing training on topics like being an ally to others, and building positive and safe work environments, for over a decade. Even our first training programs focused on providing tools to managers and leaders so that they could actively create and participate in the process of building a civil and respectful environment.

That’s why Stacia Garr’s presentation last week at the Workhuman Live virtual conference caught my eye. Stacia is the co-founder and principal analyst for Red Thread Research, who discovered that there was a 17% decline in psychological safety during the pandemic. To be honest, this feels low as I’ve been thinking 100% of people experienced some level of decline in their psychological safety during the pandemic. (Though I could certainly be wrong this one time.)

Anyway, Stacia discussed building manager capabilities in coaching, clearing barriers, and candor in order to increase psychological safety. In other words, a manager capable of building psychological safety might be:

Helping employees learn from mistakesEnabling employees to have ongoing conversations with others related to their work, career, vulnerabilities, and moreTaking a hard look at their biases and understanding how those biases influence their behaviorDemonstrating commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging with actions, not just wordsManaging difficult conversations effectivelyProviding balanced and objective feedback

We think the following are just as important:

Making room for emotions at workStepping in to coach employees at the first sign of negative behavior (see this blog post on teasing, for example)Taking a hard look at what organizational factors play a role in harming psychological safety, are also important steps.

There are certainly many more tasks and activities managers must engage in beyond the nine shared in this blog post. Not to mention each item on this short list is a feat of its own and not to be taken lightly. All of these suggestions require training, coaching, support, and accountability.

That’s why increasing psychological safety should be on your strategic plan for returning to work, equity and inclusion, or organizational culture. Add it to your plan, include these nine tips as action items, and look like a rockstar in front of your leadership team. Help them see that psychological safety plays a huge role in inclusivity and belonging, and in rebuilding your culture as the pandemic is coming to an end.

If manager capability to increase psychological safety, respect, and collaboration is something  your organization is looking to improve upon as we again pivot into another new world, contact us today!

Sincerely,

Catherine & the Civility Partners Team

P.S. We also have some other helpful resources around remote work and engaging employees from home. Check out our blog here.

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[Webinar] End Your Week With Allyship

First and foremost, I want to acknowledge our team member, Rebecca Del Secco, who was a top five finalist in the Employee of the Year category at the Business Excellence Forum and Awards (BizX). BizX is a global event with speakers like Seth Godin and Marcus Buckingham taking the stage. Tons of applications are received by BizX each year, and REBECCA DESERVES A HUGE CONGRATS for being selected as one of America’s top five employees in the nation!!! == Now that the confetti has settled, let’s discuss allyship. Allyship is an important factor in creating an inclusive workplace, and it’s a topic we’ve been training on for a decade. Many of our colleagues like the word bystander, but we prefer the word allyship to inspire potential allies in our training audiences to intervene when they witness something negative. Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking on this topic at the University of Arizona’s “Our Best Work Environment Speaker Series” and now I’m sharing the recording with my awesome enewsletter audience. Here is the link. During this webinar, I covered:The various roles everyone plays in a negative work environmentFour types of bias (though there are hundreds)Risk factors that increase our likelihood to engage in biasMicroaggressions and how to intervene when you hear themTips for ensuring your meetings are inclusive I’ve got a ton more webinars just like this one. If you’re interested in checking them out, click this link. They’re sitting on our website waiting for you. Have a great weekend! Catherine

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Encourage PTO Use for May: Mental Health Awareness Month

It’s been over a year since the entire world shut down, and finally there’s a light at the end of the tunnel – but we aren’t out of the woods just yet.

Employees are burnt out at exponential levels, whether they’ve been on the front lines (shoutout to essential workers!) or trying to manage the struggles of working from home. With long hours and no place to go, employees have been accumulating time off and not taking it. Now, your employees may be reaching their PTO caps and not taking time off to relax and refresh. This is a problem we’re seeing with our clients, so we put our heads together with our favorite HR consulting firm, Total Package Professional Services, to brainstorm some solutions for addressing high PTO balances and mental health. Much thanks to them for their awesome ideas! May is Mental Health Awareness Month, so now is a perfect time to take advantage of our six ideas for encouraging PTO use. (And check out this guide from the National Alliance on Mental Illness for ideas on breaking the stigma around mental health.) Suspend caps entirely or increase the caps temporarily. Consider suspending or increasing the cap for 3-6 months, then re-evaluate according to the regulations in your area. This way employees don’t feel they are losing out due to circumstances outside of their control. Keep in mind though that once PTO is earned, it has to be paid.

Develop a mandatory PTO policy. You could require employees to take a certain amount of time off. This will help with planning and issues of flooded time off requests when things open up. If everyone is required to take PTO, managers can plan ahead to address the work.

Provide some additional paid days off to boost employee morale. You could provide paid Friday’s off or close the office mid-day once in awhile. You could also provide these benefits on a rotating basis by team or department. By doing so you can remove the guilt from taking time off, encourage employees to take a break and ultimately boost morale. Employees want to know you care about their mental health.

Ask leadership to set an example. Employees will feel more comfortable taking time off if they see their leaders doing so. No one’s taking PTO if the CEO or a direct manager is working 15 hour days.

Develop messaging around the importance of taking PTO. Ultimately it’s there to reduce the risk of burnout, support physical and mental health, and increase productivity. Sometimes just a reminder can trigger employees to take vacation.

Create a guide of what to do with PTO time. Help employees reframe what time off could look like. They might be thinking of palm trees or adventure parks, but you can remind them that PTO and vacations can include long weekends, taking a day in the middle of the busy work week, marinating in their backyard with a good book, going on a bike ride, and more.  There’s no right answer and every organization has unique needs, but your employees have been working hard and probably not taking time to care for themselves. Show them you appreciate their hard work by showing them you care about their whole self.

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11 Ways to Celebrate Women’s History Month

Last month we sent out a list of 12 ways to celebrate Black History Month with your workforce. Now that it’s Women’s History Month, we’ve revised the list for you.

In addition to the list below, I also suggest attending a webinar I’m doing with an employment law attorney on April 1 at 9 am Pacific. We’ll be talking about the compliance and culture related to flexible work schedules. Women and People of Color in particular will need flexibility as we start to open back up again.

Definitely register to join us!

And now, here are 11 ways your workforce can celebrate Women’s History Month, in no particular order:

Watch LinkedIn Learning’s  “Women in Leadership” learning path , on topics such as leadership strategies, building confidence, harassment prevention, etc. This is a great resource for your workforce to use to empower women and make them feel included.Read a book on a woman that has helped shape history. One thing your organization can do is host a book club to discuss what everyone has learned from the book they read. Here are some websites that have provided wonderful lists of books to check out:CNNBarnes and NobleHarper’s Bazaar Host an inspiring women’s film movie night. This list has a great selection of feminist movies to help empower the women in your workforce and break gender roles. You can host a Zoom meeting for everyone to hop on and utilize the screen sharing feature. Another possibility is to invite employees to watch a specific movie outside of work and then pick a time for you all to discuss over lunch.Borrow an action from the website, CEOAction.com. This website is a great resource for organizations to discover what others are doing to create more inclusive workplaces. Scroll through the long list of actions submitted by CEOs to get inspired by their tangible actions.Rethink your “Water Cooler gossip.” When chatting with coworkers about the latest “tea” on your fellow female coworkers, take a moment to think about the effects your words say in making an exclusive workplace. Would the gossip be the same if it was about a man? How does it portray women in the office?Donate to a charity for women/girls. There are many nonprofits that need our ongoing support every month, not just this month. Donating to these organizations is a great way to help initiate societal change and make a difference. Entrepreneur.com provides a list of great women nonprofits to check out.Start every meeting off with an educational tidbit. Remind your employees of Women’s History Month by mentioning a relevant statistic/fact before every meeting begins. This is a great way to bring awareness to your workforce by giving the employees the “why” behind this important month. For example, your workforce might be interested to know that at the start of 2020, women held only 38% of entry-level management jobs while men held 62%. Or that approximately 1 in 5 C-Suite leaders are women.Conduct an equity audit. Audit your hiring rates, compensation, and promotions – they should be comparable across various groups. Take a look at your organization’s leadership to determine if it’s homogeneous or full of diversity. Audit your policies and practices with an eye toward disparate impact and inequity. An audit will be eye opening, and it will also provide a path for gender equality in your organization. I found a great list of equity audit templates to get you started.Provide your workforce with allyship/upstander training. You probably have a workforce full of people who want to speak up when they witness something exclusive happen, like a microaggression or insensitive joke, but don’t know how. Speaking up in those situations is not a natural talent we’re all born with, and even if it was, your workforce is wondering how their manager or employer would support them if they took the leap to allyship. Providing training sends that message of support of allyship, and the right training can deliver tools for doing it well. Our interactive training discusses incivility and microaggressions, addresses getting over the fear of speaking up, and provides a wealth of real-world tools one could use in the moment to protect themselves or a peer from negativity.Conduct an employee survey that measures perceptions of discrimination, harassment, and inequity. Many organizations are already doing employee engagement surveys – important if you want to measure the level of employee engagement. However, discovering perceptions of inequity or discrimination, trust in leadership’s commitment to equity, or whether some races are more or less engaged than others, requires different measurement tools. CAUTION: Don’t ask these questions unless you’re prepared to address the issues you’ll discover by asking them. That’s why we tailor our surveys for all our clients; because the workforce and the leaders have to be ready to swiftly respond to the survey results.Use your company’s talents to influence gender equality. No matter what your organization’s product or service is, consider how it might positively influence your community. For example, many industries, such as insurance and IT, lack diversity and that makes it difficult for companies in this space to hire from a diverse talent pool. Your organization can make an impact by providing employees with flexible work schedules, hiring female interns from under-represented groups at the local college or university, or offering generous paternal leave policies. Here are some businesses that are helping support women, to get you inspired.

We’ll see you at the webinar on April 1! Register here.

Catherine

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Celebrate Women’s Month by Addressing COVID’s Impact on Women

Do an internet search on the impact of COVID for women, and you’ll find many (hundreds? thousands?) articles from high-powered consulting firms, respected journalists and media venues, bloggers, vloggers, social media influencers, your neighbors, cousins, and working moms. 

Make no mistake, the impact of COVID is huge for women. Hugely negative, that is.

McKinsey, for example, reported that women’s jobs are 1.8 times more vulnerable to the COVID crisis than men’s. Women make up 39% of global employment but account for 54% of COVID job losses.

One important explanation is that women are often the essential worker at home. They’ve been doing an average of 75% of the world’s unpaid care work – childcare, cooking, cleaning – the “second shift” – for a long time (since forever).  

Now, according to the 2020 Women in the Workplace study, mothers are 1 ½ times more likely than fathers to spend an extra 3+ hours per day on housework and childcare.

This is an additional 20 hours per week; a new and unpaid part-time job.

No wonder 76% of mothers of young children indicate childcare is a top challenge in COVID, compared to only 54% of fathers. 

Across the board, mothers are more likely than fathers to reduce their work hours (17% versus 9% respectively), switch to a less demanding job (16% vs 11%), take a leave of absence (15% vs 9%), and move to part time (8% vs 2%). 100% of them say it’s to avoid burnout and maintain their sanity. 

All of this sets back gender equality efforts. The women who reduce hours, change jobs, or take time off will never recoup. In fact, Deloitte reports that 7 out of 10 women believe their career progression will slow down.

Meanwhile, men will gain from these women’s choices (i.e., predetermined destiny) as they continue to climb the ladder of success. They’ll have been at work, after all. 

So, what can you do? 

One option is to provide as flexible a work schedule as your business can handle. While it’s not fair that women take on so much more at home, it’s the reality we’ve lived in for decades and it’s only becoming more real in COVID. The easier you make it on women to remain in the workforce, the more likely they are to stay. 

Be vigilant in your hiring and promotions of women. HR professionals have always looked down on people with gaps in their resume – we might be more forgiving moving forward. If members of your female workforce take a leave of absence, do your best to keep the leave of absence out of your salary increase calculations. 

It’s also important to make it clear you are open and interested in whatever ideas your workforce has for making it work. As a business owner myself, I understand that it’s a tall order to bend and shift your business to fit the needs of every worker. But if you’re too rigid, you’re setting back gender equality… possibly by decades. 

A resource

If you’re in California, I hope you’ll join me on a free webinar with employment law attorney, Chris Olmsted from Ogletree Deakins. We’re going to discuss options for flexible work, how to gain buy-in and positive performance, metrics to evaluate success, wage and hour compliance, essential policies, and more. 

The webinar isn’t necessarily focused on women, but surely your female workforce will benefit.

The webinar is on April 1st at 9 am Pacific. Register here.

Sincerely,

Catherine

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27 Employer Branding Ideas for Social Media

Recently my friend, Steve Bellach from Bottomline Marketing, and I did a webinar on employer branding. Employer brand is just like your customer brand, but rather than focused on customers, it’s focused on potential candidates out there in the world and current employees. It can also boost your customer brand as customers gain insight into who your company really is and what it represents. If you missed the webinar, you can watch it here. Steve provided a bunch of tips for going through the process of developing your brand, and I provided a bunch of tips for ensuring the brand you put “out there” matches what’s actually happening in your organization. It got me thinking about how you might highlight your brand on social media to attract potential candidates (and customers). So I asked Sameen, our talented HR Assistant, to develop a list for you.  Keep in mind that you don’t have to do it all on your own. The more employees involved, the better! Here are 27 ways to build your employer brand on social media:  Pictures of employees with their favorite quote or hobby. Anything to help people get to know your workforce.Announcements about promotions, new hires, work anniversaries, and other exciting happenings.Information about perks and benefits via video, gifs, or pictures. One by one, highlight your leadership development program, your company-wide subscription to LinkedIn Learning, your retirement programs, your flex work policy, and more.Announcements of employee, team, and company accomplishments. Celebrate hitting goals, overcoming challenges, or receiving awards.Client case studies, testimonials, and even short conversations with them about their own areas of expertise.Share news articles about your clients, and reshare some of their social media posts. Also congratulate them on their wins (even when you had nothing to do with them).Photos of the workspace or a video tour. Highlight your break room, conference room, offices, worksites, etc. These days you could include photos of willing employees working from home. Pictures and videos of company events. You might share holiday parties, training events, staff meetings… the list is endless.Photos and videos of the team giving back to the community. Participating in clean-ups, walk-a-thons, and other community service is a great way to promote your brand during the event and online during and after.Quotes, blog posts or videos from employees discussing their favorite thing about working there.Quotes, blog posts or videos from leaders and employees regarding the company core values and how they personally live them at work each day.Quotes, blog posts or videos from leaders regarding ways in which the company as a whole demonstrates its core values.Socially responsible comments on topics such as equity and inclusion. For example, “We applaud our local mayor today for her speech on creating more equity in local government jobs. We look forward to seeing her plan unfold.” Or, “We’re looking forward to the local Pride parade this Saturday! Our workforce will be there in droves – see you there!” If you’re comfortable with it, feel free to go deeper and more meaningful by commenting on laws, political figures, and social movements.Support and promote other organizations who contribute to a greater cause or movement related to your industry, mission, or core values.Links to articles and events related to your industry. Videos and short posts about how the company maintains its company culture and addresses hiccups, challenges and problems.Information about internal company happenings. Consider it a company-wide newsletter, only its out there for all your potential top candidates to see.Information about initiatives the organization is engaging in and the progress being made, such as equity and inclusion, creating a new product or service, or increasing market share or customer satisfaction ratings.Updates about current job openings. Be sure to highlight tasks, how the job impacts you or your clients, benefits, and more. You might also provide continuous updates about how the hunt for new talent is going. (e.g., “We’ve already received 100 applications for this role! We’re excited you’re excited!”)Job description videos to bring the job to life. Consider recruiting employees already in that role to talk about what they do, or managers to talk about how the team runs or why it’s a great place to work.Information for potential candidates about the recruiting and interviewing process. Include who they might meet with, what happens next, etc.Information about your VIP onboarding process. You could even acknowledge and celebrate the milestones your new hires hit to bring onboarding to life for outsiders.Videos of your employees delivering a testimonial about your product or service – only if they actually use it and like it of course.Post messages related to various holidays throughout the year, and not just the mainstream ones. Warning: Be sure you have a full understanding of what the holiday you’re posting about represents before doing so. If you’re going to do it, do it right.Create a unique hashtag to connect messaging to your company – Relativity, for example, uses #ActOnIt to highlight their initiatives in the tech space.Join other trending hashtags – Ibotta joined a trending hashtag on #NationalCatDay to share their mutual love for their feline friends with this Facebook post. On a day like this, you could also encourage cat-owning employees to post pictures of themselves with their cats using the cat day hashtag alongside your company’s hashtag.If you have positive employee survey results, such as a 98% net promoter score (NPS), then celebrate it. If your survey platform creates word clouds for open-ended questions, such as, “What’s your favorite thing about working here?” post a picture of them. Also post a little on opportunities for improvement and what you’re doing to fix them.  Whew! That’s a lot of ideas. I think Sameen just created a list of responsibilities for herself.  Sincerely, Catherine & The Civility Partners Team

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