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Is Talent Acquisition Equipped to Go Up Against the Global Labor Shortage?

For all the concern about AI taking over jobs, an equally pressing question has arisen: Who’ll fill the jobs that still call for human workers? A growing, global talent shortage presents a major threat to businesses across all sectors, countries, and continents. Energy companies don’t have enough green-skilled workers, professional services firms can’t find accountants, and manufacturers are struggling to fill roles on the shop floor.Despite the desperate need for workers, talent acquisition teams report being asked to cut costs and do more with less. Human resources may have moved into the C-suite as a strategic contributor, but not everyone in the department has a seat at the decision-making table. According to new research from the Josh Bersin Co., just 32% of talent acquisition leads feel that they’re strategic contributors to the business. Corporate plans change too quickly, they say, if there is a plan at all, and executives treat workforce planning as an afterthought. Right now, Labor Department statistics show overall job growth slowing more than expected, but employers need to take a long-term view. The problem, HR analyst Josh Bersin told From Day One, is that “workforce planning isn’t a very strategic process. It’s a once-a-year budget exercise. And when there’s a bad quarter, the company looks at the workforce and says, ‘Freeze the headcount over here, freeze the headcount over there.’”For some business leaders, hiring and firing are reflexes, not strategies. The cycle is so predictable that a 2023 story in the Harvard Business Review advised employees to assess their job security by checking their company’s quarterly filings. A bad quarter foreshadows layoffs.Companies can no longer afford to run their recruitment departments like e-commerce warehouses, Bersin argues. And unless leaders start taking it seriously, businesses won’t be able to outrun the talent shortage.Updating Antiquated Talent Acquisition ModelsThere are two types of TA departments, said Bersin: Operational and strategic. The former works like a fulfillment center. A requisition is opened, recruiters source candidates, conduct interviews, present options to managers, and complete the hire. “They’re operationally measured and operationally configured. They look at cost-of-hire, they look at channels and sources, they outsource a lot of stuff, and they design around scale,” Bersin said. The strategic TA team works differently. When someone wants to open a req, they ask questions: Who do you want to hire? What skills should they have? How will they contribute to the business? Is there someone internal who can fill the role? Could the responsibilities of this role be automated?HR analyst Josh Bersin (Photo courtesy of Josh Bersin Co.)If a talent acquisition team isn’t strategic, it’s not necessarily their fault, according to Gina Larson, an HR consultant with more than a decade of experience in HR and talent development. “It’s the direction of the business, the remit that they’re given, and the control that they have” that determines how strategic they can be, she said. “Most companies aren’t set up to invest time and energy into developing more diverse and non-traditional hires that would bring the company into the future.”When Bersin’s company surveyed business leaders about their views of TA, 55% of the respondents said they see the function as an integral part of the organization, but it appears they haven’t learned to treat it that way, and they continue to set the wrong expectations. Old habits die hard, it seems.If executives think recruiters are order-takers, then that’s what they’ll be, Larson said. “We all report to someone. Short-term results typically get the rewards. If you’re struggling for a while and you say, ‘Just trust me, we have long-term results coming,’ it’s hard. Everyone has a stakeholder, and I think there is the pressure of short-term results.”Operational teams are a vestige of an outdated philosophy that equates headcount with revenue, one that prioritizes cost-to-hire and time-to-hire above all else, Bersin said. Companies that run operational TA teams are typically ones that put the business–and its workers–at the mercy of market swings. “The financial pressures on companies these days are so quarterly-based,” Bersin said. “I think CEOs and CFOs have to deal with this very short-term mentality in their investor base. A lot of companies over-hire and then lay people off, and then over-hire and lay people off. What I call ‘enduring companies’ don’t think that way. They ignore those signals and think about long-term, sustainable growth.” When Bersin’s company asked TA leaders to identify the biggest barriers to becoming a strategic business partner, 36% said that shifting business priorities is obstacle No. 1.Talent Acquisition and the Future of BusinessIt seems that no industry is safe from the skills shortage. In the energy sector, imperatives to develop next-generation technologies mean companies need workers with green-energy skills, but seven in every eight workers globally have no green skills to speak of, according to research from LinkedIn. In 2023 the World Economic Forum declared the talent shortage “the next energy crisis.”Companies ranging from auto parts retailers to biotech companies blame financial-reporting problems on the lack of accountants, a shortage so severe that industry-regulating bodies are considering cutting certification requirements for the role. Meanwhile, consulting firm Korn Ferry estimates that the media and telecoms industry is on track to “hit a wall” with a shortage of 4.3 million workers by 2030, and manufacturing is forecasted to have 2.1 million empty jobs by then.Korn Ferry projects that, globally, the shortage of skilled workers will result in more than 85 million empty jobs by the end of the decade. Fifty-seven percent of respondents to the Bersin Co. survey said that it’s the skills shortage that will present the biggest challenge to the TA field in the next 12 months. Some companies are thinking strategically, however. Talent intelligence, as it’s situated in HR, is an increasingly influential discipline, Bersin said. That’s typically led by a data-wielding analyst who advises HR on where to look for the best candidates, what cities they live in, and which schools they graduate from, even the companies they work for. Some companies, like Aon, have invested in apprenticeship programs that train unskilled workers into highly skilled ones. PwC is trying to influence college curriculums to create more accountants. Talent acquisition just can’t afford to work on the sidelines, said Kumud Sharma, chief people officer at financial advisory firm Betterment. Her recruiters work cross-functionally, getting to know all parts of the business. Otherwise, how will they show candidates what the company can offer them?Sharma remembers when talent acquisition was its own entity outside of HR–working like a restaurant window. A hiring manager filled out a form requesting one engineer, and recruiting served up one engineer. But that doesn’t work anymore–because we know better, she said. “We’re not thinking of people as widgets anymore. We’re not thinking of people as products. We’re thinking of people as people now.” It’s this change in thinking that has changed the HR profession altogether.“For 30 years or so, we have been saying that people are the assets of the organization. Who’s bringing those assets in? Those assets are coming through talent acquisition,” said Sharma. “How can that not be a strategic function?”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, and Fast Company.(Featured photo by Izusek/iStock by Getty Images)

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | August 19, 2024

Generational Allies: Four Ways to Adopt More Age-Inclusive Habits in Your Workplace

Amy, a program manager at a tech company in Salt Lake City, learned her most valuable lesson about inter-generational relationships when she was a rookie kindergarten teacher more than two decades ago. Back then, she fully expected to have a positive educational impact on her students; after all, she was 20 years older than they were. “Of course they would learn from me,” she said. “But I didn’t expect to also learn from them.”Learning to meet someone where they are in life, to underscore their strengths and work around their weaknesses, is something she carried with her when she left teaching to work in tech, where she thinks that surprising experience helped her be a more dynamic supervisor and mentor. “I don’t expect that every team member who is 20 years or more younger than me will need my guidance. I know that there will be ebb and flow between us, and I think that makes me a better manager.” Working in a multigenerational organization can leave you surprised by what you need to teach, but also what you can learn from those who are older and younger than you. Embracing opportunities to foster a multigenerational team can help move a good organization to great. In this story, the second in a three-part series leading up to our Oct. 3 webinar on Tools to Create a Multi-Generational Workforce, we'll be looking at how employers can confront this challenge by adopting more age-inclusive practices. Here are four ways you can do that:Expand Your Hiring ProcessIf you are only sourcing potential hires who are recent grads, those who have a degree, or who are younger (and perhaps therefore lower-paid) you are limiting your organization. Even if you think you are casting a broad net, the data suggests otherwise.People in their 40s and beyond typically find it harder than younger people do to find entry- and intermediate-level jobs, according to a survey of 3,800 employed and unemployed people and more than 1,400 hiring managers. It can take more than six months to find a new job for older people, partly because of the perception of hiring managers. One quarter of them view younger candidates as having more relevant work experience than older age groups. The survey, conducted for Generation, a non-profit involved in job training and placement, reported that hiring managers think older people are less adaptable as well. However, when asked to rate the people they hired, 87% said older workers perform as well as younger ones. AARP, the nonprofit group that advocates for people 50 and older, practices an expanded search process when adding to their 2,000 person workforce. The organization ensures its job descriptions don’t overly privilege any single age group, says AARP senior advisor Heather Tinsley-Fix. “We don’t put upper ranges on experience requirements. Rather than five to 10 years, we say five or more. We don’t ask for graduation dates.” The organization has  a robust internship program that doesn’t limit interns to college students. When looking for interns or candidates, AARP sources from organizations beyond universities, Tinsley-Fix says. Her organization may engage with libraries, senior centers, or civic organizations that host work fairs or put advertisements in media favored by older users.Another problem with limiting recruiting efforts to post-secondary education and training institutions is that it prevents organizations from considering those without degrees. Prior to the pandemic, companies engaged in degree inflation: requiring degrees, or higher degrees, for jobs that may not really need them. But according to a Harvard Business Review report, as hiring became more and more difficult during the Great Resignation, companies reduced educational requirements and adopted a more skills-based assessment of candidates. Postings for jobs requiring an undergraduate degree fell by 12% overall. At companies like Accenture and IBM, less than a third of the job postings for software quality-assurance engineers required a four-year degree. At the same time, ads grew more descriptive of skills the job required.Sow Accord, Root Out DistrustWhile it’s human nature to seek out those who are like us, it’s not a healthy dynamic for high-performing teams or organizations. One way to help improve understanding between different age groups is with a multigenerational Employee Resource Group (ERG). FINRA, a not-for-profit organization that oversees broker-dealers and their personnel, has more than 4,400 employees and contractors. The organization created a Multigenrational Employee Resource Group Exchange (MERGE) to specifically engage its workforce in the diversity of their points of view in life. According to the leaders of the MERGE team, Ann-Isabel Previl, Julie Petulla and Elizabeth Potter, its purpose is to give voice to each generation. They do this “by showcasing their unique and diverse perspectives and facilitating intergenerational collaboration and communication,” said Previl.There are currently four generations in the FINRA workplace, Petulla says, and in 2018 the organization’s leaders decided that providing a way to share different generational experiences and perspectives could increase understanding and decrease any prejudices. “MERGE seeks intentional opportunities to provide members the forum to engage with generations other than their own to help members increase their professional network and increase communication and collaboration among different generations.” “Each generation has different styles of communicating,” said Potter. “Our generation may impact our preferred communication platform, level of directness or formality, and use of slang. These differences in communication styles can lead to misunderstandings. For instance, over text/instant messaging, a short sentence ending in a period may look perfectly friendly from a Baby Boomer's perspective but could be construed as an angry message by a member of Gen Z. By discussing these differences openly, we can better understand our colleagues and collaborate more effectively.”MERGE has created several programs that have helped to dispel myths about different age groups and foster a better understanding. “The Workplace Through Her Eyes” focuses on how women perceive their working environment. One woman from each of the four generations at work at FINRA is asked to share their stories about work–how it was at the beginning of their career, how work attire has changed, or what’s different about communication styles. A series on financial innovation featured investment differences between generations and looked at changes in technology and attitudes towards investing. In this case too, someone from each generation shared their views and experience. “Programs like these do a great job of bringing in other ERGs to raise awareness and address issues related to creating and maintaining multigenerational collaboration in the workplace,” Potter said.Teach and LearnWhen you think of the word mentor, the image is usually an older person guiding a younger one. But according to Harvard Business Review, companies like GE, Deloitte, Cisco and Procter & Gamble are upending that tradition with “reverse mentorships” in which younger people teach older people new skills. Mutual mentorship, where a linked pair teach each other, has also been shown to “support employees’ development of competencies and skills and increase both individual involvement and collective motivation,” said HBR.Aaron Witt, CEO of BuildWitt, a services, media and software company that works with mining and infrastructure organizations, is a generation younger than company VP Dan Briscoe, but the two are unfazed by the age gap. “I don’t think we ever acknowledged being so different in age, but we have definitely leveraged each other’s perspectives,” Witt said. “Dan had way more experience in marketing and business, so I leaned on him heavily. And Dan knew I could tell stories well and leverage social media to build our brand, so he always supported what I was doing on the ‘younger’ front.”Witt says it’s critical to remember that everyone comes from a different place. It’s not just age, but upbringing, career, and life experiences. “It’s my job as a leader to know how someone thinks and what their strengths are. The better I know them, the more effectively I can position them in the right place for themselves and our business.”As someone relatively new to the business world, Witt has learned to lean on Briscoe’s expertise. While he still may have an occasional inclination that he knows better, “I’ve learned it’s best to keep my mouth shut. They have more to offer than I previously thought.”See the Differences That MatterIf you want to leverage a multigenerational workforce into your organization’s superpower, you need to understand them. There are, indeed, differences between generations. But it’s not productive to embrace the stereotypes, for example that one group is tech savvy, and one is staid and slow to change. The more valid observation is that there are differences in communication styles. Younger people may prefer texting and instant messaging. Older people may respond better to public recognition and rewards. What engages someone who is 45 may be different than what keeps a 60 year old focused. “Generational differences exist, and the research, done right, can be very enlightening,” says Corey Seemiller, PhD, who studies generational differences. “It is insightful, not predictive. If you want to understand Gen Z and you’ve never heard of TikTok, you may want to find out what it is.”She suggests getting to know how the different age groups in your organization think. She pointed to a survey she believes gets to the heart of similarities and differences between age groups. “Learn what it takes to make them thrive,” she said. It’s the same lesson that Amy, the tech-industry manager, learned as a kindergarten teacher.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, AARP, for sponsoring this story, the second in a series on how employers can foster age inclusion in the workplace. Interested in assessing how you are doing with age inclusion? Try AARP’s new tool on Managing a Multigenerational Workforce. Just send an email to employerpledge@aarp.org, with the subject line betatest. In part three of this series, we’ll explore worker-retention strategies from the perspective of different age groups. Part one of the series is What a Five-Generation Workforce Means for You: The Myths and Realities.Lisa Jaffe is a freelance writer who lives in Seattle with her son and a very needy rescue dog named Ellie Bee. She enjoys reading, long walks on the beach, and trying to get better at ceramics.

Lisa Jaffe | August 16, 2024

Supporting Women’s Well-Being Through All Their Life Stages

Women’s health goes beyond maternity, menopause, and fertility. “There’s so much in between,” said Corrinne Hobbs, general manager and VP for employer market organization at Ovia Health. “Women are complex, and being able to support women at every stage in their journey is important. And each journey is unique.”Hobbs credits an app she can access through Ovia, a family-building solutions company, with helping her succeed at her job while being a busy mom. “Having that loyal companion in my pocket to give me trustworthy advice about kids, lactation, and also supporting my return to work, ensures I understand what my options are, what I should be asking my employer, my physician, and beyond,” she said during a panel discussion at From Day One’s July virtual conference.“What employers are looking for is full spectrum end-to-end support,” she said. A solution that incorporates all components of women’s health and well-being is crucial.Workplace Solutions for Nursing MothersDionne Adams, director of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging at Pacific Gas & Electric Company, says the company’s women’s health network, an employee resource group, has helped management see the need for nursing moms’ rooms for women returning to work.“When I was a nursing mom, I had to go into an IT closet, which was not a great feeling,” she said. “I’m excited because new moms don’t have to experience this. We have designated rooms throughout our headquarters in different locations.”These rooms have chairs to relax in, breast pumps, and a refrigerator for breast milk, says Adams.Similarly, a colleague who was a new mother had to figure out the logistics of business travel while nursing, says Mindy Fitzgerald, global director for diversity, culture, and engagement for Air Products.“We were able to institute some nursing facilities at that location as well as some breast milk transport back home to her baby,” Fitzgerald said. “The big win for her was that she spoke up and said, ‘This was amazing. I didn’t miss out on a potential career altering conference. And I had the support to continue nursing my child.’”The company was able to codify that benefit into its policies and procedures. “That’s a small but really exciting example of a high-potential employee figuring out how to make life work in the midst of all their responsibilities, both at home and at work,” Fitzgerald said.Onsite Child CareMartin Payne, chief commercial officer at Empowerly, says onsite child care and other benefits for caregivers are game-changing, especially for front-line employees.“There are many corporate employees who have a lot of resources and can take care of some of those things themselves,” he said. “But there are a lot of employees who really have gaps. And those gaps can make a big difference in whether or not they can get to work.”Lydia Dishman of Fast Company moderated the panel about "Supporting Women’s Well-Being Through All of Their Life Stages" (photo by From Day One)Child rearing still falls predominantly on the shoulders of women, even in a two-partner household, says Payne. So support for these employees is necessary. “Having that resource and that extra time and breathing room in your workplace really just makes a big difference for them,” he said.Menopause: Breaking the SilenceOf all the stages of a woman’s life cycle, “I feel like menopause is the one that’s least talked about and supported right now,” said Lesli Stasiek, senior director of HR at Cencora.Most women experience menopause between ages 45 and 55, when they are hitting peaks in their careers. This impacts the talent pipelines for senior leadership positions at companies, says Stasiek. Some women opt out of the workforce altogether during menopause, which equates to a loss of $150 billion globally, Stasiek added.The stigma surrounding this life stage doesn’t help. About 50% of women aren’t comfortable talking to their employer about menopause symptoms, and 73% of women are not treating menopause, says Hobbs.Employers should ensure that women have access to educational materials about menopause and help them find certified menopause experts. Hobbs also recommends peer-to-peer groups and connections to a nursing team.PG&E’s women’s health network is helping the company roll out menopause support for its workers, says Adams. “We’re partnering with our benefits and employee relations team to create communications around that, and then educating leaders to have more awareness around this particular stage of life for women that are either entering menopause or in the midst of it,” she said.Mary Pieper is a freelance writer based in Mason City, Iowa.

Mary Pieper | August 16, 2024

How HR Can Solve Business Problems with People Analytics

What happens to all the data HR collects? There’s the demographic information, compensation, headcount, tenure, turnover, leave, and absences of your current workforce. There’s also internal mobility, promotion rates, succession plans, performance reviews, exit interviews, and, increasingly, skills assessments and training records. And piling up at regular intervals are employee sentiment surveys and quarterly pulse data.According to a report by people analytics platform Visier, HR is investing time and resources interpreting that data, but teams are getting hung up in the foundational stages of analysis; that is, calculating figures like headcount, attrition, and demographic changes. Visier’s VP of product development, Ian Cook, estimates that HR spends about 70% of its analysis time on those low-level calculations, and it’s occupying resources better used for solving business problems affecting the bottom line. HR departments preoccupied with foundational analysis are missing the automation that produces scale. They’re sinking time into updating dashboards and calculating stagnant figures that are quickly outdated.“A human capital management system, typically, is a system of record people,” said Cook during a From Day One webinar, about how to get started with people analytics. “People analytics is a system of insight.”Some HR leaders stumble into those systems of insight by necessity. Carla Williams spent 20 years of her career in human resources. Eventually, she found herself having to answer a different kind of question. Her company’s board approved a few million dollars for one-time retention bonuses to keep highly skilled workers. But before they started cutting checks, her CHRO asked: If we hand out bonuses, are we solving the right problem?“We started an analytics project where we ultimately found that we were solving the wrong problem,” said Williams, who now leads the advisory services practice at Visier. “What we had was a career problem, not a compensation problem. Based on that, we reallocated the money and made changes that actually helped retain our high-potential employees.”Plenty of organizations do this, throwing money at personnel problems only to see poor results or chase down the same problem elsewhere. “On the surface, it might seem as though the problem is that we need to pay them more money, but when you pull back and look at the information that underlies it, then you might see a very different story.” Williams said. It became her mission to build a people analytics function to ask–and therefore answer–better questions.People Analytics Isn’t a Side Project, It’s a Business ToolIf firms aren’t using people analytics like they could be, it’s usually for lack of understanding what it is, who is capable of it, and what it can accomplish.Williams and Cook hear from HR leaders who think it takes a PhD or a data scientist working in the department to do people analytics, or that it’s better left to consultants who parachute in, but they’ve found that HR practitioners themselves are best equipped to solve their own problems.“Context is so incredibly important, and that’s why it can’t be done in a back room by somebody who doesn’t talk to people,” Williams said. “You need to really understand the business. The most important characteristic of someone who can be really great at discovering insights is experience and curiosity and having the right context. That doesn’t require a data scientist, it requires being able to ask the right questions.”Carla Williams and Ian Cook of Visier spoke during the From Day One webinar titled, "Getting Started With People Analytics: Find Your HR Superpower" (photo by From Day One)Asking smart questions doesn’t impart some higher-level math skills, so HR teams are using sophisticated analysis tools to solve problems. Tools like artificial intelligence, for example, which Cook and his team build. “Generative AI allows our clients to remove all of those barriers to access,” he said. Maybe you want to know whether you’re at risk for turnover in the next year, you might ask, Is my team engaged? Are they underpaid? “A generative system can take natural language and turn it into question sets that the technology can understand, so you can then get back the answers you want.”“Analytics should follow a talent strategy that is built off a business strategy,” Williams added. The organizations with flourishing people analytics programs start with a business problem, then go to HR because they have the greatest understanding of the company. That’s the best way to build an analytics practice: with real problems the business needs to solve.If an executive says turnover is too high and HR needs to stand up a retention program, the analyst intervenes to diagnose the problem before prescribing a remedy: Why do you think retention is too high? What does “too high” mean to you? Is turnover high across the organization or in a single department? Is this a new problem or long-term? How do we compare to others in our industry?HR departments tend to run universal programs–performance management, engagement surveys, or compensation cycles, for example–but Cook says there’s a better way. “You serve nobody by trying to serve everybody,” he said, noting that people analytics forces the business to focus on specific problems, not vague ideas of what might be going wrong.“It’s much better to focus narrowly on a specific area in the business, solving a business challenge with a key set of data in a meaningful way and then scale from there,” he said. “It’s OK to ignore 90% of the business and make 10% really successful. That will demonstrate capability, and it will likely lead to further investment.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Visier, for sponsoring this webinar.Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | August 15, 2024

Effective Caregiving Benefits: Creating a Culture of Compassion and Engagement

Organizations experience a significant loss in productivity and finances when caregiving workers struggle. The National Library of Medicine reported that caregiving needs can reduce productivity, and cost employers more than $5,000 annually per employee. Leaders are recognizing the necessity of inclusive caregiving benefits and workplace cultures to support employee well-being.At From Day One’s July virtual conference, Carolyn Romano, VP of product at Torchlight, a LifeSpeak company, spoke on how organizations who request their services to support their caregivers are seeing results.Economic conditions have emphasized the ongoing necessity of policy reform and intervention to support working caregivers. Torchlight contributes to caregiving reform and intervention using a more contemporary, yet compassionate approach to help employers find and provide optimal resources.Successful caregiving initiatives include policies that offer flexibility, accessible leave, and remote work options, Romano says. They should also include mental health support, elder care, discrimination protections, and more to take all aspects of caregiving into consideration.When Romano suddenly experienced a family emergency, Torchlight gave her the support she needed so she could spend three weeks caring for her recuperating mother. “And it’s part of why I feel such a sense of loyalty and appreciation for where I work,” she said.Carolyn Romano of Torchlight, a LifeSpeak company, led the thought leadership spotlight (company photo)Torchlight provides caregiving solutions at every stage of life including family planning, parenting, childcare, care for children and adults with complex needs, eldercare, end-of-life, and bereavement. What sets the organization apart is how they offer solutions for diverse situations: care coordination is only the tip of the iceberg – it’s not the central component of their solutions.Instead, Torchlight prioritizes a digital-first approach to comprehensive caregiving support while still upholding integrity and a compassionate approach to employee well-being. With over 2,000 expert guides, videos, and self-help resources with personalized recommendations, clients become equipped with the knowledge to make decisions and find specific caregiving solutions.Another major focus is on creating events and community engagement by hosting live webinars and Q&As to support community engagement in the workplace. Finally, is care coordination which involves finding and vetting service providers and resources for childcare and eldercare.Diverse Solutions for Today’s WorkersCaregiving is critical for several stages of life and requires diverse resources and solutions. For children and adults with complex needs, support involves assistance in navigating complex systems and high-stakes decision-making. Eldercare services support appointments, daily living, finances, and treatment coordination. Bereavement services should aim to support caregivers once their role as caregivers ends.To address these complex caregiving situations, Torchlight Parenting and Caregiving offers inclusive solutions such as virtual and on-demand fitness, nutrition, and mindfulness programs, digital expertise and one-on-one comprehensive guidance for parent and caregiver support, and digital cognitive behavioral support for workers struggling with substance abuse.Romano described several ways other businesses can begin developing the most inclusive and innovative solutions for employees. She suggests adopting an innovation mindset, prioritizing the impact, shifting the perspective of caregiving benefits as fundamental to a successful business strategy, removing fear from decision-making, and strengthening the ability to manage uncertainty.Embracing modern and diverse solutions has the most valuable impact, says Romano. “Being able to provide a mix [of digital resources and human support] and allow people to find their own balance point for how they want to get questions answered, solve caregiving problems, and get to the root, is really important.”Editor’s Note: From Day One thanks our partner, LifeSpeak, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.Stephanie Reed is a freelance news, marketing, and content writer. Much of her work features small business owners throughout diverse industries. She is passionate about promoting small, ethical, and eco-conscious businesses. 

Stephanie Reed | August 14, 2024

Supporting Community: How Companies Can Help Sustain ‘Third Places’

When you’re not at work or at home, where can you be found? For some, it might be a local coffee shop, while others might prefer a nearby library or a public park. Regardless of your answer, the place that you seek out for casual conversation or meaningful community connection is considered your “third place.”With remote and hybrid work structures persisting post-pandemic, and feelings of loneliness becoming increasingly prevalent, the value of community has never been greater. And yet, third places seem to be disappearing. “Despite the fact that most of the country lives near a bar, movie theater, restaurant, or park, the Survey Center on American Life found that 56% of Americans in 2021 said they had a third place they frequent, down from 67% in 2019,” reported Vox.What does this loss signify for individuals, and why is it occurring now, just as community-building is becoming a priority for many leaders and organizations? The challenges are clear, but so are the opportunities for solutions. Fortunately, companies can and do play a significant role in promoting third places.Defining Your Third PlaceThird places, defined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg in his book Celebrating The Third Place, are “public places on neutral ground where people can gather and interact.” In contrast to your home, which is your first place, and your work, which is your second place, third places are informal and accessible public spots to hangout and meet acquaintances, mull through some ideas, or catch up with friends.Kyte's book Finding Your Third Place was published in JuneIn times of loneliness, third places offer refuge and restoration. “People who have a regular third place greatly expand their circle of friends; they laugh more often; they are more engaged in their community; they are happier; they live longer,” according to Richard Kyte, a professor of leadership and ethics at Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wis. At a time when one in three Americans feels lonely every week, having a third place could significantly mitigate negative coping behaviors like distraction-seeking and abusing alcohol, while increasing overall well-being.In his book Finding Your Third Place: Building Happier Communities (and Making Great Friends Along the Way), Kyte expresses the impact of these locations for not only the individual, but also communities at large. “[They] serve as gateways so people new to the area can get to know their neighbors; they function as incubators for new ideas; they serve as safety nets for people in crisis; they build social trust; they decrease political polarization,” Kyte writes. So why are these beneficial spaces becoming harder to find?A Seemingly Sudden Disappearance of Third PlacesIn part, the loss of third places can be attributed to the social-distancing days of Covid and lasting changes to physical spaces. During the pandemic, our ability to be in third places was disrupted, and it hasn’t fully recovered. Businesses closed, neighborhoods changed, furniture was removed. But even before the pandemic, third places were already losing their significance in the face of trends like cocooning. People started to value individualized forms of leisure more, and ultimately became comfortable just staying at home in their free time. This wasn’t always the way.Starbucks’ founder and former CEO, Howard Schultz, built a brand that encouraged people to connect in their shops. At one point, it wasn’t uncommon to see people chatting over a cup of coffee or with their laptops propped to complete work.As the stores blanketed the U.S. and beyond, they became a third place to many. “But over the past decade, comfy chairs have largely disappeared, replaced by hard wooden ones, the better to push people back out to their homes and offices. The company has also turned finding electrical outlets to plug in computers or phones into somewhat of a treasure hunt,” reports the Harvard Business Review. To help restore the vibe that made it popular, the company named a new CEO this week, with founder Schultz declaring: “Senior leaders—including board members—need to spend more time with those who wear the green apron.”Another reason for the loss of third places is tied to the rise in internet use and increase in subcultures of people connecting virtually. “It’s a strange paradox, Gen-Z are hyperconnected in the virtual world but socially disconnected,” wrote Kian Bakhtiari in Forbes. Social media platforms like Instagram, X, and TikTok foster spaces for self-expression, connecting people with similar interests. These online communities, however, risk replacing the in-person gatherings and socializing that could be held in public spaces.“The internet, mobile phones and video games have opened a multiverse of new connections and opportunities. Yet digital interactions have failed to replace the need to connect on an emotional level in the physical world,” according to Bakhtiari. And for many, it’s nearly impossible to disconnect from these virtual spaces, given they facilitate effortless and potentially global connections.Technology, in a broader sense, has also impacted the way we engage in physical spaces. The nature of how we interact within these environments has evolved, and not necessarily for the better. “If you think about the way our physical spaces affect our relations to one another, you will begin to understand … why our leisure activities over the past century have changed from mostly active (playing games together) to mostly passive (being entertained),” writes Kyte. The rise of technology, such as screens and sound systems, has shifted spaces that once encouraged interaction into ones focused on transactions or devoid of engagement altogether.The Business Impact: Actions For LeadersWhile third places exist outside the workplace, how and where we work affects our access to and enjoyment of them. The loss of these spaces can lead to more stressed and isolated workers, and leaders know that a healthy worker is a productive one. But there are a variety of ways that business leaders can promote third places. Among them:Provide Customers With a Third PlaceSome businesses have the opportunity to provide their customers with a third place. Companies can reimagine (or, in Starbucks’ case, revert to past practices) and create these spaces as hubs for connection. Companies can enhance the sense of community in their stores and workplaces by creating experiences that foster meaningful interactions for those who seek them. “This means separating mobile and drive-through orders from the on-premise ones to minimize interactions between the different crowds. It also means reinvesting in comfort and amenities for people who want to hang around,” as reported in Harvard Business Review. What it really requires is thoughtful attention to the spaces where people connect, something that has been top of mind in the era of returning to the office.Similarly, entrepreneur Meng Liu, who sought community amid the hustle of city life, established Wowza Hangout, a social club designed to unite people through shared interests and activities. “A crucial component of these hangouts are their settings: board game cafés, bars, museums, parks. They’re venues that populate a vibrant city like New York, but where attendees might feel awkward approaching someone they don’t know,” Liu told Vox. Liu's club aims to break down some of the barriers of connection, making it easier for people to meet in familiar yet inviting environments.Harness CSR to Cultivate CommunityCompanies can also leverage their corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives to create or support spaces that foster connection. In San Francisco, Salesforce funds a public park with lush walking trails and lawns for sitting, an amphitheater, and even on-demand board games. While not every company can fund an entire park, they can promote volunteerism to support local parks and other existing third places. These CSR efforts benefit both the community and employees, boosting wellness and engagement.Encourage Flexible WorkFlexible work schedules can provide employees with the time they need to invest in their communities. Work-life balance isn’t a new concept, but with opportunities for hybrid work, employees can seek out these places even during business hours. JLL’s 2022 Workplace Preferences Barometer found that improved flexibility has increased not only the ability, but the desire to work in cafes, lounges, and co-working spaces.With some employees continuing to work fully remotely after the pandemic, the distinction between home and office has become blurred. Co-working spaces are designed for work but can also serve as a third place, allowing employees to connect and collaborate in a public setting that is both affordable and accessible.“Corporations and organizations, many with newly reduced real estate footprints of their own, are becoming the biggest third place consumers,” according to the co-working platform Liquid Space. “C-suite leaders are striving to use space more efficiently. Providing employees with access to high-quality, flexible third space co-working environments near their homes and their teammates is one way they’re doing it.” The use of co-working spaces not only encourages employees to collaborate, but also to venture out in their neighborhoods. Hybrid work isn’t just about working from the couch anymore. About 36% of employees work in third places at least once a week, an increase of 8% from the previous year, according to JLL’s report.Ultimately, third places offer a sense of fulfillment, so everyone should do their part to help preserve them. These special spaces are “where we turn together, cultivating friendships, broadening and deepening our own lives and the lives of those around us. It is in conversation that we find belonging,” writes Kyte. And in today’s world, belonging matters more than ever.Erin Behrens is an associate editor at From Day One.

Erin Behrens | August 13, 2024

Pathways to Growth: The Role of Learning and Development in Internal Mobility

In 2021, Correlation One, a workforce development program, partnered with Amazon to help promote employees in its warehouses and fulfillment centers to higher-paying jobs. “I’ve heard some really incredible stories about how life changing these types of programs can be as people move into family sustaining wages,” said Rachel Bittarelli, head of career coaching & development at Correlation One, during a recent From Day One’s July virtual conference.One worker came to the United States on an asylum visa and went from being an Amazon frontline worker to getting a full-time job with Accenture, a digital technologies, data, and AI company that’s part of the Amazon ecosystem, says Bittarelli.The four-month program that got her there “just had an incredible impact on her life and her family’s life,” Bittarelli told panel moderator Lydia Dishman, senior editor of growth and engagement at Fast Company. The initiative also helps Amazon, as it helps fill roles without having to look externally, which keeps employee satisfaction high.Pathways for Upskilling and ReskillingWhite Lodging, a Chicago-based hotel management company, designed and launched a career pathing program called Pathfinder last year with help from a consultant.“[The program] looks at 120 different positions in the company and outlines the skills and training that’s needed in those roles,” said Steve Ransone, VP of talent and organizational capability for White Lodging. “And by aligning around them with their subject matter experts, we then have a common language that we could use when developing people.”White Lodging is a people-focused company rather than a tech-oriented one, so having managers work individually with employees who want to move up in the organization is crucial, says Ransone.“We are very much on a journey, and it’s a very passionate journey for me, helping our people to not just send people to training because that’s the easy thing, but really develop them and really connect them back to the things that matter when it comes to being successful in a job,” he said.The executive panelists discussed the topic "Creating Opportunity Within: How Employers Are Boosting Internal Mobility" (photo by From Day One)Some managers need training to recognize the importance of giving their direct reports opportunities to develop their skills, says Carrie Berg, VP of learning and development at Teladoc Health. “Managers often set the tone for the employees on their team,” she said. “They create the space that allows the employees to participate and to learn.”Berg recommends that managers market and promote upskilling opportunities to employees. “I believe in the value of branding, like, ‘This is going to be short, it’s going to be sweet, we’re going to give you a tool, a tip or a trick, we are not going to talk at you for 40 minutes with 40 slides,’” she said.Employees also need to understand their strengths and weaknesses and have some level of self-awareness to know what skills they should work on, says Berg. Teladoc uses a tool to give workers insight into this so they know which learning resources are best for them.Ensuring That Learning Opportunities are EquitableWhen Kimber Hanrahan, head of learning and development for GoDaddy, was working for another tech company, the organization hired a blind man but didn’t have the software to support him during upskilling sessions.Learning facilitators may be great at what they do, but they need to ensure that their tools are accessible to all employees trying to better themselves. “It’s important to ensure that you have those things enabled within your e-learnings.”Tim Gerrits, head of learning & leadership development at AbbVie, said the company developed a tool similar to LinkedIn, but internally, to help all employees who wanted to advance within the company.Employees who opt-in can create profiles that include their career interests so they can receive personalized job matches within the company, says Gerrits. “We send them matches at their current level, or one level above where they are today,” he said. Employees are also able to create their own job searches and alerts based on the criteria they put in.AbbVie also measures the movement of its internal labor market for all talent segments. “Regardless of performance, regardless of potential, we measure that and representation as well, and we look for discrepancies and do an audit on how we are doing on our internal mobility,” Gerrits said.Mary Pieper is a freelance writer based in Mason City, Iowa.

Mary Pieper | August 13, 2024

Redefining Recruitment: The Advantages and Challenges of Skills-Based Hiring

The HR industry is abuzz with a new phrase, “skills-based hiring,” but according to recent research, relatively few employers are actually following through with it. Why the gap? One major factor is inertia–hiring managers just keep doing what they’ve done in the past.For companies that hire white-collar workers, employers have been slow to look past four-year degree requirements and Fortune 500 employment pedigrees. Even for frontline workforces, where four-year degrees aren’t typically required, hiring managers may favor familiar brand-name employers, specific training programs, or familiar resume histories. The results are much the same.Now, companies are turning their attention to skills-based hiring in which capabilities and potential are given greeter credence than any professional pedigree. How skills-based hiring and talent management affects the frontline workforce was the topic of discussion during a recent From Day One webinar on the advantages and challenges of skills-based hiring.Getting Started With Skills-Based HiringNicole DeLue joined DISH Network, the satellite TV company, about nine months ago. As the new head of talent acquisition and frontline recruiting, one of her first projects has been overhauling the company’s recruitment process. Not an easy feat for a company that hires more than 800 locations. To boot, DISH hadn’t updated its hiring practices in two decades. Her goal has been to update the process into one that prioritizes skills and potential over employment history.Up against a stale process and long-held habits, DeLue evaluated the entire employee experience from application to talent development. “It was important for me to peel back the layers for the end-to-end candidate and employee lifecycle,” she said. “I wanted to take a deep dive and understand, what are we attracting for? How are we evaluating those skills? And are we actually developing those skills? Is what we’re attracting and qualifying candidates for is what we’re actually developing? Are employees being evaluated on the skills they’re being hired for?”The move to skills-based hiring helps level the playing field for applicants, and for the business, it helps solve the ongoing problem of talent scarcity. “The workforce has really changed over the past couple of years,” said panelist Lori Mix, SVP of talent acquisition at customer experience outsourcing company ibex. “Some specialized areas, like healthcare and finance, have moved to the skills space because there just aren’t enough workers.”Prioritizing skills and potential is also good for the bottom line, Mix pointed out, because it equips the company to grow and adapt in the future. “We want to have choices and give people opportunities to come into the company,” she said. “And as we grow, and are solving our customers’ hiring problems, we want to put people in that are going to be good leaders down the road. So we have to make sure we’re hiring the right skill set from the get-go.”Journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza spoke with Dan Sapir of JobGet, Nicole DeLue of DISH Network, and Lori Mix of ibex during the From Day One webinar (photo by From Day One)Dan Sapir, general manager of frontline job platform JobGet, says this new approach to hiring has proven to motivate and energize a part of the workforce whose upward career potential has long been limited. “What we see in our own ecosystem is that as we expose job seekers to jobs that they had no clue they’d be a good fit for, they’re more excited to apply. They’re more excited when they go through the application process. And when they talk to the hiring team, they come off more personable. And because they’re more excited about that role, they stick around for a longer time.”Breaking Old Hiring Habits to Find the Best CandidatesSkills-based hiring is still a relatively new practice for many organizations, and many recruiting leaders have a long road of habit-breaking ahead of them.DeLue found that hiring managers at DISH were so involved in the hiring process, some were even reviewing resumes. Not only is that a time-waster, it can bias the managers, who may be inclined to evaluate candidates on past employers or jobs rather than future potential.Now, she’s waiting until the interview stage to show candidate profiles to hiring managers, and they’ve experimented with removing candidates’ names and previous employers altogether.“There are so many different ways that you can do it, but I think that it boils down to instilling confidence in your customer,” she said. “It’s about getting alignment on the skills you’re screening for, and not the profile. The minute that you let [managers] go back to ‘they worked at this company, and we just had five people a trip from that company,’ you’re going to get in that vicious cycle.”At ibex, Mix uses resumes to start conversations that can help her evaluate sought-after skills. For instance, she doesn’t let an employment gap disqualify an applicant. “There are so many life events and real-world issues driving reductions in force and employment gaps. I want to leverage the interview by focusing on what their attitude is on overcoming all those challenges,” she said. The company needs people who are good at problem-solving, are quick thinkers, have good attitudes, and possess the flexibility to overcome challenges—these aren’t skills that can be deduced from employment history.Skills-based hiring expands the internal talent pool as well, making it easier for the company to recruit and retain from within. To this end, ibex has coaching and mentorship programs that open workers to new jobs and careers with the company. “Our frontline workforce understands that they can take different paths,” Mix said. “They can pursue the leadership trajectory or they can be a subject matter expert, but either way, you know that there’s growth potential.”In frontline jobs, where turnover is typically quite high, giving workers the opportunity to move around can keep them there for longer. Career growth is a retention strategy, JobGet’s Sapir says. “There are a lot of job seekers that have transferable skills from one role to the next, and the more you can encourage them to look at other opportunities that they could be a great fit for, it actually helps make your company sticky.”Sapir pointed out that as promising as skills-based hiring is, workers and job seekers aren’t accustomed to this new way of doing things. Used to traditional job requirements, they may be self-selecting out of great positions, so companies need to budge their audience, he said. “You want to encourage more people that, if you think you’re a good fit for some of this stuff, please apply.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, JobGet, for sponsoring this webinar. Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | August 12, 2024

Delivering Competitive Employee Benefits: How Instacart Launched Lifestyle Spending Accounts

A more diverse workforce requires a more diverse benefits package. That’s where Lifestyle Spending Accounts (LSAs) come in. At a From Day One’s webinar, leaders spoke about how Forma helped grocery tech company Instacart cater its LSA to better serve its 4,000 employees worldwide.“We have a lot of different ages and demographics within our employee population,” said Margaret Fairbairn, director of global benefits for Instacart. From engineers to customer service agents to data scientists and general accounting, every one of them has different lifestyle needs.Instacart enlisted the help of Forma, a life benefits platform that takes a different approach to company benefits. Founded in 2017 by Jason Fan, Forma has grown to support over 300 employer groups with a half a million employees around the globe. The idea when starting Forma was to transform the way companies provide employee benefits—specifically be flexible and focus on what employees really need. Reshaping BenefitsPrior to Forma, Instacart had some fragmented lifestyle benefits options, Fairbairn says. Wellness apps, step challenges, to name a few, but the feedback wasn’t great. “They didn't really resonate with all of our population,” she said.What they needed was intention, strategy, cohesion. “We were looking to pursue something that felt like it would encompass and capture what we wanted to do.”Working with Forma, Instacart came up with a plan that would better help their diverse workforce and offer meaningful benefits they would use and appreciate. They implemented an LSA with three pillars:Treat Yourself: Employees can spend $100 per month on things like fitness, wellness, caregiving, personal development, pet services, and Fresh Funds to purchase groceries. Cell Phone/Internet Reimbursement: Remote employees can spend $60 per month toward cell or internet services. New Hire Home Office Stipend: New employees can spend up to $300 within 90 days of hire on approved office items and connectivity. These LSAs are set up to offer employees the thing they really want: choice. “Having the opportunity for multiple wallets has been a real blessing, because it's allowed us to have three different policies for three different uses with its own set of rules.” They’re flexible, creative, and have yielded some pretty amazing results. Kate Deeny, senior customer success manager at Forma, shared some numbers:Treat Yourself: 97% spent stipend, 97% claim approval rateCell Phone/Internet Reimbursement: 93% spent stipend, 98% claim approval rateNew Hire Home Office Stipend: 87% spent stipend, 100% claim approval rateAllowing employees to choose what brings them joy is reflected in the high usage rate of the LSA benefits, says Deeny. “With the kind of confidence and assuredness of how Instacart wanted the setup, and then being able to administer it, I would say that has been, consistently strong throughout the partnership,” she said.Those are the hard numbers. But what about the other benefits of switching to an LSA?A huge part of it is showing employees that you care about them enough to make this change and give them more control of their benefits translates to happier employees and even better employee retention, Deeny says. On the company side, when a company like Forma manages benefits, it takes a load off human resources. By partnering with a benefits company that offers multiple LSAs, companies like Instacart aren’t tracking various contracts, saving the company admin costs. Tips for LSA ImplementationWhen working to set up LSAs, Deeny says it's important to keep things simple. “We can always pivot, we can always add to it, we can remove,” she said. “But I think to start, it's really just trying to get a sense of, how is this going to be a simple benefit for employees to use and access and take advantage of and be excited about?”The big question on every company’s mind—how much can we afford to allot in our LSAs? Probably more than you think, Fan says. Forma typically begins a partnership with a client by auditing the existing benefits, zeroing in on if employees are using them. Jason Fan, co-founder and CEO of Forma, spoke during the From Day One webinar (company photo)“We take a look at how much you’re paying, take a look at the vendors, take a look at what kind of programs you have across the globe,” Fan said. “We take a look at the engagement rate. Chances are there are a lot of 3%, 2%, 1%, 5% out there. What you want to do is to take that money, fold it into an LSA, and make your LSA cover those areas.” The great thing about that, he says, is that there’s no need to ask for a bigger budget. For Instacart, the key was making the benefits and amounts meaningful for the employee while keeping it digestible for the company overall. From there, companies can decide whether they’ll institute a reimbursement program or a Forma card to take care of purchases. What it all comes down to, are benefits actually benefiting everyone? “We want to offer things that people are using,” Fairbairn said. “We're really proud when we see high utilization.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Forma, for sponsoring this webinarCarrie Snider is a Phoenix-based journalist and marketing copywriter.

Carrie Snider | August 08, 2024

Navigating the Unexpected: Providing Support Through Pregnancy and Its Complications

In the Spring of 2019, less than a year before the pandemic would change workplaces around the globe, parenting expert Emily Oster wrote a prescient piece for the Atlantic titled “End the Plague of Secret Parenting,” arguing that if parents speak openly about their obligations, their colleagues are more likely to adapt. “We need to normalize the experience of parenting while working,” Oster said. The experience of parenting, though, is vast and complex. A fact that’s not often talked about is that 50% of pregnancies include complications, an important reality for employers to understand in providing support for their working parents. Oster, a bestselling author, founder of ParentData, and professor of economics at Brown University, shared the lessons of her new book, The Unexpected: Navigating Pregnancy During and After Complications in a fireside chat at From Day One’s July virtual conference on innovative employee benefits to support families and caregivers.Most people, Oster posits, naturally feel like they can wear both the “career” hat and the “parent” hat. Companies, however, don’t always share this view. “So often in the corporate culture we are in, people are encouraged to not have both of those hats on or to hide one of the hats while they’re at their job,” Oster said, adding that many people tell her they hide their child’s doctor’s appointments from colleagues, even saying the appointments are for themselves instead. “This is where we are losing people,” Oster said. Companies need to be more flexible, recognizing the needs of working parents. For example, “when people have small kids, there is a time of the day that is very valued: 5 pm to 7 pm. Structuring a job where you can’t get home until 7–that's like saying you can’t see your kid,” Oster said. “This is an inefficiency in the labor market.” Smart companies, Oster says, will let great employees be with their kids when they need to be and offer them flexible options, such as logging back on after the kids go to bed.Jessi Hempel, senior editor-at-large at LinkedIn, left, interviewed author and economist Emily Oster at From Day One’s virtual conferenceWhile many forward-thinking companies have solid plans in place for parental leave and the transition back into the workplace, those policies fall apart when it comes to the early and middle childhood years, noted Jessi Hempel, senior editor-at-large at LinkedIn, who moderated the conversation. Said Oster: “Your child does not disappear at four months.” Support during this stage is less about time off and more about flexibility. Leaders should consider what flexibility options are possible within their business’ scope of work, Oster recommended.And leaders need to walk the talk. “Culture is set from the top,” Oster said. “When the people at the top are very invisible about their parenting, or very judgmental about parenting, or not open to this kind of flexibility, that trickles down.” It’s one thing to talk about being family-friendly, but more impactful to act that way. “The time that you say, ‘I can't schedule a meeting that goes past 4:45 because I’ve got to be home for my kid–that’s what matters,” she said. Flexibility encourages women to stay in the workforce. Currently, labor force participation for women with children under the age of five is at a historic high. “I think that is a result, to at least some extent, of a move toward remote work,” Oster said. With so many working parents in the labor market, there is even more reason for employers to continue to develop flexibility and cultural understanding. The shortage of affordable child care is limiting workforce gains for women, according to new research, adding to the need for flexible work arrangements.“Flexibility can have a lot of different meanings and a lot of different cultural innuendos,” Hempel said, noting that even the ideas of “remote work” and “flexible work” can get incorrectly conflated. For parents, Oster says the core types of flexibility that are attractive are the ability to set your own hours and the ability to work from home on short notice while caring for a sick child. She emphasizes that the latter is not taking time off, per se, but still mostly working while managing issues at home at the same time. This is integral to retaining excellent employees for the long-term. “If you keep someone through a period when maybe they are not able to give you 150%, their kids are eventually going to get older, and then they can give you 150%,” Oster said. Flexibility engenders loyalty, Hempel added. Another way employers can support their working parents is by recognizing that no parent–and no birth–is identical. In her new book The Unexpected, co-written with Dr. Nathan Fox, Oster digs into how parents can anticipate and deal with unexpected pregnancy complications.As an economist, Oster is interested in numbers and probability, which prospective parents have trouble thinking about rationally when going through pregnancy. She and Fox explore the importance of putting probability in context when having conversations with doctors, which can often be brief and fraught. “What's the conversation we have to [have to] get to a decision? Is this relevant for the decision we're going to make? Our goal should not be to just talk about every possible eventuality—that's irrelevant. It should be to think about what do we have to choose about,” Oster said. Oster says that learning about even the smallest probability of a dangerous complication can send parents into a panic—often unnecessarily. “Even economists who write about probabilities for a living are not very well-equipped to understand particularly small probabilities,” Oster said. “It is a core limitation of humans, but maybe it serves us in some ways as well from an evolutionary standpoint.”What can employers take from this? In order to provide supportive, flexible options for parents, leaders should recognize the anxiety of expecting parents and how that–plus the fairly common possibility of actual complications—could impact their work performance and needs. Incorporating this empathy into HR strategy will make the workplace more attractive to parents, instilling loyalty to employers who offered support when workers needed it most. Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, and CBS New York.[Featured image by SDI Productions/iStock by Getty Images]

Katie Chambers | August 07, 2024

Managing Headcount More Effectively to Meet Talent Needs and Financial Goals

Market swings in the last handful of years alone have been enough to make recruiters motion sick, again and again chasing the cycle of hiring surges and purges. Then there’s the matter of unwanted employee turnover that has executives worried about unfilled seats. A new report by LinkedIn and Microsoft found that 46% of workers are thinking of quitting this year.Talent acquisition isn’t getting easier. Forty-six percent of TA leaders say that business priorities are changing so quickly they can’t keep up, according to new research from the Josh Bersin Company. And rather than inviting talent acquisition teams to the planning meeting, business leaders are sending memos demanding cost reduction.When the business plan is a moving target, making decisions about workforce planning is impossible. “As the business continues to evolve, so does our pace of recruiting,” said Anne Comolli, director of talent acquisition at 23andMe, the biotech company made famous by its at-home genomics testing kits. As soon as TA or finance makes a decision about hiring and the data is entered, that information has already gone stale, she said. “I never really had confidence–nor did my finance partner have the confidence–that it was 100% accurate. As we were making decisions about where we needed to make changes to headcount, the data just wasn’t available.”Conversations about workforce planning were only hypothetical, she said during a From Day One webinar on the challenges of headcount management. She couldn’t confidently tie headcount changes to cost savings without sinking a significant amount of time into data analysis. Comolli estimates that between finance and herself, answering a single hiring question could take half a day, manually working across multiple systems and spreadsheets.The same was happening over at health benefits platform Gravie. Syncing finance and HR was a multi-meeting, many-hours affair. And yet it felt impossible to get the right information at the right time, says Comolli’s fellow panelist Nick Price, Gravie’s VP of financial planning and analysis. “When you’re a small but fast-growing company, cash flow forecasting is so important. People are our number-one cost. Knowing not only how many you’re going to hire and in what departments you’re going to hire them–but also when you’re going to hire them–it’s so important to get that correct up front.”Unless business leaders know what resources they’re going to have, they can’t forecast. Poor planning leads to over or under-hiring, which leads to layoffs and surges–and the cycle is doomed to repeat.A Better Way to Connect Finance and Talent AcquisitionA few years ago, Tushar Makhija was working at a start up. After closing a big round of funding, Makhija had a pile of cash and a mandate to spend it on building the team he wanted. But then the pandemic arrived. You’re spending too much on headcount, executives told him, and he was made to clear house. “But Covid actually turned out to be a tailwind for software, so in another three months, I was told to go rebuild and hire everybody else back by the same very smart venture capitalists and also my CTO,” he said. Makhija endured exhausting cycles of recruitment and cuts, spent hours in spreadsheets, and ping-ponged between HR and finance. If it was this unwieldy with a team of 25, what is it like at bigger companies with hundreds or thousands of workers?According to the report from the Josh Bersin Company, just 31% of talent acquisition leaders feel like they’re strategic contributors to the business. Most feel more like order-takers.Makhija of TeamOhana, Price of Gravie, and Comolli of 23andMe spoke with journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza during the From Day One webinar (photo by From Day One)Makhija began looking for a way to help both finance and HR with the problem of headcount management. “One is a steward of capital and the other is a steward of people. If you don’t have enough capital, you can’t hire enough people; and if you don’t have enough people, you’re not going to grow revenue,” he said. “The biggest opportunity for us was to break these data silos.”In the early stages of founding his company, TeamOhana, where he’s currently CEO, Makhija spoke at length with CFOs and attended workforce planning sessions. It was a stressful mess. There were too many people in a single spreadsheet, mysteries about who made this change or that one, broken formulas, and frustrated department heads.With TeamOhana, he set out to design a platform that would connect HR and finance in real time with one source for everyone’s data, where requests can be made and approved, plans transparently changed, and decisions made. “We have drawn swim lanes,” he said. “The downstream effects of good strategic planning is basically good company strategy. That good company strategy results in more revenue, happier customers, higher bonuses, fewer layoffs, and more expansion.”Gravie and 23andMe signed up, and it paid off. Both Price and Comolli said they now spend less time reconciling spreadsheets and more time talking proactively–and productively–about using human capital to grow the business, like, for instance, how long it will take to hire for a hard-to-fill role and when those contributions will start to make a difference for the business.Price doesn’t feel like a gatekeeper anymore, which he never cared for in the first place, especially given finance’s reputation for opposition. As soon as his HR team loads information into the platform, Price can approve it and move on. And as an HR leader, Comolli is finally spending her time being a strategic contributor to the business, not chasing down numbers to punch into a spreadsheet. “We can be true thought partners and do actual workforce planning. It has been just a breath of fresh air,” she said. And that’s what she really signed up for when she got into HR.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, TeamOhana, for sponsoring this webinar.Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | August 06, 2024

Using New Technology to Predict the Skills of the Future

The promise of skills-based hiring has employers excited about bigger talent pools, highly qualified workers, and higher workforce retention. But the specific skills that a given business needs is always evolving–sometimes rapidly. Let’s say your company is ready to fully embrace skills-based hiring. Well, what are those skills that your workforce needs?For Deon Correa, the senior director of learning and development for Carnival Cruise Line, keeping his workforce skilled-up for the future is a massive undertaking. Carnival Cruise Line operates what are essentially floating cities. A single cruise carries about 1,800 crew members and upwards of 4,000 or 5,000 guests. “We basically manage a skill inventory across all positions,” said Correa. “These could be technical skills, industry-specific knowledge statements, soft skills, leadership skills, and more, so we have to keep this skill inventory current and usable, and we are constantly listening to feedback from internal stakeholders, from leaders, and from team members to gain insights into these skill gaps.”During From Day One’s July virtual conference on strategies for upskilling and career mobility, Correa and fellow panelists gathered for a panel discussion on using new technology to predict the skills of the future.“Jobs don’t have skills, people have skills,” said fellow panelist Jenny Neuharth, director of talent-centered transformation of Eightfold, an AI-powered talent intelligence platform. “Historically, what we’ve done is centered around jobs, but talent-centered design flips the operating system. What are the unique skills that the talent has that they bring to the table?”To suss out incoming trends and job-altering advancements, Lauren Adams, the head of leadership development programs at corporate real estate firm JLL, conducts research like a beat reporter, following events and changes outside the corporate real estate industry and asking, ‘what impact will this have on our future workforce?’Employers that take regular inventory of the skills in their workforce will have the advantage, said Neuharth. “With the development of artificial intelligence, there are some skills that are moving to automation, so if I have awareness of those skills that are potentially at risk, I could, ideally, change those out prior to the need for having a reduction in force.”Being made to learn new skills can make some feel that their role is changing in unwelcome ways. For instance, artificial intelligence has many workers sweating over their job security. Mandating that workers adopt AI into their day-to-day feels, to some, like it’s only a matter of time before they’re replaced.Michael Trusty, the VP and head of learning at mortgage lender Fannie Mae, wanted to show the company’s workers that they had no intention of ditching their workers for a bunch of AI robots. “We hosted an AI expo, open to all employees, just trying to demystify it and not treat it as a threat, but to build on employee curiosity, encourage them to to embrace where we’re going, and to start developing those skills–not approaching it from a perspective of fear,” he said. “I think curiosity can be a great catalyst for learning, so we’re trying to make it a positive experience.”To train up the workforce on new skills, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Trusty is a fan of “the good, old traditional individual development plan. We are very aggressive in pushing those. More than 70% of our employees have active development plans that are helping guide their learning.”The panelists spoke about "Using New Technology to Predict the Skills of the Future," at From Day One's virtual conference (photo by From Day One)For the panelists, the best–not to mention the most effective and efficient–means of consistently adding new skills to the workforce is to encourage and equip workers to pursue the kinds of skills and learning opportunities they want.Ultimately, people like to learn, Correa says, and the culture he wants to maintain is one that rewards and celebrates personal growth. “At every level, we focus on continuous learning opportunities,” he said. There’s always some kind of development opportunity to jump into: on-the-job training, mentoring and coaching with real-time feedback, summer internships, emerging leader programs, and rotational assignments. “I’m quite proud of this culture that supports people growing and developing,” he said.Like those at Fannie Mae, employees at JLL also follow individual development plans, designed, in large part, by their vision of the future. Managers ask their direct reports how they want to develop, then they derive a formal plan to reach those goals. Adams encourages workers to always look forward. For instance, she said, “if you’re currently a facilities manager, what does the future of that role look like?” The business is then there to help, with access to executives at roundtable discussions, skill development opportunities, and even outside resources.“There is a balance between the actual training for people and providing them learning opportunities, and then there’s the marketing,” Adams said. People need to feel free and enabled to explore new skills and job evolutions. So you have to tell them, “please go out and dive in where you can, continue to develop what you want for your next step,” she said. “It just takes a little bit of cheerleading along the way.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | August 06, 2024

How to Build a Holistic Financial Well-Being Program for a Diverse Workforce

“Employers are realizing that the main source of [employee] stress is coming from finances, and it impacts other areas of well-being. It’s impacting people’s emotional and mental well-being, their work-life balance, and their physical well-being,” said LaTonia McGinnis, assistant VP of health transformation at management consulting firm Aon.McGinnis was part of a From Day One webinar about how innovative employers are offering financial well-being tools to their workforces. She and her fellow panelists discussed why financial wellness benefits are such an important part of employee care and how companies can identify and meet the financial needs of their workers.Rebecca Liebman is the CEO and co-founder of financial well-being platform LearnLux. She says the company has seen in its clients a renewed sense of responsibility. “Companies are wanting to step up and be that support because so many people’s financial lives are tied to their company: their benefits, health care, retirement, insurance–it’s all through their employer, and now their financial health can be as well.”Last year, CNBC’s financial confidence survey found that 70% of Americans were stressed about their finances, and more than half (52%) say their stress is worse now than before Covid arrived in 2020. The rate of inflation, increasing interest rates, and lack of savings were among the most commonly cited reasons for financial anxiety.Holistic Financial Well-BeingLease-to-own retailer The Aaron’s Company recently reevaluated its financial well-being offerings. It had a program in place, but Demaris Crespo, the company’s senior benefits analyst decided it was time to take inventory of employee needs and consider whether the program was the best fit. They found they had outgrown their old platform and needed something that encompassed a variety of financial tools, plus coaching and guidance from human experts too.“Our workforce is very diverse, and we wanted to have a holistic approach to well-being and find different providers that will support us in that quest of bringing well-being programs to our employees,” she said.One hurdle has simply been getting workers to pay attention to financial wellness benefits. Many just aren’t used to investing, planning, or trying financial coaching. Others are simply uncomfortable with the whole idea. “Talking about finances is never easy,” said Crespo. Aaron’s workforce is quite young, and few arrive with financial know-how. To get workers excited about what the company is offering, Crespo’s team is working with ERGs to get the word out, and so far, it’s been successful. “I think it’s important to put all these new tools and resources in front of the employees so they can see what’s out there and take advantage of it. That’s one of our main concerns, that sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know, so education is key.”In a conversation moderated by Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza, the panelists spoke about the importance of finanical wellness (photo by From Day One)“There’s been so much shame about finance in our own culture, shaming people for what they have or haven’t done,” Liebman said. “Financial well-being has really been revamped over the last few years, and when you think about holistic financial well-being, it’s about meeting people where they are.”Financial stress isn’t a problem only for low-income workers, PwC found. Over 40% of workers earning $100,000 or more report being financially stressed. The distraction of financial stress can affect sleep, mental health, and self-esteem.Workers need more than just a 401(k) and an employer match, Liebman says. “That’s just one piece of your financial life. There are about 28 other decisions that people make as an adult that impact their financial life, from credit card debt to medical debt, student debt, emergency savings, raising their credit score, saving for college or having a 529 plan for a family member, all the way through to retirement drawdown and estate planning.”How to Know What Your Workers NeedThe panelists made it clear: Don’t assume you know what your workforce needs. “We typically ask a lot of questions and do a lot of discovery with our clients to determine what problems they’re trying to solve with their financial well-being program,” said McGinnis. “They tend to be laser-focused on one issue–it might be student loans or it might be early pay access–but then when we get into deeper discussions, we tend to determine that there truly is more of a need for holistic financial well-being.”McGinnis recommends financial well-being vendors that blend technology with human guidance, providing access to certified financial planners (CFPs) that are required to act in the interest of the employees. She also recommends solutions that can serve the needs of a diverse workforce, usually with some level of personalization.“Talk to your people, and listen to them,” said Crespo. “Conduct surveys, have meetings with your leadership team. And talk to your human resources. We have human resources agents in the field, and they take the pulse on what people need.”Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, LearnLux, for sponsoring this webinar.Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | July 31, 2024

How to Wrap Your Team Members in as Much Care as Possible

Helping employees get the surgery they need, survive cancer, take part in expanded fertility offerings, and even manage emergency evacuations—this is the power of company benefits. This is why people like Dani Fischer got into human resources to begin with.“That’s the joy of what we all get to do. And that’s why many of us are drawn to this,” said Fischer, VP of global benefits, rewards, and wellness at Hewlett Packard Enterprise during a fireside chat at From Day One’s July virtual conference. Fischer was interviewed by Nicole Smith, editorial audience director at Harvard Business Review.“Being here for our team members, creating a great place to work is just at the heart of what I get to do every day,” Fischer said. “For me, it’s a privilege.”As many other companies have learned, especially after Covid, it’s important to be agile, creative, and willing to shift right along with what their employees need most. With 62,000 employees worldwide, HPE must take strides to understand what its people want from their benefits program.“We have a number of ways to check the pulse of our team members,” Fischer said. “One key method is our 'Voice of the Workforce' survey. [This is] an annual check-in to gauge our overall performance and specifically assess our benefits. Within each country, we have local representatives, providing insights tailored to their region.”In the U.S., Fischer and her team also conduct a survey at the conclusion of annual enrollment, offering a chance for feedback. In other countries, they offer services to see what those employees value most.Aside from surveys, staying closely connected with DEI teams is instrumental in connecting with employee needs, as well as listening sessions and resources groups. Even the company’s Slack channel is an opportunity for U.S. members to share their thoughts. “While we’re not going to react to every request, if there is a general theme, we do give it serious consideration,” Fischer said. Changing as Needs ShiftAs employees change, so do their needs. Recently, employees’ needs have shifted to growing families. “A number of years ago, we shifted our definition of fertility,” she said. Rather than just covering fertility services for those who couldn’t get pregnant, they broadened it to include anyone who wants to have a child.It’s more about looking at what the employees need, and doing everything they can to support them, Fischer says. This also includes different needs in various countries and cultures.“We do give each country the freedom to support our wellness goals and initiatives in a way that makes sense in their particular country,” she said. While HPE sets global campaigns to promote physical health, each country can tailor them. For instance, their India employees work to hold a biannual family race day to promote physical health.Nicole Smith of Harvard Business Review interviewed Dani Fischer of HPE in the fireside chat (photo by From Day One)They continually monitor vendors and review the marketplace, because one challenge has always been budgets. How to give employees the most while affording the care? “We watch our dollars as closely as we can, while still trying to be creative and offer leading benefits for our team members,” Fischer said.One focus is preventative care, something that many people did less of during Covid, but is crucial to improve quality of life and catch illnesses more quickly. As needs shift and changes are made to company benefits, Fischer and her team do their best to be agile and respond quickly. One proactive approach to their job is to ensure employees are informed. They include relevant information in a regular company newsletter via email, offer webcasts during annual enrollment, send mailers, and relay information on Slack—whatever they can do to make sure employees know what resources are available to them, especially as benefits are updated.Advocating for AllFrom tutors for those taking college exams, to families with children on the spectrum that need support, Fischer says benefits are for more than just physical health. Employees need help advocating for their loved ones, which makes everyone happier and healthier. Their company offers a concierge service so employees can get help with just about anything—including planning vacations. “We truly want to try and just make things easier for our team members. So it’s not just for the hard stuff, but the fun stuff too.”With such a complex healthcare system in the U.S., advocacy is essential. HPE offers an advocacy and navigation partner to guide employees through the system, offering expert medical opinions and support. “We’re trying to just break down these barriers as much as we can,” Fischer said.Extra layers of advocacy are in place for those who need it most. “For our LGBTQ+ community, we can find doctors who are understanding and can get them re-engaged with the health care system.” Making a DifferenceDuring an evacuation from Afghanistan, a team member sought help for their family, recalls Fischer. Through HPE’s business travel accident insurance, Fischer and her team arranged seats on a plane for them. Despite flights being grounded, they eventually made it out safely due to their efforts. This was a proud moment for Fischer and the company. “It was through our connections and just willingness to ask the question that made it happen,” she said. It’s moments like these, along with daily successes in supporting team members through health challenges, that underscore the profound impact of any HR member’s work.Carrie Snider is a Phoenix-based journalist and marketing copywriter.

Carrie Snider | July 30, 2024

The Four Pillars: A Psychology-Based Approach to Developing Leaders

The pandemic didn't just disrupt the workplace, it effectively disengaged millions of workers from their core mission, work culture, and ultimately their jobs. With only about a third (33%) of the workforce engaged at work, according to Gallup, disengaged workers cost up to $1.9 trillion in lost productivity.“The problem with disconnection: it’s not only a business problem, [it’s] really correlated with poor retention, poor performance for profitability, and also health outcomes,” said Dr. Bobbi Wegner, the founder and CEO of Groops, a platform that helps build stronger relationships through programs grounded in group psychology.Wegner spoke to From Day One founder and chief content officer, Steve Koepp at From Day One’s virtual conference. During this thought leadership spotlight, they covered the four pillars of building leadership, and how those leaders can build connections amongst their teams.Disconnection in the workforce isn’t one thing or another, says Wegner, it's amorphous. It includes virtual and hybrid cohorts, as well as full-time back-in-the-office workers. “There’s different generations entering the workforce with a different value set and different needs. We as leaders really have to figure out how to create an inclusive space for everybody.”The disconnection is driven by a lack of cohesion, or strong working relationships in work groups and teams, says Wegner. “We’ve all been on teams that just weren’t clicking. There's a lack of cohesion, a lack of trust.”However, this disconnection isn’t like the Great Resignation, and workers aren’t leaving their jobs. Less workers in the second half of 2024 are looking to change jobs – just 35% say they'll make a change. “A lot of people are staying put now, but not necessarily because they’re loving it,” said Koepp.Dr. Bobbi Wegner led the thought leadership spotlight (company photo)Wegner points to Maslow's hierarchy of needs and our need for stability. Even though people are staying put, they still want something dynamic in their work culture. “We have to have some stability in life. We need to make enough money to support ourselves. But humans are purpose maximizers, right? People need to feel a purpose in their workplace.” Growth is a part of that, but so is being connected to the company mission and the people you work with, says Wegner.“We don’t think of ourselves this way, but we’re hardwired for connection. We’re social by nature. We’re always constantly assessing our social cues in our social environments. Like, am I safe? Do I belong? And so that’s why groups really matter,” Wegner said.That comfort of belonging and safety are also important factors in taking risks. Wegner says people are less willing to take risks when the sense of trust and safety is low or non-existent. “Innovation lives in risk-taking. The biggest, wildest ideas don't get put on the table when there's not a high level of safety, belonging, and trust.”To build that level of trust and security, organizations need to create a culture that feels good for everybody. To create a good work culture, Wegner identifies four pillars to develop good leaders.The first step, or pillar, is evaluating yourself as a leader and understanding what your values are. “The best leaders are leading from their own values and communicating well,” Wegner said. Leaders then line those values up with the business model.It’s important to encourage leaders to self-reflect and assess their own values, strengths, and common behaviors. This involves creating a safe environment to share their strengths and weaknesses, and providing feedback from organizational psychologists and peers. By doing so, leaders can align their personal values with business needs, leading from a place of authenticity.This leads to the next pillar, the frame, where the groundwork is laid. “There are so many parallels between parenting and leadership. You want to have clear views. You want to have clear values. You want to have a clear structure around expectations and communication.”Here, leaders establish a clear and structured team culture rooted in defined goals and values. They set clear expectations and communication guidelines, determine the right team size, and map the structure of the team. Wegner says leaders should create a culture blueprint that outlines the mission, vision, and values of the team to foster alignment with both business and cultural objectives.The third pillar, workgroup dynamics, focuses on how leaders see their teams. “We help leaders really start to have words for what people are feeling, what they’re feeling, and then help them understand what to do or say.”Leaders should understand the psychological roles and dynamics within their teams. This includes recognizing common roles like the leader, disrupter, and peacemaker, and understanding how these roles impact team cohesion. Part of this pillar of training is also learning to address team members constructively.The final pillar is giving your leaders the tools for their role. “Your job is to really listen first. And then solve [this together] as a team. This isn’t just your problem to solve.”By equipping leaders with practical psychological tools and skills, like motivational interviewing and effective questioning techniques like asking open-ended questions, they can better support their teams and address challenges constructively. With these pillars in place, Wegner says they see increase in connection and cohesion, which leads to employees feeling more valued.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Groops, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.Matthew Koehler is a freelance journalist and licensed real estate agent based in Washington, DC. His work has appeared in Greater Greater Washington, The Washington Post, The Southwester, and Walking Cinema, among others.

Matthew Koehler | July 29, 2024

Caring for Caregivers: Strategies to Support a Healthy Workforce

When Julia Cohen Sebastien had a loved one become ill, that was all she could think about at work.“It definitely lowered my productivity,” she said during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s July virtual conference. “I hit burnout a lot faster in my job, and ultimately I had to take medical leave and started racking up new costs for my own treatment.”The HR department wasn’t fully supportive, says Cohen Sebastien. Even her mentor told to get over it and put on a smile.Cohen Sebastien left that job and went on to co-found Grayce, where she is the CEO. Grayce is a family care navigation platform that partners with employers to support personalized care journeys for their employees’ diverse needs.“At Grayce, we really take a holistic care approach to supporting an employee and their family,” Cohen Sebastien said. “And that’s about giving them tools, resources, and hands on support, to take things off their plate, so that they can navigate both the short-term and the long-term care responsibilities, including taking care of themselves.”More Employees Are Caregivers Than Employers ThinkCohen Sebastien noted that around 73% of all employees have some type of outside caregiving responsibilities for a loved one, whether that be for children, aging parents or grandparents, spouses or partners, siblings, or even themselves.Julia Cohen Sebastien led the thought leadership spotlight titled, "Caring for the Caregivers: Innovative Benefit Strategies to Support a Healthy Workforce and Families" (company photo)“Up to 50% of employees say that they’re afraid to reveal their caregiving responsibilities to their employers because they are afraid of what that will cost them at work,” she said. In addition, the amount of time people are spending on caregiving duties for their loved ones is skyrocketing because fewer professional caregivers are available, which drives up prices for those services, says Cohen Sebastien.When employees take on caregiving duties, it can become the equivalent of a part-time or even full-time job. Sometimes, they take multiple days off each month due to those responsibilities.Those who are in the sandwich generation find themselves caring for their young children as well as their aging parents. These employees tend to have a lot of seniority in the company and are difficult to replace, so their support needs to be comprehensive. Organizations need to consider the ROI of supporting employers who are caregivers. “It’s a pretty important topic to make people’s lives easier just at that moment when they need it,” she said. How to Support CaregiversCaregivers want a variety of support from employers. “Beyond time away and flexibility, employees want help to lighten the load,” she said. “In many cases, they need help accessing things, removing barriers to care and navigating the complexity.”For example, one of Grayce’s licensed clinical social workers helped an employee who was concerned about his aging father’s physical and financial safety. The employee was taking leave to travel and wanted help transferring his dad’s guardianship to his sibling.The clinical social worker expedited the guardianship transfer and helped transition the father into a safe senior living community of the siblings’ choice. The employee “was able to come back to work in 10 days with confidence and peace of mind,” Cohen Sebastien said. With the help of Grayce, many employees have been able to stay in their jobs and not have to take leave, or at least shorten the time they are on leave, says Cohen Sebastien. Although mental health days and general wellness solutions are excellent support for employees, they aren’t enough to give caregivers the help they need. It’s all about “going after some of those key life challenges that prevent them from being able to be present and happy.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Grayce, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Mary Pieper is a freelance writer based in Mason City, Iowa.

Mary Pieper | July 25, 2024

How to Navigate Different Learning Styles to Include Everyone in a Large Organization

“How do we engage 1,500 learners at a single time, and how do we have content that meets the needs of all who may be attending a particular learning event?” This is a question Dr. Sherri Brooks, chief learning officer at Baptist Memorial Health Care works on each day.The organization employs more than 21,000 people, including 1,500 in leadership roles. With such a large team, learning and development efforts can be complicated. Some people are kinesthetic learners, meaning they need to engage physically during the learning process. In contrast, others are auditory or visual learners.Brooks was interviewed by Nicole Smith, editorial audience director for Harvard Business Review during a fireside chat at From Day One’s July virtual conference on upskilling and career mobility.“I’ve stopped passing judgment on what I think people should know and how I think they should behave, because what I also recognize is that not everyone is a lifelong learner,” she said. “Not everyone loves learning, engaging, and developing,” said Brooks.People come from different backgrounds and have different motivation levels. That’s why she takes ownership of “all that I can do to impact someone else’s life, particularly as it relates to professional development and growth, and learning and development.”What Makes a Good Learning Environment?Brooks says the key ingredient for an effective learning environment is leaders who “take advantage of teachable moments when there’s an opportunity to impart knowledge or insight into what a particular team member may be doing.”In particular, middle managers have an essential role because of their direct impact on frontline workers, says Brooks. “They set the tone for the organization because they are responsible for facilitating changes that may come up for explaining what’s the new learning topic of the month, or what’s needed for the organization,” she said.Nicole Smith of Harvard Business Review interviewed Dr. Sherri Brooks of Baptist Memorial Health Care during the fireside chat (photo by From Day One)Baptist Memorial Health Care holds quarterly leadership development intensives to address specific desired outcomes. “For example, if our goal is to improve overall patient experience ratings, we can do that by demonstrating compassionate connected care, which is the framework for how we really work alongside each other,” Brooks said.The organization’s leaders are trained to model specific behaviors, such as empathy. “When you have a team that's empathetic towards one another, then that translates into empathetic patient care, which then increases patient experience, which increases our patient experience ratings,” Brooks said.Ensuring Learning is Creative and EffectiveAs a large organization spread across three states, Baptist Memorial Health Care embraces technology as part of the employee learning process. They offer virtual and hybrid training methods and have invested in audience interaction tools to make presentations more engaging, Brooks says.Brooks also recommends varying learning methods. “We’re not going to call all 21,000 team members into a classroom to teach and train them on something. We have to offer content and micro learning bursts in 10 to 20 minute chunks.”Many workers don’t always have access to a computer since they don’t work from a desk, so the company makes learnings available on an app or provides desktop computer kiosks where employees can go when they have downtime.Another way to avoid learning fatigue is to avoid a fire drill approach where employees have a lot of material thrown at them at once. For example, Baptist Memorial Health Care decided to spread its orientation for new nurses over a 14-week period, where they would take a 90-minute course one day a week and then practice what they learned on their floor. “That tremendously decreased our turnover,” Brooks said.Mary Pieper is a freelance writer based in Mason City, Iowa. 

Mary Pieper | July 24, 2024

Transforming Your Organization into a Skills-Based Powerhouse

“Skills-based hiring allows us to focus on making better hiring decisions based on actual skills rather than subjective factors,” said Kristen Baller, head of talent acquisition at satellite provider DISH Network. “Traditional hiring practices often favor candidates who have specific educational backgrounds or tenure with [brand-name] companies. Moving to this model helps mitigate that bias. It allows employees to showcase their capabilities that could directly impact the roles and the requirements of a job.”Baller is part of a growing number of employers making skills-based hiring and promotion a priority. According to LinkedIn’s Future of Recruiting 2024 report, 73% of hiring professionals say skills-based hiring is a priority. Further, between 2019 and 2022, the number of companies that omit degree requirements from job postings increased 36%.There are many advantages to adopting a skills-based mentality: It grows the applicant talent pool based on relevant rather than arbitrary factors, it can improve the quality of hire, and it can promote internal mobility, giving workers a reason to invest in their own skill development and to stick with a company longer.“The importance of having consistency and scalability is important to any recruiting process,” said Kristen Cooper, head of North America solutions consulting at recruiting tech platform SHL. For skills-based hiring, “it comes down to the requirements of the job on day one versus what an organization can train its new hires on. A huge part of this is branding and marketing. It’s so important when a candidate reads a job description that it actually reflects what they’re going to be doing.”Cooper and Baller were part of an expert panel at From Day One’s webinar on how to transform an organization into a skills-based powerhouse. The group spoke about changing the hearts, minds, and processes that undergird this progressive new attitude toward workforce development.How to Break Old Habits and Adopt a Skills-Based ModelShifting to a skills-based hiring approach is easier said than done. Job descriptions, processes, evaluations, interviews, scoring, and even tech platforms have to be reimagined. It helps to involve hiring managers in the planning, and in doing so, begin challenging biases and breaking old habits.Journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza moderated the webinar about "Transforming Your Organization Into a Skills-Based Powerhouse" (photo by From Day One)“We’re really focusing on internal mobility and standing up practices like workshops and lunch-and-learns across the organization,” Baller said. “We invite our executive leadership to talk about the organization and the work they’re doing, but really, we ask them to focus on the skills and competencies that individuals need. That triggers the individuals attending these lunch-and-learns to think about what skills they possess that could transition into another job.” People leave the sessions energized and able to envision career opportunities they had never considered, she says.Redesigning Candidate Assessment ToolsFor many, retooling hiring practices will include new modes of screening candidates’ capabilities. The New York Times is one employer building its own assessment tools. Monica Parodi, the Times’ VP of talent acquisition, described how constructive it’s been to have those already in the organization assist with skills-based methodology and assessments.“We just finished building an iOS and an Android assessment. In recruiting, we don’t have that technical knowledge. There are great vendors and tools out there, but it’s also great when you can take your in-house talent and allow them to be a part of building that interview plan. We had them build in the ability to test their iOS-building skills and their Android skills and their coding abilities. They’re the ones who know what skills are needed to complement their team.”Not everyone will have the funds or in-house capabilities to invest in proprietary tech, but everyone can get the teams involved in identifying new capabilities that need to be added.Parodi is clear that making the change, and even implementing skills-based hiring, is an arduous undertaking. It requires forming new habits, conducting deeper and more critical research on roles, and writing requisitions differently. The process is a tough one, but a lucrative one. “That’s one thing about skills-based hiring in general: It’s a lot more work on the front end, but the rewards are worth that return on investment.”Powering Skills-Based MobilityAssisted by technology, employers are also reaping the benefits of skills-based hiring for upskilling, reskilling, and internal mobility. “Companies tend to be pretty excited about the ability to bring some science and precision to that whole process,” said Cooper of SHL.“We realized a couple of years ago that there are some pretty big gaps in the market for the talent that we need,” said Angie Lombardo, the VP of talent acquisition at engineering consultancy Arcadis. “So, we started researching different technologies that could assist us in the process. We decided to invest in a skills-powered AI tool.”Employees create a profile, and the platform helps them identify career paths and options within the company based on their skills and interests. “It helps people kind of see, ‘Oh, I could probably do this job; I never thought about it before.”Lombardo recognized that the company’s internal mobility rates were low, largely due to lack of communication, which is a challenge in a large organization with so many business units. “The right hand is often not talking to the left hand,” she described. “You have someone who has this specific experience in water or wastewater, for example, and they really want to do something in a different business area, but the divisions don’t talk to each other. They have transferable skills, but the visibility isn’t there.”Skills-Based Hiring as a Tool for Business Growth and Employee RetentionPrioritizing skills has significant implications for internal growth and mobility too. “It’s much more cost-effective to move an internal employee into a role than to have to [resort] to external hiring practices,” said Baller. “When we move to focusing on skills-based hiring over traditional qualifications, it enhances internal mobility opportunities across the organization. It promotes a more dynamic and flexible workforce where individuals are not limited by their job title or their background.”Mapping career paths and connecting the nodes with skills can help workers envision an enriching future with the company. At business consulting firm Slalom, senior director of talent acquisition Laura Sullivan is using a talent module to support internal moves.“It does a really lovely job of showing the jungle gym that your career could be at Slalom. Each level has skills and roles that are associated with it, and it helps people to see, ‘I have this skill right now, and these other roles also include these skills, so I could take my career in this direction by earning these certifications, or by potentially working on certain types of projects.’”Sullivan pointed out that skills-based career movement is especially valuable in the consulting industry, where employees are already placed on projects based on their skills and capabilities. “When people roll off a project, they’re on our bench, and the bench is a great time for people to upskill. We invest in certifications, training, and workshops to help people take on bench projects. They can learn how to help with RFPs, for instance, if that’s a skill that they don’t have yet. It’s a great way for us to give people new opportunities, and help them fill any gaps that they might have in their experience.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, SHL, for sponsoring this webinar.Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | July 23, 2024

How “America’s Diner” Creates a Culture for Workers to Grow and Thrive

Fasika Melaku, SVP of HR and chief learning officer at Denny’s, is a big believer in career mobility. After all, she attended Emerson College to become a speech pathologist and ended up on an entirely different path. She credits the restaurant industry’s innate ability to provide a clear pathway for promotion as part of the reason she is where she is today.Melaku started as a restaurant hostess when she was in high school, working her way up the ranks. Now, she is committed to raising up employees at all levels. “I help engage our teams at Denny's from the hostess to the CEO, and discuss how we can create brilliance for our teams and for our guests when they walk in,” she said in a fireside chat at From Day One’s July virtual conference.Denny’s offers an ambitious career-development program for all of its 70,000 employees at more than 1,600 locations. Melaku provided an inside look at how the company’s ‘gain’ program provides support for workers in four key areas, including life skills and career pathways.Moderator Lydia Dishman, senior editor, growth and engagement at Fast Company notes that Denny’s provides “a support ecosystem that enables you to grow and learn.” In order to lay that foundation, Melaku says HR leaders need to start at the source. “I think one of the number one people in your ecosystem to support is you,” Melaku said, noting the importance of simply wanting to get up and go to work every day. “How we nurture that is creating a purpose that people can engage with, that you can find your place in. [For Denny’s], it’s our love for feeding people, body, mind and soul.”Part of that is ensuring all employees have a shared language around corporate values. “At Denny's, we have this culture that we wrap around called the Denny's Way. Using consistent language [ensures that] everybody gets it. It’s not hidden,” Melaku said. “It is a beautiful thing that’s given from the CEO, all the way down to the server and the cooks. That's a huge part of how we create mobility and how we start life at Denny’s.”Most Denny’s restaurants are franchise-owned, with 210 owners spread across the country. It can be a challenge to teach everyone in all of these locations, which is why that consistency in language is key.“The culture was already there,” Melaku said, but language needed to be shared. So, Denny’s brought everyone to the table, with all departments and franchises meeting in person over the course of three days. She says people left feeling more like a part of something bigger and could envision their place in the Denny’s ecosystem.Providing a Platform for MobilityIn a modern job environment that prioritizes skills-based hiring, “the restaurant industry is at an inflection point, teaching people this set of skills that they can take anywhere, or stay here with.” We often don't think about mobility in the service industry as staying within the service industry, but Denny’s wants to prepare its employees for long-term growth and career longevity.Lydia Dishman of Fast Company interviewed Fasika Melaku of Denny's in the virtual fireside chat (photo by From Day One)“You learn stuff when you’re working in the service industry day in and day out. How do we flip the script in the world to make sure they know what you learn here, leading a restaurant that is a $3 million business, is just as worthy as what you learn in a classroom?” Melaku said.The gain program harnesses the energy and passion of its employees who run a 24-hour business. It gives employees who need it the opportunity to get their GED while working for Denny’s, and ensures that the management training provided onsite could be seen by colleges as equivalent to higher education courses. Today, Melaku says, their program is equivalent to 30 college credits with three universities – and they’re going after more.The gain program also provides life skills training, including financial planning courses to help employees better understand how to manage the money they earn while working at Denny’s. This is more training than many college graduates may receive, says Dishman.Often, Melaku says, Denny’s is where employees learn the skills that will help them improve the situation for themselves and their families, whether that’s through the Star Management training program or simply learning basic skills on the job.Melaku shares the story of Michael Best, who started working at Denny’s at age 16 and now leads new restaurant openings at the organization. “He said Denny’s managers helped teach him about accountability,” Melaku said. He became the first person in his family to purchase their own home. “That’s the beauty of a supportive ecosystem.” Denny’s prides itself on being a bedrock for people and often providing them with their first job.Paying to train an employee only to have them walk out the door, then having to pay to train their replacement, is a particular challenge in the restaurant industry, where competition is fierce. “It is crucial that we think about our people. If you don’t figure out how to make people feel like they belong, if they don’t feel like it’s OK to take some time off, if they don’t learn – that’s tough.” Melaku has been in consistent conversation with the 200 owners to show them the data backing up how the gain program impacts retention.In terms of getting through to the employees themselves, Denny’s is transparent with its employees, showing how the pathway from server to general manager can lead to personal financial success. “In every onboarding you have, we tell them about the growth,” Melaku said. “It pays to help them see the value you bring to them as an individual, [how you] help them with their families, and teach them life skills. When you open that door to create success, your business will succeed.”Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, and CBS New York.

Katie Chambers | July 23, 2024

Measuring What's Really Happening in the Workplace in 2024

In today’s increasingly digital and often remote working environment, software can help organizations get a better handle on how their teams are tackling challenges and discover ways to fill in the gaps. The highest performing teams are 2.6 times more likely to be investing in performance management software, according to Lattice’s State of People Strategy Report. But of those not using such software, 27% are unsure of how to begin and 22% are even concerned about the cultural implications of doing so.But what does an average day of digital work look like? Does worker behavior vary during a typical workweek–or throughout the year? Workforce analytics company ActivTrak drew on three years of data, from more than 135,000 employees across 1,000 companies to provide an examination of workplace behaviors in its annual State of the Workplace Report.Among the findings: workdays are shorter and productivity remains steady. But at the same time, disengagement is growing, which may lead to problems of underutilization but also presents opportunities to make better use of untapped workforce capacity.In a From Day One webinar webinar, leaders from ActivTrak spoke about their critical findings related to productivity, burnout, technology, and AI usage trends. They discussed industry-specific best practices and benchmarks so you can take action and boost productivity across your organization.The State of the Workplace The goal of the report was “to reveal the current state of work and how organizations can better anticipate and plan for the future,” said Sarah Altemus, manager at ActivTrak’s Productivity Lab. “Notably, we found that workdays are shorter and productivity remains steady. Burnout is in decline, which should boost positive engagement and utilization. However, we did see that disengagement is growing, possibly due to previously burned-out employees who are increasingly checking out,” said Altemus.The study, which covered 2021 through 2023, found that employees were about eight minutes per day more productive in the first half of 2023 vs. the second half. This means that if an organization with 1,000 employees was able to maintain those earlier productivity levels throughout the whole year, it would gain an additional workload capacity of 18 full-time employees, worth approximately $1.1 million, assuming each employee has a $60,000 salary.Employees are also finishing their tasks in less time. The workday got a full 15% shorter from Q1 2021 to Q4 2023, dropping from nine hours and 52 minutes to nine hours and five minutes. Time spent on collaborative activities such as chat and messaging increased slightly. Meanwhile, total digital activity, productive time, and focus time stayed consistent.Sarah Altemus, ActivTrak’s Productivity Lab Manager, led the webinar (company photo)Efficiency, measured in productive time in relation to total time, remained steady. This, Altemus says, is a good thing. “We were creeping into almost 10 hours of ‘on’ connected time a day in 2021. I think a lot of that was really performative productivity, people wanting to be constantly online. And so it's encouraging to see that shift to a more sustainable period of time.”How can employers make the most of this trend? The ActivTrak Productivity Lab suggests utilizing workplace analytics software to boost performance management, enhance employee productivity, and maximize workforce investments. Leaders should continuously analyze current and long-term data to pinpoint gaps and obstacles, and identify employees who may benefit from additional training.A disengaged employee is defined as one who spends greater than 75% of their year in an underutilized state. Distressingly, they found that 20% of employees were disengaged due to underutilization, up 67% since 2021. Meanwhile, 7% of employees risked burnout due to overutilization. 4% of employees in 2023 worked on weekends, down one percentage point from 2022. Often, a small, overworked group of employees is taking on too much.Megan Moller, productivity enthusiast at ActivTrak, says multi-tasking and context-switching is often the culprit. “That can be exhausting,” Moller said. “And so when you are doing that every single day for a period of time, you can get burned out.” Leaders need to assess and track employee utilization to help right the balance.If you don’t find the right balance, the results can be costly. 27% of employees risk attrition due to burnout or disengagement.  Employees who are burned out are more likely to leave. And ActivTrak calculated that for an organization with 1,000 employees, a workload imbalance that leads to attrition equals a potential loss of 70 employees, valued at $2.1 million, based on 20% annual voluntary turnover and replacement costs equal to half of a $60,000 annual salary.To combat this, Altemus suggests gathering context through team meetings and one-on-one discussions to identify issues and offer targeted support to employees who are overburdened or underutilized. And leaders should encourage employee development by demonstrating how their daily work contributes to the organizations’ broader strategic goals.AI AdoptionArtificial intelligence is being adopted in the workplace – and fast. 22% of employees used AI tools in 2023, an increase of 50% from Q1 to Q4. While AI usage increased, however, ActivTrak found there was no apparent impact on productivity when comparing employees who used AI tools to those who did not. So that freed up time was not necessarily put to good use.Factors such as industry, company size, and workplace environment influenced AI tool adoption, but generally about one in 10 employees used AI tools. Remote workers were 5% more likely to use AI. 115 unique tools were used, with the free-to-use ChatGPT being the most popular.While the true role of AI in the workplace is not necessarily crystal clear, it’s obvious that AI is not going away. Altemus suggests striking a balance: train employees on effective AI use without solely relying on it. Promote a culture of experimentation and learning by encouraging employees to try new approaches and share what they learn. Offer guidance to ensure AI usage aligns with your organizational goals, and always be mindful of protecting sensitive or proprietary information.A Productive FutureIn terms of productivity, Altemus advises transferring best practices from earlier months to boost output and yield significant gains in the latter half of the year, when productivity tends to decline. To combat burnout and disengagement among employees feeling an unbalance in workload, try redirecting resources to support targeted training and growth opportunities. And with AI use on the rise, there is a need for clearly defined policies around appropriate use to maximize the benefits.Leaders can better understand the current state of their specific workforce using analytics tools, and add context with employee sentiment data gained through pulse surveys. They should always communicate their findings and take action when it’s relevant.Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, ActivTrak, for sponsoring this webinar. Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, and CBS New York.

Katie Chambers | July 19, 2024