The first few days at work are the most stressful for a new employee. It’s pretty challenging to start building a relationship with new colleagues while learning new corporate rules and trying to complete the first tasks. For this reason, it’s crucial to foster the onboarding process and help an employee to get to work as fast as possible.

The first step you should take is to write a welcome aboard email to demonstrate your loyalty and support. You should make new hires understand that they have chosen the right company to work with. If you have never written welcome emails before, check the following tips, which might help you:

Depending on the size of your company, as well as its policies and procedures, you will find it necessary to add the following elements to welcome email: 

Office’s working hours (you should mention whether it’s possible to work flexible hours)

Dress code (formal, semi-formal or casual)

List of required documents (ID, social security card, diplomas, certificates, insurance card, i.e.)

Moreover, you can include some useful new employee onboarding instructions:

Where to find a coffee machine, free drinks, snacks, i.e.

If you need to add lots of instructions in one email, it would better to create separate files and use them as attachments.

You should never start your welcome email with phrases like “Dear new employee” or “Hi there”.  The personalized salutation is a must for the welcome aboard letter. The first words of your email should show how much you value your new employee.

Also, you can add some information related to previous personal meetings or interviews with this new hire. Phrases like “It was nice talking to you last Monday” works pretty well. It will make an employee believe that you wrote welcome email from scratch, not just used a standard template.

Don’t forget to mention who is a sender of the welcome letter. Write your name and drop a line about your role within the company. Whether you are a representative of the HR department or a senior manager, you should explain in which way you will communicate with a new hire in the future. 

You should encourage new hires to ask you any questions related to the onboarding process. You should provide at least one contact phone number and email. Moreover, you can share not only corporate, but also personal contacts to ensure that new employee will be able to reach you on weekends in case of urgency.

Feel free to express your excitement about the new employee and his role in your company. You should praise his professional achievements and point out goals of the further collaboration. 

The HR generalist at PickWriters, has this to say about welcome email writing: “Your task is to show how happy you are to meet the new talented members of your team. You should be sincere, and then you will be rewarded with new hires’ loyalty and enthusiasm.”

You can also write a sentence or two about the company’s core values, mission and/or traditions. This is a simple way to make your new employees get acquainted with the basics of your corporate culture. Everyone, who gets a job at your organization, must be extremely proud of being a member of your outstanding team.

It’s not necessary to make your welcome email look formal, especially if you are going to reach Millennials. It would be better to set a friendly tone of voice to make your new employee feel more comfortable. This is the first important step you can take to break the ice and start building trust in a relationship.

Do you consider your company a big family? If yes, you should welcome a new employee with open arms just like a new family member.  Being friendly will help you to smooth the onboarding process and to boost your recruiting efforts.

The last, but not the least important rule to follow is to keep your welcome email short. Every word in every sentence should be meaningful. Otherwise, it must be deleted. 

Why it’s so important? The point is that modern people find long emails “irritating to read”. For this reason, you should make sure that a recipient will need less than 3 minutes to finish reading your letter.

Alexis Kleinman, Huffington Post’s contributor, says: “In most cases, the recipients don’t need as much background information as you think they do.” Crafting a welcome email, you shouldn’t add any general information regarding your company, which is available online.

Before new hires have started working for your company, you should address all their questions regarding their new jobs. In this way, you will prepare them for the first day at your company.  

Writing an email, you should demonstrate your friendliness and readiness to help. A perfectly crafted welcome email will convince new employees that they will be able to achieve their ambitious career goals within your organization. As a result, they will start working with great enthusiasm.

Kristin Savage nourishes, sparks and empowers using the magic of a word. Along with pursuing her degree in Creative Writing, Kristin was gaining experience in the publishing industry, with expertise in marketing strategy for publishers and authors. Now she has found herself as a freelance writer. You can find her on Facebook. 

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How to craft a perfect welcome email to new employees

Ever heard the expression “all workplaces are different; all workplaces are the same?”

 It’s true. No matter where you work, or who you work with, there will always be certain challenges to deal with. And some are more common than others.  

Knowing how to deal with challenges quickly and effectively is the best way to get your team back on track. With the right strategies, you can prevent these issues from escalating any further and restore balance to the work environment.

Here are five of the most common workplace challenges that we’ve discussed on the Go1 blog and what steps you can take to deal with them. 

At some point, all managers will be faced with an employee who is difficult to deal with, has trouble working with colleagues, or continually fails to hit their KPIs and deliver.

When addressing an issue with an employee, it can be helpful for managers to know the difference between performance and behaviour. Why is it so important to distinguish between the two? Because differentiating between the two will affect the way in which you manage the situation.

If it is a skills issue, and therefore performance, then you’ll need to think about providing further training to your employee. You might also consider a mentoring or coaching solution. There may be limitations with inadequate tools, or software, or other problems with the workplace environment – these can then be reviewed and appropriately addressed. 

Similarly, if an employee is struggling to meet deadlines because of limited time, restructuring of work tasks could be a solution. In all of these scenarios, you can see that it is not the behaviour or attitude of the employee that is the problem.

In terms of misconduct, or behavioural issues, this can be harder to address and fix. Ensure that you have a current position description that clearly outlines the duties of the position and the performance and behavioural expectations of the job. 

It’s important to have this serious discussion with the employee about their behaviour, so you can then identify a way to resolve it and come up with strategies to improve the situation. 

This might feel difficult, but leadership comes with a price – and a significant part of that price is the responsibility to give feedback, coach and address the performance of any team member that does not measure up to expectations. Doing this with your employees is also an opportunity for them to grow and learn.

Employee absenteeism can be a tricky one. 

While it’s inevitable that staff will need to take time off from work every now and then, it’s important that employers and managers stay on top of absenteeism.

Certainly, absence from work due to sickness, injury, mental health, or caretaker duties should always be dealt with in a fair and compassionate way. However, unfortunately, some employee absences are based on less legitimate reasons – and this is where things can become more challenging for employers and managers.

All of the above reasons are considered to be authorised absences, due to legitimate reasons. On the other hand, we have unauthorised absences: calling in sick to attend a job interview, work on their CV, hang out with friends, go to the beach, sleep off a hangover… you get the idea.

To make things more complicated, an employee might be staying away from work due to bullying, harassment, burnout, stress or any other work-related reason. Or avoiding going into work because of heavy workloads, stressful meetings, or disengagement from their job.

If this is the case, employers and managers need to know, to get to the bottom of the issue and address it. You don’t want employees using their sick leave for these reasons, and you don’t want the kind of organisational culture where people are feeling too stressed, disengaged or under-valued to come to work.

An absenteeism policy will help to make things clearer when it comes to how absences are monitored, recorded and managed across the company. Your policy will help to inform employees of the exact process they should follow for any absence, including who, how and when to notify their employer

The policy will also include information on the difference between authorised and unauthorised absence, making it clear that unauthorised absence is a disciplinary matter that may result in action. When employees know that all absences are being monitored, reviewed and documented, the number of unauthorised absences is likely to decline.

Addressing bullying and harassment in the workplace

Many of today’s organisations pride themselves on being committed to diversity, equality and inclusion. However, unfortunately, bullying and harassment is still a serious workplace issue. And an issue that absolutely must be addressed by employers. 

When bullying becomes a problem in the workplace, it doesn’t just affect the person or people being harassed and targeted. It can very quickly become a problem for the whole company, with poor performance rates, reduced productivity, and low morale across the organisation.

Let staff know that the organisation’s goal is to provide all employees with a dignified and respectful workplace and that any form of bullying, harassment or discrimination will not be tolerated. 

Develop and implement a strong bullying and harassment policy, to show your commitment to providing a safe and productive environment for your employees, while promoting a positive work culture for all. This policy will also ensure your organisation is compliant in this area.

For staff, your anti-bullying policy will help them to accurately recognise and define unacceptable behaviour in the workplace while guiding them to the appropriate resources and contacts for assistance. As an employer or manager, keep your door open. Keep your own mental attitude positive. Continually remind employees about HR policies you have in place around code of conduct, harassment and discrimination.

You can also use online training courses to make sure all employees are well-informed of the organisation’s stance and policies on bullying and know exactly where to go for information and who to contact in the event of bullying or harassment.

A certain amount of tension in the workplace can be considered normal. It can even lead to the generation of new ideas or ways of doing things. 

However, things become much more serious if a workplace disagreement or discussion turns into an ongoing conflict between two or more staff. Like any conflict, if allowed to fester, it will soon turn the workplace into a toxic environment.

If left unchecked, inter-office politics can result in bullying, harassment, and a negative work culture. It can also lead to poor team performance, low productivity, absenteeism, and high staff turnover – all of which will affect your company’s reputation and bottom line.

When there’s a conflict going on in the workplace, whether it’s the office, sales floor, call centre or job site, it’s vital that managers keep calm and lead by example.

If a discussion turns heated and offensive in the workplace, managers need to take quick action to put an end to the conversation.

Taking action and confronting issues head-on is part of good leadership. Ingrid Fredeen, a specialist in ethics and legal compliance training, recommends taking the following steps to address the behaviour professionally:

Avoid attacking the employees personally or taking sides

Focus on behaviour rather than opinion, instead of pointing out offensive or inappropriate conduct

Be clear that employees (who work for private employers) do not have an absolute right to express personal opinions at work

Help the employee understand the consequences for repeat conduct

The more that you practice taking action on conflict resolution, the easier it will be over time.

Last but not least: let’s talk about how to keep staff motivated and engaged in the workplace. 

Have you noticed certain employees taking longer lunches, skipping meetings, or checking out mentally from their work tasks?

This can and will happen from time to time when staff become disengaged from their job. Rather than getting frustrated with your employees, it’s best to have some strategies in place to help keep team members focused and on track. 

Here are three things you can do to keep energy and motivation levels high across your team. 

Work with each staff member to establish a goal that you want them to achieve. This could be hitting a sales target or deadline, landing a particular client or gig, securing a set number of new customers… anything that will help to motivate and boost their performance.

Positive feedback and recognition is an important part of increasing employee motivation and engagement. People are much happier, and work harder, when they feel valued and know that you’ve been paying attention to their efforts. 

Provide training and development opportunities

Sometimes a lack of training can be what’s causing staff to feel disengaged and unmotivated. An employee may feel that they haven’t received the right training to perform at their best level, or that the company isn’t interested in supporting their professional development. Spending some time learning new skills can have staff coming out of training feeling re-energised and ready to put their new knowledge to good use. 

As you can see, employee training comes up time and time again as one of the best ways to overcome challenges in the workplace. Whether you’re dealing with poor employee performance, lack of motivation, team conflict, or workplace bullying, effective training can really help mitigate these issues. 

Investing in employee training will help to make sure your business continues to hit targets and reach organisational goals, driven by employees who feel supported and encouraged in their professional development and career. 

For more insights, be sure to subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

Here are five of the most common workplace challenges that we’ve discussed on the Go1 blog and what steps you can take to deal with them.

Common workplace challenges and how to deal with them

One of the biggest challenges for many employees in the workplace is not knowing if they’re doing a good job. 

If you’re working for a boss who doesn’t show much appreciation or recognition of your efforts, it can be hard to know for sure. 

Most workers don’t expect a constant stream of praise every day, but it’s important to receive some form of appreciation in the workplace. Particularly at milestone moments in your career. 

We know that employees value and need a certain level of workplace appreciation. But what’s the psychology behind workplace appreciation? Why do we respond so strongly to praise and recognition from our superiors?

Let’s look at why workplace appreciation is so important for employees and the potential impact this can have on your organisation. 

We know how we feel in those moments when someone gives us praise or public recognition for our work. There’s generally an immediate boost of happiness and other positive feelings. 

But what is actually going on in the brain? What’s happening at a deeper level?

Neuroscientist Alex Korb, PhD, explains exactly which areas of the brain are affected by the emotions of appreciation and gratitude. And what this mean for an individual. 

According to Dr Korb, feelings of gratitude create high levels of activity in the hypothalamus, which controls basic bodily functions such as eating, sleeping, metabolism and (very important) our stress levels. 

When we’re shown appreciation, it also directly activates the areas of the brain associated with dopamine – the ‘reward’ neurotransmitter. Dopamine make us feel good. And it’s also important for motivating us to take action. 

“Increases in dopamine make you more likely to do the thing you just did. It’s the brain saying, “Oh, do that again,” Dr Korb explains. 

When you put it all together, you can see how workplace appreciation can really have a huge impact on a person’s happiness and wellbeing, in both the immediate moment and more long term. 

In addition to increased happiness and wellbeing, feeling appreciated in the workplace is crucial for employee motivation and satisfaction. 

David Sturt, leader of the O.C. Tanner Institute, recently conducted studies involving nearly 3,500 employees, from startups to Fortune 100 companies, to explore the link between recognition in the workplace and employee engagement.

In his article for Harvard Business Review, Sturt explains how one simple action – recognising great work – can dramatically increase any manager’s success in gaining the support and engagement of their team. 

"Seven out of 10 employees who report they’ve received some form of appreciation from their supervisors say they’re happy with their jobs. Without that recognition, just 39% say they’re satisfied," he says.

That’s a huge difference in levels of job satisfaction for workers, based on just one factor: appreciation. 

The frequency of recognition also plays a role in employee engagement. 

“Among employees who were called out for great work in the past month, 80% feel fulfilled at work.” 

“That number declines sharply with time: 75% satisfied (recognized in the past 1-2 months); 71% (past 3-5 months); 69% (past 6-12 months); 51% (past 1-2 years); 42% (more than 2 years ago).” 

According to Sturt, it’s important to show appreciation and/or recognition right away, then consistently and regularly over time. The more frequently you show team members appreciation and recognition, the more engaged, motivated and productive they’ll be. 

With this, managers can also expect to form more positive working relationships with their staff. 

In Sturt’s studies, the results showed a strong correlation between loyalty and acknowledgment. In companies where employees reported strong employee recognition, 87% felt “a strong relationship” with their direct manager. 

In contrast, only 51% of employees working for companies with low recognition practices reported a strong employee-manager bond. 

Again, frequency of appreciation is an important factor. 

For those who say they receive some form of appreciation more than once a month, 82% describe a strong bond with their bosses. When that occurrence drops to less than once a month, only 63% feel those strong ties.

So if you really want to build your connection with your team, think about how you can let each person know their work is appreciated and valued – and keep that gratitude going on a regular basis. 

We know that receiving recognition and appreciation for our work makes us more happy, engaged and connected to our boss. 

But there’s something else that occurs in the work environment that’s really interesting. 

Showing appreciation in the workplace doesn’t just have a positive effect on the individual receiving praise – it can have a positive impact on staff in general. 

Sturt’s studies revealed that recognition had a powerful effect on those being recognised, as well as a significant impact on peers who witnessed their colleague being rewarded. 

“By publicly presenting some employees with a ‘years of service’ award, managers could increase all employees’ sense that the organization cared about them,” he explains. 

In this way, showing appreciation for your employees’ efforts will help to build a stronger, more positive work culture, right across the organisation. 

“Gratitude creates good feelings, cheerful memories, better self-esteem, feeling more relaxed and more optimistic. All of these emotions creates a pay it forward and “we’re in this together” mentality in the workplace.”

Wow. Something as simple as a sincere ‘thank you’ from time to time can certainly go a long way!

The psychology behind effective workplace appreciation

Have you ever turned up to a new job, all excited for your first day, only to find yourself feeling more than a little lost by the end of the day?

Unfortunately, many companies really let themselves (and their employees) down when it comes to onboarding, believing in more of a ‘sink or swim’ approach for new hires.

Onboarding is a really important part of your business operations, helping new team members to become acclimatised to their working environment and to welcome them into the fold—all while providing them with the information and resources they’ll need to do their job and do it well.

After investing so much time, money and energy into the recruitment process, it seems odd that so many employers seem to drop the ball by failing to establish a proper onboarding process. But it happens more often than you might think.

With initial impressions of a company being formulated during those all-important first few days on the job, these early days are a critical time for both employer and employee as it allows each party to consider whether the partnership is an ideal fit. After all, new employees want to be sure that a company is a good fit for them, as much as they need to be a good fit for the company.

A good onboarding program should provide a new staff member with practical, easy-to-use tools and training to transition smoothly into their new job. But there’s so much more you can do to help new employees learn about their position and the organisation than just sending them to a one-day orientation course to read over corporate documents.

Here, we look at some important factors for employers to consider when developing their onboarding program, so you can welcome new employees to your company in the best way possible.

According to Aberdeen Group, 69% of best-in-class organizations begin the onboarding process before day one.

Onboarding should start as soon as your new hire receives their official offer of employment. Have your HR and payroll teams communicate with new hires to welcome them on board. This way, new employees are able to better focus on the job at hand, rather than wonder about how and when they’ll be getting paid.

Make sure you have a clear workspace set up for your new team member before they arrive, with basic stationery items and any other tools that could help them in their role, such as copies of organisational charts, relevant contact details, corporate style guides and so on.

Your organisation no doubt also has an internal messaging system, social networks, wiki pages and video-conferencing systems, to help team members connect and collaborate. Ensure each new hire can access these and becomes familiar with them.

You can also make onboarding more engaging for individuals by making sure you tailor the process to each new staff member.

Personalise and customise the onboarding process by including details that are specific to each person’s job description and team. For example, not all staff need to know the same skills or the same selection of company policies. There’s nothing worse than starting in a new role and being forced to scroll through endless screens of HR policies when they don’t even apply to your job.

With this in mind, make sure you’re only giving new hires training in the policies and procedures that are relevant to their position description. Otherwise, they’ll very quickly become disengaged from the training materials.

If you’re a manager or supervisor, always take the time to greet new employees in person and introduce them to the entire team—whether or not they’ll be working with each directly—so they can feel part of the group and more at ease in their work environment.

And while it may sound less important, small thoughtful gestures such as providing new hires with their own company coffee cup, branded water bottle or T-shirt show that you’ve taken the time to warmly welcome them into your team. People notice and appreciate these kind actions and attention to detail.

One of the things employees value most is the opportunity to enhance their careers. People need to know that the company they’re working for is committed to their professional development, as much as they’re committed to the job.

It’s important to recognise that your company’s onboarding process will be the first taste of training new hires will get from your organisation. The amount of effort put into onboarding speaks volumes about the amount of effort your company will put into its staff in general.

Within your onboarding program, provide information on how you plan to train and develop staff throughout their employment with your company, so new team members know the importance you place on their professional development.

Think of onboarding not only as an overall training system, but also as a chance for you to show how well you engage with your staff and how much energy you’re willing to invest in them.

Onboarding: end-to-end guide to introducing new staff to your business ASAP!

Would you know what to do in the event of an emergency? How do you think you would respond if there was an accident in your workplace?

Accidents and medical emergencies can happen anytime and anywhere – including the workplace. If an incident occurs at work, having someone with basic first aid knowledge can mean the difference between life and death. 

There are many situations in which immediate first aid will be necessary before the patient is taken to hospital – accidents, seizures, heart attacks, and other medical emergencies. 

Those first few minutes after an accident or emergency are crucial. Immediate first aid assistance can save lives before a more qualified medical person arrives at the scene. And an employee who is trained in first aid can help to manage the situation before it escalates. 

The best way to feel prepared is to enrol in basic first aid training. 

This training will help you to develop the skills – and confidence – you need to know how to respond in an emergency situation. 

First aid training isn’t just for people working in high-risk industries or job roles. 

Whether your workplace is considered high or low risk for first aid incidents, it pays to be prepared. It’s not just constructions sites or factories that present a risk to employees – team members can still experience serious cuts, burns, falls or medical emergencies in an office environment.

As Safe Work Australia reminds us, “incidents can happen without warning and in every type of workplace – it is critical you are prepared for any first aid emergencies that could happen in yours.”

Everyone in the workplace should have basic first aid knowledge, to know how to act and respond in a critical situation. 

What you’ll learn in basic first aid training

Wondering what you’ll learn in your first aid training course?

Basic first aid works on the principle of following specific steps to ensure the patient is treated with optimum care at all times, while not causing any further damage. 

Courses will differ, but in general a basic first aid training course will cover:

You’ll finish your basic first aid training with the knowledge, skills and confidence you need to help save a life. 

You’ll also learn what you cannot do, which is really important. When responding to an emergency situation in the workplace, remember that your job is to help someone who is ill or injured and to keep them safe until professional medical treatment arrives. 

When it comes to first aid, training should be repeated on a regular basis to make sure you keep your knowledge and skills refreshed and up-to-date. 

The responsibility of employers for first aid 

Did you know Australian employers have a responsibility to provide first aid equipment and procedures in the workplace?

If you’re running a business, you’re legally required to provide first aid equipment in the workplace, in locations that all staff can easily access, and close to areas that present higher risk of accident or injury. 

If you’re a large worksite or organisation, spread out across a number of floors or buildings, this means providing multiple first aid kits. If employees travel for work, kits must also be present in all company vehicles.

Your business must also make sure there’s an adequate number of trained first aid providers that employees can go to for assistance. As a rule of thumb, Safe Work Australia advises that there should be one first aider for every:

50 workers in low-risk workplaces (an office)

25 workers in high-risk workplaces (a construction site)

These first aid officers must hold a current first aid certificate that is relevant to their state, and have the skills and knowledge to handle the situation until further medical assistance arrives, if necessary. 

This is all part of being compliant with workplace safety laws and regulations, while providing a safe work environment for employees. 

If you’re interested in becoming a first aid officer for your workplace, talk to your employer about first aid training. The more people with basic first aid knowledge in the workplace, the better.

For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

Why everyone in the workplace needs basic first aid knowledge

What technology solutions are you using to hire and develop your employees? How well are these tools working for you and your HR team?

Technology is moving and changing rapidly in the HR landscape. And investing in contemporary tech solutions is an important part of efficient human resource management.

With the right technology, human resources professionals can work to greater understand a company’s biggest asset – its people. By keeping up-to-date with emerging HR tech, your human resources department will be able to greatly improve the way they’re recruiting, onboarding, training and managing employees.

Each new year brings further advancements in workplace technology, and we are currently seeing more exciting developments taking place in the HR space.

Here are some of the top emerging technology solutions for HR teams that are helping to revolutionise business as we know it.

The Ongoing Rise of Cloud-Based Solutions

Josh Bersin is founder of Bersin by Deloitte, a provider of global research in human resources and HR technology. Bersin has been analysing the HR tech market for almost 20 years and believes things are moving faster than ever in 2018.

Among the top disruptions in the HR sector are cloud-based solutions for human resource teams.

These days, “the question for most companies is no longer if you go to the cloud, but rather when and how,” Bersin says, with more and more organisations using cloud-based solutions such as HRMS (human resource management software) and HCM (human capital management) tools for payroll, onboarding, talent management, financial services and other ERP solutions.

Moving to cloud-based systems can provide organisations with greater collaboration, innovation and agility, while streamlining HR operations such as goal setting, coaching, feedback and evaluation.

Bersin also sees productivity to be the big topic in business today, as organisations embrace new tech tools that can help their teams achieve greater productivity.

“Burnout, focus, and employee engagement are all issues, and we are now dealing with email, messaging from many different systems, and a plethora of communication tools that overwhelm most of us,” Bersin says.

In response to this, he believes we’ll see more HR software emerging that’s been specifically created to improve productivity and help teams work better together.

David D’Souza, head of engagement at CIPD, agrees that there is some really interesting work being done in the partnership between human resources and technology.

“HR leaders need to become far, far more technology aware – outside of our traditional realms of HR systems – and start thinking about how technology can be used to support performance and reinforce culture,” he says.

We’ve talked a lot about gamification in the workplace over the last year. And now we’re seeing it extend to the human resources space.

We know gamification technology has huge potential for changing the future of our workplaces, particularly when it comes to learning environments.

The application of gaming design psychology and principles to learning content has been shown to increase employee engagement and motivation, while encouraging individuals to hit learning goals faster.

Gamification is now being successfully adopted by HR teams to make recruitment, learning and development processes more fun, interactive and successful.

We will also see the recruitment process revolutionised by the next generation of screening technology being automated.

This new type of technology is being used to carry out the early stages of the interview process, through innovative use of chat bots, facial expression analysis and video interviewing.

“High volume recruitment (hospitality, services, healthcare, retail) is being automated by chatbots and other new tools; skilled job recruitment is being revolutionized by open sourcing tools, [and] more automated applicant tracking systems,” explains Birsin.

Chatbots have become increasingly popular across the customer service and marketing spaces, and they are now being successfully adopted by human resource departments.

D’Souza also believes that the use of chatbots will really take off over the next year.

“They have the potential to make real differences to the efficiency of HR teams whilst also improving speed – and potentially accuracy – of response for employees,” he says.

Companies spend billions each year on recruitment, so this development will certainly save businesses a considerable amount of time and money.

If you’re a HR manager, you should be constantly thinking about what avenues you can explore to improve the way you hire, onboard, train and manage staff. Having relevant, up-to-date technology solutions that are easily accessible is critical.

Keeping abreast of emerging developments in HR tech can help you improve your human resources strategy while bringing great benefits to the business and its employees.

The emerging HR tech that is revolutionising business as we know it

As a business owner, you need to provide your employees with the best training possible. When implementing a program, it is essential that you focus on the most critical courses, including sexual harassment.

Considering the increasing number of sexual harassment incidents that occur in the workplace, make this portion of your training all-inclusive. In other words, the training you provide should cover all aspects of this problem. With the right training, your entire staff will know how to prevent sexual harassment incidents, recognize when something is wrong, and report the issue to the appropriate authority.

Even with the best of intentions, it is common for businesses to overlook something when formulating a sexual harassment training program. Due to the severity of this problem, you cannot afford to leave anything out. With the information provided, you can analyze your current program or one you plan to launch to ensure nothing is missing. Not only does that protect your employees, but your business as well.

Q – Why is a sexual harassment training program so critical?

A – For one thing, this training protects all your employees. With the right courses, everyone in your organization has the same information as to what sexual harassment is and is not. They also understand the consequences of such behavior or failing to report an incident. Along with your staff, a training program protects your company from becoming the target of a lawsuit should someone target a worker.

Q – Is sexual harassment training meant for everyone?

A – Although every person in your organization should go through sexual harassment training, there are courses explicitly developed for management level employees. After all, in a position of authority, managers have a greater responsibility to their teams and the company as a whole.

Q – Does sexual harassment training make a difference?

A – Yes, it does. According to a 2015 report published by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), there were more than 6,800 reports of sexual harassment in that year alone. As a result of those reports, victims filed over 1,800 charges, which ended up costing companies $46 million in settlements.

Q – What other risks are there to not having an all-inclusive sexual harassment training program?