The coronavirus pandemic has forced employers to tackle new and complicated challenges with little to zero warning, but has also heightened five long-standing practices that have become even more crucial now. So reports Quartz at Work.

Among the five needs as spelled out in research from Accenture, which included 15,600 workers in 10 countries and 15 industries, is recognizing leaders who display compassion and caring. “Many qualified leaders in companies made it to where they are based on a thorough knowledge of business—not necessarily because they excelled at the people side of the equation,” writes Eva Sage-Gavin in the Quartz at Work article. She heads Accenture’s global talent and organization/human potential practice. “But workers told us they want confidence in their company’s ability to navigate the future and they want a leadership team focused on the compassion and care of its people.”

The other four areas include:

• Doing away with unnecessary work
• Trusting employees who are less senior or have no title, but have skill sets (such as digital) that can really help the company excel
• Being a storyteller who can cut through confusion and inspire employees instead of just spouting numbers on profitability and costs
• Not getting stuck on just trying to survive the now

“Reserve two hours per day for work focused on getting your organization and workforce ready for the future,” Sage-Gavin writes. “It will feel like you’re ignoring the urgent, but two hours wisely spent can help keep your company healthy. Many of the best ideas come from adversity and hard times. Giving your people a chance to innovate toward a brighter future helps them remain resilient.”

Read the full article from Quartz at Work. 

Being timely, confidential and thorough are hallmarks of how to handle workplace grievances, but just as important is being proactive in preventing such disputes from even coming up. So reports Business.com.

If issues can’t be resolved before a formal grievance process begins, either through an intervention or mediation, then “timeliness is of the essence,” says Jennifer Koch, human resources manager at Optima Office. “Make sure that the issue is investigated as confidentially as is possible, all evidence is collected, all employees involved are heard in a formal meeting and then make a decision swiftly. You will most likely have employees coming in each day inquiring about the outcome, [so] make sure the decision is communicated clearly to all involved parties.”

Once a grievance is addressed and settled, management should look back to see why and how the grievance came about and what they could do to address underlying issues. “After the grievance is over, I would go back and review the issue and the decision made to see if anything could have been handled differently or if there is any room for improvement,” Koch says. “In the end, make sure you have gotten to the root of the cause, so it does not come back up again, and it is a long-lasting solution.”

Creating an employee handbook that clearly states policies to deal with grievances and how to fix them is one of the best ways to prevent future issues from becoming serious problems. “Beyond the requirements under various and state federal laws for filing a workplace-related grievance, an organization should implement a whistleblower system that allows for the anonymous reporting of any wrongdoing,” says David Reischer, an employment attorney at LegalAdvice.com. 

Read the full article from Business.com.

A New York City man allegedly tried to collect $20 million meant for small businesses struggling during the coronavirus pandemic. So reports The New York Daily News.

Muge Ma allegedly submitted paperwork with the Small Business Administration noting that he paid employees of New York International Capital LLC and Hurley Human Resources millions in salary. Prosecutors charged Ma last month, saying he lied about having hundreds of workers when he really had none.

Ma, 36, listed his condo in a luxury building as the addresses for the two businesses he purportedly ran, prosecutors said. He faces several charges, including bank fraud and major fraud against the US. Ma did manage to get a $10,000 loan advance before his scam unraveled.

Ma’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment after prosecutors announced the charges.

Read the full article from The New York Daily News. 

Federal officials allege that a 34-year-old Georgia man lied to his employer about testing positive for Covid-19. So reports The Associated Press.

Santwon Antonio Davis last month faced charges of defrauding his employer, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office in Atlanta. After Davis’ employer learned that he did test positive, management had to close down the plant, sanitize the facility and place some workers on paid leave while they were under quarantine. This resulted in the company bleeding more than $100,000, prosecutors said.

The HR manager at Davis’ company suspected fraud upon reviewing a medical excuse letter that Davis provided, according to a statement from an FBI agent. The letter, for example, noted that Davis was discharged November last year, was not signed and did not have a formal letterhead. After calling the hospital where Davis claimed he was tested, the company learned the hospital was not conducting Covid-19 tests.

Davis “caused unnecessary economic loss to his employer and distress to his coworkers and their families,” U.S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay” Pak noted in a release. Pak also noted that law enforcement will move fast “to put a stop to criminals preying on Georgia companies and the public with Coronavirus-related fraud schemes.”

Read the full article from The Associated Press. 

LinkedIn has embraced virtual interviews for all its job openings as coronavirus sidelines traditional in-person recruiting. So reports The Verge.

Job candidates were told by the firm that they could do an interview virtually or postpone for a future date, according to an email from LinkedIn’s staffing team.

“In light of the recent coronavirus outbreak and with everyone’s health being LinkedIn’s #1 priority at the moment, all candidates who are scheduled to come onsite are being given the option to either complete their entire interview virtually via BlueJeans video conference, or cancel their current schedule and hold off on rescheduling until coming onsite is possible,” LinkedIn noted in its email, which The Verge had seen.

The LinkedIn email also noted that “neither option will harm nor effect your candidacy here at LinkedIn.”

Google also noted similar plans to conduct all job interviews virtually in an email last month, while Facebook noted it would cancel most live job interviews. Amazon had announced that all in-person interviews would be on hold indefinitely.

Read the full article from The Verge.

Human resources departments and employers are stepping up defensive and protective measures abroad and at home amid the growing coronavirus threat.

The market continues to convulse and a growing number of cities and states are going into lockdown mode amid increasing fears about the virus and its ballooning infection numbers. The potential damage that the virus could cause to businesses was noted in 27 earnings calls at the end of January from S&P Composite 1,500 firms, including Apple, Starbucks and McDonalds, CNBC reports. Some recent reports paint an even more ominous picture about the financial and human impact of the pandemic. 

Many firms that are able to have already instituted plans fo move the majority of their workforces to full-time remote for the time being. Other firms have had to lay off large portions of their workers due to mandated business closures. Still other managers are communicating regularly with their teams and are generally trying to help inform their workers and calm their fears.

Against this backdrop, the Society for Human Resource Management has devoted a whole page to coronavirus with information on infectious-disease plans, workplace concerns and what employers need to know. That page also features FAQs about the virus, including questions around the Family and Medical Leave Act for sick employees or their family members; paying workers’ compensation to sick employees, and whether the Americans with Disabilities Act restricts how an employer can engage with employees because of the virus.

“The ADA protects employees with disabilities, but during a global health emergency, as recently declared by the World Health Organization (WHO), employees can be required to be medically examined to determine if they have contracted the disease when an employer has a reasonable belief that employees will pose a direct threat due to a medical condition,” the SHRM notes in its FAQs.

HR teams would be wise to review their sick and employee leave polices and to make clear to their sick employees to stay home. “From an HR perspective, you may also want to proactively consider how you will address racist tropes that may occur in the workplace,” Lars Schmidt, founder of HR executive search and consulting firm, Amplify, writes for Fast Company. “As xenophobia and racist incidents against Asians are on the rise, companies must remain vigilant about harassment in the workplace. The World Health Organization has a guide for addressing stigma with examples and tips on actions to counter these attitudes.”

SHRM’s chief executive Johnny Taylor says the coronavirus scare may prompt U.S. firms to improve their paid sick leave policies, The Financial Times reports. This latest crisis also may lead firms to pay more attention to some basic, core issues within their overall organizations that have been ignored, says Peter Cappelli, director of the Wharton business school’s Center for Human Resources.

These companies “literally did not know how many employees they had [or] where they were distributed across locations,” Cappelli says. With more firms paying more attention to disaster planning that might move “them toward better accounting on those simple matters, which then [make] it easier to do all kinds of things like planning.”

Starting a new job at online retailer Zappos means recruits get to work for four weeks before deciding if they want the job. And if the company decides the new hire is not a good fit or the recruit decides they don’t want the job, the company will pay them for the month and wish them well.

While this way of onboarding new hires is not the norm, Zappos has found this approach to be successful in attracting and retaining recruits, Hollie Delaney, head of human resources at Zappos.com tells Business Insider.

When Delaney came to interview at the firm more than a dozen years ago, she remembered the person interviewing her saying that one of the firm’s core values is to ‘create fun and a little weirdness.’

While a small number of new hires do decide they don’t want to stay after four weeks, “we’ve found that it’s actually cost effective, because we’re not just hiring people,” Delaney said. “We’re hiring the right people. People who have a service-first mindset,” she said. “People who want to be here because we fit them, too, and who, in most cases, are going to stick around for the long haul… and hopefully make our company better for the hard work we all put in early on.”

Read the full article from Business Insider.

Leaders or those aspiring to lead can help their own development by learning how and when to forgive those who have wrong them. So reports Northwest Indiana Times.

Shawne Duperon, founder of The Project Forgive Foundation, spoke to a recent gathering of the Northwest Indiana Chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management last month.

"There's the notion of giving an apology and there's the notion of receiving an apology," Duperon says. "There's distinction between, 'I hear that I really hurt you. I'm so sorry I hurt you' versus 'You're upset. I'm sorry.'"

Duperon also suggests that business leaders learn "how to accept apologies they'll never receive" in order to create peace with people they don't agree with or who they don't like.

Read the full article from Northwest Indiana Times

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.