Horizon Point Consulting

Author: Lorrie Coffey

  • What is Your Organization’s Employee Value Proposition?

    What is Your Organization’s Employee Value Proposition?

    Last week I joined Mary Ila at the AARC Annual Conference and had the opportunity to speak to leaders about recruiting and retaining talent in today’s workforce. Recruiting has changed drastically over the last few decades, from candidates having to convince an organization why they’re the best person for the job, to organizations having to convince candidates why they’re the best company to work for. Candidates today aren’t just interested in the money, but are looking at the employer’s overall Employee Value Proposition (EVP) or what the company can offer them that makes them an employer of choice. 

    An EVP are the unique benefits, values, and culture that the organization offers the employee in exchange for their performance and loyalty. There are six characteristics that organizations need to evaluate their EVP and assess where changes need to be made. 

    1. Compensation: While compensation is not the lone factor in a candidate’s decision to accept an offer, it is an important factor. You need to determine if your organization is going to lag, match, or lead the market. And sometimes this depends on the industry you’re in and why someone would work for your organization. For example, non-profits generally lag the market and pay around the 25th percentile, however, most individuals who work for non-profits know this and aren’t opting to work for a non-profit for the pay, but for the purpose. In addition to salary, what other compensation benefits do you offer? Are there opportunities for commissions or bonuses? How much does the company contribute towards benefits? 
    2. Benefits:  In addition to looking at what your organization contributes toward benefits, it’s also important to evaluate what benefits you offer? In order to attract talent in today’s workplace, you need to go beyond the basics. Are you offering tuition reimbursement, flexible spending accounts that help with childcare costs, employee assistance plans, and robust leave accruals? What about more unique benefits that set you apart? For example, I had a client that had a car detail company come in once a month and employees could get their cars washed and detailed while they worked. It was at the employee cost, but the detailer service gave them a discount, and just the convenience of it was a benefit to the employees. 
    3. Mission, Vision, Values: One of the primary factors that a candidate considers is the mission, vision, and values of the organization and how that aligns with their own mission and vision. A study conducted by Glassdoor showed that 77% of candidates consider a company’s mission, vision, and values before applying to a position. Does your organization have clearly defined mission, vision, and values? And how do you ensure they are communicated to individuals who are interested in working for your company?
    4. Culture: Having well defined mission, vision, and values is only the first step. Are you living them? Are you training employees on what your mission, vision, and values are and holding them accountable to them? Do your leaders model behaviors that exemplify your values? What is it about your company culture that is unique?
    5. Environment: When evaluating your work environment, there are two dimensions you need to consider – first is the physical environment. What is the physical environment that the candidate would be working in and what are the benefits to that physical environment? Are they able to work remote or hybrid, is the worksite location in a great area that offers amenities such as restaurants, shopping, etc.? If the candidate will be traveling to different worksites, what does the organization offer in the way of convenience and safety, such as a company car? The second is the mental environment. Does the organization support the mental health of its employees? Does the organization offer a psychologically safe workplace where employees are free to raise concerns, ideas, admit mistakes, etc. without fear of reprimand or retaliation? 
    6. Opportunity: How does your organization support employees professional development? Are there opportunities to attend training, conferences, earn certifications, or share their knowledge with others? Do you promote from within when possible and give employees opportunities for advancement? Do you allow employees to cross-train in other areas of the organization? And do you have conversations with your employees on what they want out of their career, where they want to be in three to five years and how you can help them get there? 

    Understanding your EVP and communicating it to candidates and employees can help ensure that you attract and retain top talent. If your organization has not evaluated its EVP, here is a worksheet to get you started. 

  • Make the Most of your Training Dollars

    Make the Most of your Training Dollars

    I often talk to smaller employers who just don’t have the funds to allocate to professional development. They want to grow their people, but just can’t scrape the pennies together to pay for it. The good news is that professional development doesn’t have to be expensive, in fact it can be free. And we all like free! 

    Last week Jillian talked about why employers should invest in professional development for their people. As she mentioned, research shows that spending money on professional development for your employees leads to more money for your company. But what can you do if your available funds for such training is limited? 

    1. Utilize your current staff to provide training. Whether you realize it or not, you have a wealth of knowledge in your organization and some employees would love the opportunity to share their expertise with others. A couple great ways to provide free or low-cost training is to plan lunch and learns where your current staff train their colleagues on what they do. That training may even be just spending 45 minutes to an hour explaining what they really do in their position or what their department does and how it contributes to the organization as a whole. Another great opportunity that can benefit any organization is cross-training. Give employees the opportunity to step into another department and learn how to work in that department. Cross-training not only gives employees the opportunity to learn more about the business and other departments, it can also assist employers in creating a succession plan. 
    2. Find free resources. There are a number of organizations that will come in and provide free training to your staff. Last week I worked with Cindy Smith at Edward Jones to present a free financial budgeting workshop to employees at a client. The client works in the healthcare industry and not only did the training benefit the employees; it was information that they are now able to use to help their clients. 
    3. Start a book club. Books are a low-cost way to provide training and professional development to your staff. At Horizon Point we read a lot! We share book recommendations and each year we select a book of the year to share with our clients. Some of our clients have then taken that book and shared it with their staff or asked us to provide training on the topics covered in the books. Select a book that speaks to your organization and meet weekly or monthly to discuss what was learned from the reading. Make attendance voluntary and hold the book club meeting during working hours. 
    4. Don’t waste conferences. If you send an employee to a conference, be sure to have them come back and share the knowledge they gained. Too often organizations spend the resources to send one or two employees to a conference and then don’t follow up once they return. Get the biggest bang for your buck! Plan the time for them to debrief with their team mates or lead a lunch and learn to share their conference takeaways. Also encourage them to bring back any resources or materials available at the conference to share with other staff. 
    5. Be thrifty. Anyone who knows me knows that I love saving money (and thrift shopping!). When you’re sending staff to conferences, be careful with how you spend your money. At Horizon Point we start discussing what conferences we want to attend a year in advance. We discuss the benefits of each and together determine which we will attend. By doing that we are able to catch early bird rates and often save $150-300 or more on registrations. If more than one of us will be attending, we try to carpool and we always look to see if renting an Airbnb will be cheaper than separate hotel rooms. Also make sure that your expense policy covers what is reimbursable and how much will be covered. Set a daily dollar limit on meals and if meals are provided at the conference, do not reimburse employees who opt to purchase meals outside of the conference. Another great way to save on conference costs is to submit to speak. Most conferences give speakers a free registration. 

    Organizations can never provide too many opportunities for professional development, so even if your organization has the ability and budget to provide professional development opportunities, the programs mentioned above can only enhance your current offerings. 

  • What To Know About Shopping For an HRM

    What To Know About Shopping For an HRM

    What To Know About Shopping For an HRM

    Over the past few years Horizon Point has helped multiple clients vet and implement a Human Resources Management System. Each client had very different wants and needs, and each implementation was unique. So what do companies need to know about vetting an HRM?

    1)      Understand what an HRM can offer your organization. Not every HRM system is created equally. Some systems are all-or-nothing, meaning that you cannot customize the functions you want or need, you pay for full functionality whether you use it all or not. Many vendors offer systems that are modular, meaning that you can pick and choose which functions you want built into your system and you pay based on the modules you select. HRMs have some or all of the functions below:

    a.       Data storage
    b.      Payroll
    c.       Timekeeping
    d.      Benefits administration
    e.       Applicant Tracking
    f.        Onboarding and offboarding
    g.       Performance Management
    h.      Compensation
    i.        Training
    j.        Asset Management
    k.       Employee Self-Service

    2)      Understand what you need from an HRM. Just because an HRM offers a vast array of functions doesn’t mean that your organization needs them all. Many organizations already have systems in place to manage some functions, such as payroll, timekeeping, or applicant tracking. In order to determine if these functions should be moved to a new system, you have to consider factors such as cost to convert the processes over, if the data can be imported from the old system to the new or will it have to be manually entered, or if the new HRM can work with the current systems you have in place.

    3)      Don’t just consider what your organization needs now, but what it may need in the future. Do the systems you’re considering not only meet your organization’s needs today, but will they grow with your organization and still be the right system for you in five or even ten years? Some systems are great for small businesses but as companies grow the system can no longer meet their needs and they find themselves needing to go through the vetting and implementation process all over again in just a few years. Some systems are great for large companies, but the expansive functionality is not needed for small businesses and the cost is too high. Be sure to consider if a month-to-month payment plan or a long-term contract is right for your organization as well.

    4)      What does implementation look like? As I mentioned above, I have implemented multiple systems for clients, and each vendor manages implementation differently. Generally, your company is assigned to a dedicated implementation specialist who walks you through the process of collecting and importing data. Depending on the system selected and the functions being implemented, the process can be fairly easy and take a few weeks, or can be extremely complicated and take a few months to fully set up and roll out.

    When vetting and implementing an HRM, it’s critical to understand the needs of your organization and what a system can offer you. That includes not only functionality, but growth capabilities, cost, implementation complexity, and the return on investment.

    To learn more about HRM vetting, read our blog post Selecting an HRIS that’s Right for You. If you’re interested in how Horizon Point can help you vet an HRM, ATS, you can read more about how We Help You Hire Right.

  • AI Isn’t Replacing Jobs, Rather, It’s Writing Them

    AI Isn’t Replacing Jobs, Rather, It’s Writing Them

    This week we continue our exploration of AI. I must admit, I’ve been hesitant to give AI a chance. Given the ethical and legal concerns with its use and my own personal worries about whether it can perform for my needs, I saw no reason to engage with it. These past few weeks however, I’ve been testing its applications within the work place for HR-related tasks.

    Recently, I’ve been working on a compensation project that involved pulling market data, and reviewing job descriptions. I felt it would be a good opportunity to test AI and its research and writing capabilities. In recent months, ChatGPT, a Large Language Model AI developed by OpenAI, has undergone several updates providing it with new capabilities outside of just writing. One such new feature includes doing internet research, but how accurate is it?

    To test this, I enlisted my tech-savvy kids to ask ChatGPT for market data at the 25th Percentile in Huntsville, AL for a Market Assistant. Below I’ve attached screenshots of their results.

    When asking the same question, they both get slightly different answers. And when double checking their results, it seems that ChatGPT provided inaccurate information. Visiting the link it provided, it tells us that the range for the position as a whole is actually $46,530 to $58,286. See here for yourself: https://www.salary.com/research/salary/listing/administrative-assistant-salary/huntsville-al

    Comparing the ChatGPT results to CompAnalyst (Salary.com’s paid wage database) I found that the average salary for an Administrative Assistant for the 25th percentile in Huntsville is about $35,000, which aligns with the result one of my kids got, however, it doesn’t align with the source provided, so we’re unsure where this information is coming from. The results my other son got, $39,502 aligns with the median rate provided on CompAnalyst, which was $39,900. 

    Next, I decided to see how well ChatGPT wrote job descriptions. So, I asked ChatGPT to write a job description for an entry level GIS Analyst. The results were actually pretty decent. The job description had a well written summary of the role, accurately outlined key responsibilities, and specific qualifications including the requirement to know specific GIS software including ArcGIS and QGIS. ChatGPT also included the benefits offered by the employer and outlined the application process. My favorite part though is that ChatGPT even included an EEO statement. What it lacked was information on the physical requirements of the job and the work environment, so I decided to test it out on a job that requires more physical ability – a police officer. But once again, ChatGPT didn’t include any information on the physical requirements or work environment of the role. 

    These were just two simple tests of ChatGPT and how it could benefit HR professionals. Having given it a try, I do believe that AI can be beneficial to HR and help create a starting point for many HR tasks. However, the key takeaway for me is that AI is a starting point, it’s a tool to help aide you but you still have to do work – research the data you obtain through AI, review that document you have AI create for you for accuracy, compliance, and best practices, and remember that you are still responsible for the liability that using AI can create. 

  • Legal Update

    Legal Update

    We are only in May and already we have seen a number of employment law updates this year that have a huge impact on employers. Johnson, Paseur, & Medley, LLC shared the info in the images below with us:

     

    Fair Labor Standards Act

    The #1 change everyone is talking about and preparing for is the recent update to FLSA. Effective July 1, 2024, the salary threshold for a position to be eligible for exempt status will increase to $43,888 ($844 per week) and will increase again effective January 1, 2025 to $58,656 ($1,128 per week). This is almost a 65% increase in the threshold and will have a significant impact on many employers and employees. In addition, the highly comped threshold will increase from $132,964 to $151,164 effective January 1, 2025. 

    As the first deadline is quickly approaching, employers should be reviewing the current salaries of all exempt staff to determine how many employees this will impact and how to proceed with each position. Below are a few things to consider:

    • If an employee’s current salary is close to the new January 2025 threshold, would it be more beneficial to increase their salary to meet the new requirement. 
    • If an employee’s current salary is between the July 2024 and January 2025 thresholds, when should you move them to a non-exempt status and how far in advance should you communicate that change to the affected employees? 
    • For those employees that you will need to convert to non-exempt, is moving them to a salary non-exempt position the right option for your organization? This means that you guarantee an employee their full salary for hours worked up to 40, but would still be required to pay them overtime for hours worked in excess of 40 per work week. 
    • When do you need to have these converted employees set up in your timekeeping system so that they can begin to track their hours, and do you need to schedule training for these employees on how to use the timekeeping system? 
    • Does your organization have highly comped employees who will be impacted by the threshold increase and if so, what is the best way to navigate that impact? 
    • And the biggest question employers must ask is what financial impact will this change have on your organization and how can you mitigate that impact? 

    Also, employers need to be prepared for the long-term effects of the most recent FLSA changes, as it also includes an increase every three years, with the next increase going into effect July 1, 2027. The rate of change has not been determined and will be calculated every three years based on current calculation methods, so the full impact of future increases is still unknown. 

    To assist employers with understanding the new FLSA rules, the Department of Labor has scheduled two webinars that employers can sign up to attend for free. 

    Non-Compete Agreements

    In April, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a ruling banning most non-competes effective September 4, 2024. This ban includes non-competes for all employees, including senior executives. Current non-competes become null and void for most employees, with the exception of senior executives. If senior executives have a current non-compete, they can remain in force if those individuals earn at least $151,164 and are policy makers. However, effective September 4th, no new non-competes can be entered into with senior executives. 

    As part of this ruling, companies who have current non-competes in place will be required to notify all employees, excluding those current senior executives, that the non-competes will be null and void effective September 4, 2024. To aid in this effort, the FTC has provided sample language employers can use. 

    While employers can no longer utilize non-compete agreements, there are alternatives to help protect proprietary information, such as a non-disclosure agreement or confidentiality agreement. In addition, Federal Trade Laws provide a great deal of protection to employers. 

    EEOC Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace

    A few weeks ago, the EEOC released final guidance for employers on the legal standards and employer liability that apply to harassment claims. This new issuance was designed to update and consolidate the previous five guidance documents issued between 1987 and 1999. Since the last guidance was issued, there have been significant changes to discrimination laws, including the landmark decision in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020) in which the Supreme Court ruled that sexual orientation and gender identity were protected under Title VII. 

    The newly issued guidance includes a significant number of examples to illustrate various forms of harassment and discrimination, not only from coworkers, but also from vendors, customers, and other third parties. It also addresses the changes in the workforce, such as remote work, increased use and modernization of technology, and social media harassment. 

    In addition to these changes, there have been some significant guidance documents released recently, as well as a significant decision by the Supreme Court that impacts discrimination claims. 

    What to Watch For

    In addition to the updates above, there are a number of items that HR professionals and business leaders should keep on their radar this year. 

    If you like to learn about Employment Law, you might enjoy these blogs too: