Welcome back! We’re halfway through the week, and almost through January. How are your New Year’s resolutions going? Anyone still at inbox zero?
In today’s edition:
Turn that frown upside down
Coworking
—Susanna Vogel, Adam DeRose
|
|
Nuthawut Somsuk/Getty Images
You may have heard by now that many American workers are—to put it lightly—not doing so well.
In September, Gallup reported that at least 50% of the nation’s workers were likely “quiet quitting,” or completing the bare minimum required of their jobs while emotionally disconnecting. The ratio of engaged to disengaged US employees, it reported, had fallen to its lowest level in a decade. The situation is a far cry from nearly three years ago, when, early in the pandemic, workers reported record high levels of engagement.
Meisha-ann Martin, senior director of people analytics at employee-recognition software Workhuman, said the shift shouldn’t come as a surprise to those who study engagement drivers. People feel engaged, she said, when they feel they belong and are connected to each other.
Everything about the way we’ve been working for the past several years, as well as stressful external factors like the Covid-19 pandemic and widespread layoffs, has set up employees to feel disconnected, discontented, and just plain over their jobs, Martin said. The problem, she said, started with hasty adoption of work-from-home protocols that prioritized productivity over people.
“There wasn’t a lot of talk about making sure people continued to stay engaged, even though we were going through the biggest, most stressful thing of most of our lifetimes,” Martin told HR Brew. “We started that conversation way after we started the conversation about productivity. So, it is absolutely not a surprise to me that we are where we are.”
Low employee engagement, she said, is not irreparable—but it will take understanding exactly what’s broken to make our way back. Keep reading here.—SV
|
|
Mentorship programs aren’t just a workplace perk. They’re proven to accelerate learning, drive inclusion, and even improve retention—a triple whammy of wins.
If you’re an HR leader who wants all of the above for your peeps, Together’s software makes running an internal mentorship program easier than ever. Gone are the days of manually organizing, matching, and assessing your program, because Together can handle it all.
Together recently surveyed hundreds of HR pros to uncover the impact of mentorship—and the results are enlightening and actionable. If you want to implement world-class mentoring, see the stats for yourself.
Internal mentoring programs at Heineken, Discovery Channel, and loads of other leading companies are using Together’s intuitive, best-in-class platform, and yours can too.
Book a free personalized consult with Together’s experts to start.
|
|
On Wednesdays, we schedule our weekly 1:1 with HR Brew’s readers. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Click here to introduce yourself.
Tim Tumminello leads a 10-person team of HR professionals at the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, which he described as the “backbone of the hospitality industry” in the city. For more than 20 years, he has managed people policies for the center’s more than 500 employees, and recently took on company innovation, streamlining operations, and people processes. The 25-year HR veteran is excited for the new challenge, likening it to his start in the field at a wholesale meat distributor.
How would you describe your specific job to someone who doesn’t work in HR?
I am a results-focused leader who delivers talent acquisition, retention, and talent development solutions that help organizations realize the full power of one of their most valuable assets: their people. Focused on creating cultures that promote continuous growth by empowering and motivating employees to realize their full potential and bring their authentic selves to the workplace.
What’s the best change you’ve made at a place you’ve worked?
I’ve been given an opportunity to bring innovation to the organization, where my team is responsible for stimulating ideas, inviting creativity into the workplace, and supporting operational activities…all with a focus on optimizing resources. We aim to improve operations and service deliverables by facilitating the execution of multi-departmental projects, institutionalizing process improvements, and optimizing resources through cost-saving and revenue-generating initiatives.
What does that look like so far?
We did some culture work, and through that culture work, we came up with a group of employees that we call the Innovation Lab, which provides space for feedback and improving the employee experience and things of that nature. But we know there’s more to it. We’re looking at it as two different segments: culture work, and then process improvement, reimagining what we’re doing in certain spaces through innovation. Keep reading here.—AD
Want to be featured in an upcoming edition of Coworking? Click here to introduce yourself.
|
|
Today’s top HR reads.
Stat: 18% of long Covid patients report not being able to return to work for more than a year. (the New York Times)
Quote: “For me, it’s a real warning sign.”—James Knightley, chief international economist at ING, on employment rates for temp workers falling for five straight months (the Wall Street Journal)
Read: The corporate cafeteria is getting a makeover. (the New York Times)
|
|
-
A discrimination lawsuit against Whole Foods was dismissed by a federal judge, who ruled that it enforced its dress code “uniformly” when it fired employees for wearing BLM masks.
-
A former manager at Blizzard Entertainment said he was terminated for protesting the company’s employee ranking process.
-
Deel, an HR fintech startup, is now valued at $12 billion.
-
TikTok is reportedly requiring workers to provide proof that their home address is near their assigned office location or face disciplinary action.
|
|
Catch up on the top HR Brew stories from the recent past:
|
|
|