Collecting Transgender-Inclusive Gender Data in Workplace and Other Surveys

The New York times recently reported that Californians who don’t identify themselves as male or female will soon be able to get a gender-neutral birth certificate. The new law, S.B. 179, which goes into effect in 2018, "provides nonbinary and intersex people with the ability to request a new birth certificate with a third, nonbinary category."

California is the first state to offer this option.

Photo by Dmitri Popov on Unsplash

For reporting purposes, employers tend to "over-ask" for demographic data such as age, gender and ethnicity. Particularly when asked for something related to work, the question of gender with seemingly simple "female" and "male" options can pose a challenge for transgender people, particularly those that are in the process of or are considering gender transition genders. Some may be concerned about how that data may be used or compared to personal records, or they may feel limited by the "female" or "male" options. When evaluating whether to ask employees about gender on non-essential forms, employers should consider:

• What is the business rationale for asking about gender on the particular form?
• How does asking for the data relate to your organization's overall diversity strategy?
• How will that data be used, protected and reported? What legal restrictions might there be on collection or storage of demographic data, in the U.S. or globally?

If the data is not essential, consider removing the question, make sure the question is clearly optional (particularly for online forms) or allow people to self-identify by asking an open-ended question.

Click here to read more about LGBTQ Employee Self-Identification Programs

How to Support Transgender Employees During their Transition

Transgender Pride Flag

It's 2017, and U.S. courts are still in the process of refining workplace protections for transgender employees.

The tangled web of regulations at the local, state and federal levels can be confounding for employers of any size. This doesn't change the fact that the process of an employee transitioning from one gender to another is a sensitive issue that requires support on multiple levels, including direct managers, and yes, HR departments.

What kind of preparation does it require on the part of the employer for this type of situation?

What is the legal forecast around LGBT workplace issues going forward?

What other legislation should employers keep in mind for compliance?

Read more via a Q&A with Eric B. Meyer, employment lawyer and creator of The Employer Handbook blog.

Article Spotted by: Alison Peters
Article Written by: Ryan Golden
Article Published: May 2017

Top 10 Workplace Trends: #8: Energize Your Workspace

As your talent pool begins to change with an influx of new generations of workers, it’s time to also examine your company’s workspace.  

More and more employees are working remotely and using the company office as a destination to collaborate and meet with fellow employees, rather than staying in an assigned location.  

Employees want flexible furniture, a distraction-free environment, privacy areas, and lounge areas. This decentralization is what employees desire to create a seamless work-life balance.  

By 2020 the average amount of workspace per employee will shrink to 150 square feet down from 400 square feet in 1985. The pervasive presence of technology, social media, generational preferences, globalization, and collaborative thinking are driving the need for multi-faceted office spaces that give employees options on where to work and collaborate.  

Let’s examine some key office space trends that can keep you and your employees moving forward.

Collaborative Workspaces

Some refer to this as the open-office design concept – large open spaces with large workable desks, no cubicles, and multiple people sharing one collaborative area.  Tech leaders like Google, Dropbox, and Apple have found that innovation and productivity is best when employees are working as a group. These open spaces promote a broader sense of community and encourage innovation.

Energizing Ideas – Informal lounge areas, utilize vertical space with whiteboards, encourage spur of the moment thinking by using glass and windows as a place to jot down ideas. Place small lounge chairs and tables near each of these workgroups to allow impromptu group meeting areas.

Privacy Space

Utilizing open collaboration spaces will generate the need for the intricacies and details of work to be taken into smaller more private areas.  These spaces will allow impromptu and confidential meetings to take place in real-time.  These spaces are less formal than conference rooms, and are more readily accessible to all employees.

Energizing Ideas – Create pods with glass enclosures, comfortable furniture, and easy access.  Carry your brand and ideas by naming or theming these spaces with nomenclature of your company, or inspirational thinking.   Design each pod with colors and textures that promote these ideas.

Promote Playfulness

Most people tend to leave their personal nature at home for a more formal representation of themselves.  This has traditionally been perceived as more professional, but this can ultimately smother creativity.  Creativity is at its peak when a high level of comfort is achieved.  Playfulness can break down barriers of shyness, self-consciousness, and bring all personality types onto a level playing field. The goal is to allow employees to recharge their batteries while at work.  Statistically this has shown that employee productivity will increase if they have a chance to break-away occasionally from their daily tasks.  Larger companies have gone as far as installing basketball courts, sand volleyball, and indoor playgrounds, but there are other ways small companies can offer these recharge stations.

Energizing Ideas – Soften your dress code to allow employees to express their comfortable nature. Design an open community area for eating and mingling.  Stock a kitchen and pantry with healthy snacks and beverages.  Dedicate a small space to a pinball machine, video play area, or Ping-Pong table. Create a bar-top area with pub-style stools to encourage sharing of meals, drinks, and laughter.

Embrace Nature

Let’s face it – we would all rather be outside on a beautiful day and not trapped in our office.  In creating an extraordinary workspace, an employee’s satisfaction may be increased by very basic needs like an abundance of natural lighting, landscape and plants. Exposing employees to natural elements can improve efficiency by as much as 12%, due to these elements in the workplace.

Energizing Ideas – Transform exterior walls with floor to ceiling windows.  Use natural accents like mosaics, reclaimed wood and raw materials. Add large trees and live plants throughout the space.  Create space for potted plants at every work area.  Create a “living” green wall.  If possible, transform an exterior area into a small oasis or park that is easily accessed.

Promote Your Achievements

Employees feel inspired and encouraged when they are surrounded with reminders of not only the achievements of their company, but of their own individual or team efforts. Highlighting successful products or achievements throughout the workspace fosters pride and confidence in your employees.  Keeping success stories visual within a workspace will drive innovation, creative thinking, and continued achievement.

Energizing Ideas – Encourage employees to personalize their space with a sense of identity and ownership.  Transform team areas or workspaces to reflect the attitude and playfulness of their group.  Display handcrafted art from your employees or a local children’s school or center.  Offer a craft room where employees can be creative and allow them to display their creations.

Although there is considerable time and money that needs to be invested to make a transformative change, infusing some of these concepts into the human interaction of your employees may quickly payoff with increased productivity, employee happiness, and ultimately profit.

Article Written By: Kirk Herring, HR Options

Images Courtesy Unsplash

Exploring Conflict Hooks with the Help of ‘Frasier’

This month I had the pleasure of leading a workshop with Laura Weiss called “Understanding Conflict Hooks at Work,” at Community Boards, a conflict resolution center in San Francisco. Laura is a skilled strategist, facilitator, and mediator who works with senior leaders and their teams. We had fun!

I can talk theoretically about the power of managing our conflict hooks for hours, but thought a fly-on-the-wall look at an actual workshop would bring it to life for you. There’s also an opportunity for you to play along, so please read on…!

The premise of the entire exercise/workshop is that conflict hooks are your personal hot buttons.“They come from within you, not really from someone else pressing them, though that’s how we generally talk about them (he just presses my buttons). They’re based in your identity, or how you see yourself (and want others to see you) in the world. The idea is that when you perceive a threat of some sort to an important part of your identity, you’re hooked. It may be a real threat. Yet as often as not, it’s a perceived threat…you feel threatened whether or not the other person intended to convey that threat.” (Lenski)

Typically, we give this workshop to teams in the workplace, so participants know each other already. Most people in this group of 16 had never met before so we had to be particularly intentional about the way we set up the room and introduced the workshop, in order to create an atmosphere of comfort and safety needed for an experience diving into self-awareness that can feel vulnerable.

Once we had introduced the concept of conflict hooks and offered an example (more on that later), Laura and I talked about our own hooks - true confessions! Hey, we all have them (probably more than one), and candidly sharing ours felt right as we hoped everyone would open up.

What does ‘conflict hook’ mean?In this group, it was fascinating how 16 people could have 16 varying responses to that question. A common thread, however, was this: it’s about a physical, visceral, nearly out of control reaction when someone pushes our buttons. Some go silent, others get loud! You know when your buttons are being pushed, don’t you?

At this point we introduced an exercise, adapted from the marvelous work by Dr. Stella Ting-Toomey and Dr. Lenski on 6 common ‘hooks’ (identities) people tend to have. Everyone in the group wrote down and then shared their own stories based on which of the 6 core identities they felt described them best. Threats that push our buttons can be real or not. But they’re real to us. And we can feel threatened whether or not the other person intended to convey the threat. And…. we react, sometimes in ways we might regret later. Try out that exercise right here.
I loved watching as, one by one, the group had their aha! moments of realization that these hooks have to do with their identities and self protection mechanisms, not the reality of the threat: I am pushing my own button! Therefore, I have the choice to respond to that perceived threat in any way I decide to. Powerful!

Some Play Time: Identifying Conflict HooksSo, now what? How do we practice this? This was an exciting part of the day because now we have the promise of action, change, and results. We gave them tips on how to notice hooks in their everyday lives, how to detect when their hooks are pulling them in, and ways to make a choice as to how they’re going to respond.

Now it’s your turn to participate, to give you an idea of how the Conflict Hooks Tool works:

1.  First - If you haven’t already, please read: Workplace Conflict: How to Manage Your Hot Buttons. It gives an overview of the 6 core identities and the Resologics exercise.
2.  Now - Here is the example I mentioned earlier. It’s a scene from the sitcom ‘Frasier. Watch it, then answer these questions:

Who was hooked?

• What do you think hooked them?

• Who had which of the 6 core hooks?

3. Finally - As you go about your day, take some time and intention to notice possible hooks -- whether on TV, at work, in the grocery store, or at home with your family.
 

This awareness is a great first step to understanding how conflict hooks can work, and show up in your organization or team. You may also realize how powerful it is to have this self-awareness, as well as sensitivity to what others may be experiencing during your interactions with them (whether or not you intended to push their buttons!).

The action step here is choice. This tool, and a workshop such as this one I’ve shared, show us how in the moment we’re getting ‘hooked’ we can make a choice to respond with intention. Our response can either move a conversation forward constructively, or can precipitate conflict that’s headed for negative outcomes, and unnecessarily.
 
I’ve heard from clients after having given one of these workshops to their teams, and the results are very gratifying. They report how team members understand each other better, can identify when their own conflict hook is happening, and what a reaction by another person might mean.

This understanding has helped create the trust and cooperation that are the hallmark of a strong team. And they do much better with conflict, harnessing its creative, expressive power without turning to destructive, negative confrontations.
 
I welcome your questions and feedback - how did this tool work for you? I’d also like to connect more personally, to talk about what’s going on in your organization and teams, so please, contact me anytime: mark@resologics.com  |  800.465.4141

Spotted by : Alison Peters
Written by : Mark Batson Baril at Resologics
Posted on: May 10, 2017

The Awesome Influence of Women in HR

Whether they’re eliminating traditional performance reviews, improving employee engagement or putting more women in upper management, female HR leaders are making a difference. Meet some of the women influencing HR.

Organizations are transforming how they manage their workforces, and women in C-suite human resources positions are leading the way.

As you read each profile, you’ll see how these women are ending formal annual performance reviews, closing the wage gap, improving gender parity and diversity, and increasing employee engagement, among other initiatives.

It’s also the only leadership role that is predominantly female. Seventy-three percent of HR practitioners at the manager level are female, according to 2015 Bureau of Labor Statistics data, compared against 43 percent in marketing and 27 percent in IT.

Although the numbers dwindle at the highest level of HR, women still hold an employment edge when compared to their male counterparts. CEB, a best practice insight and technology company, analyzed 382 HR executive appointments between 2011 and 2016 and found that 55 percent of these new hires are female. This coincides with separate data from executive search firm Korn Ferry, which found that from a sample of top 1,000 U.S. companies, 55 percent of CHROs are women.

Click here to read more about the awesome influence of women in HR!

Article spotted by Alison Peters

Original article by by Andie Burjek and, Michelle V. Rafter

Originally published January 10 , 2017 on Workforce

What do employees love about work? Professional development tops the list - Yet only 26% of employees surveyed saw adequate opportunity for growth

After all the cards, flowers and chocolates have been consumed and news of engagements spread throughout the office on Valentine's Day, most Americans will return to the reality of their jobs.

But loving one's job is not just about earning a paycheck anymore — we can thank millennials and Generation Z for that. Today, employees are happier and more satisfied in the workplace than ever before.

Employees Love Transparency and Opportunities for Career Growth

The TINYPulse 2017 Employee Engagement Report gathered a million responses from anonymous U.S. employees to determine what they love about their jobs. The results show that organizational culture and the way peers interact are critical success factors. Where there is a lack of professional development and recognition, however, employee happiness and progress suffer. 

The survey found...

Article spotted by Alison Peters
Original article by Tess Taylor 
Originally published February 14, 2017 on HRDive