Running a nonprofit organization requires a tremendous amount of teamwork and collaboration. In today's digital age, many nonprofits have adapted to remote work models to be more efficient, cost-effective, and flexible. However, when it comes to remote collaboration, challenges such as communication barriers, cultural differences, and time zone disparities can make it difficult to maintain effective collaboration across your workforce.

In this blog, we'll share effective strategies that can help you enhance remote collaboration throughout your nonprofit organization.

Invest in the Right Collaboration Tools

Your organization needs the right tools to help improve collaboration among remote teams. Some essential tools that can help include cloud-based document sharing platforms like Google Docs and Dropbox, video-conferencing apps like Zoom and Skype, chat and messaging apps like Slack, and project management tools like Trello and Asana.

Establish Clear Guidelines for Effective Communication

Communication is the lifeblood of collaboration. To ensure effective collaboration, it's important to establish clear communication guidelines and protocols that apply to all members of your organization. These guidelines should include standards for language, tone, response times, and how to handle disagreements.

Foster a Culture of Open Communication

Remote collaboration requires a more inclusive and transparent communication approach. Encourage your team members to be more open and transparent in their communication while ensuring that they are effectively listened to and their opinions noted. This will ensure that every member of your team has an equal chance to share their ideas, which will ultimately lead to more effective collaboration.

Develop Work-Collaboration Schedules

As remote teams can be scattered around the world, it’s essential to have defined collaboration schedules to ensure that all members of the team can contribute. Work-collaboration schedules can cover topics such as project meetings, deadlines, shared work times, etc.

Train your Team in Virtual Collaboration Skills

Provide training and workshops to your team, informing them on best practices in virtual collaboration skills relevant to your workforce. Proper training and education in virtual communication, project management, and teamwork will create well-rounded staff who are more effective in a virtual work environment.

It’s essential to embrace and encourage a healthy culture of remote collaboration. By providing your team with the resources for safe and productive collaboration, you're helping foster an environment of creativity, connectedness, and efficiency. With the right tools in place, you won’t have to compromise on quality or efficiency as people work from wherever they are most comfortable and productive. A strong foundation made up of communication, trust, transparency, and open-mindedness can help take your nonprofit to another level. Your employees will feel empowered knowing that their work matters and that they are part of an organization with core values that enable greater collaboration across your remote workforce. Don’t hesitate to invest in the tools necessary to support remote collaboration – it could be the keystone for your nonprofit's success.

Find more resources to help your nonprofit navigate the digital age with UST’s blogs.

Question: What are effective ways to manage remote employees and monitor their work? 

Answer: Managing remote employees can certainly be a challenge. Here are some of the practices we recommend: 

• Set measurable goals around quality of work. Whether employees get their work done to your satisfaction is more important to your bottom line than whether they’re always at their workstation. Make all the resources necessary for employees to do their jobs remotely easily available. These may include phones, computers, extra monitors, video conferencing software, and instant messaging apps. If you need employees to have fast internet speeds, consider subsidizing the necessary costs. 
• Create and communicate a work-from-home policy so everyone knows what’s expected of them.
• Talk regularly with employees about what’s working well and not-so-well. Encourage them to reach out to HR or a manager if remote work is causing any difficulties or challenges.  
• Hold all meetings virtually, even if some people are working in a company office, so everyone is equally able to participate. This means having employees who are in the workplace login from their individual computers and not be in the same room as their other in-office colleagues during the meeting. 
• Promote a good work-life balance by making sure remote employees know when their workday ends. It’s very easy for employees working at home to spend more time working than they would in an office environment.

This Q&A was provided by Mineral, powering the UST HR Workplace. Have HR questions? Sign your nonprofit up for a FREE 60-day trial here. As a UST member, simply log into your Mineral portal to access live HR certified consultants, 300+ on-demand training courses, an extensive compliance library, and more.

Strong management is essential for any organization, and that certainly includes nonprofit organizations. Nonprofit management skills are the foundation of success for leaders who carry the responsibility of supporting and advancing the organization's mission. Professionals in nonprofit management roles are also responsible for managing teams to accomplish goals while administering resources and ensuring accountability to stakeholders. 

In this blog post, we will look more closely at the importance of strong not-for-profit management skills and how you can ensure your team keeps your nonprofit business running smoothly. 

What Is Nonprofit Management? 

The primary goal of a nonprofit organization is often to raise funds for a cause or provide service to a group or community. There are many moving parts to such an operation—making nonprofit management skills essential—since the role's primary function is the oversight of processes, strategies, and events that drive an organization toward its short- and long-term objectives. 

Professionals working as part of a nonprofit management team face several tasks to ensure that the organization is operating effectively and efficiently. These tasks include managing personnel, overseeing the financial budget, and ensuring regulatory compliance for any fundraising events, tactics, and strategies on the horizon. 

Why Are Management and Leadership Skills in Nonprofit Organizations Important for Your Organization? 

A prominent aspect of nonprofit management involves finding and developing the ideal qualities needed for nonprofit managers who understand what it takes to lead your nonprofit organization. Your management team should have the skills and passion to motivate volunteers and staff to work together to achieve unified short- and long-term goals.  

Since many nonprofits use a rotating group of individuals to volunteer or serve as employees, it is especially important for nonprofit management to remain adaptable—understanding how to inspire individuals with outside jobs and other responsibilities. 

One of the top leadership skills in nonprofit organizations is the ability to establish order and organization while maintaining authority and providing upbeat motivation—it is a unique and vital position in the nonprofit space. 

Essential Management Skills for Nonprofit Leaders 

Now that you know how important good management is, we’ll explore what essential skills to look for when choosing candidates for your executive team. 

Financial Management 

Proper financial management is a critically important part of running a successful not-for-profit organization. Ensuring your financials are in order ensures that your nonprofit can sustain operations, fulfill its mission, and remain accountable to all stakeholders, including those at the government level. 

Some tasks involved with financial management include the following: 

• Budgeting, providing a roadmap for resource allocation 
• Monitoring cash flow to make sure your organization can always pay salaries and fulfill the organization's mission 
• Financial reporting and transparency to ensure accountability and trust among stakeholders and the community 
• Handling cost control by evaluating expenses, negotiating vendor contracts and identifying any opportunities to save costs 
• Developing and coordinating fundraising strategies, cultivating good relationships between donors and seeking grant opportunities 
• Overseeing grant management by finding grant opportunities, tracking requirements, composing and submitting proposals, ensuring compliance with grant stipulations and overseeing use of grant funding 
• Establishing financial reserves to provide your nonprofit with a safety net to guard against unforeseen financial issues 
• Implementing and monitoring strong internal controls to prevent mismanagement of funds and fraud by establishing and instituting clear policies and procedures for handling organizational finances or any data related to your nonprofit's finances 
• Ensuring legal and regulatory compliance for matters including financial reporting and tax laws 

Strategic Planning 

Strategic planning is one of the top nonprofit management skills, as it steers the organization's direction. It also helps establish priorities and ensures alignment with the organization's mission and goals. 

Here are some tasks associated with strategic planning for nonprofits: 

• Regularly reaffirm your nonprofit organization's goals and mission 
• Identify and understand the beneficiaries, volunteers, staff, donors and partners, along with their needs and expectations 
• Conduct regular SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) evaluations to ensure your organization continues to grow and improve 
• Set clear and measurable goals for the organization and its employees and volunteers, using the SWOT analysis results 
• Develop meaningful strategic initiatives with actionable steps to achieve defined goals 
• Allocate resources, including human, technological and financial, to support strategic initiatives 
• Implement strategic plans, setting timelines and milestones while assigning responsibilities to respective staff and volunteers 

Relationship Building and Communication Skills 

Since nonprofit organizations typically attract individuals who enjoy seeking a higher purpose, relationship building, and strong communication skills are fundamental in not-for-profit management. Your management team must establish and nurture relationships with stakeholders, who consist of volunteers, donors, beneficiaries, partners, and the community. All these individuals and groups contribute to the success of your organization and its mission. 

  Here are a few criteria associated with effective relationship building and communication: 

• Understanding stakeholders, including their goals, needs and concerns 
• Establishing open and transparent communication pathways 
• Providing tailored engagement, recognizing that each stakeholder is unique 
• Engaging in active listening when working with various stakeholders, hearing their feedback, suggestions and questions 
• Ensuring personal engagement with stakeholders, remembering their names, ideas and goals  
• Seeking opportunities to join forces with similar or like-minded organizations to expand your network 

Additional skills useful in relationship building and communication include donor stewardship, ethical engagement and continuous engagement. 

Decision-Making 

Quick and effective decision-making skills are vital for nonprofit management leadership. Such skills allow them to tend to the organization's resources, resource allocation, strategies and overall success. 

Here are some elements for successful decision-making for your not-for-profit managers: 

• Staying clear on the organization's mission and values 
• Relying on data to make decisions 
• Involving relevant stakeholders 
• Aligning decisions with the organization's goals and activities, practically and ethically 

Promoting Professional Growth for Employees 

Just as you find individuals who want professional growth in for-profit businesses, you also find them in the nonprofit sector. Ensure your management team recognizes this need for employees to grow and thrive as they help you meet your organization's goals.

Here are some things you can do:

• Provide training and workshops. 
• Encourage skill-building among employees and volunteers. 
• Support cross-training between individuals and departments. 
• Mentor and coach talented staff and volunteers. 
• Invite staff and volunteers to professional seminars and conferences. 

The success of any nonprofit organization begins with strong management, and it takes a skilled team to optimize resources and manage investments. Leveraging the right strategies and skill sets helps nonprofits create a network of committed supporters and creates an impact in the local community. With UST HR Workplace, you can find solutions to help give your management team the tools they need to drive your nonprofit forward. We understand the unique challenges of nonprofit organizations and have created our system in response to those needs. Visit UST HR Workplace today and let us show you how we can help you succeed!

Sources 

https://nla1.org/nonprofit-management-skills/ 

https://www.cmich.edu/blog/all-things-higher-ed/top-18-essential-nonprofit-management-skills-and-development-tips 

 

 

Running productive meetings is a crucial aspect of ensuring a nonprofit organization's success—especially when the team is working remotely. Virtual meetings have become the norm due to the rise of remote workforces. However, holding meetings remotely also presents unique challenges that can affect their efficiency. In this blog, we will discuss essential tips that nonprofit leaders can leverage to run productive meetings with a remote workforce.

1. Define the meeting's goals and agenda: Before hosting a virtual meeting, you need to have specific objectives that you want to achieve during the session. Defining the goal and agenda of the meeting beforehand ensures that everyone is on the same page and can prepare accordingly. Having a clear agenda can help keep the meeting focused, minimize distractions, and improve engagement.

2. Choose the right communication tools: Selecting the right communication tools can significantly improve the productivity of your virtual meetings. Consider using a reliable video conferencing platform that allows everyone to participate and share their ideas. Additionally, choose a platform that enhances collaborative features such as instant messaging, screen sharing, virtual breakout rooms, recording capabilities, and many more.

3. Set clear expectations for participants: Ensure that all meeting participants are aware of their roles, expectations, and responsibilities during the session. This includes specifying what participants should prepare beforehand and where they should share any follow-up information or feedback. Clear expectations foster a sense of accountability and enable you to achieve the set meeting objectives.

4. Foster an inclusive environment: Inclusivity is essential, particularly when working with a remote workforce. Ensure that everyone has an opportunity to participate and contribute during the meeting. Encourage open and respectful communication among staff members by creating a relaxed and conducive environment. Additionally, respect your team's time by starting and ending the meeting promptly.

5. Follow up after the meeting:  After the meeting, be sure to provide a summary of the discussion, conclusions, and any necessary action items. Share the information with all concerned parties and ensure that everyone understands next steps, and clear action plans are in place. Following up after the meeting is essential to ensure that the meeting's objectives are achieved and that progress towards achieving the set goals is monitored.

Following the tips above can help remote teams stay connected, engaged, and productive during virtual meetings. By using the right communication tools, setting clear expectations, fostering inclusivity, and following up after the meeting, you can effectively run productive meetings with remote teams. As a nonprofit organization, you must use every tool and resource available to ensure the success of your meetings and ultimately achieve your mission.

Question: What are some typical examples of employee discipline? Are there any you recommend?

Answer: Discipline should reflect the severity of the behavior, attempt to correct it, and be applied consistently. You’ll want to consider how you addressed certain behaviors in the past and the precedent you want to set for the future. For instance, if you jump straight to a final warning when a certain employee is an hour late to work, but let another employee come in late regularly without so much as a written warning, you’re setting yourself up for trouble.

We generally recommend progressive discipline. This means you start small and work your way up to termination. Progressive discipline often includes these steps:

• Oral counseling/warning(s)
• Written warning(s)
• Final written warning
• Unpaid suspension—we generally don’t recommend this, as it’s likely to make the employee more disgruntled than they were before, and ultimately be more harmful than helpful, but you may find that it’s appropriate in some circumstances; be sure to keep reporting time pay in mind for non-exempt employees, depending on state law
• Termination

At each step, make your expectations clear, notify the employee of the consequences should they fail to improve (that they’ll be one step closer to termination), and document what actions you took. The warnings you give to the employee should stick to the facts, i.e., what infraction was observed, when it occurred, and what policy or policies was violated. Opinions about the infraction should be left out, as these are easily disputed. For example, “Yesterday, you arrived 20 minutes late in violation of our attendance policy” simply states the facts, whereas “You’re always tardy and can’t be trusted to arrive on time” is likely to get pushback.

This Q&A was provided by Mineral, powering the UST HR Workplace. Have HR questions? Sign your nonprofit up for a FREE 60-day trial here. As a UST member, simply log into your Mineral portal to access live HR certified consultants, 300+ on-demand training courses, an extensive compliance library, and more.

A strategic plan provides a clear process of determining, documenting, and establishing the direction of a nonprofit organization.

Strategic planning for nonprofit organizations like yours is crucial, allowing you to assess where your nonprofit is at now and where you want it to go. It allows your nonprofit decision-makers to see the big picture and make the desired impact on your community.

Let's find out more about this important process and what it can do for your nonprofit.

What Is a Strategic Plan for Nonprofits?

A strategic plan for nonprofits is a full process that allows leadership to identify key elements on a well-defined map that helps organizations define their goals for their organization and their community. It asks your nonprofit leaders to create or define goals and objectives and empowers them to make the necessary decisions to achieve them.

The Top 5 Steps for Implementing a Strategic Plan

Like all nonprofit leadership, your goal is to serve your community. It is more challenging to do so without a solid, strategic plan to guide you and your devoted team. There are some steps you can take to develop and implement a strategic plan that helps everyone in your organization stay on track to successfully support your mission.

Let's look at the following five steps that you can use to implement a strategic plan.

1. Complete a SWOT analysis and set goals

The first step in developing and implementing a strategic plan is setting clear goals and defining the variables that help you achieve them. A SWOT is a basic technique used by all types of businesses, including nonprofit organizations, to identify processes in an organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, risks and threats to your organization. Many nonprofits rely on it to help with personnel evaluations and marketing campaign planning, in addition to standard organization-wide strategic planning.

2. Set SMART objectives

SMART objectives can be powerful tools in helping support your mission, providing landmarks to help you achieve your larger goals.

Here is what SMART objectives are and what they allow you to do:

• Specific — Target a specific area for analysis and improvement
• Measurable — Quantify or at least suggest an indicator of progress
• Assignable — Specify who will do it and delegate
• Realistic — State what results can realistically be achieved given available resources
• Time-based — Specify the timeline for achieving results

For example, SMART goals are essential in helping nonprofits manage fundraising events and seasons, letting everyone know where your nonprofit is in terms of financial goals.

3. Establish specific tactics to support each objective

The tactics you and your team use provide help to achieve the smaller, more specific tasks that your team members achieve your nonprofit's overarching goals, focusing on the mission, budget and SMART initiatives.

4. Reevaluate information

Strategic planning isn't necessarily static — factors will change over time. It's important to adjust your goals and objectives as you move through the process.

5. Keep the plan dynamic to scale with your organization

As mentioned above, circumstances change. That makes it important to keep your plan dynamic and scalable. For example, you might achieve some goals sooner than others, allowing you to redirect to hit new benchmarks on an adjusted timeline.

SOURCES

https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0612/the-importance-of-strategic-planning.aspx

https://nonprofithub.org/why-most-swot-analyses-stink-2/

https://bloomerang.co/blog/nonprofit-strategic-planning/

With the rise of remote work, more and more companies are forced to rely on virtual teams to get things done. Teamwork is one of the most essential aspects of any organization but remote-first employers are experiencing a unique set of challenges when it comes to creating effective collaboration and team building. Many organizations are recognizing the importance of team building exercises, especially when managing a remote workforce.

Without regular face-to-face interaction, remote workers can feel isolated and disconnected from their colleagues—making team building a crucial aspect of driving long-term success within your organization. Here, we explore the benefits of team building for remote teams, along with some practical strategies to help keep your remote team connected and engaged.

In this blog post, we will explore the benefits of team building exercises for remote teams and how they help to improve team dynamics, communication, and productivity.

1. Build Trust and Camaraderie: Trust is essential for any team to work efficiently, and virtual team building activities are an excellent way to help build trust among team members. Engaging in activities that make teams feel connected and trusted are just one of the essential elements of a well-functioning remote team. You can start with simple icebreaker activities like virtual coffee breaks or a weekly happy hour where team members can bond and get to know each other. Remember, when team members build trust, they are more likely to collaborate effectively and communicate openly.

2. Effective Collaboration: Team building modules that involve collaboration tasks among remote workers lead to efficient and productive teamwork. Remote teams need to learn how to work together, share ideas, and give timely feedback, which is essential to overcome the challenges of working from different time zones. Activities like virtual brainstorming, problem-solving, and discussion forums help to get the juices flowing and sharpen collaboration skills.

3. Reduce Isolation: Remote employees can feel disconnected, leading to isolation, which is bad for overall morale. By providing an avenue for team engagement, remote team members are less likely to experience feelings of loneliness, stress or burnout. Virtual team-building activities like fitness challenges, healthy cooking competitions, or book clubs can help keep remote workers energized and connected to their teams.

4. Encouraging Creativity: Remote teams often face creative challenges due to the geographical and cultural differences among team members. Team building exercises that promote creativity can help address these challenges by providing a creative outlet for team members. Virtual brainstorming sessions, online group discussions, and creative projects can help inspire creativity and encourage out-of-the-box thinking among remote team members.

5. Improved Communication: One of the most common challenges remote teams face is communication breakdown. However, virtual team building exercises not only promote communication but also provide opportunities for team members to get to know each other personally. Virtual team building exercises such as Virtual Scavenger Hunts, Remote Happy Hours, and Online Game Tournaments are excellent ways to bring together remote workers and help them bond on a personal level.

6. Increased Productivity and Job Satisfaction: Remote employees who are engaged and motivated are more productive and satisfied at work. Virtual team building activities can help fix this problem by creating a sense of community and shared purpose among your remote staff and when team members feel connected and engaged, they are more likely to be motivated about their work.

7. Building a Stronger Team: Finally, the ultimate goal of team building exercises is to create a stronger, more cohesive team. By engaging in virtual team building activities, remote workers can develop a shared sense of responsibility and accountability towards the team's success. When team members perceive themselves as part of a team, they are more likely to support each other, be more engaged in their work and contribute positively towards the team's goals.

Just because team building with remote workers can be challenging doesn’t mean it should be neglected. In fact, it's more important now than ever. By implementing virtual team building activities, you can boost communication, productivity, and overall job satisfaction. This, in turn, contributes to a well-connected and efficient remote team, leading to the success of your organization. Don't let remote work hinder your team's potential - prioritize team building for your remote teams.

High employee turnover can be a major challenge for nonprofit organizations. When employees leave, it requires significant resources to train and orient new staff, leading to disruption in day-to-day operations. High turnover can also lead to an organizational culture of instability—reducing morale and weakening relationships with volunteers and donors.

Nonprofit organizations must take steps now to reduce turnover rates and retain their valued employees. Discover the latest trends in tackling high turnover rates and learn what you can do to ensure your workforce is engaged and driving your mission forward in this on-demand recording.
 
In this session, we'll explore:

• The retention techniques utilized by your nonprofit peers
• How to identify and address the root causes of turnover
• Ways to engage and develop your workforce that foster job longevity

Upcoming UST Live Webinars: This webinar series was designed to equip nonprofits with the strategies and resources they need to survive (and thrive) in a constantly evolving environment. Be on the lookout for our September UST Live panel when we'll discuss how having a diverse workforce—with individuals from different generations—can lead to a more productive and innovative work culture that will help nonprofit employers achieve their mission-driven goals.  

In recent years, the general workforce has been through a lot. They’ve faced discrimination, income loss, job insecurity, benefits insecurity, as well as a host of other professional, financial and personal problems. So, while it’s true that they’re seeking the best income they can achieve for their skills and talents, there is a lot to be said for offering an exceptional employee experience. What that means will vary by organization, of course, but there are a few basics you could offer that might make the difference in attracting best-fit staff.

Design Nonprofit Work to Enrich Their Lives in Meaningful Ways

While seeking creative ways to entice and engage talent, take some cues from the employee experiences offered by other employers (many of whom are nonprofits or social enterprises). For example, amp up your one-on-one manager-employee meetings—it’s an all-enterprise opportunity. Make it employee-driven with topics including current projects all the way to achievements toward career goals. Here are some ideas to whet your appetite for potential employee experiences:

• Workshops, seminars, in-house training. Some organizations combine online tutorials for position-specific skill-building with in-person team-building activities.
• Organizational goal updates. Overall transparency and communication that keeps everyone informed of your nonprofit’s achievements will keep staff engaged.
• Real-time feedback. If you make feedback a regular part of the program, employees will come to expect notes on performance so they can rapidly adjust to stay on-track with career goals and participation toward organizational achievements.
• Share gratitude and appreciation. Make note of how everyone contributes and recognize it. And then, celebrate quarterly. Present a list of awards that recognize all your staff has done for the organization and celebrate achievements such as anniversary dates.
• Paid time off to volunteer. You’ve attracted workers who want to contribute to the greater good. Let them choose a cause, and then let them contribute without losing a paycheck.
• Cross-training programs. Create a mentoring program and offer a broad-spectrum training program in which everyone has the opportunity to teach and learn something. It could be high-level communication skills, financial lessons or creative ad design.
• Flexibility and innovative investment. Work-life balance no longer means separating the two. Whether it’s work-from-home or flexible scheduling, find ways to help your staff build bridges between their work and their personal lives. Work-from-home policies do more than provide a positive employee experience — it can prepare your organization for events that require sudden massive adaptation. You may need to invest in appropriate internet access, computer technology, phone systems and more to facilitate success. These will serve your needs now and could one day save your nonprofit.

Hold the Ladder

Prior to the events of 2020, Millennials were expected to make up 75% of the workforce by 2025. While they’ll continue to dominate the workforce for the next few years, you should expect other generations to seek work as they attempt to recoup financial losses and prepare for the future. Millennials, as a demographic, have generally expressed an interest in opportunities to build skills as part of an employment package. According to Gallup, more than half of this demographic rated it as “extremely important” when applying for a job. With many industries recovering — or not — from chaotic fluctuations in the business world, this expectation has only expanded in the workforce. They feel vulnerable. You can assuage their fears.

Imagine being handed a career roadmap — a clear, documented path that shows how you can advance through the company. When you create a customized plan for each employee, you show that you’re willing and happy to invest in that person’s future. This nurturing effort is rare and will build rapport quickly, as workers see that you’re really living up to your promoted employer brand. They will share this with their friends, and word will spread that you’re doing something rare and impressive for your staff members.

Welcome Them to a Spectacular Workspace

From their first day at work, employees need to feel that they’ve found something special. How do you welcome new staff members? Is there a company-wide announcement, even by email? Robust onboarding for new employees will go a long way to ensuring a full commitment to your organization. Sometimes, especially in smaller nonprofits, the crush of work can overwhelm attempts at welcoming and training new-hires. Don’t ignore your responsibility to prepare workers adequately for their jobs. This includes temp-to-perm workers. A strong onboarding program will go a long way to ensuring retention, especially when you pair new-hires with veteran workers as personal and professional mentors.

While ping pong tables have come to seem superfluous to most employees, you still need to have an enjoyable, vibrant workplace. Think of it the way a real estate agent would “stage” a home that’s for sale. Is your workspace cluttered, filled with musty old boxes? Do your walls need a fresh coat of paint? How’s your decor? How does the building interior smell? Are the floors in good shape? Don’t dismiss esthetics. This is where people working in a physical office space will be spending a huge portion of their lives. It doesn’t have to be an amusement park, but it shouldn’t be depressing, either.

Build a Strengths-Based Organizational Culture

Now that you’ve hired a new worker, what are you doing to keep them at your nonprofit? Studies in recent years have shown that roughly half of all employees are actively looking for a new job or tracking openings online. If you’re not actively seeking to engage with your culture, it should be a priority.

According to Gallup, when employees use their personal and professional strengths, they are nearly six times more engaged, perform better at their jobs and are less likely to leave their current job. Consider using the Online Talent Assessment (formerly CliftonStrengths) to begin understanding your best-fit culture. This assessment, alone, can help you identify the hidden futurist in your office, the person most able to build team harmony, or the restorative worker who’s great at diagnosing and solving problems. There are 34 such strengths listed in this assessment, and every one of those skills could be useful to your nonprofit. 25

To really build a strengths-based culture, you’ll need to integrate strengths development throughout your nonprofit—your mission, vision, values and processes as well as your workflow and collaboration—everything should reflect a dedicated effort. So, augment that paycheck with a sense of purpose. Offer a robust menu of staff development. Use strengths assessments and have managers coach as they learn to understand and apply their newly identified strengths. Give ongoing conversational feedback rather than an annual review. Nothing is more impactful in cultivating a sense of belonging than valuing people for their skills and talents.

Be the Talk of the Town, in a Good Way

Remember that today’s workforce members are not shy about reporting publicly if they feel that a company maintains a negative or chaotic employee experience. Sites like Glassdoor provide a platform for such expression, and job seekers do review these reports when deciding on a job offer. Nearly a third of workers have declined a job offer based on negative online reviews. In a study of for-profits, those who invested in improving their employee experiences were nearly 12 times more likely to appear in Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work and more than twice as likely to be listed in Forbes’ World’s Most Innovative Companies. The same benefits could take place in your nonprofit. A positive employee experience helps staff feel empowered to do better—increasing buy-in and advocating for you as an employer. When workers are satisfied with their management, their future and their impact toward the mission of your organization, they will be more productive, consistently delivering superior performance and also recommending your organization to their acquaintances.

Encouraging Staff Innovation

Once strengths have been recognized, be sure to recognize and reward innovative thought. To improve on that, make sure your culture allows collaboration across departments for individuals who need to connect with others to draw on their expertise for the benefit of the organization, its culture, and the population it serves. Back up your support with useful technology to really make the ideas fly.

In these interesting times, today’s workforce yearns for the opportunity to contribute their creativity. With the support of HR professionals like you, they will devise solutions that bring us closer to realizing our ideals. Together — drawing from our collective strength — we can achieve the dawn of a new world society that honors Senator Kennedy’s noble dream.

This is an excerpt from UST’s eBook, “5 Ways to Shape a Durable Workplace of Inclusivity, Innovation and Trust” in collaboration with Beth Black, Writer and Editor.

In December 2022, Forbes discussed the state of workers and their feelings about remote and hybrid workplace models. Considering the demand and desire for such positions, it comes as little surprise that 87% of research respondents stated that their quality of life improved while working remotely.

Few sectors of the business landscape remain untouched by this massive change.

But what about the impact on the nonprofit workforce? Nonprofit virtual volunteering and paid workers' feelings on this subject closely align with workers who want a hybrid or remote nonprofit model.

While the pandemic sparked a massive interest in remote, hybrid and other flexible work models, it was only a matter of time. With technology becoming increasingly more and more prevalent, workers were already prepared to follow the lead of fellow telecommuting workers, freelancers and contractors enjoying working from home or anywhere with an Internet connection.

3 Top Benefits of Hiring Remote Workers

Most nonprofit organizations launch to help a specific community or society on a larger scale. In either case, it is also important to care for the well-being of virtual nonprofit volunteers and as well as paid employees.

Today's advances in technology and the nature of many job positions mean that it is easier than ever to perform daily work tasks from home. As long as employees have a reliable Internet connection and all the equipment and information they need, why not allow them to choose where they work from?

Let's explore some benefits of nonprofits hiring remote employees to ease your mind about this increasingly embraced workplace model.

1. Happier and More Satisfied Employees

Employee satisfaction is important to your business, especially in a time of uncertainty for business owners and workers. Remote workplace models frequently lead to happier, less stressful workers.

The flexibility of remote work allows employees to skip long commutes, expensive fuel prices and time away from family—fostering a better work-life balance in a way that suits them and benefits productivity and profitability for your nonprofit.

2. Improved Employee Retention and Recruitment

Employees and job candidates want more options and freedom to serve employers better. They will seek out employers or stick with them if a flexible work model is available.

By remaining inflexible with your workplace model, you risk losing excellent employees. Simultaneously, top candidates will wait for the right opportunity to suit their needs and goals, bypassing your company if you refuse to consider remote or hybrid options. Keep in mind that 63% of millennial workers want to work for a company with a flexible work schedule. Best of all, remote workers are 50% less likely to resign.

Another benefit to your company is that you can cast a broader search net—considering candidates from all over the country who will relocate for the right company and conditions.

3. Increased Productivity from Your Workforce

In late 2022, Forbes reported that 29% of remote workers feel that they are more productive, while 53% report having greater focus. However, many employers who were fine with remote work while it was essential during the pandemic are now wondering how effective it is, how productive remote employees are and if the effect will persist as the novelty wears off.

Studies have shown that remote work facilitates productivity due to fewer workplace distractions, more peace of mind, no lost time during commutes and the ability for workers to better focus. Employees don't have to deal with the white noise and chatter that permeates many office environments. They can create a quiet, controlled space in their home and not get caught up in conversations or spontaneous meetings.

Finally, employees can work from home during bad weather such as an ice storm, make up time before or after work to attend an appointment, or take a partial day off if they feel sick.

Considerations Your Nonprofit Should Keep in Mind When Hiring Remote Workers

Like anything you do to support your business, you need to consider some key factors when hiring remote workers or implementing a remote workplace policy.

Here are some things to keep in mind:

• Allow for customized remote work arrangements for each employee.
• Invest in the necessary technology that allows remote workers to thrive with few complications.
• Create opportunities to connect with your remote employees—scheduling weekly meetings or regular calls to check in—to avoid feelings of isolation.
• Set work time and productivity standards at the outset, and ensure each remote employee understands and agrees to the terms.

Sources

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lucianapaulise/2022/12/08/the-2022-status-of-remote-work-and-top-future-predictions/?sh=1c7e204c1310

https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/nonprofit-organizations-with-flexible-jobs-v2/

https://www.alliedtelecom.net/5-ways-nonprofits-can-benefit-offering-remote-work-options/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/glebtsipursky/2022/11/03/workers-are-less-productive-working-remotely-at-least-thats-what-their-bosses-think/?sh=6e759664286a

 https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/tools-resources/remote-workers-and-telecommuting-practices-nonprofits

As a nonprofit employer, you have a responsibility to create a safe and inclusive workplace for your employees. However, incidents of racially insensitive comments can still occur. Whether it's intentional or unintentional, it is important to address it in a manner that is professional and effective. Below are some effective ways for nonprofit leaders to deal with racially insensitive comments made in the workplace.

1. Address the issue immediately: When a racially insensitive comment is made in the workplace, it's important to address it immediately. Do not ignore it or hope that it will go away. Take the necessary steps to address the issue head-on. Talk to the person who made the comment and explain why it was insensitive and inappropriate. Approach the situation with empathy and a willingness to educate the individual on why their actions were hurtful. By addressing the issue immediately, you are letting the rest of your employees know that discriminatory behavior will not be tolerated in the workplace.

2. Document the incident: It's important to document any incident of racially insensitive comments made in the workplace. This documentation should include the date of the incident, what was said, and any actions taken to address the issue. This will protect your organization if legal action is taken and serve as a reminder of what was said and done if the individual in question repeats their behavior.

3. Educate your team on diversity, equity, and inclusion: One way to prevent racially insensitive comments from happening in the first place is to educate your team on diversity, equity, and inclusion. You can do this by hosting workshops, seminars, or online courses. Make sure that everyone understands the importance of cultural sensitivity and how to approach potentially sensitive topics. This will create a more inclusive workplace and reduce the likelihood of insensitive comments being made.

4. Follow up with the individual: After you've addressed the incident and educated the individual on the impact of their actions, it's important to follow up with them. Check in and make sure that they understand the seriousness of their actions and have taken steps to ensure that it won't happen again. By following up, you'll be able to assess whether the individual has learned from their mistakes and if further disciplinary action is necessary.

5. Create a safe space for employees to report incidents: Finally, creating a safe space for employees to report incidents of racially insensitive comments or any form of harassment in the workplace is imperative. Let your employees know that they can come to you or their supervisor with any concerns and that they will be taken seriously. It's important for employees to feel that their concerns will be addressed in a timely and effective manner.

Racially insensitive comments have no place within your nonprofit workforce. As nonprofit leaders, it's your responsibility to create a safe and inclusive environment for all employees. By highlighting the importance of cultural diversity and inclusiveness, we can eradicate the barriers to equity that exist and together build a fairer and more equitable society. Remember to create an environment that promotes safety, inclusivity, and respect, to lead by example, to encourage education and training, and to provide your employees with an open line of communication to make your workplace free from racial bias and discrimination.

Three years after COVID spread across the globe, there is no denying that the pandemic played a pivotal role in today’s hiring challenges in multiple industries and nonprofit businesses across the country. The pandemic served as a lightning rod to bring changes that business leaders and industry experts believed were inevitable at, what seemed, some far-off point in the future.

COVID brought to light challenges such as ever-increasing skills gaps they were struggling to fill and strict budget constraints. Additionally, businesses were forced to embrace the once-unclear future of remote work after COVID.

Over the past few years, overarching trends have focused on phenomenas like the great resignation, quiet quitting, and the change that comes with fast-paced leaps in technology. During the pandemic’s peak, workers gained insights into their value, or lack thereof, to employers and since have become more likely to seek better opportunities.

Here, we will explore additional factors that will likely affect hiring after COVID for private and nonprofit businesses and the future of remote work.

Technology’s Role in the Hiring Process

The hiring process is typically long, complex and stressful for everyone involved. Busy HR professionals struggle to manage their regular day-to-day responsibilities while occasionally needing to shift over to hiring mode.

Technology continues to streamline the recruitment and hiring process. COVID played an instrumental role in the acceleration of the creation and adoption of automated recruiting, which far outpaced the originally anticipated timeline. Think about virtual interviews. While hiring managers used this technological capability pre-COVID, it has become the default first meeting environment in many cases today. It is an excellent way to meet the candidate in a comfortable setting and facilitates secondary interviews and other tools to help abbreviate and simplify the hiring process.

Whether businesses want to attract, assess, interview or onboard candidates, there are technological tools and programs to help ease and shorten the process.

Here are some technologies hiring managers increasingly rely on today.

Virtual Interviews and Hiring

No matter what anyone feels about virtual interviews and virtual hiring, these practices are here to stay, whether using Zoom, Microsoft Teams or another platform. For some businesses, remote work policies after COVID might remain the same for a long time or indefinitely.

Even if virtual interviews lack the ability to pick up on some aspects and nuances of body language and the ability to interact in real space, they are an effective tool in getting to know someone at a lower barrier of resistance.

Video interviews give everyone a chance to get to know each other better in a shorter time and without as much commitment, such as traveling for the busy, job-seeking candidate or setting up space or dealing with candidate cancellations for the hiring team. Best of all, it allows employers to search for the best candidate who may live across the country, thus saving traveling expenses while finding, vetting and hiring someone who is the right fit.

AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been looming on the horizon for years, but over the past several months, it has become a household name and reality to just about everyone. This technology has progressed faster than most had anticipated, and busy HR teams are now able to incorporate AI into their hiring strategies.

One way that employers and HR teams are using AI is to manage the massive influx of applications they receive due to layoffs across industries during the past year. HR teams can manage the deluge of applications and resumes and other bulk data and HR processes.

Social Media

Social media has become a force in assisting hiring teams’ efforts to promote key positions quickly and effectively. Although social media has been around for several years, and hiring teams have used various platforms, it has gained a much bigger role in recruitment practices, such as promoting roles and receiving and reviewing applications.

Add to the fact that everyone has become more comfortable with social media after COVID, though younger workers were already well-versed in social media in many areas of their lives, including job-seeking.

The Role of Flexibility in the Hiring Process

Nonprofit companies and their HR departments understand that hiring after COVID has drastically changed, understanding they need to remain flexible or become more flexible with their hiring processes.

Essentially, it is vital that businesses and hiring managers consider the best strategy to attract and hire the best candidates for their business.

In part, that means adjusting the definition of a qualified or experienced candidate as recruiters struggle to hire hard-to-fill and high-volume positions. Perplexed and frustrated employers need to find ways to contend with workers’ lingering worry about COVID exposure and the tenuous financial state of the country, leaving many unemployed professionals feeling more comfortable relying on unemployment.

Employers and their hiring teams need new sourcing tactics to foster trust and bring qualified candidates back into the hiring pool. Some flexible talent acquisition strategies include examining current pay rates, compensation, embracing remote work after COVID, hybrid or remote workplace models and other incentives necessary to attract and hire quality candidates. In some situations, companies might need to consider offering sign-on bonuses for positions that were once easy to fill.

Companies need to remain flexible and open to innovation in these transitional times to show that they are progressive and willing to meet candidates where they are in today’s job market.

Here are some additional ways to add flexibility and innovation to hiring after COVID:

• Produce interactive podcasts to support employee onboarding and training.
• Give live office or facility tours to job seekers via video conferencing to give candidates a preview of company culture, layout and the general environment.
• Offer tuition reimbursement to candidates and employees who want to improve their skills and knowledge for the company’s benefit.

Our UST HR Workplace offers a robust suite of practical, comprehensive HR tools and resources that can help your team focus on your nonprofit's mission and the communities you serve. As a UST member, simply log into your Mineral portal to access live HR certified consultants, 300+ on-demand training courses, an extensive compliance library, and more.

SOURCES

https://hrexecutive.com/what-will-recruitment-look-like-after-covid/

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/pros-and-cons-virtual-in-person-interviews.aspx

During the past decade, employers have become increasingly aware of the need to attend to employees' needs that range far beyond essential compensation and benefits.

With the understanding that workers are sacrificing large chunks of their lives to commit to their respective nonprofits' success, leaders have turned their focus to employee engagement in nonprofit organizations to ensure that employees feel recognized and valued as individuals. Knowing that highly engaged teams provide 21% more profitability, it's a goal that is well worth the effort.

Something interesting happened to employee engagement before and after COVID-19. During the peak of the pandemic, employees were happy that their jobs were preserved and that they had income. It made it easier for employers and employees to band together for a common goal, despite working in a sudden and forced remote context.

Employees were able to find the work-life balance employers had long sought to provide. The question is, where do things go from here for nonprofits and employee engagement?

Employee Engagement in Nonprofit Organizations with a Remote Workforce

As some employees have returned to the office, many still work remotely, leaving nonprofit leadership wondering how to maintain employee engagement and morale with a dispersed workforce.

Many nonprofits are now facing challenges such as remote employees experiencing a blurred work/life balance, higher burnout and worst of all, less engagement with co-workers, the nonprofit and its mission.

Here are five tips to help you encourage greater employee engagement before and after COVID-19 restrictions.

1. Commit to regular employee recognition practices: It is a long-held truth that employees need to feel valued beyond receiving a regular paycheck and standard benefits. Employee recognition drives loyalty, engagement and mutual success. Your recognition can be as simple as sending a personalized email saying, "Thank you for your hard work!" or you might hold monthly Microsoft Teams calls acknowledging top performers, providing gift cards for restaurants or shops near their respective homes.

2. Encourage regular video calls: Whether your nonprofit uses Zoom, Microsoft Teams or another video calling platform, encourage its regular use. Schedule daily meetings that last 10-15 minutes and give everyone a chance to say good morning and give a rundown of their day to help everyone maintain engagement and offer support to each other. This practice helps provide and nurture the cohesiveness they might be missing by seeing each other organically in passing in the office.

3. Provide professional development and growth opportunities: Let remote employees know that you want them to grow with your nonprofit. Offer them the same training and educational opportunities that you would offer if they were on-site. When you are willing to invest in employees’ futures, they understand that you value them for what they do now and all that they can do in the future. Employees want to work hard when they feel that you are allowing for and creating more opportunities for their growth, advancement and eventual leadership as well as the ability to make decisions.

4. Keep everyone up to speed with consistent communication: Communication is essential in any professional setting, but it has become crucial and more complex than ever before in remote and hybrid work model contexts. For instance, prevent situations where on-site employees get important company news before remote employees. If your organization is about to experience disruptions, good or bad, wait until you can gather everyone for a video conference call to share the news and discuss the path forward.

5. Find nonprofit human resource solutions that can help: The right human resource practices can help you avoid missteps in everything from daily communication to paying unemployment taxes for 501(c)(3) nonprofits. Find solutions that help you and your team remain focused on your core mission, leaving operational matters to an outsourced nonprofit human resources solution provider.

Our UST HR Workplace can help your team focus on your nonprofit's mission and everyone's satisfaction and success. As a UST member, simply log into your Mineral portal to access live HR certified consultants, 300+ on-demand training courses, an extensive compliance library, and more.

Sources

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nazbeheshti/2019/01/16/10-timely-statistics-about-the-connection-between-employee-engagement-and-wellness/?sh=28b9903222a0

https://hrexecutive.com/the-pandemics-surprising-impact-on-employee-engagement-and-enablement/

Question: Lately, we’ve noticed employees using wearable devices while working. We have a policy that limits personal cell phone use at work. Can we expand that to include wearables like smartwatches?

Answer: Yes, you can expand your policy to include wearables or other smart devices that might cause distractions to your employees while they are working. Here are a few things to consider when revising your policies:

• Focus your policy on the employee’s actions and not the technology itself. If your policy is written broadly enough to keep up with evolving technology, you won’t need to update it to account for every new kind of device.

• Address how mobile devices may affect workplace safety, customer service, productivity, and security. Employees may be more receptive to limits on their use of personal devices if they understand the reasons for it.

• Allow devices to be used during break and meal periods. Employees should be allowed to use their devices when they're not working, as this time must be their own to satisfy wage and hour laws.

• Smartwatches have health and fitness features, so there may also be reasonable accommodations implications under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). For example, an employee might use a smartwatch to keep an eye on their heart rate or respiration. Learn more about the ADA on the platform.

• You can prohibit the use of devices that may be distracting while employees are working, especially if there are safety issues. Employees can be expected to give their undivided attention to the work you pay them to perform, and if that means smart devices need to be turned off or put away, you’re entitled to make this request.

• You should consider whether employees need to be reachable during the day for emergencies (like most parents). If your workplace doesn’t have a central line or a way for employees to be reached directly, it may be unreasonable to require that phones or devices be turned completely off.

• While you can ask that wearable devices be turned off or put away, you may want to instead limit what employees are doing with their smart devices (e.g., texting). Many people use smartwatches for telling the time, and if their phones are also put away, they may not have another way of getting that information, which could ultimately affect productivity.

• You could also opt to allow limited use when employees are working. For example, a non-customer-facing employee may be able to use headphones and their mobile device to listen to music while completing their work.

This Q&A was provided by Mineral, powering the UST HR Workplace. Have HR questions? Sign your nonprofit up for a FREE 60-day trial here. As a UST member, simply log into your Mineral portal to access live HR certified consultants, 300+ on-demand training courses, an extensive compliance library, and more.

 

Nonprofit employees are some of the most dedicated and passionate workers out there, often working long hours with limited resources to achieve their organization's mission. However, this level of commitment can leave employees feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and burnt out. This kind of environment ultimately leads to mental fatigue, which can negatively impact their well-being, productivity and efficiency—especially for remote employees. As nonprofit employers, it's vital to recognize and address this issue to ensure the health and happiness of your workforce.

Below are some ways to help your employees overcome mental fatigue in the workplace.

1. Practice healthy routines: Nonprofit employees often feel like they need to constantly work to make a difference, even if it means sacrificing their own well-being. However, taking breaks and making downtime a priority is crucial to avoid burnout and mental fatigue. Encourage employees to structure their day and to take breaks, whether it's a quick walk outside or a few minutes to meditate. It's essential to recognize the importance of separating work and personal time. Encourage employees to set clear boundaries, such as strict working hours, and avoid being available 24/7. It will ultimately lead to a healthier work-life balance and reduce the risk of burnout. Additionally, consider implementing a more flexible work schedule that allows for rest and recovery.

2. Prioritize open communication: Communication is an essential factor in maintaining a healthy work environment. Mental fatigue can stem from feelings of being overwhelmed or isolated in the workplace. As a nonprofit employer, it's essential to prioritize open communication and make employees feel heard and supported. Encourage employees to communicate their concerns and issues effectively. Regular check-ins, team meetings, and one-on-one sessions can help employees feel connected and motivated. They should feel comfortable approaching their manager and addressing their worries. Managers should also be available to provide guidance and support to their team. Additionally, consider providing mental health resources and encouraging employees to seek out help when they need it.

3. Foster a positive work environment: A positive work environment can go a long way in combating mental fatigue. As a nonprofit employer, it's important to create a workplace culture that values positivity and gratitude. This can include celebrating wins, recognizing accomplishments, and providing opportunities for team bonding—especially for remote and hybrid teams. Additionally, consider incorporating fun and creative activities into the workday to alleviate stress and foster a sense of community.

4. Encourage self-care practices: Self-care practices are crucial for maintaining mental health and combatting mental fatigue. As a nonprofit employer, make sure to encourage and support self-care practices among your employees. This can include providing resources for meditation, mindfulness, and exercise. Additionally, consider offering paid time off for mental health days or providing opportunities for employees to attend wellness events.

5. Provide opportunities for professional development: Investing in training and development opportunities is a great way to invest in your employees' mental well-being. It can help employees feel motivated and engaged in their work, which can combat feelings of burnout. It's also the perfect opportunity for employees to learn new skills and techniques that can be beneficial to their overall performance. Offering training programs, mentorship opportunities, and opportunities for cross-departmental collaboration can alleviate boredom at work and can renew employees' enthusiasm for their job.

Mental fatigue is a common issue in the nonprofit workplace and can significantly impact remote employees, leading to burnout and a decrease in productivity. By implementing these strategies, you can help your employees overcome mental fatigue and feel supported and valued in their work while staying motivated and engaged. Remember, a healthy and happy workforce is key to achieving your organization's mission and making a difference in the world.

You might think that hybrid and remote employee retention is simple when you offer such a flexible and generous workplace model. However, there will always be challenges associated with retaining staff, whether in-office or virtual.

It is challenging to maintain a consistent workplace culture when half or more of your employees are working remotely. When it comes down to it, there is more to employee satisfaction than working in their selected location. Other issues might arise for them that you can’t predict or control.

Here are seven ideas for managing a virtual workforce to help ensure you retain valued employees.

7 Ways to Retain a Virtual Workforce

Let's explore some ways we believe you can improve employee retention remote work outcomes:

• Establish Your Workplace Culture Early and Clearly
• Ensure Remote and Hybrid Employees Feel Included
• Set Up a Reimbursement Plan and Fund for Remote Workers
• Send an Agenda for Each Meeting
• Offer Career Development and Training Courses
• Request That On-Site Employees Participate in Meetings From Their Desks
• Monitor and Measure Employee Engagement
   

1. Establish Your Workplace Culture Early and Clearly

Just because you allow for a scattered, remote and hybrid workforce doesn’t mean you relinquish control of your nonprofit workplace culture, rules and mission. It is vital to maintain a standard for all employees, whether working from home, in the office or on the other side of the country.

The best ways to establish and maintain your company culture in a blended workplace model include:

• Schedule regular meetings for everyone to catch up with your leadership and their peers.
• Create in-office signage and intranet banners featuring slogans, mottoes, and images that reinforce your company culture.
• Remind remote and hybrid employees that they are always welcome to come into the office to work, regardless of their regular designation. They are a part of your team, and you want them to join you any time they want to.
• Design comfortable common areas for everyone to gather during in-office events.
• Update your virtual workforce best practices and policies regularly, especially if events occur that help refine your strategies for employee retention.

2. Ensure Remote and Hybrid Employees Feel Included

As mentioned in our first tip, create a space or spaces where remote and hybrid and employees can sit and work or meet with management and coworkers during visits. If you can afford it in a nonprofit environment, try to maintain a desk space for every employee, so they know they are welcome and are a part of the team.

Also, avoid calling a staff meeting that only includes on-site employees — even if it is a purely on-site issue related to the facility or other topic — to prevent accidentally leaving a remote staff member off the meeting list.

As irrelevant as it might seem to you and your remote employee, your inclusion of them helps reinforce that you keep them in mind and want them involved in office matters.

Similarly, if you go out to lunch with team members to celebrate an accomplishment, work to find a date that works for in-office and remote and hybrid employees.

3. Set Up a Reimbursement Plan and Fund for Remote Workers

If your remote employees were working in the office, you would provide all the office supplies, hardware equipment, internet access and anything else they need. You might not want to buy and ship things to your remote employee, knowing they can do it themselves, selecting things that work best for them per their tastes or ergonomically.

Let them know that your nonprofit will reimburse payment for office supplies and equipment that they purchase. You don’t want to be like the one-third of employers who ask employees to pay for their work-related internet service and buy their supplies and equipment.

When you establish a fair reimbursement policy, you will not only stay compliant with local labor laws, but also your remote employee will appreciate not bearing the financial burden of doing their work.

4. Send an Agenda for Each Meeting

It’s important that all your nonprofit employees and managers are on the same page during each meeting. The best way to ensure everyone stays on track is to prepare and send an agenda for each meeting to everyone, certainly including remote employees. This step is standard best practice if everyone works in the office, but it’s doubly important for remote employees.

Sketch an outline of the meeting’s objectives, adding what you want to discuss, what you want to hear from employees and, finally, what the desired outcome is. Make sure to lay all this out on your agenda to let everyone know your expectations of them. Employees can think about the meeting and how they might respond when it’s time, whether verbally or via chat.

5. Offer Career Development and Training Courses

Employees feel valued when you let them know you believe they have a strong future with the company and you want to help them fulfill their vision of them. Investing in valued employees leads to powerful remote employee retention.

Work with leadership and funding providers to design professional development programs for talented employees who can do more with the right virtual or easily accessible training. Allow employees to take on special projects or participate in training seminars, networking opportunities and coaching processes.

6. Request That On-Site Employees Participate in Meetings From Their Desks

Another way to ensure that your nonprofit employees and managers are bonding is to create situations of solidarity. Ask your on-site employees to access the Zoom call from their desk instead of having the on-site employees huddle in the conference room.

7. Monitor and Measure Employee Engagement

As a leader of a disparate workforce, you need to monitor and measure everyone's involvement. Think of it as “reading the room” or “taking the temperature,” but you need to stay aware of who is fully present during each meeting or conversation and who seems to fade away or behave as if they are distracted or bored.

Conduct regular employee surveys for everyone to fill out, remote or not, to see how everyone is doing.

If you are worried about managing a virtual workforce and how to retain your valued employees, UST offers a full suite of solutions. Our resources are easy to access, understand and deploy for your HR and management teams for employee retention remote work.

Visit us to explore our resources, which include multiple downloads and a live HR hotline.

SOURCES

https://www.bbgbroker.com/7-ways-to-improve-employee-retention-in-a-remote-workplace/

https://sparkbay.com/en/culture-blog/remote-staff-retention-27

Nonprofit organizations, by nature, are dedicated to serving others. From advocating for social justice to providing assistance to marginalized communities, nonprofits have a critical role to play in creating a better world. However, to achieve their goals, nonprofit organizations must also cultivate a positive and healthy workplace culture. When done correctly, this process can help improve your workforce's overall performance, creating a more productive, motivated, and engaged team. Below are some ways cultural transformation can benefit your workforce.

1. Improved Communication - Communication is the key to any successful organization. Without it, the employees will not be able to work together efficiently, resulting in reduced productivity and missed opportunities. An effective cultural transformation within a nonprofit organization can ensure that everyone is on the same page, working towards the same goals, and communicating in the most transparent and open way possible. When employees feel their voices are heard and valued, they will be more likely to share their thoughts and ideas, leading to better decision-making and increased innovation.

2. A Greater Sense of Purpose - Nonprofit organizations have a unique advantage when it comes to inspiring their employees. Most individuals who work in the nonprofit sector are driven by a sense of purpose, making their work extremely fulfilling. However, this motivation can wane over time if not cultivated and nurtured properly. Cultural transformation within nonprofit organizations can provide employees with a renewed sense of purpose and direction, reminding them of the critical work they do, the value it brings, and the greater impact it has on the community as a whole.

3. Builds Trust and Respect - Building trust and respect among employees is an essential aspect of any positive work culture. A cultural transformation can help create a more harmonious workplace, where employees trust and respect one another. This type of environment fosters an atmosphere where employees feel more comfortable taking risks, collaborating better, and working seamlessly together to achieve the organization's goals.

4. Reduces Employee Turnover - Employee retention is a significant challenge for many nonprofit organizations. Without a healthy workplace culture, high employee turnover is likely to happen, which can have devastating effects on the organization's overall performance. A cultural transformation can address this issue by creating a more attractive workplace, which can reduce employee turnover. By nurturing an environment in which employees feel respected, engaged, and challenged, nonprofit organizations can retain their best employees and create long-term value.

5. Increases Innovation - Nonprofit organizations must stay innovative to remain competitive and maintain their relevance in the community. Without innovation, these organizations can become stagnant, lose relevance, and eventually fail. A cultural transformation can help fuel innovation by encouraging creativity, experimentation, and risk-taking. When employees feel liberated to challenge the status quo, they become more open to trying new things, leading to new discoveries, new methods, and ultimately better outcomes.

In conclusion, cultural transformation is essential for nonprofit organizations to thrive in today's competitive world. By investing in positive workplace culture, these organizations can create a more fulfilling work environment, where employees feel valued, engaged, and motivated. By building trust, improving communication, creating a shared sense of purpose, reducing employee turnover, and encouraging innovation, nonprofit organizations can leverage their full potential and deliver on their missions in the most efficient and impactful way possible.

 

During the best of times, it is challenging for nonprofit HR teams and their organizations to pay employees what they would like to. As you probably know, those who work in the nonprofit sector understand that earning a high salary is highly improbable, but you still need to offer fair wages.

But how do you create a recruiting budget for your HR needs? If you struggle with nonprofit recruiting, you are not alone. Many nonprofits indicate that the hiring process presents the greatest obstacle for their companies.

Some challenges nonprofit hiring teams face include tight budgets that translate to insufficient salaries for professionals; high rates of burnout for staff members living on a small budget; and the time-consuming recruiting process that takes HR professionals away from regular duties.

While these challenges are all too real for top nonprofits, there are ways to overcome them and build the team you need to help your community or cause without compromise.

4 Tips to Develop and Maintain a Better Recruiting Budget

We are already barreling through 2023, but it isn't too late to focus on developing a budget you can maintain to recruit nonprofit professionals when you need them.

Here are four tips to help you develop and maintain your nonprofit's recruiting budget:

1. Evaluate Your Goals for the Year

Gather your accounting and HR teams, and make sure everyone brings their calendars. Explore or launch your goals and strategies for the coming year, touching on goals and metrics and how to achieve them. Then compare this year's goals to last year's to see what your metrics tell you. If you came in under budget with new-hires the previous year, try using the same strategy for the coming year.

Look at how many new professionals you will need to accomplish your goals, and work to determine how you can manage the budget to hire the right talent without overextending your HR staff.

2. Explore Historical Recruitment Budgeting Strategies

If you didn't hire anyone new last year, you might need to go back further. Examine historical hiring practices from the past five years, considering the following:

• The technology used in the process, whether an Excel spreadsheet or an applicant tracking system (ATS)
• Your company's attendance at job fairs, inviting talented candidates to apply
• The use of social media strategies to attract candidates who have a similar education, background and interests to your nonprofit's mission
• Hiring background screening and legal professionals to streamline tasks
• Your nonprofit's previous ability and willingness to assist non-local new-hires to move to your location

Several of these expenditures can become expensive if you do them for each position. You might need to evaluate the urgency of each one if your budget is tight this year.

3. Take the Temperature of Your Current Staff Atmosphere

Do you think someone on your team might resign this year, or is there someone you know you need to let go for some reason? These considerations can help you realistically plan for a possible recruiting session, which allows you to find a way to work the process into your budget.

4. Outsource Some HR Tasks

Support from HR outsourcing solutions providers can be invaluable to give your current employees more bandwidth. The recruiting process is time-consuming and complex, so you don't want to leave your current employees struggling while your HR team and anyone else available focus on one new position for an unpredictable duration.

Work with a company that offers valuable resources, such as downloadable and easy-to-understand documents, a live hotline to answer important questions on the spot, and on-demand training courses that bring your employees up to speed on the latest nonprofit recruiting best practices.

UST offers resources to help your hiring team find top talent while helping you stay well within your budget and fulfill your nonprofit's vision and mission.

Sources:

https://www.slleonard.com/recruiting-and-retaining-top-talent-even-when-you-cant-pay-them-enough/

https://www.nonprofithr.com/how-to-build-a-recruitment-budget-that-work

Voluntary turnover harms your bottom line. Your team must focus on providing meaningful work, goal-setting, and communicating that you value their worth. Please note: Masking difficult work conditions with “fun” items like free beverages will not build the employee engagement necessary to break many organizations’ cycle of preventable terminations.

Consider the following sensible suggestions to help your team reduce employee turnover:

Know Your Stuff with Workforce Analytics

You might notice your managers losing employees, but do you know which few are high on the retention scale? Take care to standardize your metrics across the organization, using the same rules for all teams. Performance management software can help you track conversations and responses. Your job profiles will be more accurate, and you can set clear expectations of others. Keep everyone on the same page regarding meeting notes and performance evaluations. Determine which managers have markedly kept employees engaged, so you can set up a program allowing them to teach those skills to other managers.

Make the Most of Personalities

Teams excel when a variety of  key personality types are orchestrated. If you blend risk-takers with detail-oriented individuals, you’ll benefit from an innovative team that can finish projects. Too many of any one type of personality, and you risk losing innovation or failing to meet project completion deadlines. Blend these two with some people-oriented relationship builders to help everyone work together. When selecting personality assessment tools, choose one that is appropriate for the work environment, such as trengthsFinder, the DiSC assessment or the Core Values Index.

Find the Right People

It may seem like a lot of work to define skills, values, and personalities that work best for the roles you need to fill. And it’s even more work to confirm that your pay and benefits are within reasonable benchmarks for your region and industry. But hiring someone who stays for years will make it worthwhile.Repeatedly filling a slot with wrong-fit people will cost you money, time, and missed deadlines.

If an employee has been given ample time, onboarding, and additional training but just can’t finish projects or fit your values and culture, you need to let him go. Don’t give poor-fit workers the time to frustrate and drive away your productive staff members. The more you find right-fit employees, the less often you’ll be forced into one of these situations.

The Nonprofit Equation

In large part, people do not take employment at nonprofits for the money. They go into it to feel a strong sense of purpose. Just be aware that their initial interest does not solve employee turnover. People burn out. Lack of investment in a workplace infrastructure can leave staff overworked and underpaid—which will demolish employee engagement. Yet, for decades, the “low pay, make do, and do without” culture of the nonprofit sector has prevailed.

Shockingly, more than 80% of nonprofits have no formal retention strategy. They are not prepared to withstand the varied and tangled reasons for their high turnover. There are countless reasons why employees leave, including: low pay, no upward mobility, excessive workloads, lack of career development, missing mentors, lack of growth opportunities, no rewards or recognition, poor leadership, lack of organizational vision, stifled communication, challenging or even hostile culture, inadequate job reviews, long work hours with no flexibility. Nonprofit leaders simply accepted the resulting high turnover as the cost of doing business.

Before you lose another needed staff member, consider these steps to addressing the causes:

• Transparency and Support. Be sure to model a culture of acceptance to encourage sharing. In one-on-one discussions and group support meetings, allow staff to speak freely. This is not the time to be defensive or accusatory. Provide opportunities for self-care. Some nonprofits create opportunities for walking or jogging. Invest in a small library of relaxing and fun eBooks that can be shared with remote workers. Humor, science fiction, travel, romance, and adventure—these stories allow people to escape without ever leaving their chair.
• Help Them Grow. Even in the nonprofit sector, employees value career development more than any other perk. Professional development opportunities and potential for career advancement go hand-in-hand to explain why they choose their jobs. Yet, a recent study reported that more than a third of respondents felt their organization lacked interest in their development or advancement. If you’re not promoting from within, your employee morale is suffering as a result. Start resolving this by creating some training opportunities—anything from books to online classes.
• Design Realistic Workloads. Employee burnout is a huge problem for nonprofits. Start fixing it by balancing projects across your team, so that some aren’t working longer, harder hours than others. Assign work based on an employee’s job, skills, talents, and interests … taking care regarding the workload level of everyone on the team.

Support Their Talents, Capabilities, and Dreams

There is a delicate balance to consider when summing up each employee’s strengths. On the one hand, you don’t want to push your staff members to do things they’re not equipped to handle. For example, a sensitive introvert might not be the best choice to handle cold calling or outbound fundraising approaches. All those rejections might scare them right out of your organization. On the other hand, you must do your best to avoid unconscious bias in project assignments. If you think someone might be unable to handle technology because of their age, think again. The same goes for gender, race, country of origin, or any other unreliable indicator. An employee’s demonstrated strengths are very different from your assumption of an employee’s weaknesses based on gut feelings. So, as you get to know employees, follow their work, and talk with them about their career goals, your genuine knowledge of their talents, skills, interests, and career goals can help you guide them in directions where they will feel engaged and motivated to pursue excellence.

Counting the Cost of Turnover

If your nonprofit is struggling with loss of staff, especially as we climb out of the COVID-19 pandemic, developing a robust retention management plan can help. It’s worth your time to learn some metrics and calculations. If you’re not paying attention to your turnover metrics, you’re missing key information necessary for your nonprofit’s ongoing survival. These numbers will help you know with clarity and certainty how your organization is doing and where it needs help.

Metrics can lead you to ask questions and find out why particular people are leaving so you can formulate targeted retention strategies that work. In all, your retention management plan will empower you to determine the extent of your losses, diagnose exactly what’s causing the problem, and then develop strategies you can implement to improve your situation. Ensure your success with the following metrics:

• Overall Retention Rate. Divide your current number of employees by the number of employees at the start of your measurement period. Then, multiply that by 100. So, if your nonprofit currently has 75 staff members, and you began the year with 80 people, divide 75 by 80 to get .9375. Multiply that by 100 to get an overall retention rate for those months at 93.75%. This gives you a quick look at how your staff might have been shrinking in recent months.
• Overall Turnover Rate. This is the opposite of your retention rate. It can inform you about your team’s health. Divide the number of employees who left during a specific time frame by the average number of employees during that time. Multiply the answer by 100. So, if you averaged about 50 employees during that time frame, and 5 people left, you divide 5 by 50, giving you .1 as your first answer. Multiply that by 100, and your turnover rate is 10%.
• Voluntary Turnover. Track the number of employees who choose to resign and leave your nonprofit. It’s a strong indicator that your engagement is low, and your retention strategies are not working. It can also mean that the wrong person was hired for the job.
• Involuntary Turnover. When you fire or lay off an employee, it’s generally your decision to make the change. The reason could be for low job performance or a poor fit between your culture and that staff member. For both voluntary and involuntary turnover, try to ask key questions and discern what led to that point.
• The Costs of your Losses. Measuring the costs can be tricky to calculate, but if you keep good records of your expenses, that will simplify the job. The reason for tackling this is that every nonprofit leader wants to keep costs under control. It’s part of their job description. So, if your turnover costs are high, you must implement this effective and efficient tool for measuring and controlling your costs significantly.

The expense of replacing a single employee can be as high as 60% of her annual salary. Total costs go much higher. And these expenses are harder on smaller nonprofits. No matter how you feel about working with numbers, your organization is counting on you to intervene with crucial information. The numbers you generate will help you influence turnover rates and save your organization from painful costs.

Take the Turnover Tour

There are many reasons that employees leave a job. The first distinction, of course, is whether that turnover was voluntary or involuntary. They require different management techniques. First, be sure to handle the legal requirements for involuntary turnover as well as the root causes of such loss (such as an inadequate job description or depleted talent pool).

Next, pay attention to your voluntary turnover. Among workers who leave voluntarily, there are two types: Functional and Dysfunctional. Watch out for the latter. Functional turnover doesn’t generally hurt an organization, as you’re losing poor performers or easily replaced employees. Dysfunctional turnover, on the other hand, will hurt your nonprofit in many ways. You could lose your high-performers and employees with hard-to-replace skills. You also risk losing your diverse culture, as women and minority group members leave.

The final distinction separates two types of dysfunctional turnover: Unavoidable and Avoidable. If someone leaves to move out of state with their spouse, there will be little you can do to prevent it (though remote work is becoming a widespread new option). Generally, if there is nothing you can do to prevent the change, it’s unavoidable. Every employer will face a certain amount of this. Avoidable turnover is where you must focus. Find ways to improve employee satisfaction. And before you decide if a case of turnover is unavoidable, it might be time to consider how to change it. An employee who quit in the past to start a family may stay with you, now, if your organization starts offering paid maternity leave, on-site childcare, and other working-parent benefits. Some solid number crunching that compares the cost of replacing lost talent against the cost of keeping employees from leaving will help you determine your best case-by-case course of action.

Why They Leave

In considering why employees leave your organization, be sure to consider the following reasons they could be exiting your nonprofit:

• The job is unsatisfying. Your nonprofit has not been able to tip the scale of inducements over their Contributions. Look deeper at their desire to leave and ease of leaving.

• Something better became available. They may or may not be dissatisfied with their current job, but perhaps an even more appealing job was offered elsewhere.

• They’re following a plan. This could involve educational or family goals or some other life transitions that preclude their staying in the job. There will likely be little you can do about these departures unless remote work and flexible hours sweeten the inducements to stay on-staff.

• They’re leaving without a plan. This is an impulsive action. It might be their response to something negative happening at work, such as losing out on a promotion. If they’re leaving due to some preventable workplace experience, such as sexual harassment, you must find better ways to protect your employees.

Why They Stay

Employees who stay in one job for years usually find themselves embedded in their workplace, culture, and community. They’ve grown a thriving network of relationships and professional connections that fulfill both their professional and personal lives. When they leave a job, they often lose most of those long held ties. Here’s where you can support your embedded employees:

• Links. People, such as co-workers, mentors, friends, and volunteers make up the people who are linked to your employee. To foster these connections, try to provide mentors, design work in teams, encourage team cohesiveness and employee referrals. Support participation in outside service events or sponsor community activities such as bowling or softball leagues and participation in outside service events.
• Fit. This is the compatibility your employee feels for the position, organization, and surrounding community. For example, if your employee was drawn to your organization because you help people with diabetes, and they happen to be a Type 1 diabetic, they probably feel a personal connection to their job that they wouldn’t feel working for another type of nonprofit. To encourage a team with more right-fit employees, provide realistic information during recruitment, make job and organizational fit a part of candidate selection, and communicate clearly about your nonprofit’s culture and values.
• Sacrifice. What would your high-performing employee have to give up in order to leave their job? Could it be loss of tenure-based financial rewards or perhaps the loss of a positive work environment, promotional opportunities, or even name-recognition in the community at large? The more they have to lose, the more embedded they become, and the less likely they are to leave.

The Pandemic’s Influence

Even before the pandemic hit, approximately a quarter of American workers were quitting their jobs in order to find something better. With the economic recovery, many are now seeking to leave after the pandemic ends. Approximately 80% are concerned about career advancement, a common problem in the nonprofit sector. However, it’s even more important to note that 72% of American workers say the pandemic forced them to rethink their skill sets. More than half of those planning to leave their jobs spent the pandemic months training to build new skills. Many did so in preparation to change jobs within the next few months. The reality of moving from job to job to increase your pay and boost your career status reportedly works better for white males than for women or minorities. In fact, this kind of post-pandemic shift carries the potential to worsen income inequality and other inequities, as college educated white workers increase their remote-work options while other employees remain unable to job hop. Take these three steps to maximize employee retention in the post-pandemic economy:

1. Reconnect. Months of remote work left many employees feeling dissociated from their employers. This leaves them more open to changing jobs, especially when another employer reaches out to them. Rather than rush everyone back into the office, consider increasing your flexibility. Giving your employees options, especially after the pandemic, will make your organization more attractive as an employer. Some nonprofits are choosing a hybrid model, splitting time between the office, and working from home. Nearly 70% of workers find this balance to be an “ideal” model.
2. Open Pathways. The pandemic worsened anxieties already plaguing employees about their career development. When your staff went home, did you invest in training them on technical skills for the new employment landscape? Many nonprofits were forced to focus on providing emergency resources for childcare and mental health. They had to shift their business model, but training beyond the immediately necessary was lost in the mix. It’s time to accommodate your employees career goals and give them the additional training required to be able to function in a technical world.
3. Support Financial Wellbeing. Understand that new jobs are opening up at such a rate that many workers are finding new opportunities where none existed before the pandemic. Your employees need to feel financially safe if they will continue working for you. With their new training and opportunities, you will lose talent if you don’t pay them enough to remain resilient.

This is an excerpt from UST’s eBook, “3 Essential Practices to Cultivate a Positive Employee Experience” in collaboration with Beth Black, Writer and Editor.

Question: Do we need to investigate rumors of harassment even if no one has made a complaint?

Answer: Yes, you should investigate. A company always has some inherent liability in relation to discriminatory or harassing comments or behavior. The level of liability usually correlates to the nature, severity, and context of the comments, the position of the employee who made them, and what the employer does or does not do about it. 

Since you have knowledge of a potential situation, you should investigate the matter and take appropriate disciplinary action if it turns out your antiharassment policy was violated. As you conduct the investigation, document the discussions you have as well as your findings, and reassure those you interview their participation will not result in retaliation. 

This Q&A was provided by Mineral, powering the UST HR Workplace. Have HR questions? Sign your nonprofit up for a FREE 60-day trial here. As a UST member, simply log into your Mineral portal to access live HR certified consultants, 300+ on-demand training courses, an extensive compliance library, and more.

It is nearly impossible to find data about compensation increases without inflation figuring in every discussion. In 2022, amidst the first global pandemic in over a century, the average price of gas skyrocketed to $5.75 per gallon (up from a low of $2.68 in May of 2020). The inflation rate for 2022 finished at 6.5%, and today (for the moment), gas prices sit as low as $3.49 in some areas.  The federal minimum wage will increase to $9.50 per hour this year, varying significantly from state to state.  You can visit The Horton Group page on minimum wages for the state-specific wage rates.

Investopedia.com defines inflation as “a rise in prices, which can be translated as the decline of purchasing power over time.” Among today’s inflationary pressures we can count damage to crops, livestock, lives, and property from recent climate change events, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine spiking the costs of natural gas and grain, and a new strain of avian flu resulting in eggs at $6.00 per dozen.  The pandemic itself was a force majeure expense for everyone, with shortages ranging from microchips to baby formula.

And yet, we have emerged from this tough time with an appreciation for U.S. workers that we haven’t experienced since the 1950s. Employers continue to be affected by the great labor shortage and unexpected increases in opportunities, pay, and benefits for workers.  Driven in no small part by younger workers unwilling to settle for low-wage gigs, companies have been hiring at significantly competitive salaries and vying for new workers by burnishing their employer brand as emphatically as they do their brand. Things have changed.

BDO USA, a global accounting firm, anticipated that budgets for merit increases in 2022 would hover around 3%, but found that in the final quarter of 2021, the increases topped out just below 4%. The talent shortage had pushed raises into the 4% range. Concurrently, inflation was approaching 1982 levels, which BDO anticipated would push salary increases still higher (the term for this is a wage-price spiral, which Americans last heard about in the mid-1970s). BDO conducted a poll of 440 organizations across multiple industries--including 127 nonprofits—in January and February of 2022 and determined that compensation budgets for all participating companies averaged 5.1%, with nonprofit firms averaging 4.4%. The last time salary-increase budgets exceeded 4% was in 2001.

BDO cautioned, “For nonprofits, this may be a significant shock for their 2022 budgets, as a 4.4% budget increase represents a 47% hike (emphasis also mine) compared to the previously standard 3% budget. It is likely that many organizations are not in a position to increase salary budgets to this degree.”

Journalist and social media strategist Lia Tabackman succinctly laid out the good and bad news in her article in 501c.com, Nonprofit Compensation Battles with Inflation: “Salary and wage increases at U.S. organizations have not kept pace with the rising prices of inflation, and recent trends suggest that in many cases there is financial gain to be had from leaving workplaces that can’t keep up. To put a fine point on it: employers who aren’t able to provide compensation increases that account for inflation risk losing their employees to those who can.”

Fortunately, there are plenty of voices in the for-profit and nonprofit worlds who offer useful guidance in addressing the challenge. BDO suggests inflation’s impact on salary gains will vary by situation.  Here are some of their tips to bolster your workforce.

• As energy prices rise, consider extra financial support for employees that need to commute by car or drive as part of their job duties. This can be delivered in the form of gas cards, parking vouchers, or passes for public transportation.
• If increasing your budget for merit increases is not feasible, consider doing a mid-year assessment to determine whether a second pay adjustment is needed and can be supported.
• Identify personnel that are mission-critical, as well as top performers to ensure their contributions are recognized and reflected in pay levels according to the organization’s pay policies and financial condition.
• While there are always exceptions, lower wage employees are the most impacted by inflation. Their salary increases typically do not result in a significant change in purchasing power. Focus salary increase dollars on those who are most impacted.
• Allocating more of the budget to pay increases for lower-paid employees can do more than just promote retention, it can help differentiate your organization as one that prioritizes fair compensation practices and demonstrates that management values its employees.

Lauren Mason, senior principal for the Career Business Division at Mercer (an HR consulting partnership) made these recommendations for employers to consider for this year's compensation planning period:

• Prioritize Hourly Pay.  With unprecedented levels of churn in the labor market, wage growth at record pace and increasing external scrutiny, now is the time to focus on hourly pay strategies.
• Consider A Segmented Approach.  Ensure budget dollars "are focused on addressing gaps in competitiveness . . . Consider a segmented approach by offering higher wages to both new joiners and high-performing current employees in critical business segments, as well as those whose pay is below market rates.
• Keep In Mind The Employee Experience.  Employees have heightened expectations around pay, so equip leaders with the resources to communicate pay decisions effectively.

CapinCrouse, a national CPA and consulting firm serving nonprofits, provided the following from their three-part series Inflation’s Ripple Effect on Nonprofits and Their Employees.

• Nonprofit compensation is enough of a puzzle without the added challenge of market fluctuations. But while every organization is different, there are options for leaders who want to communicate the value of their team members through more than just cash compensation.
• Many nonprofits are opting to give their employees one-time bonuses rather than setting themselves up to maintain promised increases in future years. This provides an immediate benefit to employees who are feeling the real-time impact of market conditions without setting the precedent of an increased baseline wage.

• Since times of economic inflation tend to put more strain on lower-level (and lower-earning) employees, nonprofits may also want to consider providing tiered incentives such as:
• Increased retirement plan contribution percentages
• Stipends to accommodate elevated gas prices (consult with a tax advisor first to ensure they understand and disclose the potential tax implications for the organization and employees)
• Higher merit increases or one-time bonuses

In March 2022, hundreds of nonprofit workers gathered in New York City to demand that the city write a minimum wage of $21 per hour and a 6% cost of living adjustment into the city budget for nonprofit workers. Minor Sinclair, Executive Director of The Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) wrote for The Chronicle of Philanthropy to explain how CPR increased their employees’ wages, beginning with a “contingency fund” to augment salaries to help offset the impact of inflation. Staff members received a $1,000 payment from the fund in spring 2022, which CPR planned to renew in the fall. CPR also upgraded employees’ benefits packages, including a “modest allowance” to help cover utility and internet costs for staff working from home. Employees also received an extra week of vacation to be taken at the end of the year. Additionally, CPR made short and long-term disability-pay plans available to staff.

It is important not to lose sight of the fact that the nonprofit sector is the third largest employer in North America, employing one out of every ten working Americans (about 12.5 million workers). Think about the strength in those numbers. If nonprofits can't retain quality employees, their fundraising and program delivery will suffer. During tough economic times and good, investing in people pays dividends for your nonprofit’s present and future successes.

This blog post was written by Amélie Frank, consulting copywriter to UST. To learn more about Amélie’s professional portfolio you can find her online at https://www.linkedin.com/in/amelie-frank/.

It is nearly impossible to talk about compensation increases without inflation figuring in every discussion. In 2022, amidst the first global pandemic in over a century, the average price of gas skyrocketed to $5.75 per gallon (up from a low of $2.68 in May of 2020). The inflation rate for 2022 finished at 6.5%, and today (for the moment), gas prices sit as low as $3.49 in some areas.  The federal minimum wage will increase to $9.50 per hour this year, varying significantly from state to state.  You can visit The Horton Group page on minimum wages for the state-specific wage rates.

Investopedia.com defines inflation as “a rise in prices, which can be translated as the decline of purchasing power over time.” Among today’s inflationary pressures we can count damage to crops, livestock, lives, and property from recent climate change events, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine spiking the costs of natural gas and grain, and a new strain of avian flu resulting in eggs at $6.00 per dozen.  The pandemic itself was a force majeure expense for everyone, with shortages ranging from microchips to baby formula.

And yet, we have emerged from this tough time with an appreciation for U.S. workers that we haven’t experienced since the 1950s. Employers continue to be affected by the great labor shortage and unexpected increases in opportunities, pay, and benefits for workers.  Driven in no small part by younger workers unwilling to settle for low-wage gigs, companies have been hiring at significantly competitive salaries and vying for new workers by burnishing their employer brand as emphatically as they do their brand. Things have changed.

BDO USA, a global accounting firm, anticipated that budgets for merit increases in 2022 would hover around 3%, but found that in the final quarter of 2021, the increases topped out just below 4%. The talent shortage had pushed raises into the 4% range. Concurrently, inflation was approaching 1982 levels, which BDO anticipated would push salary increases still higher (the term for this is a wage-price spiral, which Americans last heard about in the mid-1970s). BDO conducted a poll of 440 organizations across multiple industries--including 127 nonprofits—in January and February of 2022 and determined that compensation budgets for all participating companies averaged 5.1%, with nonprofit firms averaging 4.4%. The last time salary-increase budgets exceeded 4% was in 2001.

BDO cautioned, “For nonprofits, this may be a significant shock for their 2022 budgets, as a 4.4% budget increase represents a 47% hike (emphasis also mine) compared to the previously standard 3% budget. It is likely that many organizations are not in a position to increase salary budgets to this degree.”

Journalist and social media strategist Lia Tabackman succinctly laid out the good and bad news in her article in 501c.com, Nonprofit Compensation Battles with Inflation: “Salary and wage increases at U.S. organizations have not kept pace with the rising prices of inflation, and recent trends suggest that in many cases there is financial gain to be had from leaving workplaces that can’t keep up. To put a fine point on it: employers who aren’t able to provide compensation increases that account for inflation risk losing their employees to those who can.”

Fortunately, there are plenty of voices in the for-profit and nonprofit worlds who offer useful guidance in addressing the challenge. BDO suggests inflation’s impact on salary gains will vary by situation.  Here are some of their tips to bolster your workforce.

• As energy prices rise, consider extra financial support for employees that need to commute by car or drive as part of their job duties. This can be delivered in the form of gas cards, parking vouchers, or passes for public transportation.
• If increasing your budget for merit increases is not feasible, consider doing a mid-year assessment to determine whether a second pay adjustment is needed and can be supported.
• Identify personnel that are mission-critical, as well as top performers to ensure their contributions are recognized and reflected in pay levels according to the organization’s pay policies and financial condition.
• While there are always exceptions, lower wage employees are the most impacted by inflation. Their salary increases typically do not result in a significant change in purchasing power. Focus salary increase dollars on those who are most impacted.
• Allocating more of the budget to pay increases for lower-paid employees can do more than just promote retention, it can help differentiate your organization as one that prioritizes fair compensation practices and demonstrates that management values its employees.

Lauren Mason, senior principal for the Career Business Division at Mercer (an HR consulting partnership) made these recommendations for employers to consider for this year's compensation planning period:

• Prioritize Hourly Pay.  With unprecedented levels of churn in the labor market, wage growth at record pace and increasing external scrutiny, now is the time to focus on hourly pay strategies.
• Consider A Segmented Approach.  Ensure budget dollars "are focused on addressing gaps in competitiveness . . . Consider a segmented approach by offering higher wages to both new joiners and high-performing current employees in critical business segments, as well as those whose pay is below market rates.
• Keep In Mind The Employee Experience.  Employees have heightened expectations around pay, so equip leaders with the resources to communicate pay decisions effectively.

CapinCrouse, a national CPA and consulting firm serving nonprofits, provided the following from their three-part series Inflation’s Ripple Effect on Nonprofits and Their Employees.

• Nonprofit compensation is enough of a puzzle without the added challenge of market fluctuations. But while every organization is different, there are options for leaders who want to communicate the value of their team members through more than just cash compensation.
• Many nonprofits are opting to give their employees one-time bonuses rather than setting themselves up to maintain promised increases in future years. This provides an immediate benefit to employees who are feeling the real-time impact of market conditions without setting the precedent of an increased baseline wage.

• Since times of economic inflation tend to put more strain on lower-level (and lower-earning) employees, nonprofits may also want to consider providing tiered incentives such as:
• Increased retirement plan contribution percentages
• Stipends to accommodate elevated gas prices (consult with a tax advisor first to ensure they understand and disclose the potential tax implications for the organization and employees)
• Higher merit increases or one-time bonuses

In March 2022, hundreds of nonprofit workers gathered in New York City to demand that the city write a minimum wage of $21 per hour and a 6% cost of living adjustment into the city budget for nonprofit workers. Minor Sinclair, Executive Director of The Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) wrote for The Chronicle of Philanthropy to explain how CPR increased their employees’ wages, beginning with a “contingency fund” to augment salaries to help offset the impact of inflation. Staff members received a $1,000 payment from the fund in spring 2022, which CPR planned to renew in the fall. CPR also upgraded employees’ benefits packages, including a “modest allowance” to help cover utility and internet costs for staff working from home. Employees also received an extra week of vacation to be taken at the end of the year. Additionally, CPR made short and long-term disability-pay plans available to staff.

It is important not to lose sight of the fact that the nonprofit sector is the third largest employer in North America, employing one out of every ten working Americans (about 12.5 million workers). Think about the strength in those numbers. If nonprofits can't retain quality employees, their fundraising and program delivery will suffer. During tough economic times and good, investing in people pays dividends for your nonprofit’s present and future successes.

This blog post was written by Amélie Frank, consulting copywriter to UST. To learn more about Amélie’s professional portfolio you can find her online at https://www.linkedin.com/in/amelie-frank/.

Question: What is the minimum amount of time that an exempt employee must work to be credited for the entire day?

Answer: If an exempt employee does any work, they must be paid for the full day—there is no minimum. For instance, if the employee came to the office for the first 15 minutes of their usual 8-hour day, then went home sick, they would be entitled to their full pay for that day. 

The only exceptions to the Full-Pay-for-Partial-Day rule is during the employee’s first or last week of employment, when the employer is offsetting amounts received for civil service like jury duty or military leave, or when the employee is taking unpaid leave under FMLA. 

Employers can, however, use an employee’s paid time off to fill in the gaps. So, if the employee had paid time off available in their PTO bank, the employer could use a partial day of that time to cover their absence. But if the employee was out of paid time off (or was never offered any), the employer would still owe them for the full day.

This Q&A was provided by Mineral, powering the UST HR Workplace. Have HR questions? Sign your nonprofit up for a FREE 60-day trial here. As a UST member, simply log into your Mineral portal to access live HR certified consultants, 300+ on-demand training courses, an extensive compliance library, and more.

Question: We’ve recently learned that one of our employees is planning to leave the company and has been applying for positions elsewhere. Can we terminate them?

Answer: Terminating employment because an employee is looking for work elsewhere isn’t expressly prohibited by law, but we wouldn’t recommend it. You might be surprised by how many of your employees are looking for other opportunities—either actively or passively—while still doing good work for your organization. If you start terminating everyone who is keeping an eye out for the next opportunity, you may find yourself with woefully few employees left. This is also the kind of organizational behavior that makes the water cooler news, hurts morale, and may even make it into an online review of your business. For all of these reasons, we’d suggest a different approach.

Instead of terminating this employee, you might consider talking with them to determine why they are looking for work elsewhere and what might motivate them to stay. There may be issues you can fix. In fact, a lot of employers regularly conduct both exit and stay interviews to get more insight into the reasons that their employees leave or what keeps them motivated to stay. This information helps them better engage their workforce and increase retention.  

This Q&A was provided by Mineral, powering the UST HR Workplace. Have HR questions? Sign your nonprofit up for a FREE 60-day trial here. As a UST member, simply log into your Mineral portal to access live HR certified consultants, 300+ on-demand training courses, an extensive compliance library, and more.

Are you conflict averse? For most folks, conflict can be a nasty trigger. It sets off the brain’s panic center—the amygdala—activating responses of fight, flight, freeze, or (new tactic for those who don’t mind how bad it makes them look) fawn to cope. It’s neither fun nor fulfilling to work in an office frequently disrupted by this type of energy. However, workplaces now abound with all kinds of people from a variety of backgrounds. Conflict is unavoidable.

Conflict is a reality of working life. All workplaces wrestle with conflicts of some sort at point or another.  Because companies issue policies to mitigate such trouble as sexual harassment, discrimination, and the misuse of technology, they have provided better guidelines for HR departments to resolve weighty disputes sooner than later. However, conflict doesn’t require illegal behavior. If sentient beings work together, there will always be the potential for headbutting.

Under the right circumstances, an internal dispute may provide a company a way to become better informed and more resilient in facing flack in the marketplace. A company that fosters diverse talents and viewpoints among its crew will keep its eyes and ears open and its tactics flexible for problem-solving. A company smart enough to perceive conflict as a teacher may wield it to kick open new doors or avert unforeseen disaster.

What is Conflict?

A 2008 international study by CPP Global, publisher of the Myers-Briggs assessment tool, defined conflict as “any workplace disagreement that disrupts the flow of work.” The same year, a Psychometrics study in Canada described conflict as “a struggle that results when one individual’s concerns diverge from another person’s wants.” Indeed.com discerned that the first definition fits a negative view of conflict, while the second definition may goose the parties locked in confrontation to seek novel, potential win-win outcomes.

Common causes of conflicts among individuals include:

• Divergent personalities, cultures, experiences, work styles, personal habits, or perspectives
• Competition between colleagues
• Poor communication or unclear supervision
• Uncertainly about roles and responsibilities

Employees responding to CPP’s survey cited personality clashes and egos (49%), stress (34%), heavy workloads (33%), poor leadership (29%), dishonesty (26%), unclear roles (22%), clashing values (18%), harassment or bullying (13%), and the perception of discriminatory practices (10%). Nearly one third (27%) had seen conflicts evoke personal attacks.

Tellingly, CPP respondents observed that conflicts were highest (34%) among frontline or entry-level employers—those likely untrained in conflict management.

Here are four types of team conflicts as formulated by Indeed’s career coach Jennifer Herrity.

• Task-based conflicts (a team member doesn’t hold up their part of a task, affecting another member’s or the team’s ability to finish on time; different teams put at odds over resources, budgets, and policies)
• Leadership conflicts (clashes in leadership styles, one director impeding inclusive and collaborative directing)
• Work style conflicts (self-starters versus those who prefer step-by-step guidance)
• Personality/relationship-based clashes (people not getting along)

As workplaces grow, more people connect and occasionally collide over different values and methods for doing their work. Negative conflict can manifest in arguments, difficult relationships, verbal abuse, harassment, bullying, or unethical behavior that affects the entire company. Positive conflict can inspire competition, motivate players to work harder for their goals, and tolerate confrontations over different strategies, which can give way to new and better approaches.

What Does Conflict Cost Us?

According to Human Resources Online, managers spend 15% of their work time mediating conflict. Workplace discord can freeze the pace of projects and deliverables. Where misunderstandings and resentments proliferate, an institution can hemorrhage time and money. Pollack Peacebuilding Systems unveiled its Workplace Conflict Statistics for 2022 with some eyebrow-raising data.

• U.S. employees spend approximately 2.8 hours each week involved in conflict. That’s nearly $359 billion in hours (the equivalent of $385 million day) focused on squabbling rather than collaborating. (It sounds a bit like Congress!)
• A company’s average cost for litigated issues was $160,000, averaging 318 days to resolve. Most employment disputes don’t make it to court. For cases that do, the damages can be hefty. The median judgment runs about $200,000, not counting the cost of defense. One in four cases ends in a judgment of $500,000 or more.
• Almost one in ten employees (9%) have seen projects fail because of workplace conflict.

For nonprofits, employee retention is an existential issue. Any atmosphere made noxious by conflict can demotivate employees and volunteers who can leave to find a more hospitable gig elsewhere.

How Do We Handle and Resolve Conflict?

If you Google for answers on how to handle internal disputes, you can bag dozens of skills lists and even more pages detailing resolution techniques. Widely regarded as a leadership skill, conflict resolution is the art of addressing differences between two or more parties and finding common ground for everyone to work together. How HR departments investigate internal conflict and why it’s important to train employees in conflict resolution skills is vital to your nonprofit’s longevity.

HR Investigations

A company cannot let conflict fester until it damages the company’s process, employer brand, or consumer brand. It must also guard against a courtroom verdict that could damage the brand and bring ruinous financial loss. HR seeks to resolve disputes in-house whenever possible. Companies task their HR departments with fielding contention, and HR runs point until it is resolved or must be escalated to outside mediation, arbitration, alternate dispute resolution (ADR), or a court.

Your company should have an established internal complaint process for HR to follow as it investigates complaints. The Australian Human Rights Commission offers protocols for such a process, emphasizing the urgency to address complaints quickly and fairly—particularly complaints about workplace discrimination and harassment. With an internal complaint process in place, your firm can improve workplace practices and policies, raise staff morale, productivity, and retention, and avoid forwarding problems to external agencies or for legal action.

With a responsive complaints process, an employer can demonstrate the company took “reasonable precautions and exercised due diligence” to prevent discrimination or harassment. The policy, coupled with a consistent record of swift action, can make your organization look properly responsive if the complaint winds up with an investigative government agency or in court.

The Nonprofit Risk Management Center notes for nonprofits that, “There are various types of internal dispute resolution options, ranging from a very formal, binding mandatory arbitration procedure . . . to the informal open-door policy favored by most mid-sized and small nonprofits. Some options are:

1. Mandatory binding arbitration,
2. A commitment to bring disputes to alternative dispute resolution (ADR), using non-binding arbitration,
3. A formal two- or three-step grievance procedure, with a review committee comprised of various board and staff members,
4. Referral of the dispute to an impartial party, who may or may not be connected with the nonprofit, to serve as the arbiter of disputes,
5. An open-door policy, and
6. A peer review committee.

NRMC assures that “an internal dispute resolution procedure . . . provides an outlet for employees’ concerns. A grievance or complaint procedure gives the employee his “day in court” and can be helpful for the nonprofit’s management because misunderstandings or unhealthy disputes between staff may be uncovered and addressed before the conflicts spin out of control. Serious concerns, such as sexual harassment between co-workers, can be uncovered and addressed by the nonprofit before a lawsuit is filed. The goal of internal dispute resolution is to solve the problems at the lowest level possible, so that workplace disputes don’t escalate into legal actions.”

How Peer Workers Can Help

Workers receive a variety of coursework and training during their onboarding period. It makes sense to offer training and certification in conflict resolution so that they may defuse workplace friction as it happens. In circumstances where a disagreement results from a basic miscommunication or a poorly defined workplace procedure, a well-trained employee with appropriate training could persuasively lower the temperature on a situation without having to formally involve a manager or HR. Training in such skills as observation and empathy can enable one coworker to see how another coworker might be misread by their peers because of such traits as autism, food allergies, color blindness, or other facets of our many diversities that may be invisible to others.

Returning to the CPP study for a moment, note that 76% of all workers who participated reported conflict creating positive results, improved problem-solving, and deeper insights about their colleagues. Pressure, as they say, makes the diamonds. CPP’s research suggests that the key to effective conflict management is developing the skills and mindset to deal directly with conflict. Instead of being conflict averse, one should embrace it as a process that yields good outcomes.

With growth, competitive pressure, warp-speed technology, and worker diversity, workplaces are becoming more like ecosystems where conflict is the natural byproduct of not the new normal, but the wildly unpredictable—a form of never normal. Savvy companies may see turmoil as a springboard for growth and a path to the future, keeping buckets on hand to catch the strange ore glimpsed under pressure.

This blog post was written by Amélie Frank, consulting copywriter to UST. To learn more about Amélie’s professional portfolio you can find her online at https://www.linkedin.com/in/amelie-frank/.

O, humble employee handbook! Nonprofit employers count on you to provide organizational best practices to their workforce while ensuring they maintain compliance standards. Unfortunately not enough attention is paid to updating the handbook as there should be—placing these employers at risk.

Today, companies put the handbook online, posting anything from a 2,000-page guide for GitLab to a 5x8” gray card for Nordstrom that reads “Use your good judgment in all situations.” One thing about the employee handbook has not changed. It remains invaluable and indispensable to its company and their employees.

Do you know what a help an employee handbook can be for your nonprofit, your workers, and your constituents? Let’s break the handbook down to its core elements to see what makes it so powerful and beneficial.

Employee handbooks contain both policies and procedures. What is the difference between a policy and a procedure?

A policy is a principle or rule that governs decisions and actions. It functions within the framework of a company’s mission as set by management. Policies include rules for employees regarding smoking, non-disclosure agreements, vacations, dress codes, technology use, and plenty more.

Policies have scope (covering all workers) and purpose (the law that necessitates the policy). Policies promote consistent conduct and equal treatment of all employees, keep employees mindful of their duties, and help the organization comply with the law. Noncompliance can result in fines, lawsuits, loss of the company’s reputation, or risk for the employees.

Finally, policies change as the company grows, as the larger industry evolves, and as new laws and technologies arise. With good policies in place, companies and their employees can thrive in a safe, secure environment. They stabilize a company, enabling it to avert or manage workplace incidents (like an accident) or crises (like a pandemic). They hold management accountable, uphold expectations for the workers and set behavior and performance standards so that everyone can achieve success. As personnel come and go, policies sustain resilience and continuity for the institution because they will always tell new employees exactly what to do. Without policies, a company would run on chaos, but not for very long.

A procedure is a reliable process broken down into a series of steps to attain a desired result. They are instructions adopted by management to carry out policy. While policies offer the why behind a company’s actions, procedures advise how to carry out those actions. A procedure also has scope (a specific employee performing a task and who they report to) and may not apply to everyone working at the company. Procedures are required for training, process auditing, process improvement, and or compliance initiatives. They guarantee the consistency that decreases process variation, which increases procedure control. Decreasing process variation eliminates waste and boosts performance. The best procedures are written in simple, clear, and concise language.

Compiling policies and procedures into a well-organized document accessible to everyone isn’t just a good idea. It can be a lifesaver. Can you imagine police and fire departments without well-managed policies and procedures? How about the law firm or brokerage handling your personal affairs? Or the lab manufacturing your child’s asthma inhaler? Smart policy and its consistent administration ensure safer communities, safer products, and safer work spaces. They are fundamental to any nonprofit’s long-term success.

Some companies issue a policies and procedures manual, a detailed repository of every policy and procedure, even those that don’t concern employees. Other companies issue an employee handbook, which covers everything pertaining to employees, their responsibilities, and the company’s responsibilities to them. For nonprofits, an employee or volunteer handbook would include protocols for donor privacy, fundraising, whistleblowers, records retention and destruction, in-kind gift acceptance, and other situations specific to philanthropic institutions and the laws that regulate them.

Some entities issue both, providing the employee handbook to staff and posting the voluminous policies and procedures tome on the company intranet in case someone needs detailed information about a particular subject (corporate history, news articles, etc.).

Of the two, the employee handbook is the more essential document for the following reasons:

• As part of the onboarding process, the handbook introduces new hires to the company’s mission and principles. It helps the freshly onboarded acclimate to their new roles, enabling them to become productive more quickly.
• It sets and sustains the company’s tone and culture and shows how employees can succeed within that culture.
• It clarifies what the company expects of each employee as well as what it offers them in compensation and benefits.
• It ensures compliance with the law. Clear explanations from the handbook help protect the organization, showing that it endeavors to obey the law and expects its employees to do the same.
• It outlines the employee’s legal rights and entitlements (such as the Family Medical Leave Act) under state and federal law.
• Managers can consult the handbook to answer employees’ questions, helping to ensure both parties are on the same page concerning a workplace issue.
• It highlights the company’s benefits, which helps to retain valued employees.
• It can protect the company from claims and lawsuits brought by current or former employees. The handbook is one of the most useful documents to produce in the company’s defense. A legally sound employee handbook can prove that the company has exercised “reasonable care” towards its employees.
• It requires the employee to sign the handbook’s acknowledgment page. The signed acknowledgement page verifies that the employee had an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the organization’s policies, ask related questions, and agreed to follow the terms and conditions of employment set by the organization.

With the increase in flexible work schedules and more employees working off site, companies are putting their employee handbooks and policies and procedures guides online. For many, this is more convenient and efficient—and it saves on the cost of printing. But wait! There’s more! Companies are putting their entire policies and procedures guides live on the internet for everyone to see. Why would they do that?

Many of these electronic handbooks come from newer companies or tech firms to demonstrate their commitment to corporate transparency. Such firms include Basecamp, Trello, Netflix, Zappos, Hubspot, Nordstrom, Sterling Gold Mining Corporation, Facebook, and Twitter (likely rewriting their employee handbook very soon).

Some of these handbooks are masterful achievements in design, copy writing, and corporate branding. And they are unique. Regarding Twitter, EmploymentSolicitor.com challenged other law firms to help create The Employment Solicitor.com Twitter Staff Handbook, with policies stated in 140 characters or less. Meanwhile, Netflix kept it simple: “Act in Netflix's best interest.” These are not your daddy’s employee handbook! Did I mention these handbooks are downloadable?

Beyond their novelty, publicly accessible handbooks reap handsome rewards for their companies. Obviously, they don’t post anything confidential online for legal reasons, but everything else they share with an eye toward burnishing their employer brand as well as their products and services. As they give visitors a taste of their company culture, they get to market millions of eyeballs for minimal expense.

They can also attract desirable employees: Check out our benefits! See how well we treat our employees! Note how committed we are to the environment! Plus, it’s a useful way to engage potential donors or volunteers who are doing their homework before contributing to your cause.

It’s all there for the whole world to see, yet it still serves as the employee handbook. Expect this to become standard operating procedure for many companies, including nonprofits. The more things change, the more handbooks will need updating. Updating online is simple and inexpensive.

According to a survey conducted in 2020 for People Matters, a media company specializing HR marketing, 57% of employees actually read the employee manual. When asked if they had revised their employee manuals since the pandemic, 69% of HR professionals surveyed said no. How are these unread, outdated handbooks meeting the needs of their companies? The answer is that they aren’t.

When your nonprofit decides to invest time and money to produce an employee handbook, you will find countless resources online that can help, but…

UST understands those needs because we are the leader in the field of nonprofit HR solutions. Through our cloud-based UST HR Workplace, powered by Mineral, we offer on-demand resources and expertise to help create the employee handbook your foundation needs . . . in minutes. UST’s integrated platform of HR tools, templates, and on-demand trainings will ensure that your employee manual meets your standards while maintaining compliance with federal and state law. The platform will alert you whenever a policy or law that can affect your handbook changes. And, you can track employee acknowledgments with built-in electronic signatures. With a subscription to the UST HR Workplace, your handbook will stay current and relevant for your peeps. Request a FREE 60-Day Trial of the UST HR Workplace today!

This blog post was written by Amélie Frank, consulting copywriter to UST. To learn more about Amélie’s professional portfolio you can find her online at https://www.linkedin.com/in/amelie-frank/.

Question: Are depression and anxiety considered disabilities?

Answer: They can be, yes. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a disability is defined as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.”

Some examples of major life activities are caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, eating, sleeping, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and working. A major life activity also includes the operation of a major bodily function, such as neurological, brain, and respiratory functions.

Although the condition must “substantially limit” a major life activity, this term is broader than you might think. “Substantially limits” doesn’t mean that the condition has to prevent or significantly restrict a major life activity. Rather, the comparison is between the employee’s level of functioning as compared to most people in the general population. It is not a demanding standard. 

If an employee informs you that they have anxiety or depression and requests an accommodation, you should begin the interactive process. Basically, you and the employee determine what, if anything, can be done to accommodate them so that they can perform the essential functions of their job and have equal benefits and privileges of employment. As part of this conversation, you may require the employee to provide documentation to support their request for an accommodation.

This Q&A was provided by Mineral, powering the UST HR Workplace. Have HR questions? Sign your nonprofit up for a FREE 60-day trial here. As a UST member, simply log into your Mineral portal to access live HR certified consultants, 300+ on-demand training courses, an extensive compliance library, and more.

In the midst of the pandemic, unemployment benefit claims skyrocketed—impacting employers across the country with increased fraudulent benefit claims. And the number of reported incidents is staggering—driving up the cost of taxes for nonprofits and causing frustration for both employers and their employees. Nationally, states processed more than one billion unemployment claims in 2020 alone, amounting to over $500 billion in paid benefits. Unemployment systems in nearly every state have been impacted by international and national crime syndicates with 35% of applications being fraudulent.

It's more important than ever that employers carefully review their quarterly charges statements for any discrepancies—specifically for individuals listed as receiving UI benefits who are still actively employed with your nonprofit. By doing so, you not only protect your assets but you also help to protect your employees who are being targeted by these fraudsters.

While government agencies continue to grapple with the theft of millions of dollars through fraudulent UI benefit claims, UST recently compiled over-whelming statistics surrounding UI fraud and the impact on employers to create the 2022 Fraudulent Unemployment Infographic . Discover the overwhelming facts about unemployment fraud and how it can affect your workforce.

Sign up for our monthly eNews to continue receiving helpful insights, how-to-guides, and legal updates specific to nonprofits!

As talent becomes harder to recruit and retain, some employers have tendered unusual perks to sweeten hiring deals. Can your company compete with the benefits being offered by your for-profit counterparts?

• Onsite facilities for Botox injections and tanning beds (Chesapeake Energy)
• Cryo-preserve your entire body after you die (Numerai)
• Lunchtime surfing with daily surf reports from the reception staff (Patagonia)
• Free use of the company yachts (JM Family Enterprises)
• Gender reassignment surgery (Goldman Sachs)
• For nudists (I am not making this up, I swear), Naked Fridays, a chance to “engage employees and build trust within the team” (onebestway)
• A 3D-printed model of your head (Innocent Drinks)
• Flexjobs found one firm that vowed, “We promise not to poke you with a sharp stick.”

Whatever extremes some employers may undertake to lavish their appreciation, it all underscores that human capital is any business’s most important asset.

Whether they are active job seekers or the passive ones keeping an antennae out for anything interesting, an enormous talent pool is in flux. Workers now prowl for jobs with greater learning and growth. Companies need to burnish their reputations to lure in the best and brightest. Fueling this career migration is a desire for purpose. Companies are figuring out that aligning their employer brand with a candidate’s yearning for purpose can entice desirable workers to apply.

Purpose seems like one of those immeasurable intangibles. If you’re a nonprofit lacking funds to offer expensive perks on your employees, how do you snag recruits with a concept? 

The good news is that, as a foundation for good, you already have what it takes.

It All Starts with Purpose

Be it the Preamble to the Constitution, a corporate motto, an employer brand, or a nonprofit’s mission statement, the institutions we’ve built began with a purpose—a compelling reason why. For most companies, the purpose resides with the employer brand. Not to be mistaken for branding elements such as logos, fonts, colors, and other instantly recognizable cues, your employer brand also defines your values and your work culture. It is both a message and a promise, speaking directly to all stakeholders—customers, employees, competitors, and partners. Anyone who encounters it knows precisely what the brand stands for. When Allstate Insurance tells you that “You’re in Good Hands,” you know the brand and its values..

Does a statement of purpose translate into financial success? A Harvard Business School study verified that, over a ten-year period, values-driven companies outperformed non-purposeful ones by a factor of 12 in their stock price. Where purpose is active, performance thrives. Imperative’s 2016 report into workplace purpose revealed that:

• 85% of purpose-led companies showed growth
• 42% of non-purpose-led companies showed a drop in revenue

Purposeful organizations succeed due to dedicated employees. To what are they dedicated if not purpose? It takes a company’s purpose to recruit, engage, and retain this kind of talent. The organization does best when its hiring practices align with its purpose and with the purpose of its employees.

Tips for Recruiting with Purpose

Eighty-five percent of US employees said they would stay longer with a socially responsible employer. Here are four practices to help you score top talent.

1. Showcase purpose from the start.
   Do you understand your nonprofit’s mission?  While every business knows what it does, very few know why. Until you can explain why your company exists, you cannot connect meaningfully with anyone, including your stakeholders. We want to know how the world is better because your nonprofit is in business.
    
2. Build purpose into recruiting and onboarding.
   State your values and your mission-driven initiatives in all communications. Use your application and interview processes to demonstrate your nonprofit’s reason for existing to candidates. Make sure that job descriptions are free of biases and optimize those hashtags! Don’t just state the requirements of the position. Job descriptions should speak directly to the values of the people you want to hire. Ask yourself if the content is original and fresh if the posts are mission oriented and updated frequently. Include employee presence and participation on your website. Probe interviewees for their purpose. Ask about their goals, values, and the issues they care about most. Ask how they will contribute. In turn, share your personal purpose and how it comes alive for you through your work.
    
3. Make your Job Board a site with purpose.
   Update your job board to show prospective workers how your new job opening is anchored in your values. Ask yourself: Does our job board inspire prospective talent? Is it user friendly? Does it delineate what we stand for? Does it reveal that we provide opportunities to learn, grow, and contribute? Does it offer behind-the-scenes glimpses of what it’s like to work here? Does it feature the faces and voices of our staff? Are the posts individualized to reflect the uniqueness of each open position? If you can’t answer yes to most of these questions, it’s time to revamp your job board and find a more efficient way to tell your story.
4. Make your mission real for newbies.
   Give candidates a purpose that motivates them to work for you. Tell them how their efforts can change the world. During onboarding, share stories that bring your purpose alive with videos, testimonials, and employee profiles. Share details about company projects that have positively affected the lives of others. Have employees share what working for your company has meant to them. In everything you do, demonstrate that your company’s purpose is authentic and straight from the heart.

Avoid Poor Employer Branding

Today, 75% of job seekers consider an employer’s brand before applying for a job. Lousy employer branding can range from an unhappy interview experience to an annoying campaign jingle to a job board that fails to convey what a great place your company is to work or hire. A sour interview experience can wind up as a low rating on Glassdoor, which can damage your reputation and several such reviews can undermine your purpose and your credibility. At a minimum it will certainly discourage promising candidates from applying to work for you.

Your employer brand must always be supported across all departments at your company. Mindful practices of consistent communication, courtesy toward all candidates, and practicing what your mission preaches will protect your ability to shine in this competitive marketplace. It will also sustain your credibility with your employees, preserving both their engagement and retention.

About Remote Workers

Remote work and hybrid workplaces are issues that expose a significant rift between employers and employees. Many employers want their workers back in the office. Many employees don’t want to return to the office. From INC, one in three U.S. workers doesn't want to work for anyone who demands employees be onsite full-time. Another survey by Envoy affirms that nearly half of employees will likely look for another job if their current employer doesn’t offer a hybrid workplace.

Remote discrimination is a problem at hybrid companies as remote employees are excluded from specific perks or advantages enjoyed by those working on-site. To avoid making remote personnel feel unappreciated, companies need clear hybrid working policies.

From Recruitee’s Adrie Smith: “We know there’s a talent shortage in many areas and skills. In fact, 78% of HR managers said that most skills will become even more niche in the next ten years. This statistic alone has led many recruiters to look for candidates further afield. And for hiring teams to consider remote employees.”

Fortunately, she assures, new tools emerge daily to help workplaces connect with distant candidates. Below are some remote hiring guiding principles.

Video interviewing is a core skill. Take the time to master the technology, overcome glitches, and develop the social graces involved in virtual face-to-face meetings.

Elongate the hiring process. Give yourself every opportunity to get to know your candidate better.

Prioritize collaborative hiring. Involve your team in the hiring process. Focus on the candidate’s skills, personality, and experience.

Mind your job promotion platforms. Certain types of remote talent will spend their time on different platforms, communicate in different ways, and respond to different kinds of job outreach. Whether on your site, social media, or job board, your remote job description should . . .

• Accurately describe the remote policy. Not every remote situation is the same. Some offices are “remote first,” “remote-friendly,” or “hybrid.”
• Explain why a particular position or certain teams are remote if you still have employees working in an office.
• Communicate any logistics requirements that result from remote work. You may need to have remote workers living or working in a certain time zone or to be flexible to travel to headquarters each month.
• Summarize your communication culture. Candidates should know what to expect regarding communication and collaboration. This will weed out people unprepared to collaborate in a hyper-communicative environment.

If you want to staff your organization with the best people, take the money you are using for workplace perks and invest it in purposeful hiring. In return, you'll have more time to focus on your products and profits.

By 2035, the labor majority will be Gen Z workers. Many of them will be replacing the workers who opted to be fully cryo-frozen over at Numerai.

This blog post was written by Amélie Frank, consulting copywriter to UST. To learn more about Amélie’s professional portfolio you can find her online at https://www.linkedin.com/in/amelie-frank/.

Question: We’ve transitioned to a remote-first workforce. How can we keep our employees and managers engaged with video meetings and messaging apps—especially those employees that are missing the social aspects of working together physically?

Answer: Even with video conferencing and messaging apps, fully involving remote employees in team and company meetings remains a challenge. There may be no replacing the experience of being physically in the room, but you can take steps to make these meetings more productive and inclusive. 

The most important thing to remember when “meeting” with remote employees is that you can’t conduct the meeting in the same way as you normally do when everyone is physically present. You have to find a way to replace the advantages that close proximity has, especially the ease of reading body language and picking up social cues. These, unfortunately, do not translate well over the screen or the phone. So, what can you do? 

What remote employees need to fully participate in meetings is space and time to speak. You can provide this space and time in a few ways. First, if there are some physically present participants, ask them to pause for a second before jumping into the conversation. This gives remote employees time to get a word in, plus it helps counter any time delays caused by the conferencing technology. Second, whoever is leading the meeting should regularly invite remote employees to add anything if they have something to say, preferably before moving on in the agenda. Third, when possible, have a remote employee lead the meeting or a section on the agenda. This focuses attention on the remote speakers and can help remind everyone that the meeting isn’t just happening in the physical room. Finally, if a group of remote employees are located in the same workspace, occasionally setting their site as the physical meeting space can help your non-remote employees get a feel for the challenges of being remote during a meeting.

Some preliminary work before the meeting can also help make the meeting itself more efficient. First, test any systems ahead of time so that they’re working for everyone when the meeting starts. Second, email the agenda out so everyone knows what to expect. Third, assign someone in the meeting room to be the contact person that remote employees can email or message if they have questions, concerns, or issues. 

After the meeting, check in with any remote employees and ask them to be candid about their experience. What worked well and what could be improved? See what you can do to accommodate them in the next meeting. 

You may not be able to fully replicate the experience of physically being in the room but taking these steps can enable remote employees to feel more involved and make the meeting itself run more smoothly.

This Q&A was provided by Mineral, powering the UST HR Workplace. Have HR questions? Sign your nonprofit up for a FREE 60-day trial here. As a UST member, simply log into your Mineral portal to access live HR certified consultants, 300+ on-demand training courses, an extensive compliance library, and more.