sqhradmin – Page 332

June 10, 2022

U.S. Inflation Rate Reaches 8.6% in May, a 40-Year High

The U.S. inflation rate reached 8.6 percent in May, its highest level since December 1981, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) reported on June 10, putting pressure on employers to raise wages to keep pace.

An unusually tight U.S. labor market, combined with spiking gas and food prices, are to blame for creating pricing pressures across the economy.

In April, the consumer price index (CPI) had ticked down to 8.3 percent year over year, off of a March high of 8.5 percent.

The long-term average inflation rate in the U.S. is around 3.2 percent, although consumers had grown used to more moderate annual price increases averaging 1.75 percent from 2010 to 2019.

The May CPI measure came in higher than consensus expectations that the annual rate would stay unchanged at 8.3 percent, indicating that “signs of inflation peaking in April were wrong,” according to The Kobeissi Letter, an industry commentary on global capital markets.

Tweeted Mohamed A. El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz, “Amplifying the economic/social/political discomfort, [the CPI] headline is a new high for this inflation cycle. Also, if the first 10 days of June are anything to go by, the next monthly measure would be higher.”

This developing story will be updated shortly.

June 10, 2022

California Proposal Would Mandate Bereavement Leave

A bipartisan bill appears likely to pass in California that would guarantee bereavement leave for workers, making the state only the third to mandate such time off.

The proposed law (AB-95) would require employers in California to give eligible employees up to five days of bereavement leave after the death of a spouse, child, parent, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, domestic partner or parent-in-law. Other family relationships are not included.

The bill covers all public employers and private companies that employ five or more individuals in California.

The time off must be completed within three months of the date of death, though the days of leave do not need to be consecutive.

The bereavement leave can be unpaid; however, the bill would allow employees to use their paid leave, such as accrued vacation days or sick days.

To be eligible, an employee must have worked for the employer for more than 30 days prior to the start of the leave.

Bill Likely To Pass

It’s still unclear whether the state legislature will pass the bill in the next few months before it adjourns on Aug. 31.

“It has a high likelihood of passage this year,” said Michael Kalt, an attorney with Wilson Turner Kosmo, based in San Diego.

That’s because this year’s version improves upon some of the criticisms of earlier versions and has bipartisan support. It also “seems like a humane thing to do, and one that will not unduly complicate for most employers,” Kalt added.

Millions of employees have lost a family member during the last two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Similar legislation was proposed in 2020, but never made it to the governor,” said Stephanie Kierig, an attorney with Jackson Lewis in San Diego. “Perhaps the COVID-19 pandemic and the unfortunate consequences of the virus will have altered people’s perspective on the issue of bereavement leave.”

Oregon, Maryland and Pittsburgh have mandated bereavement leave in recent years. Ten states and the District of Columbia mandate paid family and medical leave, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia require paid sick leave.

Steps For Employers

Many employers have policies that allow workers to take a few days off when a family member dies. The bill would formalize this benefit.

“As with any kind of leave entitlement, it is always a best practice to have a formalized policy that is applied uniformly,” Kierig said.

Now would be an opportune time to examine a company’s current policy and whether it is being executed properly.

“If they don’t already have a bereavement-leave policy in place, employers and HR professionals should first consider whether they meet the requirements to be subject to the terms of [the bill],” Kierig advised. “They should also evaluate how a bereavement-leave policy would affect their operations and how such a policy should be implemented. Employers with existing bereavement-leave policies should review those policies to ensure they meet the requirements of [the bill] and be prepared to update or revise them as necessary to ensure compliance with the law.”

If the bill passes and employers fail to comply, they would have to pay past and future lost income and benefits, emotional distress damages, and punitive damages, Kierig noted.

Under the bill, employers cannot discriminate or retaliate against workers who take bereavement leave. Employers may request that employees provide proof of death, such a death certificate, published obituary or written verification of services from a funeral home.

Employers usually don’t challenge an employee’s request for bereavement leave unless there are ongoing attendance problems with that individual, Kalt said.

Employers must maintain confidentiality regarding an employee’s bereavement leave.

The relationships defined in the bill for bereavement leave align with the relationships included in the California Family Rights Act and the state’s Family and Medical Leave Act, which provide time off to care for a sick family member.

This alignment is designed be helpful to employees who serve as a caregiver for a sick family member and then need time off work after that family member dies.

Bereavement leave would be considered separate from time off under the California Family Rights Act.

June 10, 2022

Will Remote Work Undermine Diversity Efforts?

?Jasmine Lewis doesn’t want to return to the office because she’s tired of painting a smile on her face.

Lewis is a vice president at a Houston-based home services firm and holds an unofficial role as “Black translator.” The 41-year-old says her colleagues constantly ask her what Black people think about various issues, sometimes even texting her on weekends.

“I am not your performative Black person,” Lewis says. “Translating is exhausting.”

At least when she’s home, she says, there’s no need to mask her irritation since her colleagues can’t see her face.

Avoiding such tokenism and assorted microaggressions from co-workers is just one reason Lewis prefers working from home. Remote work also eliminates a time-sucking commute and would allow her to be physically closer to her soon-to-arrive baby daughter.

“Motherhood changes the way you look at things,” Lewis says.

Many other women and people of color share Lewis’ desire to work from home full time. In fact, workers from those demographics are more likely than white men to say they would rather work remotely, according to new research, primarily because they want to escape the barrage of microaggressions they are often subjected to in the workplace. (Microaggressions are comments or actions that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally express prejudice toward a member of a marginalized group.)

Women add that working from home provides freedom to deal with family responsibilities such as child care.

But granting the wishes of women and people of color may endanger their careers and companies’ attempts to diversify their upper ranks as employers face a new challenge presented by remote and hybrid work arrangements: proximity bias. Many experts worry—and surveys confirm—that managers may forget about people they don’t encounter daily and may grant promotions and high-profile assignments to those in the office. That becomes an even bigger problem if white men make up the bulk of the in-office workforce.

More than 80 percent of Black and Asian or Asian-American knowledge workers in the U.S. say they would prefer hybrid or fully remote work arrangements, as do 86 percent of Hispanic individuals. Three-quarters of white employees feel the same, according to the results of a November 2021 pulse survey of 5,421 U.S. workers from Future Forum, a research consortium set up by Slack. (Unlike those employed at stores, factories or hospitals, knowledge workers tend to have jobs that can be done remotely.) The survey also showed that Black and Hispanic workers’ sense of belonging and fair treatment grew sharply when they worked at home.

Meanwhile, 52 percent of women say they enjoy working remotely and would like to continue to do so, compared with 41 percent of men, according to a recent Harris poll. More than 60 percent of women say they feel more energized working from home, and 58 percent say they are more engaged. Roughly 50 percent of men say they feel more energized and engaged when working from home.

Stubborn Resistance

Managers, however, don’t hold remote work in high regard. Nearly 70 percent of supervisors believe that remote workers are more easily replaceable than onsite workers, according to a study released last July by the Society for Human Resource Management. About 42 percent of supervisors say they sometimes forget about remote workers when assigning tasks, and nearly three-quarters say they would prefer all of their subordinates to be in the office.

“Managers are kind of shrugging their shoulders and saying, ‘Yes, you can be remote, but it will impact your career,’ ” says Mimi Fox Melton, chief executive officer at Code2040, a San Francisco-based nonprofit dedicated to diversifying the tech industry.

“The role of management is to give workers the support and clarity to do their best work,” Melton adds. “It’s not a worker’s job to make sure they are in the line of sight of a manager and wave their hands and say, ‘Look at me.’ ”

Companies hope to avoid proximity bias by training managers to be more inclusive so remote workers’ careers don’t stall. Employers are also upgrading technology for more-seamless remote interactions, while simultaneously encouraging senior executives to demonstrate that remote work is acceptable by engaging in it, too. Others are hiring directors of remote or hybrid work to better accommodate the transition.

This is all happening as more companies consider achievement of diversity goals when making decisions about executive compensation. Salesforce, for example, announced in February that it was linking executive pay to diversity goals.

The last thing companies need is more obstacles to achieving diversity, experts agree. White men hold about 62 percent of C-suite positions, compared with white women at 20 percent, according to a 2021 survey by LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Co. The disparity is more acute with people of color: Men of color hold 13 percent of C-suite roles, while women of color hold only 4 percent.

Uncertainty Reigns

As companies struggle to improve their diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) programs, they’re also scrambling to create plans for hybrid work.

“No one’s figured this all out yet,” says Elena Richards, chief diversity and inclusion officer at KPMG. “Communication will be key.”

Of course, it’s possible that DE&I programs will get a boost from remote work. Job candidates are no longer limited by geography, and a broader range of mentors and sponsors may be available if meetings don’t need to be office-based. Remote work also levels the playing field for those who dislike office schmoozing and socializing.

Remote or hybrid work makes employers look at employees’ work product rather than their bubbly presence at the watercooler, says Pam Cohen, chief research and analytics officer of WerkLabs, the research division of The Mom Project, a Chicago-based company that provides job-placement services and other support for mothers in the workplace.

However, Cohen notes that employers still must make deliberate efforts to include remote workers in planning and decisions.

“Executives need to realize that remote and flexible working is just the way things are now,” she says, “and they need to communicate an air of respect” for employees who are embracing it.

Fears of enabling a two-tiered employee system pushed some companies, such as San Francisco-based file-hosting service Dropbox, to select a remote-first strategy. “Hybrid approaches may also perpetuate two different employee experiences that could result in barriers to inclusion and inequities with respect to performance or career trajectory,” the company wrote in an October 2020 blog post. “These big-picture problems are nonstarters for us.”

About 40 percent of executives say their top concern about remote work is that inequities will emerge between those working primarily in person and those working primarily remotely, according to the Future Forum survey. Some workers are worried, too: 43 percent believe working onsite will be better for their careers, according to a survey by meQuilibrium and Executive Networks.

There is evidence that remote workers don’t receive the recognition they deserve. A study by Stanford economists concluded that employees who worked remotely reduced their rate of promotion by half, even though they were more productive than those working in the office. The research, which was published in 2015 in The Quarterly Journal of Economics and followed employees who worked at a travel agency in China, has found a new audience amid the move to hybrid work.

Managers Are Key

Leading a team made up of a mix of fully remote and mainly in-office employees is especially challenging for managers because when people are out of sight, they are often also out of mind.

“Proximity bias is something that a lot of these hybrid organizations are going to have to pay attention to, to be sure it isn’t negatively affecting certain groups while benefiting others,” says Darren Murph, head of remote at GitLab Inc., a San Francisco-based software company whose workforce is fully remote. “Without intentionality, hybrid work can be the worst of both worlds.”

It’s rare for companies to designate one person to ensure that remote work works. A study conducted last year by Gartner found that only 14 percent of companies either had or were planning to add in the next two years a “head of hybrid work effectiveness.” However, 57 percent of companies said they either had or would add a head of integrated talent management. That role could certainly include oversight responsibilities related to hybrid and remote work, says Caroline Walsh, a vice president in Gartner’s HR practice. Walsh also predicts that corporate DE&I departments will eventually oversee remote-work issues.

Regardless of what the position is called, Walsh says “organizations must enforce flexibility evenly. The principle must be entrenched in the culture.”

HubSpot, a Cambridge, Mass.-based software maker, has created a workshop for its managers to teach them how to create a cohesive, equitable team in the hybrid environment.

“Enabling managers is absolutely key,” says Celeste Narganes, director of diversity, inclusion and belonging at HubSpot.

In the workshop, managers learn that if some employees plan to attend a meeting virtually, everyone should attend virtually to create inclusivity. Managers are also instructed to make sure everyone has a chance to contribute. They’re further asked to initiate regular check-ins with individuals on the team and to remember that everyone has different life experiences.

“Intentionality is the theme,” Narganes says.

The word “intentionality” is often used by executives to describe how they’ll ensure diversity goals aren’t lost in a hybrid environment, begging the question whether companies were previously intentional in executing DE&I programs.

“Most people don’t check in to ask people how they’re feeling,” Narganes says. “You have quotas to hit. You have numbers to hit. You’re driving toward progress. In most cases, that’s what folks are focused on.”

She isn’t worried about the hybrid environment undermining diversity goals. In fact, she notes, the availability of hybrid work has benefited Black and Indigenous individuals, as well as other people of color: Workforce participation for people in these demographics increased to 34.7 percent last year from 27.4 percent in 2020.

HubSpot also has been able to expand its candidate pool through relationships with Path Forward and DreamCorps, two nonprofits working to diversify the tech industry. Narganes adds that the company has also strengthened its international leadership development programs and allyship efforts.

Shirley Knowles2.png Shirley Knowles’ mind was racing as a male colleague started petting her braid and asking her questions about her hair, such as the cost and time spent on styling.

“You’re thinking, ‘Who is this? Why are they touching me? What gives them the right?’ ” Knowles says.

At the same time, she was contemplating how to respond. She knew that if she objected too strongly, she might be labeled “the angry Black woman.”

“You’re doing all this math in your mind when you’re a person of color,” says Knowles, recalling the incident that occurred at a previous employer. “I just gave a short answer and walked away.”

Knowles currently is chief diversity and inclusion officer at Progress Software, based in Burlington, Mass.

Many Black women can relate to similar incidents in which co-workers asked overly personal questions, made inappropriate comments or touched them without permission—and the stress it caused them. The behavior exhibited by Knowles’ male co-worker is an example of a microaggression, which is defined as a comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group.

Chester Pierce, a Black psychiatrist and Harvard University professor, coined the term in the 1970s to describe the subtle, everyday discriminatory treatment Black people endure from white people. Over time, microaggressions have a negative, cumulative effect. Many can occur just as easily via Zoom as in person.

Derald Wing Sue, a professor of counseling psychology at Columbia University in New York City, has studied how microaggressions affect other marginalized groups, and now the term has been expanded to include women, other people of color and members of the LGBTQ community.

There are three types of microaggressions:

Microassaults are intentional insults or actions designed to hurt someone, such as using an ethnic slur or walking to the other side of the street to avoid passing certain individuals.

Microinvalidation is an effort to discredit or disparage the experiences of someone who is part of an underrepresented group. An example is telling a woman who describes being harassed that she probably misunderstood what was happening.

Microinsults are comments that disrespect someone’s racial heritage or identity. An example is telling someone that they don’t look Hispanic.

Microaggressions are particularly insidious because people often aren’t deliberately trying to be mean or insulting.

Progress Software’s diversity training includes a session on how to have inclusive conversations. Part of the session includes breaking employees into groups to role-play in different scenarios.

“You have to reach people in a very real way,” Knowles says. —T.A.

New Approaches

Taking a creative approach to scheduling can further help ensure that hybrid work doesn’t undermine diversity goals, says Jessica Jackson, Ph.D., global clinical diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging manager at Modern Health, a San Francisco-based mental health benefits platform for employers. For example, companies can consider having all employees work remotely three days a week and come to the office on the same two days for meetings.

Another option is to rotate those who come into the office so everyone has the opportunity to work in person with the supervisor. However, managers must explain the reason behind the plan so employees understand the purpose.

“As humans, we will participate in what helps us to belong,” Jackson says. “People will want to participate.”

Lewis isn’t concerned that women or people of color will be held back by working remotely, noting that individuals from marginalized groups weren’t getting promoted when they were in the office.

“I could be in somebody’s face all day, and it didn’t matter,” says Lewis, who notes that she’s talking about former workplaces, not her current employer, which she doesn’t want identified. “People will always find you when they want you to do the work.”

Still, some companies are taking extra steps to guard against proximity bias. San Francisco-based Iterable, a consumer marketing company, initiated a “calibration committee,” which consists of six senior executives who ensure that promotion decisions are fair and impartial. Team leaders fill out detailed forms explaining why they believe a certain person merits a promotion. The committee then studies the proposals for signs of bias, comparing promotion rates of remote and hybrid workers to those who work onsite.

“We want to make sure we’re not being unfair to anyone,” says Markita Jack, Iterable’s head of DE&I.

Altria Group Inc. is also looking at promotions through a DE&I lens. Last year, the Richmond, Va.-based tobacco company created an inclusion, diversity and equity ratings system for its people managers, with results based on employee surveys. Starting this year, only those ranked as an “advocate” or “ally” of underrepresented groups are eligible for a promotion.

“The ratings are a way to get at accountability,” says Michael Thorne-Begland, Altria’s vice president and chief inclusion, diversity and equity officer.

The company also plans to track promotions based on where an employee works to ensure that hybrid and remote workers aren’t climbing the ladder at a slower pace than their colleagues.

About one-third of the company’s employees are eligible to work remotely at least part time, Thorne-Begland says, and decisions about what’s possible will be made through discussions with their managers.

“This model is about employee empowerment,” he says. “Managers are expected to support them to the extent that they can.”

Thorne-Begland says an internal survey found that senior executives were most likely to want to work in the office. However, he says, Altria’s CEO has told them that they should work outside the facility at least one day a week.

“We want our actions to be in line with what we said,” he says. “Employees need to see you at home or Starbucks.”

Theresa Agovino is the workplace editor for SHRM.

June 10, 2022

How Alternative Credentials Can Help You Find Employees

?Tiffany Brown spent five years in accounting before deciding to change professions. She had always had an interest in computer science, but with degrees in English and business, she didn’t see how a career switch was feasible.

Then, she participated in a six-month development boot camp, which helped her build the foundational skills needed to transition from accounting to computer science. It prepared her for the next step—IBM’s apprenticeship program.

“I realized it was the perfect opportunity because I wouldn’t have to go back to college to get another four-year degree,” says Brown, who went on to earn several other credentials and now has a successful career as a software developer in the global chief data office at IBM.

“Alternative credentials,” such as the ones Brown attained, are increasingly available in the form of micro-credentials, digital badges and industry-recognized certificates. They’re less expensive than a college degree and designed to help prepare workers for better jobs.

But even as business leaders complain about a global talent shortage, research shows that employers often don’t recognize such credentials, preferring the more familiar practice of evaluating job candidates based on their college degrees and experience. HR professionals and hiring managers frequently have difficulty understanding the relevancy of alternative credentials. There can also be a technical obstacle: The automated applicant tracking systems used by many companies to screen candidates often don’t recognize credentials, according to recent research from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

IBM is ahead of the game in many respects. Six years ago, the tech giant began revising its job descriptions to focus on skills and not just educational attainment. On average, 50 percent of the company’s posted positions in the U.S. don’t require a bachelor’s degree.

“We call these ‘new-collar jobs,’ and they’re aligned to careers that require the right set of skills and a commitment to lifelong learning,” says Tommy Wenzlau, talent leader for new-collar initiatives at IBM, which employs more than 250,000 workers globally. “New-collar roles are in some of technology’s fastest-growing fields, including data science, cloud computing, application development, cybersecurity and digital design.”

In addition, IBM’s apprenticeship program gives candidates without advanced degrees an opportunity to build new technical skills and earn industry-recognized credentials while getting paid. In 2017, the program launched three career tracks and now has more than 10 job areas, including marketing, cybersecurity, data science, design and sales.

“This program is an important talent pipeline for IBM, specifically for our new-collar jobs,” Wenzlau says.

On the Rise

Credentials offer ways of demonstrating skills in fields that don’t feature a required occupational licensure or a traditional two- or four-year college degree. They can be delivered through methods such as apprenticeships; boot camps; and industry-recognized certificates, including for Intuit Bookkeeping, Salesforce Administrator and Project Management Professional.

About 45 percent of 1,525 U.S. workers surveyed hold an alternative credential, according to Making Alternative Credentials Work: A New Strategy for HR Professionals, a research report released in April by SHRM and the SHRM Foundation and funded by a grant from Walmart. Of those, 68 percent believe it has helped them progress in their careers.

Alternative credentials often appeal to workers who have taken more-circuitous routes to their fields: veterans, military spouses, young adults who bypassed college, caregivers re-entering the workforce and career switchers.

Since 2019, college enrollment overall has dropped 5 percent, with the number of newly enrolled freshmen down 9 percent, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

Many prospective students cite the high cost of college and pandemic disruptions as reasons for not enrolling. Instead, high school graduates are deferring college, going directly into the workforce or military, or educating themselves outside of the college degree system. For instance, almost 9 in 10 members of Generation Z say they’re learning through alternative means such as YouTube videos, certificate programs and internships, according to a January 2022 Intelligent.com survey.

Kate Markin Coleman, co-author of Growing Fairly: How to Build Opportunity and Equity in Workforce Development (Brookings Institute Press/Ash Center, 2022), says the pandemic has prompted more interest in online learning.

“Candidates with industry-recognized certifications have taken the initiative to enroll in programs designed to augment their current skill set,” Coleman says. “Their completion of the training modules demonstrates—even more than a general education—their readiness for jobs requiring those skills.

“In a period of labor shortage, certifications expand the pipeline of talent to which HR directors have access and provide an alternative vetting mechanism for HR directors struggling to discern preparation in a competitive market.”

Evaluation Time

Credentialed employees are viewed as better performers by a majority of 500 U.S. executives and 1,200 supervisors surveyed by SHRM. Workplace leaders also consider alternative credentials valuable for employee development and believe employees who earn them gain more credibility.

Yet executives, supervisors and HR professionals still place a higher value on work experience and traditional college degrees than on alternative credentials, the SHRM report found. Additionally, evaluating alternative credentials is seen by some HR professionals and hiring managers as too complicated and time-consuming.

Industry-recognized certifications represent one of the fastest-growing types of alternative credentials because the courses required to attain them cover clearly defined skills, require learners to pass an exam and are aligned to industry needs. Typically, the certifications are completed within three to six months and cost between $50 and $1,000 each, less than one unit in one course for a four-year college degree.

Supervisors and HR professionals consider industry-recognized certifications the most compelling alternative credential, according to the SHRM survey.

The Google Career Certificates program was implemented in 2018 when the company began offering its Google IT Support Certificate on online education platform Coursera. In 2021, Google added three new certificates that can be completed within three to six months and don’t require prior experience or a college degree: Data Analytics, Project Management and UX Design (user experience design).

In the fall of 2021, Deloitte US hired 14 graduates through the Grow with Google program.

“The roles we hire for are very specific,” says Martin Kamen, a principal and human capital cloud leader at consulting and advisory firm Deloitte US, which has more than 120,000 employees. “The Grow with Google program gives us people with skills [that are] in high demand and brings us a diverse set of practitioners as well. The certificate program opened up a whole other recruiting pool for us, especially in underrepresented communities.”

Walmart also has partnered with Grow with Google, as well as with U.S. Department of Labor Registered Apprenticeship Programs and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

At Walmart, “we don’t think of it as credential-based hiring; we think of it as skill-based hiring,” says Brynt Parmeter, senior director of talent acquisition for the retail giant, which has 2.3 million employees.

Walmart has had early success in finding software engineers through the Google program.

“For some time, there has been a shortfall of people to fill those roles, and we’ve worked through different partnerships to allow us to identify software engineers,” he says. “We work with a number of boot-camp-style approaches. It’s a great way to find talent through short-term and immersive training programs. They center on real-world scenarios and tasks in their training experiences.”

Certifications are also “stackable,” meaning individuals can earn a series of certificates, building on the knowledge gained in the first course.

“Aspiring workers often add certifications over the course of their careers,” says Coleman, who, in addition to being an author, has held various leadership positions in the corporate and nonprofit world. “Stackable skills and related certifications can produce substantial upward mobility. In the hiring process, HR directors are challenged to evaluate qualifications. Degrees are one recognizable way to filter candidates; so are alternative credentials and certifications. In such cases, the position skill required and the certification skill verified allow one-to-one alignment in a way that more general degree terminology does not.”

Salesforce, a customer relationship management software company based in San Francisco, offers many certifications, but the most popular is the entry-level Salesforce Administrator Certificate, which demonstrates a holder’s knowledge in cloud computing, enterprise software and how to use Salesforce tools effectively. The training to be a Salesforce Administrator is free online at Trailhead.com, and the exam costs about $200.

“The average person with no experience could get upskilled, certified and connected to a job in a six-month window,” says Jared Crain, director of workforce development, Salesforce military. “It’s disrupting the way Americans look at careers. When I grew up, you needed to get a degree to unlock a career. Now, we’re seeing individuals with no degrees, a few years of military experience, and one or two Salesforce certifications get first job offers of $85,000-plus. We had a veteran with a GED get his first job offer at $125,000. The paradigm is shifting rapidly.”

How to Start

To make alternative credentials part of a company’s recruitment and hiring strategy, experts recommend HR professionals take the following steps:

Communicate with hiring managers. HR professionals must work with hiring managers to understand the skills needed to perform specific jobs.

“The first piece is clarifying what knowledge, skills and abilities the hiring manager needs for this role specifically,” Crain says. “See if there is a certification for all of these skills that would demonstrate proficiency in these areas to you.

“We’ve gotten to a point in the labor market where I can apply for 100 jobs in 30 minutes,” he continues. “Overloaded HR professionals are trying to screen and identify quality candidates. If you have 500 applicants, the easiest gate is, ‘Do you have a degree?’ But it’s an arbitrary selection. Some of these positions don’t need the skills coming out of a higher education degree. If hiring managers can communicate the specific skills in the role, it would shape who to interview. Certifications give hiring managers a way to do that. It opens your aperture. Certifications give a different perspective that recruiters can use to screen candidates.”

Determine which positions are eligible for alternative credentialing. IBM’s HR team looks first at what the company needs. “We look for roles that are in demand across our business and offer opportunities for career growth,” Wenzlau says. “From there, we engage subject matter experts who can help evaluate which skills are required for success. We have a new-collar talent team that partners with our enterprise skills team and talent acquisition to effectively conduct the analysis and ensure our job descriptions reflect the needs of the position.”

HR professionals trying to implement these strategies at their organizations should change their recruitment and hiring strategy to account for this new type of candidate.

“Look at processes, systems, job descriptions, assessment strategies, interview training, sourcing strategies and manager training,” Wenzlau advises.

He also cautions HR professionals to be aware of how this transformation is viewed by current employees.

“Be transparent about the rationale for re-credentialing and emphasize skill requirements as a tool to attract the best talent, ensure equity and meet the skills demand in the industry,” he says. “By focusing on new-collar jobs, we want to shift mindsets in our industry and make tech more diverse and inclusive.”

Change job descriptions to reflect skills, not degrees. At Macy’s Technology, a 1,400-employee company headquartered in Duluth, Ga., the HR team is revamping job requirements and its criteria for evaluating candidates.

“Most of our job descriptions stated that a degree was either required or strongly preferred. We’re moving away from that,” says Nora Marcy, vice president, HR business partner, at Macy’s. “Now, we’re focused on looking for skills and experience. It’s no longer a priority how someone developed the skill and the knowledge we need. Instead, it’s about making sure they have the behavior and technical skill that will allow them to succeed.

“We’re taking this approach with almost all of our technology roles, including software engineering positions supporting our stores, call centers, website, mobile app, distribution centers, merchandising organization and our corporate functions,” she says.

Tweak applicant tracking systems. HR professionals who value candidates with alternative credentials might not learn about them because of barriers erected by their applicant tracking systems. Almost half (45 percent) of the 1,129 HR professionals surveyed by SHRM said their organizations use automated pre-screening to review job applicant resumes. But only one-third of them said their automated systems recognize alternative credentials.

Depending on the applicant tracking system, the fix could be as simple as altering the fields on the “education” portion of the application or adding a “certifications” and “alternative learning” section. For example, at Macy’s Technology, “a candidate can include certifications as part of education in their online application,” Marcy says.

A long-term solution is advocated by the nonprofit Jobs for the Future, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others. They propose a system that allows employees to record their work and training accomplishments digitally, in a verifiable form that can be shared with employers.

The easily accessible files are called “learning and employment records” (LER). One significant LER effort involves the IBM Learning Credential Engine.

“The IBM effort uses blockchain to create a cumulative, verified chain of a worker’s credentials, tying together their education and experience and the skills they have built,” Coleman says. “Certificates and badges have emerged as signals of achievement.”

Applicant tracking systems can filter for specific certifications, but it’s important to spell out the certification name completely to avoid missing a skilled and qualified candidate, says Joe Cahill, chief customer officer at the Project Management Institute, an association for project professionals based in Newtown Square, Pa. Also, be sure to add commonly used abbreviations for the certification. “For example, the Project Management Professional certification offered by our organization is commonly known as the PMP certification,” he says.

Train HR and hiring managers. HR professionals must gain familiarity with the types of alternative credentials available, especially the certifications and skills they impart, to effectively interview and evaluate candidates. Certain certification providers, such as Grow with Google, also have their own certificate graduate resume systems, which may require some initial training.

“Get recruiting teams up to speed on this,” Deloitte’s Kamen recommends. “We did a training for our recruiters to show them how to use the Grow with Google recruiting tool.”

If HR professionals expand their search methods beyond the traditional bachelor’s or associate degrees, they will find a throng of candidates with the skills they need, earned through unconventional means. This will be a boon not only for those individuals, but also for the companies they serve.

The same is true when hiring HR professionals. SHRM offers two certifications—the SHRM Certified Professional (SHRM-CP) and the SHRM Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP)—and a number of specialty credentials, including ones for talent acquisition and inclusive workplace culture.

“If we want to win and find ways to attract talent, we must be open to considering alternative methods of finding and attracting talent,” Marcy says. “If we don’t, our competition will—and we will fall behind.”

Kathryn Tyler is a freelance writer and former HR generalist and trainer in Wixom, Mich.

The Benefits of Alternative Credentials

Hiring candidates with alternative credentials can help your organization accomplish the following:

Increase the talent pool. “It can absolutely increase the qualified candidate pool, but by how much depends on the industry and role,” says Joe Cahill, chief customer officer at the Project Management Institute, an association for project professionals based in Newtown Square, Pa.

“By branching out and looking for candidates with certifications, whether or not they hold a college degree, organizations can fill these important roles while ensuring these new hires have the right qualifications,” he explains.

Increase candidate diversity. “Skill-based hiring reduces barriers to entry that disproportionately affect minority workers,” says Kate Markin Coleman, co-author of Growing Fairly: How to Build Opportunity and Equity in Workforce Development (Brookings Institute Press/Ash Center, 2022).

Research suggests that employers rely more heavily than is necessary on college degrees as a proxy for job preparedness.

“College degree requirements disproportionately disadvantage people of color,” Coleman says. “Yet many individuals without degrees possess the fundamentals that qualify them for jobs requiring advanced skills.”

Brynt Parmeter, senior director of talent acquisition for retail giant Walmart, agrees.

“If you’re not doing a skill-based approach, you’re missing a whole range of talent,” he says. “We have significantly increased the quality and quantity of our candidates when we lean into this. We achieve much higher diversity, equity and inclusion outcomes when we use skill-based pathways.”

Macy’s Technology, which is headquartered in Duluth, Ga., has leveraged partnerships with organizations such as Google Career Certificates Consortium, Women in Technology’s Single Mothers Program, Pyramid Academy, Workforce Optimization Services and Techbridge, says Nora Marcy, vice president, HR business partner, at the company.

“We’re also able to help our communities and give well-deserved opportunities to qualified, skilled individuals who have been passed over by other organizations,” she notes. “Hiring for roles is just as much about hiring for aptitude and attitude as it is for skill. If we can bring someone onto the team who shows they have personal drive and desire to succeed, we can teach them the skills they may be lacking.”

Increase the number of candidates with job-specific skills. A new employee with a four-year college degree in computer science might have to be trained in an employer’s software programs. However, a new hire who comes on board with an industry-recognized certificate in the software the company uses already knows how to navigate the program and requires less on-the-job training.

“Industry-recognized certifications prove the candidate has mastered a skill set that is highly specific to their role,” Cahill says. “And because many of these certifications require putting hours into ongoing education, they also suggest the candidate is up-to-date on the latest industry practices.” —K.T.

June 10, 2022

SHRMLabs Better Workplaces Challenge Cup Finalist: Included

?The 2022 SHRMLabs Better Workplaces Challenge Cup competition highlights the most innovative HR technology startups today.

Four finalists were selected from over 150 initial submissions. They will go on to make their last pitch to a panel of judges as well as an audience of investors, leading HR professionals, fellow innovators and the media. The pitch fest will be held June 14 at the SHRM Annual Conference & Expo 2022 (SHRM22) in New Orleans, and the winner will be announced from the SHRM22 Main Stage by SHRM Chief Knowledge Officer Alex Alonso, Ph.D., SHRM-SCP.

Here’s a look at one of the finalists: Included, based in the Seattle area.

Laura Close, co-founder and chief business development officer at Included, spoke with SHRM Online about the product and how it improves work and the practice of human resources.

SHRM Online: What does your product do?

Close: Included helps companies hire and retain a diverse workforce and drive measurable progress on diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) goals. The platform provides step-by-step guidance based on your own people data trends. Included makes sure you never miss an opportunity to hire the most qualified diverse talent. The technology guides diversity hiring success by:

Integrating with your existing people data systems.
Supporting DE&I benchmarking and representation goals for HR and talent acquisition leaders.
Locating equity gaps in the hiring funnel. Included’s bias detection engine shows you where and why each demographic group leaves your hiring funnel so that you can make process improvements.
Delivering customized data-driven guidance to increase and convert to hire more underrepresented candidates.
Analyzing DE&I source performance data, which saves time and budget and instantly shows which sources yield the most robust results.
Delivering DE&I operations for the complete employee lifecycle and predictive analytics with artificial intelligence.
Tracking DE&I progress to help leaders calibrate policies and processes.

SHRM Online: How does the technology improve the workplace?

Close: Diverse teams drive innovation, allow businesses to capture increased market share and drive revenue outcomes; Included helps you get there. Our product empowers HR leaders to take a data-based approach to DE&I and builds psychological safety and trust with data transparency and accountability. On the talent acquisition side, we help recruiters to make the right decisions and take action at the right time to attract highly qualified diverse candidates and move them through the hiring funnel. We unlock companies’ ability to build a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace.

SHRM Online: What specific HR problem does the technology solve?

Close: In the current talent crisis, candidates, employees and regulatory agencies are demanding that companies have a DE&I strategy—so having DE&I technology is a huge competitive advantage. Included is defining a new category of HR software called DEI Tech, made to meet the market’s demands. For a long time now, companies have had sophisticated tools for sales, finance and marketing. Now, HR has the tools they need to digitally transform DE&I. Included optimizes the technology you already own with the data you already have. We’ll meet you where you’re at. Our product integrates with a company’s HRIS, ATS and other people data systems to support your DE&I strategy with goal setting, operations and compliance. It’s impossible to do this at scale with manual methods. Included does the heavy lifting so HR professionals can focus on what they love: delighting candidates and employees with an inclusive, equitable journey.

June 10, 2022

SHRMLabs Better Workplaces Challenge Cup Finalist: Automation Workz

?The 2022 SHRMLabs Better Workplaces Challenge Cup competition highlights the most innovative HR technology startups today.

Here’s a look at one of the finalists, Automation Workz, based in Detroit.

Ida Byrd-Hill, founder and CEO of Automation Workz, spoke with SHRM Online about the product and how it improves work and the practice of human resources.

SHRM Online: What does your product do?

Byrd-Hill: The Automation Workz Life Culture Audit is a mobile app assisting HR professionals and corporate leaders to motivate front-line workers to digital career and training success. The Life Culture Audit reduces turnover and absenteeism by coaching front-liners through coding games and creation of their life vision so they realize they have the skills and potential success for new digital careers.

Acknowledging a front-line worker’s vision and goals allows for their humanity and purpose, setting up commitment to career development, training and a positive performance cycle. Gartner found that when corporate goals are tied to workers’ personal goals, those workers were 17 percent more productive than other employees—and almost twice as likely to stay at their organization.

SHRM Online: How does the technology improve the workplace?

Byrd-Hill: Front-line workers, mainly people of color, are not as valued as they should be around the world. They are compensated below a living wage and are rarely groomed for higher-paying careers. Automation Workz created the Life Culture Audit for recruitment, performance management and digital career training assessment to highlight their value.

Recruitment: Leaders can fine-tune the selection of purpose-driven front-liners to reduce turnover and absenteeism. Individuals, by completing soul-searching reflection, will develop their purpose, eliciting long-term commitment.
Performance management: Very few managers know the personal vision or goals of their front-liners and hence rarely build their performance expectations to align with their WIIFM (What’s in It for Me) philosophy.
Digital career training assessment: While every front-liner does not need to learn how to code computer software, they do need to think, act and thrive in a world of robotics, AI, data analytics, autonomous vehicles and other emerging tech.

SHRM Online: What specific HR problem does the technology solve?

Byrd-Hill: Front-liners are seeking higher-paying careers. Many corporations are afraid they will not achieve a positive ROI if they invest in digital reskilling for front-liners to acquire higher-paying jobs. Hence, these workers do not feel valued, trusted or empowered. Consequently, front-line workers are not committed to their job, their work schedule, fellow colleagues or customers. This lack of commitment has turned into high turnover, high absenteeism and supply chain issues, leading to declining business growth in 2022.

June 10, 2022

3 Steps to Active Listening

Former employment attorney and author Jathan Janove writes for SHRM Online on how to inject greater humanity into HR compliance. He welcomes your questions and suggestions for future columns. Contact him at the e-mail address at the end of this column.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned as an executive coach, it’s this: People vastly overrate their ability to listen. In the workplace, this is true from CEO to manager to employee – and to HR professional.

For starters, there’s an overwhelming imbalance between question-marks and periods. Virtually every sentence ends in the latter. Occasionally, you’ll get the former—if you’re lucky. Even then, questions are likely to be narrow—mere placeholders between statements—”You agree, don’t you, that . . ..”

It’s time to break the habit.

The EAR Listening Method

The EAR method is a three-step process. “E” stands for “explore,” “A” stands for “acknowledge” and “R” stands for “response.” It’s a sequence.

“Explore” with open-ended questions followed by probing and prodding. “What …?” “How …?” “What else?” “Please share an example.” “Help me understand.” “Anything else?” “Explore” questions are curiosity-based where you’re genuinely trying to find out what the other person thinks.

Once you’ve explored the other person’s position, move to “acknowledge.” Get the person to acknowledge that you understand him or her, not the other way around. “If I understand you correctly … Is that accurate?”

If the person says “No, that’s not my position,” you simply go back to the “E.” “I’m sorry. Please explain what I missed.”

After you’ve confirmed with the other person his or her position, you’re ready for your “response.” How you respond is up to you. The key is that by following this sequence your response will be (a) more thoughtful; (b) more likely to be received well; and (c) not derailed by an erroneous assumption (which I pronounce “ASSumption.”)

Common EAR Missteps

Everyone I coach learns about the EAR. And everyone I coach doesn’t get it right at first. The EAR takes practice and discipline. We’re hardwired to mess it up. Here are the most common mistakes my EAR students unwittingly make.

Impatience with the “E.” “Explore” doesn’t mean asking a single “How” or “What” question and then jumping to the “A.” “Explore” means explore. Take the time and make the effort to truly capture the other’s person’s position, views, and facts he or she thinks are important. Avoid the temptation to tell yourself, “Let’s get this over quickly so I get to talk!”
Skipping the “A.” In their eagerness to get to the “R”, my coachees often omit “acknowledge.” They don’t get confirmation that they understand the other person before launching into their response. Instead of “acknowledge,” “A” becomes “ASSumption.”
Cross-examination questions. Speaking as an ex-litigator, there is never a time for cross-examination questions when you’re using the EAR method. No question should ever state or imply your view. Ditch, “Isn’t it true that . . .?” And get rid of, “Why did you screw up?” All questions should be curiosity-based, where you’re genuinely trying to learn. If you have a problem with what the other person is saying, use the No-FEAR Confrontation method.
Mechanical use of the technique. I once got surprising feedback from an employee my coachee managed. She said my coachee was a “great” listener and a “terrible” listener. How do you reconcile this?! It turns out my coachee diligently and correctly applied the EAR method. And then she would launch into her already thought-out response. As a result, the process felt phony. Bear in mind: the EAR method is not a manipulative technique; it’s a means to meaningful interaction and human connection.
Lost opportunity. When employing the EAR method, I encourage you to think of the “A” as having two meanings. One is “acknowledge.” The other is “apply.” Regardless of whether you share their overall view, invariably, the person will say something you can work with. Don’t miss the opportunity to include what’s meaningful to them in what’s meaningful to you—your response. The more you incorporate their ideas, views and even words into your response, the more likely you’ll find common ground.

Jathan Janove, J.D., is the author of Hard-Won Wisdom: True Stories from the Management Trenches (HarperCollins/Amacom, 2017). He is president of the Oregon Organization Development Network and was named in Inc. magazine as one of the Top 100 Leadership Speakers for 2018. If you have questions or suggestions for topics for future columns, write to jathan@jathanjanove.com.

June 10, 2022

What Employers Should Know Before Trying a 4-Day Workweek

Editor’s Note: SHRM has partnered with Harvard Business Review to bring you relevant articles on key HR topics and strategies.

Despite the gains workers have made through the Covid pandemic in increasing flexibility in where they work, bigger workloads have meant that there is little slack in the system for people to take time out and recover. The effects are obvious. In 2020, 62% of employees reported that they had experienced burnout “often” or “extremely often” in the previous three months, and in 2021, 67% of workers reported that stress and burnout had increased since the pandemic began. Perhaps it is no surprise then that initiatives such as the four-day workweek, remote and hybrid working, unlimited paid time off and the right-to-disconnect have been gaining in popularity in an attempt to tackle these high-workload, always-on cultures.

But do these solutions really offer change for workers? Can they help employees and managers rebalance demands? The answers to these questions are complicated and not easily answered without addressing the real problem: the issue of excessive workloads and intensification. By focusing so strongly on the where and when of work, policymakers appear to have lost sight of how and how much we are working.

To illustrate, in a recent study about New Zealand’s move to the four-day workweek, researchers Helen Delaney and Catherine Casey found that not only was work intensified following the change, but so too were managerial pressures around performance measurement, monitoring and productivity. Indeed, several well-regarded studies into the four-day workweek are promoted in the media on the basis that productivity should not fall (or indeed, should increase) if the change is managed well.

It can hardly be sustainable or reasonable to expect already frazzled employees to keep working to existing workloads with one fewer day a week, which is why, while we support four-day workweek initiatives, employers need to be aware of two important factors. First, a reduction in hours must also be accompanied by a revision of or even a reduction in workload. Second, time at work could become even more intense and stressful for workers, even if there are productivity benefits to be had. Here’s what leaders need to understand before trying a four-day workweek.

Reducing Working Hours Does Not Necessarily Reduce Work

Unfortunately, removing access to work (voluntarily or not) does not mean that the work itself is removed. Existing research suggests that the extent to which people like to remain connected out-of-hours is often based on individual differences and circumstances. We also know that remaining connected to work out-of-hours can be stressful, but that voluntariness, personal preference and job role can mitigate this.

Contemporary approaches to performance management also call into question the extent to which individuals truly have a choice when it comes to out-of-hours working. Research shows that people with more intensive workloads tend to ruminate about work outside of working hours and are unable to switch off until their work problems have been solved. On the other hand, research has shown that some people want to be able to check in on work and keep connected because it worries them more when they do not have oversight of what is going on, which prevents them from feeling in control.

As organizations and governments consider four-day workweeks, it’s important that researchers ask how different types of time off translate into both well-being and performance benefits. For example, in the four-day workweek, is it having a full day off each week or is it working four days’ worth of hours across the week that helps? Can time-use diaries be used to show that people are actually switching off from work when disconnected from it and engaging in activities that promote well-being and meaningfulness? Are diverse groups and those with caring responsibilities equally benefitting when they cannot access their work at certain times of the day or week?

Reducing Hours Should Not Increase Work’s Intensity

The New Zealand four-day workweek pilot found that, to fit in their “real work,” employees took shorter breaks and spent less time lingering to socialize in order to resume their measurable tasks. According to Wired, while “some workers enjoyed the ‘exhilarating’ and ‘full-on pace,'” others felt “the urgency and pressure was causing ‘heightened stress levels,’ leaving them in need of the additional day off to recover from work intensity.” Participants in the research bemoaned that there was no more time for “banter” and that creativity and innovation were being stifled.

The New Zealand four-day workweek trial rings some alarm bells, in that reductions in working days did not necessarily create well-being benefits as workers struggled to meet the demands of their job roles. It is perhaps telling that much of the publicity around the success of Microsoft Japan’s four-day workweek trial rested on how productivity increased substantially during the study period. Employers may need to be careful about promoting outputs over well-being if they want to be seen as investing in their workforce’s work-life balance.

Finding Solutions

While the ideas of a right-to-disconnect or a four-day workweek are clearly laudable and well-intentioned, there is a danger in fixating on specific initiatives. A four-day workweek probably sounds great to many employees (and maybe even their managers). But, as with so many things, success lies in the details.

There is no easy way to address concerns about how (and how much) we work, but our research tells us that no matter what we do, taking a holistic, long-term focus on the well-being of the workforce is the best path to both happiness and prosperity. Maybe the answer is a four-day workweek. Or maybe it’s something else. But we must start with an honest appraisal of how productivity and time trade-offs impact the well-being of workers.

Emma Russell is a Chartered and Registered Occupational Psychologist, Co-Lead of the Data Observatory and Mid-Early Career Research stream at the ESRC-funded Digit Centre, and a Senior Lecturer in Occupational and Organisational Psychology at the University of Sussex. Caroline Murphy is a Senior Lecturer in Employment Relations, and Director of the MSc in HRM at the Department of Work and Employment Studies at the Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick. Esme Terry is a is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change (CERIC), Leeds University Business School. Her role is funded by the ESRC-funded Digit Centre.

June 10, 2022

Career Lessons from Monique Jefferson

?Like many people who started new jobs mid-pandemic, Monique Jefferson was onboarded remotely when she became the CHRO for New York Public Radio (NYPR) in February 2021. She used that experience to identify ways the nonprofit media organization could improve remote and hybrid work for everyone.

Under Jefferson’s leadership, for instance, the HR team arranged for NYPR’s health insurance provider to offer free online mental health counseling. HR also provided opportunities for employees to gather at parks and participate in ice skating events.

“Little things like that go a long way in terms of engagement,” says Jefferson, who oversees a nine-member HR team serving NYPR’s 350 employees and contingent workers.

The actions Jefferson took relate to two themes—change and equity—that have dominated an HR career spanning more than two decades.

“The only constant is change,” she says.

When managing through change, such as the shift to remote and hybrid work, Jefferson says she leads with resilience and agility to address the three ways employees tend to respond: with acceptance, resistance or ambivalence.

She has also experienced lots of change in her own career. As an HR professional, she has worked in a variety of industries, including pharmaceuticals, wealth management, life insurance, legal services and now broadcast media.

The second central theme of Jefferson’s career is her advocacy for employees at all levels, not just those at the top.

“I’m focused on not creating an organization of haves and have-nots,” Jefferson says, and that involves aligning a company’s values with its actions. “I always try to leave the organization better than when I arrived.”

Closing Gaps

Identify ways to improve the organization during her first 90 days at NYPR, Jefferson conducted a listening tour and studied employee engagement data and survey results.

One thing quickly became clear to her: The organization needed to focus more on career development generally and management development specifically. So, Jefferson implemented a mandatory four-session, 12-hour management training course focused on communication, coaching, inclusive leadership and productive performance feedback.

“If we start with our leaders and managers and get that right, they’ll be able to lead and develop healthy, vibrant teams,” she says.

Another gap Jefferson identified led her to put in place what she calls a career-leveling framework across the company. As a result, HR provides greater clarity and visibility on what employees need to do, and the skills and competencies they need to have, to advance in their careers within the organization.

Importantly, this framework dispels the idea that the only way to get ahead or earn a pay bump is by managing others.

“That’s not always the best path for everybody,” Jefferson says. “Some employees don’t want to manage people. That might not be their strong suit.” With this structure, which Jefferson has implemented twice before (at New York Life Insurance Company and law firm Hogan Lovells), “you let employees know they can be individual contributors and still advance their careers.”

Plus, Jefferson has worked to ensure fair, market-rate pay for NYPR’s employees—which aligns the organization with the goals of New York City’s wage-transparency law, effective November 2022, requiring that all employers with at least four workers provide the minimum and maximum pay in all job listings.

Notably, in February, NYPR and labor union SAG-AFTRA settled a long-running dispute alleging unfair labor practices. The settlement included wage increases for certain employees and the resolution of claims pertaining to individual NYPR staff members. Both parties said in a statement that they “look forward to working together to continue to resolve workplace matters cooperatively.”

Jefferson’s commitment to seeing her organization through all employees’ eyes—in short, her empathy—also means she continually considers the support staff who enable client-facing and revenue-generating employees to do their jobs.

“That’s why I focus on equity, making sure we’re fair across the board,” she says.

Equal Opportunity

For Jefferson, fairness also involves an intense focus on diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I). NYPR had created a Race Equity Action Plan prior to her joining the organization. Since then, Jefferson, in close collaboration with Brenda Williams-Butts, NYPR’s senior vice president of DE&I, has helped implement many of the plan’s 19 commitments, such as securing a diverse slate of qualified candidates for every open position and reporting annually on hiring and retention rates. The organization is working on a new action plan for 2022.

Jefferson also displayed her dedication to equity at her previous employer, Hogan Lovells, which she joined in 2016. At law firms, typically only the attorneys are eligible for incentive compensation such as bonuses. But within her first six months as the head of HR for business services in the Americas, Jefferson helped develop and implement a program that extended the potential for incentive compensation to everyone, including business services staff such as paralegals and HR team members. Jefferson freed up $2 million to fund the new incentive program.

“This was a big win for the firm,” she says. “It positioned the firm to become more competitive in the market, attract more high-performing talent and increase employee engagement.”

Alaiki Harris, director of benefits and well-being at Hogan Lovells in Washington, D.C., recalls how Jefferson built a business case for broadening the incentive program and made the case to senior leadership. She attributes Jefferson’s success with that initiative not only to her leadership skills but also to her deep knowledge of both standard and best practices.

“She’s extremely knowledgeable about her field, she’s extremely persistent, and she’s very bold in her approach,” Harris says. “She also knows how to convey concepts in a professional, diplomatic way.”

While at the law firm, Jefferson noticed another disparity: The DE&I initiatives and the employee resource groups tended to serve the lawyers only. “I was quite vocal that there needed to be the same opportunities afforded to the business services staff,” she says. Right before she left for NYPR, the firm created a DE&I committee targeting those staffers’ needs.

Also under Jefferson’s leadership, the firm began offering onsite mental health counseling services to all employees a few days a week. “Being aware of and sensitive to employee health and wellness has a direct correlation to productivity,” she says.

Showing Leadership

Julissa Rodrigues has witnessed Jefferson’s leadership and learned from it. From 2011 to 2015, Rodrigues was supervised by Jefferson at New York Life, where Jefferson served as a senior HR business partner and reported to the CHRO. Rodrigues recalls how Jefferson adroitly collaborated with members of the executive committee during a company reorganization.

“Monique has great business acumen, and she’s a fearless leader who challenges the status quo,” says Rodrigues, now an HR business partner for Apple in New York City. “She taught me what it takes to be fearless and always show up with facts and solutions.”

Jefferson’s intense interest in equity extends to her nonwork life. She volunteers for The Links, Incorporated, an international nonprofit that promotes service and friendship among women of African descent. Jefferson serves on the group’s youth committee, helping with a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) program at a Brooklyn middle school and tutoring students as they prepare for their high school entrance exams. Jefferson also serves on the board of CALIBR, a nonprofit group that helps advance Black business leaders into senior positions.

“Both these organizations speak to my passion for helping BIPOC [Black, Indigenous and people of color] youth and Black professionals develop and advance their careers,” she says.

Jefferson sees a direct link between how she leads and how she was raised. “I got my work ethic and competitive spirit from my parents,” she says. “They instilled confidence in me and told me I was as good as anyone else. I learned at an early age to advocate for myself and speak up, especially when I see something that’s not fair or right.”

As she grew up on Long Island, her parents emphasized the importance of education—and of making sacrifices to obtain it. Her father worked two jobs: public school teacher and administrator and, after school, recreation center director. Her mother held various positions in the U.S. Postal Service and went back to school to get her bachelor’s degree while Jefferson was in elementary school. Later in life, Jefferson’s mother also earned a master’s degree.

“They worked so hard to provide for me but also to make sure I had things they didn’t have as children, like travel and extracurricular activities,” Jefferson says. “While I may not have spent as much time with my parents as my peers did, I never held that against them.”

After getting her undergraduate degree in accounting at Bentley University, Jefferson began working as an auditor at global accounting and consulting firm EY in the mid-1990s. She quickly realized it wasn’t a good fit. In 1998, she joined global business services and consulting company PwC as a junior HR generalist and knew she had found the right career path.

“I realized I loved HR and wanted to stay in it,” says Jefferson, who earned a master’s degree in human resource management from the New School in 2003. “I loved being able to work with leaders and employees to help solve their problems. At the end of the day, I see my job as not only minimizing risk [for the employer] but always doing what is right, whether that’s for the employee or the organization.”

Her love of HR informs the advice Jefferson now offers younger professionals. “I always tell them to find careers that align with the three P’s: purpose, passion and profession,” she says. “Being an HR leader has allowed me to do that.”

Novid Parsi is a freelance writer based in St. Louis.

Photography by Adam Lerner

June 10, 2022

Business Purchaser Can Have Successor Liability for Title VII Claims

?Takeaway: This case illustrates how a business purchaser can have notice of and therefore successor liability for discrimination and retaliation claims that arose before the sale. This case also underscores the importance of a buyer conducting proper due diligence. With knowledge of any potential liabilities that may exist, the purchaser might decline to buy the business or negotiate different terms, including a lower sales price, to account for this contingency.

?One purchaser of a hotel was deemed a proper defendant based on successor liability while a prior purchaser was not regarding claims that arose under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In 2009, Roark-Whitten Hospitality 2 (RWH2) acquired a hotel in Taos, N.M. In May 2014, RWH2 sold the hotel to Jai Hanuman. In September 2014, after issuing cause findings on charges filed with the agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued RWH2 under Title VII, alleging that RWH2 subjected a group of Hispanic employees to a hostile work environment and disparate treatment based on race, color and national origin, and that it fired or constructively discharged them after they protested the discriminatory treatment. Upon learning that RWH2 had sold the hotel to Jai, the EEOC filed an amended complaint to include Jai as a defendant based on successor liability. In September 2016, Jai sold the hotel to SGI LLC, and the EEOC filed an amended complaint to add SGI as a defendant, also based on successor liability.

The federal district court dismissed the EEOC’s successor liability claims against Jai and SGI for failure to state a claim in the amended complaints.

On appeal, the 10th Circuit reversed the dismissal of the EEOC’s claims against SGI and affirmed the dismissal of the EEOC’s claims against Jai. In doing so, the 10th Circuit examined the standards for imposing liability on successor corporations for alleged Title VII violations. Potential liability is not automatic, the 10th Circuit explained, and depends on whether the successor corporation had actual or constructive knowledge of the claims against its predecessor when the successor purchased the business.

The EEOC alleged that, in buying the hotel from Jai, SGI had constructive knowledge of the claims. The 10th Circuit explained that constructive notice is subject to a negligence standard—i.e., whether the successor corporation should have, given all the circumstances, been aware of the claims at issue. The EEOC alleged that SGI bargained for a 30-day due diligence period with Jai to investigate the business’s liabilities prior to the sale, that it failed to conduct an adequate investigation and that a reasonable party in SGI’s position would have discovered the EEOC’s claims at the time of purchase. The 10th Circuit held that these allegations, if proven, would suffice to establish that SGI had constructive notice and thus successor liability.

In contrast, the 10th Circuit concluded the EEOC did not plead sufficient allegations to state a claim that Jai, in buying the hotel from RWH2, had actual or constructive notice. The 10th Circuit found the EEOC’s “threadbare” allegation that Jai “had notice” of the EEOC’s claims at the time of purchase was too conclusory to properly plead successor liability. The 10th Circuit also rejected the EEOC’s argument that Jai could and should have learned of the EEOC’s claims through an Internet search. The 10th Circuit concluded that the EEOC did not make any factual allegations that Jai, unlike with SGI, failed to exercise reasonable diligence in discovering the EEOC claims or had a purchase agreement that included a due diligence clause. As such, the EEOC failed to meet the federal court standard for alleging Jai had constructive notice.

EEOC v. Roark-Whitten Hospitality 2, 10th Cir., No. 20-2023 (March 10, 2022).

Kenneth J. Diamond is a shareholder with Winterbauer & Diamond PLLC, the Worklaw® Network member firm in Seattle.