Tag: Policies

Being Human

This week, I had the enormous privilege of attending #workhuman.  If you’ve never heard of Workhuman, where have you been?  Remove yourself from under that comfy rock, and let me share all my learnin’, y’all.  (Workhuman was in Nashville this year, and now, my drawl game is strong.)

Workhuman, formerly Globoforce, is a social recognition and continuous performance management platform that can integrate with lots of different HCMs to improve how your people see and interact with each other.   Workhuman does a ton of research on the impact of social recognition on inclusion, gender, race, wellness, and performance issues that will make your jaw drop.  They’ve come up with ways to inform, but not criticize, how we use language from a gendered and racial perspective when giving recognition or feedback based on the data they have collected from millions of interactions.  It is this research informs how they do business.  They’ve learned that being human makes workplaces better.

#workhuman is their signature conference, bringing together thousands of concerned humans for the sole purpose of trying to figure out how to make the workplace more human.  The conference is all about how do we see, treat, encourage, develop, recognize, thank, and love – yes, I said love, but not in the romantic sense – the people we work with so we can all do better.  This is more than just an HR conference, it is a business conference.

Here are a few of my takeaways:

We have to revel in being uncomfortable.  Whether it was Brene Brown, Kat Cole, Candi Castleberry Singleton, David Lapin, or any of the other speakers, this was a powerful take away.  As a society, we are at a tipping point.  Our workplaces are also at this tipping point.  We can’t simply put our heads down, our safety googles on, and focus on productivity goals if we’re going to be successful.  If we’re going to have people in our workplaces, we need to accept and welcome them as they are.  We’re going to have to talk to them about the heavy society concerns from gun safety, policy brutality, offensive tweets, gender and racial inequality, and the fear that prevents us from being our whole selves.  Allianz does this, Kat Cole does this, we should all do this.

Recognition makes a difference.  Data is the best.  Data that shows we can make a dent in the problems that plague our workplaces is even better.  The data Workhuman shared on how recognition can improve our connections at work, our engagement at work, and help plug the holes in our leaky buckets is so impressive.  I want to know more.  Luckily, there’s a resource page devoted to this!

Pobody’s nerfect, but we can all be resilient.  If we’re going to have difficult, uncomfortable conversations at work, we’re going to make mistakes.  We’re going to hear antiquated language that is now offensive.  We will have to tackle our fear with a battering ram.  We’re going to have to be brave and vulnerable.  We’re going to have to rely on our integrity, strength, and humanity to deal with the mistakes, use them as teachable moments, and move on.  I’m not saying that every mistake is just a mistake – some mistakes warrant termination – but as we encourage these conversations, forgiveness and resilience will be powerful to keep us moving forward.

Being human is hard.  As a crier, I was moved to tears a couple of times – not gonna lie.  It is hard to be vulnerable, willing to fail, learning from our mistakes, and sharing our failures so others can learn from them too.  No one promised this life, in general or in business, was going to be easy.  So, grab your friends, family, co-workers, and meet these obstacles head on.

I cannot oversell #workhuman.  Every attendee self-reflects, does some mental gymnastics, and learned from this conference.  Next year, Workhuman is in Denver.  I hope to be there.  I hope you all are too.

 

Photo by mauro mora on Unsplash

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Two-Percent, Schmoopercent

Almost two weeks ago, the Washington Post published an article detailing the efforts of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to resolve workplace disputes over harassment and discrimination.  For past two weeks, the article has been nagging me.  Like really, really nagging me.

Out of all the data the Post reviewed, only two percent of the sex, disability, or retaliation cases had a cause finding, meaning the EEOC found cause to believe discrimination or harassment occurred.  In race and age cases, the EEOC found cause to believe discrimination or harassment occurred in only one percent of cases.  Does this mean that between two and one percent of the people who filed charges of discrimination actually have a case?  No.  It can’t mean that.  What do these numbers mean then?

The idea that “nothing will happen if I complain” is bolstered by these numbers.  If any reasonable person who believed they might have a legitimate case of discrimination or harassment read this article, will they still file a charge?  Still go through the stress and anguish of telling their story and waiting months and months to find out that the federal agency they turned to has nothing to help them?  Probably not.

The argument of “Discrimination has been solved and we don’t have to do anything about it anymore” is also bolstered by these numbers.  Yet, most of us know that discrimination and harassment are not solved.  Society still has problems with bias and microaggressions that seriously affect our ability to be a just and civil society and definitely, negatively impact our workplaces.  Yet, some jackass (yes, I meant to swear) is going to point at these numbers and say, “see, there’s nothing here.”

To give the EEOC some credit, they are heavily overworked, underpaid, and under significant pressure to turn cases over as fast as they can.  This means that the easiest thing to do is to try to get some kind of result (note the percentages in the teens for some sort of recovery) and then issue a no cause determination.  But the budgetary and staffing woes of EEOC are not the only reasons for these dismally low numbers.

Another reason for these dismally small numbers is the law.  The law has set an incredibly high standard for what actually is harassment and discrimination.  Employment lawyers joke that that every employer gets one boob grab or one n-word before the conduct is severe and pervasive enough to create real liability.  The joke is kinda-sorta funny because it’s kinda-sorta true.  An employer is not likely to be liable for discrimination, the microaggressions, the different treatment until it is really bad.

We have two choices.  One, we can change the law.  Some states are considering lowering the standard, so employees don’t have to meet such high bar to show discrimination or harassment.  (California passed this law, and Minnesota is considering it.)  By removing the analysis of severe and pervasive, employees may have an easier time proving discrimination or harassment pushing employers to take action sooner when confronted with inappropriate behavior.

Two, we can lower the bar ourselves.  We, as employers and HR pros, can set the bar at the level of behavior we are going to tolerate, meaning we can choose not to tolerate microaggressions.  We can choose not to tolerate a single boob grab or n-word.  We can choose not to tolerate the behavior that so many already believe is intolerable.  We don’t have to rush to terminate when communication problems are the culprit, but we can take action more often to make our folks comfortable to be themselves in our workplaces.

This is the thing about the law.  It is most often the floor.  We can do more.  We can say two-percent, shmoopercent.  We will look at every situation, every individual, and say, “You will be respected” and actually mean it by our policies, our trainings, and our actions.

 

Photo by Sebastian Pichler on Unsplash

KateLeave a comment