Tag: employees

Three Issues Every Boss Must Face During The Holidays

As the holiday season approaches, every employer must establish a plan and schedule for the next few months. It’s stressful enough that you must fight the crowds at the mall and wait in endless lines in order to enjoy holiday activities, but running a business or managing a team of people during the holidays can be especially trying for business owners.

Manage Vacation Time

If they haven’t already, people will likely start giving their requests for time off during the holidays.  The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day is such a popular vacation time that you may have a hard time getting anything done.

Some businesses will close for a few days during the holidays to save on operation costs, but that may not be an option for you.  If you already have a great scheduling system to manage your payroll and track time-off requests, then you’ll be ahead of the curve.

For everyone else, a good old-fashioned calendar will do.

Sit down with your team and get their time-off requests logged on the calendar so you can see where your weak spots will occur over the holidays.  Scheduling vacation time together as a staff will help your employees understand the complexities of staffing through the holiday period and will cut down on the grumbling over who gets which days.

Plan Holiday Parties

The office holiday party is either something people love attending or something people dread, and it doesn’t seem like there is any middle ground.  It’s really tough to plan something that is entertaining, not too cheesy, and not too edgy for HR, but it can be done.

Depending on the size of your office or team, you’ll want to involve a wide variety of people in the planning process.

Try grabbing folks from several departments, so you’ll get a wide lens on personal tastes and what people want. Chances are, among your employees, you’ll find people who enjoy party-planning and are looking for an opportunity to contribute.

The other issues that arise around holiday parties are all the horror stories like “Steve from Accounting got so drunk he wouldn’t hand over the mic after karaoke.”  That’s terrible for the people listening and extremely poor judgment by Steve, but it also means that there probably weren’t enough things going on at the party to keep folks engaged and entertained.

Try planning an agenda that keeps the activities flowing (rather than the booze), but also feels fun and relaxed.  Give plenty of wiggle room between events like speeches, dinner, awards and so on.  Many times, these events are used as team building or to honor employee performance.  That’s great, and should be a part of the celebration, but make sure you’ve set up the agenda to include some fun as well so it’s not all business.

Close Up Shop

Unless you’re in a service business like a restaurant, you will probably have days during the holiday season that the office will need to be closed.  Days like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day are a given, but there are other times where it might be beneficial to close the business.  Quite a few people ask for Black Friday or Christmas Eve off, so you should take a look at how many sales you expect to conduct on those days.

Is it even worth opening the doors?

Certainly, a retail business will be open on Black Friday, but what about professional services firms like CPAs or Law Offices?  It may cost more to be open these days than can be made in revenues.

Once the decision to be closed has been made, it’s important that you’re communicating the closure days to both your employees as well as your customers or clients.  Nothing will look worse for your business or feel as bad for your clients as it will when they show up at your door, only to find a “Sorry We’re Closed!” sign hanging there.

If you have a mailing list or email list, make sure that you’re noting the closing days there.  Facebook, LinkedIn, or other social media posts will go a long way to getting the word out as well.

Change your phone answering messages well in advance of the dates so that anyone calling hears the dates and times that you’ll be closed and put up a sign somewhere in your offices so that visiting customers will know when you won’t be open to serve them.

The holidays can be a time to enjoy the giving spirit and celebrate the year’s accomplishments, or they can be a stressful couple of months that you have to weather every year.  Where you fall on that spectrum will depend on how well you’ve planned your operations for the season.  Taking care to set your customers’ expectations and organize your employees’ celebrations and time-off will go a long way toward making your life easier when the holiday season comes around.

How Human Resources Changed For Transgendered Employees

About three quarters of Fortune 500 companies have incorporated gender identity protection in their company policies. Gap, Wells Fargo and Apple are all participants with steps in place to support transgender employees.

 

In the past, it has been an uphill battle for transitioning employees to feel included and safe from company discriminated for their gender identity. Cases like Ramirez v Barnes and Noble, where the company denied to secure a transitioning worker the right to a discriminant free work environment, are the stepping stones for revised company policies and procedures.

 

 

 

Human Resources has been working hard to put together protection policies that encourage workplace support for transitioning and transgender employees and let’s take a look at some of these efforts and how HR is changing the workplace for these workers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Transition Plans – When an employee decides to transition, it will be a hard time where they will need ongoing workplace support. In the event that your employee confides in you about their plans to transition, it is best advised to have a plan.

 

“We try our best to accommodate our transitioning and transgender employees as it’s part of our diversity inclusive policy. At times we may have some stumbles but because of our plan in place, we continue to strive while sustaining an all-inclusive work community.” Human resources representative for a Brooklyn startup company told us.

 

 

Some things HR is being sure to cover in their transition plans could include:

 

 

Name Changing – Some companies allow employees to use nicknames on company business cards, emails, and mail (from Robert to Bob) yet there is sometimes reluctance to extend the courtesy to transitioning employees. Part of implementing a transition plan is facing the issue head-on and brainstorming ways to help respect the transitioning employee.

In turn, human resources sometimes have made noticeable efforts to speed up the name changing process. In one case, a transgendered employee expressed her anxiety with the name on her professional profile and the company went ahead to change it to her preferred name, allowing her to live in her true identity.

 

The worker then felt valued and included – great traits to encourage in the workplace.

 


 

Dress codes are not to gender stereotype or discriminate. All employees should wear appropriate workplace clothing consistent with their full gender identity.

Like their colleagues, they should refer to company policy for dress code and follow the guidelines corresponding to their new identity.  Outside of the workplace doesn’t apply to the inside of the office and therefore the dress code doesn’t apply.

 

So if in their spare time an employee may cross-dress, it’s not company’s business to inquire.

 


 

 

Restrooms are still a touchy topic in America with the transitioning and transgender community. Companies are required to provide their staff with reasonable access to restroom facilities and the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission enforces Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibits employment discrimination based on factors of race, religion and gender identity.

 

Therefore, denial of restroom facilities to transitioning and transgender employees is unlawful. If a transitioning employee chooses to use the bathroom corresponding to the gender they wish to identify by, company policy should allow it.

 

 

 

Some recommendations for employees uncomfortable with the idea include using a separate bathroom from the transitioning employee and talking to their officials about the possibility of having gender-neutral restrooms.

 

 

 

Workplace Community is a crucial asset to a company. People who communicate well, work better in group settings and on collaborative projects. Included in the transition plan, employers should be visual about sharing information to educate the workplace on what a person may experience while transitioning and how to show support.

 

 

 

“In an effort to help our small work community informed and supportive, we have sent out emails to offer our employees services for counseling. We know it could be a drastic change for some of our them and we want to offer a channel to have one-on-one consultations with our appointed HR rep,” the Brooklyn startup company rep explained. 

 

 

 

Regular re-visits to company policies are another way human resources is changing the workplace. Keeping up with state and federal laws have become vital for staying updated on diversity initiatives within the workforce.


 

 

Management Training –  In-person training and educational courses are useful for employees in leadership roles. The managers and supervisors are the moderators and facilitators of the workplace and their skills should be updated in order to handle possible questions or concerns about the changes happening in the workplace.

 

 

 

Managers are responsible for keeping a harassment-free workplace and therefore should be trained to do so.

 

 

 

There are a number of ways businesses can support their transitioning employees. To maintain a productive, collaborative and diversity inclusive work environment, special steps have to be taken and old policies revamped.

 

 

 

The time is now to pay attention to your human resource efforts and ask yourself the big question: Is my HR department making changes to support transgender employees in the workplace?