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Making a Business Case for Mental Health

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Making a Business Case for Mental Health

Set in Seattle, Frasier is full of witty dialogue and honest conversations that normalize mental health problems. Outside of sitcom-land, the DMEC is one organization which aims to normalize them as well.

This is my first “Frasier” blog of 2017. I’ve decided it’s my mission to remind people what a treasure this 90s gem is. It explores everything from serious mental health issues to complicated familial dynamics to silly everyday misunderstandings. I did my research this weekend and discovered that no blog exists that is dedicated solely to “Frasier.” No CafeNervosa.net. No MartysChair.edu. No SherryPlease.com. Oy vey. Time to step up my game.

As I write this, I think of a particular podcast that rises to a similar challenge. “Frasierphiles” describes itself as the only show with a “Frasier First Focus,” the first time that phrase has ever been used, realistically. It’s hosted by Mark Robison and Darren Mitcheem, one of whom says, “All I think about every night is how f****** good Frasier is.” (Me too!) The other describes the television series with the phrase, “It’s like looking at a beautiful cabinet!” in the first podcast episode. A beautiful cabinet full of sherry, perhaps, or cans of Ballantine? I’d say a beautiful cabinet full of witty dialogue and honest conversations that normalize mental health problems.

A stretch, perhaps, but it brings me to the heart of this blog, a conversation I had with Terri Rhodes, CEO of the Disability Management Employer Coalition. The DMEC recently released a report about mental health in the workplace, and its primary thesis was the importance of making the business case for mental health and normalizing mental illness. One in five people deal with a mental health situation on a daily basis, according to the report.

Currently, many employers offer mental health services such as screenings through health risk assessment programs or EAPs, but being able to make a business case is important if employers want to put together a new program that specifically addresses mental health, said Rhodes. Using aggregate (not individual) data from disability claims and FMLA claims, for example, can help put a dollar sign to the impact of mental illness in terms of absences, productivity and presenteeism. In this way, using data identifies that there is, in fact, a problem.

A current problem regarding mental illness in the workplace is stigma, said Rhodes, who seeks to normalize it in the workplace and show that for the most part it is treatable. “Not all mental illness is, ‘The sky is falling!’ Those are outliers,” she said.

We also discussed what mental health training for managers should look like. “In the past, even in HR, we’re told, don’t say anything, don’t ask somebody how they’re doing, don’t talk to them,” she said. “What that does is increase the stigma.”

Terri Rhodes, CEO of the DMEC

It’s important to teach managers and supervisors that mental illness is not bad and train them how to address it in their workplace. Rhodes recommended, for example, a couple of free training programs offered through the Partnership for Workplace Mental Health and Stamp Out Stigma.

This type of training should hit a few key notes, according to Rhodes. For example, managers should be able to look out for signs that somebody may be having an issue. They should be able to speak about mental illness rather than avoid the topic.

Related article: Tossed Salad and Scrambled Eggs in the 21st Century

The communication-avoidance paradigm seemed a bit impossible to me at first. As unhelpful as avoidance is, how open can communication regarding mental illness actually be without seeming invasive? What is the right way to communicate without probing?

Rhodes recommended that managers be inclusive and friendly rather than be afraid of asking any questions at all when it comes to mental illness. Appropriate questions could be, How are you doing? Or, is there anything you need that will help you do your job better?

Rhodes also mentioned that 10 years ago, employers seemed to lose interest in mental health, but she’s seen a shift in attitude in the past couple years. Employers have been more willing the address mental illness. The problem itself — the high cost mental illness can have on the workplace; stigma; etc. — hasn’t changed, she said. “But employers’ awareness of their ability to make an impact is different.”

Andie Burjek is a Workforce associate editorComment below, or email at aburjek@humancapitalmedia.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.

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Pets in Your Workplace? Assess the Risks and Draft a Policy

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Pets in Your Workplace? Assess the Risks and Draft a Policy

A reader recently emailed the following question:

Some people need service dogs to get to work. But many more simply want to take their dogs to work. What is the protocol? What are the HR rules on this? And what are the penalties for illegally taking a dog to work?

Are you thinking about opening up your business to employees’ pets? You will find very few resources on the internet to help. And, you will need a written policy before you allow pets in. Here are some considerations:

People come first. Despite your desire to allow pets — whether as a perk, a recruitment tool or both — your employees still make up the core of your enterprise. If you have to choose between an employee or a pet, you should always choose the employee.

One of the biggest legal risks is the Americans with Disabilities Act. If an employee is allergic to animals, pet owners must understand that they may have to leave their animals at home as a reasonable accommodation. Other possible accommodations include creating sufficient separation between the allergic employee and the pet, segregating the pet to a specific part of the facility, or improving ventilation. Ignoring the pleas of an allergic employee, though, will open you up to potential ADA liability. On the converse, in all but the most extreme circumstances, you are likely required to allow a service dog (or miniature horse) as a reasonable accommodation, even if you prohibit all other pets.

Remember: Pets are cute, but it’s people first in the workplace.

Animals must of “office broken.” Animals with any bite history should not be permitted. Moreover, any aggressive behavior, such as growling, barking, chasing, or biting, should result in the animal’s expulsion on the first complaint. Animals should also be house broken, friendly towards people and other animals, and not protective of their owners or their owners’ spaces. Finally, you should define when animals must be leashed or caged, and what is expected of employees when they have to leave the workplace during the work day.

Respect for property. Designate a specific area outside for animals to go to the bathroom (preferably away from the entrances), and make sure pet owners understand that it is their responsibility to clean up messes outside and accidents inside.

Licenses and vaccinations. Before being permitted to bring animals to work, owners should verify that vaccinations are up to date, and that the animal licensed and free of parasites and insects.

Liability. Employees should verify, in writing, that they have sufficient home owners’ or renters’ insurance to cover any damage to person or property caused by the animal. You should also consider indemnification in case your business gets sued, and a written paycheck deduction authorization for any damage caused.

If you are considering having a pet-friendly workplace, I recommend contacting employment counsel to walk you through the risks and to assist in drafting an appropriate policy.

Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.

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Joe Biden: Top 1% 'not carrying their weight'

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The richest 1% are “not carrying their weight”, says outgoing US Vice-President Joe Biden.

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The mumpreneurs helping parents go back to work

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A whole new industry has sprung up from working mothers helping others go back to work. Parents are being offered job sites and office space to help with flexible working.

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Big Data and the Law: New Tools but a Better Workplace?

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Big Data and the Law: New Tools but a Better Workplace?
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Making employment decisions using cold, hard data seems wrong and risky. But is it?

Big data analytics promises to save companies millions of dollars by streamlining employment decisions and preserving workforces. But is there risk in relying too heavily on automated workforce decisions?

We encounter the results of big data analytics every day, yet we rarely question the appropriateness of its use. Think about the last time you applied for health insurance — the application likely requested information regarding your health history. Your personal health history can help predict whether you will become seriously ill in the future; a prediction that will partly determine your insurability. The process of applying for a loan is similar. The lender will review your credit history to determine how likely you are to repay the loan based on the lender’s experience with others with a similar credit history. This is analytics at work, and, for the most part, it operates very effectively.

Despite widespread adoption of big data analytics in virtually all aspects of business and business management, use of analytics in workforce management has lagged. This is due in large part to the way human resources professionals have been trained to manage personnel matters.

HR often involves emotions and complex notions of equity and fairness. This is a far cry from the sometimes cold, dry reality of financial transactions. HR professionals are trained to examine each personnel matter individually, talk to the parties involved, review documentation, and consider institutional employment policies in the legal context. Making employment decisions using cold, hard data seems wrong and, perhaps, risky. But is it?

Several reports, including from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the White House, have cautioned on the risk of making biased workforce decisions based on big data analytics. Users of HR analytics tools even have been advised to monitor their workforce for any evidence of “discrimination by algorithm.”

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission held a public meeting on the use of big data in employment in October 2016, during which the Agency explored the benefits and risks of using big data analytics in the workplace.

Do the benefits outweigh the risks? Yes, if the analytics are designed and deployed properly. Appropriate use of analytics allows corporations to predict attrition likelihood, optimize recruitment efforts, gauge employee morale, and focus training and development efforts on what requires the most attention, among other benefits. These use-cases not only can result in a more efficient and better workforce, they can translate directly into company savings.

In Eric Siegel’s “Predictive Analytics, The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, Or Die,” he points to case studies that demonstrate the value big data analytics brings to the workplace. In one, a well-known tech company used big data analytics to create a scoring system that predicts which of several hundred thousand employees were more likely to leave the organization. The flight risk score empowered company managers to prevent the loss from actually occurring or to plan for the departure. He said the system resulted in $300 million in potential savings.

The benefit is real, but commentators ask how real is the risk? Are the analytics and the algorithms on which they are often based tainted with bias?

Algorithms created to help employers make employment-related decisions certainly could be tainted with bias. For example, one designed to help a talent acquisition team identify successful candidates may take race or gender into account.

Even if race or gender is not used to explicitly identify successful candidates, using the algorithm could unintentionally result in disproportionately excluding a particular race or gender from the preferred applicant pool. Bias is entirely avoidable, however, if the analytics are carefully and correctly designed.

Humans, of course, are not perfect. We have a number of unintentional biases arising from seemingly well-informed decisions based on the experience and intuition of talent management team members. If used correctly, big data analytics can remove potentially biased intuition and, instead, support decisions with reliable and neutral data science.

Why do some commentators remain concerned? Perhaps it’s the feeling that employment decisions are about people, not cold, hard data.

In any event, responsible employers contemplating employment analytics platforms must ensure their algorithms and models do not incorporate protected characteristics such as race and gender as a predictive variable. Moreover, employers must review periodically the models to determine whether certain individuals are being disproportionately excluded or harmed.

The most reliable and effective HR analytics platforms provide guidance to companies faced with employment-related decisions. The algorithms alone should never drive the decision. This point is nicely illustrated in the above example of using flight risk scores. Once flight-bound employees are identified, managers can try to affect employees’ decisions to leave. This hybrid approach leverages the analytics to identify the areas of highest risk and permits companies to focus their efforts and resources in a meaningful and effective way.

Use of big data analytics in the workplace is here to stay. Embrace it. When utilized properly, analytics can have a significant impact on companies’ bottom lines and help preserve their employees.

Eric J. Felsberg is a principal and national director of JL Data Analytics at Jackson Lewis P.C.

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Good Company Culture, Strong Business Results?

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Good Company Culture, Strong Business Results?
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Company leaders often feel like they must straddle the line between making a profit and keeping their employees happy.

However, newly published research suggests that positive employee experiences may in fact contribute to that bottom line.

As part of a joint study from the IBM Smarter Workforce Institute and the Globoforce WorkHuman Research Institute, researchers surveyed 23,000 employees across 45 countries to identify the ideal employee experience and measure its impact on business.

The survey responses helped create a five-facet Employee Experience Index, which measures belonging, purpose, achievement, happiness and vigor.

Through their analysis, researchers found that high scores in each dimension predicted higher retention rates, work performance and discretionary effort. These all tie directly to an organization’s financial performance, said Lynette Silva, senior recognition strategist, analyst and consultant at Globoforce.

Further, a separate study by FTSE Russell analyzed companies on Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” List and found that they provided stock market returns three times greater than the general market.

Which Came First?

Some have questioned whether the positive cultures at high-performing companies are simply due to the organization’s success and increased capital to invest in their employees.

Andrew Wittman warned against tying an organization’s culture solely to results. Wittman is a former federal agent who consults entrepreneurs, CEOs and other leaders in high-stress situations on developing mental toughness strategies.

“The leader must build a culture that focuses on the process that produces successful results,” Wittman said. “Results are the byproduct of a no-excuses/high-trust culture, not the other way around.”

But should business decisions be made only with employee well-being in mind? Wittman also stressed the importance of leading with logic.

“The sweet spot of management is to create buy-in without steering with emotion,” Wittman said. He added that although emotion certainly plays a role in decision-making, it must be guided by critical thinking.

However, Wittman also said he understands that positive emotions can drive results that are good for business.

“Managers need to tap into those internal emotional drivers to motivate their employees,” Wittman said.

Patagonia employee John Rapp and his daughter head to the on-site child development facility.

The pursuit of Happiness

In addition to outlining business benefits, the study also identified several key practices to improve the employee work experience, such as providing a work-life balance, recognizing employee achievements and building organizational trust.

According to Silva, recognition and voice were particularly influential drivers. Employees who felt that their suggestions mattered and that they were appreciated for what they did were almost twice as likely to report a more positive work experience.

For H2O Plus Beauty, a San Francisco-based skincare company, empowering and recognizing employees fostered innovative thinking that helped launch new product lines and move the company forward.

“I’m a firm believer that culture is a platform to make the right business strategies,” said CEO Joy Chen. “But as our strategy changed, we needed a new culture.”

Chen said the company needed to ensure that innovative thinking at all levels of the 50-person workforce was encouraged as they shifted the focus of their business to sales and marketing.

One approach Chen took was to start a monthly award series to recognize both big and small employee achievements. The company also began hosting “Winedowns” each Friday to allow employees to gather and relax over a glass of wine. Chen said that the resulting conversations encourage employees to share new ideas and even led to the creation of a pop-up studio showcasing products in the front of the company office.

These initiatives required minimal monetary investment, but a genuine change in mindset.

“We really needed leadership and the rest of the company to view this as a valuable effort,” Chen said.

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A young girl at the Child Development Center at Patagonia’s corporate headquarters holds a book chronicling the company’s successes.

Don’t Forget Work-Life Balance
Although engagement plays a huge role in shaping employee experiences, also influential is what happens outside the office. Employees who felt they had enough time and flexibility to meet their personal responsibilities were 30 percent more likely to have a positive work experience.

For many employees, this often means the ability to start and raise families. Outdoor apparel retailer Patagonia Inc. is known for having family-affirming workplace practices.

In addition to offering paid leave for both moms and dads, parents can bring infants eight weeks and older into a fully staffed nursery just moments away from their workspace.

“Having on-site child care is a great way to get nursing moms back into the workforce and to ensure that parents know their children are safe and nearby,” said Dean Carter, vice president of human resources at Ventura, California-based Patagonia.

Patagonia also encourages employees to pursue activism by offering paid time off to volunteer and by paying bail fees for employees who are arrested while protesting on behalf of environmental causes.

According to Carter, these benefits have resulted in more focused employees and a “freakishly low” corporate turnover rate of less than 5 percent annually.

“There’s definitely a cost to all of [these programs], but what we’ve found is that since we have less issues finding talent and low turnover, we can focus on growing our business instead of filling positions,” Carter said.

Indeed, the company has experienced double-digit growth in recent years and had one of its most profitable years in 2015.

However, Carter said that Patagonia’s decision to promote a balanced workplace had nothing to do with ROI.

“Our founder wanted to create a place where, simply, work doesn’t suck,” he said. “Our culture grew out of a deeply embedded view that work and life should be able to coexist.”

Nidhi Madhavan is a Workforce editorial intern. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

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By The Numbers: When Payday Rolls Around

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By The Numbers: When Payday Rolls Around
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Each month Workforce looks at important stats in the human resources sector. Here are the topics we’re keeping an eye on for January 2017. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.

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Is Your Workplace Hiding Talent?

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Is Your Workplace Hiding Talent?

Spoiler alert: If you haven’t seen the film “Hidden Figures” yet, you may want to wait to read this. Oh, heck. Read it anyway. It’s so good you may not mind a peek behind the curtain.

 I saw “Hidden Figures” during Christmas week. I expected it to be good, and it was. Taraji P. Henson (playing Katherine G. Johnson) and Octavia Spencer (Dorothy Vaughan) rarely disappoint, and singer Janelle Monae (Mary Jackson) came through strong.

Go see it. It was sad, touching and emotional, and its happy ending was based in reality, as these three women actually existed. Their previously unsung accomplishments at NASA created changes the world feels to this day.

The film brought home how much has changed since the 1960s when the U.S. was in a race against the Soviet Union to be the first to the moon and how much has stayed the same. And, aside from a touch of romance and some truly fabulous outfits — we seriously need to bring back those silhouettes and patterns from the 1960s — the movie offered three obvious lessons related to diversity in the workplace.

  • The importance of looking beyond the obvious: Al Harrison, played by Kevin Costner, only saw an empty desk when he looked for Katherine. All he knew was she was missing when she should have been working. He didn’t see the mile she had to run to get to the colored-only bathroom, or the rude way her team mates threw incomplete paper work onto her desk, wanting her to perform miracles but quietly expecting her to fall flat on her face.
  • Said teammate Paul Stafford, played by Jim Parsons, was firmly stuck in his gender biased views. Women should be firmly behind him, and nowhere else. He was fixated on protocol. He didn’t see the value in change or difference, even when his mission— as specified by Harrison— was to think beyond, “to find a genius” among his coworkers, and she was sitting nearby. Their perfect weapon, someone who could see beyond, who could push the math where it needed to go, and that space shuttle into the sky, was ignored, diminished and under utilized.

    Stafford’s continued refusal to embrace change — to allow Katherine into closed rooms where females had never before entered, or to listen to her ideas at all — actively slowed down progress. It wasted valuable time, money and resources because once Katherine was in that room, once she was allowed to make a contribution, she knocked the proverbial ball right out of the park, and the team, the group, the mission, got exactly what it needed.

  • The importance of mentors and sponsors: Katherine expected to be mistreated, to be left behind and underestimated. It was familiar. It’s something many minorities today — myself included — would have no trouble relating to. It was only when it really mattered, and when she got sick and tired of having her time and efforts wasted because of a stubborn refusal to change the rules to suit the task, that she fought. I understand her reticence. As a minority, particularly as a double minority with the weight of sexism and racism to fight, you’re never sure how hard or how far to push before the door you’re pushing against slams completely shut in your face. But Mr. Harrison understood the game. He recognized talent, he appreciated the depth of her gift, and he was willing to buck the system to allow that talent the air it needed to breathe, and the light it needed to shine.
  • Mary’s supervisor Karl Zielinski, played by Olek Krupa, in his words, a Polish Jew who saw his family carted off to a concentration camp, encouraged her to stretch beyond the boundaries society had set for her. He challenged her to do more, to be more, even when she reminded him of the limitations her skin and gender created each day. And she did, pushing gracefully but resolutely not only against a system designed to hold her back, but against the constraints of her own mind as well.

  • The importance of never giving up. Dorothy was a study in resilience, foresight and professionalism. She led her NASA team with the same care she used to craft fact and figure-based arguments to try and win the promotion she deserved. Her storyline really resonated with me because it’s still incredibly common. I know people who do a job but because they’re black, female, gay, disabled or whatever do not get the same compensation or authority as a white male peer. I’ve experienced it myself, and it’s ridiculously unfair when the response to your logical request for parity is a lame, “I don’t make the rules,” or, “That’s just the way it is, right now.” That right now is the pits because you know it’s a dishonest sop to a time that likely will never come. Still, it makes you keep hoping anyway.
  • I adored Dorothy’s character because when others might have thrown in the towel, she narrowed her eyes, expanded her gaze, saw opportunities to make herself valuable, and she took them. She said, OK. You don’t want to promote me to supervisor even though I’m already doing the job and doing it well? Fine. I see you’re faltering with this computer code; I’m going to learn it before everyone else, fix this huge, expensive machine you don’t know how to use, and make you put me in charge because you won’t have another choice. And when that exact scenario came to be, she stepped up and brought her team right along with her. That’s some stick-to-it-tiveness for your mind.

    “Hidden Figures” was a study in race relations past and present, but it was also a soft but sincere dialogue starter about the problems associated with gender bias in the workplace. Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughn and Katherine G. Johnson broke barriers with grace, class and grit. They weren’t just smart, they had guts, vision, and they refused to allow the limitations of the time, of their gender, of their race to prevent them from wanting and achieving more and making a huge impact on their industry and on the world.

    This movie would be a valuable tool with which to teach groups about gender and racial bias, as it proves that even the most change resistant minds can be brought around when the focus shifts from the obvious — sex and race — to that which is hidden: talent.

    Kellye Whitney is an associate editorial director for Workforce magazine. Comment below or email editor@workforce.com.

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    Is the UK-Nigeria pact to fight corruption effective?

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    The landmark agreement between the UK and Nigeria to return stolen cash is put to the test.

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    YourForce: Workforce’s 95th Year

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    YourForce: Workforce’s 95th Year
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    By Mike Prokopeak

    It’s hard to believe but 2017 marks Workforce’s 95th year.

    That’s right. HR leaders like you have been flipping through this magazine since the days of President Warren G. Harding and the Teapot Dome scandal.

    You don’t make it that long without a dedicated group of readers. So thank you for continuing to take the journey with us. We look forward to continuing to serve you in 2017.

    You also don’t make it that long without some changes along the way. What started as The Journal of Personnel Research became Workforce in 1997. While we’re not changing the name again, we are changing the game.

    We’re taking the print edition bimonthly so we can invest more in daily coverage online and via video. Go to Workforce.com daily to keep up with the latest news along with analysis from experts.

    Check out Five Minutes of Management, a weekly video wrap of HR-related news, as well By the Numbers, an interactive look at the statistics behind the workplace stories of the day.

    The year and the media may be new, but our mission, as always, remains the same.

    ON THE SCENE WITH WORKFORCE

    Bill Baun, pioneering wellness advocate

    The workplace wellness community lost one of their earliest pioneers late last year.

    Bill Baun, wellness officer at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, died Nov. 5. He was 67.

    Mr. Baun worked in corporate wellness since its earliest days, and despite his own battle as a stage 4 prostate cancer survivor, his input shaped the wellness field that exists today.

    In a profile of Mr. Baun published in the January 2016 edition of Workforce, he explained that it is ineffective to teach people wellness skills without first giving them an environment that promotes wellness. One of the first changes he made at MD Anderson was simple: remove junk food from the cafeteria and vending machines and provide easy walking paths for employees.

    Said Mr. Baun about the value of wellness at work: “This is a relationship game. This is all about building relationships with people so that they trust you and give you the opportunity to show you what we can do. I think sometimes wellness programs want things done fast, and that’s not how this works. It needs to be one small step at a time and one relationship at a time.”

    To read the full interview, go to: workforce.com/MrBillBaun 

    READER FEEDBACK

    Reader Michael Lujan reacted to Associate Editor Bravetta Hassell’s online post titled, “More Diverse Workplaces Require a Broader View of Benefits”: 

    Kudos to employers and innovators for rethinking or reimagining what benefits mean to the changing workforce and how to meet them, even outside of the traditional products and services. More companies are made up of mostly millennials who challenge the stale and limited ideas offered for decades by many well-intended traditional benefits managers. Add to this the many new tech tools to help add cost transparency and decision-making support for open enrollment. Nice job, Bravetta.

    Workforce.com/BroadBenefits 

    Online reader Ad commented on blogger Jon Hyman’s post titled, “Just Because It Might Be Legal Doesn’t Make It Right”: 

    I totally agree with Jon’s moral stance that bigotry should not be tolerated. However, the position that the manager “would have been terminated upon an investigation reasonably confirming the misconduct” could put the organization at risk of been sued by the said manager. Just as in the example case the requirement for direct evidence remains. Furthermore, there are a number of alternate strategies that organizations can adopt that could address or minimize this type of behavior arising.

    Workforce.com/MakeItRight 

    Finally, online reader Fatima Hassan joined the discussion with the many comments on Jon Hyman’s post, “Why #BlackLivesMatter Should Matter to Employers”: 

    What makes you so sure your race was a factor in his decision? You didn’t include it in your story, as if the connection was obvious. Your firing may have been unjustified, malicious, unfair, etc. and still had nothing to do with your race. White employees are fired by white employers because they’re “not a good fit” every day. Unless you provide more evidence that your firing was racially motivated, there’s really no reason to believe it was. If you don’t have any evidence, then you’re just assuming the cause was racism. It’s as though firing you was racism ipso facto.

    Workforce.com/FatimaHassan 

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