You can also use the software to track unexcused absences so you spot any absenteeism issues like getting to work late, leaving early, taking long breaks, or not showing up. If left unchecked, widespread absenteeism can lead to decreased profitability, morale, and retention.

Before choosing software, it’s important to set your paid time off (PTO) and attendance policies. (As with any HR policy, it’s beneficial to have an employment lawyer review them before you add them to your employee handbook.) After that, you’re ready to select software. Here’s how to set up your system.

Step 1: Create a PTO Policy

In the United States, there are no federal or state laws mandating that employers provide paid vacation days and there are no federal laws requiring paid sick leave. However, be sure to check your state and local laws. Regardless of the laws, many companies provide PTO to recruit and retain top talent.

Some companies have a set number of PTO days that employees can use for any reason, some designate a set number of vacation or sick days, and others offer unlimited PTO. Some companies offer the same number of days to all employees or a different amount based on tenure.

When you’re writing your policy, be sure to include how far in advance employees must request planned time off like vacations and the process for requesting it. You could also mention reasons why PTO might be denied.

You may want to give additional paid time off for bereavement, parental leave, and family emergencies. Consider noting that any leave approved under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and any other relevant federal, state, and local laws do not count as PTO days.

Step 2: Set an Attendance Policy

The next step to creating an absence management system is to make an attendance policy. Some companies track excused and unexcused absences. If you track excused and unexcused absences, specify what counts as each. For example, it may be an excused absence if it can count toward their remaining PTO, or if it was approved in advance.

Some companies count coming late, leaving early, or taking long breaks as absences or count multiple instances toward one absence. You may want to note the number of unexcused absences employees can have in a set time frame and the repercussions because it can be helpful if someone files a wrongful termination claim.

Step 3: Choose an Absence Management System

Now you’re ready to select software. There are several different software options. Here are some of the main features you may want to look for:

• Employees can request time off and log sick days.
• Employees can clock in and out and log hours, if necessary.
• Managers can approve and deny time off requests.
• Managers can log unexcused absences.
• Managers and department heads can create shift schedules, if relevant.
• Department heads and HR employees can see the team coverage to track trends.
• HR employees can send reports to payroll if employees are paid hourly or receive overtime.
• Managers and HR employees can check compliance laws.

Step 4: Reduce Absenteeism

If you notice that your team has high absenteeism rates, it can be helpful to implement flexible work arrangements such as:

• Flextime. Employees set their own hours outside of the traditional 9-to-5 schedule.
• Compressed work week. Employees work more hours a few days a week to hit 40 hours faster and take the remaining days off.
• Remote work. Depending on your policy, employees work remotely whenever they want or a set number of days per week.
• Part-time roles and shift work. Offering part-time roles and shift work can help you attract and retain people who want or need to work nontraditional hours, such as students and parents.

Continue to Learn HR Best Practices

Your absence management system can help you save time, stay organized, and monitor absenteeism. If absenteeism is an issue, the tips for reducing it can increase productivity, employee morale, and retention, making your business more successful. Keep on improving your business by implementing expert hiring and management advice from Monster.

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Ready to get started? Here’s how to create an effective employee review program.

What Are Employee Performance Reviews and Why Are They Important?

Employee reviews are one-on-one meetings between managers and their direct reports. They help your staff explore how they’re growing and contributing to business goals.

These evaluations:

• Provide staff with concrete information about where they stand and how they can improve.
• Enhance team performance by helping employees perform better.
• Allow employers to recognize and promote top-performing employees.
• Help managers address issues before they become problematic.
• Create a company culture that hinges on employee feedback and recognition.

Types of Performance Reviews

There are several employee performance review models you can use for your business. Here are some of the most common:

• Self-assessment: This is when employees rate themselves against a predetermined set of standards. Their manager rates them against the same criteria and uses both documents as a jumping-off point for discussion.
• 360-degree reviews: These reviews include feedback from many different angles, making them one of the most thorough options. These reports can include feedback from managers, coworkers, clients, and direct reports. 360-degree reviews provide a multifaceted view of the employee’s competencies and areas for growth.
• Peer review: Peer reviews are useful because they help employees gather valuable feedback from coworkers. They also grant companies greater insight into the employee’s everyday behavior. This provides a comprehensive employee evaluation and uncovers how they work with the team on a day-to-day basis.
• Rating scale: The rating scale is an evaluation tool that uses variables (typically core competencies such as teamwork, problem-solving skills, communication, etc.), and values (such as poor or satisfactory or on a scale of one to 10) to evaluate employees. Some businesses leave room for comments so employees can discuss the ratings with managers in more detail.
• Management by objective (MBO): MBO employee performance reviews use SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based goals) to provide employees with clear evaluation parameters. Managers and employees agree on the specific goals the employee needs to meet, ensure these goals support company objectives, and identify a specific timeframe for completing them. This method makes it easier for employees to stay on track and gives companies a clear measure of success.

Keep in mind that you don’t have to choose just one type of review. Many businesses use two or more of these models simultaneously. Each can be combined or adapted to fit your specific evaluation needs.

How to Conduct Successful Reviews

Now that you understand different types of employee performance reviews and how they work, here’s how to conduct them successfully.

Decide How Often You’ll Schedule Performance Reviews

Studies show that employees who receive feedback frequently are more engaged. Consider adding a midyear review or even quarterly or monthly reviews. If you can’t have reviews that often, be sure to work feedback into your one-on-ones. There shouldn’t be any big surprises come review time.

Give Employees Access to Metrics in Advance

You don’t have to give employees too much information before the scheduled meeting, but clue them in on the evaluation metrics. Your employees deserve to know how they will be evaluated and what’s expected of them. Send the criteria in advance or make it available year-round.

Focus on the Good

Motivate employees by giving both constructive and positive feedback. Be specific about what your employees are doing right so they are clear on their strengths and weaknesses.

Ask the Right Questions – and Listen

At the heart of any good manager-employee relationship is effective communication. Ask questions that build trust and show that you’re interested in their growth. You don’t want employees feeling like the review is a punishment. Ask what they’re most proud of and how you can improve as a manager. Solicit employee feedback about their responsibilities and company culture. Make them a part of the process, listen to what they say, and make changes whenever possible. It shows you value that employee, which will boost their confidence and make them feel good about the they’ve done and have yet to do. The changes you make can help you recruit and retain top talent.

Help Employees Move Forward Confidently

End your employee performance reviews with clear steps employees can take moving forward. Every staff member should leave these meetings with a clear understanding of where they currently stand and what actions they need to take.

You can use employee review software to set up and manage your assessments. These tools help businesses set employee goals and log their progress. They also keep employee reviews on file for future reference and help managers easily compare current and past reviews.

Continue Improving Your Company Culture

Now that you know how to create better employee performance reviews, you can improve employee satisfaction, enhance team performance, and create a transparent company culture. Keep up the momentum with expert hiring and management tips from Monster.

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Though it isn’t always easy to quantify people’s achievements, you can use individual key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate employees. The solution is choosing a range of metrics that help you piece together the bigger picture.

In this article, we’ll cover which employee performance metrics to focus on to get a 360-degree view of your employee progress and ensure your team is on the right track in performance reviews.

Why Collect Performance Metrics?

Choosing the right metrics will help your business:

• Present a clear understanding of the job requirements.
• Analyze employees’ productivity and progress.
• Catch issues early and find appropriate solutions.
• Recognize high-performing employees and increase morale.
• Help employees evaluate their own performance and grow.
• Focus on meeting major business goals more efficiently.
• Offer employee promotions fairly and based on performance.

Performance metrics make it clear what is expected of your employees, making it easier it is for them to be successful. It also helps managers more easily identify A-players, carve out better growth opportunities for their team, and pivot when employees aren’t hitting their goals.

Employee Performance Metrics to Track

Which performance metrics do you track? They might depend on the position. For example, if you hire sales reps, you might need to track the percentage of sales closed. Or, if your team produces heavy-duty machinery for manufacturers, you might need to track the number of products shipped or meet specific quality standards.

No matter the position, you will want to focus on a mix of qualitative and quantitative metrics. There are hundreds of metrics you can track, but these five will give you the most comprehensive understanding of employee performance no matter the industry.

1. Quantity: Numerical Goals

Measuring quantity is one of the more straightforward metrics to track. Using numerical goals can help you increase team productivity.

Be specific about the goal that needs to be hit and the timeframe, so the parameters are clear. This will help you get a better understanding of how well your team is aligning with business objectives and whether their productivity is on pace. Even if they are hitting weekly and monthly quotas, however, you will also want to measure the quality of the work.

2. Quality: Objectives and Key Results

Measuring the quality of your employee performance might seem complex, but you can simplify this process by using objectives and key results (OKRs). It’s a two-part evaluation process that identifies a clear objective and supporting set of results that will illustrate whether the objective is met.

For example, say your employee or team’s objective is to write better marketing content that reaches a wider audience and converts more leads. You can measure success by looking at metrics like the increase in traffic, leads, and conversion rates over a set timeframe.

3. Effectiveness: Revenue Growth

Your employees might be producing quality work, but how effective is their effort? One way to signify employee effectiveness is to measure revenue growth.

If you’re diligent about tracking your employees’ efforts and tying them back to company earnings, you can get a better understanding of how effective your team’s strategy is. Set specific revenue goals and if the team isn’t hitting them, use this data to pivot and adjust your team’s approach.

4. Efficiency: Time Management

Every business should know how well its employees are using the resources available to them. One way to measure efficiency is to enable employees to easily track their time spent on each project.

This will give you an overall picture of their time management skills and you can use the data to tailor their assignments. For example, if your employees are spending too much time on menial tasks that aren’t getting results, this will help you decide where they should be focusing instead.

5. Growth: Training Programs

You want to know that your employees are growing and learning in a way that pushes both them and your organization forward. This progress can only happen with ongoing training and more learning opportunities.

Track how many hours of courses your employees take. Encourage them to read a certain number of books per month. Mandate that they spend time each month dedicated to education so your team can grow professionally.

Tracking Employee Performance Doesn’t Have to Be Difficult

Your employees are more than data but having the right metrics in place will help better evaluate their progress. Continue to strengthen your team with hiring and management tips from Monster.

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One of the best ways to achieve those goals when you have to fire or lay off someone is to write a  letter. This should accompany (not replace) a private meeting with the person being let go, typically with a human resources representative present.

We’ll explain what it can include and some legal and HR considerations and provide a template that you may use to draft your own.

Why Write a Termination Letter?

Perhaps you’re dealing with an employee who never quite lived up to their expectations and they just dropped the ball on an important project. Maybe it’s the last straw, but do you really want to yell “You’re fired!” in the heat of frustration, within earshot of colleagues?

Doing so may rid you of a problem employee, but you may have created new problems in the process. Even if you take the conversation to a private location, such as your office, verbally terminating them could sound more like a knee-jerk reaction than a measured response.

Taking the time to write a letter of termination helps you organize your thoughts and spell out exactly why the relationship is no longer working. In some cases, as you’re writing the letter, you may even discover ways to remedy the situation without firing them. If you do end up firing that person, though, having them read the letter and then asking if they have any questions could alleviate some of the tension.

Legal and HR Considerations

Suppose the person you verbally fired in the previous section has a disability, is over the age of 40, belongs to a racial minority group, or is otherwise protected by anti-discrimination laws. Even if you had a very good reason to fire them, the lack of a written record (including past performance reviews as well as an employee termination letter) may make it difficult for your company to defend its reasons to terminate.

Depending on their employment status (i.e., whether they’re a contractor) and the laws of your state (some require last payment at the point of termination), you’ll want to clarify in the letter what you owe them and any applicable deadlines. You can alleviate a big area of contention by writing that their final paycheck will be provided to them according to the laws of your state. This could be on their last day of employment, or within a specific number of days after their termination. If you’re not sure what the law is in your state, an employment law attorney can help.

Also, they may need to return company property, such as a laptop, mobile phone, or other items. By including these items in the letter, you’ve created a record showing that you provided them with notice should legal action be needed down the road to recover any property.

Keeping your letter on file preserves a written record of why an employee was terminated, what notice was provided, and that your company took steps in compliance with the law.

What to Include 

A professionally written letter can help protect your company while giving the recipient a clear and direct summary of what led up to the firing and where things stand in terms of unpaid vacation, equipment returns, and so on. Here’s what you should include:

• The basics: Include the name of the person being terminated, the name of the company, and the manager/HR person handling the process; also include the date of the letter and the date the termination is effective (if different).
• Reason for the termination: Note whether it’s a planned layoff or a termination for cause (in which case you should detail the reasons).
• What led up to the firing:  If it’s a termination for cause, remind them what led up to the decision, including any chances they had to correct their course.
• Company property: List all the property they must return, when it must be returned, and any special procedures for doing so.
• Final paycheck and accrued vacation: As noted above, this will depend on a number of factors. Check with legal counsel to ensure compliance with state and local laws.
• Health care, retirement, etc.: If they have health care benefits through your company, inform them of their rights under COBRA. If they have a 401(k), give them information about how to roll it over to another account.

Termination Letter Template

The following template will help you organize your thoughts and get started:

Dear [employee’s name],

I regret to inform you that your employment with [company’s name] has been / will be terminated as of [termination date]. As discussed, we’re terminating the employment relationship because [give summary of your reason].

Beginning [termination date], you will no longer be eligible for compensation or benefits associated with this position. Please make sure you return [list any company property that must be returned] by [date of deadline] to [name and address where materials can be dropped off or mailed].

You will be paid your salary until [termination date — if applicable] and are entitled to your accrued vacation days [if applicable]. You’ll also receive severance pay in the amount of [amount and terms, if applicable].

Be advised that you have signed a non-disclosure, non-solicitation, and non-compete agreement [if applicable]. If you have any proprietary information about our company on your personal devices or hard copies, you must delete it immediately.

If you have any questions, you may contact me for up to [number] working days after your final day.

We wish you all the best in your future endeavors.

[Your name and signature]

While this sample can serve as a helpful guide as you write your own, it’s always a good idea to review any letter of termination with an employment law attorney to ensure that your letter achieves your goals and limits the legal exposure of your company.

Monster Can Help You Recruit Top Talent and Minimize Terminations

If you’re reading this article and reviewing our termination letter template, you may be ready to find a replacement. Letting go is never easy, nor is finding the best candidates for your company. With Monster Hiring Solutions, our free e-newsletter, you’ll get expert insights on recruiting and hiring strategies sent directly to your inbox.

Legal Disclaimer: None of the information provided herein constitutes legal advice on behalf of Monster.

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We all know that evaluations are a major source of stress. In fact, many employees say that an unfair performance assessment would be reason enough for them to quit their job. In fact, between 18 and 25 percent of HR professionals report that they have cried during annual performance reviews.

But, done right, employee evaluations can provide meaningful opportunities to recognize talent and potential. The key is to focus on positive past performance and achievable improvement for the future.

If you’re currently working with a cumbersome assessment process and pages of time-consuming paperwork, it’s time to filter it down to the most important 2-3, or at most 4-5, aspects of each position’s responsibilities. Any employee presented with a laundry list of areas where they are falling short is going to feel overwhelmed and discouraged. A well-organized form can help you focus on what matters.

What Is an Employee Evaluation Template and Why Do I Need One?

Employee evaluation forms should assess performance, document challenges, and provide strategies for improvement. Despite criticism from HR experts, at some companies, assessments also serve as opportunities to determine promotions and compensation, particularly when it comes to merit raises and bonuses.

Using a well-structured form with a standardized rating system for every employee helps to avoid bias and helps guide the discussion, which is the most important aspect of the evaluation in terms of retention.

What Steps Should I Take to Complete an Employee Evaluation?

As a manager, you should go into each evaluation with an open mind, allowing room for employees to tell you about obstacles that may have hindered them in achieving their performance goals. Evaluations should be conversations where you are prepared to do as much listening as talking, since they provide an excellent opportunity to gather information about processes that need realignment.

As you prepare your employee evaluation forms to present during the first phase of your periodic performance reviews, follow the steps below:

• List responsibilities. Create a list of their job duties by looking at the most recent job description for their role. You may need to group their duties into a few major categories if there are too many.
• Gather information on performance. Get feedback from people the employee works with and collect data on, for examples, sales, projects completed, deadlines met and missed, and contracts negotiated.
• Document strengths and weaknesses. Check their progress on goals and benchmarks that they’ve met and those they still need to work on within each category of their responsibilities.
• Provide direction for future success. Create an action plan for improvement for each area of weakness. This could include training or mentoring in a few key areas—2-3 is plenty—you can table any others for next time.
• Draft goals for the future. Sketch out 2-3 potential goals for the employee to focus on before the next evaluation period, along with ways to achieve them, but be prepared to replace those goals or amend them in collaboration with any goals that the employee may have for themselves.

As you work with the employee to set goals for the future, consider using the SMART Goals method, which recommends making goals specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. After your initial discussion with your employee, allow them to respond in writing to their evaluation. The best employee evaluation forms provide areas for employee input.

Are There Any Legal Consideration for Employee Evaluations?

Employee evaluations are often used as evidence in wrongful termination lawsuits by employees and employers. That is why it is so important to have a single form that you use for all employees with a simple and fair rating system.

A poorly designed and written evaluation can be used to prove discrimination or bias. Failing to have a written record of poor performance can be equally detrimental should you need to terminate an employee who has failed to improve.

What Should I Include on Evaluation Forms?

Basic Information Include the name and title of the reviewer and the employee being reviewed, as well as the time period covered by the review and the date the review is shared. Do not include any private information about the employee, such as their address, age, or phone number.

Rating System Your employee evaluation forms should use a rating system that is clear (1-4, or a simple letter system, for example), along with what each rating stands for (1 = poor, 4 = excellent).

Feedback on Your Employee’s Basic Responsibilities

Enumerate a manageable number of job duties using a sentence to describe each one that begins with an active verb. For example, you might say that the employee “facilitates collaborative operations between departments,” “negotiates contracts with vendors,” or “delivers reports to team members.”

For each duty, include a rating and a comments section that describes how well the employee carries out each task, using numbers whenever possible (number of sales made, amount of money saved, etc.).

Then, provide action plans for improvement in each area of responsibility. Again, these should include active verbs, for example, “will work to improve timeliness of responses to queries from team members.”

Feedback on Goals Achieved and Missed

Include a section where you can report on how well the employee has accomplished goals from the current evaluation period. Remember, it’s best if these have been determined by the employee and supervisor in collaboration. As with the responsibilities section, each goal should be accompanied by a clear rating and explanation of why the employee earned the rating they did. Next, include strategies for helping the employee achieve any goals they failed to accomplish.

Goals for the Next Evaluation Period

These work best if they are a product of a collaborative process between the employee and their supervisor. As the evaluator you should have some suggested goals in mind, but for the best results, you will probably want to leave that part of the evaluation form blank until after your first meeting with your employee.

Sample Employee Evaluation Form

You’ve Designed NewEvaluation Forms That Work for You. Now Optimize Them

Learn more about ways to use assessment to motivate and develop your workforce, get the latest hiring news, and up your hiring and retention game with expert advice from Monster.

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Why? Well, first of all, you don’t know for sure whether she wants the position. It offers more money, of course, but also more responsibility, a greater time commitment, and maybe isn’t in line with the career trajectory she has in mind. Finally, there might be others who were hoping for a promotion this time, so you’ll want to handle the announcement with sensitivity and respect.

With that in mind, take a deep breath and slow things down for a minute. Here’s how to make a promotion announcement with just the right amount of enthusiasm and tact.

Tell the employee privately, before the announcement

Assuming you’ve already cleared the promotion with key staff who will be affected by the change and outlined the specific duties and responsibilities of their new role, you’ll want to tell the person you’re promoting first. This private meeting most likely will be music to their ears. But they also may have a lot of questions about what’s expected. They may even balk at the amount of the raise.

Be prepared to answer these questions and reassure them, but don’t expect them to accept the promotion. They’ll happily accept the promotion in most cases, but depending on the details of the new position they may decline. Just imagine how awkward it would be for them to decline the offer during a team-wide promotion announcement.

They may need time to talk about it with their family, especially if it requires more of a time commitment or travel. In any event, let them share the news privately before you share it with their coworkers. If they do accept the promotion (again, this is the most common response), then go back and confirm this with the key staff members you spoke with in private earlier.

Making the promotion announcement

The way in which you make your announcement will depend on the size of the company, its culture, the nature of the promotion, and other such factors. You may even opt for an email announcement to the entire staff. Doing it by email also allows staff to process the news individually, which may be important if others also were hoping for a promotion.

If you choose to announce the promotion by email, you should include the following elements:

• Be celebratory and invite employees to join you in congratulating the promoted employee.
• Provide a summary of their tenure and achievements with your company.
• Provide contact information (or simply make yourself available) should anyone have any questions about the promotion.

If you’re making the announcement in person, you should include the same basic elements as you would for an email (and may want to follow up the in-person announcement with an email). You might choose to offer coffee and pastries or make the vibe celebratory in some way, but you’ll want to keep it brief and to the point.

If you’re making the announcement in front of your staff, one key piece of advice is to be aware of how people respond (body language, groans, etc.). Some disappointment in others who were hoping for a promotion themselves is to be expected, so you’ll want to offer those people the chance to speak with you about the announcement if they so choose.

Whether you announce the promotion in person, by email, or both, it’s important to outline what your newly promoted employee will be doing in their new role, who they’ll be reporting to, and any contingency plans related to their past position. You want to ensure a smooth transition for everyone involved.

You need to find the right people before you promote them, and Monster can help

If you’re making a promotion announcement, it’s a testament to finding the right employee in the first place. Congratulations! But finding the great candidates and maintaining a fruitful talent pipeline is an ongoing job. Get help today by signing up for Monster Hiring Solutions, where you’ll get quality information about talent acquisition, hiring, and management strategies sent right to your in-box.

The post How to make a promotion announcement appeared first on Monster.com.

A survey by Gensler, a design firm based in San Francisco, cites a connection between the design of workspaces and the level of innovation employees feel. Not surprisingly, a well-considered workspace helps drive creativity and a culture of performance.

The goal is to enable employees to perform their daily work routines and leave room for creative inspiration. “You never know when or where the next big idea will strike,” says Cory Grosser of Cory Grosser + Associates, a design studio based in Pasadena, California. Workspace design is increasingly reflecting this realization by providing more variety, Grosser says.

Here are some ideas on how to structure your workplace design and cultivate creative innovation at your company.

Delineate spaces to allow collaboration and focus

The open-plan workplace, once the darling of forward-thinking and dynamic employers, is starting to fade away. Why? It tends to increase distraction, not to mention transmission of illness.

Instead of an open space floorplan, experts say, think about separate spaces for group and individual work. The Gensler report found that innovative companies are five times more likely to have workspaces that prioritize both individual and group workspaces.

“Collaboration may be the buzzword of the decade for workplace design, but without its counterpart — worker focus — productivity may actually decline,” Grosser says. Providing both private offices and workstations that are visually and acoustically separated from larger spaces that facilitate group work is important.

Build for flexibility

A rigid, unchanging environment can feel stagnant and put a damper on creative efforts. Spaces that are dedicated to only one use could have an effect on creativity and innovation by enforcing routines or locked-in work groups.

Look for multiple uses for spaces. “A lunch room might also serve as an ad hoc meeting room, casual client presentation area, or all-hands engagement hall,” says Heidi Hendy, managing principal of H. Hendy Associates, an interior and architectural planning firm in Newport Beach, California.

Hendy says this approach can often reduce the need for space. “Many newer buildings have shifted cores that allow for flexible layouts, which result in increased occupancy and more productive space utilization,” she says.

Bring on the bright colors

Beware of “50 shades of tan” when decorating, says Susan Robertson, who teaches creative thinking at Harvard University and is the founder of Sharpen Innovation, a consulting firm based in Orlando, Florida. Offices that are entirely neutral can stifle creativity.

“Visual stimulus is a sure-fire way to enhance creative thinking,” Robertson says. “Bring in some splashes of bold color. Put some interesting art on the walls and sculptures in the hallway.” Robertson also recommends encouraging employees to customize their own spaces.

Keep in mind that an uncomfortable environment — physical or emotional — will significantly detract from creative thinking, she adds. “So, encourage people to add an extra cushion on the back of their chair, or bring in a plant or a personal picture.”

Consider employee wellness

Many companies are also catching on to the idea that current employees value a work environment that promotes health and wellness. A few options worth considering in your workplace design include:

• Wellness rooms for stretching or meditation
• Sit-stand desks
• Ergonomic seating
• Comfortable areas for collaboration
• Small, private rooms for calls or periods of focused work
• Windows that open for fresh air
• Plants
• Maximized natural lighting
• Bicycle storage

Creating a space that fosters employee wellbeing doesn’t have to break the bank. But it’s important to think about ways your company can offer a well-rounded environment that promotes both productivity and wellness. Afterall, most of us spend almost a third of our lives there.

Recruitment and retention benefits

With today’s workforce unafraid to job hop until they’ve found the right company, a workplace design that puts your people first can go a long way toward recruiting quality candidates and retaining top performers. Get help with this and other recruitment and management strategies by signing up for Monster Hiring Solutions, where you’ll receive expert recruiting advice and the latest in hiring trends.

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Government survey data indicates that the number of adults (age 26+) with substance abuse issues, ranging from addiction disorders to binge drinking, hovers around the 10 percent mark, with a little over 9 percent of the workforce at risk for substance abuse disorders. If your workforce skews younger, the numbers for adolescents and young adults are even higher. Developing a consistent policy can help you reduce rates of substance abuse in your workplace.

What Is a Substance Abuse Policy?

A drug and alcohol policy focused on reducing abuse and addressing addiction and other negative consequences of excessive recreational substance use can convey concern for your workers’ health and safety and promote workplace wellness. Developing a set of procedures and initiatives that are easily accessible via your employee handbook and intranet can help to create a transparent and equitable workplace where consequences are clear, and employees feel comfortable asking for help when they need it.

Why Is It Important to Have a Drug Policy?

A strong drug and alcohol abuse policy can help you create a workforce that is well informed about the health risks related to substance abuse, resulting in a safer workplace with lower rates of absenteeism, addiction, and binge drinking.

Zero-tolerance policies, including random and regular drug testing, may be advisable in sectors where safety is critical, such as truck driving, heavy machinery, and healthcare. Addiction can lead to financial stress and drive poor decision making that can put your company’s reputation at risk or even result in legal liability. (Be sure to check relevant and state drug and alcohol testing regulations.)

Key Elements of an Effective Drug Abuse Policy

Should you focus on a disciplinary model or an education and treatment model? This may depend on your industry and the degree of mental acuity and physical dexterity needed to prevent workplace accidents. However you decide to focus your efforts, your drug and alcohol abuse policy should clearly state your philosophy toward substance abuse as well as the consequences of violating your policy.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) provides a sample substance abuse policy template that includes options that allow you to customize its various components to reflect your company’s priorities. SHRM’s Drug and Alcohol Abuse Policy template provides similar customization options, along with language on treatment support options.

Today’s job seekers have made it clear that they want to work for employers who care about employee wellness and are prepared to provide the support they need to enjoy a healthy work-life balance, with 89 percent of workers who left or are considering quitting their jobs saying that they feel unsupported by their employers. This includes providing support for mental health issues, including substance abuse and addiction. Even the U.S. government’s Drug Free Workplace guidelines encourage employers to offer treatment and reintegrate workers back into the workforce rather than view substance abuse as grounds for dismissal.

Drug-free Workplaces

If you choose to have a zero-tolerance policy toward drug use that results in dismissal, make sure that your policy is clearly stated and uniformly enforced. You can also encourage a drug-free workplace by providing ample education and information about the negative effects of drug and alcohol abuse and making sure that employees have access to information about treatment resources.

Drug Testing Policy Options

Implementing a drug testing policy is one way to communicate how serious you are about discouraging substance abuse. However, as attitudes and laws regarding recreational use of substances such as cannabis shift, be aware that these policies are becoming less common and could lead some candidates and employees to look elsewhere for employment.

To ensure that your drug testing policy does not violate rapidly evolving state or local laws, the American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU) provides frequently updated data on legislation regarding employee drug testing. You should also be aware that many drugs that are detected through standard employment drug screening methods, such as amphetamines, are routinely prescribed to address health issues and disabilities that are covered by the American with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Pre-employment Drug Testing

Not too long ago, pre-employment drug testing was a standard part of the hiring process for most positions. As laws and attitudes toward recreational and medicinal use of cannabis have shifted, these screening procedures have become less popular with job seekers.

Nonetheless, if your workplace or the position in question requires a high degree of mental acuity to ensure worker and customer safety, a substance abuse policy that includes pre-employment drug screening can help to ensure that you avoid hiring applicants who could increase your liability.

Post-employment Drug Testing

In some industries where safety is critical, random drug testing may be effective. Other types of post-employment testing include annual testing as part of a physical, testing due to reasonable suspicion of substance abuse, after an accident has occurred, or after employer-provided treatment for substance abuse as a condition of continued employment.

Drug and Alcohol Abuse Treatment

A substance abuse policy focused on treatment rather than retribution can help convey your recognition that dependence is a health issue and not a personal failing. Making sure your employees have access to community treatment options and helplines, as well as access to information about substance abuse, its causes, and symptoms on your company intranet as well as pamphlets and brochures in break rooms and other common areas throughout your workplace.

Train managers to recognize the warning signs of addiction, so they can spot emerging problems and approach direct reports with their concerns along with resource referrals and support.

Stress and Substance Abuse

Anxiety and work-related stress can contribute to substance abuse, as can a company culture that relies on alcohol for work-related social interaction. You can reduce substance abuse among your workforce by providing seminars and resources to support mental health and helping your employees to deal with stress in healthier ways. For example, you could:

• Provide reduced rate gym memberships.
• Stock your break room with healthy snacks.
• Sponsor onsite meditation and exercise seminars.
• Host lunch hour or after-work nutritional cooking classes.
• Organize opportunities to socialize with coworkers that don’t involve drinking.
• Post signups for mid-day walking clubs or company-sponsored fitness events.

These and other stress-reduction measures can promote health, wellness, camaraderie, and community within your workforce, and reduce the fiscal and human costs related to substance abuse in the workplace.

Learn How a Healthy Workforce Contributes to a Healthier Bottom Line

From developing an up-to-date substance abuse policy to the latest recruitment and management practices, trust Monster for expert advice, practical how-tos, and hiring news designed to edge out the competition.

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As companies become more data-driven, so have their employee performance metrics. Yet the very metrics that are often used to gauge employee performance might actually discourage the behavior those companies want to promote.

This common workplace pitfall is grounded in two basic realities.

What gets measured gets managed. Employees tend to behave in a manner that is aligned with how they are evaluated and rewarded.

What’s easy to measure isn’t necessarily what’s right to measure. Organizations often gravitate toward easy-to-measure performance metrics, even though the behaviors they wish to cultivate are relatively complex.

Examples abound of how organizations fall victim to the “folly” of employee performance metric design:

• Service centers that measure how quickly staff handles calls then wonder why employees don’t spend ample time to completely resolve a customer’s issue.

• Companies that obsess over quarterly sales targets then are surprised when executives make short-sighted decisions which compromise the business’ long-term health.

• Organizations that focus on individual performance to assess employee success are then dismayed when they observe a lack of team work and collaboration.

• Manufacturing firms that measure workers on the volume of product they deliver then struggle with widespread quality issues on the finished goods.

• Sales divisions that measure employees purely on top-line growth are then surprised to see how unprofitable newly -acquired accounts are.

• Human resources departments that measure recruiters on candidate “yields” from job fairs then find many unqualified applicants in their interview pipeline.

Without careful and thoughtful design, metrics that are meant to manage employee performance can actually sabotage business success. To avoid that outcome, keep these three points in mind:

1.  Think about what employee behaviors are most valuable to your customers.
What do your customers care about most? Perhaps it’s how long they have to wait in line, or be on the phone with your staff. Even more likely, it’s getting their issue resolved on the first try.

Make sure your employee performance metrics are aligned with your customers’ interests. If customers value speed of service above all else, then put that at the center of your measurement methodology.

If other considerations are just as critical to them (such as the quality of the product, or the efficacy of the staff), then gauge performance on those dimensions as well.

For example:

• Conduct post-purchase customer surveys to assess overall satisfaction with product quality (and, indirectly, the performance of those making the product).

• Track the number of employee-submitted product enhancement suggestions, thereby encouraging staff to translate customer feedback into constructive improvement ideas.

• Or measure how frequently customer inquiries are resolved on the first contact, indicating the staff’s effectiveness at understanding and addressing customer needs.

2.  Use metric “checks and balances” to avoid over-rotating on any one measure.
A singular focus on a particular performance metric can be counterproductive. The behaviors that businesses try to encourage among staff can rarely be tied to just one metric. Doing so usually ends badly. Employees become obsessed with outperforming on that single metric, regardless of the consequences.

Guard against over-rotation on any single metric by creating a balanced system of measures.

For example, let’s say you want to encourage a sales-oriented culture, but want to avoid misconduct. Rather than measuring staff only on sales generated, complement that metric with ones that gauges account profitability and customer satisfaction. Then, only reward salespeople for achieving revenue targets while also meeting those other performance thresholds.

3.  Consider unintended consequences and perverse metric-driven behavior.
This is perhaps the most important element of good employee performance metric design. Look at your employee performance metrics through a critical lens.

Carefully consider all of the ways by which a metric, engineered with the best intentions, might nonetheless promote undesirable (or at least customer-unfriendly) behavior. Based on how detrimental and probable those unintended consequences are, tweak your approach accordingly.

That might mean abandoning some metrics in favor of new ones. For example, consider a call center that chooses to measure customer satisfaction instead of call handle time. (The latter metric often leads service representatives to rush callers off the phone.)

It may also mean adding “check and balance” complements to existing metrics. For example, an organization that uses 360-degree evaluations to ensure that individual achievement does not come at the expense of collaboration and collegiality.

The development of effective employee performance metrics requires a delicate touch. Success measures, and the reward systems they support, shape employee behaviors in meaningful and sometimes subtle ways.

A thoughtful approach to performance metric design can help companies use metrics to their advantage. The result is a powerful “behavioral current” that steers employees in the right direction.

And the value of that is…  immeasurable.

Author Bio: 

Jon Picoult is Founder & Principal of Watermark Consulting, a management advisory firm that helps businesses impress  their customers and inspire their employees. Contact Jon at www.watermarkconsult.net or follow him on Twitter @JonPicoult.

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Once upon a time, a company’s intranet was a place where HR and legal documents went to gather digital cobwebs. Not so today.

The modern intranet is the backbone of the digital workplace, an online destination where employees can go to collaborate, crowdsource ideas, engage and interact and find important information.

Companies that effectively use their intranets see strong boosts in employee productivity and employee satisfaction. (Innovative leaders like IBM, Oracle and Cisco report the ROI on their intranets to be greater than $1 billion.)

Yet despite these many benefits, not every company — especially small or medium-sized businesses — have the resources needed to do a full intranet overhaul.

If that’s the case for your company, then consider an often under-utilized tool that’s an effective, engagement-driving, low-tech version of a corporate intranet. This tool is familiar to every business. It’s called email.

Email? Isn’t that the thing that is adding noise to our employee engagement channels? On the contrary. It’s not about getting rid of email. It’s about getting the right email.

After all, your organization is already focused on the inbox. When done right, email can deliver info in a concise and relevant format that busy people will pay attention to.

Here are six strategies to make email a key building block of your own company’s internal communications and your employee engagement efforts.

1.    Think like a marketer. Email gives you the power to reach every employee with your message. The key is formulating that message correctly. Start by thinking like a marketer. Keep your target audience (your company’s employees) in mind to create a cycle of content with positive company news, industry articles, profiles of executives, social interactions, as well as crucial communications that incentivize employee engagement and reflect your employer brand.

2.    Make it a dialogue. Digital workplace strategies are too often a one-way communication. In fact, they should be rooted in an open, company-wide dialogue. To that end, people need to know how and when they can respond so they feel free to interact and engage. You might not want a “Reply All” type discussion to ensue, so provide direct, clear and easy avenues for people who want to continue the conversation.

3.    Don’t overthink it. In addition to the usual alerts, reminders and newsletters, leading email platforms now offer behavioral targeting. These dynamically-generated emails offer triggered lifecycle communications and an ever-increasing level of personalization. There are a lot of great solutions out there. What’s important is that you start simple and work with an evolving plan as you learn what works for your company and your colleagues.

4.    Accessibility is everything. One of the greatest things about email is that it goes where you go. Email is inherently mobile-friendly and great way to access information in micro-moments throughout the day. Make sure you maximize your email’s accessibility and mobility. Links that require registration or log-in or other kinds of barriers can hamper its effectiveness.

5.    Measure and adapt. Implement an analytics program that allows you to iterate as you go. There are plenty of sources that provide insights to drive effective decision-making. Google Analytics, Intercom.io, Chartbeat, or any email service like MailChimp or Campaign Monitor can be leveraged to provide basic metrics that help you understand what is working and what isn’t.

Promote content that is popular and desired. Identify usability and/or knowledge gaps. Assess your insights into employee behavior. Personalize the employee experience. The main thing is that you optimize your communications.

6.    Always evolve. People will quickly come to appreciate an email-based digital workplace solution. But that doesn’t mean you should simply stop innovating. Be on the lookout for ways to improve the process. Add features, new tools and additional means of interacting. Just be sure that changes come in the form of steady and continuous evolution, not sudden upheaval.

Ultimately, what’s key to better engagement is taking a targeted and strategic approach to building out your company’s digital workplace. This will ensure that it meets actual, real-world needs and not theoretic engineering objectives. Use the tools at your disposal to ensure communication is flowing consistently and reaching every member of your organization.

 Author Bio:
Graham Ericksen is a digital strategist and user experience expert with over 18 years of experience advising leading organizations  on how to simplify their products and processes to make them more accessible, compelling, and profitable.

Prior to joining Modus, Graham was the Creative Director of Content and Information Architecture at Sullivan, where he developed  award-winning work for Schwab, MetLife, Fidelity, Ameriprise, and Disney. He was also Director of Customer Experience at JP Morgan Chase, and Senior Information Architect and Writer at Siegel & Gale.

Graham writes and lectures extensively. He teaches a seminar entitled “Write Gooder” to students and communications professionals; his articles have appeared in many publications, including Booz Allen’s Strategy and Business.

The post Six Ways to Improve Employee Engagement with Email (Yes, Email) appeared first on Monster.com.