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Employees have long been clamoring for more generous paternity leave, and both Netflix and Microsoft have recently heeded that call. Will this trend trickle down to companies like yours?  

Netflix, the video streaming and delivery service provider, made news recently when it announced it would offer an unlimited amount of paid time off for its employees when they become new parents. The policy applies to both new mothers and new fathers.

Chief Talent Officer Tawni Cranz explained the impetus for the policy in a blog post by stating:

“Netflix’s continued success hinges on us competing for and keeping the most talented individuals in their field. Experience shows people perform better at work when they’re not worrying about home.”

Soon after Netflix’s announcement, tech giant Microsoft announced it will also expand its parental leave offerings, albeit not in an unlimited way.

Microsoft’s new leave policy extends paid parental leave to 12 weeks for new mothers and fathers, while mothers can also get an additional eight weeks of paid leave.

Under Microsoft’s previous leave policy, mothers were entitled to 12 weeks of paid and eight weeks of unpaid leave, and fathers could take up to four weeks of paid time off and eight weeks of unpaid leave.

Netflix and Microsoft join the ranks of other major corporations that offer leave policies that greatly exceed the standard amount, such as:

• Facebook (four months of paid leave for both mothers and fathers)
• Google (18 weeks), and
• Apple (mothers get a total of 18 weeks — four weeks before birth and 14 weeks after — and fathers get six weeks).

89% factor leave into job decisions

While average companies probably can’t afford to offer such generous paternity leave, the call for increased leave time is growing — particularly among new dads.

In fact, a recent study of working fathers by the Boston College Center for Work & Family found that:

• 89% said they took paid paternity leave (PPL) into consideration when deciding whether or not to take a job.
• Of those, 60% rated access to paid paternity leave as very/extremely important.
• 99% said employers should offer paid paternity leave, with 74% suggesting that two to four weeks is an appropriate amount.
• Three-quarters of fathers said they’d prefer PPL time flexibility so they wouldn’t have to use it all right after the baby was born; most see it as part of the life-work balance they seek when selecting an employer.

If you still think of Facebook and Twitter as purely the domain of humble brags and dinner photos, it’s time to rethink your strategy. Here are five ways HR can improve its talent acquisition process through social media, courtesy of guest poster Anand Deshpande.  

Here’s a rundown of Deshpande’s overall strategy:

Target your search

More than 2.55 billion people will use social networking by the year 2017, according to some reports. Abut while a recruiter’s aim may be to cast a bigger net through social media, there is a point of diminishing returns. Failure to target your search can be a drain on time and resources. Instead, aim your social media efforts directly at the best candidates. While large social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook may put you in touch with massive pools of candidates, industry-specific websites, blogs, and forums deliver a relevant, captive audience.

Use a multi-channel approach

While targeting your audience through social media is important, refrain from limiting or restricting the channels through which you reach out. Research shows that the average job seeker uses a whopping 15 sources during a single job hunt. Recruiters who engage candidates across the comprehensive spectrum of touchpoints can expect more comprehensive results.

Use what you’ve got

Your employees are your strongest assets. Failure to leverage their social network connections for job applicants can result in missed opportunities. Internal recommendations can help you locate employees who will not only possess the right skills, but are also more likely to be a solid fit for your company culture. Encouraging your employees to post about job openings on their own pages simultaneously widens and narrows your reach.

Follow the Golden Rule

Today’s job applicants not only have access to more information — they also have louder voices than ever before. Employees who have a bad experience during the job hunt are likely to share this information via social media. It’s particularly important, therefore, for recruiters to keep the applicant experience in mind at all times. This means a commitment to transparency, communication and follow-through along every step of the recruitment process.

Build your brand

Your social media strategies are an essential part of selling your brand to both active and passive job seekers — particularly at a time when 77% of all full-time workers are open to new job opportunities. Social media isn’t just useful for getting your job openings in front of candidates; it’s also useful for positioning your company as a sought after employer. Ultimately, you’re not just building your brand; you’re also building relationships.

And remember: just as you’re vetting candidates via social media, they’re also vetting you. An uneven, poor, or absent social media presence can remove you from the running. Consistent, comprehensive and compelling communication is more important than ever in the brave new world of social media recruiting.

Anand Deshpande is customer success manager with WittyParrot, a cloud-based SaaS company focused on communication and content collaboration with analytics among sales, marketing and customer support functions.

New research from the IBM Smarter Workforce Institute reveals insights into high potential employees, including what attracts them and how they differ from other employees in terms of employee engagement, job satisfaction, innovation and collaboration. This analysis presents evidence the potential value of moving away from traditional HR practices and moving towards a high potential, workforce science approach.

Click here to learn more!  

Finding the right HR software for your organization is essential to implementing and executing a transition from the old to the new. Many software companies have focused on developing integrated suites that allow HR departments to track an employee’s entire life cycle within an organization. But there are so many HR software systems available today, how do you find the one that’s right for your organization? Software Advice’s team of unbiased experts has reviewed 125 HR software systems and they’re ready to help you narrow down your choices so you can find the vendor that will give you the best pricing on systems that match your needs.

Click here to learn more!  

If your company is tracking employee information and processing payments manually, payroll solutions could save you time, money and a lot of headaches by mitigating compliance risks. There are many payroll solutions available to streamline the task, but determining which solution is best for you can be overwhelming. Software Advice’s team of independent experts have reviewed 30 payroll software systems and are ready to provide you with reviews and price quotes from the vendors that best meet your needs.

Click here to learn more!  

Workplace bullies have always been on the scene. But they’re now being recognized as productivity killers and potential legal threats to employers.

Some researchers claim one in every three employees will experience bullying at work. And the experts say bullying costs businesses more than $200 billion a year due to decreased productivity, increased absenteeism and high turnover.

A partial rundown of the corrosive effects of workplace bullying:

• reduced productivity, efficiency and profitability
• higher absenteeism, sick time and employee turnover
• decreased morale and loyalty
• increased costs due to recruitment and retraining
• increased workers’ comp claims
• indirect costs though time spent dealing with bullying situations
• negative effects on the company’s image
• potential fines for not abiding by occupational health and safety laws
• legal costs from employees who bring lawsuits, and
• potential increases to insurance and workers’ comp premiums.

Bullying isn’t automatically illegal. However, behaviors commonly associated with bullying often overlap with other behaviors that are illegal, such as harassment or bias.

The 8 most common bully personalities

Anton Hout, founder of OvercomeBullying.org, identifies these eight bully types:

1. The Screaming Mimi. This is the most easily recognizable type of workplace bully. Screaming Mimis are loud and obnoxious, and their abusive behavior is meant to berate and humiliate people. They thrive on the notion that others fear them.

2. The Two-Headed Snake. To a co-worker’s face, this employee acts like a trusted friend or colleague. However, when the co-worker is out of earshot, this person will destroy his colleague’s reputation, stab him in the back and even take credit for his work.

3. The Constant Critic. This bully’s goal is to dismantle other people’s confidence through constant – and often unwarranted – criticism. A critic will look for any possible flaw in someone’s work and labors tirelessly to kill that person’s credibility. Impeccable work? No problem: This type of bully isn’t above falsifying documents or creating evidence to make others look bad.

4. The Gatekeeper. Every office has at least one employee who gets off on wielding his or her power over others – regardless of whether that power is real or perceived. Gatekeepers deny people the tools they need – whether it’s resources, time or information – to do their jobs efficiently.

5. The Attention Seeker. This type of bully wants to be the center of the action at all times. They’ll try to get on their superior’s good side through consistent flattery and even come on as kind and helpful to their peers – especially the newer employees. However, if co-workers don’t provide the right amount of attention, these bullies can quickly turn on them.

Attention seekers are often overly dramatic and relate everything to something that’s going wrong in their own lives to garner sympathy and control. These bullies also have a tendency to coax personal info out of new employees – only to use it against them later.

6. The Wannabe. This is an employee who sees himself or herself as absolutely indispensable and expects recognition for everything. But Wannabes aren’t usually very good at their jobs. To compensate, these bullies spend a majority of their time watching more competent workers and looking for areas of skilled workers’ performance to complain about.

Wannabes will demand that everything is done their way – even when there are better ways of doing things. Because they’re automatically opposed to others’ ideas, they’ll do everything in their power to prevent changes to their work processes.

7. The Guru. Generally, there’s nothing wrong with this bully’s work performance. In fact, it’s not unusual for a Guru to be considered an expert in his or her own niche area. What these bullies offer in technical skill, however, they severely lack in emotional maturity.

Gurus see themselves as being superior to their co-workers. As a result, they don’t consider how their actions will affect others, aren’t able to fathom the possibility that they can be wrong and don’t accept responsibility for their own actions. In addition, because these bullies feel as though they’re “above it all,” they don’t always feel compelled to follow the same rules as everybody else.

8. The Sociopath. Intelligent, well-spoken, charming and charismatic, sociopaths are the most destructive bullies of all. Reason: They have absolutely no empathy for others, yet they are experts at manipulating the emotions of others in order to get what they want.

These bullies often rise to positions of power within the company, which makes them extremely dangerous. Sociopaths tend to surround themselves with a circle of lackeys who are willing to do their dirty work in exchange for moving up the ranks with them.

5 policy keys

The best defense a company can have against workplace bullying is a clearly worded policy that prohibits any type of bullying behavior.

Here are some components every good anti-bullying policy should include:

• a clear definition of what is considered bullying – along with a list of some of the actual behaviors that meet the definition
• an outline of how employees can report bullying, including guidance on what to do when the bully is the manager
• a detailed explanation of the complaint and investigation process that will take place
• a “no retaliation” clause to help employees feel safe about reporting problem behavior, and
• a list of consequences of violating the anti-bullying rules.

This is an update to the original article, which ran on 4/4/13.

What’s the biggest threat to retaining talented employees? We have the answer. 

It is this: How much it would cost them to stay loyal to your company.

Generally, employees get a raise of in the neighborhood of 10% to 20% when they switching jobs.

Compare that to the average 3% raise employees will earn this year for staying with their present employers and you begin to see just why people are so eager to jump ship.

Top talent most susceptible

Of course, not all workers can leave and get a 10% pay bump, but you can bet your best employees can.

Plus, recent pay freezes — followed by the economy’s shaky recovery — have made employees want to take every advantage of the earning power they have while they still have it.

New buzzword: Inboarding

So what’s an employer to do?

Enter the latest strategy in boosting retention: inboarding.

Yes, it’s another fancy buzzword for you to remember, but this one has some legs, says business management consultants David Sturt and Todd Nordstrom of the O.C. Tanner Institute, an employee rewards firm.

Inboarding is the act of creating growth opportunities for your existing employees, and Sturt and Nordstrom recently wrote on Forbes.com about some of the best ways companies use it to stave off turnover.

Here they are:

Hiring from within

A lot of companies feel they foster growth by promoting top employees. But you can take things so much further than that.

Example: Set up a system in which employees can express their interests in other areas of the company.

Then, when an opening pops up in one of those areas, the system flags the employee as a possible candidate.

Several cutting edge companies (Google, among them) have already adopted similar practices.

Breaking down silos

Create projects that break down departmental walls, and invite talented employees to lead them.

This gets them outside the confines of their usual roles and makes them feel they’re growing.

Showing their impact

Employees become a lot more passionate about their work (17 times more passionate, according to O.C. Tanner research) when they can see the impact it has on others.

When was the last time you arranged for your behind-the-scenes superstars to speak directly to your customers?

Rubbing elbows

The more connected an employee is to the people around him or her, the harder it is for the person to leave.

That’s why it’s so important to create ways to build camaraderie between co-workers, as well as between managers and subordinates.

It sounds simple, but it’s true: The more employees rub elbows with each other and upper management, the more attached they’ll get to your company.

Plus, the relationships forged can lead to growth opportunities within the organization.

Stopping to appreciate good work

Sturt and Nordstrom have built careers around employee recognition, so they’re obviously big believers in it.

But they offer up a very compelling stat to back up their beliefs: 79% of nearly 100,000 managers and employees said in a poll they’ve quit jobs because they felt unappreciated.

So it’s crucial to make sure those in leadership roles recognize their staffers’ great work.

Cite: “The ‘Inboarding’ Revolution: Do Employees Get More To Leave Their Job?” by David Sturt and Todd Nordstrom, Forbes, 8/8/14.

Testifying before Congress, a former DOL administrator, and an architect of the last changes to the FLSA’s overtime rules, shot holes in the federal agency’s proposal to more than double the minimum salary workers need to be paid to be considered exempt. 

On behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Tammy McCutchen testified before the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections to express her concerns about the DOL’s proposed revisions to the “white-collar” overtime exemption rules.

If you’ve followed this issue on HR Morning, you probably recognize her name. McCutchen is a former DOL administrator-turned-attorney who now works for the firm Littler Mendelson P.C. She not only helped devise the previous revisions to the FLSA’s overtime rules, she sat in on a number of “listening sessions” with current DOL Secretary Thomas Perez when the DOL was still formulating the latest batch of proposed rule changes.

She hasn’t been shy about expressing her thoughts on the rulemaking process, her predictions for the rules and — now — her displeasure over what was introduced.

A transcript of McCutchen’s testimony can be found here.

Changes ‘unprecedented,’ ‘unsupported’

Some of McCutchen’s biggest concerns about the DOL’s proposal:

• The new threshold abandons the original intent. McCutchen said that the threshold was meant to serve as a method of “screening out the obviously non-exempt employees.” But setting it so high — to $50,440 — “expands the number of employees eligible for overtime beyond what Congress envisioned when it created the exemptions.”
• It’ll have a disproportionate impact on states with a lower cost of living. McCutchen pointed out that the proposed salary threshold would far exceed the threshold established in high-cost-of-living states like California ($37,440) and New York ($34,124).
• The DOL’s methodology is “unprecedented.” McCutchen pointed out that in its rulemaking in 1958, the DOL based the minimum salary level for exemption on the 10th percentile of average employee wages. In 2004, the DOL based it on the 20th percentile to account for changes in the “duties tests” made in 2004. She then said if the 2004 methodology were used today the threshold would be $30,000 annually. Instead, the DOL has chosen to use the 40th percentile. This, she said, is an “unprecedented,” “unsupported” leap.