Imagine you’re an employee who doesn’t fit within the traditional binary restroom designations. Imagine also that you want to do what’s right, use the ‘correct’ restroom, but there is no right designation for you. You are a respectful and conscientious employee. What should you do if you need to use the restroom in a workplace that only has binary bathrooms available? 

It’s a dilemma.

Most workplaces were configured with a women’s restroom and a men’s restroom and if you’re lucky those are single-stall facilities. In that case, you have the option to make them all gender-neutral and equally available to all, regardless of gender. 

Unfortunately, it’s often much more complicated than that. Workplaces that have a men's restroom and a separate women's restroom with many stalls make it difficult to transition to a more accommodating facility. 

It’s worth making the change though –– and here’s why.
It might surprise you that OSHA (Occupational Health and Safety Administration) has something to say about workplace restrooms. OSHA requires workplaces to provide adequate restrooms for the number of employees onsite. In their best practice document, they go further to say that, “All employees, including transgender employees, should have access to restrooms that correspond with their gender identity.”

That leaves entrepreneurs with a chance to get creative, and yes, invest some cash into facility reconfiguration. Each workplace will have its own challenges, space, and existing facilities making the approach to solving your dilemma purely custom. One example of a creative solution is at the Moxy Hotel, in Portland, Oregon. They have one restroom for all, with floor-to-ceiling walls for each stall, and a communal handwashing station, making the entire facility gender-neutral. They have vibrant music pumping into the restroom creating a hip vibe, for a restroom.

Given the makeup of your facilities, you will need to engage your creative thinking brain.

Do note that 12% of Millennials identify as nonbinary and Millennials make up 35% of the US workforce. You should assume that there are nonbinary or transgender people that make up your workforce, or customer/client base, even if you are not aware.

The All-Gender Restroom sign at the Moxy Hotel in Portland, Oregon.

When should you prepare your workplace for people who are trans and nonbinary? Yesterday.
It should be done before your workplace returns to the office. Imagine how it feels to be in an office that does not have a proper facility for you. This puts undue stress on individuals, impacts performance, and impacts relationships at work. What is an employee to do if there are only gender binary restrooms available?

Keep in mind that a transgender or nonbinary employee who does not have access to a restroom that matches their gender identity does have a valid complaint. That is likely a capital D complaint, Discrimination.

How to create a more inclusive restroom at your facility
Put your creative brain to work. Don't do this work alone. Reconfiguring restrooms at your workplace is a challenge for creative problem solvers, those who are willing and able to collaborate with a team, and yes, cash will be needed. A proactive approach is most certainly more inclusive, more humane, less frustrating, and more cost-effective than a discrimination lawsuit. 
 

Comment Below

Join me in making workplaces more inclusive by sharing your experience about a workplace that has reconfigured restrooms to meet this need. What great solutions have you experienced? Please share in the comments below.

Is your team stalled or continuously experiencing mishaps or dysfunction? Managers leading teams that experience repetitive 'issues' often feel battered and unable to right the ship. The first step is to understand what is causing the dysfunction among your team and then get to work correcting it. Patrick Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team gives us an excellent roadmap to correct the dysfunction and cultivate strong teams. Whether you have significant issues or a few small burdens, these insights will help. 

In his book, Lencioni identifies that the five dysfunctions include:

1. Absence of trust—Unwilling to be vulnerable within the team.

2. Fear of conflict— Artificial harmony, not discussing real issues, conflict avoidance, unwillingness to speak up or listen.

3. Lack of commitment—Not involving team members in decision-making. Team members may be silent, but silence doesn’t necessarily mean agreement.

4. Avoidance of accountability—An unwillingness to hold each other accountable resulting in mediocracy instead of excellence. Team members duck the responsibility to call peers or superiors out on counterproductive behavior, which lowers the bar.

5. Inattention to results—Focusing on personal success, status, and ego before team success.          

How do you build these capabilities among your team? While each team will be at various stages of development, here are some ideas that we have accumulated that can help grow these capabilities for your team.

1. Absence of Trust. Look for ways to model vulnerability among your team. One example is to include sharing opportunities during team meetings, such as an icebreaker asking: What was your biggest failure in the last month, quarter, or year. Be prepared for some awkward silence but hold out until one person on your team is brave and willing to share their failure first. Then, be ready to share yours too. This is an easy but important trust-building activity for teams. 

2. Fear of Conflict. Artificial harmony looks like an unwillingness to share a counter opinion at a team meeting or in a 1:1. On the contrary, having a healthy debate and then a willingness to pick a direction and the whole team gets on board. How can you cultivate healthy conflict? First, practice having conflict on your team and then recognize teammates who willingly debate or offer a counter perspective. In your next team meeting practice conflict by debating first a fictitious situation such as which ice cream flavor is the best, pitting people/teams against each other. Other ideas are local favorite restaurants, and coffee shops (Starbucks vs. Dunkin, etc.). Then, practice with a real-life situation that you preselect. This type of debate is invaluable for the team. Regular practice will help the team get better and be more productive when real situations come up, and passionate debate is imperative to success. 

3. Lack of Commitment. When making a decision as a team, silence is not agreement. Leaders need to be careful not to accept silence as agreement. Silence will provide surface-level agreement, and then team members will grumble in the hallway after they have left the meeting. Instead, encourage an active dialog before making a decision. People need to weigh in to be bought into a decision or concept. Brene Brown Ph.D. is an American research professor, lecturer, author, and incredible podcast host. She shares on her podcast that she often holds blind votes in her team meetings to prevent the first person from swaying the others and creating a popular opinion. Also, that prevents the leader's opinion from unfairly influencing others. A blind sticky note vote on which direction you’ll be going on a decision is not a bad idea, even on Zoom.  

4. Avoidance of Accountability. This goes both ways, managers sometimes fail to be accountable to their team members, and team members sometimes fail to be accountable as well. In 1:1 meetings, are you asking for deadlines from your team members and then holding them to it? When can I expect to have that report in my inbox? Get a date and follow-up if the report is not done on time. At the same time, managers sometimes fail to follow through on their commitments; is anyone behind on quarterly or annual reviews? Make a point to get good at accountability by setting reminders, tracking deadlines, and bravely following up if things slide. Good management hygiene is a strong indicator of great leadership. 

5. Inattention to Results. Team results have to come before the individual or personal outcomes. While one salesperson could be having record sales, the production team could be swamped as a result, causing the brand to falter. The whole team has to work together and be focused on overall results, not simply individual results. 

Next steps?

After reading this identify the top 1-2 dysfunctions, your team may need to cultivate and begin implementing a plan to develop skills in this area. 

Building Strong Teams - Training Opportunity:

Want to cultivate your skills of Building a Strong Team? Sign-up for the training series Building Strong Teams. This four-part training series will help leaders develop competencies to cultivate a strong team. Apply here.

Micro-allyship is the act of taking small steps to better align or support people are might be marginalized (in the workplace).

"Those are moments of micro-allyship that do make a big difference in people's careers because you're understanding how to change the way someone is seen in a room," Michelle Rodriguez of LinkedIn.

Do you recall a pivotal moment of micro-allyship in your career (either giving, receiving, or witnessing)?

It could be coming up beside a colleague and lending your support when they shared an idea before it falls on deaf ears—sitting next to someone new at your next in-person retreat or meeting—nodding in agreement—promoting a colleague's idea or giving them proper credit—simple, simple things.

Earlier in my career, my manager, who was a VP, took me to several luncheons. Every time he introduced me to the accomplished people he knew at these events, I felt recognized, and my network expanded. As simple as this was, it helped me grow my network and the vision I had for my career as a young woman. My world broadened by that simple act of micro-allyship.

After all, I think we all want to work somewhere that we inherently belong. Micro-allyship supports belonging and inclusion for everyone.

Be well,

Amy

Amy McGeachy, HR Consultant to small and medium-sized businesses in the Pacific Northwest talks about the Five Ways to Support Your Team Right Now (August 2021). Watch via Youtube.

Managers, you have been in the thick of things and it turns on we are not out of the woods with managing COVID in the workplace. Managing a team during these times is hard. Very hard. Watch this video created just for you, Five Ways to Support Your Team Right Now. In it, Amy shares ideas on how to support your teams' wellbeing, build connections, and ultimately make your workplace more fulfilling.

This episode of the HBR Ideacast podcast was helpful in understanding the barriers to inclusivity and how a minority, any minority, might encounter your workplace culture. Chad Sanders, Author of Black Magic: What Black Leaders Learned from Trauma and Triumph, made a point to say his blackness is not an advantage, that he always has to stand on his track record of success to advance in corporate America. It was interesting how he described a bro culture in some businesses and how some people advance because of who they know via networking, but he feels that doesn’t happen for black employees.

Listen to the episode.

We have a lot of progress to make. Chad calls out organizations for hiring quotas at the entry-level. What would actually be transformative is to see diversity (and inclusion) at the director, VP, and CEO levels. Oh, and boards and advisory councils too!

This HBR Ideacast was intriguing. Listen in and let me know what you think in the comments.

Mental Health Support in the Workplace

Between a global pandemic, political strife, social unrest, school from home, our workforce is understandably stressed. The uncertainty all around us can lead to stress and anxiety. It may not be consistent, but it could be. It may come in rolling waves, or devastating tsunamis.

Leaders who operate small businesses a year ago may not have thought that workplace mental health would be a top priority. In 2021, these same leaders are seeking resources for their workforce. I’m fielding questions, can we provide mental health counselors to our workforce after a crisis? Or, what professional development workshops should we bring to our workforce to counteract external stress? These questions, or similar, are coming up weekly and have created an urgency to write this blog article. 

Setting a steady foundation for your workplace by using these five methods below can help empower, engage, and stabilize your workforce.   

Five things small businesses can do to support the mental health of their workforce:

1. Provide and promote your Employee Assistance Program (EAP). If an EAP is not part of your benefits package, add this benefit immediately. An EAP allows employees to call a 1-800 number or website to get assistance in various areas from mental health, finances, seeking legal help, etc. If you have an Employee Assistance Program be sure that the number is easily available to your workforce (and their family members). Promote your EAP regularly in newsletters, on your intranet, benefit handouts, etc. If your employee is in the midst of a personal or family crisis, make it seamless for them to find this information.  

2. Utilize an outside mental health professional to facilitate Well-Being Training for your workforce. Many times this can be coordinated through the Employee Assistance Program. Depending on the needs of your particular group, this could include tips and strategies to manage stress, disconnection, loneliness, or even anxiety. Hosting a training like this tells your workforce that their well-being is important and right now many people can benefit from that message and practical application.

3. Ensure that your managers have regular 1:1 meetings with each of their direct reports. These meetings are critical for workplace productivity, employee engagement and can even help with well-being if managers are skilled at providing space to employees. If you’re unsure how to facilitate 1:1 meetings here is a useful episode from Michael Hyatt’s Lead to Win podcast, episode #98 How to do one-on-one’s.

4. Give your workforce a break. Lay off just a little on production goals and focus on what’s going right for your individuals, team, and workplace. 

5. Provide appreciation to your team members for the work that they are doing. A study of over 100,000 employees found that 47% of people report that Words of Appreciation is their primary way they like to be appreciated, followed by Quality Time, Acts of Service, and Gifts (Emerald Publishing, 2017). Speak to your employees in their own language of appreciation to get the biggest return on your investment. Note: Want to learn more about the language of appreciation? See training opportunities here; Appreciation at Work, What motivates your team members? 

How can small businesses support their employees’ mental health?

What tactics are you utilizing to support mental health in the workplace this year? Please share in the comments below.

Dearest Clients, Readers, and those just passing by,

The last few months in small business HR have been fast-paced in terms of changing workplace dynamics and a huge, HUGE, growth mindset around racial equality.  Collectively we have a tremendous amount to learn. As a consultant, entrepreneur, and mom I am learning just as fast as I can. 

If you're like most of my small business clients you believe in and support the Black Lives Matter movement and seek to find racial equality in your workplace but feel paralyzed about how you and your small business can or should support, react, be an ally to, and advocate. I've navigated these conversations with several clients and one thing that is abundantly clear is that doing nothing, being a late adopter is not an option. I think that the sky's the limit in terms of growth and that this is not a one-time, trendy fix. Having a growth mindset is imperative for small businesses. Here are five steps small businesses can do to support racial equality in the workplace.

1. Communicate to your team members and perhaps even your clients your stance on racial equality in the workplace. Here are examples from Barre3, Ben and Jerry’s, and Chipotle.

2. Adopt a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policy that will create cultural shifts to ensure equality for all in your workplace. Evaluate your workplace policies and practices and critique your unconscious bias. Specifically look for opportunities to improve in the areas of recruitment, training, professional development, employee relations, performance management. Perhaps develop a committee of teammates to help provide insights and reduce unconscious bias during your evaluation. MacArthur Foundation has a stellar example of their DEI policy and work.  

3. Invest in training for your workplace. Franklin Covey has a solid resource offered on-demand on Unconscious Bias. Note; I have no affiliation with Franklin Covey, I simply admire their work and this program. 

4. Seek feedback from your workplace. Allowing your workforce to provide feedback to you anonymously will help you understand opportunities for improvement and allows for the individual teammates to feel protected. Resources that may be helpful include; ThoughtExchange, Officevibe, TinyPulse (again, no affiliation).

5. Don’t be silent. Most likely your workforce is waiting to hear your response to the unveiling of racial inequality in the United States. Your silence speaks volumes. Take a proactive, thoughtful approach by communicating the value that each of your team members brings to the workplace (past, present, and future) regardless of their race, gender, LGBTQ+ status. Communicating your stance is crucial to creating equality, and a sense of belonging, for all people in your workplace.

We all have work to do in the areas of bias and workplace equality whether you’re a beginner or you have been studying this for years EVERY ONE OF US IS LEARNING. Coming at this with a growth mindset, even a beginner growth mindset, is fantastic. This article from Lattice gives examples of how bias exists in recruiting, promotion, and even simply listening to ideas: How to Reduce Unconscious Bias at Work. You may also want to watch this TedTalk that has a great exercise at the beginning that highlights some of our biases. Both of these free resources would be appropriate to share with your leadership team and even your workforce as you begin to approach educating and unraveling unconscious bias in your small business.

What obstacles have you encountered in your workplace? I feel strongly that the obstacles are our greatest opportunities. Change is happening at lightning speed and it’s the best time in my career for our work cultures to grow.

Also, what ideas have you implemented, or has your workplace implemented that feel like a step in the right direction?

I look forward to hearing from you about your thoughts, comments, or questions.

Humbly learning with each of you.

Amy McGeachy

Early last year, a client came to me with difficulty retaining talent, a high turnover rate, and overall a feeling of employee disengagement. They were not using tools to measure or collect data about engagement. Based on both intuition, turnover numbers, and an HR Audit (including interviews with employees) we had enough touchpoints to develop a strong understanding that the workforce was disengaged. Anytime a workforce is disengaged business leaders should be worried about employee retention and its opposite, employee turnover.

The cost of turnover

It might be important to note that turnover has enormous ripple effects on a business. It takes time to recruit new team members, train new hires, and get them to their most productive state. A business that has high turnover is almost never fully effective because they have too many team members who are not working at complete capacity. The toll turnover takes on existing staff can be suffocating in terms of the workload. 

You can quickly understand this if you imagine a restaurant; consider the plight of a micro restaurant that has a server, cook, and a dishwasher. What if their turnover rate is 33% and their dishwasher has quit. That leaves the cook and server to manage the entire restaurant until a new dishwasher can be hired and properly onboarded to full productivity. The cook and server might be able to manage this for a short time period however, it will take a toll, cause them to work more during their shift, not be as focused on their customers and they might even drop the ball more often. This results in long wait times, orders that are inaccurate, unhappy customers, and exhausted, overworked employees. This example translates to other businesses too but the chaos may not be as obvious to leaders or clients.

The national average for turnover in 2019 according to Salary.com was 19.3% across all industries. That means that 80.7% of the workforce remains in place over the period of time that is measured; a month, a quarter, a year. The opposite of turnover is retention, ideally, a business would have a retention rate of 80.7% or better (some turnover is healthy). If it’s lower than 80.7% it can cause issues with productivity and overall well-being of the workforce. Also, understand that turnover can vary by industry and it might be helpful to understand the turnover rate in your particular industry. 

Why is it important to measure turnover and retention?

If your small business is experiencing heavy workloads, unsatisfied employees, perhaps a lack of engagement, a good place to start is to examine your turnover and retention rates. Conversely, if things are going really well at your business it might be that your workforce is fully productive and your retention rate is excellent. A positive retention rate is an attractive number to share with potential new hires, investors, and business collaborators. This will give you the data to help understand the dynamics of your workforce as opposed to going off of intuition or a hunch. A good best practice for small businesses is to track this quarterly and annually. 

Taking action to overcome problems with your small business employee turnover

Last year my client implemented an employee engagement tool that measured both eNPS (employee net promoter score) and employee engagement. Having new knowledge of live data (it was a weekly tool) helped this business understand their areas of opportunity and slowly, over the next 12 months, they were able to deliberately make decisions, implement new tools, policies, and a mindset of employee value and development, that has changed their workforce. Employee retention is up by 34.3%, employee engagement has consistently shown improvement and is currently up by 10%, and the eNPS has improved by 46 points all in a 12 month period.  

“Employee retention improved by 34.3%, employee engagement improved by 10%, and the eNPS improved by 46 points. Employee engagement tools are a great resource to help impact employee retention for small businesses.”

The eNPS score has been the last target we have tried to impact and largely this is just getting started. However, by changing many of the other behaviors and tools it has had an impact on eNPS.

These improvements are not by accident or good fortune. Using tools to understand your workforce can help provide information and data so that you know exactly where to invest. In this situation, a combination of an HR Audit, utilizing an employee engagement tool*, and effective leadership had a profound change on the retention rate and overall employee engagement.

If retention and workforce uncertainty keep you up at night, let’s fix that. Contact Amy.

* Examples include; TinyPulse, Officevibe, 15Five, CultureAmp to give you a few examples. McGeachy Consulting has no affiliation with any of these companies.

Amy McGeachy, PHR, SHRM-CP

HR Consultant to small and medium sized businesses in Oregon and Washington.

Amy McGeachy is an HR Consultant and the Founder of The Exceptional Workplace, a newsletter to help small business leaders stay focus on proactive HR and People Practices. Never miss an issue - join HERE.

Dear Small Business Clients,

I am here for you!

These are complex times to be an employer. Making decisions about furloughs, layoffs, or business viability are emotionally taxing. Having helped some of you with these decisions, I’ve been in the trenches and feel some of that burden. The effects of COVID-19 not only impact your business but your workforce, individual team members, and their families. I’ve also been helping small business clients develop and roll out a new Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) policy to guide them through these various leave situations. There are a lot of scenarios to consider between federal and state leave laws.

You, my clients, have largely focused on a balance between business viability with what's in the best interest of your workforce. What amazing humans you are to consider the whole during these stressful circumstances. I am encouraged by this level of leadership despite your heavy burden.

Federal FFCRA Paid Sick and Family Leave Policies effective April 1st.

The federal government legislated new leave policies that go into effect April 1st (tomorrow as of this post). This gives small businesses very little time to understand, prepare, and communicate about the new leave to their employees. I get that you are under a significant time crunch. 

The Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) for which I am a member and certified professional developed a comprehensive policy for employers. I’ve customized this policy for clients, and I’m happy to jump in and help you too. The important thing is that you read the law, understand what it is asking of you as an employer, and communicate it to your workforce ASAP. Like all employment policies, you will need to follow the policy once you roll it out. Employers are accountable to this new legislation beginning April 1st. 

To do: 

• Develop a Families First Coronavirus Response Act policy. Contact me if you need help or a template to get you started.

• Develop a pay code to track time for Emergency Paid Sick Time and ideally a separate one for Paid Family Leave. These codes will help you recoup the time in the form of a tax credit.

• Post the Employee Rights poster in your workplace (break room/copy room) when you return to your office. In the meantime, digitally share (email is acceptable) this poster to your workforce along with your updated policy.

• Review your states' COVID-19 Scenarios and Benefits Available poster. Washington (updated 3/26/2020) and Oregon (updated 3/23/2020). 

Additional Resources:

• Department of Labor FFCRA Q&A  

• Department of Labor FFCRA Employee Paid Leave Rights 

• Department of Labor FFCRA Employer Paid Leave Requirements

• Department of Labor COVID-19 and the American Workforce website 

Please reach out via email or phone if you have questions or need clarity, email or direct at 360-991-5727.

Stay healthy and safe!

Amy McGeachy, PHR, SHRM-CP

HR Consultant to Small and Medium-sized Businesses