OFCCP – Page 3 – k8bisch LLC

This year, I was given a great opportunity – attend my first SHRM national conference in New Orleans. I got to spend three days with 17,000 of my HR friends, meet the people I have been following and listening to, and learn from some smart speakers and attendees. It was amazing and downright exhausting.

Here are some of the things I took from the conference:

The worst loss to deal with is the loss of life and love, followed closely with trust. Kat Cole got everyone craving Cinnabon and thinking about how we build trust with the right doses of humility, curiosity, courage, and confidence. We fail when we’re too far away from the front lines of our business, are unwilling to do the right thing, and don’t change policies to keep up with the organization’s needs. We need to consider whether individuals can trust us, how we rebuild trust when we do something to harm it, and put integrity at the center of our organization.

Some healthy skepticism is important. Much of Laszlo Bock’s keynote was super – give your work meaning, trust your people, hire people better than you, etc. But when he discussed paying people “unfairly,” there was a healthy dose of skepticism from the audience and twitterers. Mr. Bock believes that you should pay people based on how well they perform and how much they are “all in.” These disparities can be up to double the amount you may pay someone else in the same role in Mr. Bock’s opinion. This is really something given Mr. Bock recently left Google where his pay practices are now subject to a significant lawsuit that The Guardian headlined as “extreme” gender discrimination. While I agree that paying people based on their performance is good in theory, when the discrepancies appear to include a dose of discrimination, we have a problem.

Be disruptive. Jennifer McClure‘s presentation about DisruptHR included some nuggets from these events, including my personal favorite, “Respect the data, but make human decisions.” Jennifer encouraged her audience to be disruptive, but that doesn’t mean that they need to revolutionize. Small changes can be disruptive too.

If you have a brain, you’re biased. Yes, I knew this before, but David Rock’s discussion on the neuroscience behind unconscious bias was great. Mr. Rock started out talking about how to sell diversity initiatives – it’s not just about improving the bottom line, it’s also about making better decisions. He spoke about how it is very difficult to work against individual biases, so work on the bias at work as a team. I was both fascinated and challenged by his presentation.

My favorite HR tweeple are super. I love Twitter. I’ve met some great people online, who I had not met in real life who I could call up to ask questions or ask for a smidge of reassurance. I got to meet these people IRL at SHRM, and they are just as cool, friendly, and smart in person. It was so great! John Friend is right, “SHRM is HR Christmas.”

I can’t wait to go again next year!

No one in HR wants to be considered a Peter from Peter and the Wolf. But yet, when it comes to compliance issues, it is easy to fall into that trap. We are often running around saying “we can’t do that! We’ll get in trouble!” After a while, leaders start to tune us out. To be effective, we have to seize a case for compliance in terms of business.

Consider this: What if we looked at employment laws and regulations like best practices with teeth? Now, I get that this is controversial. Very, very few people would design a diversity program like the OFCCP’s affirmative action regulations and other examples certainly exist, but bear with me. What if we looked at the underlying reason for a particular law and compared that with a business goal? Wouldn’t they be similar in most cases? Would that make it easier to sell compliance? The answer: You betcha!

Take for example, paid sick leave. As of December 31, 2016, 37 jurisdictions (mostly cities, counties, and some states) had enacted paid sick leave laws. While paid sick leave is certainly a trend at the local and state levels, many employers have understood that they needed to provide sick leave to employees for decades. These businesses knew that if they didn’t offer the paid time, they would not get the talent they were looking for and employees might leave if they didn’t have the time to care for themselves and their families. While paid sick leave is now law in some areas, it has long been a recruitment and retention tool for employers.

For an employer in a jurisdiction with a paid sick leave law who doesn’t offer it, HR is now in a position where it needs to sell the benefit as a legal requirement. HR could package a proposal like this – paid sick leave is needed to get and keep the talent we need and the new ordinance provides a framework to do that. Would that be an easier sell?

What about sexual harassment? We know that anti-harassment laws were designed to protect women in the workplace so women could be productive, safe, and contribute our skills. These laws also try to create workplaces built on the respect for all employees. These are business goals. When there is a culture rife with disrespect or disharmony, productivity comes to a near halt. Turnover increases. Employees are disengaged. No business leader wants this to happen. Preventing and then stopping harassment in its tracks protects the workplace and protects the business from legal claims and PR nightmares and keeps the focus on where it should be – the organization’s mission.

CEOs care about talent. They care about finding the best talent the can and holding on to the great talent they have. According to PwC’s 2017 CEO survey, talent remains a top priority and as does diversity. When we view employment laws and regulations as things that can be aligned with business goals, it becomes easier to get buy-in from the top.

This works for every employment law. If you can’t come up with a business goal, try me. I believe there is a business goal attached to nearly all employment laws. I’ll accept the challenge to find one for your organization!

Tag: OFCCP

Selling Compliance

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