Tag: workplace

6 Ways Every Boss Can Bring Diversity to the Workplace

Posted on by robbie

As tech companies continue to receive heat over their lack of inclusivity of women and people of color, more studies are showing that there is a measurable benefit to focusing on diversity in the workplace.
Through a mix of civic action on tax reform, altering hiring practices and recognizing religious differences, here are six examples of how to push for more inclusivity in your own workplace.

1. Attract More Women With Different Incentives

When Netflix announced a revision to its parental leave policy to include a minimum of three months’ full pay for hourly employees and up to 12 months for salaried workers, the internet was abuzz with how much progress American companies were making when it came to the new moms in their ranks.
But Netflix is an exception to standard policy. Currently, federal law only requires large and medium-sized companies to provide 16 weeks of parental leave, all unpaid. And there is even less support for working mothers, as federal subsidies for childcare are at a 12-year low.  
To improve the landscape for working women, look to Canada. After our northern neighbors altered their tax system in the 1980s and ’90s to allow for childcare subsidies and mandatory paid maternity leave, more women joined the workforce. Today, there are about 8 percent more women working in Canada than in the U.S.

2. Embrace Global Workers — And Their Customs

All companies want to grow their business and increase their bottom line. One way to do that: Sponsor international workers.
Yet when it comes to bringing in new people from across the globe, most industries rely on old hiring tactics, using generic language in job listings or posting to job sites that aren’t used in other countries.
“There has been an idea for some time that you could standardize the [human resources] function globally,” said a 2012 report from KPMG International. “Many markets today, though, are so distinct that [HR] needs to focus on understanding local needs.”
In the same study, leaders from multiple companies found that international workers were essential to their business. For those pushing to hire people from other countries, the process was found to be the most successful when HR departments accommodated the worker’s local customs and culture.

3. Include More Holidays on the Company Calendar

New York is one of only a handful of cities that observe holy days of multiple religions. In 2015, the city’s school system added two Muslim holidays to its number of days off and have also designated times during which students of certain Christian denominations can leave school one hour early for religious study.
For businesses that want to do the same, the website Diversity Best Practices has a full list of religious and cultural holidays, including the Indian feast holiday Makar Sankranti (Jan. 14) and Native American Citizenship Day (June 15). Some companies have taken up the trend; UPS, for example, recognizes a number of cultural holidays such as Passover and the Chinese New Year.
“The key … is to make sure no one feels excluded or forced to participate in workplace festivities,” according to a post by the Society for Human Resource Management.

4. Use Technology as a Guard Against Implicit Bias

Despite a hiring manager’s best efforts to avoid discrimination in interviews, it’s completely natural to have biases — and it’s even harder to recognize them. To best diversify a workforce, it’s crucial to take a look at the technology that’s being used to communicate with potential hires, from how the job is posted to the method used to extend an offer of employment.
When the social media developer Buffer changed job descriptions from “hackers” to “developers,” they found women applied to the jobs more often. “It was eye-opening for us to realize the ways we had perhaps been implicitly biased without realizing it,” wrote one employee for the company’s blog.
Companies can utilize software that analyzes internal emails, documents and job postings in real time to avoid bias. Joonko, for example, “can identify events of conscious and unconscious bias,” says cofounder Ilit Raz. “The point isn’t just to hire more diverse people, but the right people for your company.”
Gapjumpers and Blendoor are two companies whose software removes a candidate’s name and any data not relevant to the job descriptions so managers can base hiring decisions solely on merit. The Google Chrome extension Unbias also blurs out LinkedIn images and names to reduce unconscious bias. Think of it as hiring à la “The Voice,” where judges hear singers before they see them.

5. Dish Out Diversity in Lunchrooms

Outside of benefiting a business’s bottom line, having a diverse work environment also introduces other people to cultures they might not otherwise interact with.
Communities are better strengthened when the people in them socialize with one another, says Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam. As the Houston Chronicle put it, “When a variety of viewpoints are thrown into the problem-solving mix, new and innovative solutions can be reached.”
Encouraging social diversity can be as easy as mixing up the menu. In Australia, for example, companies are encouraged to participate in A Taste of Harmony, a program that introduces employees to new cultures through food. And if you have a fairly diverse workforce already, try organizing a potluck where staffers bring in their favorite cultural dish to share.

6. Enlist Outside Expert Help

More companies are starting to beef up diversity by hiring outside help, such as diversity consultants, to oversee their company strategy.
Organizations like Paradigm and Project Include, cofounded by former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao and other high-profile female techies, help startups analyze their company’s needs, and then hire and retain diverse talent.
“We convened as a group of tech women to strategize and try to move diversity forward by having hard conversations and redirecting efforts,” reads Project Include’s manifesto. “We want to provide our perspectives, recommendations, materials, and tools to help CEOs and their teams build meaningful inclusion. We know how hard change is from our own experiences.”

When It Comes to Offering Support, Moms Knows Best

Posted on by robbie

Ever try sitting through a business meeting about to retch with morning sickness?

While raising a child is tremendously rewarding, doing so often requires enormous professional sacrifice on the part of moms. Mothers & More, a national network of 3,000 moms united across 60 local chapters and virtual communities, has been connecting mothers to share friendship, parenting advice and support when leaving or reentering their jobs. The group is centered around three tenets: that the work mothers do — paid or not — has real value, that mothers should be able to fulfill their responsibilities as caregivers without social or economic penalties and that each mom should be able to choose how she wishes to combine employment and parenting for herself.

“We are mothers who spent a number of years in the paid workforce, [and] intend to return to the paid workforce sooner or later, but in the meantime are taking time out for our young children,” founder Joanne Brundage said in an early letter about the group. “We share many of the same difficulties making this transition: a loss of identity, self-esteem, direction and structure; envy and/or condescension from family, friends and former coworkers; redefining our roles in our familial and marital relationships and relinquishing the security and pleasures of financial autonomy.”

Brundage, a letter carrier in Elmhurst, Ill., founded the organization in 1987, shortly after the birth of her second child. Feeling lonely and nostalgic for the “purpose, camaraderie and self-sufficiency” of her old job, she reached out to other moms through an ad in the local paper. A week later, four ladies gathered in Brundage’s home, and from that initial meet-up, the parenting organization was born, as Jocelyn Elise Crowley, a professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey, recounts in the book “Mothers Unite!” The group initially called themselves F.E.M.A.L.E.S., which stood for “Formerly Employed Mothers at Loose Ends,” but eventually it changed the name to Mothers & More to be inclusive of both stay-at-home and working moms.

Mothers & More experienced a rapid expansion during the latter half of the 20th century, as the American workplace received an influx of working mothers pursuing careers. In 1960, only 27.6 percent of married women with children held paying jobs. By 1980, that amount doubled, and most recently, in 2012, it reached 65.2 percent. With men’s wages falling, women entering the labor market was often an economic necessity, but it also provided them with meaning outside of their children.

“What hasn’t changed, unfortunately, is the workplace,” Brundage tells USA Today. “Society is asking all mothers to do it all and do it better and better and they have their hands tied behind their backs.”

Unlike the National Organization for Women or Moms Rising, which advocate directly for political change, you won’t find often Mothers & More penning many op-eds, descending on Washington or arguing before the Supreme Court. With some exceptions, they prefer to tackle the problem with a softer tone and local action: just moms helping moms, sharing the lessons they’ve learned through pregnancy and childrearing.

Their activities center on group discussions and recreational nights out. Some chapters sponsor preschool fairs to help moms find the right fit for early education, and recently, the national group has been hosting conferences online. An expo last month featured virtual keynotes on setting up flexible work models, balancing personal fulfillment with family demands and managing kids’ use of technology, plus demos on cooking, fitness and meditation — all info that moms could access on their own schedule.

“As a first-time mom, I think it can be isolating,” says Jill Gaikowski, the group’s executive director. “We’re a mom’s organization that not only focuses on the mom, but also the woman and the individual and I think that’s really important as a first-time mom to find that community and support.”

4 Takeaways from the Summit on Working Families

Posted on by robbie

During the Summit on Working Families on Monday, First Lady Michelle Obama recalled once bringing her youngest daughter to a job interview.
“Who I was at that time was a breastfeeding mother of a four-month-old, I didn’t have a babysitter, so I took Sasha to the interview with me,” she said. “And I thought, ‘Look, this is — this is who I am; I got a husband who’s away; I got two little babies, they are my priority. If you want me to do the job, you gotta pay me to do the job, and you’ve gotta give me flexibility.”
Echoing the struggle many Americans face in striking a balance between work and home life, the First Lady  joined her husband President Barack Obama, the White House, the Department of Labor, and the Center for American Progress in hosting a day-long discussion directed at creating better workplace policies for parents.
Business leaders (including CEOs from Johnson & Johnson and Goldman Sachs), lawmakers, working families, and White House officials participated in the all-day summit, as well as Vice President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden.
At Monday afternoon’s remarks, Obama announced a presidential memorandum requiring federal agencies to provide employees more flexibility to take time off to take care of ill family members, to nurse, or to be able to work from home without suffering repercussions. Though the president did not offer up a plan requiring paid leave, he outlined four major themes that could help create a better life for American workers.
Flexible workplaces
The White House argues that more flexible schedules lead to happier employees, boosts productivity, and reduces turnaround rates, as Bloomberg Businessweek points out.  As a part of the president’s executive order, federal agencies are required to review their policies on flexibilities as a part of the Office of Personnel Management’s plan to create a Workplace Flexibility Index, which will be updated annually to measure success, according to a White House fact sheet.
Obama also urged lawmakers to pass the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which would require employers to accommodate pregnant women with flexibility that would allow them to keep their jobs.
Mad Men actress Christina Hendricks also spoke, illustrating the point that U.S. workplace policies were outdated. Using her character on the AMC series, a single mom and professional, Hendricks said, “In the 21st century the only place for a story like Joan’s should be on TV.”

Paid family leave 

Obama also pointed out that the U.S. is the only developed country without mandated paid maternity leave. Women now comprise half the American workforce while men are increasingly playing the role of caregivers more than ever before.
“Many women can’t even get a paid day off to give birth,” Obama said. “That’s a pretty low bar.”

Obama also urged Congress to pass the FAMILY Act, which would annually provide up to 12 weeks of paid leave to qualifying workers for personal illness, to take care of a sick family member, or for the birth or adoption of a child. While current federal policy allows up to three months of unpaid leave for newborns or sick family members for some employees, the law only covers about 60 percent of the American labor force—leaving almost half of all workers without the ability take leave sans a paycheck, the president argues.

Child Care

Child care was also mentioned at the summit. As a part of his initiative for better work policies, Obama will ask Labor Secretary Thomas Perez to set aside $25 million towards childcare for employees who want to attend job-training programs. Today, more than 60 percent of families with children live in a dual-income household, compared to only 40 percent of households with two working parents in 1965, according to U.S Council of Economic Advisors report.

“One study shows that nearly half of all parents, women and men, report that they’ve said no to a job, not because they didn’t want it, but because it would be too hard on their families,” Obama said. “When that many talented, hard-working people are forced to choose between work and family, something’s wrong. Other countries are making it easier for people to have both. We should too, if we want American businesses to compete and win in the global economy.”

Equal pay and raising the minimum wage

The president also emphasized pay equality and increasing the minimum wage as part of setting a 21st century workplace agenda. While females are more likely to work in low-wage and minimum-wage jobs than men, more than 40 percent of mothers are their family’s primary breadwinner yet they earn just 77 cents to every dollar, on average, compared to their male counterparts, according to White House economic advisers.

The President argued that by limiting the female labor force the U.S. is hindering its global edge. The U.S. ranks 17th in female labor participation among the world’s richest countries, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. Back in 1990, the U.S. placed sixth.

These four narratives underscored a greater message from the White House: supporting families through better workplace policies is not just a women’s issue.
“At a time when women are nearly half of our workforce,” Obama said, “anything that makes life harder for women, makes life harder for families, and makes life harder for children. There’s no such thing as a women’s issue; this is a family issue. This is an American issue.”