The pandemic has placed extra attention on employee mental health. The heightened feelings of anxiety and depression among the workforce have forced companies to address the inadequacies in their approach to employee wellbeing.

At HiBob, we conducted a global survey to understand the impact of the pandemic on employee mental health and productivity. Forty-nine percent surveyed said their mental health over the past year significantly affected their productivity.

Even before the pandemic, in 2019, the World Health Organization labeled employee burnout a medical condition. As the number of people struggling with mental health continues to increase, employers and HR need to be proactive in their approach to helping people cope. Here are some best practices HR can consider to move the needle on mental health.

1. Talk about mental health

The stigma around mental health makes it a difficult subject to bring up. Most people who suffer from anxiety or depression have years of experience faking wellness, especially at the office. People felt they had to leave their personal lives at home for so long. If someone feels emotional at work, the impulse is not to let anyone know. But this behavior can make a stressful situation worse.

The only way to reduce the stigma around mental health is to talk about it openly, honestly, and often. An open work environment and understanding can make all the difference in empowering people to ask for help. How can HR have an impact here? It starts with a top-down approach.

When people see directors and executives speaking openly about mental health—their struggles, treatment, what’s worked, and what hasn’t—it helps everyone else feel secure in reaching out for help.

Asking a C-level or director to introduce sessions on mental-health education by speaking about their own experiences dealing with stress and burnout can make a huge impact. This will make other people feel comfortable about sharing without the fear of being misunderstood or worse–fired. It will also give people dealing with mental health a role model within the company. 

2. Find ways to promote employee wellbeing

If your company offers flexible working conditions, keep it up! Our own global survey showed that flexibility is a key driver in employee satisfaction and that the flexibility remote work offers has led to a better work-life balance. 

Promoting flexible work schedules and giving people the freedom to work the way they want can reduce stress and burnout.

HR can also use May as a jumping-off point to double down on company initiatives to promote employee wellbeing. At HiBob, we created a 31-day mental health challenge calendar for our Bobbers as a small but important reminder that taking care of our mental health requires daily effort. 

The calendar is filled with best practices for avoiding stress and burnout. When the lines between home and work get blurred, it can be difficult to disconnect and step away—not great for mental health. Encourage your people to practice self-care however they see fit, whether that’s taking meetings outside, scheduling break times throughout the day, or blocking out 30 minutes every day to meditate and stretch.

These small daily habits, when added up, can lead to happier and healthier people. Download the calendar PDF to print out and hang at your desk. Or, save our digital version as your computer background.

3. Create employee resource groups (ERGs) dedicated to mental health 

Talking about mental health in the workplace with co-workers who have shared experiences can help people understand the triggers that heighten anxiety and stress and learn healthy coping strategies. ERGs are an excellent way for people to find each other and create support networks at work.

HR doesn’t have to lead the initiative, but it should provide resources and backing from leadership and let employees handle the rest. ERGs are an easy way to increase awareness and offer peer support. They also help send the message that it’s okay to talk about their mental health at work. And you can set one up right now.

4. Make it easier for employees to get treatment

In the US, most people receive their health insurance through their employer. Does the insurance your company offers employees cover mental health? The sad reality is that, for most people, a therapy session is five times more likely to be out of network and more expensive than a visit with a primary care physician.

What if companies started viewing mental health benefits as equal to physical health benefits? Speak to your health-benefits administrators to understand how your company can provide people with access to a broader range of behavioral and mental health providers.

If your company can’t offer an insurance plan that covers therapy treatments, there are other options. The tech sphere around mental health is booming, and companies can harness these digital tools to provide at least some mental healthcare to their employees. 

Talkspace, BetterHelp, and Ginger make speaking to a therapist more affordable, which employers can provide as a benefit, free of charge. Meditation and sleep-aid apps, like Headspace and Calm, are also popular apps that can help people develop healthy habits and remind them to take a break. Another option is hiring a mental health counselor who can help people deal with stress and anxiety and provide real-time, anonymous support. 

5. Train managers in proactive and preventive measures

People need to feel comfortable sharing their struggles in their work environment. Ultimately, managers can offer the best support and acceptance to team members coping with their mental health. 

In our global survey, of those whose mental health was majorly affected by the pandemic, over 70 percent said managers were supportive and took an active role in caring for their mental health. 

Manager support can be the difference between someone quitting and having a successful career. HR leaders need to invest in their managers and provide them with the tools and training to ask better questions, spot signs of stress and burnout, and lead with empathy.

People should feel confident to approach their managers and ask for help, and managers need to know how to react to team members who ask for help. Make sure managers are setting time to speak to their people to check in on how they’re feeling, not just how their tasks are progressing.

HR’s role in caring for employee mental health

You can always do more to care for your people’s wellbeing and mental health. When we stop seeing mental health as a weakness and start talking about it more, we can make real change. Think about your own experiences with stress or burnout or anxiety and how lonely it feels when there’s no one around who can relate. 

The truth is that there are so many people out there who can relate, if only it were okay to speak up. As an HR leader, think about one thing you can do today that will make a difference to the mental health of your people and do it. 

The post Let’s talk about mental health in the workplace and what HR can do appeared first on HiBob.

Losing key people limits productivity, damages morale, and requires companies to spend vast amounts of money and effort on finding and training replacements. Some turnover is healthy, but it can be an issue when it gets in the way of productivity or forces your recruiting staff to scramble to fill open roles.  

To stem the flow of turnover, start with why people are most likely to leave. Here are five reasons professionals tend to leave their jobs and strategies your HR team can use to reduce employee turnover. 

Main reasons for employee turnover

Chronic stagnation 

A major demotivator is the lack of new professional horizons. Promising the “same old, same old” only guarantees that your most ambitious and talented people will tune out of your company and check out of their role entirely. One survey found that 42 percent of respondents feel that their job satisfaction is based on having opportunities for career development.

Dependency disorder

Over 70 percent of people rank empowerment as an essential element of their engagement at work, meaning that your stars will up and leave if they don’t feel empowered to own their roles and responsibilities at your company. By giving your people decision-making authority, they’ll be able to grow their skills, which will benefit the entire business. 

A smart way to empower your people is to have department leads set strategic goals and benchmarks. Then, they should allow their people to work out how to hit these targets. Such an environment will jumpstart your people’s creativity and encourage them to develop their own ideas.

Feedback deficiency syndrome 

Giving constructive feedback is crucial to people’s individual growth, making them feel that their efforts are being noticed and valued. Giving honest feedback can be tough, but it’s also one of the keys to a successful company. For feedback to work, you need to make it continuous and apply it to everyone in your company, from the newest intern to the CEO. 

The feedback that motivates someone to do better tends to focus on the problem (not the person), is supportive in tone, and gives people the power to work out a solution with their managers. Once you have a feedback loop that puts people at ease, you’ll start to see dramatic changes in the employee lifecycle.

Not so wellbeing

People with a strong and steady work-life balance are 10 percent more likely to stay at their company. And prioritizing your people’s wellbeing will also positively impact your company’s bottom line. In fact, most companies notice a positive change in their people’s productivity after they return from a vacation. Flexible work schedules, the opportunity to work remotely, and generous paid leave policies will go a long way toward showing your people that their work-life balance is a top organizational priority.

Technophobia

Technology is directly linked to increased workplace productivity. This is why companies should invest in the kinds of technology that helps their people adjust to their roles’ rapidly changing demands. 

Many decision-makers understand the strong connection between leveraging technology and retention rates. According to one study, 51 percent of business leaders say that outdated and inadequate technology impacts their ability to retain skilled professionals. Today’s working men and women, especially Millennials, expect their employers to provide the digital tools they need to work at maximum efficiency.

How to reduce employee turnover

Understanding what might be causing high employee turnover is just part of the retention equation. If you want to hold on to your people and reduce attrition rates, it’s just as important to learn strategies to reduce turnover.

Hire the right people

Retention starts with hiring, making recruitment the first step in preventing employee turnover. Throughout the recruitment process, aim for transparency about everything from company culture to job responsibilities. The better new hires understand what they’re getting into, the more likely they are to stay.

Offer competitive compensation

The number one reason why people switch jobs is to seek better compensation. This means that to hold on to your people, you’ll have to offer a competitive compensation package including salary, benefits, as well as fair promotions and regular raises. A failure to do so is an easy way to start hemorrhaging talent. 

Allow for flexible work arrangements

In the aftermath of the COVID pandemic, flexible work arrangements are no longer a plus. They’re a must. A sky-high 80 percent of employees report that they want to work remotely at least two days per week and are willing to leave their jobs to meet their need for flexibility. 

Exactly what work arrangements you offer are up to you and what fits your organization. But flexibility should be top of mind when deciding your policies regarding work from home, time off, sick days, and the like.

Prioritize wellbeing

With burnout, overwhelm, and workplace stress a constant threat, it’s no wonder why 61 percent of people cite better wellbeing in the workplace as very important to them. In addition to offering more flexibility, creating wellness initiatives focused on stress reduction and overall health can significantly improve your retention.

Make room for growth

If you’re not already investing in helping your people grow and develop, you may be at serious risk for attrition. A whopping 94 percent of people report that they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their careers. It pays off, with retention rates being 34 percent higher among organizations that offer professional development opportunities. 

You can show that your company is taking an active interest in its people’s growth by sending them to conferences and workshops or creating a mentoring program. Other options include promoting from within your company whenever you can and offering tuition assistance and upskilling initiatives.

Offer rewards and recognition

While rewards and acts of recognition may seem minor to the party giving it, they can make a major difference to the receiver. Eighty percent of people consider recognition to be an important part of their happiness at work. Additionally, 63 percent of people who regularly receive credit at work consider themselves very unlikely to seek a new job in the next three to six months. 

Whether it’s a flashy statement like bonuses and gifts or a more understated shoutout in a team chat room, be sure to create policies that encourage and enable management to give recognition often.

Care about culture

Company culture is a tricky thing to get right. A great culture doesn’t just happen because you want it to—it must be created from the top down with careful consideration and authentic buy-in throughout the organization. But the effort is worth it for its ability to improve retention:  Disengaged people are nearly three times more likely to leave their company for a better culture than their engaged counterparts. In addition to improving engagement, a strong culture should reduce employee turnover because it affects everything that goes on in the company, from its values, rituals, and norms to its approach to performance. 

Analyze existing issues

All of the above are tips that apply widely to all organizations, but it’s important to look at your organization’s particular situation regarding turnover and retention. Using HR software, you can find your company’s attrition rate, calculate the cost of employee turnover, and dig into potential reasons why people are leaving. This will give you a picture of what employee turnover reduction techniques may best suit your company and its unique circumstances.

Does your company serve cocktails?

There’s no single magic remedy for the scourge of high employee turnover. A more realistic goal is to build and maintain a culture that offers up a variety of treatments that can prolong the employee lifecycle at your company. 

Your culture should identify people’s hopes, dreams, needs, and challenges, as it’s much more likely to keep its best and brightest from getting up and quitting. There’s no cure-all for attrition. Rather, a powerful cocktail of employee wellbeing, growth opportunities, and recognition concocted by your HR team can prevent random workplace symptoms from turning into a turnover epidemic.

The post How to reduce employee turnover appeared first on HiBob.

The question of whether AI will replace HR is admittedly a silly one. Machines can do a lot, but HR’s role will always require human skill, knowledge, and above all, empathy. AI will not replace HR, but it will undoubtedly enhance it.

AI presents the possibility to deploy HR skills in an entirely new and experimental way. Here are three ways in which the intersection of AI and HR will deliver a significant impact. 

1. Predict changes before they happen

Predictive HR analytics—which uses historical data to predict future outcomes—is gaining traction in HR departments to understand the workforce better. With the correct data on hand, HR can take a proactive approach to organizational challenges before they arise. One area where predictive analytics has had a significant impact is employee turnover. Predictive models can mine through employee data and find patterns that can clue HR into why employees leave, which can help HR figure out how to retain them. The models act as an early warning system, alerting HR and managers to the critical risk factors of employee attrition – and prompting managers to intervene before it is too late. One interesting example comes from Facebook. The company found that employees who don’t fill out either of their two annual surveys are 2.6 times more likely to quit in the next six months. With that information in hand, HR can alert managers to anyone on their team who is a possible flight risk, and managers can intervene. 

2. Enhance the employee experience with chatbots

Chatbots and AI-powered assistants have been around for a while, and their presence in our work lives will only increase. Gartner predicts that, by 2025, 50% of knowledge workers will use a virtual assistant daily, up from 2% in 2019. There are many potential use-cases for workplace chatbots and AI assistants—answering candidate questions during recruitment, offering extra assistance to new hires during onboarding, and delivering instant responses to employee questions. Chatbots are especially helpful when onboarding global hires. No matter the time difference, your new employees can get the help they need instantly. They can also boost employee wellbeing and monitor workplace stress. Some companies have even begun experimenting with AI coaches to provide personalized mentoring to hundreds of employees. 

3. Spend less time on repetitive tasks

Imagine an HR department free of time-consuming administrative tasks. AI can significantly reduce the time it takes to complete HR processes by automating recurring workflows and streamlining document-heavy tasks. When done manually, these tasks can take hours on end. Research from HiBob found that the average HR manager wastes 38 days a year sorting through spreadsheets and juggling data sources. One HiBob customer told us they spent around eight hours pulling data out of spreadsheets for their monthly management meeting. Another customer told us they were running performance reviews for their 800-person workforce using Google Docs. AI-powered technologies can centralize all of your employee data, run smart reports and help you save time for the important stuff. 

Take time to understand HR 2.0

The one thing that unites all of these technology solutions is the need for human intervention. HR leaders have a unique understanding of what motivates and engages their people, and no machine can make up for that innate understanding. AI will not replace HR, but it will enhance HR’s ability to be effective and strategic.

The post Will AI replace the “human” in HR? appeared first on HiBob.

But for all of the opportunities that new technology presents, it also comes with an asterisk. “Companies are throwing money at HR tools right now searching for ways to transform their workforces, make people more productive, and improve quality of hire, skills development, and employee engagement and retention,” says HR thought leader Josh Bersin. “But this is starting to create chaos.” 

Bersin notes that the average large company now has 9.1 core talent applications (up from 7 in 2018). With all of the systems available for HR teams—from point solutions that track engagement or manage timesheets to suite solutions that do everything from performance reviews to engagement surveys—it’s essential to assess the needs of your company and employees before choosing a solution. 

Here are four things to think about before settling on a point or suite solution. 

1. What’s the problem?

The HR department handles everything from recruiting to engagement to payroll to compensation. That’s a lot of moving parts, which is why it’s essential that everything stays organized, streamlined and that the system makes efficient use of the HR team’s time. A suite solution provides the obvious answer. The features of a one-stop-shop HR platform are robust enough to cover all areas of the employee lifecycle and act as a central hub for the HR team. The beauty of these suite solutions is that they are customizable, and HR leaders can tailor the features to how they run their organizations. And, if you choose a platform with a robust integration marketplace, there’s nothing that you’re missing from a suite solution. 

2. What’s the ROI of implementing a new tool?

Like anything else in your company’s tech stack, a new tool needs to prove its value. ROI for an HR department can take on many forms—from saving the HR team time and money to providing increased engagement, retention, or employee satisfaction. 

Think about how the tools you implement will make employees’ work lives better. “HR software used to be designed for HR managers: today, it is designed for employees,” says Bersin. “That means that if it is not easy to use, easy to modify, and embedded into the flow of work – it won’t get used much at all.” 

A suite solution ensures easy adoption. Instead of having to learn how to use different systems, your employees only need to become proficient in navigating one. The more tools you ask your employees to engage with, the less they will get to intimately know these tools and use them to their full potential.

3. What are your budget and priorities? 

The number of point solutions out there are endless—survey and engagement tools, employee recognition platforms, performance review solutions, and more.  The cost of these platforms can quickly add up and overtake your entire budget. Plan out your department’s budget and priorities, and then assess your tech options based on nice-to-haves and need-to-haves. With the right integrations, a suite solution will likely tick off most if not all of your priorities. 

Since point solutions are built to solve one problem and solve it really well, your HR team will need to implement a few point solutions to solve all of their needs. This strategy can lead to another major headache—lots of systems that individually do a great job, but can’t easily communicate or share data. The challenges this creates can range from the simple administrative nightmare of re-entering the same data into multiple systems to bigger problems, like having data scattered across systems, making it difficult to get useable, accurate, and actionable data. As you continue to add more point solutions, this data integration problem becomes even more complicated. 

4. What’s your growth trajectory?

If your company plans on growing and scaling, you need an HR platform that will grow with you. With a suite solution, all your data is organized in one place, making it accessible, consistent, and accurate—reducing friction as you scale or prepare for due diligence. As you hire more employees, expand into new geos, or support new ways of working, your HR team will need a platform that will aid the process rather than get in the way. For example, when you move into new global sites, your systems will have to support different currencies, languages, regulations. A suite solution can support growth better by centralizing all of your people data (one source of truth) and easily changing between languages and currencies based on the settings you choose per location. 

HR tech matters more than ever this year

HR leaders today have the option to go with a single suite of products or to opt for point solutions and work to integrate them in order to share data across platforms. If your HR department has specific challenges that need to be addressed, point solutions can provide the answer. Today you can buy platforms that track employee emails, identify strong performers, provide AI career coaching, and connect remote workers. But for most HR departments, who need a swiss army knife of products and features, a suite solution is the way to go.

The post Suite vs. point solutions: 4 things to think about before you choose appeared first on HiBob.

HR automation can be deployed to automate tedious processes, streamline information, and integrate your tech stack, significantly reducing the time and headache it takes to complete HR processes. Automated workflows build on this efficiency, allowing HR to create a chain of events that, when put into motion, ensure that everything on that giant “to do” list gets completed and that everyone’s aligned.  

Meet Bob’s custom Workflows

Workflows in Bob help you and your people stay organized and efficient, so you can keep your HR operations running smoothly. Bob’s flexible flow structure is entirely customizable and supports you as your organization grows or changes, adapting to your specific needs. HR can set up Workflows in just a few clicks, so you can keep everyone in the loop and still have time to make a cup of coffee before your morning standup.

How does it work in Bob?

Workflows are dynamic and help you stay on top of your company’s rapidly-changing needs. Create as many processes as you need using custom fields with or without approvers (your choice!) and track every stage of the process on a sleek dashboard. You can assign and re-assign new processes to managers, select the fields they need to fill out, set an approval process, and the system will trigger a list of “To-Dos.” It’s a huge time saver for internal changes such as promotions or compensation updates. 

Workflows can be created per team or site so you can decide who needs to be involved in any flow. Approving department changes, promotions, and direct requests move like a domino effect; every action triggering another action until everything is complete, all without a single speedbump to slow down the process.

• Always aligned: Assign, re-assign, and notify those who need to stay in the know. Maintain accurate records and save time by avoiding mistakes and human error. 
• Always trackable: Keep an eye on approvers, requesters, and admins. Monitor task progress and give others a little nudge when needed. 
• Always efficient: Automate tasks, emails, and feedback collection across your organization. Auto-send surveys at just the right time (after onboarding or at the end of a performance cycle).

Investing in automated workflow tools is a must

For companies looking to grow, investing in HR automation is a business imperative. HR workflows require many stages and sets of eyes when it comes to approvals and updates. Quite frankly, it’s a major pain in the admin. HR teams have a lot to gain from the combination of automation and custom workflows—allowing them to run HR their way while maintaining efficiency and alignment across the board. 

The post Why your HR team needs automated workflows appeared first on HiBob.

A hybrid work model is more complicated than the fully remote one we’ve gotten used to. Employers are a long way from knowing how it will work, what exactly it will look like, or what new challenges it will create.

The question of who comes into the office and when is the first place to start, but there are lots more that follow. What work is better done in the office versus remotely? How will meetings be conducted? How can we redesign the office space to accommodate hybrid work? How can we give remote employees the same visibility as those who come into HQ? How can we account for the diversity of working styles? What does company culture look like in a hybrid work world?

How will we know if any of this is working?

We sat down (virtually) with Karthika to hear how Vita Mojo’s HR team is approaching the future of hybrid work and why she’s taking a two-month pause on employee surveys. 

Here are the highlights:

1. Building work relationships in a remote setting is very challenging

Simon Sinek says, “Music is what happens between the notes. Trust is what happens between the meetings.” Karthika is a Sinek fan, and this quote articulates her ideas about the relationships we form at work—and why it’s so difficult to build those same relationships in a virtual world. 

From an HR perspective, she thinks about finding ways to make up for the in-office interactions and learning through osmosis that people miss out on in remote environments. In the office, employees can see the “big picture” just by sitting next to a coworker at lunch and asking, “So, what are you working on this week?” For new starters and more junior employees, this is especially important. A new hire can benefit just by being around their manager and present for all of the conversations that happen during the workday—missing in a remote environment. “We know that [being in the office] is something that junior people on a team need for organic growth. Some may find it difficult to build trust, and adding a screen can be quite detrimental to establishing that trust,” said Karthika. 

2. The office might need a redesign

The design of the office makes a huge difference to people’s mental health and productivity. Karthika says companies should think about why employees want to come into the office and design the space around that. Do you need more meeting rooms for team collaboration, more silent spaces for Zoom calls, or a bigger cafeteria for lunch and learn? Maybe all of the above. In a hybrid work model, HR must make up for the imbalance between remote and in-office work and be intentional in crafting their hybrid work strategies—office layout included. 

3. HR has to accommodate for different working styles and personalities 

Hybrid work has exposed our different working styles. Some people are thrilled to be back in the office and eager to make connections, while others will have to relearn how to stay productive in a noisy and overstimulating environment. Some have found that they love working from home, while others feel remote work is lonely and isolating. 

Age and experience also play a factor here. At VitaMojo, the majority of senior managers asked to work from home 3-4 days per week, while more junior employees asked for 1-2 days of remote work. And while HR can’t accommodate every personality and preference, you can find wide-scale solutions that will help most people. For Vita Mojo, they started with a choice-first approach to coming back to the office. In the future, those solutions might include learning and development programs that will provide new skills and mentorship to junior employees. For now, HR needs to appreciate the different styles of working and build data around how people work before making any major decisions or long-term plans.

4. Productivity will look different now

Productivity in the office looks different than productivity at home. Conversations in the office might seem like stuff that happens between work, but as previously noted, it’s instrumental in building workplace connections. Getting a coffee before a meeting and talking with your coworkers about weekend plans adds to team productivity, and it also feels great to talk to coworkers about life outside of work. Group meetings just flow better in person, and when everyone’s in the same room, the silence in brainstorming sessions feels encouraging, not awkward. But all of this social energy can be draining. Karthika noted that data from Geekbot found that employees were more tired the day after being in the office. HR and managers have to be aware of the highs and lows of being back in the office and give people time to relearn how to balance it all. Part of this can be rethinking what productivity looks like for hybrid work. 

5. Surveying and testing is great, but wait a minute

One month ago, Vita Mojo reopened its offices for employees, and as Karthika said, “People feel great now, but that can all change.” When it comes to bringing people back to the office, the stakes are very high. HiBob conducted a global survey and found that 36% of the workforce is likely to quit their jobs if forced back to the office. HR teams know that they have to go the extra mile during transitional periods to make people feel supported. So the temptation is to survey your people as much as possible. Not so fast. 

“HR needs to give people time to adapt to the new work style and only then ask them to think about how we can make it better,” said Karthika. She said any data you find now would likely go out the window in two months, which is why it’s best to wait.

“Asking people to reflect is sometimes better than asking for someone’s thoughts at the moment. Our feelings can change from day to day. Hybrid work needs a long-term strategy, so we need people to think past the current moment, and once they’ve gotten a feel for everything, to then think ahead,” she said. 

6. Everything can change, so continue to test and measure

The world of work is changing every day, and that means HR teams need to remain agile and, as Karthika says, plan for the worst and hope for the best. HR needs to build the processes and gather the data it needs to keep its finger on the pulse and get ahead of any major changes that can disrupt employees. 

“We can’t ask questions all the time or cater to every single person, but we can create resources to let us know when things aren’t going right,” said Karthika. For her team, these resources include metrics such as absenteeism rates, mental health days, and employee usage of chatbots like Geekbot and Spill. At the Vita Mojo office, there are colored lanyards that employees can wear—green, amber, and yellow— to let coworkers know if it’s safe to approach. This is another way for HR to quickly measure employee sentiment and anxieties around being back in the office without sending out a survey or asking employees individually. Think holistically about how you measure the effectiveness of your current hybrid work setup and what KPIs you want to achieve. 

There’s no playbook for how hybrid work should look. Hybrid work at your company might look different in six months or a year. For now, HR’s job is to observe, measure, support, and prepare for more changes to come.  

The post 6 hybrid work lessons from Vita Mojo’s Head of People appeared first on HiBob.

While some turnover is healthy, “The Great Resignation” has the power to blindside companies if they’re not attuned to the main motivations driving this shift. HR leaders need to understand, why are people quitting, and what are they looking for instead? 

“Over the course of the past 18 months, while all of us were under lockdown, there was very little movement happening,” said Rhiannon Staples, HiBob’s CMO. “Now that things are returning to normal there is a great talent war that’s at play, particularly in white-collar organizations where people are leaving for better fit, better pay, better flexibility, better opportunity, better culture, and better location. The motivations are vast but people are making the decision now to shift out of their current organizations and move on.”

Rhiannon sat down for a fireside chat with HR Summer School to share her insights on employee retention and why flexibility needs to be a part of every company’s back-to-office strategy. 

You can watch here, or scroll down for main takeaways. 

Main takeaways:

1. Employees don’t want to be in the office five days a week. 

Recent data from HiBob shows that only 14% of employees want to return to the office full-time*, while more than a third of employees are likely to quit if forced back to the office five days a week. Overall, about 80% of employees —prefer various hybrid work solutions. People want more flexibility, and that includes the flexibility to work from anywhere and the flexibility to set working hours.  Think about a dad who wants to log off early to get his kids out of daycare and to the park before dinner. A company that will allow him to make up this time by starting earlier or logging on for a bit after the kids are in bed is a huge perk for working parents. The same goes for your employee who has to take her mother to physical therapy midday, three times a week. It’s not just where someone works that allows for a better work-life balance, but when they work as well. 

What is your preferred hybrid work structure?

2. Use surveys and data to inform your people strategies

If you want to know what your employees need to stay motivated and happy, the best thing to do is to ask and listen. Surveys are an instant and accessible way for HR leaders to get data on their people and processes, which can be used to inform future decisions. Data is the best foundation an HR leader can stand on when trying to get buy-in from C-levels and managers—nobody can debate data. How often you survey your people, and the questions you ask, will depend on the needs of the moment. Wait for people to settle into hybrid work and adjust to the “new normal” before asking them what changes they’d like to see. 

3. Managers and HR need to work together

The manager-HR relationship is instrumental in avoiding turnover. Managers are an HR team’s eyes and ears during this transitional phase of work and are in the best position to guide HR on what might benefit their team’s productivity and happiness. HR needs to cultivate this relationship, and train managers in how to assess employee needs, how to spot signs of burnout or stagnation, and how to ask questions, seek feedback, and deliver data to HR.  Additionally, training managers in how to hire, how to manage, and how to engage hybrid teams is a key part of success. 

4. Make sure the office has a purpose so employees want to come in 

The office is evolving from an everyday workspace to a place designated for socialization, collaboration, and company culture. 

Pre-pandemic, what was the office most useful for?

Companies implementing hybrid models may use in-office time more for meetings, get-togethers, and onboarding, and less for individual work and clocking in and out. Companies should also make it seamless for in-office employees to communicate with remote employees, by adding more private meeting rooms for Zoom calls or instituting a “one person one screen” policy for group meetings.

How to avoid “The Great Resignation”

So how can companies avoid a collision course with “The Great Resignation”? Start with a hybrid work policy that motivates your people. At its very core, adopting a hybrid work policy creates a culture of autonomy, accountability, and trust. Allowing employees to work when and where they want is an indirect way of saying ‘I trust the business and our leadership has done a good job to enable you and help you understand what’s expected of you –  and I trust you ‘ll respond by acting in accordance with what’s best for the company.’ That trust the employee has in the company and vice versa is the very foundation of employee engagement—and that will come in handy when a recruiter reaches out to your all-star talent with an exciting offer. 

*On a scale of 1-5 where 1= not likely at all and 5 equals very likely, how likely would you quit working for your company if you are required to fully return to the office post-pandemic?

The total breakdown shows 36% of people are very likely to quit, 17% are somewhat likely to quit, and 47% are not likely to quit if required to fully return to the office post-pandemic. 

The post How HR can get ahead of “The Great Resignation” appeared first on HiBob.

Many companies use AI to automate processes, but there’s so much more that can be gained. According to research involving 1,500 companies, the most significant performance improvements are achieved “when humans and machines work together”.

The study’s co-authors, who published their findings in the book Human + Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI, put it this way: “Through such collaborative intelligence, humans and AI actively enhance each other’s complementary strengths: the leadership, teamwork, creativity, and social skills of the former, and the speed, scalability, and quantitative capabilities of the latter. What comes naturally to people (making a joke, for example) can be tricky for machines, and what’s straightforward for machines (analyzing gigabytes of data) remains virtually impossible for humans. Business requires both kinds of capabilities.”

Here are three ways HR and AI can work together to improve workplace communication. 

1. Open up the conversation around employee wellbeing

If AI’s purpose is to aid human interaction rather than replace it, one area where this can be effective is monitoring employee stress and wellbeing. HR teams can use conversational AI chatbots to provide support for employee wellbeing and tools to deal with stress, workplace conflict, and mental health. With chatbots, employees can raise a hand to ask for help and find the resources on their own. Despite the best efforts of companies to destigmatize mental health, some employees may feel uncomfortable speaking to a colleague about personal struggles. AI chatbots can provide early intervention for employees to deal with stress and help them better communicate to their managers what they need—allowing employees to remain anonymous while seeking help.

Early interventions can be deployed through chatbots, with tips on managing stress and unplugging, or resources on how to resolve workplace conflict. If an employee needs extra support, HR can be notified to reach out to the employee to offer help. The AI and human relationship allows HR to help the most people and reserve extra attention for those who need it.

The future of AI will allow chatbots to display even more complex and human traits, such as sympathy and commiseration. As AI assistants become more conversational, it will feel like texting with a therapist. When employees have the tools to deal with stress or workplace tension, everything else becomes easier. 

2. Keep up with new hires

Getting onboarding right is critical because it sets the tone for the employee’s future at the company. According to research by Work Institute encompassing data from 34,000 exit interviews, approximately 40% of new employees quit within the first year of being hired. Work Institute estimates that three-quarters of that turnover is the result of ineffective onboarding.

This is where AI can help, with chatbots designed to help HR communicate with new hires and make sure they’re completing their onboarding tasks, getting to know the lay of the land, and finding the information they need. For example, bots can help answer questions from the simple, “how do I submit my timesheet?” to the more complex, “who’s the best person to speak to about product integration?”. AI can help employees find the right information, and fast while freeing up HR time. AI assistants are especially helpful when onboarding global hires. No matter the time difference, your new employees can get the help they need, instantly. Gartner predicts that, by 2025, 50% of knowledge workers will use a virtual assistant on a daily basis, up from 2% in 2019. 

The data collected from these AI assistants can also help HR improve the onboarding process by providing insights on what employees are asking for or what they find most useful. For example, if you’re onboarding remotely, you can use AI to see how many new hires are participating in virtual onboarding sessions, if they’re paying attention, or where they’re dropping off. At the end of the session, a chatbot can ask attendees what they thought of the session (all answers should be anonymous) and how it can be improved—feedback which is then relayed to HR. Maybe you’ll find that employees don’t have the patience to listen to a 90-minute presentation, or that some sessions are more engaging than others. HR teams can use this data to keep perfecting the onboarding processes.

3. Make meetings that everyone can “attend”

Meetings are a boost and a drain on productivity. Many companies take a “less is more” approach to meetings, and encourage employees to say no to non-essential meetings, and carve out more time for deep focus. Yet, sometimes valuable information is shared, or an interesting point is raised and you aren’t there to hear it. AI has the power to transform meetings, giving people back their time while accelerating the spread of information.

For example, during a meeting, someone usually has to take notes, which can take their focus away from the agenda on hand. That same person then usually has to send around the meeting notes, cutting them down and making it digestible for an audience that would rather skim than read. And sometimes, despite your best efforts, you miss a crucial point, or you can’t quite articulate the ideas thrown back and forth. Artificial intelligence will be a huge help in this area, allowing employees to record, transcribe, and share meeting notes with the click of a button.  As AI advances, the ability to pick out the most important information will get better, making the process of sending out meeting notes easier, while keeping everyone aligned. A virtual assistant can then send out a follow-up invite, finding a meeting time that works for everyone so that your employees don’t have to spend the next 15 minutes searching through everyone’s work calendar. 

AI and HR: Working together to improve the workplace

HR teams face difficult decisions and complex situations on a daily basis. AI is here to help. As we said earlier, it’s important to remember that AI’s purpose is to aid human interaction rather than replace it. Working together, AI can help free up time for HR, support employees, and, when deployed intentionally, create a stand-out employee experience. 

The post 3 ways AI can improve workplace communication appeared first on HiBob.

Here are three ways HR tech can impact the employee experience. 

1. Get out of Google Docs and make everything more streamlined, efficient, and effective

Technology enables HR teams to get out of spreadsheets, optimize their processes, and use a single centralized platform that houses everything HR needs to operate more efficiently. When HR can operate at full speed, that positive momentum trickles down to employees—not only because HR now has more energy to focus on people-centric initiatives, but because it also makes everything around people management more organized and transparent. 

Take, for example, performance management. The old way of conducting performance reviews was the opposite of efficient. HR teams had to spend a ton of time and attention sending emails, preparing templates, and nudging managers and employees to fill out their reviews. Information was housed across various spreadsheets, and employees didn’t have access to past reviews or peer feedback. Many HR leaders agree that for performance reviews to be effective, they have to be continuous and ongoing—a performance review every 6 or 12 months will do little to motivate your employees to perform. Yet without modern HR technology, it’s easy to see why performance reviews only happened twice a year—the time and effort to conduct one cycle in the old ways of doing business didn’t allow room for much else. 

Today, core HR platforms are designed with user-friendly interfaces to help HR teams easily conduct performance reviews that help employees feel supported, understand their position within the company and their growth opportunities, and access valuable feedback from coworkers. 

2. Create personalized, accessible experiences at scale 

The best HR tech tools drive the most change while requiring the least investment of time and energy by employees and the HR team. For that reason, the growing trend in HR tech is to provide employees with consumer-grade platforms that are easy to use and engaging. These tools can be really simple—from automated timecard entry to an eye-popping org chart to customizable employee profiles that people can use to get to know their coworkers—but they pack a big punch in elevating the employee experience. 

“Employee experience is turning the tech market inside out,” according to HR industry analyst and thought leader Josh Bersin. “Every company is reinventing its employee experience, so they need tools that simplify, automate and digitize everything.” Bersin said companies need tools that “fit together like puzzle pieces and platforms that let them build journeys, back-to-work programs, onboarding and transition programs, and well-being solutions easily. In other words, we need platforms that are not only easy to use but easy to build and customize.”

Easy to build and customizable are key here. If technology is too cumbersome or platforms require too many steps to use, your employees will likely abandon it. But an HR tech platform that integrates with the other platforms that your employees are already using—like Gmail, Slack, or Asana—will create a seamless experience that will provide extra value to your employees. 

3. Keep employees connected and supported, wherever they’re working from

In response to the pandemic, companies took a renewed focus on the employee experience. As employees moved to work from home, HR had to rely on technology—collaboration tools, employee surveys, listening tools—to make up for the lack of in-office interactions and socialization. These tech tools proved vital in keeping employees engaged, productive, and supported. The overnight shift to remote work might have springboarded the business need for innovative HR tech, but the current was always flowing in that direction. Ensuring that employees have the right tools to stay connected is crucial to the company’s bottom line. According to Gallup, highly engaged business units outperform the least engaged by 21% in terms of profitability, 20% in terms of productivity, and 10% in terms of customer loyalty. 

Investing in HR technology is investing in your people

Technology plays a huge role in the employee experience, with solutions to help HR teams and managers tackle all areas of the employee journey—from performance management to wellbeing, inclusion, and remote collaboration. Every HR team will have a different way they do onboarding or career management. Rather than provide one standard approach, the technology your HR team deploys needs to simplify the way work gets done, support employees, and be customizable to allow you to manage people the way you want—HR your way. 

The post 3 ways HR tech can improve the employee experience appeared first on HiBob.

Employee sentiment around remote work proves that there are clear benefits to a more flexible work style. Yet, the freedom and flexibility also pose a unique challenge for HR teams. How can you keep employees connected—to each other, to the big picture, and the company culture—when everyone’s spread apart. 

Here are three tips to help you master communication, collaboration, and celebration, and keep your remote and hybrid workers connected. 

1. Be intentional about how you facilitate communication

In-office communication is a lot more natural than anything over video or text. The way people interact with each other in the office—the coffee breaks, the pre and post-meeting chats, the animated brainstorming sessions, the tap on the shoulder to ask what you’re working on—breeds familiarity and trust and creates team bonds. When you compare that to the way remote teams operate, it’s clear that something is missing. Therefore, communicating well in a remote setting requires extra effort and consideration, which HR has to make up for. Because remote workers are physically separated and don’t have somewhere to hang out and just get to know each other, HR must get creative to facilitate communication. 

One way to do this is by narrowing down the communication and collaboration tools that employees use. Survey employees to find out how they prefer to communicate and select a few tools so that everyone’s aligned and information gets shared in one place, not scattered across a bunch of platforms. “The issue with having so many ways to disseminate information internally is that you spend far too much time chasing messages versus getting work done,” says Sean-Patrick Hillman, CEO of HILLSTORY Marketing. Narrow down your communication tools to the few essentials and communicate to your employees how and when to use them. Encourage employees to use video calls whenever possible for clear communication and to feel like they’re having a face-to-face conversation. Even if it’s through a screen, it’s still better than text or email and can help ensure nothing gets misinterpreted or ignored. 

2. Include remote workers in the in-office collaboration 

You don’t want remote workers to feel excluded from the collaboration that naturally occurs in the office. Some of our habits are office-based, and it takes a little time to change those behaviors to accommodate for remote work. 

For starters, think about how your meetings are conducted. Is everyone logging on from their laptop, or are your in-office employees sitting in a room together? Institute a policy of one person, one screen, so that remote workers don’t feel like an afterthought in group settings. Similarly, make sure the office environment aids remote work. Consider redesigning your office space to make more rooms available for video meetings, which are now a part of our daily lives.

Another thing to think about is how work gets divided between remote and in-office employees. HR must stress to managers that they should provide the same work and project opportunities to remote workers as to those sitting next to them at HQ. Any favoritism sensed by remote employees can have detrimental effects on their morale and motivation, so be sure to train managers to avoid falling into that trap.

3. Connect by celebrating each other

If you want your remote employees to feel connected to the culture and the people, you have to go the extra mile to make them feel appreciated, supported, and included. Remote workers don’t always get the recognition they deserve. But organizations that ignore their people’s contributions are in danger of losing them. One study found that 40% of employees say that they are ignored and are actively disengaged from their work. Your organization should not only recognize your remote workers’ accomplishments but should do so loudly and proudly. Today’s communication and collaboration tools make it easy to call out a remote team member’s big win on all company channels. And doing so will motivate the rest of your remote workers to take their game up a notch.

Keeping remote and hybrid workers connected, across any distance

A survey of almost 3,500 employees found that 45% of remote workers love their jobs. The survey also showed that virtual employees are more ambitious than on-site workers. But, remote workers also need to be more self-motivated than their colleagues back in the office. Sure, not engaging in face-to-face conversations in the break room makes it more difficult to stay connected. But there are ways HR can make up for this. Taking the time and steps required to keep your remote workers engaged will ultimately help them combat the feeling of isolation or loneliness and keep them connected to the team, the company, and the mission. 

The post How to keep your remote and hybrid workers connected appeared first on HiBob.