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DECEMBER 2016

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TOMORROW’S HRThriving in the Future World of Work

Meeting the Challenges of Engagement, Branding, and Retention

Mastering Operational and Compliance Issues

Analysis and in-depth discussion from HR leaders at theTHRIVE HR Leadership Exchange

September 28–September 30, 2016

Insights ReportHR LeadershipExchangeTHRIVE

http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/

https://twitter.com/HealthLeaders

https://www.facebook.com/HealthLeadersMedia

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FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT HRLEADERSHIPEXCHANGE.COM2

HR Leaders Cope with Today, Plan for Tomorrow

Discussion

Fourteen seasoned, senior HR leaders gathered in Carlsbad, California, in September 2016 for two days

of peer-to-peer discussion around topics they selected as most compelling for HR. The ideas were fresh

and inventive, yet all sprang from real-life successes (and some failures). In the pages below, the session

moderators—BLR’s senior editors—will share some of the many interesting ideas, all of which have

wide applicability and proven results.

SESSION MODERATORS:

Cathy Gray, JDSenior Managing Editor, Human Resources and [email protected]

Stephen D. Bruce, PhD, PHRManaging Editor, BLR [email protected]

Tony KesslerManaging Editor, News & Employers Counsel Network (ECN)[email protected]

https://twitter.com/BLR_Media

https://www.facebook.com/BLRMedia/

http://hrleadershipexchange.com

http://hrleadershipexchange.com/

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Thriving in the Future World of Work

Discussion

MODERATOR: TONY KESSLER

DISCUSSION GUIDELooking into the future, do you think there will be jobs? Will

there be offices? Will there be hierarchies? Some have looked

at the blue-sky work world of the future and predicted that

HR will be at the center of a “hugely influential metric-driven

strategy and performance function.” With a proactive mind-

set and focused on business strategy, HR in that scenario

would take on a new wider people role incorporating and

influencing many other aspects of the business. Others,

though, have suggested that HR could take on a narrower

role driving the corporate social responsibility agenda within

the organization. Finally, a third faction fears the function

could be seen as transactional and almost entirely outsourced.

Whichever way the world turns, if you’re not thinking long-

term, you may find yourself unable to catch up with sudden

shifts in the workplace.

Outsourced Functions

COBRA Admin 58.8%

Background/Ref Checks 53.9%

Drug testing 53%

FSA Admin 48.8%

Payroll 27.4%

Retirement Benefits Admin 25.3%

Workers' Comp 20.9%

Unemployment Claims 17.9%

Benefits Admin 15.9%

FMLA Leave Admin 9.2%

Wellness Program 9%

Affirmative Action Planning 7.9%

Training 6.1%

Immigration/I-9 Compliance 4.5%

Recruiting/Staffing 4.2%

Records Management 1.9%

Labor Relations 1.8%

Onboarding 0.8%

Other 2.7%





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In this session of the THRIVE HR Leadership Exchange, we will explore the following questions:

• What significant changes are coming in the way organizations do business?

• Has in-house HR downsized and outsourcing increased, as some predicted? And if so, will that trend continue?

• At the same time, will strategic thinking become even more important to your role?

• How can we measure what we do and demonstrate HR’s importance through metrics, big data, and analytics? Have you

added (or will you create) new positions to deal with this data?

• How far can we trust technology to do HR tasks? What technology resources (programs, Human Resources Information

System (HRIS), apps) are working well for you? What new resources do you need?

• How will changing workforce demographics affect HR? Is managing a remote workforce becoming the new norm?

• For recruiting purposes, do you already find yourself filling the role of chief company marketer? How do you think the

proliferation of social media will exacerbate those challenges?

• How are all of these changes (i.e., technology, multigenerational workforce, changing organizational design ) going to

affect the HR function, and can you take a holistic approach?

FOR FURTHER READING“The Workplace As An Experience: Three New HR Roles Emerge” by Jeanne Meister, Forbes, May 13, 2016, http://bit.

ly/2aIJdyl

“The future of work: A journey to 2022” by PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2014, http://pwc.to/2aTAuKW

“Workplace 2025: Five Forces, Six New Roles and a Challenge to HR” by John Boudreau, for Vizier, August 20, 2015,

http://bit.ly/2aS85Dl

“The HR Department of 2020: 6 Bold Predictions” by Erin Osterhaus, The New Talent Times, June 6, 2013, http://bit.

ly/2aoEPRU

“Bright, Shiny Objects and the Future of HR” by John Boudreau and Steven Rice, Harvard Business Review, July–August

2015, http://bit.ly/2aQZstV

“Got a task that, well, you know…? Automate it!” by Holly K. Jones, HR Suite Seat blog on THRIVE.BLR.com, January 4,

2016, http://bit.ly/2aLQpt1

Source: BLR October 2015 survey of 920 HR pros

DISCUSSION THRIVING IN THE FUTURE WORLD OF WORK





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Generally BullishDespite all the challenges looming

in the next 5 to 10 years, human

resources professionals who attended

the 2016 THRIVE HR Leadership

Exchange in Carlsbad, California, say

they are generally bullish about the

future of the profession and their

chance to make a difference, though

they enter the fray with eyes wide

open. The day-to-day challenges are

tough, admits Leo McIsaac, VP of HR

for Primary Residential Mortgage

in Salt Lake City, citing remote

workers as a particular challenge for

HR teams in the mortgage industry.

Isabel Dreher, VP of HR for The Hotel

Group, adds that it’s easy to get

pulled from one hot-potato issue to

the next and never have time to do

any serious thinking about the future

world or work. “Sometimes I feel like

an attorney—one or two claims can

make you feel as if all you are doing is

fighting battles,” she says.

Despite the obstacles, McIsaac,

Dreher, and the other THRIVE

Exchange members are excited about

the future world of HR—and would

recommend it to their children as

a career—because it still involves

working with people. “The big thing

for us not to forget is … the name is

‘Human Resources’ and that we need

to know how to foster relationships

and identify with people,” says Marcia

Williams, VP of HR for Austin-based

Chuy’s Restaurants. “That’s sort of the

biggest challenge sometimes—that

we’ve got to form those relationships

and build trust so that we can know

what’s going on, and can help.”

In fact, the children of several

Exchange members are already

working in the human resources

field, and one second-grader appears

to be a shoo-in for a future HR role:

namely, 7-year-old Ava, daughter of

Julie Peterson Klein, EVP and chief

culture officer for Bell State Bank

& Trust, headquartered in Fargo. “I

could actually see her wanting to do

something like this,” mom says. “Yes,

we need the metrics and analytics.

However, I would also let [Ava] know

that you need to be a leader and you

need to love all people, and judge

no one. These are some important

characteristics. She needs to start

showing those characteristics to be

able to lead in the human resources

field.” For that reason, after every

hockey practice, mom says Ava skates

over, shakes the coach’s hand, and says

thank-you. “She’s the only kid who

does that,” Julie continues, “I’m trying

to instill in her that you need to go

above and beyond and be respectful in

all that you do.”

Michael Burkhart DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES Watermark Retirement Communities, Inc.

Elizabeth T. Bolt CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER AND CHIEF HUMAN RESOURCES OFFICER University of Wisconsin Health

Katharine (Kat) Anderson DIRECTOR, CORPORATE HUMAN RESOURCES Scientific Games

Isabel Dreher, PHR VICE PRESIDENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES The Hotel Group

Audra Hamilton VICE PRESIDENT, HUMAN RESOURCES NGL Energy Partners [email protected]

Stuart Kennedy HEAD OF PEOPLE AND INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS IAG Cargo

Tara Lindsay VICE PRESIDENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES West Liberty Foods

Crystal Kohanke, PHR, SHRM-CP GROUP VICE PRESIDENT, HUMAN RESOURCES CHRISTUS Health

Julie Peterson Klein, SPHR EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT & CHIEF CULTURE OFFICER Bell State Bank & Trust

Julie Weaver, MBA, SPHR, CCP, CBP, GRP DIRECTOR HUMAN RESOURCES bioMerieux, Inc.

Marcia Williams, SPHR, SHRM—SCP VICE PRESIDENT, HUMAN RESOURCES Chuy’s Restaurants

Leo McIsaac, SPHR and SHRM-SCP VICE PRESIDENT, HUMAN RESOURCES Primary Residential Mortgage [email protected]

THE MEMBERS


“The big thing for us to not forget is, the name is ‘Human Resources’ and that we need to know how to foster relationships and identify with people.”

MARCIA WILLIAMSVICE PRESIDENT, HUMAN RESOURCES

BIOMERIEUX, INC.





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Oregon. “We just put in one [robot]

that cost several million dollars, and

it replaced 14 positions, so the return

on investment is very, very quick. We

use them for ‘patch lines,’ for simply

plugging glue in holes on a sheet of

veneer.” Because of the company’s

several rural locations, Wise says

displaced workers aren’t necessarily

released. Instead, many are retrained

and “absorbed into the workforce.”

After all, technology usually creates

more jobs than it destroys. To help

prepare the area workforce for future

jobs in the lumber industry, Wise says

his company sponsors a lot of middle-

school robotics teams, adding that

“the stuff these kids do at 12 and 13 in

robotics clubs is pretty amazing.”

Another industry looking to use

more robots is food processing. “We

harvest about 25,000 tom turkeys a

day,” says Tara Lindsay, VP of HR for

West Liberty Foods in West Liberty,

Iowa. Because of the heavy amount

of labor required to perform the

Kellye Wise SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF HR AND LABOR Roseburg Forest Products

Will Wyatt, SPHR HUMAN RESOURCES DIRECTOR City of Clarksville, Tennessee

knife cuts, she says her operations

team is exploring whether robotics

could take over some of the work.

It isn’t as easy as it sounds, though,

because turkeys come in a wide

variety of shapes and sizes, according

to Lindsay. As these changes occur,

she feels a big responsibility to

communicate the impact. While

robot-driven advancements aren’t

good news for every employee,

Kennedy with IAG Cargo suggests

that redeployment may help. He

says “clever organizations that

lay the groundwork” and invest in

redeployment and rescaling will have a

big advantage.


In addition to a big heart and open

mind, HR leaders of the future will

need to have a good grasp of the

business side, says London-based

Stuart Kennedy, Head of People and

Internal Communications for IAG

Cargo, which has 3,000 employees.

“HR has always been burdened by the

same thing, whether it’s 25 years ago

or 25 years in the future, and that’s a

perceived lack of commerciality—a

perceived lack of being able to

contribute to things outside its own

discipline,” Kennedy says. He believes

the emergence of huge amounts of

data will be a “big move” providing the

information that will allow HR leaders

to recognize causal and predictive

trends. “If I were advising my eight-

year-old to go into HR, I would say,

‘Get your head down and understand

causal and predictive analytics for the

future of the workplace.’”

Embrace the Robots and New TechnologySeveral THRIVE Leadership HR

Exchange members say they expect

robots to continue taking on more

tasks. “We use them a lot, obviously,

because we’re so labor-intensive,” says

Kellye Wise, SVP of HR and Labor for

Roseburg Forest Products in Roseburg,

“HR has always been burdened by the same thing, whether it’s 25 years ago, or 25 years in the future, and that’s a perceived lack of commerciality—a perceived lack of being able to contribute to things outside its own discipline.”

STUART KENNEDYHEAD OF PEOPLE AND INTERNAL

COMMUNICATIONSIAG CARGO





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Welcome the Millennials and New Workforce CultureTHRIVE HR Leadership Exchange

members believe Millennials (also

known as Gen Y) are poised to change

the workplace in many significant

ways. For starters, when given a new

task, they immediately want to know

why they are doing it, says Katharine

(Kat) Anderson, Director of Corporate

Human Resources for Las Vegas-

based Scientific Games. “I have an

employee who is a Millennial. She’s

marvelous. She has a great attitude

and adapts very quickly,” Anderson

explains. “But to ensure she was

effective at her work, I had to instill

a couple key things that I didn’t have

to do for Baby Boomers or Gen X

workers: When I assign my Millennial

worker any projects, we talk about

why the assignment has meaning and

what makes the project or task so

critical for our business.” Anderson

says the employee also had to learn

it’s OK to ask for help when she runs

into a roadblock. “What I found was,

Millennials are trying to figure it

out on their own. They aren’t always

comfortable coming up and saying, ‘I

don’t know how to do this’ unless they

are clear that is is OK to ask.’”

With the rise of the millennial tide,

Wise, with Roseburg Forest Products,

sees the workplace shifting from an

activity-oriented (9-to-5) approach

to a results-oriented culture. After

watching his own two Millennial

daughters get their work done at

various hours of the day and night,

he realized they were accomplishing

more by following their own regimen

than by sitting in an office sticking

to someone else’s. As a result, he has

Smart HR pros also will use new

technology to move transactional

duties down to the managerial level,

freeing themselves up to tackle

more strategic tasks. Williams says

this shift is especially important

at a large restaurant company like

Chuy’s where HR business partners

can be responsible for managing the

transactional stuff across several

locations. “They’re trying to partner

with their leaders and provide

strategic guidance, so we need to

get that ‘day-to-day’ off of them,” the

VP of HR explains. “That way, they

can spend time with their leadership

teams planning how to move those

teams forward.”

New technology—whether it’s

introducing a fancy robot or

something more seemingly mundane

like changing the delivery method for

college lectures—is going to alter the

workplace in many ways and often for

the better, according to Elizabeth Bolt,

chief administrative officer and chief

human resources officer for University

of Wisconsin Health in Madison. As an

example, she says medical instructors

at her university began delivering

lectures by podcast instead of doing

them live. Students listen on their

own time. With new free time on

their hands, faculty members began

to wonder what they are supposed to

do now. Her answer: “They facilitate

discussion groups. Their jobs have

changed.”


Boost morale of employees 70.8%

Boost engagement 66.1%

Improve retention of all employees 58.3%

Increase productivity 55.4%

Make life at work more enjoyable 55.4%

Improve retention of high potential employeesw 54.6%

Encourage employees to extoll the virtues of working at our company 54.6%

increase referrals from current employees 46.9%

Other 10.3%

What are the goals of your internal branding program?





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day is to use their brains,” Williams

adds. “We always say, OK, there are

many ways to melt the cheese. Just

melt the damn cheese. Just figure it

out and do it.” Yes, Millennials (like

every other new wave of workers)

can make mistakes, but she counsels

against taking a hard line on discipline.

For that reason, the company does not

rely on a rigid system of progressive

discipline.

In more colorful terms, Wise

describes his own operating-in-

the-gray approach as “cow-pasture

management,” as opposed to more

limiting “shoebox” or “sandbox”

management styles. Wise explains:

“Everybody likes the shoebox because

it’s nice and small, and has four

corners to it, right? Some people like

the sandbox because they can play

a little bit more, but it’s still not very

big. And then you have a cow pasture,

which is essentially operating in the

gray, where you have all this discretion

and room to maneuver. We tell them

up front: ‘If you operate in the cow

pasture, you’re gonna step in a few

cow pies, but we’re all right with that.

You just need to learn where they are,

to watch your step next time.’”

Several kinks remain to be worked

out before Millennials can be officially

integrated into the workforce of the

future, according to THRIVE HR

Leadership Exchange members. At

NGL Energy Partners in Tulsa, VP of HR

Audra Hamilton says Millennials have

been reluctant to accept promotions

into management positions, perhaps

because they fear the changes would

upset their prized work/life balance. At

Bell State Bank, a Millennial employee

took off on a scheduled vacation

without finishing a high-profile project,

leaving Klein in a bit of a lurch because

been more inclined to turn his own

mid-level managers loose with a

problem, “then step back and let them

figure out how to do it their own way.”

What Wise is now measuring is the

results, not how the managers get

there.

Even for Millennials who aren’t in

management positions, Williams

says having a company philosophy

that allows them to problem-solve

and “operate in the gray” can benefit

the organization enormously. She

says Chuy’s approach is to empower

employees to do great customer

service—i.e., let them do whatever is

needed to help a customer or a fellow

employee. Managers with recent

experience at companies with a more

black-and-white (or right-or-wrong)

approach sometimes struggle with the

restaurant company’s culture. “What

we want our employees to do every






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Brace for More Remote WorkersTHRIVE members expect managing

a remote workforce will become the

new norm in the workforce of the

future, but that doesn’t mean there

aren’t challenges ahead. In fact,

Hamilton says her company has a

strict rule against working from home

except for a few actual “remote”

positions (where the personal home

office is the office). Kennedy confides

he’s heard other managers use the

term “shirking from home.” And

Anderson, with tech-centric Scientific

Games, spells out a core challenge

for company leaders, especially in

industries that rely on collaboration

and innovation for their growth:

“While working remotely does enable

a certain level of creativity and

flexibility, and there is technology such

as video conferencing and conference

calls that enable communication, it

really doesn’t beat that interpersonal,

one-on-one ‘Let’s sit together and

throw tennis balls against the wall

if we need to come up with creative

concepts and ideas, and let’s build

modeling while we’re standing here

looking at it.’”

McIsaac, with Primary Residential

Mortgage, cites the compliance

challenges that arise with tracking

remote workers’ time, handling

disciplinary issues, and managing

their workers’ comp claims, among

other things. THRIVE members

also believe HR pros will have to

develop new patterns and systems of

communication to keep everything

running smoothly. Before anyone at

West Liberty Foods worked from

home, Lindsay says it was easy to

circulate and hear about business

developments—e.g., what was

happening in operations or sales. In

the future, it’s going to be different:

“When they’re not in the office, I feel

like I’m on an island because it has

been so informal. We’re trying to

figure out more formal communication

patterns, just to get the news out

about what’s going on.” Lindsay

believes the effort will be worth it,

though. For one thing, having more

remote workers will help the company

deal with an office space shortage.

Klein, with Bell State Bank, predicts

that in the next 15 years, “we’re all

going to see many team members

wanting a flexible work schedule.”

She describes the employee who

comes into the office in the morning,

leaves to go for a long workout, and

then finishes up the workday at home.

“These are our ‘A players’ who are

driven, and they can do that,” Klein

says, “but another employee may not

the bank’s president was waiting for

the results. Lindsay, with West Liberty

Foods, surmises: “To them, being a

‘president’ isn’t going to have a high

value—it’s just another person asking

for a report, where we put significant

value on the traditionalist.” In defense

of the vacation-goer, Anderson points

out that Millennials watched their

parents go through the recession

and lose their jobs in spite of doing

everything right. “Chances are, in her

thinking, it was, ‘You know what? My

time off. My vacation’s important. If

they’re going to get rid of me, they’re

going to do it anyway, so I’m going to

take my time off.”

Kennedy decries the huge amount

of self-flagellation that HR leaders

endure because “we’re supposedly

not good enough at coping with

millennials.” He wishes employees

in this age cohort “would meet us,

maybe not even halfway, but at least

a quarter of the way.” Because his

company is large (3,000 employees),

he says he can’t turn the ship around

overnight for just a few people. On

the plus side, he loves working with

Millennials because “they’ll hoover up

any development opportunity you give

them.” In fact, they’ll take on work

challenges that he would have balked

at when he was 20 years old. And how

does he know when they’re engaged?

In London at least, they stop wearing

their “dancing shoes” to work and opt

for more businesslike (and boring)

work shoes, he says with a grin.


On looking at HR from a P&L perspective—“OK, if we’re gonna add value, let’s articulate what the actual value piece is.”

KELLYE WISESENIOR VICE PRESIDENT

OF HR AND LABORROSEBURG FOREST PRODUCTS





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needs to be able to stop and say, ‘Hey,

maybe this isn’t right!’”

Kennedy says British Airways (IAG

Cargo is the consolidated cargo

business for British Airways, Iberia,

and Aer Lingus) has mastered big

data for millions of passengers. “So I

can tell you what your favorite drink

is and when you’ve faced disruption

on previous flights, and all those kinds

of things,” he says. Unfortunately, the

news is not so upbeat about creating

what Kennedy calls “causal, predictive

analytics” for applicants/employees.

“Within a level of certainty, it would be

great to know whether this new hire

is going to work out or if we’re going

to get a return on invested capital

for this individual, but we’re nowhere

near that. We’re not going to get it by

2020, I’ll tell you that.”

Approach the Future with Confidence, Business SmartsRepresenting a variety of industries,

THRIVE HR Leadership Exchange

members agree that being able to

discuss looming workplace challenges

with one another helps to relieve the

pressures they’re feeling about the

future. While Lindsay says she’s lucky

to be in a position that allows her to

be involved in the right conversations

(“I’ve got them listening”), she

sometimes wonders if she is making

the right recommendations. Wise

interjects, “The multi-industry

perspective in this group is helpful.”

Kennedy believes the way forward

is for HR pros to view themselves as

“billion-dollar asset managers.” Wise

agrees and adds this means looking at

HR from a P&L perspective and saying,

“OK, if we’re gonna add value, let’s

articulate what the actual value piece

is.” With such a billion-dollar mind-

set, Kennedy says, “We should be held

accountable for looking five, seven,

10, 12 years ahead in the workplace.

I worry that there is not enough time

dedicated to that in an eight-hour

workday.”

be that disciplined, so it doesn’t always

work.” As a commonsense way to keep

a clearer line between work and play,

several members suggest limiting

employees’ work-from-home options

to Tuesday through Thursday. “It’s

always Fridays that they want off,”

Kennedy adds..

Capture and Interpret Big DataTHRIVE HR members already rely

on lots of data and run reports to

explore a variety of issues such as

turnover, employee engagement

levels, and job compatibility. Many

use Predictive Index for new hires.

In the lumber industry, Wise reports

considerable success with a safety

tracking and reporting program

called eCompliance. “It can tell us

the propensity of somebody hurting

their left hand versus their right hand,

which is important because we’re so

labor-intensive.”

As the systems get more advanced,

Crystal Kohanke, group vice president

for HR at CHRISTUS Health in San

Antonio, stresses that HR teams

will need to make sure they have the

in-house expertise to analyze and

interpret the results. Several members

have already hired people to review

and help make projections using the

new tools. Dreher, with the Hotel

Group, uses an exaggerated example

to underscore why this is important:

“When you get a report back that

says you have zero turnover, someone





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Meeting the Challenges of Engagement, Branding, and Retention

Discussion

MODERATOR: STEPHEN BRUCE, PHD, PHR

DISCUSSION GUIDEEvery survey we do and every convention we attend suggests that retention, engagement, and branding are immediate and

pressing challenges for virtually every organization. As the economy improves, all employees, but especially A-level players,

are feeling more confident about moving, and if salaries have been depressed for a few years, they are ripe for the plucking.

Engagement is not only a contributor to retention; it’s also increasingly recognized as an important contributor to

productivity. It’s a by-product of good management, meaningful work, positive atmosphere, opportunity for growth and

development, and a number of other factors.

In this session of the THRIVE HR Leaders Exchange, we will explore the following questions:

• What can we do to improve retention of top performers, of technical workers, and of line level workers?

• Is engagement really as important as we are led to believe?

• How do you develop and protect your employment brand?

• What about Millennials (developing into leaders, offering developmental paths), and how about Gen Z, now entering the

workforce?

• How can you best design and deliver training and other developmental activities?

• Are new social media-based approaches to hiring and maintaining talent pools effective?

• What creative or innovative benefits are being offered? Include in engagement section?

• How do you effectively handle employees across many states in remote locations?

FOR FURTHER READING“Eight Common Misconceptions About Employee Engagement that Can Seriously Harm Your Company” (HR Decisions

magazine, March/April 2015)

“Meaningful Measurement of Engagement” (HR Decisions magazine, January/February 2016)

“How to Keep Your HiPos Engaged, Productive, and On Board” (HR Decisions magazine, September/October 2015)

http://www.thrivehrmagazine.com/thrivedigital

Employees Are Engaged When They Have Control (Two-Part HR Daily Advisor article, August 3–4, 2016):

http://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/2016/08/03/employees-engaged-control

http://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/2016/08/04/satisfaction-engagement-related-not-identical





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DISCUSSION MEETING THE CHALLENGES OF ENGAGEMENT, BRANDING, AND RETENTION

valued. Even a thank you from higher

management, you’d be amazed how

many people have gone 15 years

without saying thank you to someone,

not because they’re bad people but

because they just don’t think to say

that.

I think you can really engage a lot

of Millennials by exposing them to

a broad, industrywide and in fact,

commercewide network of key

contacts. What I’ve found is that if you

take them along to a discussion with a

GE or a Rolls Royce or a huge blue chip

organization or one of the professional

services organizations, that piques

their interest because it doesn’t hem

them into a particular industry.

A broader, wider, employee value

proposition we work on involves

asking: How do you create your

processes so they’re friction-free for

the individual employee? How do you

have self-service? How do you resolve

issues without having to go through

multiple layers?

We’ve spent a lot of money on

communications over the years and

sometimes it works, sometimes it

doesn’t, but what does work is getting

rid of those barriers to resolving

individuals’ issues.

Chuy’s—We do have fun!I’m Marcia Williams. I’m with Chuy’s

Restaurants, based in Austin, Texas.

We are in growth mode. We had eight

restaurants in 2008. We have 80 in

15 states now. There have been a lot

of interesting challenges and lots of

learning to do. We have about 8,500

employees right now and we’re set for

a 20% growth rate every year.

We were this little funky, restaurant

company in Texas with an almost

cult-like following, focusing on great

Peer to Peer RecognitionI’m Stuart Kennedy. I was the Head

of the Employee Relations at British

Airways and I’m now Head of People

and Internal Communications at IAG

Cargo, the consolidated cargo group of

British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Iberia

of Spain. We split our organization

into the passenger side, people who fly

the planes around, and all the people

you know, and the freight side, the

cargo side underneath. I’m with the

less glamorous freight side. Our group

has about 3,000 employees.

I think peer to peer recognition is

something that organizations don’t do

as much as they should do particularly

now in the Millennial workforce....

There’s a fantastic app where you can

just go on and you can say, “Just came

out of a meeting with Dave. Fantastic,

nice job, mate.” It pings off, and he

gets it, and it goes on out. It’s just

really simple peer to peer recognition,

constant real-time 360 stuff. I think

that’s the way forward because often

with these structural recognition

schemes, by the time it goes through

the committee and by the time you’ve

got the purchase order to get the

flowers that you can’t buy at the local

shop because procurement won’t let

you, you’ve lost the moment, haven’t

you?

It’s sometimes just a firm handshake

and a well done. It’s finding a method

that people will genuinely feel

What are the purposes of your employment branding program?

Purposes of Branding Programs

Increase productivity, 55.4%

Boost engagement, 66.1%

Improve retention of all employees, 58.3%

Improve retention of high potential employees, 54.6%

Encourage employees to extoll the virtues of working at our

Make life at work more enjoyable, 55.4%

Increase referrals from current employees, 46.9%

Boost morale of employees, 70.8%





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manager, maybe even one they don’t

work with all the time, and sit down

and talk about Chuy’s, and what can

we do for them, and what can we give

them, and what is it that they’re trying

to get out of it? Is it just extra income,

or is it getting through college? Is it

a career in restaurants? The program

has had an impact. It felt artificial at

first, but now it has become part of the

routine and it feels like there’s more

communication. Those relationships

are better.

Programmer JamsI’m Katharine Anderson. I work

for Scientific Games, and we’re

well known for our innovative and

entertaining gaming products for

casino gaming, lottery, and interactive.

I think Millennials more than many

of our other workforce generations

truly have to see work as fun. It’s just

as much fun as if they were skiing on

a mountain or playing at the beach in

some ways.

For a lot of them, especially in the

technical area, programming is a

passion. Several years ago I was with

a gaming company and we had just

started a new interactive division.

I was the HR business partner for

this new group, and we had to grow

the team from two to 50 employees

within a year. Most of the talent

was literally in their early 20’s, and

most of them didn’t gamble. While

they enjoyed creating games for the

company, they also liked to create

games for fun. We would have

contests where we would throw out a

quote from whatever famous author,

Poe or whomever, and based on that

quote they would divide up into teams

food and great service and great

employees, and just having fun while

doing everything to impress our

customer. And now, we’re growing.

It’s like you have all these people that

you’re trying to train to keep that

culture going and you’ve got high

turnover. The restaurant industry is

very high turnover. They’re all coming

in, and they’re excited when they first

start, and then they realize they have

to work hard. One of our philosophies

is “we work hard while others play.”

They work hard but they do have fun.

We do tie in a lot of our culture, which

is and always has been about giving

back to the community. We try to

get the local restaurants to choose a

nonprofit, and they’re usually children’s

charities.

We also have an employee help fund

that all employees can contribute

to. We used to help employees

informally before and still, some of

the restaurants do it. Somebody can

apply to this fund, but the restaurant

employees also raise funds informally

to help a fellow employee even more.

There are those kinds of things that

just come, that you want to have

naturally happen, too. It’s all about

what our culture is and how we keep

that.

We put in some tools that felt

artificial, but they’ve kind of worked.

It’s like, “Okay, we want everybody

to have a “Chuy Chat” with their

employees.” Employees go to a


Don't like paperwork 50%

Fear of confrontation 44%

Don't think it's important 36%

To much trouble 34%

They really don't have time 32.5%

Lack of supervisor training 31%

Protecting the employee 25%

Weak writing skills 22.5%

Protect their own reputation 17%

Other 8%

Why Supervisors Fail to Document Performance Issues?





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functional areas, including information

technology, human resources, facilities,

support services, marketing, and

communications.

We also wanted to leverage our

capabilities and provide something

that competitors couldn’t or wouldn’t

provide. Our culinary staff realized

that we had a cafeteria that serves

many meals a day. They brought

forward the idea that we could have

the cafeteria staff prepare “Blue

Apron” type meals that employees

could pick up on their way home from

work. The meal kit would contain

everything they needed to put a meal

on for their family with a minimum

of preparation. We could provide the

service at cost—and our costs are low

because we buy in bulk. Our chef said

she could do it, and the culinary team

is researching options now. Our goal

will be to have these available in our

existing on-site market so employees

can stop by on the way home to

purchase a meal.

Date Night And Suitcase NightMichael Burkhart, director of Human

Resources for Watermark Retirement

Communities, Inc. explained how

two popular programs at Watermark

work.

Date night grew out of our desire to

change work from a place I have to be

to a place I want to be. Once a quarter

we organize date night. Employees

and their spouses come to the office

and relax and watch a movie. We

supply popcorn, snacks, and drinks.

One of our goals is a happy spouse, and

this program has been very popular,

especially when the two spouses work

different shifts and it’s hard for them

to see each other.

Suitcase Night is an incentive for

people who are part of our partners

program. (Watermarks’s partners

program is an element of their

“promotion in place” initiative that

allows recognition for people who

have worked well for a long time, but

for whom there is little likelihood of

promotion. The members achieve

status with law-firm-like titles of

partner and senior partner. Each

level has perks associated with it and

there are partners’ meetings with the

CEO, for example.) So, once a year,

the senior partners and their spouses

bring a packed suitcase to an event.

There is a drawing, and the winner

(and spouse) get an all-expense-paid

weekend at the shore—two nights in

the hotel, a gambling package, and so

on. The kicker is that immediately after

the drawing, they get into a limo with

their suitcase and head out. If you

don’t win, you get your suitcase back.

The program has been very popular.

and they would compete against each

other on their own time for fun on the

weekends about one weekend every

quarter to create a game that they felt

correlated best with that the selected

author’s quote.

Then, we, as management, HR,

accounting and such, would come in,

and each team would present their

games to us at the end of the weekend

and we would vote on which team

came up with the best game that

was relevant to that quote and also

entertaining. They did this for fun

and had a great time. The quarterly

company cost was relatively low—we

bought some pizza and soft drinks—

but the ancillary benefits were

tremendous. These team members

went out in the community and raved

about it, which certainly helped

improve our company image.

That’s how we recruited, too. If it

turned out they were good, we’d say,

“Well, you know, we do a lot of these

kind of things. Wouldn’t you like to

come work for us?” That’s how we

were able to, in some ways, grow from

two to 50—because we relied very

heavily on programs like that and word

of mouth.

‘Blue Apron’ Program Makes Employees’ Lives EasierElizabeth Bolt is chief administrative

officer and chief Human Resources

officer for University of Wisconsin

Health, where she provides strategic

direction and enterprise oversight for


“We also wanted to leverage our capabilities and provide something that competitors couldn’t or wouldn’t provide.”

ELIZABETH BOLTCHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER AND

CHIEF HUMAN RESOURCES OFFICERUNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN HEALTH





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It’s fairly centrally located within

walking distance from City Hall. The

utilization has been so high that we’ve

had to look at adding another site just

to accommodate. It’s worth it because

if they go out into the market it costs

at least $80 more per visit.

Our fund that we have for health care

has grown $4 million or $5 million in a

few years.

Pay It ForwardI’m Julie Petersen Klein from Bell

Bank. We have 1,100 employees and

are a Midwestern bank, headquartered

in North Dakota. We also have offices

in Minnesota and Arizona.

We have a Pay It Forward program

that our bank is well known for. This

program started 9 years ago at our

Christmas party and it’s been an

amazing program for our Bell team

members.

We give all full-time employees

$1,000 at the beginning of each year

to pay it forward to someone in need.

Part-timers receive $500. We have a

pay-it-forward site where we e-mail

out needs, nonprofit information,

families that are going through

difficult times, or whatever it might

be. Then, there’s an easy share point

site where employees can just go in

and click and tell their story and why

they want to give to this cause.

The check goes to the employee; we

ask the employee to present the check

to the family or to the nonprofit to

make that personal connection. I’ve

had several employees come in and

give me a hug and cry because they

would never be able to give $1,000 out

of their own pockets to their church ,

their children’s school, a nonprofit, or

whatever it might be. Basically, the

only guidelines are you can’t give it to

an employee of Bell Bank or a family

member of an employee of Bell Bank.

Internally we help with those needs.

Then, we share these stories. Every

week there are stories on our Bell

Share site. The program has given

out over $10 million so far. What’s

great about this program is we have

1,100 Bell team members across the

company and they are touching many

states in the nation plus many other

countries.

It’s been very popular with all of our

employees but especially with the

Millennials. They like to be part of

a cause bigger than just a job and a

paycheck and what we’re carrying out

every day. We are a bank but at the

end of the day, we really are trying to

make the world a better place.

On-Site Health Clinic Saves MillionsI’m Will Wyatt the Human Resources

director for the City of Clarksville in

Tennessee. We’re the fifth largest city

there and one of the fastest growing

cities in America. We have about

1,200 full-time employees ranging

from public safety, utilities, public

works etc. We have around 300

seasonal and part time employees

because of our parks and recreation

department.

We’ve got an on-site health clinic

for employees that’s completely free

to them. We have saved millions of

dollars by going to this model.

About three and a half years ago,

when we opened the clinic, we were

fully insured and we went self-

insured and with that model—driving

whoever is on our health plan to the

clinic—it has helped us contain costs.

It’s for families of your team members

also if they’re on the plan.

We’ve got an on-site pharmacy with

well over 200 meds that are the most

common, and we get a discount on

those as well. It’s all generic, but it’s

been a huge success, and employees

absolutely love it. We encourage them

to go. We just basically tell employees,

“You can take time on the clock to go

to the clinic because it’s worth that

much to us.” They get in, and they are

seen within 5 minutes. They have a full

20 minutes with the provider.


On a Pay It Forward program—“It’s been very popular with all of our employees, but especially with the millennials. They like to be a part of a cause bigger than just the company.”

JULIE PETERSON-KLINEEXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT & CHIEF

CULTURE OFFICERBELL STATE BANK & TRUST





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Mastering Operational and Compliance Issues

Discussion

MODERATOR: CATHY GRAY, JD

DISCUSSION GUIDEHR executives are necessarily focused on developing and implementing the long-term human capital strategy that

will support their organizations’ business goals. As a practical matter, however, you face an avalanche of day-to-day

challenges. Challenges include addressing constantly changing federal, state, and local laws and regulations, and stepped up

enforcement activity by various federal and state agencies. At the same time, there are operational concerns to address and

adaptations that must be made for the changing workforce.

In this session of the THRIVE HR Leadership Exchange, we will explore the following questions:

• What regulatory changes are causing or are likely to cause serious HR headaches? How will the outcome of the election

impact the legal landscape for HR?

• What challenges are you facing as you prepare to comply with the new overtime regulations?

• How do you effectively handle employees across many states and in remote locations? Are there specific compliance-

related concerns that keep you up at night?

• Is the annual performance appraisal on its way out? Are there other options for effectively managing and recognizing

performance? Are mobile apps the answer?

• Should pay increases be linked to annual performance appraisals? Are there better options for rewarding performance on

an ongoing basis? How do we keep compensation competitive?

• How can we get control of issues related to leaves of absence and stay on top of paid sick leave and other laws? How do

you identify and address potential Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) abuse?

• What are effective strategies for addressing mental or emotional conditions like depression, non-work-related stress,

etc.?





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FOR FURTHER READINGAdopt New FLSA Overtime Rules Before December Deadline, Former DOL Official Says

http://hr.blr.com/HR-news/Compensation/FLSA-Fair-Labor-Standards-Act/Adopt-FLSA-overtime-rules-December-deadline

Forget the $15 minimum wage. Here’s Why 2016 Really Matters for Workers

https://newrepublic.com/article/122713/forget-minimum-wage-heres-why-2016-really-matters-workers

Employers Modernizing Performance Appraisal Process, Says Towers Watson

http://hr.blr.com/HR-news/Performance-Termination/Performance-Employee-Appraisal/Employers-modernizing-

performance-appraisal

How to Manage Multiple Business Locations

http://www.inc.com/guides/managing-multiple-business-locations.html

http://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/2016/08/03/employees-engaged-control

http://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/2016/08/04/satisfaction-engagement-related-not-identical

DISCUSSION MASTERING OPERATIONAL AND COMPLIANCE ISSUES





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Anderson says that one of the things

that keeps her up at night is worrying

about potential requirements at the

state and local level of which she isn’t

yet aware.

Tracking Leave and Keeping Up With State and Local Paid Sick Leave LawsExchange members focused on three

major pain points when it comes to

managing mandated leaves. These

include:

1. Understanding and complying with

the maze of federal, state, and local

leave requirements;

2. Handling leave requests, including

intermittent leave, and designating

leave; and

3. Following up on medical

documentation and working with

employees who are medically

unable to return to work at the end

of their protected leaves.

Maze of federal, state, and local

leave requirements. When asked

during a roundtable discussion

what they do to track federal, state,

and local paid and unpaid leave

requirements, most of the exchange

members shook their heads. Because

they operate in multiple states, some

with local leave laws as well, it is

difficult to know what laws apply.

This has gotten even tougher as local

governments continue to enact their

own paid leave laws with specific

accrual rules. For instance, as of the

time this report was published, there

are 13 local ordinances providing for

paid sick leave in New Jersey.

Legal compliance in uncertain times is

difficult at best. The 2016 THRIVE HR

Leadership Exchange members want

to focus their attention on developing

human capital strategies that will

support their businesses now and

in the future, but legal compliance

continues to require significant

attention.

Uncertainty Is the Biggest Compliance ChallengeExchange members agreed that

uncertainty makes legal compliance

very difficult both in the United States

(U.S.) and overseas. Employers in the

U.S. face the uncertainty of a new

president and administration. In

addition, the new overtime regulations

are scheduled to take effect December

1, 2016, and new requirements are

anticipated for 2017, including an

increase to the federal minimum

wage, a potential paid sick leave law,

pay equity reporting, and changes to

the Affordable Care Act (ACA). All of

these have employers guessing. Added

to the mix for companies operating

in multiple jurisdictions are a myriad

of state and local laws related to

minimum wage and paid sick leave.

In the midst of all of this uncertainty,

HR professionals like Katharine

Anderson, director, Corporate Human

Resources for Scientific Games,

are working to integrate multiple

companies after acquisitions and

mergers. The compliance landscape

is complicated and multifaceted.


In a recent BLR survey, we asked HR professionals why they think supervisors fail to document employee performance issues.

Don’t like paperwork

Fear of confrontation

Don’t think it’s important

Too much trouble

They really don’t have time

Lack of supervisor training

Protecting the employee

Weak writing skills

Protect their own reputation

Other

No answer

50% 60%40%30%20%10%





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dedicating an HR professional to

handling all leave requests and

following up on paperwork. According

to Elizabeth Bolt, chief administrative

officer and chief Human Resources

officer for University of Wisconsin

Health, it is a challenge to retain

someone in the leave position

because it is a difficult role that is not

always very fulfilling. Bolt wonders if

outsourcing might be the right answer.

Audra Hamilton, vice president,

Human Resources for NGL Energy

Partners, indicated that her

organization has centralized leave

management in-house after a

bad experience with outsourcing.

According to Hamilton, her company

has a dedicated leave specialist

and uses the Human Resources

Information System (HRIS) system to

track leaves. Similarly, Isabel Dreher,

vice president of Human Resources

for The Hotel Group, noted that

her company has centralized leave

management and has a person on staff

who is dedicated to leave issues.

All of the members agreed that

managing leave in an organization

with multiple locations is difficult.

While in most cases administration is

centralized, managers and supervisors

are usually the first ones to become

aware of the need for leave. If they are

not properly educated, they may give

employees the wrong information or

promise leave to which the employee

is not entitled.

Following up on medical

documentation and extended

leave requests. All of the exchange

members, those who outsource leave

management and those who handle

it in-house, cited this as the most

time-intensive part. Once paperwork

is sent out to an employee who

needs leave, including a request for

medical documentation, the employer

then has to follow up to make sure

the completed forms are returned.

In addition to the difficulties HR has

staying on top of these laws, because

their organizations operate in multiple

states and countries, managers and

supervisors who are on the front line

may fail to identify that an employee

is eligible for protected leave or may

provide employees with incorrect

information about leave. As a result,

leave management is centralized at

most of the organizations represented

at the exchange and a full-time

position in the HR department is

dedicated to this work.

Handling leave requests and

designating leave. Several exchange

members said they outsource leave

management to a third party. Julie

Weaver, Director of Human Resources

for bioMerieux, Inc., said her company

has “outsourced leave from start to

finish.” The third party administrator,

according to Weaver, processes leave

requests, manages the paperwork,

and handles all aspects of leave. “They

track the buckets and pay accordingly”

said Weaver. Crystal Kohanke, group

vice president, Human Resources

for CHRISTUS Health, said that her

organization has also outsourced leave

management.

Other exchange members have

centralized leave management,


Because they operate in multiple states, some with local leave laws as well, it is difficult to know what laws apply.

THRIVE EXCHANGE MEMBERS





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Resources for Chuy’s Restaurants,

indicated that it would cost her

company approximately $500,000

to raise the salaries of all currently

exempt supervisors and managers,

which they can’t do, and that she

hoped for a delay. She said that the

company is now trying to figure

out how many hours the employees

actually work so they can convert

them to hourly employees. Williams

said her company is struggling with

“[w]hat is that magic hourly rate to

keep [employees] at the same level.”

Converting to hourly or maintaining

exempt status. Exchange members

have multiple strategies for complying

with the new overtime rule. Kellye

Wise, senior vice president of HR and

Labor for Roseburg Forest Products,

said his company will maintain the

exemption for quality control positions

and increase salaries to the new

threshold. This raises a concern, said

Wise, that employees in higher level

positions will be “anticipating a similar

pay increase” and according to Wise,

“that’s not going to happen solely

because of the other salary range

adjustments.”

Tara Lindsay, vice president of Human

Resources at West Liberty Foods

said that her organization has few

employees impacted by the new

rule. For the few who are going to

be reclassified as nonexempt, the

organization has a dilemma. According

to Lindsay, they have two tiers of

benefits, one for exempt employees

and one for nonexempt employees.

Those who will be reclassified

will no longer qualify for exempt

benefits, including the bonus plan

and additional paid vacation. Lindsay

said the company is struggling with

whether to move the employees to

the nonexempt plan with less vacation

and no bonus opportunity, or to create

According to Bolt, this follow up “is

exhausting for the person managing

it.” Kohanke, whose company

outsources leave management, states

that her group still has to address

situations where employees run out

of leave time. They are spending a lot

of time on conversations with people

who exhaust Family and Medical

Leave Act (FMLA) leave and still need

to be out, engaging in the interactive

process.

Overtime Regulations and Minimum Wage Are Top of Mind


Note: On November 22, after the

THRIVE HR Leadership Exchange,

the United States District Court for

the Eastern District Of Texas issued

a temporary injunction blocking the

overtime rule nation-wide. As noted

in this article, many of the members

had already implemented changes in

anticipation of the December 1, 2016,

effective date.

December 1, the U.S. Department of

Labor (DOL) announced that it will

appeal a court’s injunction temporarily

halting new overtime regulations.

As we expected, exchange members

had a lot to say about the new

overtime rule, its impact on their

employees, and the steps they are

taking to comply.

While exchange members would

like to see implementation delayed,

they are not counting on it. Marcia

Williams, vice president of Human





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employees. Exchange members

agree that moving from an exempt

to a nonexempt role is difficult for

employees. Employees often view

changes such as a set work schedule

and having to “punch a time clock” as a

loss of status or a demotion.

Michael Burkhart, director of

Human Resources for Watermark

Retirement Communities, Inc., said

that what they are “really working on

is communication.” Telling employees

“it’s the law, only goes so far.” Burkhart

shared the experience of one of his

relatives whose employer reclassified

employees in September. Burkhart

said that even though his relative knew

the change was required by law, she

went through a grieving process. The

big issue for that employee was the

idea that she would have to punch a

time clock. At first she was angry, but

over time she was able to accept the

change.

Bolt agreed with Burkhart. She said

an employee may feel like he “worked

all my life to be a professional and

now you are telling me I’m just a clock

puncher.” According to Bolt there “is

nothing I can say to make [him] feel

better in the short term.”

Klein noted that her team is

“communicating heavily with

managers and employees.” They are

emphasizing the positive aspects of

the change, including overtime pay,

and emphasizing that this a legal

requirement. Burkhart said his team

is also structuring communication

to emphasize “why this is good for

employees.”

Off-the-Clock WorkAvoiding off-the-clock work. Another

big concern for exchange members

is keeping track of hours worked

for newly nonexempt employees,

as well as preventing off-the-clock

work especially for remote workers.

Burkhart noted that his company

was in the process of implementing

a new payroll system with the goal

of eliminating as much paperwork as

possible. To avoid adding paper time

records, newly nonexempt employees

will be required to use the online

timekeeping system. Other exchange

members noted that they were going

to consider employees to be salaried

nonexempt with an assumption that

they will work 40 hours per week and

report any overtime.

One issue of universal concern is

making sure newly nonexempt

a third class of benefits, which would

have a “big financial impact.”

Julie Peterson Klein, executive vice

president and chief culture officer for

Bell State Bank & Trust, said that 60

employees out of 1,100 are currently

classified as exempt and will not meet

the salary threshold when the new

overtime rule becomes effective. Klein

noted that they can’t just bump them

up and that for those whose salaries

are raised to the new threshold, the

company is revisiting the jobs to

confirm they meet the duties tests.

Exchange members were in

agreement that the new overtime rule

provides them with an opportunity to

review the exempt status of positions

that aren’t impacted by the new

minimum salary threshold, but there

may be a question about whether the

duties test is met. Klein noted that

her company is being very careful

about the designations and working

with legal counsel where they feel

a position may be on the bubble. In

some cases, said Lindsay, especially

with recently acquired companies, we

are reclassifying employees who are

paid above the new threshold but upon

review may not meet the duties test.

These employees want to know why

the company is making the change

now.

Communicating the ChangeCompliance aside, how do we

communicate the change to


On overtime changes—Part of the communication will be “acknowledging the stress levels coming their way” because supervisors “never had to send someone home before to avoid overtime.”

MICHAEL BURKHARTDIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES

WATERMARK RETIREMENT COMMUNITIES, INC.





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training managers and supervisor on

the new overtime rules and related

concerns. The training includes

hypothetical situations the managers

are likely to face. For instance, in a

hospital setting if the manager needs

to have someone stay past scheduled

work hours because of a patient care

issue, the manager should have the

employee stay and pay overtime.

According to Bolt, having the training

formatted as a conversation with

examples makes it more effective.

Leo McIsaac, vice president, Human

Resources for Primary Residential

Mortgage, noted that his organization

has implemented a system that

requires an employee to log in to the

online timekeeping system before he

or she can access other parts of the

computer system needed to perform

work. This prevents remote workers

from working off the clock.

The Many Sides of Data SecurityData security is another big

compliance concern for exchange

members. For those in the healthcare

industry, this includes patient data and

employee data. Bolt noted that when

it comes to data security, “we are only

as strong as the weakest employee.”

Burkhart and Bolt, both in the

healthcare industry, discussed

encryption as a way to secure

electronic records. Bolt noted that

her organization uses several layers of

encryption, but it can slow physicians

down when they are seeing patients.

They have to log in and out of systems

frequently, which means they see

fewer patients over time. The key,

according to Bolt, is to “find the sweet

spot” where you are doing what

you can to protect information, but

you have not made it so difficult for

employees to do their work that they

find a work around, e.g., using personal

e-mail to communicate with patients.

There was agreement among the

exchange members that the use of

mobile devices to access sensitive

information raises additional concerns.

Wise noted that they provide

smartphones to employees and the

phones include an application from

MobileIron that secures data.

Bolt’s team has discussed whether

there is something they can do

to help educate employees about

how to protect their own personal

information given the rash of identity

theft. She is looking at whether they

can provide training and information

to employees to assist them in

protecting themselves and the steps to

take if personal information has been

compromised.

employees aren’t working off the clock.

Bolt noted that employees may have

a habit of logging into e-mail from

home during the evening, or finishing

up work at the end of the day after

scheduled hours and not reporting

the time. In addition, supervisors and

managers have to meet salary budgets

while ensuring coverage, and they

could be tempted to let employees

work off the clock.

Burkhart said that his organization

is creating communication

pieces specifically designed for

supervisors and managers. Part

of the communication will be

“acknowledging the stress levels

coming their way” because supervisors

“never had to send someone home

before to avoid overtime.” Some

managers, said Burkhart, will need

moral support, a better understanding

of company policy, and a

communication system they can utilize

if they are running into trouble.

Bolt noted that more and more

employees will be working remotely.

Her organization’s current online

timekeeping system only works

when an employee is at one of the

organization’s facilities, but they

will need to expand computerized

timekeeping to accommodate remote

workers.

Bolt also emphasized training for

managers and supervisors. At her

organization, they developed a series

of videos and conversations to use in


When it comes to data security, “we are only as strong as the weakest employee.”

ELIZABETH BOLTCHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER AND

CHIEF HUMAN RESOURCES OFFICERUNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN HEALTH





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with Kennedy. According to Wyatt, the

360-degree performance discussion

helps avoid direct conflict. He also

asserts that we can’t rely on the

annual performance review. There

must be ongoing conversations,

says Wyatt, and when something

happens, you discuss it immediately

with the employee and then follow

up with a quick e-mail documenting

that the conversation occurred and

the employee’s agreement to correct

behavior as necessary.

Wise added that they implemented

a new corrective action form and

process at their company. Before

a manager or supervisor meets

with an employee, he or she must

complete the corrective action form

that then serves as a talking script

for the meeting with the employee.

In addition, Human Resources has

taken certain terminology away from

supervisors and managers, including

words like insubordination and

harassment.

Wise also suggested that it can be

good training for supervisors and

managers to go to unemployment

hearings. If they have to defend the

decisions they make based on the

available documentation, they may do

better the next time.

Other IssuesAffordable Care Act (ACA).

According to Marcia Williams, vice

president, Human Resources for Chuy’s

Restaurants, compliance with the ACA

has “cost the company.” It has had to

invest in software and staff to comply

with reporting requirements that are

still difficult to understand. There is

also a great deal of uncertainty about

the future of the ACA.

Wise talked about the changes he

has seen in union activity, noting his

organization has approximately 2,500

unionized employees and 5 different

unions. Wise believes there is less of a

need for unions because of new laws

related to minimum wage and leaves.

These are no longer union issues, says

Wise. In addition, at the negotiating

table, Wise is seeing a lack of quality,

educated leadership at the local

chapter level of union organizations.

This, according to Wise, makes

contract negotiations difficult.

Multistate operations and workers’

compensation. Dreher and Hamilton

both lamented the difficulty of

managing workers’ compensation

across multiple states, keeping track

of the various state requirements.

Both work with multiple insurance

providers and in addition to the

processing of claims, are concerned

about the number of claims, especially

what appear to be questionable

claims.

Integration after mergers and

acquisitions. Anderson’s company

has seen a lot of growth in the last

few years due to recent acquisitions.

How Do We Get Managers to Document Employee PerformanceAnother issue exchange members

struggle with is how to get supervisors

and managers to document job

performance discussions with

employees. Williams noted that when

her organization trains supervisors

and managers they focus on being fair

to employees. To be fair, you must tell

them what is expected and give them

honest feedback so they have a chance

to improve.

Kennedy suggested that times

have changed. Supervisors and

managers, said Kennedy, are resistant

to providing feedback, especially

negative feedback. In the current

climate, he said, “everyone has a right

to be offended and the UK workplace

can be incredibly litigious.” In addition,

with social media and other websites,

employees who are unhappy will

occasionally post comments about

the supervisor or manager, making

them even more hesitant to provide

feedback. Kennedy said that the “old

way,” the way the UK workplace

was in the 1960s, was to have a

conversation and tell the employee

“I think you are rubbish.” That won’t

work anymore. Today, said Kennedy,

we need to have ongoing 360-degree

performance discussions and reviews.

Will Wyatt, Human Resource director,

City of Clarksville, Tennessee, agrees






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One of the greatest challenges for

her group is integration of policies,

procedures, and systems. This

includes everything from using

a common system to ensure I-9

compliance, to reconciling differences

in compensation for similar positions,

to implementing a standard applicant

tracking system so they have the

data needed for compliance-related

reporting.

Pay data reporting and the EEO-1.

While exchange members are not

focused on this requirement yet, (the

first report based on 2017 data is

currently due in March 2018), they

are concerned about how they will

comply. According to Anderson,

her department is striving towards

a better understanding of the

requirement to develop a streamlined

process to gather the necessary data

in the format needed to report it to the

government. At this point, Anderson

said, everything is changing so it is

hard to make any solid decisions.





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