Employee Relations

Manage summer vacation requests without killing productivity

06/07/2024

With a long, four-day Fourth of July weekend looming in less than a month, you’ve probably already felt the heat of employees clamoring to schedule vacation time. Use these tips to manage vacation schedules and maintain productivity:

Reality check: Are your employees ‘quiet vacationing’?

06/07/2024

Summer vacation season has arrived, and some employees plan to leave their desks behind for travel or a staycation. Others may not be submitting a leave request, instead taking time away from the office without officially requesting PTO. This is the latest workplace trend, dubbed “quiet vacationing.”

The vital importance of diligent documentation

06/05/2024

One critical area that HR professionals must always remind managers about is the importance of diligently documenting employee performance issues. Taking the time and care to document thoroughly can save you and your company major headaches later.

Thoughtful onboarding initiatives help avoid turnover

06/05/2024

It’s the summer hiring season, and regardless of whether you land a seemingly perfect hire, improper onboarding can derail their trajectory before it starts. Here’s how to cultivate engagement and retention from Day One.

How to manage a culturally diverse team

05/24/2024

It is important for managers to foster an inclusive environment where every team member feels valued, respected and empowered to contribute their unique talents.

Ease workplace conflict with 3 simple steps

05/15/2024

In every person, the natural reaction to conflict is based on biology: When confronted with danger, our innate biological response is to either attack or run away—the famous “fight or flight” syndrome. In the workplace, neither fight nor flight behaviors are likely to result in solving the problem. Instead, use these three strategies to help you move from conflict to resolution.

Proceed with caution when regulating the virtual water cooler

05/15/2024

Just because your employees work remotely doesn’t mean you’re free of the old-fashioned gossip, squabbles and office politics that have always been a hazard of in-person work environments. In fact, telework may have actually intensified the risks for employers.

Poll: 70% don’t want to work remotely full-time

04/22/2024

40% of workers surveyed said they want to work fully in-person, while 32% said they prefer hybrid work.

Discipline consistently, equitably to avoid discrimination liability

04/15/2024

Every employee who breaks the same rule should receive the same level of discipline. Absent some solid, fact-based reason, treating some employees more leniently than others is practically begging to be sued for discrimination. That’s especially true if a manager treats members of a particular protected class more harshly or more favorably than employees who belong to different protected classes.

Is HR your ‘manager complaint department’?

04/05/2024

Stop doing your managers’ dirty work! Teach bosses who instinctively turn to HR to, instead, seek solutions on their own. Here are four tips to make this happen.