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Summer is over. And the battle to get workers back to the office is heating up

ination online — Sun, 01 Sep 2024 10:32:19 +0000

The battle to get employees back into the office is about to get a little more heated.

Many companies experimenting with a hybrid work schedule have said they want employees to be in the office a set number of days eachweek. But thus far,they have not done much to enforce those mandates, even as employees remain adamant in their desire to work remotely for more days than many CEOs want.

But now that summer vacations and Labor Day are behind us, more employers may start taking a harder line.

Justhow tough companies will get remains an open question, though.

Currently, 69% of mid- to large-sized employers say they require employees with jobs that can be done remotely to be at work a set number of days, according to new survey data from business consulting firm Gartner.

Of that group,25% require employees to be on site three days a week; and 16% are opting for a two-day minimum. A small number (4%) require just one day, while only 5% require workers to be in the office five days a week. Another 4% say they are requiring employees to show up either one day a month (2%), or one day per quarter (2%).

A full 31% said they have set no minimum. One such company is JLL, a global commercial real estate services firm with more than 100,000 employees – about half of whom have remote-capable jobs. And JLL has no plans to set a requirement this fall.

“We’ve always believed in flexibility to draw the talent we need,” said chief human resource officer Laura Adams.

That said, Adams noted, for the purposes of collaboration and creativity, “we believe fundamentally that the office is a key part of the work ecosystem.” And as such the company will continue to try to entice people to come in more often through things like social gatherings.

Will the leniency last?

Office occupancy is now double what it was at the start of the year, but it is still at just 43% of what it was prior to the pandemic, said Mark Ein, chairman of property security management firm Kastle Systems.

In his dealings with clients, however, Ein said he sees a lot of companies pushing for more time in the office after Labor Day. So he expects that occupancy percentage to rise.

Indeed, as Covid becomes a more manageable risk, CEOs are eager to have more people back on site, said Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., president and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management.

“Short of another surge – in which the scientific community says it’s unsafe to come to work – CEOs are saying it’s no longer an issue of safety, and kids are in school,” Taylor said.

And the way Taylor made it sound, they’re peeved that they havehad to do so much cajoling to get butts in seats. They feel that the hybrid model requires both leaders and employees to make accommodations, he noted. “They’ve accepted that we’re not going back to the good old days, but [feel] employees don’t want to give anything.”

Should the prospect of layoffs grow, however, that may give CEOs a lot more leverage.

“The game changer would be if widespread layoffs begin taking place. At that point, employees might voluntarily begin spending more time in the office to protect their jobs,” said Ben Wigert, director of research and strategy for workplace management at Gallup.

Either way, it’s likely companies will announce what they expect in terms of time in the officeafter Labor Day. Many will track badge swipes into the building, and might hold managers accountable for ensuring attendance, Taylor suggested.

Until now, such tracking has remained fairly light. When Gartner asked companies if they track employee attendance, 43%said they are not. Among those thatare, they’ve been relying on data from badge swipes (35%), manager tracking (22%) and self-reporting on digital apps (10%).

In response to an open-ended question from Gartner about whether they would terminate someone who didn’t comply, no more than 3% of employers indicated they would, said Brian Kropp, chief of research in Gartner’s Human Resources Practice. And about 30% said HR or a manager would have a conversation with an employee who came in less than required.

In other words, “If you’re not meeting the attendance [requirement] you get in trouble, but you don’t get fired,” Kropp said. “They will try to make it work … because the labor market is still so competitive. So they’re not willing to make their hiring problem even worse.”

But for companies that more strongly assert their expectations of employees post-Labor Day, there could be tougher repercussions for non-compliance. It may first involve a couple of conversations over time. Then if non-compliance continues, in some cases, it could result in job loss, Taylor said.

“Organizations have thought about ‘What if 10% of employees refuse to do it? What do we do?’”

Ultimately, that could mean a greater willingness to outsource jobs. “Once you make the case you can fully do it remotely, I can hire remotely. Why should I keep you?,” he said.

More immediately, however, noncompliance with in-office requirements could make an employee more vulnerable to any layoffs on tap. Even A-players could make the list to demonstrate that the company meant what it said about showing up.

“Maybe the star becomes the example,” Taylor said.

Cracking down could backfire

Leaders who require workers to be on site for more days than staffers prefer and threaten them with pay cuts or termination if they don’t comply may be creating a longer-term problem, workplace experts say.

Many leaders’ arguments for coming into work are now focused on the need to preserve company culture, collaboration and mentoring of younger workers.

“CEOs realize it’s not a productivity question, but a comraderie/culture question,” Kropp said.

And they have a point … up to a point.

Face time is always important. But workplace research shows that neither culture nor collaboration are necessarily optimized just by having employees spend 40 hoursa weekin the same room. It also shows that when employees and teams are allowed to schedule their in-person versus remote time, itcan boost engagement, morale and retention.

Threatening to lay workers off simply because they don’t come into the office enough also could backfire.

“The tide has not shifted entirely yet. It’s still a good job market. Employees have options. And even if the tide turns, don’t disenfranchise them through fear and distrust,” Wigert cautioned.

Because fear and distrust, he noted, will lead to even greater disengagement and turnover in the future.

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Companies can no longer silence laid-off employees in exchange for severance

ination online — Sun, 01 Sep 2024 10:28:40 +0000

If your company lays you off, your employer might offer you severance pay — but only if you agree to adhere to a number of restrictions.

Staying quiet is often one of them.

But the National Labor Relations Board this week put employers on notice that they can no longer silence laid-off employees in two very specific ways that the board says violates employees’ rights under sections 7 and 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act.

Employers can no longer include a broadly written confidentiality clause that requires you to keep mum about the terms of your severance agreement. And they can no longer include a broadly written non-disparagement clause that prohibits you from discussing the terms and conditions of your employment with third parties.

“A severance agreement is unlawful if it precludes an employee from assisting coworkers with workplace issues concerning their employer, and from communicating with others, including a union, and the Board, about his employment,” the board wrote in its decision Tuesday.

The ruling is a reversal of what the Trump-era NLRB members had decided in a prior case were lawful restrictions on employees as a condition of receiving severance.

With the exception of railroads and airlines, US business employers are subject to the NLRB’s authority.

While the labor board’s ruling this week could be appealed, the ruling is effective immediately. That means employers must review — and, if necessary, revise — their severance agreements to ensure they don’t include overly broad language that would restrict workers’ rights in the two ways the board ruling indicates.

The board’s decision will give back a bit of power to employees, but how it plays out remains to be seen.

“Companies are definitely incentivized to silence their departing employees…[because it helps them keep] all the skeletons in the closet,” employment attorney Alex Granovsky told CNN via email.

“This decision opens the door. While on the one hand sunlight is the best medicine, and greater exposure should lead to better companies, this decision could also change the dynamics of a severance negotiation.”

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Kremlin tries to calm fears over security of Telegram after arrest of founder Durov in France

ination online — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 12:56:04 +0000

The Kremlin is trying to calm fears that the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov in France could upend the messaging platform, which is extremely popular in Russia and plays a key role in coordinating the war effort in Ukraine.

Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday that calls for users to delete their sensitive messages on the app, including from the editor of Russia’s state-run RT news, were “utterly stupid.”

Peskov added that though the allegations against Durov, who was born in Russia but also has citizenship in France and the United Arab Emirates, were “serious,” French authorities would have to put forward “equally serious” evidence to back them up.

“Otherwise, there will be a direct attempt to restrict freedom of communication. And we can even say direct intimidation of the head of a large company. Which means there will be politics involved, something that Mr. Macron denied yesterday,” Peskov said.

The Kremlin’s move to assuage concerns over the future safety of Telegram underscores how important the app has become to Russia’s military.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday said the decision to bring charges against Durov was “in no way political,” a rare move as French leaders often avoid discussing criminal cases to avoid any suggestion of politics influencing judicial affairs.

The Paris prosecutor’s office on Monday announced a litany of charges against Durov, including allegations that his platform was complicit in aiding money launderers, drug traffickers and people spreading child pornography. Prosecutors also accused Durov of refusing to comply with French authorities’ demand for help intercepting potentially illicit communications.

At a news conference in Moscow following talks with his Yemeni counterpart on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov alleged, without proof, that “Durov was clearly taken away on someone’s advice and is being threatened with terrible punishment, apparently hoping to somehow gain access to encryption codes.”

Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Russia, on May 19, 2019.

Lorenzo Di Cola/NurPhoto/Getty Images

With around 950 million users, Telegram is one of the world’s most popular messaging apps. Its strong end-to-end encryption, limited content moderation and functionality — it allows users to share larger files, longer videos and higher-quality photos than many of its competitors — has made it extremely popular in both countries where freedom of speech is curtailed and in war zones, including in Ukraine, where it has become a vital tool for Ukrainian officials to share military updates and warnings about air raids.

“It is very convenient, it is very secure,” Lavrov said.

Those same features have also made Telegram a key communication tool for the Russian military and pro-Kremlin bloggers. One popular pro-Russian war blogger with more than 780,000 followers reshared a post saying that France’s decision to arrest Durov meant that “in essence, the head of communications for the Russian Armed Forces was detained.”

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