Managing a small business during a pandemic is something most of us never thought we would see and the challenges are evolving by the day. Businesses are facing rapidly changing legal guidelines, federal programs, pressures to respond to racial equality, and maintaining new virtual working conditions. Businesses need to create and maintain a solid HR strategy to continue business growth and profitability through the pandemic while minimizing legal risk.

Platinum HR can create and support your HR strategy. We function as a strategic partner providing custom Human Resource business solutions to help our clients attract, support, develop, and retain a competitive workforce and achieve their business objectives. We develop client-focused partnerships and innovative solutions. Contact us today at Platinum HR Consulting Group.

Diversity and Inclusion

Never before have companies had such a spotlight on Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace. Employees are now evaluating their employer’s response to racial injustice in the United States, placing a larger burden on employers to take action by issuing public statements in support of racial equality, donating to causes to further drive inclusion in the workplace and providing additional training.

Training has long been the standard for creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. While employees are eager to support equality in the workplace, the return on investment in training is not only weighed with compliance but now with employee satisfaction. Placing a higher emphasis on this training when it happens and following up with conversations on how management supports these actions, is proving to be invaluable to employee satisfaction. Employees are eager to be associated with employers that vow to make a change and impact on discrimination and harassment.

Platinum HR has two great training packages to offer right now to help with these times: “Coronavirus Prevention & Response” and “Diversity & Inclusion”. Our training courses are priced low to make them available to any business. Contact us today to find out more!

Preventing Harassment in a Virtual Workplace

The abrupt move into virtual workplaces has created unique opportunities and challenges for both employers and employees. Employers are redefining company standards, operations and processes while struggling to maintain profits. Meanwhile, employees are balancing working from home often with children and working spouses, intertwining business with their personal lives.

One unique challenge that has become of this is new areas of harassment in the virtual workplace. From inappropriate workplace attire to offensive zoom meeting backgrounds, management has new territory to keep their employees safe from workplace harassment.

• Consider setting a standard for employee dress code while working from home and outline what this entails. For starters, pants. We have all seen the unfortunate articles of people wearing their blazer with pajama pants or worse, lack of pants during camera on meetings.

• Offer employees a digital meeting background to use if there are issues of offensive materials in employees’ homes within camera shot. Co-workers can still claim hostile work environment if an employee has offensive material plastered all over the wall behind them in a virtual meeting.

• Be on the lookout for managers insisting only certain employees keep their cameras on during meetings. If camera on is necessary, make sure it is applied in a consistent fashion to all employees. How would either male or female employees feel if only one gender was asked to always have their cameras on?

• Technology is not a breeze for everyone. If older employees (over 40) are getting heat from other employees or managers for taking longer to figure out the new technology needed to maintain a virtual workplace, they may feel singled out. This could bring claims of age discrimination. Consider providing training and assistance to any employee having trouble operating new technology.

All employers with 5 or more employees must have all employees trained by January 1, 2021. Now is an optimal time to gain traction in having a compliant workforce while maximizing your return on investment for your training budget.

Our sexual harassment training courses for managers (2 hours) and employees (1 hour) meet California's content requirements for employee-specific sexual harassment prevention training which must be completed by the end of this year. Topics include sexual harassment, bystander intervention, diversity, and building a workplace free of discrimination, harassment, and bullying. Languages Offered: English & Spanish. Contact us today to get started on your training!

Back to School

Fall school schedules can look drastically different depending on what city a child’s school is located in. While most communities are embracing a fall semester of online learning, some are bravely opening up as daycare, onsite schooling or a blend of both. Depending on what city your employees live in, childcare options can be drastically different. What does this mean to you as an employer? Flexibility and empathy are key. Can your employee shift their work hours earlier or later in the day? If applicable, this could be a great option to offer interested employees. Do you notice some employees are unable to attend meetings or respond timely to requests? Perhaps asking what their situation looks like and offering a solution based on their needs would suffice. Some employees would be happy to drop to part time hours during this time and jump back to full time once all is back to normal. It starts with embracing a win-win solution for both the employer and the employee.

This is just the beginning of possible solutions and can be tailored to your company’s policies. Let us know if you need help updating your policies with Pandemic Response Employee Assistance.