Bi-Weekly Roundup: 2/23 - 3/9

In this Bi-Weekly Roundup, we uncovered articles surrounding cultural practices that cultivate gender diversity and equality, rewarding employees with lottery-style incentives instead of bonuses, and six ways to improve motivation in the office.

What are you waiting for? Give it a read!

Companies are adopting cultural practice to help advance women in the workplace

Accenture released its findings on International Women’s Day, which included 40 factors that are statistically shown to influence women’s advancement at work. Of the 40 factors, there are 14 cultural drivers that are likely to affect workplace change. In organizations where these factors are most common, everyone tends to benefit. While workplace culture cannot be quantified, it is possible to measure the factors that could contribute to a diverse and equitable environment. Some of the cultural drivers that were identified for making a positive change in the workplace include; making gender diversity a management priority, identifying and outlining gender pay-gap goals and ambitions, creating a women's network that is open to men, and even encouraging men to take paternity leave.

Read about more cultural drivers here.

5 trends reshaping HR

Many factors put pressure on HR leaders to create workplaces where employees can thrive, but some recent trends are reshaping their work. Here are five examples:

1. Soon more companies will opt to be transparent when it comes to disclosing human capital details.
   
2. The gig economy is rapidly growing, meaning your employees might soon choose to work for themselves, so expect to see a rise in innovative work-life integrations and time-off programs.
   
3. In months or years ahead there will be a redefinition of what it means to lead vs. manage vs. supervise because often mid-management is usually responsible for everything, but that model doesn’t work well.
   
4. There will be a rise in HR tools consolidation that will allow HR leaders to easily filter, and select the best choices of employee benefits and rewards for their organization’s HR strategy.
   
5. The CFO will take on a new skill, job leveling. This will help companies better manage labor costs and direct people-related programs to the appropriate level.

By adopting a proactive approach, HR leaders can get ahead of the curve to help create a culture that attracts top talent.

To study up on these treads, check out this article.

Why "one-and-done" training doesn't work

The need to train has become a huge necessity as talent gaps grow larger. New technologies that promise a more productive worker, often adds to the problem at hand; workers don’t have the time to learn to use it. Training is crucial for upskilling employees and bringing newcomers up to speed, but for many, training just isn't being offered. In the State of Workplace Training Study, Axonify found that nearly one-third of employees did not receive any form of formal training in 2016. Of the two-thirds that did receive formal training, 43 percent found it to be ineffective. While employers may be looking for measurable outcomes, one-and-done training just doesn’t produce results. So what do employees want? Over 90 percent want training that is easy to complete and understand, personalized, relevant, engaging, and fun. Rather than one-and-done training, consider spacing out learning or providing employees opportunities to build on the skills or knowledge they’ve just learned from training.

Employees want more than just personalized training, see what else they want here.

United Airlines is considering swapping employee bonuses for a lottery-style drawing

While many companies are adding on innovative benefits to attract and secure talent, United Airlines may be taking a different approach. The company is eyeing a plan to replace quarterly performance bonuses for a lottery-style drawing with prizes like cash, cars, and vacations. While the program aimed to “build excitement and a sense of accomplishment”, excitement was not the first response of many employees. The announcement of the program was met with a “firestorm” among them. For now, United Airlines has decided to press the pause button on the plan. It’s hard to wrap your head around the idea of individual accomplishments with the random distribution of incentives.

If you worked at United Airlines, would you be in favor of the lottery-style plan? Read more here.

6 ways to improve motivation and focus through in the workplace

Employees who feel healthy and have a great work-life balance perform better. They also have effects on everyone in the office and have a vital role in strengthening company culture. Workplace health and wellness can take many forms, from policies to additional resources, initiatives, and even activities. So how do you embed wellness into everyday routine? To start, having managers openly communicate with their employees can help them overcome hurdles or fears and improve overall well-being. You could also reduce noise and stress for the employees who might need some peace and quiet by dedicating a room for silent work. Even encouraging employees to take mental health days when they need could greatly improve individual performance.

Check out the other ways to improve workplace wellness here.

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