Is it Time to Ditch the Traditional Performance Review?

By Stephanie Hammerwold

Performance reviews are a hot topic in HR right now. An overwhelming majority of HR professionals, managers and employees seem to be unhappy with them and would be happy to move on to another system, and some companies are finally responding by taking the drastic step of ditching the traditional annual review. October’s meeting of the South Orange County chapter of the Professionals in Human Resources Association (PIHRA) featured Noma Bruton, the Chief HR Officer at Pacific Mercantile Bank. Bruton spoke about how her company eliminated traditional performance appraisals and how they created a system that better supports employees and the company.

Bruton was joined by Lonnie Giamela, an attorney with Fisher & Phillips. Giamela started off the presentation by talking about the ways in which the traditional system of ranking with no narrative is under scrutiny. With an annual review, the emphasis is on once-a-year feedback rather than on real time feedback, which is much more relevant to how we work. Giamela gave the example of how his young kids will tell him how they feel about his performance as a dad immediately, and the feedback does not come in the form of a number. It is a narrative such as “You are the best daddy in the world” or “You are very frustrating today.” If our tendency is to give feedback as a narrative, why do we still rely on a system based on numerical ranking? Anyone who has written a review knows that it can be a challenge to assign a single number to a year’s worth of work. Criteria for ranking can vary greatly from manager to manager, which creates an unfair system.

When a company follows a forced ranking system, Bruton explained that it pits employees against each other. Rather than focusing on competition external to the company, employees are more focused on competing with each other. Bruton admitted that she had advocated for traditional reviews for 20 years before realizing that it was time to do away with a system that relied on numerical ranking. She cited statistics that revealed that 92% of managers do not think reviews have value, and 95% of HR professionals believe ratings are not accurate. Clearly it is time to make some big changes.

One of the first steps that Bruton tackled was delinking compensation and performance. Many companies tie pay increases to the employee’s score on their annual review. Bruton did away with this practice by basing increases on market research for the jobs in her company. Employees were evaluated based on years of service and skill level to determine where they fell in the range. They picked a common date and adjusted employee salaries on that day to put their jobs in alignment with the market price for each job. In short, the company did away with merit increases and based raises on a market adjustment.

Bruton said the most common question from employees was about not being paid based on performance. She explained that the market-based increases do reflect performance in that when the company does better, they are able to give more money for raises and placing people above the market average. The company’s success is a direct reflection of the employees’ performance.

The company replaced the annual review with a system that managed performance without the use of ratings. Managers have conversations with employees to review things like job responsibility, competencies and goals, and Bruton pointed out that the focus could then be more on development. Currently her company required that managers meet with employees for performance conversations twice per year. They use their HR technology system to record goals and what was discussed in the meetings. Employing technology can help give employees real time access to how they are progressing on goals.

Bruton ended by reviewing some of the lessons she learned from implementing the new system. She said the process has been a lot of work, but she has been receiving positive feedback from employees and managers. She advised those considering a big change like this to be prepared to support the case for a new system with plenty of market data because upper management may be resistant to undoing an annual review system that has been in place for decades. She also said it is important to train managers, and her company even brought in an outside trainer to go through supervisory basics.

With all the conversation around doing away with the annual review, it was nice to hear a case study from someone who is putting talk into action. As HR professionals, it is important that we recognize the areas where restrictive policies and processes may be getting in the way of progress at our companies. In a time where we are growing more and more accustomed to instantaneous feedback, our performance management system should reflect that.

Bruton’s system does two things really well on this front. First, it bases increases on market research rather than merit, which means that discussions around performance are about what an employee is doing rather than the number on their paycheck. To me, this seems more fair. With the traditional system where a score determined an annual raise, increases were left to the managers—some of whom would engage in questionable practices to inflate scores to get an employee a good raise. If an employee is having performance issues, coach them on the problem through conversation and not through affecting their pay at annual review time.

Second, Bruton’s system encourages conversations with employees and setting goals based on competencies. This sets the stage for ongoing conversations between managers and employees about meeting goals and work performance. Performance management should not be an annual thing. It should be an ongoing process that involves real time feedback if we expect employees to improve and grow.

Photo by jntvisual/iStock / Getty Images

Protected Classes and Avoiding Discrimination

By Stephanie Hammerwold

Earlier this month I turned 40, which means I joined a new protected class. In the U.S., discriminating against someone based on age is prohibited. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sets the bar at age at 40 or older. This is a way to protect older workers from companies who may give preferential treatment to younger workers. To celebrate my new membership in this protected class, I thought it was a good time to look at protected classes and some steps to avoid discrimination in the workplace.

What is a Protected Class?

Quite simply, a protected class is a characteristic that cannot be targeted for discrimination. Under federal law, protected classes include sex, age, race, color, national origin, citizenship, religion, pregnancy, familial status, disability status, veteran status and genetic information. Some states include other protected classes such as sexual orientation and gender identity. Even if your state does not include extra protected classes like sexual orientation, it is a good idea to include them in your policy against discrimination and to train managers to make decisions based on work performance and experience rather than identity categories.

Discrimination occurs when an employment decision is made based on a person’s protected class. For example, suppose a man and a woman are up for a promotion. They have similar backgrounds and work performance, but the hiring manager decides to hire the man because the woman is in her 30s and recently married, and he is worried that she will soon get pregnant and need to take time off for that. This is a pretty straightforward case of discrimination because the decision was based on sex and the thought that the female employee may get pregnant. The hiring manager also made a decision based on marital status, so there are multiple types of discrimination here.

Make Decisions Based on Performance, Experience & Skills

While the example above may seem to be so obviously discrimination, such a scenario is still a reality in the workplace. In my own HR career, I have heard managers trying to make a decision using similar criteria. In these situations, I worked with managers to further analyze candidates’ skills and work experience in order to make a decision based on criteria relevant to the job and not on a protected class.

Make a conscious effort to review work performance, experience, skills education and other job-related factors in order to make any kind of employment decision. When rejecting a candidate, you should be able to come up with reasons not related to a protected class. A good job description is an excellent tool in ensuring that your hiring decisions are not discriminatory. Use the minimum qualifications section as a way to measure whether a candidate is qualified for a job. If one of your requirements is expert level knowledge of Excel, and the candidate states that they do not know how to use Excel, this would be an acceptable reason to reject someone.

Sometimes in the hiring process, you have two equally qualified candidates. When it comes down to figuring out which candidate is your top choice, focus on skills and experience and how those things fit in with your company rather than looking at traits that may be protected.

Acknowledge Your Own Biases

None of us is without some kind of prejudice or bias. We are influenced by culture, where we grew up and our own identities. Sometimes that means we may favor people who are more like us, or we may hold certain views about a particular group of people. It is important to be up front with yourself, understand your own biases and acknowledge how they may affect hiring and employment decisions. This is especially important in the hiring process to ensure that we are picking the top candidate for the job based on qualifications and not on certain protected traits.

When making any major employment decision, review your reasons for taking action. Can you offer reasons for taking action that are job based? Ask yourself, “Would I treat other similarly situated employees this way?” If you have any doubt about answering yes, look at what is really motivating your decision. Being aware of what motivates our actions and making changes when bias creeps in can go a long way to avoiding discriminatory practices.

Domestic Violence and the Workplace #SeeDV

By Stephanie Hammerwold

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Some of the most heartbreaking situations I have dealt with in HR have involved helping employees struggling to leave an abusive relationship. Domestic violence can manifest itself at work through attendance issues due to an abusive partner forcing an employee to stay home, the emotional scars someone carries to work or even the abuser showing up and being disruptive in the workplace. It is important that employers have a plan to support employees trying to leave abusive relationships.

Staying Safe at Work

Domestic violence can be both physical and emotional and can affect attendance and work performance. There are not always clear signs from the outside that someone is in an abusive relationship. Emotional scars are invisible and physical injuries such as bruises may be hidden under clothing or passed off as an accident. As an employer, you may not know an employee is struggling with an abusive relationship until the employee speaks up and asks for help.

When an employee speaks up about abuse, the first step is to be a good listener. Offer a space free from judgement so that the employee feels safe and comfortable at work. For some people in abusive relationships, work can be a sort of safe haven away from the abuse. As HR professionals and managers, it is important that we support that type of environment. For some, the decision to stay in an abusive relationship may be financial. Perhaps the abuse victim is afraid of losing their job if they speak up and ask for help or time off. Showing the employee that you are supportive is a big step in helping an employee to realize that they have the resources to get out of an abusive relationship.

Some abusers show up at their victim’s workplace. A victim can get a restraining order against an abusive partner. If an employee gets a restraining order, work with the employee to educate their manager and others in the department on calling the police if the abusive partner shows up at work.

How Employers Can Help

Be prepared with a list of community resources that you can refer an employee to. Include shelters, legal support and counseling. Social service agencies often keep a directory of community resources, and I have found that many will provide a copy to employers upon request. The National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-7233) is also an excellent resource for victims of domestic violence. They can connect people with services in their area. Your Employee Assistance Program (EAP) may also be a great resource. Know what type of help your company can provide as well. This may come in the form of paid time off or flexibility in work schedule while the employee seeks help outside of work.

There is no federal law that addresses leaves of absence for victims of domestic violence, but some states like California have laws in place that include leave for those seeking shelter, legal, counseling or other services related to domestic violence. California’s new paid sick leave law states that domestic violence victims can use sick time to seek services. For some people in an abusive relationship, knowing that they have the option to take job-protected leave may be enough to get them to leave an abusive relationship. Research leave requirements in your state, and include domestic violence leave in your leave policy. Even if your state has no requirement, consider offering it at your company.

Be a Supportive Employer

When I was in grad school, I worked at a domestic violence shelter and learned firsthand the challenges of rebuilding a life after leaving an abusive relationship. Once I moved into a career in HR, I brought that knowledge into the workplace to help employees who came to me seeking help. According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, 44% of full-time employed adults have personally experienced the effects of domestic violence in the workplace, and 21% of people surveyed self-identified as victims of intimate partner violence. As such, it is important that employers have a strategy in place to address domestic violence in the workplace.

When I worked in the shelter, I was surprised at how many of the women had stories of being fired or forced to quit due to issues related to being in or trying to leave an abusive relationship. Take the time to establish leave guidelines and draft a policy on domestic violence and the workplace. Train managers on what to do if an employee comes forward asking for help. Taking these steps may be the help someone needs to get out of an abusive relationship.

Understanding the Basic Definitions of Gender, Sex and Sexual Orientation

By Stephanie Hammerwold

People in the U.S. have been talking about gender and sexual orientation quite a bit in the last few years. There have been huge strides made with the recent Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage, and people like Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner have brought visibility to transgender identities. As such, there is quite a bit of terminology floating around regarding gender, sex and sexual orientation. The more we understand what these things mean, the better equipped we are to be accepting of others.

Keep in mind that there are variations on how people define these terms and what identities mean to individuals, so I encourage you to read more on this subject after you finish this post.

Gender, Sex & Sexual Orientation—What’s the Difference?

The terms gender and sex are often used interchangeably even though they have different meanings. Sex is based on biological characteristics, such as anatomy and X and Y chromosomes. We typically think of sex as male or female, but it is not that simple. Intersex people, for example, are born with characteristics that do not easily fit our typical definitions of male and female.

Gender is how we express ourselves and represent our identity. Gender identity is specifically who we internally feel ourselves to be. This could be a man, woman or anything in between. Gender expression is how we demonstrate that identity. Words like femininity and masculinity represent gender expression. This could be everything from how we dress, speak and externally show our gender. It is helpful to think of gender on a continuum that represents the many ways we express ourselves. Most people are not 100% feminine or masculine but instead draw from traits that are associated with both those identities.

Traditionally gender has been thought of in a binary way—either a person was a man or a woman. There was no room for anything in between. As I said, the reality is that most people do not fit neatly into either category of the gender binary, which is why it is useful to think of a continuum. Keep in mind that our place on the continuum is not fixed, and throughout life, we may shift in where we fall in terms of both gender identity and expression.

The term cisgender describes someone whose sex, gender identity and gender expression are all in alignment. Transgender is a broad term that refers to people whose gender identity and/or expression does not match the cultural expectations of the sex they were assigned at birth. A common question about transgender individuals is what pronouns should be used. This is a personal choice and varies from person to person, so be respectful of what pronouns a person wants used. GLAAD has an excellent article on this topic.

Sexual Orientation refers to who someone is romantically and physically attracted to. This includes things like gay, lesbian, bisexual and straight. As with gender, sexual orientation is not fixed and may change throughout life. Being a specific gender does not imply a set sexual orientation. For example, if a transgender individual transitions from male to female, it does not mean they will automatically switch their sexual orientation as well.

Intersectionality & Complex Identities

One of the big advantages of all the media attention transgender individuals are receiving is that it is showing us examples of how complex identity can be. There is not just one way to be a man or a woman or transgender, and things become even more dynamic when you start including race, ethnicity, nationality, religion and more in the mix. Intersectionality is a way to think of how all these parts of identity interact on multiple levels. This concept helps move us away from thinking of identity categories as monolithic. Instead, it is a reminder of just how diverse the experience of being a woman, a man or transgender is depending on other parts of identity.

It is important to talk about this topic on a workplace blog because we spend a large amount of time at work. If we are going to value our employees, we need to foster environments where employees are comfortable regardless of how they identify. Most companies have some kind of policy against discrimination and harassment, and it is vital that such policies underlie everything we do not only in the workplace but also in our daily lives.

Netflix & the Problem with Excluding Some Workers from Awesome Benefits

By Stephanie Hammerwold

Large companies have been making headlines lately for how they treat their workers. Whether it is the benefits they do or don’t provide, long hours or company culture, these large companies are representative of our cultural attitudes toward work in the U.S. Netflix is known for fostering a culture where long days are not the norm and benefits like leaves of absences go far beyond what is required by law. Netflix sounds like a great place to work, right? That is until you realize that benefits are not the same for the employees who work in their DVD distribution centers.

We’re a Great Place to Work, but not for You

A recent article in The Guardian drew attention to the disparity between those who work in Netflix DVD distribution centers and those who work in higher paid jobs in office environments. As the article points out, Netflix received praise for offering generous leave benefits to new parents, but several organizations have stepped forward to challenge Netflix over the fact that they do not extend those benefits to their distribution center employees. Netflix points out that they provide the leave required by law and tend to pay their distribution employees more than the industry standard. This is a step in the right direction, but it does little to support employees who want to have and raise children.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), approximately 43% of families in the U.S. had children who are under 18 in 2014. In addition, the BLS found that in 60.2% of married-couple households with children, both parents worked. This is a big segment of the workforce that must balance raising a family with the demands of the workplace, and one way employers can support employees is by providing leave that extends beyond what is required by the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and state leave laws.

This all raises the question: in a workplace culture that favors higher paid workers when it comes to benefits such as leaves of absence, who is entitled to have a child? While companies may argue that it becomes increasingly important to attract top candidates to certain jobs by offering generous benefits at that level, it ultimately sends the message that those higher on the ladder are far more valuable than their low-wage counterparts.

In These Times recently reported that one in four new moms in the U.S. returns to work within two weeks of giving birth. While those that meet the eligibility requirements of the FMLA are entitled to up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave, this time off is unpaid. Unless a new mom is lucky enough to work for an employer with paid leave or to live in a state that provides some kind of state program such as California’s State Disability Insurance (SDI) or Paid Family Leave (PFL), she may have to make the decision to head back to work early for financial reasons.

So, it is nice that companies like Netflix provide this benefit for some employees, but it should not stop there. We need to foster an environment where all employees are supported in their desire to raise a family. The reality is that we live in a society where we need workers at all levels, and the fact that someone works in a distribution center or factory should not mean they count for less as part of the workforce.

Lack of Flexibility Adds an Extra Burden

I got my start in HR working at a manufacturing and distribution company. At its height, the company grew to 650 employees—many of whom worked in low-wage jobs in the warehouse or in production. I was talking to my boss, the HR director, about a warehouse worker who was struggling to balance raising her children and her work schedule, and it was often causing her to arrive late to her shift. Rather than finding a way to adjust the employee’s schedule, the HR director's response was, “Well, I managed to raise three kids and show up to work, so this employee should be able to figure it out.”

Retail, food service, warehouse and production line work are all examples of jobs that require employees to work specific hours. The nature of the work is such that the business needs to maintain coverage to ensure smooth operations. If retail employees picked their own hours, it would be a challenge to ensure someone was always there to run the register. Office workers often have more flexibility when it comes to scheduling, and it may be easier to adjust the schedule of an accounts payable clerk than it would be to change the hours of a warehouse employee. In my example above, the HR director had some control over her schedule. If she needed to come in late due to a sick child or a school meeting, there were no consequences. In effect, her statement denied the extra burden faced by working parents who do shift work.

I am not calling for automatically changing employees’ shifts whenever they have problems getting to work on time, but we need to recognize the added burden of not having schedule flexibility for parents who do shift work. We can do this by including them in the generous leave benefits we offer to office employees.

Benefits for All

The sad truth is that the U.S. lags far behind other countries in providing leave options to employees. Plenty of countries offer paid leave and companies still manage to survive. When companies offer generous leaves of absence and benefits, it is an acknowledgement that an employee's life does not stop when they clock out at the end of the workday. When a company makes the choice to support an employee during major life events, it is an investment in their workforce.

The debate over raising minimum wage has been a regular topic in the media lately. Those against raising it often say that people in low-wage jobs should just work harder to make more money. The reality is that we need people in those jobs to ensure that our packages arrive on time and our food is made to order. We keep hearing about unemployment dropping and more jobs being added, but many of these jobs are in the low-wage retail and service sectors. People are getting back to work, but it is in jobs that traditionally do not carry good benefits; therefore, it is imperative that employers include these employees in benefits such as generous leave and to not have such perks be the exclusive domain of a select few at the top.

Do you have a story about unequal benefits that you want to share with the HR Hammer? Use the contact form on the About page to get in touch. Your story may appear in a future post.

Job Seeker Advice: How to Conduct a Targeted Job Search

By Stephanie Hammerwold

Looking for a job can be a big undertaking. Major job posting sites are overwhelming and often job seekers find themselves wading through endless ads promising ways to get rich working from home. While some people may have luck with casting a huge net online in their quest for the perfect job, the average job seeker may find that resumes sent in response to ads on major job sites go into some kind of application blackhole. The way around this is to take a targeted approach in your job search.

Search for Companies, not Jobs

The key to a targeted job search is to look for companies that provide the type of work you want. While companies may not pay to post all their openings on a big job search site, they will probably put all their openings on their own website. Check the company’s site regularly for new openings. I worked for one company that was popular in the community. Many applicants were people who had walked into one of our stores asking about job openings or were persistent job seekers who made a habit of regularly checking the company’s website. This meant we rarely had to rely on paying to post our openings on other sites.

Research companies in your area, and do not limit yourself. Last year I spoke to graduate students at my alma mater. Many of them were planning for careers in academia or the nonprofit sector. I reminded those eyeing nonprofit jobs that there are for-profit companies out there who have a socially-minded philosophy that is similar to what can be found at a nonprofit. Before starting my consulting business, I worked at a small grocery chain that had a goal of giving at least 10% back to the community. They also offered a volunteer benefit for employees and other programs that were focused on giving back. In doing your research on companies, look for such opportunities to expand the pool of places you can see yourself working.

Connect with your target companies on social media. Some companies have even set up specific profiles for job seekers. This is a good way to find out about new openings that may not be posted on major job search sites.

Use Your Network

Here’s an inside tip about reaching out to the companies you want to work at: do not call their HR department in the hopes that it will make your application stand out. As an HR person, I can tell you that it’s not that we do not want to talk to every applicant, but HR is often inundated with calls to the point that it is impossible to get back to everyone. For job seekers, it can be discouraging to send in an application or resume and then hear nothing. Even though HR may not be the right place to go to make a personal connection when you first submit an application, there are ways to reach out effectively.

Focus on your network. Do you already know someone at the company? If so, they may be a good resource to put in a good word for you or to introduce you to someone who has power over hiring decisions. LinkedIn can be an excellent tool for seeing who you may already know at a company or if one of your connections may be able to introduce you to someone who works there. As I mentioned earlier, some companies connect with job seekers through social media, so this can be another way to network with people in a way that could bring positive attention to your application.

Finally, get involved in your community. This is an excellent way to connect with people who may turn out to be powerful connections when it comes to finding a job. In my own experience, the best networking happens at events where the main objective is not marketing yourself. This may be volunteering for a beach clean up, working on a political campaign or getting involved with your favorite nonprofit.

The Problem with Job Sites

What you have heard about job posting sites is true: companies do not post all their jobs in such places. Posting on some of the bigger sites can run several hundred dollars each. For many businesses, this means they may be choosy about which jobs they pay to post. When I used to work on hiring, I would only post harder to fill jobs on the big sites. Job sites can also take a lot of time to wade through. Even when employing filters and narrowing search criteria, it can be a challenge to find jobs that are a good fit. This is especially true if you live in a major metropolitan area, where the list of open jobs may be really long.

While it is good to keep an eye on the major sites and give them a weekly scan, a better strategy is to figure out what kind of job you want and to then find the places offering positions that are a good match.

Stop Making Candidates Jump Through Hoops

By Stephanie Hammerwold

Applying for a job can start to feel like a full-time job itself. Searching online is time consuming, and once a job seeker finds something they are interested in, there is often a long application process. While it is important to get enough information from a candidate to ensure that a good hiring decision can be made, often companies ask for unnecessary information, which results in tedious application processes that can scare good candidates away.

Long & Detailed Application Process

Several years ago, a friend and former coworker of mine was looking to relocate out of state and was applying for jobs prior to her move. After spending a couple hours on the application, she heard back from a company that sounded like a good fit, but they sent her several links to a long online personality profile as well as some skills tests. Once my friend was confronted with the several hours it would take to complete all the tests, she decided to give up on that company and to look for jobs elsewhere. As a result, the company lost out on someone who would have been a great employee.

A common best practice in HR is to have a job seeker fill out an application even if submitting a resume. The job seeker then signs the application stating that all the information is true. The application serves two purposes: it is a signed statement from the applicant about the veracity of their work history and it also gives the recruiter and hiring manager all relevant information in an easy-to-read format. The problem with this approach is that we often ask far more than we need to know in the initial application.

Prior to embarking on my HR consulting career, I did quite a bit of hiring in both grocery and warehouse/manufacturing industries, both of which constantly had job openings. As such, I developed expert screening skills to sort through a large volume of applications. What I started to realize over time was that the application asked for far more information than I needed to do my initial screening. If this sounds like you, do a review of your job application.

In an initial screening, I am most interested in work history and if the person’s experience shows that they have the skills required to do the job, which means that the first thing I scan is the job history section. Many applications include a variety of screening questions that require paragraph-long responses. I often breezed right past those and did not bother to read them unless the applicant’s work history piqued my interest. Instead of asking for detailed information from all applicants, consider a shorter pre-application that gives you just the information you need to determine if someone would be worth pursing. If they are, send them a more detailed application where you can ask screening questions and for more information about their experience.

When it comes to pre-employment tests, evaluate whether the information from the test really helps in determining if someone would be a good hire. As in my earlier example, hours of tests coupled with a long application could scare good candidates away.

Endless Interviews

I remember interviewing at one company where I went back four separate times for interviews, only to not get the job in the end. The process involved a mix of a group interview, panel interviews and one-on-one interviews. It was tedious and required me to have a flexible schedule to fit in all those return trips to the company. On top of that, I found myself answering the same questions over and over again.

Making the decision to hire someone is hard, so often companies go to great lengths to have plenty of people meet the candidate. In reality, a lengthy interview process could result in losing candidates who end up taking a job elsewhere while they wait for yet another interview with your company.

To edit your interview process, start by looking at the list of people involved in interviews. I was once hiring for for an entry-level produce staff position in a grocery store. Interviews included the hiring manager, produce director, store manager, director of operations and me representing HR. When I looked at the candidate who was visibly shaking due to nerves as he stared at the five people across the table from him, it was clear to me that we had too many people in the interview room. For higher level positions, it is important to include more people in the process, but entry-level positions rarely warrant that kind of interviewing. When it comes to such hiring decisions, trust your managers to make good choices for their team. In the case of the produce position, it would have been sufficient to simply have the hiring manager and HR involved.

When you are hiring for a position that requires a number of interviewers, set up panel interviews whenever possible. This reduces the chance that the candidate will keep answering the same set of questions over and over again. It also cuts down on the amount of time a candidate must spend in the interview process.

While we are on the topic of interviews, take the time to review the questions you ask. While it may give you insight into a candidate’s critical thinking skills to ask why manhole covers are round, such questions can become unnecessary when asked of a retail worker. Do your questions give you the information you need to see if the candidate is a good fit for the particular job? If not, cross the questions off your list. Avoid questions that are not relevant to the job.

Failing to Follow Up

So, imagine that you have put someone through a long and tedious interview process and at the end of it, they hear nothing from you for weeks. Aside from the risk of losing a good candidate to another company, this also shows a lack of respect for the time the candidate has already put into the hiring process.

Let a candidate know during the interviews how long you expect the whole process to take. Even if remaining interviews, reference checks and such are delaying the process, take the time to write an email or make a phone call to keep the candidate updated. If a candidate really wants to work for you, they will be more inclined to wait and push away other offers if they know there is still a possibility they will be hired at your company.

Transforming How People Work #CAHR15

By Stephanie Hammerwold

The California HR Conference wrapped up yesterday with a final keynote address by Laszlo Bock, senior vice president of People Operations at Google. Bock recently published Work Rules!, which contains his advice for transforming the workplace. His presentation drew from his experience at Google as well as examples from other companies where valuing and listening to employees are keys to success.

Google is a company known for innovation in technology. Their search engine is powerful enough that it turned the company’s name into a verb, and they have introduced things like Google Glass and the self-driving car. There seems to be regular buzz around what invention Google will bring forward next. But even though Bock works at a tech giant, his advice was surprisingly simple: treat your people right. 

It is easy to get caught up in new HR tech and thinking of ways it will streamline and improve processes. While those things can help us perform our jobs, they are not at the core of creating an environment that drives creativity and innovation.

Bock emphasized the importance of trusting your employees. He said, “Let people in your organization try stuff. Trust them to solve problems.” Too often managers do not put that level of trust in their employees. Whether it is a retail store where employees must get approval for any customer request outside of normal procedures or a manager who won’t let employees try new ideas, many companies fail to trust in their employees. 

At one company I worked at, the owner warned everyone at a management meeting, “Assume all employees are stealing from us.” This was his philosophy for figuring out how to reduce theft in the company’s warehouse. Unfortunately this attitude spread to most of his interactions with employees. As such, the company had a culture of paranoia. This is not the type of culture that encourages creativity and innovation.

Bock also said that companies should be frugal and generous. He explained the ways that Google has been able to increase their benefits at little to no cost to them. For example, the company has a mobile haircutting service that comes on campus. Employees can pay $20 to have a haircut. The benefit is that it makes getting a hair cut convenient, and such a benefit is no cost to Google. They also provide services such as on-site dry cleaning as a way to help employees save time in their busy schedules.

As for being generous, Bock said, “There are moments in life where you get crushed by life or moments where something amazing happens.” These are the times a company needs to be ready to address. This may come in the form of generous death benefits for family members of an employee who dies while working at the company or extended leave options for new parents. Caring for employees during those big moments in their life is a key part of valuing their work.

Bock added that the smallest things can have the biggest impact, and he encouraged managers to nudge their employees when they feel it is necessary to facilitate communication or action. This could be as simple as sending an email to both a manager and a new hire to remind them to meet to go over expectations. Even the gentlest reminder can have positive ripples.

In conclusion, Bock stated, “We’re positioned to transform how people work.” What is most interesting about Bock’s philosophy is that it can be implemented at any company. It does not require fancy technology or the vast resources of a company like Google. It boils down to putting trust in our employees, and as Bock said, “To always make an exception in favor of the employee.”

Is it Possible That There’s an Upside to Stress? #CAHR15

By Stephanie Hammerwold

This morning I drove up to Anaheim for day two of the California HR Conference. Things got off to a good start on the first day with Robert Safian’s keynote address on generation flux. Along with his talk, there were a number of excellent sessions on everything from California’s new paid sick leave law to retaining top talent. Today’s keynote speaker was Kelly McGonigal, a lecturer at Stanford University and author of The Upside of Stress and The Willpower Instinct.

I was a bit skeptical of McGonigal’s topic. Having worked in HR, I am no stranger to stress and how it can affect employees in the workplace, so the idea of there being an upside to stress? Well, I had my doubts. But McGonigal changed my mind just a few minutes into her talk. She said, “Stress is a signal that people are pursuing things and relationships that have meaning.” This resonated with me because it got me thinking about sources of stress in my life and just how many of those things have meaning and value for me.

She went on to ask the audience how they would feel if they gave up everything that caused them stress. This could mean giving up your family, your job, your friends, your body and almost everything that makes you who you are. You would essentially be left with nothing. She explained that dealing with stress is not about getting rid of it; it is changing the way we think about stress. McGonigal said, “Stress is not just a toxic mindset that needs to be avoided.” How we think about stress and respond to it plays a huge part in determining how it will affect us.

McGonigal showed examples of the signs and literature we typically see in the workplace. The message tends to be that we need to get rid of stress because stress is a bad thing. She pointed out that it is not a helpful message to say stress is toxic because stress will always be present in the workplace. Of course, as I mentioned in a recent post on Blogging4Jobs, there are times when the workplace is toxic and stress is a sign of that. Those are the times there is a downside to stress. But there are plenty of times that there is an upside, and we can support our employees by helping them to shift their mindset about stress.

There is something powerful about seeing that we have the ability to shift our mindset about stress. In a way, it gives us control over it and we can then harness that energy to drive us forward. For me, I think what can make stress challenging is that it makes me feel like I do not have control over a situation. Using McGonigal’s approach helps me to see that stress is not necessarily something that stands in the way of sanity.

I would like to leave you with McGonigal’s four tips on how to embrace stress:

1. Notice and accept stress as a part of being alive and being human.
2. Connect to the meaning that stress signals. What (goals, values, roles, relationships, communities) do I care about?
3. Channel the energy of stress. What can I do? How can this moment be a catalyst?
4. Find the courage to grow from stress. What is the opportunity, lesson or possibility?

The California HR Conference wraps up with keynote speaker Laszlo Bock, SVP of People Operations at Google. Come back tomorrow for thoughts on his speech and some final thoughts on the conference. You can also follow me on Twitter as @HRHammer for live updates from the last day of the conference.

HR in the Era of Flux #CAHR15

By Stephanie Hammerwold

The California HR Conference is in full swing in Anaheim this week. Over 2,000 HR practitioners, providers and presenters are in attendance at this annual event organized by the Professionals In Human Resources Association (PIHRA). Here are some highlights from my first day at the conference.

The conference kicked off with keynote speaker Robert Safian, editor-in-chief of Fast Company. Safian discussed what he calls generation flux, which is a way to describe both the era of rapid change we currently live in and the kind of people that best thrive in this climate. Safian explained, “We live in a mobile, social, global world where the old rules of business no longer apply.”

Safian said that the average amount of time an American stays in their job is only 4 1/2 years. We are changing jobs at a pace that is no longer focused on building a career at one company. The idea of a single career is a myth. He pointed to the success of those who move from job to job without building a career in one field. In the age of flux, he pointed out, the essential skill is the ability to add new skills.

Safian was careful to point out that generation flux does not refer to any one age group. It is an ability to adapt to a world in chaos—a world that is rapidly changing. As I wrote about in my recent post on generation X, much of what we talk about in terms of traits specific to generations may instead be attributed to various phases of life in general. Safian’s understanding of generation flux resonates with this idea that a multigenerational understanding of how we work, change and adapt is perhaps more accurate than the twenty-year generations we often use. The characteristics that we assign to groups like boomers, generation X and millennials may not accurately describe how we all adapt to what is happening in the world now. I think it is a bit misleading to say that millennials have the advantage in this game. Just look around to see who is glued to their phones in public. Peruse social media sites for an idea of the range of people using, taking on and changing the way we communicate and do business—it’s not just a bunch of twentysomethings.

As HR professionals, it is important that we understand how living in the era of flux changes the way we work and manage people. This includes everything from providing adequate training on new technology to adapting to the different ways we communicate and do business. Just think of the workplace in the late 1990s—none of us were thinking of bring-your-own-device policies and we did not have to worry about the ways employees may represent us in the online world. Yet those things are a part of how we manage employees in the era of flux.

Tuesday’s keynote speaker is Kelly McGonigal, lecturer at Stanford University and author of The Upside of Stress and The Willpower Instinct. Check back for thoughts on McGonigal’s presentation and more on the California HR Conference. I will also be live tweeting from the conference, so be sure to follow @HRHammer on Twitter.

Amazon and the Problem with Overworked Employees

By Stephanie Hammerwold

Amazon recently made headlines when The New York Times published a piece about the company’s high stress culture in which employees are pushed beyond their limit in the name of innovation and company success. Many were quick to point the finger at Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos for encouraging a culture where the company’s white-collar workers are expected to be available at all hours and where it is frowned upon to take time off even for health issues. While all of this certainly points to problems with Amazon, it is really a larger symptom of the culture we live in. Let’s face it: the U.S. has a big problem with overworked employees.

Does Technology Make Life Easier?

In July, Planet Money did an episode on economist John Maynard Keynes’s prediction that by the early 21st century, we would be able to work only 15 hours per week and meet all of our basic needs. Keynes said we would become more productive, thus reducing the amount of time we needed to work. This would free up time for more leisure activities. As the hosts of Planet Money pointed out, Keynes was right about productivity. We are able to produce far more goods than people did 100 years ago; however, we are nowhere close to that 15-hour workweek.

Many of us our tethered to our jobs by technology that allows us to call, email and text from just about anywhere. According to a 2014 Gallup poll, 50% of Americans said on average they worked more than 40 hours per week and that the average workweek is 47 hours per week. As for salaried employees, 25% claimed that they average at least 60 hours per week. Clearly technology has not increased productivity to the point where we can work less. In fact, it seems that technology has made it possible for us to do more work and stretch our to-do lists by miles.

I have been a part of teams implementing new workplace technology. With each new piece of software comes the promise that it will free up all kinds of time by automating and streamlining processes. Sure, most tech delivers on this promise, but the end result is really that it frees up time to take on more work. In this sense, technology has failed to deliver us Keynes’s vision of the 15-hour workweek.

The Workplace & the Culture of Instant Gratification

I remember placing my first order from Amazon in the ‘90s, shortly after the company launched. Back then, Amazon was just an online bookstore. At that point, deliveries by drones were not even a twinkle in the collective eye of the American consumer. Amazon has since grown to be a huge operation with everything from household products to groceries to clothing, sports equipment and even streaming video. And, of course, they still have books. I have friends who cannot stop talking about all the benefits of Amazon Prime membership. Amazon is fulfilling a strong need in a busy time. When a few clicks gets you an order of toilet paper and other household goods delivered to your door within a few days, what’s not to love about such convenience?

But, as the article in The New York Times shows, convenience comes at a price. Behind the easy ordering process and the quick deliveries are huge distribution centers and corporate employees scrambling at all hours to develop the processes and technology to meet the ever-increasing demand of an instant-gratification culture. When we order something, we want it now, not two weeks from now. Technology has also made it such that we do not see all the people laboring behind the scenes to get our products to us quickly.

In a way, our desire for instant gratification is doing us in by creating a culture where feeling overworked is the norm. Sure, we have access to all kinds of products and services at the push of a button, but is it worth our mental health when we put in 60-hour weeks and have little time to enjoy the fruits of our labor?

How Do We Make a Change?

I have experienced similar situations to the ones told by Amazon employees. While mine were not always as extreme, there was a certain familiarity in the long hours and being pushed to the point of exhaustion. So, are we doomed to work at companies like Amazon where long hours are the norm and employees seem miserable?

I do not think it has to be this way. Change starts at the top and with owners who believe our personal needs are just as, if not more, important as work. Those at the top should lead by example and not put in long hours. If employees see the boss at work late and responding to email at midnight, they are likely to engage in the same style of working. In the culture of overwork, we have forgotten that time off is actually a good thing. It allows us to refresh and recharge. If we expect employees to work long hours without taking time off where they are relieved of all work responsibilities, they will become exhausted and therefore less productive.

This all sounds great in theory, but it will require a huge shift in how we think about work. At the end of my life, I know I do not want to say, “Wow, I’m sure glad I spent most of my vacations with my phone in my hand so I could stay in touch with the office.” Life is about much more than work. It is about the time we spend with the people we care about, the adventures we go on and even the days spent curled up under a blanket and lost in a good book. While the 15-hour workweek may never come to fruition, I think it is possible for us to shift our thinking about work and to remember that not everything has to be done yesterday.

HR Hero Interview: Corinne Clawson

By Tim Pershing

There are many HR heroes out there working hard to make workplaces better for employees. I recently had the chance to talk to Corinne Clawson about how she achieves that. Corinne is a People Support Manager at Premier Nutrition Corporation, an active nutrition company that offers food and beverage products including Premier Protein and Joint Juice. Her specialties include benefits administration, billing systems, contract management, customer relations, database administration, finance, hiring, human resources, inventory management, meeting facilitation, proposal writing, recruiting, research, safety, sales and training programs.

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HR Hero: Corinne Clawson
Position: People Support Manager at Premier Nutrition Corporation
Years in HR: 10
Location: Oakland, CA
First Job: HR Assistant

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What is the craziest thing you’ve ever seen as an HR professional?

In my early years I either witnessed or heard about some insane employee relations issues: from being locked down in the HR office by police due to a drug cartel arrest to a workers comp claims where someone literally slipped on a banana peel! There are lots of crazy stories from my time there!

Luckily, the last few years have been fairly calm. I did have my VP of HR at one former company find a bag of cocaine randomly in the hallway, but there was no evidence of who dropped it. It is always shocking that people would think to do some of the things we all see.

I think that one thing I love about this work is how surprising people can be. Even if you follow the same process and procedures in every situation, someone eventually will have a strange or negative reaction where you will need to use your experience and wherewithal to resolve or de-escalate.

How did you get your start?

I was told to look into HR by my mother since she thought I had such great people skills; I always had a good read on what was going on with my friends or acquaintances. After graduation from CSU Monterey Bay, I was searching for a receptionist or Admin Assistant position in Santa Cruz and stumbled on and HR Assistant role with Threshold Enterprises. That company and HR department taught me a lot about employment law and issues in the human resources field. I learned so much about what type of HR department I would like to work in and what kind of HR professional I would like to be. 

How do you make the workplace better for employees?

I feel that employees deserve equal respect when it comes to their questions or concerns. It is basic customer service. I do this by listening and responding in a relatable way. Even if I have to share bad news, I strive to make them respected and their concerns heard. HR is the voice of the company, which is a big responsibility and has been a challenge at times to remember that we are so impactful to our employees work experience.

How do you think HR processes can be improved? 

In the past few positions, my title has changed from traditional HR Manager titles to a softer more approachable title. I have been both People & Culture Manager and now People Support Manager. I think these titles are a way for organizations to help change how HR is perceived and how we as HR professionals approach our departments. If you remember that you are there to support the people, the management and the business versus being the “old fashioned policy police” you will gain a different form of respect from everyone in the company. Our stereotype haunts our profession, and it is up to all of us to make sure that we are not only strategic and compliant but welcoming and approachable.

What is the hardest part of your job?

The hardest part is balancing the corporate compliance policies and practices of my current employer's parent company and the entrepreneur and people focused style of my team. We can adopt certain policies and be required to follow others. Sometimes it isn't 100% clear which direction I should follow. I am representative of two very different employers. Our parent is very focused on compliance and my company is more interested in the business.

What do you like most about your job?

I have the best job because I work for a company that cares about its people. I don't have to convince them that culture and people-focused programs are important for the culture and ultimately the bottom line. They already had a great culture; I just need to maintain, support and get creative with ways to improve it. 

What can employers do to provide better support to employees?

I think by remembering that each employee wants to know “what's in it for them” and by making sure that managers always address the employee and their individual path or purpose at a regular cadence, so they feel valued. When an employee feels valued their commitment and work product is far superior to those who don't feel like they are considered. 

Tim Pershing is a regular contributor to HR Hammer and co-owner of Hammerwold & Pershing. He specializes in a variety of business support services including website, blog and print content; business plans; slide decks; publications; and online editing. 

What not to Wear: Dress Codes & the Workplace

By Stephanie Hammerwold

Last month, retailer JC Penney's dress code made headlines when an employee posted pictures of herself in an outfit that her manager said was against the dress code. At issue were the young woman’s shorts, which she says she purchased in the career section of the store. The manager told her to go home and change, and the employee responded by quitting. News outlets picked up on the story, and it opened up a debate about whether or not JC Penney’s dress code was fair and if it was sexist to deem the woman’s outfit inappropriate for work. Regardless on your opinion on this matter (or if it was even worthy of making national news), this situation is a good reminder to review your company’s dress code in order to avoid possible problems in the future.

What to Include in the Dress Code

Many workplaces have adopted a casual style. It is not uncommon to walk into a workplace and see executives in jeans and T-shirts. When I used to work in Santa Cruz, the rare candidate who showed up for an interview in a suit looked out of place in the casual office environments I worked in. Even if you want to keep things casual, it is important to have a clear policy that spells out what is not allowed.

Decide where you want to draw the line. Are shorts acceptable? What about footwear? Are flip flops OK? What if an employee has tattoos and piercings? Do tattoos need to be covered up and piercings removed? Remember to also include something in your policy about employees not wearing clothing with offensive images or language. Wearing such clothing may be a violation of your company’s harassment policy. Provide examples of inappropriate clothing (e.g. no tank tops, shorts flip flops or bare midriff shirts). Your policy should spell out any specific uniform requirements, such as color of pants, type of shirt and name tag placement. Include a statement that employees may be sent home to change if they show up to work dressed in violation of the dress code.

Avoiding an Unfair Policy

In the case of the young woman who worked for JC Penney, one claim thrown around in the media was that the policy was sexist. This is a good reminder to review your policy to ensure that it is not more harsh on women. According to an article in Business Insider, a JC Penney spokesperson claimed that their policy prohibited shorts for all employees, not just women. In this case, it would be hard to call the JC Penney policy sexist because it applied the same standard to shorts for men and women. If the JC Penney policy had only barred shorts for women, it would be easy to see how the policy could be sexist. Apply similar standards to all employees.

When a policy relies too heavily on cultural norms for what constitutes femininity or masculinity, it may exclude people who do not express their gender within those norms. Not all women feel comfortable in a skirt, so even if you want your employees to dress business formal, avoid a restrictive policy that says women may only wear suits with skirts. Some states have laws that protect gender identity and expression, and employers are required to allow employees to dress in a way consistent with their gender identity or expression. Avoid a policy that may violate this law.

Remember that you must make accommodations for an employee’s religious beliefs. Even if your policy states that employees may not wear headscarves, you will need to accommodate an employee who does so for religious reasons. When drafting your policy, consider mentioning that employees may ask for religious accommodation and train managers on what this means.

Clearly Communicate the Policy to Employees

The JC Penney case illustrates why it is important to communicate your dress code policy to employees from day one. The young woman claimed she did not know about the policy that prohibited shorts. Not only should you have a written policy in your employee handbook that details the dress code, but you should also spend time explaining the dress code to new hires.

As with the written version, give examples of what is and is not acceptable. You can have  pictures included in your orientation presentation to show examples of employees who are dressed appropriately. Allow new hires to ask questions to ensure that they understand the policy.

How to Handle Dress Code Violations

Even after you educate your employees on the dress code, you may still have employees who violate it. I once worked in HR at a manufacturing and distribution company. The dress code for warehouse employees was pretty casual. Shorts and T-shirts were acceptable, provided that the clothing was free of offensive words, images or logos. A warehouse employee walked into HR with a T-shirt that said, F— the Yankees.” The F word was spelled out, so this was obviously not appropriate at work even though the warehouse was a casual environment. We asked the employee to turn the shirt inside out or go home to change. He was unhappy about it, but he eventually went back to work in an inside out shirt.

If you have to send an employee home to change, you can require them to clock out. This is a burden for both the employer and employee. The employer is short staffed while the employee is gone, and the employee loses out on wages they could have earned if they did not have to go home to change. This is another reason why it is important to educate employees on the company’s dress code.

If you notice many employees are dressing too casual and are not quite meeting the dress code, hold a group meeting to review the policy. Give employees a copy of the dress code, and have them sign something saying they received it. If there still continue to be problems after the meeting, discuss the policy with employees on an individual basis.

How do you address dress code violations in your workplace? Have you run into any problems with employees who try to push the boundaries of what is acceptable? Leave your stories in the comments.

Women Chefs & Gender Inequality in the Kitchen

An Interview with Deborah A. Harris & Patti Giuffre

By Stephanie Hammerwold

In today’s media we are inundated with the world of restaurants and chefs. There are several networks devoted entirely to cooking, restaurants and food as a metaphor for culture. This is especially evident in Las Vegas where towering banners display the faces of celebrity chefs like Gordon Ramsay, Emeril Lagasse, Guy Fieri and Bobby Flay, chefs whose eateries serve as the flagship dining experience in the biggest casinos and generate millions of dollars in sales every year. 

In my time there recently, one thing was glaringly obvious: with the exception of a large banner for Giada De Laurentiis and a small sign for a restaurant by Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken (known as the Too Hot Tamales) the most advertised and most recognized restaurants were all owned by men. In all the focus on high profile restaurants, professional kitchens and the back of the house, one thing is clear: the profession is still largely male-dominated.

In Taking the Heat: Women Chefs and Gender Inequality in the Professional Kitchen, Deborah Harris and Patti Giuffre analyze the history of the culinary industry and how it has evolved to be almost exclusively the domain of male chefs. Their book includes interviews with 33 women chefs as well as an analysis of media data to determine how women chefs are portrayed and perceived. I recently interviewed Harris and Giuffre about their research and new book.

What is your background in sociology and women’s studies?

Deborah Harris (DH): I received my PhD from Mississippi State University in 2007 with a focus in social stratification and inequality. Gender inequality has always been an academic interest of mine.

My early research examined how social inequality was manifested in social welfare policies, particularly how low-income rural women navigated changes in cash welfare programs that encouraged work and marriage as routes off public assistance. Since then I have studied how women are depicted in wilderness recreation advertising and how this might impact how women feel about engaging in these activities. While working on the project that would become Taking the Heat, I developed an interest in the sociology of food and I am currently examining how college students perform gender in their food diaries that describe their daily eating habits. 

Patti Giuffre (PG): I received by PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 1996. I first became interested in gender inequality in the workplace during my many years working in restaurants as a hostess, cocktail waitress, bartender and waitress. My observations during my restaurant work became the basis of my first study, which concerned sexual harassment in restaurants. I have also conducted research on homophobia and sexual orientation discrimination in workplaces.

How did you become interested in analyzing gender in the workplace through professional kitchens?

DH: This research was inspired by my love of the reality television competition, Top Chef. When I began teaching at Texas State, I had a ritual of coming home Wednesday nights and curling up to watch Top Chef each week. During one episode, the chefs were told they were being rewarded for their hard work and treated to a night out at a Miami nightclub. All the chefs dressed to the nines only to find out, once they reached the nightclub, that it was all part of a cooking challenge that required them to design a menu and cook at a food truck in front of the club. The chefs had to perform all the shopping, running around and cooking in their dressy clothes, and some of the women were very upset that they were having to perform these tasks in high heels, dresses and makeup. One chef even adamantly declared that she never let her male colleagues see her like that (i.e. in very feminine dress). I wondered why she was so upset, but then I started thinking about how, as a male-dominated career, women chefs may want to downplay their femininity to fit in better at work.

While I wouldn’t call myself a foodie at the time, I realized that, while I could name several men chefs, I couldn’t name any women chefs. All the women who I thought of were not actual “chefs” but were Food Network hosts. I was struck by the irony that, when cooking happened in the home it’s seen as a more feminine activity, but in the professional world men did more cooking. I discussed this with my colleague, Patti Giuffre, and we decided to use professional chefs as a case study for examining the mechanisms through which gender inequality is maintained at work. If any job would be more open to women’s entry, it would seem that being a chef would fit, but that didn’t seem to be the case and we wanted to know why. Seven short years later and we had a book!

“We found the work of chefs and the culinary industry to be fascinating because no other male-dominated occupations are based upon an activity that is culturally defined as “feminine” or “women’s work” in the home.
—Patti Giuffre”

PG: We were fascinated by the current superstar chef trend. We were also interested in how the work of chefs is unique compared to other male-dominated occupations. There are many studies of women’s experiences in male-dominated industries, workplaces, and jobs (e.g. construction, police, firefighting, coal mining, gas and oil industry). We found the work of chefs and the culinary industry to be fascinating because no other male-dominated occupations are based upon an activity that is culturally defined as “feminine” or “women’s work” in the home. We suspected that men chefs might have more at stake in defining their work in the professional kitchen as something that is completely different from the type of cooking that typically occurs in the home. The nose-to-tail and molecular gastronomy culinary trends seem to further delineate the type of cooking that occurs in professional kitchens from cooking that occurs in the home.

How might the restaurant industry (and other employers for that matter) change their approach to harassment training in order to encourage an environment where sexual joking and teasing are not the norm?

DH: The really simple answer to this question is for kitchen leadership to make it very clear about what kinds of behavior is considered harassment and won’t be tolerated. A more thorough answer would have to take into account the different models of restaurants. Our participants discussed how there were a greater number of corporately-owned restaurants these days. On one hand, these restaurants tended to have more standardized menus, so they weren’t the most exiting places to work as a chef. However, because of the corporate influence, these restaurants were more likely to have more formal channels in place for dealing with sexual harassment.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are a lot of smaller, chef-owned restaurants where things like HR departments simply don’t exist. In these scenarios, the person complaints would go to would be the chef or owner, which may very well be the person who’s committing the harassing behavior. 

In both cases, what is important is that there is a culture where workers feel like they can report harassing behavior without reprisal or being labeled “too sensitive.” Historically, professional kitchens have earned a reputation as “rowdy” places to work, so workers may feel that this is the kind of behavior that is expected—and even desired—in the kitchen. But if those in charge in the kitchen make it known what the boundaries are and emphasize a more professional atmosphere, this can impact the workplace. Coworkers learn what is and is not acceptable behavior and those who have harassment complaints know they can report the behavior and something will be done to address the situation.

PG: Studies suggest that sexual harassment training is rarely taken seriously by workers. And, workers often do not know whether behaviors are sexual harassment or not. Workers in restaurant kitchens tend to engage in a lot of sexual joking and banter. In these types of sexualized workplaces, workers have an even more difficult time identifying what is “fun” and “funny” versus what is sexual harassment (unwelcome sexual behaviors). Management must take it seriously, and inform workers that sexual harassment will not be tolerated. They must also enforce company policies (that is, IF there is a policy). 

Corporate restaurants are more likely than small, independently-owned restaurants to offer policies, training, and enforcement. Interestingly, the women chefs we interviewed believe that the presence of women leaders in the kitchen will deter sexual harassment. They say that women ARE changing the kitchen culture to discourage offensive behaviors. Perhaps more women in leadership roles in kitchens will eventually alter the sexualized culture.

In your book, you mention the popularity of Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In. As you point out, the lean in approach may work for some women, but it tends to uphold the traditional masculine workplace as the norm. How do we move beyond the self-empowerment approach to really transform the workplace? Are visibility of marginalized people and improved leave laws, benefits, flexibility, etc. enough?

DH: In part of your question, you ask if increased visibility and workplace policies enough. For chefs, much of what it takes to be labeled a “success” involves moving up kitchen hierarchies and opening one’s own restaurant (or even multiple restaurants). As a creative career, media and other forms of visibility is crucial for financial success and getting access to investors and other sources of capital. So, in this case, being a chef is more like other creative careers (fashion design, etc.) and having more visibility is a great start. It shouldn’t stop there, however, and more attention (and pressure) should be put on industries and organizations to provide more benefits and support for workers. 

PG: We have been intrigued by and a little skeptical about the “lean in” phenomenon. Lean in compels women to stand up for themselves, “bang the table,” self-promote, and get their voice heard. Leaning in speaks to many women workers around the U.S. who like the individual empowerment messages contained in leaning in. Lean in strategies seem to help some women in the short term but do not contribute to larger changes in an industry. Some of the women chefs in our study described a survivor mentality that was very similar to lean in. Policy changes like family leave or flexibility certainly can help support women but even with supportive policies there are particular groups of women would be penalized if they leaned in (e.g. women of color, queer women, and/or women who work outside of white collar corporations).

Sandberg’s lean in strategies might work best for some groups of women (e.g. heterosexual women, white women, women in the “1%”). The survivor ethic contained in leaning in can contribute to criticisms of less successful women by highly successful women for not being more ambitious. It can also cause women to downplay the bias and discrimination they have encountered.

Sandberg’s book has good intentions but is detrimental to our thinking about gender inequality at work because it focuses our attention on individual-level “choices” or what (certain) women can do to fix themselves. One of our sociology colleagues, Dr. Kirsten Dellinger, Professor at the University of Mississippi, raised a great question at a recent conference: What would it mean for organizations to lean in for gender equality? Organizations leaning in are probably more likely to transform the workplace than individuals leaning in.

I like the example of Thomas Keller’s kitchen and how he maintains a calm environment that seems to go against the wild and chaotic view we often have of a professional kitchen. How do we further this idea that a successful workplace does not necessarily have to be loud and macho? How does an environment like Keller's further add to the professionalism of chefs and allow for the growth of a wide array of people in the field?

DH: I think this case really illustrates the power of media depictions of chefs. Our participants really felt that chef-related media from Hell’s Kitchen to shows on The Food Network gave an inaccurate picture of what is was really like to work in a kitchen. While several women had worked for the yelling, angry chef who threw food or pots and pans around the kitchen, most admitted that behavior was on its way out. If various media outlets started showing a more realistic—or at least a more varied—depictions of what working in a kitchen is like, this could affect how people viewed the occupation. Similarly, culinary schools could help encourage more professional behavior by discussing the realities of life in the kitchen to their students. 

I agree with your conclusion that struggles with work-family balance, long hours, etc. are not unique to the chef profession, and there is a lot to think about in terms of how we balance work and family regardless of gender. How do you think we can take your conclusions from this book and apply them to other workplaces?

DH: Again, I think the relevance of culture is important in this case. One way to increase work-family balance across many fields is to normalize paid leave for both parents and to encourage parents to take time off knowing that their jobs will be safe. This can be helped by larger cultural shifts that emphasize a sharing of parental roles. When it becomes more popular for both parents to share family responsibilities, this will help pressure industries to be more family friendly instead of having more gender-specific policies.

“One way to increase work-family balance across many fields is to normalize paid leave for both parents and to encourage parents to take time off knowing that their jobs will be safe.
—Deborah A. Harris”

PG: Our findings apply to many workplaces that are highly demanding and want “work devoted” employees who prioritize work over family. Most American workplaces are not truly family- or caregiver-friendly. Many Americans are trying to work AND care for family members and other loved ones. There are some workplaces offering various forms of support for workers, but for now, it really is up to management and ownership to create and enforce policies that are supportive to workers. 

The U.S. is one of the only industrialized countries that doesn’t offer federal paid family leave. We need some federal or state policies that would encourage more workplaces to offer paid family leave. There are four states in the U.S. that offer paid family leave (California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Washington). Studies find that workers are happier, less stressed out, and actually return to work more quickly in states or workplaces that offer paid family leave. Furthermore, men are more likely to use family leave in states and workplaces that offer it.

Workplaces can offer other forms of support, for example, paid sick leave. We know of some local grocery stores that offer a sick leave pool. Some workers will never use the sick leave, while others will need more. The pool allows all workers who need paid sick leave to use it without fear of being penalized.

Finally, our research can be applied to other workplaces by asking us to consider culture change so that workers who need to care for ill loved ones can do so without facing penalties, biases, or negative responses that they “aren’t dedicated enough.”

Taking the Heat is available from Rutgers University Press in both print and ebook format.

Stop Letting Restrictive Policies Get in the Way of Work

By Stephanie Hammerwold

For almost two years now I have been building my own business with my partner. Being away from the corporate life has given me time to reflect on all the structures we impose on the workplace and whether or not such things are effective tools to maintaining an ordered and fair environment. As a human resources professional, much of my work life has been devoted to establishing policies and processes for this reason. Things such as harassment training and anti-discrimination policies are in place to create a fair, equitable and healthy environment and can make the workplace better. But what about some of the other processes we put in place? Are things like open office plans and performance reviews getting in the way of productivity and creativity in the workplace?

Restrictive Policies

I got my start in HR at a company that was a policy heavy environment. As a result, I learned quite a bit about HR, labor law and how to draft a thorough policy. Unfortunately, this approach aggravated employees. With so many rules, it was hard to keep every process straight. Written policies help communicate the rules and guidelines of a workplace, but if your policies are extremely detailed and restrictive, it can be hard for even the best employee to never mess up. Restrictive policies also put the emphasis on the rules rather than the work. Find a happy medium between satisfying legal requirements and meeting the needs of employees.

At one point I was given the task of writing a payroll procedures policy. My first draft was one page, by the time it went through many rounds of revisions, it ended up being six pages long and included instructions that would make building Ikea furniture look easy. The written policy did little to help managers follow the correct payroll procedures because it was too long, detailed and complex.

One step many companies avoid in drafting policies is to get input from employees. When writing or updating a policy, try to get a few employees to read it and give feedback. Ask what parts are confusing and if there is anything that interferes with the way employees work. A good policy should take into account how people work at your business. Otherwise the policy takes over and gets in the way of people doing their jobs.

Open Office Plans

I am not a fan of open office plans. Every time I read something talking about how open office plans foster community and encourage creativity, I want to build a blanket fort and go hide in there with my laptop while I work. The beauty of working from a home office is that I do not have to worry about some manager deciding to throw me in a big room with a bunch of coworkers.

Open office plans can be noisy and full of distractions. In an article for The New Yorker, Maria Konnikova points to work done by organizational psychologist Matthew Davis in 2011. She writes, “He found that, though open offices often fostered a symbolic sense of organizational mission,…they were damaging to the workers’ attention spans, productivity, creative thinking and satisfaction.”

“Every time I read something talking about how open office plans foster community and encourage creativity, I want to build a blanket fort and go hide in there with my laptop while I work.”

I recently wrote a piece on open office plans for Blogging4Jobs in which I expressed my dislike of the open office plan. When I shared the post on various social media sites, I did not have one person who spoke up in favor of the open office plan. In all my years in HR, I have also worked to solve noisy work environment problems for countless office workers. While I am sure there are those out there who thrive in a noisy, busy environment, I know many of us like a calm environment in order to focus. What makes me cringe whenever I hear someone touting open office plans is that it seems to be a solution thrown on a whole office without much thought toward the needs of individual workers.

When considering the implementation of major changes to foster creativity and communication, ask employees what would help them do their jobs better rather than assuming the latest trend will improve the workplace.

Performance Reviews

How can I not bring up the dreaded performance review in a discussion of restrictive policies and processes? Someone in the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) LinkedIn group started a discussion on performance reviews recently. An overwhelming number of HR professionals weighed in to say that the traditional annual review needs to go. Despite many of us in the profession disliking annual reviews, they persist.

Annual reviews attempt to summarize a whole year’s worth of work in a few pages. Goals are set on an annual basis as though work happens in 12-month periods. Feedback given in this format is stressful. I have worked with very few managers who get excited about reviews. Most of them grumble and worry about what to say. Employees get anxiety about what their managers will say and often only focus on whether the review will include a pay increase without hearing any feedback that their manager is giving them.

Performance management should be ongoing. Managers should meet with their employees on a regular basis to check in on projects, ask where the employee needs help, suggest areas for improvement and to give positive feedback. If a manager documents these interactions, the need for the annual performance review disappears. Also, making performance management and feedback a regular part of the work flow takes the stress off of formalizing such conversations.

The key here is to make the process a little less formal. With proper training, managers should be able to develop a system of ongoing feedback and documentation that can be used to justify employment decisions without using the annual review. Such an approach puts the focus on the work and takes it away from unnecessary paperwork.

What types of policies and processes get in the way of doing your job? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Reference:
Konnikova, Maria. “The Open-Office Trap.” The New Yorker 7 January 2014. Online.

O Generation X, Where Art Thou?

By Stephanie Hammerwold

Print magazines and online publications are filled with articles about millennials in the workplace. If it’s not them, then there are pages and pages dedicated to the struggles of baby boomers as they reach retirement age and continue to work. I recently read an article that had long descriptions of both generations and the silent generation (those who preceded the boomers). When it came to generation X, there was one, simple sentence that mentions how gen Xers don’t like to work collaboratively. Really? That’s how to sum up my whole generation?

All the generation talk that permeates the media has made me think about my own generation as well as how we discuss generations in life and in the workplace. Where is generation X in all this conversation? And is it useful to put so much energy into publishing article after article about millennials and baby boomers while generation X is relegated to middle-child status? Should talking about generations even be a thing?

A Reflection on Gen X

I am part of generation X, which is the age group born roughly from the early 1960s to the early 1980s. Many of us were latchkey kids who grew up in single-parent households or in a family where both parents worked. We still had freedom to wander the neighborhood without parental supervision, and we saw the advent of video games. By the time I was in college, generation X was branded as being cynical, disenfranchised and feeling adrift. Music by bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and those that were part of the Riot Grrrl movement came to represent the way we felt.

I remember graduating college with a sense of idealism—I would rather do something meaningful with my life than have a big paycheck. When the reality of struggling to find a job and to make enough to pay off student loans became a reality, my sense of idealism started to change. After some time in the nonprofit world where I made paychecks barely big enough to cover my basic expenses and two years in grad school, I ended up in the for-profit corporate world. When I look around at my fellow gen Xers, I see similar paths; however, unlike me, many of my cohort have also taken on spouses and children and have settled into a balance between corporate life and suburban family life.

Somewhere along the way we seem to have lost that idealism that was born out of our childhood independence and teenage angst. We became more worried about paying for our kids’ college educations and our own retirements than saving the world. And with this, we have found ourselves sandwiched between two generations clamoring for all the attention while we just try to make it through the day, so we can go home to complain about how no one ever talks about us.

In a 2010 Pew Research study, researchers asked adults if they thought their generation was unique. According to the study, “about six-in-ten Boomers and Millennials said yes. But only about half of Gen Xers said the same. Among those who did, there was very little consensus about why they are distinctive” (Taylor & Gau).

Perhaps this is why we are often left out of the conversation. We do not want to be easily distilled down to a few traits, and we see our evolution as part of a bigger lifecycle rather than as simply a generation thing. I think what gets under my skin the most about all the generational talk is that it makes me want to shout, “You aren’t special! These were, are and will be my struggles too!”

Why Generation Talk Misses the Point

I wonder how much value there is in understanding differences between the generations. I share the view that 50% of my generation holds that there is nothing unique about generation X. Perhaps that is what makes us unique…or maybe not. While I think there are certain ways we work that differ depending on our age, I think those differences are more a product of our present age than our specific generation.

For example, it seems to be a common refrain to hear how millennials struggle to find jobs and how they are trying to bring a change-the-world approach to their work. Sound familiar? And just as baby boomers realize they will probably need to keep working because they do not have the money to retire, gen Xers will most likely be facing the same struggle when we get to retirement age.

There is something to take away from understanding generational differences, especially when we look at how different age groups were influenced by technology and various parenting styles and how these things affect them in the workplace. But in the bigger picture, much of what we talk about in terms of traits specific to generations may instead be attributed to various phases of life in general as outlined in my example above.

As another example, I remember entering the workforce in my early twenties and hearing boomers complain about how young people acted entitled and did not understand the value of working hard to get ahead. Again, sound familiar? These are the same things we hear about millennials today. In a few decades, will we be talking about millennials and their “unique” struggle to have the finances to retire in their 60s?

In a way, this is the American lifecycle that took its roots in the 20th century. We have left behind a time where people worked at the same company for their entire life, were able to afford a nice home and retired with comfortable pensions. These are not struggles unique to any of the generations.

Maybe talking about generations is for people who believe that these categories are worthwhile in understanding our experience of the world. As someone who does not see my “generational” struggles as unique, it is easy to see why I would shy away from generation talk.

“The Answer is, I Don’t Know”

Perhaps some of you may be reading this and thinking, “Oh, she is so gen X!” My rambling thoughts and lack of adherence to labels may be no more than a representation of the characteristics of generation X. Maybe I really am just a product of my generation, and I once again feel as though I am adrift, but this time it is in a sea of social media sites and new tech as I listen to the endless droning on about millennials. Maybe I am just like the gen Xers we were in the 90s. We just wanted to be heard and to have someone recognize our struggle. Now, leave me alone so I can drink cheap wine, listen to Pearl Jam and reflect on my dwindling 401(k). Where’s my flannel?

Reference:

Taylor, Paul and George Gao. “Generation X: America’s neglected ‘middle child.’” Pew Research Center, 5 June 2014. Web. 14 July 2014.

Uploaded by tklimina on 2013-07-05.

Disability Accommodations in the Workplace

By Stephanie Hammerwold

According to the 2010 census, 19% of adults in the U.S. have a disability. This means that most employers will at some point deal with a request for accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Not only is providing a reasonable accommodation the right thing to do, it is also the law. Disabled workers have the potential to be just as productive and valuable as the rest of the workforce, so it is important that employers have a plan in place to help these employees have the tools they need to succeed and do their jobs.

What is a Disability?

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) says someone may be disabled “if he or she has a physical or mental condition that substantially limits a major life activity (such as walking, talking, seeing, hearing or learning).” The EEOC further adds that someone may be disabled if they have a history of a disability or if they are believed to have a disability that is not minor or transitory.

Employers may not discriminate against someone on the basis of disability. This includes both employees and job applicants. Employers have an obligation to provide reasonable accommodations in the workplace unless doing so would cause undue hardship.

Reasonable Accommodation & the Interactive Process

According to the EEOC, “A reasonable accommodation is any change in the work environment (or in the way things are usually done) to help a person with a disability apply for a job, perform the duties of a job, or enjoy the benefits and privileges of employment.” While employers may fear that they will have to make difficult or expensive changes to accommodate disabled workers, the reality is that many accommodations are easy fixes.

When an employee approaches you with a request for accommodation, begin the interactive process. This involves working with the employee to figure out how to meet their needs. Provide forms that an employee can complete with their doctor that detail their specific request. View the interactive process as a conversation, so if the first request the employee makes is not something you can easily accommodate, make alternate suggestions until you land upon something that will work. Remember that not every disability is the same, so even if, for example, you have two employees requesting accommodation for depression, their needs may be different.

The Job Accommodation Network is a service provided by the Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP). JAN’s site gives employers tips and information on various disabilities and possible accommodations. They provide a number of examples of easy accommodations. Take for example an employee who struggles with getting to work on time due to Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). An easy accommodation would be to give the employee a flexible start time.

Training Managers & Getting Extra Help

Train your managers on how to handle accommodation requests. Many local social service agencies who help disabled people can offer resources to use in training and may even be able to send someone to speak to your managers about disability in the workplace. Training will give your managers a chance to ask questions to understand that the accommodation process is not necessarily difficult.

While many accommodation requests are easy, you may sometimes run across one that presents challenges. JAN offers a number that employers can call for assistance, and you may also want to consider contacting an employment attorney for guidance if you are struggling with meeting an employee’s request.

Top Ten Things to Remember When Firing an Employee

By Stephanie Hammerwold

Terminations are one of my least favorite parts of working in HR. Even when an employee has committed a serious enough violation to warrant it or when they have been given opportunities to improve, the decision to fire someone is not an easy one. The decision to terminate should be carefully thought out, and you should feel confident in your decision by the time you get to the termination meeting. Here, in no particular order, are the top ten things to remember when dealing with a termination.

1. No matter how hard the termination is for you, it is much harder for the employee who is losing their job.
2. Be confident in your decision, and avoid lengthy discussions about the termination when you meet with the employee. By this point, the employee has already been given ample opportunity to improve, or they have committed a major policy violation that warrants immediate termination. There is not much room for an employee to plead their case.
3. Have plenty of documentation to back up your decision to terminate. This can include warnings, performance reviews, email, samples of work, investigation notes or anything that supports your decision.
4. Review other terminations to ensure that similarly situated employees have been treated the same way.
5. Get your emotions in check before the termination meeting. Do not enter the meeting feeling extremely angry or upset.
6. Give the employee the space to have an emotional response to getting the news that they are losing their job.
7. Have another manager or HR person in the room during the termination meeting as a witness in case any issues come up. This person can also escort the terminated employee from the building.
8. Plan the termination meeting for a time when it is easy for the terminated employee to leave the building easily without having to talk to coworkers.
9. Have a plan in place for how the terminated employee will gather their personal belongings from their workstation.
10. Be kind. Getting the news of termination is difficult to hear, so approach the conversation with compassion.

For more tips on making terminations a little less difficult, see my Blogging4Jobs post.

Shhh! I’m Trying to Work: Thoughts on Managing Noise in the Workplace

By Stephanie Hammerwold

As I sit down to write this, gardeners are using leaf blowers across the street, and there is a fairly constant presence of drivers gunning their engines as though my street is a racetrack. Even though I work mostly from my home office and have some control over my space, the constant soundtrack is frustrating because I have realized I am sensitive to noise—especially when I am writing. I can handle a little bit of music if I am in control of the music, but most other noise makes me tense, and I lose focus.

I am the kind of person who avoids certain restaurants because the music is too loud. I cannot walk into a Best Buy without feeling assaulted by loud music and blaring TVs. These types of environments are the norm, and in some ways I think that we have accepted noise as a given in our lives. What does this mean for the workplace? Do we need to just accept it as a part of modern life, or are there ways to create a quiet workplace?

My Experience with Noisy Workplaces

We live in a noisy world. We are bombarded by loud music, the rush of traffic, the whir of blenders in a favorite coffee spot or whatever provides the noise that populates our world. Quiet is elusive, and the way to find it is to either carve out our own space or to escape to a distant retreat for a few days. When excessive noise infiltrates our workplace, it can affect our ability to concentrate, and it adds additional stress to our jobs.

I often have not realized how much noise affects me until I am out of a noisy situation. I used to work in HR at a manufacturing and distribution company. For my last couple years there, I was HR manager at the distribution center, so my office was located in a noisy warehouse. A typical workday included the constant sound of beeping forklifts, tape guns and the blare of the PA system. By the end of a workweek, I would often choose to spend the whole weekend by myself at home so that I could avoid noisy environments.

Working for myself has meant that much of what I do takes place in my home office. While I still contend with noisy cars and leaf blowers outside, I have a lot more control over my immediate space. It has made a big difference in my ability to focus and get things done.

Controlling the Noise

Working in a traditional office could be a challenge for me. There always seemed to be the distraction of conversations, the copy machine or all the other background noise present in such an environment. I have friends who wear earplugs at work to shut out some of the office noise, and I like to use headphones with classical music. The headphones and music give me some control over the sound, which has worked well for me.

Many offices are set up with cubicles, and open office plans have received attention lately. For those of us sensitive to noise, these options are not ideal work situations. While open plans may help some collaborate more, they can be frustrating for those who are most productive when they are in control of the noise.

Technology has opened up many possibilities for changing how we work, and I do not think employers have fully embraced the ways they can use it to improve the workplace when it comes to noise. It is not always possible to give everyone their own office, but employers can allow for more work-from-home options. While in-person collaboration is sometimes necessary, there are many tasks that can be performed from home. Giving employees a day or two per week to work from home may be a good balance between collaboration and quiet, alone time to get work done.

Some Final Thoughts on Quiet

I do not think it is enough to accept that we live in a noisy world. While we can make small adjustments to our workspace, minimizing exposure to noise is challenging. Does noise get in the way of working for you? How do you deal with a noisy work environment? Share your thoughts in the comments.

You Work Like a Girl: Changing Perceptions of Women in the Workplace

By Stephanie Hammerwold

Whether it is leaning in or standing up for ourselves, there has recently been much discussion about women in the workplace. Women have been speaking out about sexism in the Silicon Valley, and there have been several recent high profile lawsuits involving harassment, pregnancy discrimination and other issues. Yet despite this attention, we still have big problems with how women are perceived. A woman can have an amazing resume, work really hard and move up to a top position, but her perceived shortcomings may be distilled down to, “Well, it’s because she’s a woman.” Changing the way women are viewed will involve a big cultural shift in how we perceive gender and work.

How Women are Perceived
Women often struggle with likability in the workplace. Be too nice, and you are seen as the office mom. Be too mean, and you will get labeled as the office bitch. It is a fine line. Success for women is often equated with likability. Steve Jobs and other top male executives and leaders are often lauded for their assertiveness. Would we feel the same way if Steve Jobs had been Stephanie Jobs?

When we focus on a woman’s likability in the workplace, we are once again denying that her skills, expertise and experience are the things that really determine if she will be a good worker.

Media stories on women promoted to top positions at companies are a strong indicator of how women at the top are perceived. For example, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer made headlines in 2013 when she banned telecommuting at Yahoo. As Los Angeles Times reporter Jessica Guynn points out, “…working moms are in an uproar because they believe that Mayer is setting them back by taking away their flexible working arrangements.” Mayer’s decision was seen as anti-working mom even though she also increased paid leave for both mothers and fathers (Carlson).

“Steve Jobs and other top male executives and leaders are often lauded for their assertiveness. Would we feel the same way if Steve Jobs had been Stephanie Jobs?”

What bothered me most about the portrayal of Mayer in the media was that it felt like people were quick to find ways to criticize Mayer’s policy change without seeing what else the company offers. Telecommuting can be a good option for some companies, but it does not always work well everywhere. Rather than criticize Mayer for the telecommuting ban, why wasn’t there more attention on the ways Mayer and Yahoo provide other benefits for working parents? And why did the headlines seem to avoid pointing out how Mayer’s decision could improve a failing business? As Guynn’s points out, Mayer’s decision to ban telecommuting was part of her efforts to help turn Yahoo around. Guynn notes that Mayer was hoping to improve the company by bringing employees together in the same space rather than remotely. Given that Yahoo offers some generous benefits, was it fair to paint Mayer as a woman who did not support other working moms?

Why is Work Still Gendered?
Women have made major inroads in the workplace in the last few decades. We see women in a lot of positions, yet the age-old arguments about why women cannot do certain jobs still exist. Whether it is hormones, mood swings or lack of physical strength, there seem to be those out there who present these things as reasons why women cannot do certain jobs.

With Hillary Clinton’s recent announcement that she is officially running for president, her detractors wasted no time in leveling criticism at her that focused on her femaleness rather than her abilities as a leader. Cheryl Rios recently posted on Facebook about why she thought a woman should not be president. Rios stated, “If this happens—I am moving to Canada. There is NO need for her as she is not the right person to run our country—but more importantly a female shouldn’t be president. Let the haters begin…but with the hormones we have there is no way we should be able to start a war. Yes, I run my own business and I love it and I am great at it BUT that is not the same as being the President, that should be left to a man, a good, strong, honorable man.”

Rios is the CEO of Go Ape Marketing, so one would think she would be supportive of a woman in a prominent leadership position. What is interesting is that Rios is relying on this outdated notion that a woman’s hormones may cause her to hit the proverbial red button and cause a nuclear apocalypse. Why is it that people are still hung up on thinking a woman is less capable than a man because of her hormones—something which both men and women have in their bodies? I would have more respect for Rios’s opinion if she focused on what she did not like about Clinton’s politics or experience as a politician.

This line of thinking also comes up in regards to physical strength. Women are often perceived as physically weaker and thus not fit for some jobs. Certain jobs are especially physically demanding (e.g. fire fighter, construction worker, oil rig worker), and women in these positions should be expected to meet the rigorous physical requirements. While it is true that some women will not meet the requirements, the same is true of men. Being a man does not necessarily physically qualify someone to be a fire fighter.

In addition, there are many jobs where the physical requirements are no more rigorous than sitting at a desk for long hours. Technology has made it possible for workers to perform many jobs with limited physical strain; however, lack of physical strength is still seen as something that may prohibit women from getting ahead.

In the 1960s, my mom worked as a computer programmer for NASA. One day she showed us a company picture of everyone she worked with. In a large group of well over 50 people, there were only two women, so it was not hard to pick her out. Back then, it was not common to see women in such professions, but this has changed quite a bit in the last 50 years. During my lifetime women have become heads of state and CEOs of companies, Sally Ride became the first American woman in space and women scientists are changing the world. Yet people like Rios still use the tired, old argument that women’s bodies somehow limit their abilities to work.

Navigating Hostile Waters
Women who make it into leadership positions or male-dominated fields must find a way to navigate the hostile waters created by negative perceptions based on gender. Sociologists Deborah Harris and Patti Giuffre conducted a study, which involved interviewing 32 female chefs about their experience in the culinary industry. Harris and Giuffre pointed out that, “Women described themselves as ‘invaders’ of men chefs’ turf, and their male supervisors often had preconceived ideas that women were not physically and emotionally strong enough to work in kitchens and would give them fewer high-status jobs.” Harris and Giuffre ultimately conclude that men and women chefs are not much different when it comes to their skills and abilities; it is perceptions of men and women that differ. These perceptions shape both how we all think about women as well as how women think about themselves.

“Women can work hard to navigate the hostile waters and silence the internal gender critic, but until we all shift our thinking about women in the workplace, we can never really have an equal workplace. ”

Women deal with external forces that can make the workplace hostile. Such things come in the form of comments like Rios made about Hillary Clinton not being suited to the job of president because of her femaleness. But women also must fight against internalized oppression. These are the things women begin to believe about themselves because of all those comments they hear about women being less qualified and able. If you are a woman, have you ever believed you cannot do something because of your gender? In a way, women fight the battle on two fronts: in the outside world and in their own minds. Women can work hard to navigate the hostile waters and silence the internal gender critic, but until we all shift our thinking about women in the workplace, we can never really have an equal workplace. If we focus only on the individual as being the site of change, then we are not really fixing the problem that is making the woman worker believe she isn’t capable.

Am I Leaning In Enough?
When it comes to women in the workplace, change needs to happen everywhere and not just with the individual. After Sheryl Sandberg published Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead in 2013, she created an organization to take the Lean In philosophy out into the world. I commend Sandberg for her efforts to draw attention to unequal treatment in the workplace. It is important for women in power to draw attention to the continuing inequalities. But I also question an approach that asks women to lean into a system that still operates based on outdated gender norms.

Sandberg’s approach places the burden on individuals to change, and she acknowledges her critics: “I know some believe that by focusing on what women can change themselves—pressing them to lean in—it seems I am letting our institutions off the hook. Or even worse, they accuse me of blaming the victim. Far from blaming the victim, I believe that female leaders are key to the solution” (10-11). As I said, I like that Sandberg uses her position as COO of a major company to draw attention to women’s issues; however, I think change is going to require more than female leaders like Sandberg. There needs to be an institutional shift.

Sandberg’s approach aims to give women confidence to speak up, and she encourages women to support each other. These are good things, but at what point do we end up with a bunch of women asking, “Am I leaning in enough?” Women have been “leaning in” at work for a long time, and while there are more women in professions that tend to be male-dominated, women still face the negative perceptions I spoke about above. As Harris and Giuffre’s study on women chefs points out, “…it’s likely that men and women chefs (on the whole) are not radically different in terms of skills, leadership qualities and professional drive. What are different are the perceptions and experiences of men and women chefs.” It's true that having women in more positions of power and in traditionally non-female jobs will help turn the tides, but women entering into those positions still have to work really hard to battle sexism and essentially prove they deserve to be there. If the problem is with perception, will leaning in really change the way women are perceived?

The Lean In philosophy falls short in that it asks women to work within the existing framework instead of ripping it apart and creating something new. In effect, it asks women to be responsible for creating the change that will end unequal treatment. Women are going to space, running major companies, saving lives and leaning in all over the place, yet there is still this perception that women are not capable because of their gender. At what point do we stop asking women to lean into a broken system and instead ask the system itself to change?

Why these Perceptions Hurt Everyone
When work is perceived as gendered, everyone gets hurt. Think of the men working in typically female professions such as nurses, nannies and teachers. How often are these men seen as somehow lesser because they work in a feminine profession? Their work is seen as less valuable. Look no further than the male nurse jokes made in Meet the Parents, and TV shows and movies still rely on making jokes about a male nanny.

When work is viewed through a gendered lens, we miss out on all the things people are capable of. I am not making a call to erase gender. Instead, I am arguing that workplace success needs to stop being tied to gender. Some women are good at being firefighters, and some men are good at being nurses. Even though these jobs have been historically perceived as gendered, it does not mean they need to continue being seen as such.

Is a Sexism-Free Workplace Possible?
So, what does a workplace free of sexism look like? How do we create the cultural shift necessary to make a big change in the workplace? For one, we all need to stop creating and paying attention to messages that reinforce gender stereotypes. Every time Hillary Clinton’s fashion choices are offered up  as proof of her inability to be president, whenever a woman is criticized for working and raising a family and each time someone says a woman is too emotional to handle the pressures of a restaurant kitchen, the gendered perceptions that underpin our current system are upheld.

It starts with asking ourselves if we are judging a worker based on performance and skill or on gender? Yes, more women should be in leadership positions and jobs in male-dominated fields, but there also needs to be emphasis on destroying the age-old tool of evaluating workers based on gender. Until then, women may find themselves leaning in until they fall over.

References:
Carlson, Nicholas. “Marissa Mayer Doubles Yahoo’s Paid Maternity Leave Gives Dads Eigh Weeks Off.” Business Insider, 30 April 2013. Web. 18 May 2015.

Guynn, Jessica. “Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer causes uproar with telecommuting ban.” LA Times, 26 February 2013. Web. 16 May 2015.

Harris, Deborah and Patti Giuffre. “A Sociological Study of Why So Few Women Chefs in Restaurant Kitchens.” The Feminist Kitchen, 18 July 2011. Web. 12 March 2015.

Sandberg, Sheryl. Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013. Print.