A roundup of important HR updates from the rest of August 2020.
The world is slowly returning to work, but the pandemic-induced recession is likely to take years to reverse. New products are being launched to support small and mid-sized businesses and growing healthcare needs. Significant concerns are emerging about the rising cybersecurity gaffes due to remote working. Uber and Lyft are also exploring a franchise model, but its implications are unknown.
Let’s take a closer look at these events in August 2020.
Table of Contents
- TriNet bolsters HR solution to support SMBs
- Arcadia launches newest must-have employee benefit
- New financial well-being benefit for caregivers by Nationwide® and Compassion Society
- Jobvite launches AI innovation lab for recruitment insights
Findings from Major HR Surveys and Research
- Security policy breach results in 40% of businesses sacking staff
- GetApp’s research shares how employee digital skill gaps challenged small businesses
- New Malwarebytes report reveals massive gaps in cybersecurity as employees work at home
- Ageism in the workplace exists
- Zoom fatigue sets in as return to office seems unlikely
- Ultimate Software and Kronos rebrand as UKG
- DocuSign eSignature integrates with Workplace From Facebook
- Cultivate and Computational Culture Lab partner to examine link between leadership beliefs and digital behaviors
- Brazen and WayUp partner to enhance modern campus recruitment
- MentorcliQ acquires River Software
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Major HR Tech Product Updates
TriNet bolsters HR solution to support SMBs
TriNet, a provider of HR solutions, announced Opens a new window the launch of additional capabilities to its HR solution for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). These include an integration center, report scheduler, and key HR applications, such as performance management and expense management. Clients will also have easy access to voluntary benefits through the TriNet platform.
This updated variant aims to improve the customer experience by providing 24/7 chat support to help businesses and their employees in the wake of COVID-19. Employers can share critical information and check in on their employees through the mobile app for seamless communication.
Arcadia launches newest must-have employee benefit
ArcadiaOpens a new window , a technology company that makes accessing clean energy as a renter and homeowner easy, has launched a new program for workplaces to add clean, lower-cost home energy to their employee benefits packages. It is a unique benefit that is relevant at a time when businesses have been forced or have chosen to work remotely permanently or for an extended period as a result of office closures from COVID-19.
Arcadia will connect workplaces in any state with 100% clean energy for their employee’s homes at no cost. Companies can choose to subsidize monthly bills for their team through the platform. Workplaces will also be able to access sustainability reports that can be used to offset their Scope 3 emissions reporting or other sustainability goals.
New financial well-being benefit for caregivers by Nationwide® and Compassion Society
Nationwide has partnered with Compassion Society BenefitsOpens a new window , Inc. to launch a new Caregiver Family Leave Insurance (CFL). This is a unique paid leave insurance plan designed to support caregivers as either an employer-paid benefit or voluntarily. This coverage option provides up to 80% income replacement for an employee who has a caregiving need, as a result of which they require extended or intermittent leave from work.
Compassion Society Benefits founder, Dr. Kyshun Webster, hopes that this product will ease “pressure on the Sandwich Generation, which is called upon to care for both children and parents†by taking care of the financial loss from extended leave to care for them.
Jobvite launches AI innovation lab for recruitment insights
Jobvite Opens a new window has announced the launch of the AI Innovation Lab to empower talent acquisition leaders to understand recruitment data better and improve recruiting results. The AI Innovation Lab is made up of the experienced data science team that delivers innovative analysis and insights to help companies achieve better business outcomes. They explore the client data sources to evaluate the health and inform the strategy of the talent acquisition function.
Aman Brar, CEO of Jobvite, said, “Jobvite’s AI Innovation Lab offers customers the benefit of an entire center of excellence that can leverage data from thousands of companies and hundreds of millions of candidates to deliver deeper insights, benchmarks, and best practices.â€
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Findings from Major HR Surveys and Research
Security policy breach results in 40% of businesses sacking staff
As per new research from Centrify Opens a new window covering 200 U.K. business decision-makers:
- 39% dismissed staff members due to a breach of company cybersecurity policy since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak
- 65% of companies have made significant changes to their cybersecurity policy due to the pandemic and 100% of employees working remotely
- 58% of companies agreed that employees might try and circumvent company security practices when working from home
- 57% of business leaders shared that they are currently implementing more measures to authenticate employees securely
GetApp’s research shares how employee digital skill gaps challenged small businesses
GetApp surveyedOpens a new window 577 leaders of small businesses in June 2020 to identify their biggest COVID-19-related challenges and the skills their businesses need now.
- 1 in 5 small businesses surveyed shared that lack of employee skills is the single biggest challenge that they faced during COVID-19
- For mid-sized companies, nearly 1 in 3 saw a lack of employee skills as their greatest challenge – these skills are Network management, web and app development, and social media marketing
- 61% of SMBs are increasing their training budgets in light of COVID-19
New Malwarebytes report reveals massive gaps in cybersecurity as employees work at home
Malwarebytes Opens a new window shared the findings from its latest report, Enduring from Home: COVID-19’s Impact on Business Security. It combines Malwarebytes telemetry with survey results from 200 IT and cybersecurity decision-makers from small businesses to large enterprises.
As per the findings, since the time organizations have moved to a work from home (WFH) model, the potential for cyberattacks and breaches has increased.
- 20% of the respondents said that they faced a security breach because of a remote worker
- 24% of respondents shared that they had unexpected cybersecurity-related expenses following the switch to remote work
- 28% of those who responded admitted to using personal devices for work-related activities more than their work-issued devices
- 61% of respondents’ organizations did not urge employees to use antivirus solutions on their personal devices
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Ageism in the workplace exists
More than 80% of workers aged 50+ have shared, as per a recent ResumeLabOpens a new window survey, that they face ageism and stereotypes at work every day. It covered 929 individuals. Respondents consisted of 59% males and 41% females. 9% of respondents were 24 or younger, 41% aged 25–38, 15% aged 39–54, and 35% aged 55 or older.
The study proved five prevalent stereotypes incorrect:
- Older workers are more resistant to change than their younger colleagues
- Older workers are not as healthy as younger ones
- Older workers are less interested in training and career growth
- Older workers look down on their younger colleagues
- Older workers are more expensive to hire and retain
Zoom fatigue sets in as return to office seems unlikely
Waveform Opens a new window commissioned an online survey of 1,083 adults on August 5 by SurveyMonkey. Some key findings from the survey pertain to how the COVID-19 crisis has changed the way people live and work, with many employees forced to work from home for the first time. One key area was Zoom or video-conferencing fatigue:
- One-third of employees shared that they rarely – or never –use video capabilities
- 33.7% said that while on work calls, they use video capabilities less than half of the time
- 31.9% admitted that they never use the video functionality
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HR Tech Partnerships
Ultimate Software and Kronos rebrand as UKG
After completing their groundbreaking merger in April 2020, Ultimate Software and Kronos IncorporatedOpens a new window revealed their new brand identity. Starting October 1, 2020, the HCM giants will be known as Ultimate Kronos Group or (UKG).
DocuSign eSignature integrates with Workplace From Facebook
DocuSign Opens a new window is partnering with Workplace from Facebook to build a new integration. This will allow customers to quickly access DocuSign eSignature within Workplace from Facebook, with the DocuSign chatbot built into to enable customers to choose sending or signing workflow. Through this feature, organizations can seamlessly access DocuSign to manage electronic agreements, receive notifications when there’s an agreement that needs to be signed, and simplify compliance. This has become an essential requirement in the current scenario since companies are now managing dispersed teams.
Cultivate and Computational Culture Lab partner to examine link between leadership beliefs and digital behaviors
The digital leadership platform Cultivate Opens a new window has announced that it will partner with the Computational Culture Lab to provide field data from opted-in users to enterprise customers. This will help validate a new model and tool that measures leadership beliefs called the Multilevel Construal Elicitation Task (MCET). Through this tool, researchers will better understand the similarities and differences in individuals’ conceptions of leadership. This insight has significant implications for leadership training and development in the future. Cultivate plans to use the behavioral data to find connections between MCET-derived mental models of leadership and users’ digital behavior.
Brazen and WayUp partner to enhance modern campus recruitment
BrazenOpens a new window , a virtual event and recruitment platform, and WayUp, a hiring platform for early-career professionals, will enter a strategic partnership that gives campus recruitment teams access to the largest, most diverse and qualified student and young professional database.
Brazen’s industry-leading virtual event platform will be used for this collaboration to connect recruiters and candidates in real-time through virtual hiring events, career fairs, video interviewing, and more. The purpose is to create a deeper and more personal human connection in the virtual world.
Through this integration with WayUp, the Brazen customers will become a part of virtual events from WayUp’s user base of over 5.6 million users across 7,200 college campuses.
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MentorcliQ acquires River Software
MentorcliQOpens a new window , an employee mentoring software, has announced the acquisition of River Software. This acquisition will combine MentorcliQ’s platform with River’s 20 years of experience to provide a world-class employee mentoring experience.
River Software was the pioneer of the mentoring software market in the early 2000s with its mentoring platform, Open Mentoring. It has a big list of Fortune 500 and DiversityInc Top 50 companies, including Sodexo, Goodyear, Robert Half, and more. MentorcliQ has also achieved similar results for its clients and supported their growth. River Software will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of MentorcliQ.