HRdownloads Blog

When the country is experiencing record high unemployment and layoffs due to the pandemic, it’s unsettling to hear that nearly half of employees still want to quit their jobs despite the economic downturn.

A recent survey from Hays reported that 49 percent of employees are seriously considering leaving their current role. The main reasons cited include compensation, lack of growth opportunity, and company benefits; however, a deeper look reveals that how the company has acted and responded (or failed to respond) to employee concerns during the pandemic has also influenced employees to leave their jobs.

2020 was, well, challenging to say the least. Even if the COVID-19 pandemic hadn’t occurred and shut down the world’s economies, there were still widespread natural disasters and profound civil unrest. Consequently, many of us were counting the days to January 1, 2021, eager to finally call an end to the hectic, frustrating, bewildering, and occasionally desperate year.

While a new year sounds promising, you may want to brace yourself for disappointment. Many of the stressors that made 2020 so exhausting and endless will continue well into 2021. But don’t give up hope yet! Managing your expectations for yourself and your team is the first step towards a successful new year.

Violence and harassment must not be tolerated in any workplace, and most jurisdictions have laws that outline an employer’s responsibility to prevent them. Violence and harassment affect employee well-being, mental health, job tenure, absenteeism, and workplace satisfaction. They can cause high turnover, and in some cases be considered discrimination. So where do you begin your efforts to reduce or eliminate violence and harassment in your workplace? Your culture.

Increased shopping and sales, extended hours, additional inventory to manage during the holidays typically means hiring seasonal help for businesses. But this year, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed how we live and how we work, and the holiday season will be no exception.

Even though things are different this year, it does not mean the holidays have been cancelled. In fact, this year most people have begun their holiday shopping much earlier than usual, possibly expecting another shutdown or just wanting to avoid unnecessary contact with the public. This brings up an important question for employers, “Should I hire more staff this holiday season, or not?”

The COVID-19 pandemic has created widespread fear, stress, and anxiety among the population, which has resulted in high levels of stigma. Stigma is a negative association between a person or a group of people who have certain characteristics associated with a perceived risk, in this case COVID-19. As an example, you may have an employee who follows all public health recommendations and feels negative emotions towards those who don’t (or vice versa). So how do you stop the stigma from infecting your workplace?

In the age of informed participation, people are increasingly asking businesses to make decisions based on what is ethically and morally right and focus on their impact rather than just their bottom line.

As an employer, it may be difficult to decide whether it is your place or even in your best interest to act on these issues. Your business may be subject to consequences, such as loss of business, damaged employee morale, turnover, strained business relationships, public boycotts, and more. However, refraining from getting involved is itself a choice that may trigger similar consequences. So how do you decide whether you should get involved?

Canadians are starting to adjust to the new normal, which involves ongoing adherence to strict health and safety measures to slow the spread of COVID-19. However, as changes continue to occur, some people have had a higher comfort level than others with disobeying these guidelines. This has left many employers and HR professionals wondering what they can do if this disobedience becomes (or already is) a problem in their workplace.

We don’t know what we don’t know. An old adage, and truer now than ever. As business leaders, we must future-proof our organizations to cope with the increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world we live in. At HRdownloads, we firmly believe the most effective way to build a future-ready organization is to prepare future-ready leaders and staff. And the best way to do that is with engaging, exciting, and relevant training.

People tend to talk about self-care in apologetic terms, making excuses for why they took vacation or went for a walk on their break, or any of the more expensive and ostentatious behaviours people call ‘self-care’, but why? It seems obvious that self-care is important. Everyone needs a break, and our mental and emotional health need looking after just like our physical health does, so it shouldn’t feel controversial to take steps to protect ourselves from burnout or stress or just not feeling our best. And yet excuse-making persists, suggesting that there’s something about how we conceptualize self-care that feels indulgent or guilty to us.

We received many questions during our recent webinar, “COVID-ucation: Employers, Parents, School, and the Pandemic”. In a difficult time like this, we wanted to make sure the answers to these challenging questions were available, so we’ve created another multi-part question series on our blog to help ensure employers and HR professionals have access to the information they need.