Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Human Resources

We know HR. Read our Human Resources blog archives for stories and best practices from our work with real clients and personal experiences in the world of HR.

To Offer or Not to Offer: Pros and Cons of Sign-on Bonuses Post Covid
Last week my colleague, Taylor, talked about the rise in hiring incentives that we are seeing in 2021. As of April, the national unemployment rate was 6.1%, and the rate in Alabama as of April was 3.6%, almost half of the national average. With the unemployment rate so low, employers who are now able to ramp their businesses back up post-Covid are finding it impossible to hire. So as Taylor mentioned, many are turning to offer sign-on bonuses or opportunities to win a prize such as a car in order to entice individuals to apply. It sounds great in theory, but what are the pros and cons of sign-on incentives that organizations need to consider?

Pros:
1. Sign-on bonuses get people in the door and on the clock. It’s definitely an attention-getter. Who wouldn’t like a few extra dollars in their pocket just for accepting a job? Promoting positions with a sign-on bonus is a great way to increase your application pool and find hires that may be needed just to keep your business running.
2. It can help you win over the competition. In the current market, employers are all fighting over the same candidates. What can you offer that the competition can’t? A higher sign-on bonus may be the tipping factor in which position a candidate applies to and/or accepts.
3. It’s a one-time hit to your budget. Many employers are offering sign-on incentives right now because the market is so tight, and because they are trying to attract candidates away from an inflated unemployment payment. While offering a sign-on bonus may be putting a tight squeeze on many small businesses’ bank accounts, it’s a one-time hit to the financials. Once the hiring market shifts, which many predict will happen once states start eliminating the additional unemployment federal funds, employers will be able to cease the sign-on incentives and get their budgets back on track.
Cons:
1. Collect and bail. If your sign-on incentive is payable immediately upon hire, there is nothing keeping a new hire from collecting the sign-on bonus and walking away. If you defer payment until an employment period has been met (i.e. payable after 60 days of employment) that may be a deterrent to candidates if they can get an immediate payout elsewhere.
2. Decreases employee morale. Offering sign-on incentives to new hires that weren’t available to current employees might not sit well with some. For example, you promote an employee to a shift supervisor and increase their hourly pay to $20/hour and then you hire an external candidate to fill a second shift supervisor position and pay them an hourly rate of $20/hour with a sign-on bonus of $500, how do you think that’s going to be viewed by the internal candidate you promoted?
3. Creates an unrealistic expectation for the future. While an employer offering a sign-on bonus views that as a one-time payment, many employees view it as a precursor of things to come. When review time comes around, they may expect an additional bonus or a pay increase equivalent to compensate them for the bonus they received the previous year. In other words, while the employer views the sign-on incentive as an “extra” many employees view it as part of a whole, including that amount when they calculate their annual salary.
While I’m not arguing for or against sign-on incentives, organizations need to evaluate the pros and cons when determining if it’s the right thing for the organization. While considering the option of offering sign-on incentives, organizations should also discuss how to incentivize current employees to help recruit talent. If your organization doesn’t currently offer referral bonuses, maybe that is an option to try first. The best candidates often come from current employees.

Is offering a sign-on incentive the right choice for your organization?
June 8, 2021
Hiring Incentives in 2021

I’ve heard it said SO many times recently. If someone isn’t working, they don’t want a job. Incentives are EVERYWHERE! Why people aren’t taking these incentives is a whole different topic for another day, but you can check out this recent LinkedIn article for reasons other than generous unemployment benefits: What’s going on in the labor market?

While attending a conference last week, I spoke with a vendor from a staffing agency who was frustrated with his efforts to supply workers for their clients. He mentioned generous weekly bonuses and even better weekend bonuses.

I noticed one organization offering a chance to win a car when they signed on to work; Read about here: Shrimp Basket offering a new car as a hiring incentive. The job market is hot! Everyone is hiring and providing incentives! Cash bonuses, cars, flex time – you name it!

Are you an employer struggling to find employees? Check out this article from Corridor Careers for ideas: 5 Incentives for Hiring (And Keeping) Employees Post Covid-19.

In Alabama, additional unemployment payments will end soon. Let’s hope these incentives are still available so everyone can benefit & get back to work!

Compensation is just one piece of incentives and retention efforts. Did you know we do wage compensation studies at Horizon Point? Let us know if we can help!

June 2, 2021
Gender Themes in Assessments: Are women really more organized than men?

At HPC, we facilitate assessments and coaching with leaders and potential leaders on a regular basis. We work with individuals from diverse backgrounds and with both males and females. Recently, we facilitated Work Behavior Inventory assessments with a group of organizational leaders. We noticed a trend in one component of the assessment – Conscientiousness. More often than not, males scored considerably lower in conscientiousness, which measures achievement, initiative, persistence, attention to detail, dependability, and rule-following. It is worth noting that most males were self-aware.

This prompted our team to discuss the idea that maybe there are common gender trends in assessments. Pew Research Center surveyed and published some information that was enlightening.

According to the research, which surveyed the public on their views of leaders, the public is much more likely to see women as being more organized than men, rather than vice versa. Fully 48% say being organized is more true of women than men, while only 4% say this quality is found more in men than women (46% say it’s true of both).

Women were also seen as more compassionate. The survey also said:

Women have an advantage over men when it comes to honesty—one of the most crucial leadership traits, according to the public. Some 29% of all adults associate honesty more with women than men, while 3% say honesty applies more to men than women. A majority of adults (67%) say this characteristic is displayed equally by men and women.

Read more about Pew Research Center’s findings here: What Makes a Good Leader, and Does Gender Matter?

Regardless if there is a trend or not, we think self-awareness is key for good leaders, both male and female. During our coaching sessions, we discuss trends in strengths and areas for development and work with leaders to create a game plan for development.

Do you have leaders or high-potential employees who would benefit from an assessment and coaching? Reach out to us today for more information.

May 18, 2021
Live from #ALSHRM21: Does Your Company Culture Attract Your Ideal Candidate?

The theme of the Alabama SHRM Conference and Expo for 2021 is “Embracing the Human in Human Resources” and organizational culture is a huge part of that goal. Craig Ellis, co-founder of our sister company MatchFIT, defined culture as “the unique way employers approach business and the unique way employees approach work” in his presentation Is Your Culture Attractive: What the Data Says Job Seekers are Looking for in an Organization’s Culture.

According to Craig, 75% of candidates ask about an organization’s culture during the interview process. Unfortunately, the response too often given is a singular response. It’s the interviewer’s opinion and is based on their perspective, one that is most often very positive (or else they probably wouldn’t be an interviewer).

So how can organizations accurately define their culture and describe it to candidates to ensure a compatible fit? According to Craig, organizations need to ask those in the know; employees. Don’t look to leadership alone to define your organization’s culture, ask those who live it day in and day out. How they view your culture may be very different than how leadership would define your culture. Conduct employee surveys, find out why employees are voluntarily leaving your organization through exit interviews, and conduct stay interviews to find out what it is about your organization that makes people want to stay.

Once you have collected data and used it to help define your organization’s culture, you can better determine who your ideal candidate is and what it is about your culture that would attract that candidate? What does your ideal candidate care about in an organization’s culture? If you have a culture that is exacting and procedural, meaning the organization values structure and diligence, a candidate that values a relaxed, informal culture won’t be a good fit for your organization. If you find that you’re interviewing candidates that you feel are your ideal but they turn down your offer, don’t be afraid to ask them why they have chosen not to come work for you. While you may not be able to convince them that it’s a good fit for both them and you, the data you collect can help you to close the gaps in how you present your cultural values to candidates and what values you seek in candidates.

According to Craig, an important part of the process is to “take the time to articulate your culture and share that with employees and leadership.” Ensure that everyone is on the same page and can communicate your culture in a consistent way.

How do you define your organization’s culture to candidates and is it making them want to sign on or sending them running for the hills?

May 4, 2021
The Amazon Union Vote and the Fate of the PRO Act
All eyes have been on the small town of Bessemer, Alabama in recent weeks. Proponents and opponents alike waited with bated breath as employees of the largest U.S. online retailer, Amazon, voted on unionization. Stories of poor working conditions have been spreading like wildfire, and as a result, many thought the vote to unionize was a sure bet. Even President Biden threw his two cents in, expressing his support for unionization at Amazon. And it makes sense that he would do so, given that Democrats are pushing for legislation that would lead to the biggest shift in labor law we’ve seen in decades.

The Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act of 2021 was introduced by Democrats into the House on February 4^th of this year. The House quickly passed it with a vote of 225-206; a similar vote to the original bill that was introduced in the House during the 116^th Congress. It currently sits in committee in the Senate and its fate is questionable.

As we know, the Democratic party is very employee-focused and very pro-union. In 1983 the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking union membership and found that 20.1% of employees were union members. In the decades since, that number has slowly dropped. In 2020, only 10.8% of employees were members of unions. The Democrats believe that they can increase union membership if they can overhaul the National Labor Relations Act.

What makes the PRO Act so important to employers? Among other things, the PRO Act would:
- Eliminate Right-to-Work laws and allow unions to collect dues from employees regardless of membership. Currently, 27 states, including Alabama, have Right-to-Work laws.
- Expand the definition of “employee” by making it harder to classify someone as an Independent Contractor and narrowing the definition of “supervisor” so that more employees are covered under the NLRA.
- Require employers to allow employees to use company equipment to organize and engage in protected concerted efforts.
- Prohibit mandatory arbitration agreements and class action waivers.
- Limit employer rights by expanding financial penalties, limiting the ability of an employer to seek legal advice and requiring disclosure of such communication, and requiring labor attorneys to disclose information regarding the client/attorney relationship.
- Limit employer ability to contest election petitions and allow unions to use coercive tactics.
- Make it illegal for employers to permanently replace striking employees and allow for secondary boycotts.
- Require employers to provide employee personal information, including home address, home phone, and personal email, to unions without the consent of employees.
Amazon employees voted two-to-one not to unionize. This historical vote may or may not have an impact on the PRO Act. That is yet to be determined. What is known is that the PRO Act will have a difficult time making it through the Senate. The 116^th Senate sent the bill to committee where it stayed and stalled. The 117^th Senate may allow the bill to meet the same fate. If it actually makes it to the floor, Republicans have vowed to block the vote. Some analysts believe that the only way the PRO Act would succeed is if the Democrats can change the rules of the filibuster, which would be near impossible. President Biden has said that if it makes it through Congress, he will not hesitate to sign it. So stay tuned.
April 20, 2021