Layoffs impacted hundreds of thousands of workers worldwide last year, but the U.S. and Puerto Rico stood out as the worst for those having to deal with being let go. So reports Employee Benefit News.

From how much notice workers are given before being laid off to severance pay to the ability to tap unused paid leave prior to dismissal, Lensa, a job insights platform, ranked countries on how well they fared.

Puerto Rico and the U.S. ranked number one and two respectively for the worst locations to be laid off, with neither having guaranteed severance pay even for employees who worked at their companies for more than 10 years. Employers in Puerto Rico and the U.S. also don’t have to give notice of upcoming layoffs.

Sierra Leone and Egypt ranked one and two respectively as the best places for layoffs, with the former guaranteeing employees at least a 13-week notice period before they are let go. Employees who have worked for a decade for their employer in Sierra Leone can also get up to 132-weeks of severance pay. In Egypt, workers can get 4.3 weeks of guaranteed severance after working only one year and up to 54.2 weeks for those who have clocked in 10 or more years.

Read the full article from Employee Benefit News. 

Human resources leaders have always been the go-to when it comes to mental health in the workplace, but that won’t cut it in today’s business environment. So reports Entrepreneur.

Mental health is an important business operation discussion that the chief financial officer needs to engage in, writes Alyson Watson, founder and CEO of Modern Health. CFOs have access to key financial data of every department and armed with this information are able “to overlay this departmental data to gain real insights into not only how the company is performing, but go a layer deeper to see how this affects employees,” Watson notes.

“Are employees that go into the office more likely to receive promotions or salary increases?,” she writes. “Has engagement across company-focused events dropped? Is there a decrease in productivity? Has attrition increased? All of these metrics can help a CFO assess employee mental well-being and the impact it has on the business.”

Read the full article from Entrepreneur.

Having a four-year degree once stood as a prerequisite to a successful career, but more employers are looking beyond formal education as they search for talent this year. So reports CNBC.

“We have been using education as a proxy, and it’s very important to figure out why,” said Emily Rose McRae, an HR-focused senior director of research at Gartner. “What was it a proxy for? And how do we actually measure that?”

Gartner is betting that the most successful employers will be “more comfortable assessing candidates solely on their ability to perform in the role, rather than their credentials and prior experience,” she noted.

A 2022 study from the Harvard Business Review and labor market data company Lightcast (formerly Emsi Burning Glass) noted that from between 2017 and 2019, 46% of mid-level and 31% of high-level skill occupations lowered degree requirements in job listings.

Running so-called live skills test, for example with a bookkeeping role, could help recruiters gauge what candidates could bring to the firm. “Get people to demonstrate that they can do something as opposed to [asking] do they have a degree in bookkeeping and five years of experience as an office manager?” McRae noted.

Read the full article from CNBC.

A U.S. District Court sentenced a former human resources manager from Epworth, Iowa, to four months in federal prison after she pled guilty to one count of wire fraud and two counts of theft of government funds. 

Holly Marie Jacobi, who formerly went by Holly Marie Bemis, worked as the HR manager for an Iowa manufacturing firm where she falsified payroll expenses and health care reimbursements on behalf of 10 employees. She arranged for the payroll system to wire $65,000 to bank accounts she operated.

Jacobi also received over $17,000 in fraudulent unemployment benefits from Iowa after she filed a fraudulent application for federal COVID-19 unemployment insurance benefits.

After her Iowa employer learned of Jacobi’s actions and fired her, she secured a job at a Wisconsin cheese company. After losing that job, she applied for federal unemployment benefits from Wisconsin, and kept reporting that she was unemployed from May to October 2021 even after she secured a job with a California company. Jacobi fraudulently collected more than $12,000 in federal unemployment benefits from Wisconsin.

In addition to her prison sentence, Jacobi also must serve four months’ home confinement, repay $6,000 for court-appointed attorney costs and repay her former employer as well as Iowa and Wisconsin restitution of $95,567.69.

Read the announcement from the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa.

Onboarding is a crucial part of any human resources operation, but for new leaders the process can be problematic if it interferes with their ability to make change. So reports Harvard Business Review (HBR).

“The typical onboarding process emphasizes just how important that status quo is and makes questioning it even harder,” Ron Ashkenas, partner Emeritus at Schaffer Consulting, writes for HBR. New leaders may find long-standing onboarding processes make it harder for them to implement change “because of the focus they place on fitting in,” Ashkenas writes. “It’s already an uphill battle for new leaders to question the status quo: Natural psychology leads us to want to belong to a social group and go along with colleagues just to fit in,” he notes.

One way companies can help new leaders to implement change is by creating an onboarding process tied to a specific near-term challenge and asking them to regularly report important observations from key players. “To take full advantage of [new leaders’] qualities, don’t mire them in endless learning about the organization as it is now,” Ashkenas writes. “Instead, challenge them to find opportunities for learning that will help them shape the future.”

Read the full article from the Harvard Business Review. 

More companies are enacting provisions that call for employees who quit to pay back what was spent to train them. So reports Reuters.

U.S. regulators have been hearing from dozens of workers and advocates in various industries, including healthcare, trucking and retail, about some employers hitting them up with large IOUs for training costs after they quit. The so-called Training Repayment Agreement Provisions, or TRAPs, has drawn the attention of regulators as well as legislators.

More employers are using TRAPs even with unemployment at low-levels, which has been seen as empowering workers, says Jonathan Harris who teaches at the Loyola Law School Los Angeles.

“Employers are looking for ways to keep their workers from quitting without raising wages or improving working conditions,” Harris said.

Read the full article from Reuters. 

As remote work has become the new norm for many employers, it’s become imperative to create training programs that can be as effective as in-person training. That's according to the Forbes Human Resources Council.

The challenges of implementing a solid remote training program include dealing with varying time zones, connectivity challenges, work patterns and cultural differences, Alan Price, CEO at BrightHR, writes for Forbes. His human resources software firm provides technology support for small- and medium-sized entities worldwide.

“When designing a training program to be sent to your remote employees, try to put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself a series of questions,” Price writes. “Is the interface easy to use and access? Does it teach them the skills they value and that will benefit the business? Have I set realistic targets and deadlines, and how can I track their progress?”

While Price acknowledges that remote work can exacerbate loneliness and take away from the camaraderie that workers can feel in an in-person environment, “remote working can become less of an isolating experience if managers step in to foster connection between their atomized employees.”

“Part of doing this is by encouraging meetings, cooperation and competition, and the sharing of expertise between team members,” he notes. “Develop a culture of peer-to-peer learning, ensuring they don’t lose out on the human touch that they might miss from the office.”

Read the full post from Forbes. 

Upskilling platform GrowthSpace recently received $25 million in funding from venture capitalists, signaling strong interest in startups focused on bolstering workers’ skills. So reports TechCrunch.

The investment led by Zeev Ventures brings the total that GrowthSpace has managed to raise to $44 million amid a tight job market where employers are desperate to retain workers. Upskilling focuses on teaching employees new skills. Last year, Walmart announced that it would invest about $1 billion over the next five years to help its staff obtain higher education and training, and these investments have helped GrowthSpace and other upskilling platforms.

Upskilling and reskilling platforms took in $2.1 billion from venture capitalists from early 2021 and through this year. GrowthSpace was founded in 2018 by Dan Terner, Izhak Kedar and Omer Glass. “Terner realized that there was no effective, outcome-driven employee development platform to enable companies [including his] to better invest in their employees,” Glass said. “This led to the creation of GrowthSpace … During the pandemic and amid current economic uncertainty, companies have realized that they needed to double down on talent development.”

Read the full article from TechCrunch.

Australian employers and human resources departments are facing new worker compensation challenges as they contend with major workplace disruptions from the coronavirus. So reports Insurance Business Australia.

“As the Australian business community faces the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, business owners, managers, and human resources (HR) teams are also tackling the ongoing responsibilities to workers and protecting our workplaces,” according to the workplace risk team at insurance broker Gallagher Australia. “Even with new arrangements to work off site, employers must still comply with relevant work, health, and safety (WHS) and workers’ compensation (WC) legislation.”

One immediate challenge is how companies and HR leaders successfully convey how their employees can file a Covid-19 compensation claim for an injury or illness when they are working remotely, according to the article.

While it may be hard for a worker to prove they contracted the virus based on their working conditions at a remote location, “as an employer you still have an obligation to provide safe work duties, so you need a management plan that enables this in terms of working from home and performing appropriate tasks,” Gallagher Australia notes.

Read the full article from Insurance Business Australia.

Costco Australia is handing out an A$750 (US$478) bonus to 4,000 employees who have worked during the coronavirus pandemic. So reports Human Resources Director.

The bonus payments are happening as supermarket chains in the country rush to recruit thousands of workers to deal with the tremendous demand for groceries now. Costco also has provided a temporary pay boost of A$3 per hour for all employees who worked from March 2 to April 5.

“Costco’s action sets an example for the others,” says Gerard Dwyer, retail union SDA’s national secretary. “It is an acknowledgement of the service Costco workers are providing–an acknowledgement of the risks they are taking to keep the community fed and healthy.”

Read the full article from Human Resources Director.

Human resources teams in Asia Pacific cited their management's ability to oversee crisis and to implement business continuity plans as their top concerns in a Covid-19 world, according to a recent survey. So reports Human Resources Online.

Aon’s APAC Pulse Survey is entitled “Navigating the impact of COVID-19 on workplace and rewards practices.” Nearly 70% of the 304 companies surveyed cited management's ablity to oversee the crisis and business continuity as their biggest challenges. The survey included companies in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, China, Japan, Korea and the Pacific region.

Actions taken by firms to deal with the pandemic include holding off on hiring and freezing pay and promotions as well as having more employees work remotely and providing them with financial help. Overseeing flexible work arrangements and boosting employee awareness were cited by 63.5% and 55.6%, respectively, as challenges HR are tackling. About 13% noted inadequate employee medical insurance as a problem.

Just over 42% of companies gave their respective HR departments a three rating (scale of 1 to 5) for being properly trained, equipped and ready to handle challenges from the pandemic, while 27.6% gave their HR teams a four rating.

Read the full article from Human Resources Online.

A number of Indian companies are providing their employees with online/virtual tools to keep their children entertained as they work from home. So reports The Economic Times.

Genpact, Accenture, Deloitte, AMD and other firms have introduced programs intended to keep their employees’ children occupied so their parents can get in a few hours of relatively uninterrupted work. Daycare centers in India, as in other parts of the world, are not an option as these facilities are shut down, meaning parents and their children are together the whole day.

Employees can tap into parenting communities online to get tips on how to keep their children engaged, set up virtual playdates with kids of their colleagues, have them participate in virtual summer camps and offer online classes on coding. “Employee engagement has now assumed new dimensions to include family engagement as well,” says SV Nathan, chief talent officer at Deloitte India. That firm provides parents with webinars on how to do activities, including crafts and cooking, with their kids.

Meanwhile, IBM India notes that 99% of it workforce is now able to work from home. So reports Business Standard. “What has been different in the past few months is embracing this approach at scale, not just among our sizeable employee population in India, but around the world,” says Sandip Patel, managing director, IBM India and general manager for India/South Asia region.

“Our information technology (IT), human resources, business units, crisis management, legal, government relations, corporate social responsibility, operations and security teams have quickly come together to make (work-from-home) a reality for over 99% of IBM India employees,” Patel adds. “The remaining 1% of our people are focused on critical assignments and we are taking every possible precaution to ensure their safety.”

Rolls-Royce, a manufacturer of aero engines, has decided to eliminate more than 4,000 jobs that will include human resources, finance and purchasing positions. So reports The Guardian.

The goal is to boost profits by cutting out mid-management jobs.

"We are proposing to move to a considerably simplified staff structure, with fewer layers and greater spans of control across the group," a company spokesman said.

The company is expected to cut 4,600 positions globally, HRM Asia reports, with one-third of those cuts expected to be carried out by year-end. The firm has a global workforce of 55,000, with 26,000 in the UK.

The former CEO of France Telecom and six other executives will face trial over allegations that they had a role in at least 19 employee suicides. So reports BBC News.

The executives are accused of "moral harassment." Former CEO Didier Lombard and the other executives deny that restructuring efforts they undertook in 2006 led to the suicides. Lombard had tried to eliminate 22,000 jobs and retrain at least 10,000 workers.

"I'll get them out one way or another, through the window or through the door," Lombard was quoted telling senior managers in 2007. Starting in 2008, at least 19 workers killed themselves,12 attempted suicide and eight suffered depression. Guilty verdicts could result in two years in prison and $35,000 in fines.

France Telecom, a multinational telecommunications corporation, became Orange in 2013. "As it has always said, Orange rejects the accusations and will make its case during the public hearing which will be scheduled in the coming months," an Orange spokesman said.

Read the full article from BBC News. 

A London court sentenced a UK financial analyst to 16-weeks in jail in May for harassing a colleague and posting porn photos purporting to be her. So reports CPS.

Davide Buccheri, 25, was convicted of harassment stemming from actions that lasted eight-months long from September 2016 to May last year. The harassment began after the colleague refused to go on a date with him.

Buccheri then uploaded photos of the woman he took from her social media site onto an adult porn website alongside actual pornographic photos. Actresses in those pornographic images resembled the coworker.  

Buccheri then reached out to managers at his firm, M&G Investments, and reported the photos in an effort to get the woman in trouble.

"This was a sustained campaign of harassment against a young woman beginning her career in the financial services industry," says Aimee Emby, from the Crown Prosecution Service. "Not only did Buccheri's actions cause this victim considerable distress and anxiety, his denial of guilt forced her to relive her ordeal."

Buccheri also was ordered to fork over US$6,705 in compensation to the woman.

Read the full article from CPS. 

Breakfast cereal giant Kellogg's is allowing the 420 workers at its Salford headquarters to clock out of work by noon on Fridays this summer as long as they finish their work. So reports Metro.

The summer hours are designed to improve productivity and give workers more flexibility with a longer weekend.

"Flexible working is something we take very seriously and we encourage all our UK office-based employees to make the most of the summer hour scheme," says Sue Platt, Kellogg's UK human resources director. "Summer hours is part of a package we offer to ensure we provide work-life balance opportunities to all employees."

Read the full article from Metro.