Having a diverse workforce is a great thing for business; diversity in life experiences and perspectives open up new doors for healthy debate and potential innovation that will expand the economic horizons of an organization, resulting in higher performance and greater shareholder value.

However, having a diverse workforce can sometimes lead to inevitable conflict and be a wasted resource if not leveraged properly. People are unique, have grown up doing and believing different things, and managing this hodgepodge of workers with varying worldviews can sometimes feel like tiptoeing through a minefield – especially as an HR professional.

For employers, tapping into the power that a diverse workforce holds requires adept skills. Hiring an array of different people is a great first step, but if a company doesn’t know how to create an environment where everyone feels included and like they belong, then they will not gain access to the many benefits that a diverse team offers.

A key step to creating this environment is to promote a culture where everyone recognizes that all individuals bring value. Not everyone is going to agree with one another, and beliefs around politics, religion, and morality are going to differ, but by reminding staff that each individual brings value in some way, this helps create an environment that is more open to listening and learning rather than outright dismissing.

Encourage the concept of exploring differences as a strength or asset in the hopes of finding commonalities. Statistically, an employee isn’t going to be best friends with every single one of their co-workers, but employers have a responsibility of ensuring that they are creating a working environment that fosters respect and harmony.

Of course, there may be times where someone’s view on something may be harmful or perpetuate hate. In these instances, reporting this to your direct report is the best course of action so that HR can follow up and respond accordingly. But if someone’s worldview doesn’t create harm or an adverse impact for employees at work – but still some don’t see eye to eye – this is one of those times where ‘agreeing to disagree’ may be the best way forward.

People are becoming increasingly complex, and many employees are finally feeling more comfortable bringing their entire selves to work. But with this comes a new microcosm to navigate that employers must ensure they are on top of to avoid interactions spiralling into a much bigger issue than it might need to be.

What is important is placing a focus on these inclusive skills and harnessing them to create a cohesive and harmonious workplace. Managers who can coach the empathetic view of realizing that someone’s belief is true to them – even if it isn’t true to you – is a great way of helping employees understand and value differences of opinions.

And, at the end of it, the one thing every member of staff should have in common is their united goal to achieve the mission of the company they work for – so ensuring these goals are clear, concise, and communicated to each member of staff is a great tool for promoting unity.

If you would like to discuss how OrgShakers can help coach managers to create an environment that is not just diverse, but also inclusive to all, please get in touch with me at marty@orgshakers.com

The taboos around health and wellbeing in the workplace are slowly beginning to shed their stigma; menopause policies are being discussed, mental health is being prioritized, and employers continue to look for innovate ways of boosting productivity through creating happier employees.

However, there are still some topics that are failing to be considered by a majority of employers – and one of these is a miscarriage leave policy.

Around 10-20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriages, and this loss can have detrimental effects on the parents’ physical (if birthing) and mental health. Currently, in the US, there is no federal law that entitles parents to paid leave following the miscarriage of their unborn child; there is also no federal law which entitles parents, or workers in general, to paid bereavement leave. The only entitlement to leave that the mother or birthing person may have is Family and Medical Leave – which is only granted if there were medical complications during the miscarriage. This leave is also unpaid, the employee has to have been with their company for a year, and it does not extend to smaller employers (those with under 50 employees).

In the UK, if a child is stillborn after 24 weeks of pregnancy the birth mother is entitled to up to 52 weeks of statutory maternity leave or pay, and the birth father, partner of the birth mother, or adopter can have up to 2 weeks. If a miscarriage occurs in the first 24 weeks, there is no legal entitlement to statutory maternity, paternity, or parental bereavement leave.

Despite this, some companies are beginning to create specific policies surrounding miscarriage leave. In the US, mom-founded baby formula company Bobbie offer 3 weeks of paid leave to those who experience the loss of a child. Similarly in the UK, tech retailer Curry’s have introduced a 2-week paid leave policy for employees affected by pregnancy loss. Both employers extend this to both parents, and to same sex couples who have experienced a miscarriage through surrogacy.

These policies are something that employers on a global scale should be considering. Not only does it highlight your philosophy as an organization, but it demonstrates how much you value the physical and mental wellbeing of your employees. This alone is a great way of making your business a very attractive one to work for – especially in an age where many employees will choose where they work based on if their values are reflected there.

When it comes to formulating this policy, this is where OrgShakers can really help. A miscarriage policy may seem cut and paste, but there are many factors that need to be considered when constructing your own policy. For example, is someone entitled to more leave or less leave depending on how far into the pregnancy they were? Does the policy apply equally to mother and father? Does it account for same sex couples where neither is birthing? Will it be a subcategory of your existing bereavement or parental policy?

There is a lot to consider, but it is important to note that every miscarriage situation will be different and effect the people involved differently. Having a policy that offers a guideline around this can be extremely helpful, but it also needs to incorporate an element of flexibility based on individual circumstances to ensure that employees are getting the support they need.

If you would like to discuss how we can help design a miscarriage leave policy for your organization, please get in touch with me at Brittany@orgshakers.com

To understand the next step in the evolution of the workplace, we have to start in a place with apparently little or no connection to modern working practices – the middle of the last Ice Age.

Cro-Magnons – the first modern humans – arrived in Europe around 35,000 years ago. Nomadic hunter-gatherers who lived in groups consisting of several families, they were sophisticated toolmakers using spears and flint knives. And, most importantly for our story of workplace evolution, they had sewing needles which they used to fashion clothes from animal skins which kept the ravages of the freezing Ice Age weather at bay.

So, imagine that one dark winter’s night one of our Cro-Magnons hit upon an idea to while away the hours sat round the campfire. They would produce a tapestry on an animal skin – about a yard in width – depicting that year’s key events.

From that point, of course, the yard-a-year tapestry would quickly become an annual tradition with the result that today our 35,000-year-old tapestry would be a few yards short of twenty miles long. So, what would this twenty-mile tapestry show us?

Well, by the time humans even came close to creating the concept of formal work, the tapestry would already be about twelve miles long (which equates to 60% of the history of modern humans). In other words, for the majority of modern human history ‘work’ was simply hunting and gathering – ah, the simple days.

However, after this point, we would begin to see a subtle change in the story on the tapestry. Although hunting and gathering remains the primary means of food production, we begin to see the first indications of animal domestication. This process builds and builds and triggers the Neolithic evolution – which sees the mass shift to agricultural practices and the liberation of the old ways of existence through the creation of trading. Trade, arguably, was the single biggest idea in the history of humankind, as it suddenly allowed for horizons to expand like never before, and people could begin to specialize and innovate in all the ways we now see today.

So, for most of this twenty-mile tapestry, the evolution of the workplace was a very gradual shift over many generations. However, at around the nineteen and three-quatre mile point things began to change and accelerate at a much more rapid pace – the Industrial revolution.

Kickstarted by Jethro Tull’s mechanized seed drill, humans began to invent technology that would enable them to venture away from agriculture and to other new emerging forms of employment. With the need for manual labor in agriculture having been dramatically reduced, workers were given the liberty to pursue a career in something beyond production.

This revolution took the working world by storm – at the dawn of the eighteenth century 76% of the population of England worked in agriculture, but by the mid-twentieth century it was down to just 4%.

And as we began to work in varying jobs, and the labor market expanded and contracted as new innovations and technologies were introduced, that takes us all the way up to today – where technology now plays such a vital role in the mass majority of jobs.

But one thing that we have noticed with the adoption and implementation of mechanization (from conveyor belts to sewing machines to computers) is also this idea that workers are ‘cogs in the mechanism’, and that an ‘optimized’ worker is one who acts like a machine – productive, consistent, and quick. But what happened in those years of technological advancements was that many employers were trying to make people work like machines (sometimes literally, as Ford’s production line proves), when in reality they should’ve been tapping into the key traits that are fundamentally human.

Yet if you look at what is happening now – with the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) on a mass scale into the workplace – what we are actually seeing is that we’ve come full circle. We are now trying to make the technology human, and I think that AI is going to be the harbinger for this next step of the evolution of the workplace – the step towards the optimization of our humanity.

The overarching purpose of technological advancements in the workplace has always been to free-up time from repetitive, monotonous tasks so that employees can spend more time doing work that creates greater value for both them and their employer. In essence, the entire reason why we have continued to advance is so that we can get to a point where we have the luxury of time to focus on human capital and unlocking its full capabilities.

And we’re already starting to gradually see this shift on our tapestry; the pandemic had a massive impact on the working world, and sparked a re-evaluation of how we work and why we work. We saw a mindset shift amongst the workforce – a carpe diem effect. Suddenly we were all faced with our own mortality, and this made many realise that if they were going to spend a majority of their life working, they wanted to be doing something they cared about, something that gave them a good work life balance, something that supported them, and something fun.

For employers, this means focusing on workplace strategies that will enable better work-life balance (which improves engagement and reduces burnout), opportunities for job crafting (which creates opportunities for innovation), and support for physical and mental health. These areas are going to become key focal points as the workplace continues to evolve to become people-centric, so for those employers who are already beginning to optimize these, they are going to be ahead of the curve and become some of the most attractive organizations to work for in the market.

Steps are already starting to be taken, but they are baby steps. If you look at our recent poll which sought to discover the most effective way of supporting mental health in the workplace, over half of respondents (55%) cited flexible working, while 23% said mental health days, and 16% chose Employee Assistance Programs.

However, while these are great things, they can almost seem tokenistic. Having an allowance of leave for mental health is good, but is this really support? Same as with flexible working; employees can optimize their time better, but now that they are not physically around their team leaders, it’s harder for managers to be more attentive to someone they only see conditionally through a screen.

So, just as we had maintenance teams that would be on-call to fix any machines that malfunctioned, why should employers not consider the same concept for their people? Having an in-house psychotherapist whose sole responsibility is to support employees and feedback to managers with the appropriate reasonable adjustments will help employers create a real roadmap for support and optimization in the face of mental illness. We are already seeing schools begin to hire full-time counsellors and therapists for this very reason, so why should employers not consider doing the same?

As we continue to weave this tapestry of human history year by year, we can see that the last half mile has seen the most accelerated change. Now, as we begin to adapt the ideology of working smart in a technological and AI-advanced world, employers need to be preparing for the next step in the evolution of the workplace by placing their focus on their people power. That is the key to becoming an organization of tomorrow.

If you would like to discuss all things people strategy, our dedicated team of specialized HR professionals can assist you in all aspects – get in touch with us here.

This month’s book choice was inspired by the fact that today is World Dyslexia Awareness Day – which closes off Dyslexia Awareness Week. In the spirit of this, we got our hands on a copy of Kate Grigg’s This is Dyslexia.

Kate, who is dyslexic herself, is the founder and CEO of the charity Made By Dyslexia, acting as a leading voice in the charge to disrupt the world’s thinking around dyslexia and highlight how it can be a superpower in the workplace and the wider world.

Kate’s book, This is Dyslexia, expertly builds on this notion of dyslexia being a ‘superpower’, as she debunks all the common misconceptions around the topic and helps the reader to better understand how dyslexic people think. What’s great is that the entire book is written on cream coloured paper with pictures, charts, diagrams, and changeable text to help dyslexic people read through it and better retain the information. This way, it is an accessible read for all.

Along with varying mediums of information, the book also includes QR codes throughout that can be scanned and will take the reader to video interviews of famous people with dyslexia. There are also resources available at the back of the book for children, parents, teachers, and employers that can prove to be a very useful first step in understanding dyslexia on a deeper level.

Throughout the book, Kate highlights the importance of harnessing dyslexia as a skill rather than a drawback – along with all other forms of neurodivergent thinking – and goes on to demonstrate the many ways that this unique way of processing can be extremely beneficial for the workplace (such as problem-solving, creativity, and innovative thinking!).

With 10% of the population being dyslexic, and around 20% of people believed to be neurodivergent, the importance of employers educating themselves around these topics is vital for the bottom line, as an inclusive workplace environment can play to the strengths of these unique ways of thinking.

Kate’s book is a great start at getting to understand dyslexic thinking on a deeper, empathetic level, and will help leaders better grasp how to support and optimize those staff with dyslexia.

You can purchase your copy of This is Dyslexia in the UK here and in the US here.

And if you would like to discuss how OrgShakers can support you in creating a neurodivergent-friendly working environment, please get in touch with us!

Encouraging individuals to ‘give it 100%’ is a well-worn cliché. But is it actually the best way to optimize personal performance?

Those advocating the 85:15 rule – working at 85% capacity and keeping 15% for yourself – would beg to differ.

The 85:15 rule is thought to have stemmed from a technique used by Olympian Carl Lewis and his coach, who argued that athletes who were keeping 15% ‘in the tank’ rather than giving it the full 100% the whole time were much better at keeping pace for the duration of a race. And, considering Lewis won nine Olympic gold medals and one silver, he might have been onto something.

As an HR professional, part of my role is aiding an employer in optimizing their people power, but sometimes the thing that may help employees function at their best is by knowing at what point someone is optimized enough.

When we break it down, an employee working at their optimum does not automatically mean they are working at 100%. In fact, unknowingly, it usually means they are functioning at around the 85% mark. This is what all employers should be striving for with their teams, as this promotes a sense of consistency in the quality of work being produced that is realistic, reduces risk of burnout, and helps employees find more balance between work and life.

This idea of ‘giving everything you’ve got’ to your job is a somewhat outdated one, and has been carried over from previous generations of workers who were working in an ‘always-on’ culture. This ‘always-on’ ideology continues to loom in the face of remote and hybrid work blurring the lines between home life and work life, and so it is important for employers to be taking note of strategies such as the 85:15 rule to help prevent employees from being overworked.

What is very important to remember with this rule is that it isn’t saying ‘don’t try’, it’s saying ‘don’t burnout trying’! Keeping that 15% energy reserve helps prevent employees getting home from work and being too exhausted to do anything – even something as basic as making a meal. And when this is paired with the fact that many people have responsibilities outside of the workplace – caring for children, caring for elderly relatives – it only increases the importance of acknowledging this way of working.

This mindset also lends towards the encouragement of better brain health at work, and reminds employees how important it is to nourish and rest their brains in order to allow it to function to the best of its abilities.

With burnout from workplace stress at an all time high (over 40% across US and UK said that they were burnt out), leaders who are practicing this mindset and actively instilling it in their workplaces are normalizing the idea that it is okay to keep some energy for yourself, your brain, and your bodily health.

If you would like to discuss how we can coach the 85:15 rule in your workplace, please get in touch with me at stephanie.rodriguez@orgshakers.com 

The Healthier Nation Index report has recently been published, revealing some startling statistics about sleeping patterns.

People are now getting less than 6 hours a night of sleep – which is a sizeable difference to the 7-9 hours of sleep recommended by the UK’s National Health Service. This drop seems to be due to the fact that 45% of respondents reported they had got less sleep over the past 12-months than in previous years – and nearly half (49%) said that their sleep quality had also worsened.

These same respondents reported that their lack of sleep was having knock-on effects of feeling depressed, an increased likelihood of becoming unwell, struggling to eat healthily, failing to exercise, and low productivity levels.

The latter is because sleep loss can make it challenging to maintain focus, attention and vigilance. This happens due to the increase of ‘microsleeps’ (brief episodes of non-responsiveness that cause lapses in attention) someone will have during their day to compensate for sleep deprivation.

For employers, these findings are particularly worrying. Having sleep-deprived employees can lead to a decrease in productivity and engagement, an increase in absences – or both.

In the spirit of Sleeptember, here’s some advice on how employers can play their part in enhancing sleep quality amongst their workforce:

• Build sleep into wider wellbeing strategies – review current wellbeing strategies and pinpoint where initiatives that aim to improve sleep can be woven in. These will tend to compliment other areas of wellbeing, such as nutrition, brain health, and exercise. Offering line managers training around recognising the signs and symptoms of sleep deprivation is also key to ensuring that the right people are actually taking these strategies into account in their daily lives, as some may not be aware that they are having difficulties in the first place.
• Signpost to the right support – managers that can identify those in need of support with their sleeping patterns will then need to know the best course of action to help. Having general lifestyle strategies is a great first step, and these can be implemented in innovative ways (for example, life insurance broker YuLife have gamified their experience to keep employees active physically and mentally), but sometimes there may be something deeper underlying at the root cause of sleep deprivation. Ensuring that they know the right channels to filter them through – whether that be internal (Employee Assistance Programs) or external (counselling, insomnia therapy), having the knowledge around this topic is the key to combatting it.
• Follow the leader – an experiment conducted a few years ago discovered that those who were sleep deprived were considered 13% less charismatic as leaders. This was linked to the fact that when we get enough sleep, we’re likely to feel positive and this positive energy gets transmitted to the people around us. So, to have the organization’s leaders promoting good sleep is one thing, but ensuring they do it themselves is equally as important.

There are also some more experimental strategies that employers can consider; one which is increasingly gaining popularity is the idea of encouraging naps during the workday (which you can read about in more depth here). But the key takeaway from this is that, as a company is only as strong as its people, good sleep plays a vital role in the overall performance of the business.

If you would like to discuss how we can help train and support leadership around the implementation of sleep strategies, please get in touch with us!

It is probably well known by now that happy employees are more productive – in fact, according to research from Oxford University, those employees that are happier are around 13% more productive.

But ‘happiness’ is one of those elusive terms, in the sense that it can relate to a lot of different factors. For employers to figure out how they can contribute to creating happier, and in turn more productive, teams they need to consider what the ingredients for a happy employee might be.

So, what could employers be throwing into the mix to produce a happy employee?

• Aligning values – nowadays, employees want their values to align with their employers. One study found that 56% of workers won’t even consider a workplace that doesn’t share their values, and this suggests that a key aspect to an employee being happy at their place of work is feeling like they are amongst likeminded people. This highlights the importance of companies having clear mission statements, values, and goals that are openly shared during the recruitment and onboarding process, to demonstrate what the company is passionate about and, as a result, attract the most suitable talent.
• A sense of purpose – purpose is a driving force for feeling happy. Not only does a sense of purpose tend to foster positive emotions, it also leads to employees feeling like their work is more meaningful and so they are more productive as a result. Leaders should lead with a sense of purpose, and continually be reminding staff what it is that their role does to contribute to the bigger picture. This can help foster this sense of purpose and value, as it is outlining exactly how their role makes a difference to the organization and the world beyond it.
• Recognition – recognition is a great way of reminding staff how much they are valued for what they do and give to a company. While having formal recognition programs and procedures in place is a great thing, recognition can also be as simple as saying ‘thank you’ and showing appreciation in real time. This can make all the difference to someone’s mood, and promote a positive affirmation culture amongst teams as well.
• Intersectional inclusion – in addition to recognition for one’s efforts, it is so important for employers to be able to recognise the intersectionality of different employees. Ensuring that a culture of inclusion and belonging are created in the workplace will mean that each individual feels that they can bring their entire self to work every day, and will be appreciated for their differences and understood on a deeper, individual level. Those that feel seen at work are much more likely to be happy where they work and retained in the future.
• Human touch – while I appreciate the value of clear policies, so that everyone has the clarity they need around the way things work in an organization, some of the most moving stories I’ve heard in my career have been when companies know when to apply that human touch in unforeseen circumstances. For example, being flexible about bereavement policies and offering an employee the time they need rather than a strict numerical amount. This generates significant loyalty amongst staff, improving their happiness for where they work, and subsequently their retention likelihood.

There is no one size fits all approach to making every employee happy, but there are a range of different ingredients that should be consistently leveraged to ensure the best results. Once an employer is able to perfect this recipe for happiness and contentment in their workplace, they will see sharp increases in productivity, loyalty, trust, and retention.

If you would like to discuss how OrgShakers can help you embed these ‘happiness strategies’ into your workplace, please get in touch with me at anya@orgshakers.com  

Emerging from a pandemic which saw a huge shift in mindset for the current workforce, the trend of ‘Quiet Quitting’ surfaced as a way for employees to set boundaries around the work they do and the timeframe they do it in.

Looked at objectively, this was employees taking responsibility for their own work-life balance and a blow to the culture of ‘presenteeism’ – both issues that employers have been trying to tackle for many years.

However, the problem with the term ‘Quiet Quitting’ is that it is inherently negative, suggesting an employee is giving up rather than taking control.

And now, we’re seeing another unhelpful misnomer popping up on social media – the ‘Lazy Girl Job’: a job that can be done remotely, and which offers workers autonomy by having a manager who measures their performance based on output rather than input.

The problem with describing these roles as “Lazy Girl Jobs” is that as the pace of organizational change continues to accelerate, many employers are starting to recognize that they need a more flexible and methodological approach to work. This is seeing companies increasingly adopting a skills-based approach to managing work and workers, and slowly moving away from the rigidity of a ‘job’.

In a report published by Deloitte, it was discovered that while 93% of organizations believed that moving away from the ‘job’ construct is very important to their success, only 20% of organizations felt very ready to actually address this movement. What the ‘lazy girl job’ actually represents is a step towards skills-based, flexible working, whereas the idea of it, and its implications, are seeing employers take two steps back.

So, we are seeing the same problem we saw with ‘Quiet Quitting’ – a ‘Lazy Girl Job’ implies that working remotely is lazy, whereas in reality half of employees feel more productive when working from home and are able to operate beyond the constraints of time and geographical differences.

These misnomers catch on because they are utilizing irony, but this irony may be doing more harm than good. Work-life balance, healthy boundaries around start and finishing times, and remote working are all positive tools that employers can use to improve the performance of their employees, but dressing them up as ‘quitting’ and ‘lazy’ fuels the ideology of presenteeism and stunts the transformational progress of this organizational change.  

Instead, employers need to focus on the fact that the way people want to work is continuing to change, expand, and evolve at an exponential rate, and this is only gaining velocity as a new generation flock into the workplace. While these buzzwords represent real call-to-actions for employers and highlight key areas of focus for attraction and retention, it is important that the meaning behind them isn’t misconstrued just because they have been labelled lazily.

If you would like to discuss how we can help support and guide you in your journey of organizational change, please get in touch with us.

Matt Phelan’s new book – The Happiness Index – is released today … and we’ve been lucky enough to get a sneak preview of what we think is a ‘must read’ for HR practitioners and business leaders. 

As the co-founder of a unique platform which helps organisations measure key employee engagement and happiness drivers (also called The Happiness Index!), Matt is a global authority on how people think, feel, and behave in the workplace.

In his book, he sets out to explore how businesses can ensure that the people who fuel the success of their business – their employees – are fully committed to their organizational goals.

To do this he takes a deep dive into the data gathered by The Happiness Index platform from over 100 countries and 2 million employees to help the reader understand what really drives engagement and happiness at work – and how this can be harnessed to accelerate an organization’s performance.

Matt defines employee engagement as what our brains need to thrive at work, and employee happiness as what our hearts need to do the same. Both, he argues, are equally important and consist of 24 neuroscience-based sub-drivers:

By taking this scientific, data-driven approach, the book provides a robust examination of the factors that determine employee engagement and happiness at work, including in-depth interviews with specialists in each of the 24 sub-drivers and compelling case studies from organizations around the world. In doing so, it shows how firms can weave happiness and engagement into the fabric of their people strategy.

In The Happiness Index, Matt expertly paints a picture of a world of work where people can truly thrive and grow – and organizations can truly prosper from that growth. It’s a transformational picture we know HR practitioners and business leaders will find inspiring.

If you would like to discuss engagement strategies in more detail, please get in touch with us on our contact page.

And to get in touch with Matt, head over to his LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewphelan/

While huge strides continue to be made in regard to the treatment of HIV, in the US there are an estimated 1.3 million people who are HIV positive. In the UK, that figure is around 100,000.

Despite the fact that the disease is no longer steeped in the stigma it once was, taboos still pervade around being diagnosed and living with HIV. And the fact is, it has now become something that someone can live with without having any complications, meaning they can live and work just like anyone else.

However, there is still a drought of information and awareness around the disease that can lead to many HIV-positive people feeling uncomfortable with disclosing their status at work and having access to necessary resources.

So, what can employers do to challenge the taboos surrounding HIV?

1. Educate and Raise Awareness

The first step is the most obvious: educate your workforce and raise awareness about the virus. Provide training sessions or workshops to help employees understand what HIV is, how it’s transmitted, and dispel common myths and misconceptions surrounding it. This will help reduce stigma around the topic and instead foster a sense of empathy which, at the same time, will strengthen your people’s power skills.  

2. Encourage Open Communication

Managers who can build trust with their team and present themselves as approachable will be able to find it easier to start a dialogue with staff. This will enable HIV-positive workers to feel more confident in disclosing their status, and they should then be reassured that this disclosure will remain confidential so that their privacy can be respected. This ensures that the employee is getting any necessary support and accommodations without any fear of judgement.

3. Flexible Working Arrangements

Recognize that employees with HIV may have medical appointments and treatments that require a level of flexibility in their work schedule. Offering remote working hours or adjusted working arrangements can help accommodate these needs without having to compromise their job performance.

4. Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs)

EAPs should have tailored resources to support individuals with HIV. This can include access to specialized mental health services, or the appropriate charities and organizations who can better externally support these needs.

5. Regularly Review and Update Policies

Employers should be periodically reviewing their workplace policies in relation to long-term illnesses such as HIV to ensure they remain current and remain aligned with best practices and legal requirements. They can even communicate with HIV positive staff member(s) to help refresh these policies and ensure they are properly reflecting their needs.

Recognizing and understanding how best to support those who are HIV-positive in the workplace is a great way of reinforcing your values of inclusivity and support. This will help to create a culture at work that empowers employees from all walks of life, and ensures that they are their most productive, as well as being their most fulfilled and appreciated.

If you would like to discuss how we can help train your team around these issues, and help craft and implement inclusivity policies, please get in touch with us.

It is no secret that the public sector is struggling to attract and retain talent. Attrition is increasing and workers across the US, UK and beyond are engaging in strikes over better pay and better working conditions. The public sector is taking a huge hit when it comes to talent.

As an HR professional, these can be murky waters to navigate. Our role is integral when it comes to recruiting, onboarding, and embedding the best talent; the turbulence of current affairs can make this noticeably more difficult.

In the midst of this highly visible talent crisis, however, we see some significant underlying challenges that are further hindering public sector employers. One such factor is the significant risk of institutional brain drain.

Institutional brain drain occurs when a large group of employees retire or leave their roles, taking with them huge chunks of knowledge and expertise that have not been successfully captured in an accessible form for other workers. This creates knowledge deficits in these roles as more than 80% of a company’s information exists in individual hard drives and personal files. Pair this with the fact that employees get 50%-75% of their relevant information directly from other people, and it’s easy to see a resource gap in the public sector. The focus on acquiring new talent is important, but if institutions are not successfully capturing and storing the knowledge of their best talent before its gone, they find themselves in a downward spiralling cycle of attrition.

HR professionals working in the public domain can mitigate and manage this drain by integrating attraction strategies, retention strategies, and creation of a knowledge management culture.

Attraction

A great place for employers to start is the factors of decent work[1]. Decent work is work that may not be someone’s life calling and passion, but it will fulfil their basic needs. These five factors include offering access to adequate healthcare, offering adequate compensation, offering the opportunity for work-life balance, having organizational values that align with a person’s personal values, and having a work environment that promotes interpersonal and physical safety. If employers focus on these five factors and create strategies to ensure that most, if not all of these, are being met, they will become a much more attractive place to work.

Retention

As an organization attracts talent, it must immediately dedicate time and energy to retain it. Once the standards for decent work can be provided, focus on creating strategies and policies that reflect the six most common reasons why workers stay in a job. These stay factors are 1) exciting, challenging or meaningful work, 2) supportive management/good boss, 3) being recognized, valued, and respected, 4) learning and development opportunities, 5) flexible working environment, and 6) fair pay[2]. What is worth noting is that when employers are successfully supplying the first five, employees are more likely to feel they are receiving fair pay.

Knowledge Management

Creating a culture of knowledge management is a great way of ensuring that the experiences, knowledge, and skills developed while working for the company are shared amongst new hires. Today’s workers are accustomed to ‘squiggly careers’ (a non-linear career path), and this often results in five- to seven-year tenure rather than the traditional thirty-five year public service career. Building strategies for knowledge management and storage is extremely helpful in light of this trend, as the movement of employees has become much more fluid. Public sector agencies that can adapt to squiggly careers are more likely to succeed today and in the years ahead.

Placing intentional focus on these three approaches simultaneously makes public sector organizations better able to address talent shortages and institutional brain drain.

This is where we can help. With a team of experienced HR consultants specializing in private and public HR strategy, we can assist in building these strategies into your agency, strengthening its foundations for sustainability. If you would like to discuss the services we offer, please get in touch with me at amanda@orgshakers.com

[1] Douglass, R., et al. (2019) The psychology of working and workforce readiness: how to pursue decent work. Workforce readiness and the future of work. Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, New York.

[2] Ann, K., Hidi, S. (2019) Supporting the development of interest in the workplace. Workforce readiness and the future of work. Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, New York.

Companies who make a point to support and work with charities are not only contributing positively to the wider community, but are also making a smart business move.

It was discovered that those businesses that donate over 0.5% of turnover were twice as likely to report enhancements in company reputation, and were nearly 50% more likely to see it help recruit and retain staff. This is all without mentioning the interpersonal benefits that doing charity work offers employees; it promotes collaboration and cohesion, and helps to break down social barriers by offering employees something to talk about and bond over that isn’t work-related.

Adopting this corporate social responsibility mindset is a great way of enriching the Social element of your ESG agenda (and it can also touch into your Environmental strategies depending on the charities employers opt to support!). However, in order to reap these benefits, employers must understand the best ways to actually engage their teams with their chosen charitable cause.

How can employers do this?

Firstly, getting employees involved in actually choosing the charities that the company should support. If the cause that the employer wants to support aligns with the mission and values of said company, as well as aligning with the values of the team, then this will immediately foster excitement and engagement. This could take shape as potentially supporting a charity for a cause that has personally touched a member or multiple members of staff. Either way, figuring out the mission is the first step to deciding what direction to go in, and encouraging employees to get involved with that will really bolster their enthusiasm!

Equally, when recruiting and onboarding new team members, it is great to highlight that charity is a value that the employer holds dear. This can be demonstrated by having a set number of volunteer days in their benefit package, which carves out dedicated time for the employee to volunteer while still being compensated. As well as this, getting them involved in a charitable project in the first few weeks of onboarding can double-down as a great ice-breaking and assimilation tool.

And, importantly, find ways to make it fun! Collaborate with the charities that you choose to work with and find out by what means they typically raise funds. If they do charity runs like Race For Life or fun challenges like growing a mustache for Movember. Whatever they do, make an effort to sponsor some (or all!) of your team to take part so that they can be actively engaged and have a change of scenery from the workplace.

This can even be taken one step further and managers can organize fundraisers of their own that are more tailored towards their staff. As you’ll see below, I was once at the mercy of a dunking booth!

But there are so many innovative ways to make giving back enjoyable for staff (although, humiliation of managers seems to be a fan-favorite from my experience). Knowing how to successfully engage your teams with fundraising and volunteer work will give you access to all the business benefits that come with it – all while doing a little bit of good for the world.

If you would like to discuss how we can support you in engaging with charities and philanthropy, please get in touch with me at Brittany@orgshakers.com