Are you looking to create, maintain and improve 'employer-employee' relations in your organization? Are you placing greater emphasis on helping line managers establish trust-based relationships with the individuals in their teams? Perhaps you have difficulty tracking employee investigations and sticking to ER case deadlines? Is the COVID-19 pandemic placing a strain on the employer-employee relationship, causing new issues to arise, making the management of Employee Relations more complex?

It's in Your Hands:

A Workforce That Is as Diverse as the Hands That Built It

Do you want to fight inequality in the workplace? Is building a diverse workforce at the top of your organization's agenda? In this month's News Roundup we lead with the Society for Human Resource Management's (SHRM) Together Forward @Work campaign, which aims to fight racial inequality in the workplace. SHRM believe its members, and the wider HR and business community, can bring their unique professional talents together to stand against all forms of social injustice. Citing new and original research, they claim the answer is "in your hands". 

Of course, the coronavirus is never far from the top of our minds. And recovering from its effects is the focus of the authors of the Deloitte report, Workforce Strategies for Post-COVID-19 Recovery.

The authors believe the biggest challenge facing organizations during the recovery is the tension between preparing for a return to work and rethinking work. Read their report to discover how your organization can move beyond crisis response, towards strategies that accelerate recovery. 

Jason Averbook (CEO and Co-founder at Leapgen, a global digital transformation consultancy) outlines 5 radical resets for our new world of work, in his Human Resource Executive article, which have been caused by the radical disruption that occurred this year. Read his article to find out more about these 'resets' and the 'rewiring' of the organization to empower the individual in the workplace. Or join his 5 Radical Resets Webinar on Tuesday September 8, 9:00 am PT / 12:00 ET.

In the HR Director, a UK based magazine for HR professionals, discover 50 Tips to Find Work/Life Balance When Working Remotely. Don’t be embarrassed about interruptions says author, Michelle Duval - dogs, kids or shirtless husbands will eventually make an entrance on a video call, no matter what you do! Michelle's answer is 'to just laugh it off and don’t get stressed'. 

In this month's Book Corner you'll find 6 books that will help you progress in your career. Our choice is HR From the Outside In: Six Competencies for the Future of Human Resources, by Dave Ulrich, Jon Younger, Wayne Brockbank and Mike Ulrich because it helps HR professionals get the skills they need to be successful in the future.

Dave Ulrich came to prominence when his model that explains how to drive efficiency in HR operations (which became known as the Ulrich Model) was adopted among corporations throughout the world. In his, and his coauthors', latest book, six core competencies (that the successful HR professional needs today) are identified. They include 1) Strategic Positioner, 2) Credible Activist, 3) Change Champion, 4) HR Innovator & Integrator, 5) Capability Builder and 6) Technology Proponent. It's an interesting and thought-provoking read throughout. Why not pick up a book today, and get started on gaining a new competency, or two, before the end of year? 

Fun for all the family is Bupa's aim with their Fun Activities to Do with Your Children During COVID-19 article. It's a perfect read for those racking their brains for ideas on how to keep the little ones entertained during COVID-19. Our favorite's cooling off with a water fight!

And finally, a couple of articles by Dovetail:

• 5 Reasons Why HR Technology Helps Your Remote Working Teams Perform Better
• and The Ultimate Guide to COVID-19 Contact Tracing

Read these posts for insights on how to improve the performance of remote working teams, and to understand how health screening and contact tracing technology can help your organization protect its employees as they return to work.

Contact Tracing is a solution for investigating, tracing and preventing the spread of infectious diseases. It involves combining the expertise and capabilities of human Contact Tracers, who are accomplished communicators and skilled in contact tracing techniques and ethical standards, privacy laws and confidentiality regulations, with the latest in advanced contact tracing technology.

Introducing the all new Dovetail Monthly News Roundup for 'on the go' HR professionals.

Containing the latest thought-provoking research, articles and blog posts, on topics as diverse as rethinking the employee experience (McKinsey), accelerated digital transformation, and the future of work, as well as industry insights, you'll be able to stay up to speed with the latest thinking in HR. 

Continuing education is also a theme, with recommendations for HR-related books and courses. Check out the most recent HR books to hit the shelves.

And don't miss our Culture & Entertainment section. This week why not take a virtual Essentials Tour of the Art Institute Chicago, and experience, from a new angle, some of the finest artworks by Chagall, Seurat and Hopper.  

Workflow Automation refers to software technology that automates the series of actions through which a piece of work passes from initiation to completion, eliminating manual steps that are often time-consuming, error-prone and duplicated.

"Dovetail was an instrumental tool during the switch to remote working, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. During COVID-19 when HR staff went remote, Dovetail was utilized much heavier (than before), and even became a main tool that we used for the unfortunate reduction in force process we had. It helped get those employees who were impacted their answers quickly and documented."

Tina Aquilini-Batten, HR Operations Manager at Tower Health

Are you developing strategies to protect and communicate with your employees as they return to the workplace? Has your HR Services team recently become a remote working team? Do they have the right tools in place to carry out their activities effectively? And, as an HR leader, do you have the Reporting & Analytics technology in place to ensure you can manage your team’s performance?

If you’re managing HR services using outdated technology, such as spreadsheet trackers and a shared inbox, it’s likely the transition to remote work has not been smooth sailing. All the usual pain points, such as losing track of employee cases, lack of workload visibility, and the time-consuming collation of data for reporting, are all exacerbated when taking your team remote, that is, unless you have the right Cloud-based tools in place.

Tools like HR Case Management, Employee Portal, HR Knowledge Management and HR Reporting & Analytics include features and benefits that enable HR teams to effortlessly make the transition to home working.

Read below to discover 5 reasons why HR Services technology can help your teams perform better in a remote working environment:

Are you developing strategies to protect your employees as they return to the workplace? If your business operates in a sector where staying in business means staff having to go back into offices or onsite, then this blog post is for you! 

Our research shows that as lockdown eases, there is an expectation among many companies that a large proportion of workers from across many sectors of the economy will return to the workplace. Recent surveys by CNBC of senior technology sector executives, indicate that as many as 50% of employees, and potentially more, will return to the workplace in September. The coming shift back to the office for many workers was also indicated by Chief Financial Officers in a May survey of the CNBC Global CFO Council. For companies whose employees are going back onsite, it is the priority to put health and safety procedures in place to protect employee safety.

There will be many things to consider, such as:

• reviewing the workplace to ensure employees can maintain a safe distance between each other
• determining how to manage meetings, interviews and other interactions and what arrangements need to be made about communal areas, such as canteens or kitchen areas
• and perhaps even the staggering of working hours, so that not all employees are onsite at the same time

However, even though these matters are all important, the most crucial aspect to resolve is what should your organization do if an employee, or multiple employees, become infected with COVID-19? How can you take care of their well-being and limit the spread of the virus among your workforce and the wider community?

One way to mitigate these risks is to deploy a Contact Tracing solution that aims to reduce the spread of COVID-19 among your workforce.

Contact tracing is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as follows:

Contact tracing is the process of identifying, assessing, and managing people who have been exposed to a disease to prevent onward transmission. When systematically applied, contact tracing will break the chains of transmission of COVID-19 and is an essential public health tool for controlling the virus.

We believe companies that combine this process with the latest contact tracing technology, can take control of protecting their employees and business(es) today, without the need to wait for government intervention (See reason 6 below). But that's not the only reason. Read below for our 6 reasons why your organization needs to adopt a Contact Tracing solution now.

(*Note: In the case of universities, the same applies to students coming back to work and campus safely).

As of the end of March 2020, more than 846,000 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in over 200 countries and territories, resulting in approximately 41,000 deaths. 

Traditionally, HR Helpdesk software was used by HR Service Advisers and their managers to track and manage employee inquiries, issues and questions coming into HR from the business. Employees would call or email HR, and the Adviser would use the HR Helpdesk software to log and track details of the employee’s inquiry. The HR Manager would then use the Reporting functionality to monitor KPIs, such as call volume, number of cases open/ closed, and call handle time. From a technical standpoint, the HR Helpdesk included a software interface (or Console) with searchable Knowledge Base, which enabled HR to search and locate answers to employee questions quickly and efficiently. In recent years, the traditional HR Helpdesk has evolved into a far more sophisticated HR Service Delivery solution. For example, HR Helpdesk software now incorporates an Employee Portal application with ‘self-serve’ functionality, making a searchable Knowledge Base available to all employees.

Diagram 1 - Dovetail Multi-Tiered HR Service Delivery Operating Model

HR Service Delivery is the HR function responsible for providing employees and line managers with a wide range of services, including (among many others) payroll processing, employee benefits and onboarding.