This week’s curated HR News Roundup covers helping employees in the wake of recent shootings, plus items on talent, terminations, office politics and more. We close with a few items from the lighter side.
How to help workers struggling after the nation’s mass shootings
Human Resource Executive, Kathryn Mayer
The pair of mass shootings in the U.S. over the past week–the Kroger shooting in Boulder, Colorado, and the spa killings in Atlanta–are the latest disturbing events for Americans in a year defined by a pandemic, economic uncertainty and racial and political unrest.
Here are six ways company and HR leaders can help employees in wake of the two recent mass shootings.
Related: see our recent posts: Tools for parents and teachers to help children cope with violence and scary news and Coping with the Buffalo mass shooting
Desperate for Talent? Consider Advancing Your Own Employees First
Working Knowledge, Harvard Business School, Rachel Layne
Job openings in the United States continue to hover at record high levels, exacerbated by the Great Resignation and a sputtering emergence from the pandemic. Competition remains fierce among companies struggling to find qualified workers.
Yet many employers, particularly those that rely on low-wage employees, overlook a solution to these hiring challenges that is right under their noses: advancing their own workers, according to Building from the Bottom Up, (pdf) a report by the Managing the Future of Work project at Harvard Business School. As the pandemic eases and businesses ramp up, the old belief that low-wage jobs will always have high turnover needs to be reimagined, says Joseph B. Fuller, co-chair of the project and a professor of management practice at HBS.
Employee Terminations: Breaking Up is Hard to Do
Akerman, Ana C. Dowell
Firing an employee can be much like breaking up with a significant other– stressful, messy, and awkward. No one wants to be the “bad guy,” and oftentimes it feels kinder to sugarcoat the facts rather than telling an employee the real reason for termination. But those good intentions may land employers in hot water.
ABCs of Employment Law: Discrimination; Religious accommodation; Retaliation
Employment Labor Insider
Employment Law Attorney Robin Shaw’s series on basic explanations of the federal laws that govern the workplace. The first installment covered discrimination in general, and the second installment covered religious accommodation, and the third installment covered retaliation.
Office Politics Don’t Have to Be Toxic
Harvard Business Review, Madeleine Wyatt and Elena Doldor
There’s no escaping office politics. It might get a bad rap, but the ability to network, build relationships, and influence others is critical in any workplace. Unfortunately, research has shown that all too often, office politics is a white man’s game, as women and ethnic minorities often have less powerful networks and benefit less from engaging in politics than their white, male counterparts do.
How skills are driving today’s talent revolution
Human Resource Executive, Phil Albinus
In response, employers are changing how they hire: from using new technology to speed up the hiring process to looking to fill roles with employees with the needed skills instead of advanced degrees and traditional resumes.
“We have decoupled the resume and the college degree from the work,” he said. “Your skills are now a career.” (Joel Bersin)
13 Signs That Someone Is About to Quit, According to Research
Harvard Business Review, Timothy M. Gardner and Peter W. Hom
To help managers and companies identify employees at risk of quitting, we investigated this very question and uncovered a set of behavioral changes exhibited by employees—what we dub pre-quitting behaviors—that are strong predictors of voluntary quits in the 12 months after they are observed by managers.
HR News Roundup: Quick Takes
- Faked Births? Friday and Monday Leave Act? How to Handle FMLA Abuse
- Six Things to Know about Recruiting Gen Z
- Looking for a Perfect Match? Avoid These 3 Common Mistakes of Speed Hiring
- Understanding Grief in the Shadow of COVID-19
- COVID-Related Workers’ Comp Claims Are Here. And Yes, A Small Percentage of Them Are Costly
- 5 employer strategies to help with soaring inflation
- 38 Gas Saving Tips
- 6 Ways to Reduce Employee Stress in the Workplace
- The ‘un-retirement’ trend could help increase the available pool of workers amid this hot job market
- So, Have You Heard About Monkeypox?
- How serious is Monkeypox?
- 35% of Workplace Injuries Occur During First Year
From the Lighter Side of HR News Roundup …
Remember those summer jobs? From chicken plucker and circus roustabout to ice cream scooper and canal boat driver, read about the Summer Jobs of 14 Future U.S. Presidents.
Artle. It’s like Wordle, but for art. Try this guessing game from the National Gallery of Art.
Still a little hesitant to plan that global vacation in the time of Covid? Why not try a Virtual Vacation – select from a global menu of cities, and take a virtual walk, drive, or flight around. It might give you a sneak preview of your next vacation.
This is an amusing view of adults returning to the office post-pandemic from a Belgian comedy sketch show.