job satisfaction Archives

How to Retain Hourly Employees

by LizStevens | May 28, 2019 | Blog

How to retain hourly employees. Research by Shiftboard uncovered what matters most to these workers to help you improve job satisfaction and reduce hourly worker turnover.

Half of hourly employees would take a pay cut for more control over their schedule or better health benefits, according to recent research by Shiftboard.

“There are nearly 82 million hourly workers in the U.S., and they make up more than half of the American workforce,” said Steve O’Brian, Vice President of Marketing at Shiftboard. “Nearly every sector of the U.S. economy is struggling to find and retain workers. Employers can leverage this report to better understand how to attract, motivate and retain hourly workers.”

Hourly Workers Want Work-Life Balance

Close to 80 percent of hourly workers agreed that work-life balance was necessary for job satisfaction. Almost 90 percent said it’s extremely important to have control over the days and times they are expected to work. Hourly workers aren’t looking to conform to a standard 40-hour work week, instead, they prefer to have the option to:

Work longer days to have more days off between scheduled shifts (89%)
Work a set number of hours without overtime being a requirement (78%)
Work more hours for more pay, as long as it’s not required (88%)

Exploring scheduling options that give hourly employees more control is a strategy that could potentially reduce turnover.

Pay Cuts for Better Health Benefits

More than half of hourly workers would be willing to take a reasonable pay cut for better health benefits. High out-of-pocket costs for healthcare have led to financial toxicity, which happens when Americans skip medications that could improve their quality of life because they can’t afford them. More than 40 percent of Americans don’t see a physician when they are sick or injured because of high healthcare costs.

Working with health benefits brokers to reduce out-of-pocket healthcare costs for hourly employees could be advantageous for employers aiming to boost retention for hourly employees.

Hourly Workers Want to Find Meaning in Work

Nearly 90 percent of hourly workers believe making a significant contribution to the success of their company is important to job satisfaction. More than 80 percent believe it’s important to receive joy from work and agree that feeling challenged at work is important for job satisfaction. An overwhelming majority of hourly workers believe having career growth opportunities is important for job satisfaction.

How to Retain Hourly Workers

“We’re finding that wages are only part of the equation. Employers need to look beyond obvious factors to effectively increase satisfaction and retention for today’s hourly employees,” said O’Brian.

Finding solutions that allow hourly workers more flexibility, developing more comprehensive health benefits, and communicating their value to the success of the company are three ways employers can improve retention for hourly employees.

More On Retention and Job Satisfaction

How Do You Improve Employee Retention?

What Do Employees Worry About?

Open Offices Are Trendy, But Are They Effective?

What You Need to Know About Employee Burnout

Are Employees Who Work From Home Happier?

How Do You Handle Management Issues?

2 Simple Strategies to Improve Office Culture

How Do You Handle Management Issues?

by LizStevens | Mar 18, 2019 | Blog

How do you handle management issues? Rather than report it to HR, employees often discuss a manager’s failings amongst themselves, which negatively impacts productivity and job satisfaction.

Eight in ten employees readily divulged what they believed to be their boss’ greatest weakness when prompted by researchers in a new study by VitalSmarts.

Nearly 30 percent of employees felt their manager was overwhelmed or unqualified for the position. “For some reason, our management has promoted an unqualified individual to be in a position of authority,” one employee said. “They have sent her to Green Belt training and she cannot even get her presentations in order. Everyone rolls their eyes, but no one says anything.”

While managers can speak frankly with direct reports when it comes to performance feedback, direct reports can’t do the same. As a result, employees discuss a manager’s failings amongst themselves, which negatively impacts their productivity and job satisfaction.

Issues with Management

Most frequently, employees took issue with managers who delayed decisions or didn’t respond to employees needs because they were stretched too thin.

Almost 25 percent of employees felt their manager was a poor listener or biased and unfair. One employee said their manager multi-tasked instead of listening, both during important calls and in one-on-ones. Another employee had an issue with a sexist manager, they said, “My boss dominates over female team members. He will blatantly talk over women when trying to make his point.”

Over 20 percent of employees felt their manager was distant and disconnected or disorganized and forgetful. One employee pointed out how a manager’s disconnection with the team resulted in issues with workloads and pushed employees to the brink of burnout, they said, “Because she is so disconnected to the daily workflow and details, she continually piles on extra work. We have multiple team members headed to burnout including one who has already had a medical episode brought on by work stress and tension.”

How to Handle Management Issues

Employees openly discuss issues with managers amongst one another (or with researchers like VitalSmarts), but why aren’t they bringing these issues up to HR? Employees most commonly gave five answers:

Speaking up would offend their manager (47%)
Speaking up would cause their boss to retaliate (41%)
They don’t know how to bring it up (41%)
Speaking up would hurt their career (39%)
The culture doesn’t support people who speak up (38%)

Most of the reasons employees gave for not addressing an issue with a manager point to an absence of process. Without a clear procedure for reporting issues with management, employees feel bringing attention to the issue leaves them vulnerable and puts their job at risk. Establishing a formal process for reporting an issue with a manager isn’t enough to prompt employees to address shared complaints. There needs to be a cultural change as well. When introducing a new or improved process for reporting management issues it’s important for leaders to stress that feedback is encouraged and that those who give it will be protected from retaliation.

More on Employee Management:

Is Rehiring a Former Employee a Good Idea?

How to Make Traditional Work Better for Freelancers

What’s Wrong With Wellness Program Incentives?

How to Improve Gender Diversity in the Workplace

Zombie Employees: Who Are They and What Do You Need to Know?

2 Simple Strategies to Improve Office Culture

by LizStevens | Feb 26, 2019 | Blog

2 simple strategies to improve office culture. Poor company culture is one of the main reasons employees look for new job opportunities. Improve workplace culture and boost job satisfaction and retention in the process.

8 in 10 employees are likely to search for a new job after just one bad day at work, according to a study by Addison Group, a professional services and staffing firm.

Over 80 percent of workers say poor office culture is the main reason they would look for new job opportunities.

“With the job market being as competitive as it is, those who are currently employed know they can go elsewhere to find something better if they aren’t happy with their current situation,” said Tom Moran, CEO of Addison Group.

“We all have our good and bad days, but what employers can control is how they are treating and interacting with employees, how much they’re investing in their career progression plans, and how they are choosing to accurately match their salary and benefits packages to mirror what their employees want.”

Where Do Office Culture Problems Start?

Research by PwC identified the tones set by the executive team and middle management as the primary drivers of poor workplace cultures. More than 60 percent of directors use gut feelings to evaluate company culture, but only 30 percent of directors believe it to be a useful approach. Hearing from employees through employee engagement survey results, exit interview debriefs, or 360-degree feedback results for executives are the most useful metrics for evaluating office culture.

2 Strategies to Improve Office Culture

Consider Office Culture Fit When Hiring

When new employees are hired there’s an inevitable shift in the company culture as everyone adjusts. Certain personalities work well together and others simply don’t. It’s impossible to determine with certainty whether or not a new hire will be a good fit, but there are a few ways employers can evaluate candidates during the interview process. For example, by including questions for them from the team, or by having candidates spend a few minutes conversing with their potential workers as a part of their interview, employers can get a snapshot of how they might interact on the job.

Limit Focus on Short-Term Results

Excessive focus on short-term performance and hitting performance targets in compensations plans can contribute to poor company culture, according to PwC. Employees can feel pressured and overwhelmed when there’s an excessive focus on short-term performance, lowering their job satisfaction, risking burnout, and potentially causing them to look for other job opportunities. Short-term results are valuable, but zooming out a bit might be a better strategy if it means improving long-term retention.

More on Improving Office Culture:

10 Easy Ways to Improve Your Office Culture

You Need to Focus on Improving Retention. Here’s How:

Is Rehiring a Former Employee a Good Idea?

How to Improve Gender Diversity in the Workplace

How to Make Traditional Work Better for Freelancers

What’s Wrong With Wellness Program Incentives?

by LizStevens | Dec 4, 2018 | Blog

What’s wrong with wellness program incentives? ROI isn’t proven, employees feel forced into participation, and worse, wellness programs can increase weight-based discrimination and stigma in the workplace, which results in increased obesity and decreased well-being.

Workplace wellness programs have long been criticized as ineffective and lacking ROI, but financial incentives for wellness program participation are even more controversial.

Depending on what the financial incentive is, failing to participate could cost an employee hundreds or thousands of dollars. It then becomes a question of whether participation is truly voluntary, or if employees are being coerced.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) set a limit for what employers could offer employees to join in on wellness programs in 2016 (30 percent of an employee’s health insurance costs). Earlier this year, a judge vacated that arbitrary limit and the EEOC said it would not produce a new number until 2021.

That means there aren’t specific guidelines for employers putting together next year’s wellness benefits to follow. It’s worth considering whether incentivizing program participation is a good idea or just a waste of money.

New research from Frontiers in Psychology found wellness programs can actually lead to increased obesity and decreased well-being. Programs that put the responsibility on employees made them believe their weight is blameworthy. It led to increased weight-based discrimination and stigma in the workplace, a consequence surely no employer intended.

Wellness programs framed from an organizational standpoint were able to avoid increased stigma. What does that look like? An employer providing healthy snacks, standing desks, or offering reimbursements for gym memberships gives employees opportunities to improve their health without shaming them, versus ‘biggest loser’ challenges that are sure to make employees more self-conscious and could fuel disordered eating habits.

Employers look to wellness programs to reduce astronomical healthcare costs and take back some of the $530 billion that poor employee health costs in lost productivity from nearly 1.4 billion days of missed work each year. However, most employers now realize offering wellness programs isn’t enough. Employee engagement with wellness benefits is low, which is why providing a financial incentive for participation seems like a great idea (and in some cases, it still can be).

Nearly 20 percent of employees are either unaware of or don’t understand how to use the wellness benefits their employer offers. Clear benefits communication is vital to program success, and a process to improve before offering financial incentives for participation. Employees need to know what’s being offered, and more importantly how it works and who to contact if they have questions.

Unless conflicting research emerges proving significant ROI for employers who provide wellness benefits initiatives, employers are better off spending those funds elsewhere. A focus on improving benefits communication and creating a culture that encourages healthy habits has the potential to boost job satisfaction, productivity and reduce employer healthcare costs. Organizational and procedural changes might require some effort, but they’re low-cost solutions to the issue of benefits engagement.

What Are the Consequences of Too Much Tech

by LizStevens | Nov 27, 2018 | Blog

What are the consequences of too much tech? Technology streamlines processes but often removes human interaction to do so and recent research points to an epidemic of loneliness in the workplace as a result.

Employees spend half the workday on email and as a consequence, 40 percent of them often feel lonely, according to a global study by Future Workplace and Virgin Pulse.

What Are the Consequences of Too Much Tech?

Technology keeps us highly connected, but not necessarily to people. Fixation on technology reduces productivity and collaboration, increases the risk of burnout, and worse, the loneliness it fosters can have a detrimental impact on overall health.

MarketWatch quotes Dr. Vivek Murthy, the former surgeon general of the U.S., “Loneliness and weak social connections are associated with a reduction in lifespan similar to that caused by smoking 15 cigarettes a day and even greater than that associated with obesity.”

The effect of loneliness on an individual’s health is startling enough, but increased absenteeism and higher health costs are just two of the many ways loneliness affects the workplace. Sigal Barsade, professor of management at the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, found in his research that greater employee loneliness led to poorer task, team role and relational performance.

How Limiting Tech Interaction In-Office Can Help

Limiting tech interaction in-office has the potential to increase job satisfaction and employee retention. Encouraging employees to build relationships with one another can boost their loyalty to an organization. A study by John P. Meyer and Natalie J. Allen, professors of psychology at Western University in London, Ontario found how an employee perceives and connects with a company is largely influenced by their interpersonal relationships at the organization.

Two global studies, conducted by Future Workplace with Randstad, found that young professionals would choose a corporate office over remote work, and in-person meetings over virtual ones. Employee interaction is going to become an attractive recruitment perk as isolating remote work grows.

Reining in the use of tech at work can lead to less stress, more engagement, higher job satisfaction and better retention. At minimum, it helps combat the loneliness epidemic that’s sure to get worse before it gets better as technology continues to streamline processes, which in some cases means removing human interaction altogether.