When you think about employee perks, software updates probably aren’t top of mind. However, HR leaders at UPS may need to start offering these to keep their newest employees happy.

The latest. UPS opened its largest warehouse this week in Louisville, Kentucky, but it’s not hiring throngs of employees. The warehouse is expected to initially employ just 200 humans, alongside more than 3,000 robots (sometimes known as “cobots”), Bloomberg reported. While UPS did not tell Bloomberg how many workers would normally staff a 20-acre warehouse, the company claimed the robots are a boon for people operations, saying they’ll increase employee retention by 30% and reduce workplace injuries.

The move is part of the company’s long-term strategy to elevate customer and employee care through technology, Chain Store Age reported, like the autonomous vehicles, pick-and-place and unloading robots, and digital technologies UPS announced in September.

The robots are coming. UPS isn’t the only employer leaning on robots to do some of its employees’ hardest work.

Keep reading here.—KP

HR pros know the benefits of hiring from a diverse talent pool (inclusivity and increased revenue, for starters). So why do job seekers with military experience remain an underutilized group in today’s workforce?

To honor National Veteran and Military Families Month, Indeed teamed up with Hiring Our Heroes to conduct a survey of over 5k US veterans and service members to shed light on the hurdles they face when job searching.

The results? Illuminating, TBH. Data showed that while employers want to hire veterans, their job postings don’t reflect this priority, and proper onboarding resources remain sparse.

Check out the full article for highlights from the survey, including employer strategies for improving the hiring and retention of military talent.

Some say being a mother is already one of the hardest (and often most thankless) jobs in the world. A new report sheds light on some of the challenges faced by moms in the UK upon returning to work after maternity leave.

Where in the world? More than 80% of working mothers in the UK experienced trouble returning to work after maternity leave, according to a new report from recruitment platform Totaljobs with the Fawcett Society, a UK-based gender equality charity. The groups surveyed 3,000 UK-based working parents and 500 HR leaders, as well as 1,254 working adults.

Despite more mothers in the UK working in 2021 (76%) than 20 years ago (61%), they’re earning less than women without children, and 30% reported that they didn’t receive any employer support when they returned to work from maternity leave. What’s more, 16% said they’ve faced discrimination for being a working mother, causing some (23%) to avoid talking about their parenting responsibilities.

Keep reading here.—KP

Kelly Mendez-Scheib is one of those rare HR professionals who studied the field in college. With an undergraduate degree in labor and industrial relations and a graduate degree in HR from Penn State, the “sticky-fingered generalist at heart” realized she was unable to “stay in my lane” and made “a really poor specialist.” But that proved beneficial as she grew her career and moved into HR leadership roles.

Mendez-Scheib transitioned to the tech world from manufacturing in 2020 when she joined Proterra as its VP of HR before moving to Crunchbase last summer. At Crunchbase, she’s focused on implementing what she described as a “growth-focused” department, writing her own rules and tackling projects and policies that meet her employees’ needs.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You joined Crunchbase and began transforming the team into a “growth-focused” department. What does a growth-focused HR department look like to you?

Often in HR, what you have is a lot of HR professionals use what I like to refer to as prescriptive HR. Prescriptive HR is the playbook; they hand you the playbook, and…as long as you do the things that are in the playbook, you win. That’s not how I approach HR…I always wanted to be the team that wrote the story. I didn’t want to be the team that read the story...We were going to do things the Crunchbase way.

Keep reading here.—AD

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Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: Unemployment claims fell by 24,000 during the week of November 6. (ABC News)

Quote: “We work long hours. Our job titles keep getting longer and longer, and Macy’s isn’t wanting to invest in their employees and invest in keeping them long-term.”—Azia Domingo, an associate at Macy’s, on why some employees plan to strike on Black Friday (the Guardian)

Read: When OpenAI employees threatened to follow then-former CEO Sam Altman to Microsoft, the tech giant’s HR team started preparing for a potential influx of new workers—only for Altman to be reinstated as OpenAI’s leader. (Business Insider)

Serving your workforce: Indeed partnered with Hiring Our Heroes to survey 5k+ US veterans about the hurdles they face when job searching. Read the full article for highlights + employer strategies for hiring and retaining military talent.*

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