📓 who does what in HR?

✍🏽 listening & communicating 

✍🏾 How do I navigate a group of employees requesting work-life balance accommodations that typically only work normal hours?

Context: Fashion brand, privately owned, 20 people. We don’t have a formal HR person and oftentimes employees come to me to voice their concerns. Certain roles get WFH 1/week, where others cannot based on their responsibilities. Those without this benefit feel it’s unfair and are requesting to receive extended summer Fridays. I want these employees to feel heard but ultimately the request is not an equal ask. They would ultimately be paid to work less hours where those without WFH would still be working the same amount. Two parts: how can I navigate this with empathy and come up with something that will help them feel trusted and  supported while remaining fair to the greater team? And how do I convince my CEO to be flexible in any possible additional benefits for these employees? (If that even is something to consider)

📣 Rosetta Williams, Sr. Director, People Talent & Culture @ Immigrant Justice Corps:

The key is to communicate transparently, listen actively, and tailor solutions to the unique needs of each role. I would consider the following:

Navigate the Employees’ concerns by:

• Acknowledge and validate concerns. Let them know their feedback is valuable
• Explain the difference in roles and why the flexibility looks different
• If possible, offer equivalent (not identical) benefits: Extended summer Fridays (e.g., rotating half-days; Extra personal day (s) per quarter; Flexible start/end time; Recognition perks (e.g., gift cards, team lunches, wellness stipend)
• Involve the affected staff in the solution, ask them what other ways you can support their work-life balance.

Convince your CEO to be flexible:

• Frame the issue as a Retention and Culture Strategy
• Emphasize Cost-Effective Options
• Use Data or Anecdotes
• Propose a Pilot Program

📣 Melissa Stough, HR Coordinator @ Project Genesis:

This is a tricky situation. I can see why those who are fully in-office may feel like they are getting treated unfairly because they can’t work from home like others. I do also see why extended summer Fridays is an unequal perk. Perhaps an alternative solution to promote work-life balance would be offering different work schedules.

I’m not sure if your employees are salary or hourly or how you track time, so these may not work. I’m also not at all familiar with the fashion industry.

I know some organizations do this every other Friday off work schedule where their employees work 80 hours over 9 days. You could offer it to everyone, and the one catch for those with WFH perks is that during the short week, they have to be in office all week. Alternatively, could you offer alternative schedules? Like have core office hours when people have to work, but the remaining hours can be done as they work with each individual’s schedule or four 10-hour days instead of five 8-hour days.

📣 Kristi Brittle, Assistant Director of HR @ Chesterfield County Government:

We have similar situations with our employees. There are just some positions that are not conducive to WFH, like on-site customer service or any of our trades or public safety positions.

One of the concessions we make as hybrid employees is no more snow days. Someone who does not have the ability to telework gets the day off. If you are authorized to WFH, you still work on adverse weather days. ☹️

I agree with the alternate schedules. Maybe in the summertime, have half of your employees work 10-hour days Mon-Thur, and the other half Tues-Fri. You could even switch mid summer so everyone has the opportunity for Fridays off.

Safe Space members can join this discussion here.

✍🏾 How do you communicate to employees the division of functions in HR operations? We’re adding a new role and would like to take this opportunity to lay out for employees when to contact whom such as coordinator v. generalist v. HRBP v. director.

Context: ~1000 employees, A/E/C industry, employee-owned.

📣 Stephanie Slysz, Director of People & Culture @ Galvanize USA:

I’ve seen some teams use a branded one-pager PDF in their email signatures that outlines HR/Ops responsibilities and who to contact for what. It’s a simple way to keep that info top of mind in every interaction. 

You could also set up a shared inbox or basic HR ticketing system so requests can be assigned easily to the correct person instead of relying on staff to know who to go to. Just be prepared to reroute people a bit at first – it takes time for new processes to stick!

📣 Sirena Dimas, Employee Health & Benefits Consultant @ Marsh McLennan Agency:

People communicate differently and search for resources in different ways.

A one-pager works for some, especially if it is part of an auto-reply from a shared inbox. You could also pin it to a Slack or Teams channel for “general HR,” along with other resources like how to change direct deposit or company holidays.

Your company intranet can also list it. And it’s a good idea to remind people once or twice a year at All Hands.

📣 Andrea Collins, Senior Manager, People Operations @ Caraway Home:

All great points – for me I also find it super helpful to relate the breakdown to the structure of a large department within your org. 

EX: at a SaaS company previously we used the comparison of ‘front end engineering vs back end engineering’ to relate to that department and explain that all ‘back end questions’ should go to our HR generalist (i.e. compliance, payroll, benefits, etc) and all ‘front end questions’ should go to our Employee Experience Manager (i.e. culture, events, onboarding etc). 

This helped connect the dots for a lot of our employees!

Safe Space members can join this discussion here.