Archives

trust

A Focus on Trust

Employees are beginning to return to the workplace but not without a certain amount of angst. The past several months have given employees a taste of the freedom, flexibility, and convenience working from home offers. While some are happy for the opportunity to “return to normal,” many are reluctant—even resistant—to returning to the physical workplace.

overwhelmed

Tips for Smoothing Out ‘Lumpy’ Workloads

Few companies are able to maintain a steady pace of work at all times and often experience various ebbs and flows of demand. Meeting that demand, without overtaking employees or paying too many people to work with too little demand for their time, can be challenging. But companies have found a variety of ways to […]

6th Circuit Sides With College Prof on Religious Objection to Student’s Pronouns Request

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals (which covers Michigan and Ohio employers) recently addressed whether a public university violated a professor’s rights under the First Amendment’s Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses when it disciplined him for refusing to use the pronouns requested by a student.

Healthy Teams Don’t Happen by Accident

After a uniquely challenging and disruptive year, many employees are struggling. In January, an employee trends study found that 34% of respondents reported feeling burned out, a 7% year-over-year increase. What’s more, the latest Household Pulse Survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) discovered that 37% of survey respondents feel anxious or […]

Odessa Jenkins—Allowing Herself and Others to Compete at Their Highest Levels

In our series of features on chief diversity officers (CDOs) and those with similar titles, a common theme has been the fact that so many companies are demonstrating their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) by adding CDOs and similar roles in the first place. Having a C-level executive specifically tasked with promoting those […]

balance

Placing a Premium on Work/Life Balance

As employees begin to make the trek back into their physical workplaces, some are excited and anxious to reconnect with colleagues, while others are feeling a sense of trepidation and loss. In this environment, employers need to think about how they can engage all employees, regardless of how much they are looking forward to, or […]

COVID-19 Benching: H-1Bs Can’t Sit This One Out

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to complicate how employers approach temporary layoffs and furloughs spawned by lost revenues and reduced demands for their services. As if navigating the employment-based immigration laws weren’t complicated enough, now employers must balance implementing cost-saving measures with their federal obligations to employer-sponsored migrant workers.

Three Interview Questions to Avoid

When you’re interviewing a potential employee, the stakes are high. You want to bring the right person onto the right team in the right role, and which questions you ask can have a huge impact on the process. You’ve probably spent time tailoring your list to include thoughtful questions that will really help you identify […]

Top HR Conferences of 2021: In-Person Events

As a HR professional, it is important to keep your ear to the pulse of the industry, grow, and learn new skills and best practices. But for many of us, it’s been more than a year since we’ve attended an in-person conference or event. Which are still taking place this year and where? We’ve done […]

Determining Voluntary Termination Under ARPA

Under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), if an employee willfully and knowingly disregards company policy, is she not voluntarily terminating her employment? Also, in that same vein, when does misconduct move from violating company policy and arrive at “gross misconduct”?