Employers and Business Owners: How are you impacted by the federal, state, and NYC laws around vaccination policies, testing, and mask-mandates for your employees? What are some conflicts that may develop within your workforce, and how ought you address them?
Tune in to Employment Law Today on TalkRadio.NYC, Tuesday, October 19, from 5pm to 6pm EST, with my special guest, Rick Maher, CEO of Turning Point HCM.
Rick and I will have an in-depth discussion and tips for approaching this thorny HR / employment issue.
About Rick Maher:
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By Segment
4:59 – 18:12 – Eric begins by introducing himself and the purpose of his show. He has guests who talk about employment and business issues, many of the challenges business owners face today regarding the pandemic’s impact. He moves on to welcome, once again, Rick Maher, the CEO of Turning Point HCM. As a reminder, tonight’s topic is Covid Conflicts and HR Solutions, and its impact on employers and employees. For listeners who missed Rick on the show back in March, Eric asks Rick to tell the audience more about himself and what prompted him to found his company. Rick begins by saying that everyone needs to understand their “why”–why do they do what they do? When he founded the business in 2010, Rick had young children, and he wanted to be a part of their everyday lives. So, his personal why was to be more involved in his children’s lives. But his business “why” was the “hole in the marketplace,” the hole that existed in many HR departments– in first or second-generation family-owned businesses. Rick thinks that a big part of the steps forward could be understanding how employees’ “whys” affect human capital management. Meaning businesses should understand their employees’ whys. Eric moves on to another question, asking Rick, “what have been the biggest HR challenges in the past couple of months in light of the vaccination mandates and mask mandates becoming such hot topics?” Rick thinks that as vaccines started becoming more available in the summer, from a human capital perspective, businesses began gearing up for their comebacks. The conversations continue to evolve as factors such as the colder weather, the effects of the delta variant, etc., are being addressed. In Rick’s words, “as businesses started testing the waters and coming back and the mandates became a part of it, it almost accelerated the potential challenges that business owners and employees face.” As a business leader, Rick believes that businesses need to determine how they will navigate the various mandates to keep their teams functioning together, keep the employees focused on their jobs, and figure out the strategies and goals of each department, employee, and individual. All these factors need to be aligned to have a great human capital strategy. And Rick knows that for many business owners, keeping the alignment, keeping the order has been the biggest challenge.
20:26 – 33:51 – Erics begins the segment by pointing out that many companies are trying to go back to how they were before the pandemic, almost as if they had hit pause when the pandemic began. But Eric points out that trying to go back to the way things were before COVID-19 may not work, given that so many things have changed. Another part of Rick’s answer that Eric wants to emphasize is the importance of employees’ and employers’ beliefs.
Eric asks Rick how he would handle a business’s problem if, for example, the senior management of the business mandated vaccines, but a junior level partner opposed getting inoculated.
Rick responds by saying that much of their work is dealing with businesses that have employees refusing to vaccinate. He says that business leaders need to remind themselves what they are business for. Rick states that if companies want to exist for longer than their founders, then the business leaders may need to separate their personal views from their business views. He further says that businesses should be following the safety protocols and that they should have a Covid plan in place but that they also need to return to training. A lot of the training information applies to the Covid environment. From a human capital perspective, Rick thinks that businesses need to return to their training to focus their attention on their goals.
36:27 – 48:22 – After returning with a brief recap of the segment thus far, Eric asks Rick what has been the most common problem he has seen since the start of the pandemic. Rick says that three types of general problems that have arisen have been: one, people who do not want to get vaccinated, two, a combination of people who are vaccinated and not vaccinated, and three, positive covid results stemming from groups that have vaccinated and none vaccinated. Rick says that the good companies are taking consistent policy and making the policy the arbiter of goodwill, rather than letting emotion get in the way. This specifically means that businesses are coactively writing covid-business policies and covid-response plans. And, of course, the policies and response plans are tailored to each business. They are enabling members of businesses to begin thinking of responses to possible scenarios and thus creating consistency. Another piece of advice Rick’s business is letting their clients know, is to have the individual businesses constantly update their employee handbook, including the evolving federal and state mandates, and put a copy of the handbooks on employees’ desks. And when problems arise, consult the employee handbook. This helps maintain the alignment of the company’s goals without prompting judgment. Eric further asks Rick if the policy creation is a joint plan between the employees and employers. Rick says that it is a little bit of both and that there is more employee input. There is more communication between the employers and the employees. He also includes that even if a plan “goes out the window,” his clients have found that the process of planning has become an invaluable tool.
50:25 – 1:03:30 – Eric asks Rick what he thinks the business terrain will look like from a human capital perspective in this last segment. Rick says that successful companies are embracing covid. They understand that it is here for the foreseeable future and that they are using it to question the strength of their “why’s.” Once again, he mentions that these companies are emphasizing training, policies, and plans. He believes that the businesses that will come out of this time successfully are the businesses that are updating their human capital management.
About Employment Law Today
Helping Business With Employment Law Issues.
For many business owners, it can be overwhelming to keep up and comply with the federal and state labor and employment laws that govern how they run their business. With the COVID-19 pandemic, there are new laws and regulations regarding hiring, firing, and workplace practices and protocols — all of which can increase business owners’ anxieties about regaining traction or thriving again. On my weekly show, we will be discussing the most common employment law related questions and challenges that business owners have been facing in these uncertain times.
The show will have three main goals: (1) to inform businesses about employment law updates, (2) to inspire businesses by giving them the tools to move forward, and (3) to demonstrate how some business owners have overcome their employment law problems, walked through the challenges imposed by this pandemic, and have taken steps to regain traction during the reopening phases of this pandemic.
Our guests will include professionals who advise businesses from an H.R., legal, and financial perspective, along with thriving business owners who will share their experiences and insights into running a successful company while complying with labor and employment law mandates during COVID-19.