Employee Incentives: Life Insurance

Running a profitable business is usually dependent on a stable workforce. If you have high staff turnover or lose key staff from time to time, you need to consider what you can do to retain these staff.

Disengagement stems from over-exhaustion, ineffective management, or misalignment throughout an organization. Low morale leads to high turnover rates, low productivity, and ultimately, disengagement. Unhappy workers cost the U.S. up to $550 billion per year.

When this happens, you need to find a solution, fast!

Business leaders and their HR departments play a significant role in sustaining employee engagement and motivation. They need to provide all team members with the resources they need to stay motivated.

If you offer your employees an incentive, 85% of workers feel more motivated to do their best.

The most obvious incentive is to pay more to your employees. But as soon as competitors match your pay rates, or offer to pay more, the value of your incentive vanishes.

Employee Incentive Programs

These programs can be introduced to attract, engage, and retain talent. The rewards and benefits included can be used to motivate positive behaviors in your workforce.

The cornerstone of many incentive programs is group Life Insurance.

What is Group Life Insurance?

This Life Insurance is of great value for employees because it is usually offered to them free as part of an employee incentive program.

Because all employees are covered, the insurer can average out the insurable risk and the cost to the employer is much less than the combined normal retail rates for all the employees.

The amount of cover can be as low as $25,000 or typically as high as two- or three times the annual salary, sometimes higher.

There are no medical questions to answer, making this particularly attractive to staff with existing health conditions.

The plan can be made even more attractive by adding living benefits like disability, critical illness, and long-term care. These are benefits where the life insured does not have to die for a payment to be made.

Being diagnosed with a condition that fits the definition of a successful claim for living benefits is far more likely than death during your working life. This could include cancer, heart attack, stroke, etc.

Typically, these benefits might pay $50,000 or $100,000 for each employee. Again, these additional benefits usually require no medical questions, so everyone is covered, regardless of the state of their health.

Coverage is tied to your job, so employees will prefer a plan that allows them to continue the cover if they leave the employer. This is generally available, with the ex-employee taking over the cost of course. The plan limits the type of insurance offered and the maximum sums insurable. If their personal insurance needs are greater, they will still need to seek that cover elsewhere at their own expense and based on their current state of health.

Often the plan will allow employees to voluntarily choose to increase their Life and/or Living benefits at their own expense. The costs will be much less expensive than normal retail rates for the same cover, especially for older workers, but approval for the increased amounts may be subject to any existing health issues.

Getting the base cover offered is easy for each employee, often completed as part of their initial hiring documents, it is free, and they are fully covered despite any existing health conditions.

To understand how to structure an Employee Incentive Plan with a Group Life Insurance that suits your organization, you should seek professional advice. Corporate Business Solutions Reviews is one place to start or contact them for assistance.

 

Employee Incentives: Health Insurance

The current and continuing increases in medical costs can be a major issue for many Americans, especially when they require medical treatment.

Group health insurance plans are offered by an employer of a member organization. Members of the plan usually receive coverage at a lower cost because the risk to the insurer is spread across multiple members.

Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), businesses with 50 or more full-time employees must provide health insurance to full-time employees and dependents under the age of 26 or pay a fee.

Employers with fewer employees might also choose to have a plan as part of an Employee Incentive Scheme.

Approximately 50% of Americans with health insurance coverage gained this through group plans provided by their employer. However, many of them have little idea how their plan works.

Group health insurance provides many benefits, but when your insurance plan is tied directly to your employment, you will usually lose this cover if you change jobs. In 2017, 22% of uninsured Americans reported losing their health insurance due to job loss or change in employment status.

The 2002 movie John Q, starring Denzel Washington, is an example of one of the traps of employer-provided health insurance. In the movie, due to a downturn in business, his employer changed health providers to save money, and when John’s hours were reduced temporarily, he became classified as a part-time employee.

This resulted in him and his family no longer having full cover. When his son suffered a significant medical event requiring ongoing treatment. The plan in place when he began employment would have covered everything, but the new cheaper plan and his temporary part-time employment status meant only some of the initial medical costs were covered, and none of the major costs would follow.

Benefits of Group Health Insurance

Many employers provide supplemental health plans, which include dental coverage, vision, and pharmacy coverage, either separately or as a bundle.

The main benefit is lower premiums. A 2018 study found the average premium cost per individual in a group health insurance plan was $41/month cheaper than an individual plan. The same study discovered small group health plans had an average deductible of more than $1,300 less than individual plans.

Family members and dependents can be added to group plans at an additional cost to members. These assists families with sole providers, or where other family members don’t have group health insurance with their employer.

Group health insurance plans provide numerous tax benefits to both the employer and employee. Employers’ costs are tax-deductible, and employees’ premiums are made before tax, reducing their total taxable income.

Smaller businesses may also qualify for the small business health care tax credit.

Who can get Group Health Insurance?

To be eligible for an employer’s group health insurance, an employee must be on payroll and the employer must pay payroll taxes. Independent contractors, retirees, and seasonal or temporary employees are not eligible. If you take unpaid leave, you may be ineligible for group coverage until you return to work.

Make sure you know what cover you are entitled to if you work less than full-time hours, even if only for a temporary period.

Coverage must also be offered to an employee’s spouse and dependent children until age 26, though some employers may increase the age, provided children are still dependents. Unmarried partners of the same or opposite sex, may also be eligible for the same cover as their spouses.

Without a doubt, job seekers favor employers with a group health insurance plan, but it is important to fully understand what the plan covers and any changes.

Check out http://www.cbs-cbs.com as a starting point for advice on how a group health insurance plan could be a great fit for your business as part of an employee incentive scheme.

Is Your Business Maximizing the Power of Mobile Devices?

A 2020 study found that on average, workers waste 8 hours/week on non-work activities, mostly on their mobile devices.

Now calculate the average hourly pay of your business, multiply that by eight, then multiply that answer by fifty-two and you get the money your business is paying each staff member each year to do nothing on company time.

Now multiply that number by the number of employees – and don’t forget to include yourself – and you get the dollar figure your business is wasting each year on unproductive time. Most of it is wasted checking personal emails and social media on mobile phones.

So, what should you do? Ban phones in the workplace, and fire people caught receiving personal calls?

You might have to fire yourself!

And does that calculation tell the whole story about mobile phone use in the workplace?

Of course, there are workplaces where a “no mobile phone” policy makes complete sense. For example, factories and worksites where workers may be around dangerous equipment or need to all be working at a fast pace all the time. Or medical operating theatres where the environment must be distraction-free as well as spotlessly clean.

But for some businesses, banning mobile devices may be causing fewer problems and lost productivity than you think. Making mobile devices MORE available in the workplace could improve productivity.

Make sure you are sitting down because the facts you are about to read may just blow your mind!

  • There are over 27.1 billion devices connected to the Internet – more than three devices for each person on the planet. [Cisco, 2021]
  • 22 billion people (66.6% of the global population) use a mobile device. [Datareportal, 2021]
  • 97% of Americans own a cellphone, with 85% owning smartphones and 53% own tablets. [Pew Center for Research, 2021]
  • More people use mobile to access the internet than a desktop. [Comscore, 2018]
  • 15% of American adults are “smartphone-only” internet users – they do not have home broadband. [Pew Center for Research, 2021]

What do those facts tell you? Mobile devices are here to stay, and their use is only increasing.

What about mobile devices at work?

Today’s employees rely heavily on mobile devices at work. Here is how employees are currently using their mobile devices in the workplace.

  • The average mobile worker works 240 hours a year longer than the general population. [iPass, 2017]
  • 84% of mobile workers have checked their smartphone in bed, while 72% admit to having checked their smartphone on the toilet. [iPass, 2017]
  • More than half of mobile workers say that a lack of Wi-Fi when working remotely would negatively impact their ability to do their job. [iPass, 2017]

Mobile productivity statistics

How are mobile devices affecting productivity in the workplace? This is what happens when employers give their workers mobile phones.

  • 75% of workers say their smartphones make them more productive. [Google, 2017]
  • 97% of the users say productivity apps are the most dominant kind of apps on their smartphones. [GoodFirms, 2019]
  • 82% of IT executives said smartphones are incredibly important to employee productivity. [Samsung/Oxford Economics, 2018]
  • 64% of leaders say technology investments have led to gains in productivity. [Celerity, 2020]
  • 53% of executives said apps improve business processes and increase productivity. [Apperian, 2016]

BYOD & mobile app statistics

Given the potential of mobile devices to increase productivity, businesses are asking employees to use their own devices at work and providing them with business apps.

  • Only 26% of U.S. companies provide employees with mobile phones — the lowest number for any country. [Steelcase, 2016]
  • 87% of companies expect their employees to use their devices for work purposes. [Syntonic, 2016]
  • 72% of companies have a bring your device (BYOD) policy. [Tenable, 2016]
  • 80% of IT executives said employees cannot do their jobs effectively without a mobile phone, and 75% said mobile devices are essential to workflows. [Samsung/Oxford Economics, 2018]
  • Businesses with BYOD policies pay employees a stipend of $30 to $50/month to use their mobile phones. [Samsung/Oxford Economics, 2018]

Mobile security statistics

With more employees accessing business data from personal mobile devices, security is becoming a major concern.

Without appropriate security software installed, personal mobile devices could easily expose businesses to threats from hackers and noncompliance with security mandates.

  • 67% of respondents reported that remote workers’ use of personal mobile devices negatively impacted their organization’s security. [Ponemon Institute/Keeper Security, 2020]
  • 55% of respondents say smartphones are their biggest security headache. [Ponemon Institute/Keeper Security, 2020]
  • Fifty-seven percent of technology executives worry about the security of non-managed devices. [Apperian, 2017]

If you need help maximizing productivity through the use of mobile devices suitable for your business, check out Corporate Business Solutions at http://www.cbs-cbs.com.

Monitoring Your Staff

An essential task of running a business and ‘being the boss’ is the monitoring of your staff and how to go about it without making it obvious you are checking upon them.

If done the wrong way, you can engender fear in your staff as they could feel you don’t trust their abilities or work commitment.

If done the right way, employees will not be aware that they are being monitored and will accept monitoring tasks as simple methods of safeguarding staff, protecting resources, or improving productivity.

Employers monitor their employees in several ways; dedicated software is increasingly being used, but more traditional methods are checks of emails and voice messages, recording telephone calls, and the use of CCTV.

Who do you Need to Monitor Your Staff?

Some of the reasons for monitoring staff include:

Cybersecurity

Most IT security breaches happen through employee negligence. By monitoring and restricting employees’ online activity, a business can protect its systems and information from outside attacks.

Data protection

Globally, there has been an increase in hackers gaining access to the personal information of clients and blackmailing the business, requesting money or the information will be released across the internet. Tracking employees’ actions can help ensure that employers become aware of any data breaches as soon as possible and that relevant rules are complied with.

Leaks of confidential information

Monitoring may not prevent a leak, but it can help spot one and gives the business a fighting chance of damage limitation.

Internal rules

Monitoring can help employers ensure that many policies and internal procedures are followed correctly, and any misconduct is detected immediately.

Remote working

With the increase of remote workers, employers need to make sure they are not being taken advantage of. By tracking communications and login details they can confirm that employees are performing their job appropriately.

Boosting productivity

Some data generated from monitoring can be analyzed to help devise strategies that could increase production.

Many of these issues may seem to apply only to large businesses with hundreds of staff and thousands of clients.

However, in an SME with lower staff numbers, the key knowledge within the business is retained by a very small number of the staff. This places even greater emphasis on ensuring that knowledge is not shared where it shouldn’t be, whether accidentally or on purpose.

In a small or medium-sized business, it becomes even more important that staff is aware of the monitoring and the reasons behind it. So, make sure your business has the following:

  • Have policies in place that clearly explain the extent of the monitoring being undertaken, with an explanation of why it is needed
  • Regular check the policies are up to date and have been brought to the employee’s attention
  • Regularly review alternative, less intrusive options for monitoring as part of a risk assessment
  • Develop processes to ensure that the information collected is kept securely, is seen by as few people as necessary, and gets deleted when no longer needed
  • Do not jump to conclusions when the monitoring reveals potential misconduct. Sometimes all that is needed is a reminder of policies or some retraining.

Take care when monitoring employees, infringing their rights could result in claims, fines, and reputational damage that has a lasting effect on the business. Corporate Business Solutions Inc. can help you understand your rights and those of your employees.

What are Your Employees Posting on Their Social Media?

Have you ever looked at the social media accounts of your employees or those who are applying for a job role with you?

NO doubt you have heard stories from time to time of people posting stories and images on their social media accounts that have affected their jobs.

A couple of stories that quickly come to mind for me include a young lady who worked in an extremely strict religious school and posted photos of herself slightly worse for wear at a party on a cruise ship holiday. On her return to work after the cruise, she was fired.

Another example was a graduate student applying for a job with an adventure tourism company. They checked out his Facebook page and saw a photo of him canoeing down an overflowing city stream during a heavy rainfall without a life jacket or helmet. Personal safety of clients is a No. 1 priority in any adventure tourism business. He did not get the job.

Have a Social Media Policy

Now imagine one of your employees has publicly posted something that would harm your business in some way if enough people realized that person worked for you.

How do you react? How would you learn about it in the first place?

To limit the possibility of anything like this happening, it would be extremely wise to have a social media policy. This can make your staff aware of what they should not be expressed on social media where most of the world can potentially see what was posted.

Here are some topics that you need to make your employees aware of to reduce the risk of this information becoming widespread across the internet to negatively affect your business.

Violating Company Policy

Sharing warnings or personal company information – do not post about staffing decisions, new products, or any private or proprietary information if your company has not shared the information online.

Supplying references/endorsements on LinkedIn – if your policy does not supply references for leaving staff, will you allow your staff to make references on social media for former colleagues?

Negative comments about the job or clients – even with privacy settings in place, anybody can repost these sorts of comments on their account or take a photo or screenshot and repost.

Deceptive posts – taking a sick day from work and posting photos of you at the beach or a sporting event, etc.

Off-color, racist, sexist, or inappropriate comments – this is especially bad if they refer to a co-worker or client, but even if the target is unrelated to the workplace an employer does not want to be associated with someone making these kinds of comments publicly.

Have a Policy on Computer Use

Job Searching or Doing Other Work while at Work – scanning job search sites, preparing your resume and cover letter, or doing work on your side gig on the employer’s time is non-productive from your employer’s perspective and unethical behavior.

Misuse of email – use of the work email for personal communications is rarely appropriate. I know of a young married Director of a stockbroking firm who used his business email address for accessing dating sites and arranging meetings for “coffee” during the workday. He even emailed one of his personal “contacts” several times a day and in their online conversations, he would regularly criticize the other company Directors.

This was a prominent business in a small city, so it would not be difficult for many of his “contacts” to work out who he and his company were and post something embarrassing and damaging to the business. He was the son of one of the business founders and when his emails were discovered, his promising and privileged career ended abruptly.

Any employer is well within their rights to limit or restrict access to various corners of the internet, including social media sites, dating sites, pornography, and personal communications.

Provide Guidelines for Smart Social Media Use

Rather than restricting your social media policy to telling your staff what they can’t do, also provide guidelines so they can see how to use social media without accidentally doing something wrong.

Post smart – before posting, take a moment to think if your content could affect your employer in any way

Keep it confidential – don’t disclose any news about your employer – good or bad – unless you have asked first. Sometimes your employer will want their staff to spread the good news, but not always.

Be intelligent – if you are job searching, use your account and details for all communications

Think Before You Post

This is the best and simplest advice you can give your employees.

Once something is posted online it’s hard, if not impossible, to take it back. Even a deleted Twitter or Facebook post can be preserved through screenshots.

If there is any doubt about what you can, or can’t say, keep it to yourself. Ask yourself whether you need to say that and what you’ll gain from it. The answer is probably not enough to take a chance of losing your job.

Corporate Business Solutions can provide you with advice around preparing appropriate documentation to cover these situations and have many satisfied clients.

College Graduates Must Find the Business and Role that is their Best Match

Every year a new group of graduates enters the job search market armed with resumes of varying quality and a brand-new shiny certificate saying they have an appropriate qualification to work in your business. Filled with excitement and anticipation of their first ‘real’ job, graduates are tempted to take any job in their career field with any company.

But have they thought about the work environment that best suits their working style? To get the best value out of any new graduate employee, you need to make sure they are aware of how your business and the role being offered are a good match for them. A graduate might see your advertised job as their dream job, based solely on the job title. But if you are a small business, a start-up, or a long-established company with hundreds of staff, their experience will potentially be vastly different.

You need to understand what aspect of their career field they want to specialize in, and what are their long-term career goals. A start-up company might be exciting and mostly employ people in their age group. That could have some advantages for their social life. But will that environment provide the experience to help them grow within their career field and gain greater experience to enable them to get where they want to get in their career?

Can the new graduate be assured the business will still be thriving a year from now? Starting a business during the current pandemic, or any time when the economy is struggling is always going to be challenging.

In a business with many staff, what sort of professional development and mentoring is provided? Will the new graduate feel just like a number, left with little support to grow? Perhaps most staff are much older, and they might struggle to develop workplace relationships. Other factors a graduate need to consider when seeking their first job after graduation include:

  • Where do they want to live?

A business in a bigger city might mean higher living costs. It might mean moving away from family, friends, and partners.

  • What type of industry do they want to work in?

They might want to work in sales, but do they want to sell items like alcohol, tobacco, firearms, etc.? Or does the business have a bad reputation for some reason? Do they want to work for a company that has structured training programs, or would they prefer to learn on the job from more experienced colleagues?

  • Work-life balance.

Are they happy working long hours and weekends, or do they value being able to get to that evening exercise class? Are they working in one location all the time, or do you often have to travel around the country spending many nights away from home? Or will they work from home? How would that affect their personal life?

Are they after the highest pay rate possible to live a luxurious lifestyle or pay off that student debt as quickly as possible? Or are you comfortable making less money knowing they will be doing meaningful work?

If you can uncover the answers to these questions, you will increase the likelihood of finding a new graduate who will stay with your business for the long term.

Viewing the Corporate Business Solutions Reviews you will find help with recruiting new graduates.

Managing Conflict in the Workplace

Leadership and conflict go together. If you cannot or will not address conflict in a healthy, productive fashion, you should not be in a leadership role. You shouldn’t fear conflict; embrace it – it’s your job.

You can try to avoid conflict (a bad idea), but you cannot escape it. Conflict in the workplace is unavoidable. It will find you whether you look for it (good idea – more later) or not. Being able to recognize conflict, understand its nature, and be able to swiftly resolve the conflict are prime leadership qualities, failure to do this will lead to your downfall.

Good conflict resolution skills will lead to good employee retention. But if you don’t deal effectively with conflict your best talent will leave for a better workplace environment. Failure to deal with conflict can result in loss of productivity, the stifling of creativity, and the creation of barriers to cooperation and collaboration. But good conflict resolution skill sets will build a sustainable business model.

Typically, the two main causes of conflict in the workplace related to poor communication or letting emotions drive decision-making.

The following tips will lead to more effective handling of conflicts in the workplace:

Define Acceptable Behavior – having clearly defined job descriptions for all staff to know what’s expected of them. Make it known what behavior will and won’t be tolerated. Having a published delegation of authority statement, encouraging sound business practices in collaboration, team building, leadership development, and talent management will all help avoid conflicts.

Approach Conflict Head-on – You can’t always prevent conflicts at work, but if you seek out areas of potential conflict and intervene proactively and decisively, you can prevent many conflicts from getting started.

Understanding the WIIFM Factor – understanding the other person’s “What’s In It For Me” position. If you understand their motivation, you can avoid conflicts by helping them achieve their objectives.

The Importance Factor – pick your battles and avoid conflict where possible. If the issue is important enough to create a conflict, then it must be important enough to resolve. Do whatever is necessary to open lines of communication and close any positional and/or philosophical gaps.

View Conflict as Opportunity – the outcome of many conflicts creates great teaching and learning opportunities. View a conflict as an opportunity for growth and development. Differing positions when addressed properly can stimulate innovation and learning whereas two people who are on “the same page”  are less likely to come up with different positions. Smart leaders look for the upside in all differing opinions.

Resolutions can usually be found in conflicts where both parties are seriously seeking a positive outcome. Being prepared to compromise, forgive, show compassion and empathy, find common ground, be an active listener, and place the goals of the business ahead of your pride and reputation will always allow you to be successful in building rapport if the underlying desire is strong enough.

But, if all else fails and positional gaps cannot be closed, resolve the issue not by playing favorites, but by doing the right thing.

Let Corporate Business Solutions be your guide when you are facing conflicts in your workplace.

Causes of Low Employee Retention

Studies have shown that employers prefer to employ someone who is already in employment over someone unemployed. But this means that another employer is about to lose a member of their staff.

This means that all businesses need to work hard at retaining their best employees. Losing any worker can be disruptive, and the business is then faced with the costs of recruitment and the loss of institutional and customer knowledge.

High employee turnover impacts a business’s profitability and can also affect customer satisfaction, plus it is costly to recruit new staff. Every leaver should be asked to take part in an exit interview so the business can understand the reasons for leaving and find ways to fix addressable problems.

Excessive employee turnover is preventable. Here are the main reasons employees leave.

An employee has no purpose – they work just because it is a job to do. But businesses that have a strong mission have more motivated employees who live the business brand.

Low Pay – it’s been found that workers who change jobs earn on average an extra 5.2%. If your pay rates and benefits are near the top of the scale it makes it more difficult for competitors to lure away your employees. Ensure you apply annual pay increases. Pay rates are the easiest way for employees to gauge how much you value them and their efforts. So, unsurprisingly, underpaying what an employee feels they are worth is the number one reason they move on.

Being overworked – when employees feel they are performing tasks without appropriate resources to be successful, they feel a lack of control and consistently face more daily stress than they can manage. A combination of emotional and physical exhaustion with a sense of hopelessness and self-blame, manifests in behavioral and physical issues, commonly referred to as burnout. Ensure all employees have enough resources to do their job and that their workload can be achieved in the hours they are paid to work.

Bad managers – while some bad managers take credit for the work of others or play favorites, more commonly it is because they are just bad at managing others. Good managers know the ability of their staff and uncover their skills and motivations, capitalizing on them for the good of the business. Bad managers don’t do this and fail to get the best out of their staff or demotivate staff by criticizing perceived underperformance.

Little feedback or recognition – employees who receive positive feedback rarely seek employment elsewhere. The only thing worse than bad feedback is no feedback at all. When employees lack guidance bout their performance or how to develop their skills, they feel they have no direction and no future with the business.

No opportunity for growth and development – if there are few opportunities for promotion, the next best thing is providing career development opportunities to get better at what the employee does or to learn new skills and move into different departments. Without this, the employee can be left to feel as if they will be doing the same daily tasks forever, and that doesn’t encourage them to stay where they are long term

Toxic Work Culture – it has been reported that as many as 25% of US workers dread going to work! Many of the reasons are caused by a combination of the previous issues mentioned but can also include poor relationships with workmates with issues like bullying and harassment raising their heads. When employees feel included, respected, and empowered to do their job without being micromanaged turnover is usually low.

Viewing the Corporate Business Solutions Reviews you will find businesses with good staff retention rates.

Identifying Bullying in the Workplace

A 2008 poll on workplace bullying found that 75% of workers reported being affected either as the target or as a witness. More disturbing was a 2019 survey of 2081 workers with a staggering 94% claiming to have been bullied at work! More than half said they were bullied by their immediate boss.

Causes of bullying were reported to be aggressive emails (23%), co-workers negative gossip (20%), and someone yelling at them (18%).

Just because getting bullied seems to now be the norm does not make it right. There are plenty of businesses that respect their employees and have zero tolerance for bullying and other forms of harassment.

When management gets to hear of bullying claims, you can usually expect the claimant has been putting up with a negative environment for quite some time before taking this problem to the management level. Therefore, any bullying claims should be treated seriously and be fully investigated.

A workplace bully who management support by ignoring their behavior can cost a business thousands of dollars due to high staff turnover. Be aware that the bully is unlikely to admit there is anything wrong with their behavior and is even less likely to display it in front of management.

Here are six signs that bullying is occurring in your workplace.

Temper tantrums – shouting, name-calling, and other types of verbal abuse, undermining comments about co-workers, blaming others for mistakes but quick to take credit for any successes. When you observe the suspected bully do they interrupt the target, belittle them, make inappropriate comments or spread rumors and negative gossip?

Subtle signs of bullying – the bully may seem fine in your presence but behave in a much more sinister way to the target in private. Watch for unreasonable demands, sabotaging a subordinate, constant questioning, and generally making life more difficult than for others.

Observe the behavior of the suspected victim – it may be easier to identify bullying from the change in behavior of the targeted victim. Are there sudden changes in their behavior? An employee who becomes increasingly withdrawn has increasing error rates or suffers stress-related illnesses and absences from work are displaying signs of being bullied.

Is an individual being isolated or left out of important communications? –  If a particular individual never copies a co-worker into emails or invites them to important meetings, there could be a problem. Other obvious signs include refusing to speak to the target and forgetting to return their messages.

Investigate any allegations of bullying immediately – sometimes you may not be aware that bullying is taking place until you are specifically informed. Remain neutral, ask the victim for physical evidence like emails and ask both for witnesses to any incidents.

Examine your organizational culture – competitive workplaces tend to ridicule underperformers and this kind of behavior can become normalized. Top management also has a direct influence on bullying. Are bullies being rewarded with promotions that encourage them to continue with their behavior, perhaps even taking it to greater extremes? If one bully has been allowed to operate for some time, others will likely copy their behavior.

For Corporate Business Solutions for issues like these, check out http://www.cbs-cbs.com/services/.

Managing Remote Employees

Remote working has exploded since the Covid pandemic spread around the world and now almost 20% of the workforce has experienced working from home.

The benefits for employees include the flexibility to work around other commitments, times saved commuting to and from the workplace, improved health and wellbeing, and the ability to work from anywhere, meaning you don’t have to relocate to the location of the workplace.

Employers also see benefits. In many cases, productivity and performance have increased while overhead costs have decreased, they can access a wider talent pool, and they have experienced improvements in employee retention.

However, remote work is not without its challenges, these can include employees feeling isolated from their work colleagues, gaps in communication, difficulty staying motivated, distractions in the home, difficulties switching off from work, and managing the work team can be more difficult.

Supporting Remote Employees

Managers need to be aware that different employees will have different needs. They will need to adapt their strategies depending on the specific needs of each employee.

Regular check-ins provide accountability and also your availability to provide guidance. Remember to offer encouragement and emotional support. Keep a lookout for any changes in communication or work output that may indicate they are having difficulties.

When some employees are working remotely and others are 100% in the office, it is easy to exclude remote workers from team meetings and social events. Ensure they are included and remain part of any appropriate decision-making.

Keep your expectations of remote workers flexible. Unlike those working in the workplace, your remote workers don’t have to get everything done during work hours unless there is some specific deadline. If they are getting their work done, it doesn’t matter if their work schedule differs from normal office hours.

Be sure to create some rules of engagement. Ask your remote workers when and how they want to be contacted, and ensure they know how they can contact you and other team members.

Most importantly, encourage a sense of belonging. Creating team spirit can be more difficult when you don’t physically see some of your staff regularly. You will have to think of some innovative ways to create a feeling of mutual trust and respect for everyone in the team. Simple things like starting team meetings with a quiz or an icebreaker exercise help all team members get to know each other better and build team spirit.

Managing Remote Teams

When your entire team is working remotely you need to ensure the success, productivity, and efficiency of the entire team.

Set clear expectations so every team member knows what is expected of them. This includes clear communication expectations like where and how to communicate with each other and how quickly to respond to emails.

You will need to take each member’s different work schedules into account. You should set up a weekly reporting system so that you can monitor the completion of tasks to evaluate productivity and if any members are struggling with their workload. Make sure any time frames and deadlines are achievable.

To avoid any feelings of isolation, schedule group meetings at a time when everyone is available. Delegate responsibilities evenly across your team but based on who is best suited to each task.

Finally, ask for feedback. This will encourage them to speak out about things they don’t think are working or things they need support with. It can show them that you care and that their voice matters.

If your business is struggling with the management of remote workers Corporate Business Solutions Inc. can provide consulting services.