Apex Payroll

Harassment Prevention Considerations with a Remote Workforce

Using video conferencing apps for meetings can make for a more productive and engaging time than group discussions over the phone, but there are also some risks to consider:

Attire
When working from home, the desire to work in comfortable clothes could tip from casual to inappropriate. You may have seen memes and stories about employees wearing professional tops without appropriate bottoms or family members dashing by too much in the buff. Fortunately, these wardrobe malfunctions are easily preventable with a little planning on the employee’s part. Remind them to plan ahead.

Backdrop
Ask that employees also take stock of what’s in their background before turning video on. Could there be inappropriate personal items or art that some might consider offensive? A number of video conferencing apps have virtual backgrounds that can eliminate both the threat of harassment as well as general distractions.

Video vs. Phone Call
Ensure that virtual meetings are scheduled equitably. For example, if a manager checks in with men on the team over the phone, but uses video for one-on-one meetings with the women, that would be a cause for concern.

Virtual Happy Hours
Both the use of alcohol and the act of communicating over a screen can decrease formality. Set expectations around respectful behavior and encourage employees to drink responsibly, if allowed, during happy hours. Remind employees that harassment and other conduct policies apply, just as they would at any other company-sponsored function.

Further Considerations Around Virtual Harassment
• Handbook Policies: Review your company harassment and discrimination handbook policies and ensure they’re inclusive of, and applicable to, remote work and interactions.
• National Origin and Race: An April 2020 Ipsos survey found that more than 30 percent of Americans have witnessed someone blaming Asian people for the coronavirus pandemic. The EEOC recently suggested that employers reduce harassment risk by clearly informing employees that fear of COVID-19 cannot be “misdirected against individuals” based on any protected characteristic, including national origin or race. Be alert for any discriminatory comments and be ready to act.
• Age: Keep an ear out for jokes about employees’ age. A seemingly harmless barb about an older employee’s unfamiliarity with technology could result in a discrimination claim.

5 Reasons to Rehire Former Employees

It’s not uncommon for organizations to have a policy against rehiring former employees. This sort of policy makes perfect sense with respect to troublemakers, poor performers, or others who left under a dark cloud. It’s also understandable given that companies invest a lot of money training and developing their people, and employees who go elsewhere take that investment with them, sometimes to a competitor.

But times have changed, and expectations with them. Few employers these days expect employees to stick around for many years. Most know that employees will move between employers multiple times over the course of their career and that many of them will even change careers entirely, some more than once.

It’s not that workers today are disloyal or uncommitted. The culture of the overall job market has redefined expectations around these concepts. A loyal, committed employee isn’t likely to reveal trade secrets to a competitor or publicly badmouth their employer, but they may intend to further their career with a different company at some point in the not-so-distant future. Loyalty and commitment have more to do with what the employee is doing for their employer presently—not what they will be doing for them indefinitely.

With the overall culture of employment having changed, individual organizations have updated their own culture to align with these new expectations. Not only are companies allowing eligible former employees to apply, some employers are even encouraging it! Here are five big reasons why you might consider doing the same:

Former employees already know your organization. They’re familiar with the operating procedures, the rules and traditions of your culture, and the people with whom they worked previously. Consequently, it takes less time for them to be acclimated to the work environment. You can usually onboard them more easily and train them more quickly, filling the position at a fraction of the cost.
Oftentimes, former employees return with additional knowledge, skills, and abilities. Sure, they took your investment in them to another workplace, but they’re coming back to you with other employer’s investments in them, which can now be leveraged at your organization.
Communicating that you welcome back former employers highlights the fact that people like working for you and see your organization as the place they’d like to be, even if they have other options.
It creates trust. Prospective candidates and current employees understand that you don’t see them as a potential threat to the organization that needs to be deterred from leaving. Instead, you show them that you trust them and that your interest in their lives and careers extends beyond the time they work for you. That reciprocal trust makes the employment relationship much more productive, rewarding, and enjoyable.
Your competitors are likely open to rehiring their high performing former employees, and if you’re competing with them for workers, you don’t want to unnecessarily limit your pool of strong candidates. That just puts you at a disadvantage.
"Not only are companies allowing eligible former employees to apply, some employers are even encouraging it!"
Even with these five benefits, a former employee may not be the best candidate for the position. In some cases, what a new employee brings to the table outweighs what the former employee offers, and the new employee is clearly the better bet. In other cases, however, the former employee is the smart hire, and ruling them out because they once quit would be a mistake. Boomerang employees may not always be worth rehiring, but they’re often worth considering