Category Archives: HR Department of One

5 Traits that Make Great HR Partners Great!

Posted on by
3

I use to think the title ‘HR Partner’ was played out and it probably was for a time.  There was a point a few years ago when every HR Pro had to change their title from HR Manager, HR Director, etc., to HR Partner.  It always made me feel like we were all apart of a bad cowboy movie, ‘Giddy up, Partner!’

I’ve actually grown to really like the “Partner” in the title of an HR Professional.  While many HR Pros just changed their title, I’ve met some great ‘Partners’ in HR who have changed their game, to match their title change.

What makes a Great HR Partner Great?  Here are 5 things I think makes them game changers:

1. Great HR Partners know your business.  Now, wait.  I didn’t say they ‘knew their own business’, they know the business of who they support. But wait, there’s more!  They know the business of who they support, the way the person or team they support knows it. Say what?!  It’s not good enough to know the business of your organization.  You have to know how those you support know and support the business.

That could be different, based on the leader.  One leader might be ultra-conservative in their business practices, another risky. A great HR Partner knows how to support them in the way those they support, want to be supported – while still being able to do the HR part of their job.

2.  Great HR Partners have a short-term memory. Great baseball pitchers don’t remember one pitch to the next.  Each pitch is new. Each pitch has a potential for success.  If they remembered each pitch, the last one, that was hit for a home run, would cloud their judgment about the next pitch.

Great HR Partners are willing to change their mind and try new things.  They don’t carry around their experiences like a suitcase, pulling them out and throwing them on the table each time those they support want to try something new.  Don’t forget about your failures, but also don’t let your failures stop you from trying again.

3. Great HR Partners allow risk.  A great HR Partner is able and willing to accept that organizations have risk.  It is not the job of HR to eliminate risk, it is the job of HR to advise of risk, then find ways to help those they support, their partners, to achieve the optimal results in spite of those risks.  Far too many HR Partners attempt to eliminate risk and become the ‘No’ police.  Great HR Partners know when to say “No” and when to say “Yes”.

4. Great HR Partners don’t pass blame.  If you are a great HR partner and you work with great partners, you will all support each other in the decision making process.  A great HR Partner will never pass blame but will accept their share as being one of those who supported the decision to move forward.

This doesn’t mean you become a doormat.  Behind closed doors, with your partners, you hash out what there is to hash out.  When the doors open – all partners support the final decision that is made.  A Great HR Partner will have the influence to ensure they can, and will, support that decision when those doors open up.

5. Great HR Partners don’t wait to be asked.  A great partner in any capacity is going to support those they support with every skill they have available to them.  In HR we have people skills – so when those who we support have issues, we offer up our ideas on what we can do to help the team.  Great HR Partners don’t stop at HR advice!  In a time of brainstorming and problem solving the idea that goes unshared, is the worst kind of idea.

I might not know operations, and I will say that up front, but I’m going to put myself out there and tell my partners that eliminating the rubber grommets on bottom of the widget is a bad idea, because while it saves us $.13 per unit, it also makes our product slide around and that ultimately will piss off the customer.

Being an ‘HR Partner’ has very little to do with HR.  Those you support expect you have the HR expertise. What they don’t expect is how great of a ‘partner’ you can be.  Great HR Partners focus on the partnership, not on the HR.

What Paid Holidays Should You Be Paying Your Employees?

Posted on by
1

Every year, American employees leave 430 million vacation days up for grabs. (If you were wondering, that’s 1,178,082 years of unused vacation every year.)

Or in other words, way too much time.

We already know Americans are by and large workaholics. But still, if you own a small business, there are some days you should definitely give off to your employees. And it’s helpful to know what that mix of days should be.

That’s where I come in. I’ll show you how to build your own paid holiday schedule for your small business, using benchmarking data as our trusty guide.

The bigger PTO picture.

Let’s start with the main question on your mind: How much time off do people normally get? An average full-time employee in a small, privately-owned business in the U.S. receives about 7.6 paid holidays per year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That number also breaks down even further:

  • Technical/professional employees get 8.5-ish days a year.
  • Clerical/sales employees get 7.7-ish days a year.
  • Blue-collar/service employees get 7 days a year.

While that’s the average, other studies have shown most employees report getting about nine paid holidays per year. Think about these benchmarks as you decide on the number that will work best for you business.

There are no federal laws requiring employers to give PTO, but most companies offer it anyway. Why? Because it’s a must to attract and retain great employees. In fact, PTO is the second most important benefit to employees, right after health insurance.

Now, onto the next layer of the paid holiday puzzle: Choosing the actual days you give off.

So, what paid holidays should I offer?

Click through this link to my Gusto post to get the rest of this riveting content! 

No, really, I promise, it’s good stuff! Have I ever steered you wrong?

Career Confessions of GenZ w/@CamSackett: Maybe You Should Take Our Smartphones Away!

Posted on by
5

March Madness is fully upon us. This season unites us all over a love for college basketball or in my case, a love for winning money by googling an article about who the “Cinderella” teams are and somehow winning your neighborhood pool (it’s only happened once). Whether your team is out (sorry Dad) or still fighting (Go Blue!), the close matches between teams can be super distracting to everyone. I know that I was watching a game in class the other day, and I don’t even like basketball that much!

It’s been found that March Madness may potentially cost employers $4 billion in productivity. It’s almost impossible to stay focused when there’s a #16 seed beating a #1 seed! (shoutout to the person running the UMBC twitter). One negative marker of Gen-Z is our ability to be easily distracted or our inability to pay attention to one thing for long periods of time. An average college student’s attention span is somewhere between 10-15 minutes, while most classes are over an hour. Although this isn’t an argument about our screwed up education system, it does open up a conversation about how to best approach the use of things such as cell phones and social media which can be very distracting.

I’ve had a cell phone since I was 10 when a family friend forgot to pick me up at swim practice. Some younger members of Gen-Z have gotten them even younger than me. We have grown up with these distractions around us at all times, and it can be difficult to manage.

I am a big fan of teachers that try to embrace the qualities of Gen-Z rather than fight it. More and more, I see teachers and professors trying to implement activities using cell phones or allowing laptops in class. Although I commend these teachers for trying to work with us, it isn’t working. Every single time I bring my laptop to class, I end up online shopping and missing some important information. The same can be said when cell phones or social media is involved.

Although it seems I’m advocating for an eradication of all cell phones and social media use during work hours, I’m not. Frankly, I don’t really know the rules of cell phones at most offices, but I know that my Dad is pretty quick to respond to my texts during the day. What I am saying is that a healthy encouragement of no cell phone use is a good idea.

I think that something like a station where you could drop off and charge your phone for a period of time could be really beneficial to boosting productivity. When I have to get work done, I’ll go put my phone across my apartment from me and turn it off completely to avoid distractions. Whoever says they are good at multi-tasking is LYING. Whenever my phone lights up, I want to check it and I know you do too.

I don’t have a solid answer for you on this one. It’s a tricky topic that isn’t black and white, but it is important to acknowledge. It is important to remind your Gen-Z employees that they are adults and cell phones aren’t banned like they are in a lot of schools. Also, it is important to remind them that this is a place of work and they are getting paid to do a job, not to sit on their phones and send Snapchats about how bored they are (that’s all that we are doing on Snapchat. I promise!). Let me know what you think in the comments!

 

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a GenZ? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.

 

3 Ways Employers Should Be Encouraging March Madness!

Posted on by
1

For those that know me, I’m a huge basketball fan.  Pro, college, AAU, high school, hell, if you really dig into my past you would probably find me hanging out at some playground breaking down the defense effort of a pickup game between grade school kids.  So, when March Madness time comes around each year I’m like many of your employees.  I’m trying to find the best ways to work and watch basketball, or at the very least stay up on my brackets and see who is getting upset!

With all the hype over the past few years about lost productivity, do to March Madness, in the workplace.  I felt it was my duty to provide HR Pros with some helpful tips and tricks to get your staff to highly productive during this time of year.

Here are my ideas:

1. Put up TVs throughout the office.  Let’s face it, you really only have one or two hoops junkies in the office, and those folks usually spend vacation time to ensure they don’t miss a minute.  Everyone else just wants to see scores and highlights.  They’re a casual fan.  They’re willing to work a perfectly normal day, and will probably be just a productive, if not more, with the TVs steaming all the games in the background.  Plus, if you get a close game or big upset, you’ll get some team excitement in the air.  This also stops most of your staff trying to stream the games on their desktops for the entire afternoon.

2. Call off work those afternoons.  Let’s face it, March Madness is pretty close to a national holiday as we will ever get.  Doesn’t matter if you’re female or male, young or old, what religion you are, we all love the drama and excitement of March Madness.  Just close the office.  Make a deal with your staff to reach certain goals and if they’re met, take them to the local watering hole yourself and have some fun with it.  Employees like to rally around a fun idea.  You don’t have to make everything fun, all the time, but once in a while, it helps to lift productivity.

3. Shut off all access.  Yep, you read that correctly. Have IT shut down all access to anything related to March Madness.  Threaten to fire any employee caught checking scores on their smartphone, or calling a friend to see how it’s going.  Fear!  Fear is a great short-term lifter of productivity.  Whether we like to admit it, or not, it’s true.  If you went out right now into your office and told the entire staff at the end of the day you’re firing the least productive person, you would see productivity shoot through the roof!  You would also see about half your staff, the half you want to keep, put in their notice over the next 4-6 weeks.

The reality is, most people will do business as usual.  While the CNN’s of the world love to point to the millions of dollars American corporations lose during March Madness, it’s no different than so many things that can consume our thoughts in any given day.

I do think HR and leadership, each year, lose out on a great way to have fun and raise engagement during March Madness.  It’s something most of your staff has some interest in, and depending on your city and the schools your employees went to, it can get heightened pretty significantly.

For the record, I’m not picking Michigan State.  I want to with all my might, but I’m nervous that my bracket mojo would work the opposite, so I’ll pick someone else, and feel awesome when Sparty wins and I lose my bracket!

 

HR Blogging is about making HR Connections #UltiConnect

Posted on by
1

An HR friend of mine, Cheryl Nelson, and I are out at Ultimate Connections, Ultimate Software’s annual user conference. I twisted her arm to get her on video because she just started writing her own HR blog after reading hundreds of my posts!

Cheryl’s new blog is called “Kolor Me HR” check it out. Cheryl is a real-life HR leader/Pro who is in the trenches every day. I love when practitioners take up writing because that’s when you really learn that we are all in this together!

Cheryl said she was nervous about doing this video, but said, “Amazing things happen when you say Yes!” She even wrote a post on that concept! I love it! I think you’ll agree, she was great!

Career Confessions from GenZ: Are you Pre-boarding Interns?

Posted on by
1

College orientation was one of the most uncomfortable and awkward experiences of my life. I would say that most other current college students would attest to this. I think it’s very unreasonable to expect a group of 18-year-olds to meet for the first time and become friends in a short time span while learning everything you’re supposed to know about the school you are attending.

Thankfully I am through the college orientation process, but I have a lifetime of job orientations ahead of me. Apparently, this process in the workforce is called “onboarding” (thanks, Dad!), but to newbies like me, we invented a new term to describe this orientation called “pre-boarding”.

This new style of onboarding is a more in-depth look into general ideas about the workforce in addition to normal onboarding events. This is for people that have never worked real-life jobs before (yup, that’s me). I like this idea of pre-boarding because I am a very curious person that has a million questions and likes them all to be answered! So, here are some specific topics that I want companies to focus on while pre-boarding newbies like me:

  1. Dress Code: For someone that has always put a heavy emphasis on what I wear, this is very important to me and other young people. The words “business casual” mean absolutely nothing to me. I need concrete examples of what to wear and this means VISUALS.  I want someone to show me pictures or even show me real-life examples of what I should be wearing every day to work. Please and thank you.
  2. Logistics: I’m calling this section logistics because it encompasses a whole array of logistical things. I need to know where to park, where to sit, when I eat, where I eat, where’s the bathroom, when I’m supposed to arrive, when I’m supposed to leave, among many other things. And I would like a concrete answer to all of these. Coming from a school environment, like most newbies are, we are always told when to do things and how to do them. Therefore, it is important to realize this and adhere to how your new employees have been given information for most of their lives.
  3. Job-related content: This part of the pre-boarding process should be different for every job because it has to do with the specific duties and tasks that new employees will be performing. This can include things like meeting your fellow team members, learning how to use certain software or programs, and other instructional demonstrations as needed (you guys already know how to do this part). Will I have a laptop, desktop, no computer, no desk? Should I bring my own laptop? What about my phone, you know I’m not going anywhere without that!? 

I’m sure I’m forgetting a million other things that are important, but these are just things that I specifically worry about. For this pre-boarding process, it is extremely important to leave all questions unanswered. Gen-Z (and young people across history) DON’T ask questions, so it is important to make sure you think of everything beforehand. This process will help alleviate pressure from your new employee and will warrant an easy and successful transition into their new position.

Here’s to hoping that my future bosses will be reading this post to make it easier for me!

 

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a GenZ? Ask us in the comments and I’ll have Cameron respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for Cameron? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with him on LinkedIn.

 

The One Word Recruiters Use to Describe Themselves That’s a Lie!

Posted on by
2

Did you catch the article on LinkedIn by Lydia Abbot, The Top 10 Words Recruiters Use to Describe Themselves? If not, go check it out. Lydia is a content marketer for LinkedIn and she puts out some good stuff based on inside data LI data.

In this piece, she basically gave us the Top 10 words recruiters use to describe themselves (based on LI data):

I’ve been a recruiter for a long or worked in talent acquisition for a long time. I think I would say most of these words are pretty good. I want my recruiters to be experienced, skilled, passionate, motivated, etc.

The number 1 word is “Specialized”, it’s also the number 1 word that recruiters describe themselves, that’s almost always a lie!

“Specialized” isn’t really a word recruiters want to use to describe themselves. It’s the word that “You” want them to use to describe themselves!

Here’s what happens. You have a super important opening to fill. The leader of that group wants to ensure ‘you’ don’t screw it up. Since you don’t have anyone on your team that ‘specializes’ in the function of this position, she wants you to use an outside firm. A recruiter who ‘specializes’ in the function of this position.

The reality is, there are a few actual recruiters who “specialize” in certain functions. My friend, Stacy Zapar specializes in filling corporate Recruiter positions at The Talent Agency. That’s all she works on. I know a guy in North Carolina who specializes in filling PCB Engineering openings in the Aerospace industry. Those are the only positions he works on, period. That’s specialization.

If you fill “IT” openings or you fill “Accounting” openings. You aren’t a specialist. You don’t have specialization.

Recruiters will tell you they are specialized because that is what you want to believe, but 99% of recruiters are not specialized. They might enjoy a certain focus, like Nursing, or Engineering, or Designers, etc. But those are still very broad fields!

Corporate Hiring Managers and Corporate Talent Acquisition want to believe the recruiters they are using, or the recruiters they are hiring, are specialized, but they’re not. It’s not that they’re lying, it’s that it doesn’t really matter!

My company mostly works on recruiting positions in Engineering and IT. The reality is we train our recruiters to “Recruit”. Give them an engineering opening and they’ll kill it. Give them a Human Resources position to fill and they’ll kill it. If you can recruit, you can recruit.

Does specialization help? It can, if the recruiter is truly specialized. If you have a pipeline of very specific talent. The reality is less than 1% of recruiters will ever even come close to true specialization, yet it’s the #1 word we use to describe ourselves!

So, what do you really want out of a recruiter if we don’t need specialization? Experience for sure helps. The reality is the best recruiters take an interest in the position, the hiring manager, the department, and the company. They’re passionate about the position and can convey that to candidates. Also, they have the skill to uncover and track down talent others can’t.

In recruiting, specialization is oversold and overrated. Whereas actual sourcing and recruiting skills are underrated because we as recruiters do a terrible job of showing how a skilled recruiter is better than an unskilled recruiter!

 

Career Confessions from GenZ: What Attracts GenZ to Your Work Place?

Posted on by
6

Career Confessions from GenZ is a weekly series authored by Cameron Sackett, a Sophomore at the Univesity of Michigan majoring in Communications and Advertising. Make sure you connect with him on LinkedIn:

I’m going to be frank: the prospect of working for the rest of my life is absolutely terrifying. I’ve been saying for years that I can’t wait to retire, and I’m only 19. Nothing makes my skin crawl more than the thought of waking up early every day (I’m such a teenager it hurts) and going to sit in uncomfortable clothing at an ugly office surrounded by people I don’t even like.

Whenever this gets brought up, people always try to reassure me that I might enjoy working and I might really like my job. While I hope this is the case, I do believe that a major part of making those 40 hours a week a little more enjoyable is the company and its culture.

There are definitely things that I know will make me more attracted to work for a company that can hopefully combat some of my worries. First, I would love to have flexible work hours. Something about 10-6 instead of 9-5 (Editor/Dad Note: This made me LOL 10-6! Oh, boy, reality is really going to hurt!) sounds so much more appealing to me. Waking up at 8 sounds infinitely better than 7, and I can tell you that most other teenagers will say the same.

Additionally, the thought of 10 vacation days a year HURTS. I feel physical pain when I hear that some people have that. The European Union mandates a minimum of 22 vacation days a year with 13 paid holidays. Now, I know we’re in America, the land of opportunity, where you make your own fortune. But please just give me some dang vacation days! This plays into one of my biggest fears which is working my life away. I can confidently say that so many of my peers have the same worries and a way to ease this pain is some time off!

On one of my first interviews for an internship this past year, I got to tour one of the coolest offices I have ever seen. It was right out of my Gen-Z dreams: brick walls with modern finishes, an open floor plan, Apple products everywhere (#TeamiPhone). If I’m going to sit in an office for 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, I would like it to look nice, not like a doctor’s office.

Similarly, my Dad has instituted something at his work that I love: a casual dress code. I really enjoy dressing up, but wearing a suit or even dress pants and a nice shirt everyday sounds exhausting. Please let me come to work with my shirt untucked and in a nice pair of sneakers, and I promise I will be much more focused than I would be with a tie and dress shoes on all day long.

Most important to me is the culture. I want to work in a place where everyone collaborates and there’s a mutual respect. Ideally, I’d love to be friends with my co-workers, but at least I’d like us to be able to work together in an environment where we aren’t in constant competition. Being a member of the Sackett family means that you are inherently a monster competitor and it’s exhausting. As much as I love to be competitive from time to time, I don’t want to work in an environment where everyone is constantly pitted against each other, instead of working together to achieve a common goal.

An added little bonus to my list would be food related days/events. I hear that a common event in some companies is Bagel Fridays and I’m ALL about it. I strongly relate to Stanley on Pretzel Day at Dunder Mifflin and if you don’t get the reference, exit the page (once you finish reading of course!) and go watch season 3, episode 5 of The Office. 

My job wish-list might not seem as wild as you may think. I’m not asking for a new iPhone or a new car when I commit (although that’d be nice!); I’m asking for things that are pretty common. Although I still can’t wait until my mid-60s when I’ll have no responsibilities, getting some items checked off my wish-list could help make my time in the workforce more pleasant.

 

 

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a GenZ? Ask us in the comments and I’ll have Cameron respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for Cameron? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with him on LinkedIn.

Are you willing to reduce your office cafeteria prices for female employees?

Posted on by
1

I read an article a few weeks back in Detroit about a local gym that is offering a reduced gym membership for females. Males pay full price, females pay 30% less because females make less than males. How does that sound?

From the article:

“Ever wonder why XY>XX? WE DO! The Gym values its male members tremendously but we don’t value them a THIRD more than our female members!” the ad reads

The ad goes on to read that women can join for $20 a month with no initiation fee. The Gym Lake Orion’s ad promoting that women will pay 1/3 less for membership than men. (Photo: Rich Garvin)

The manager and operator of the gym, Rich Garvin, wants to even the playing field for women due to the pay disparity between men and women. “It’s just difficult to observe injustice or unfairness,” said Garvin. “I think it’s important that we don’t sit idly by … if we do, we condone it. And I don’t condone it.”

Garvin also said he’s not raising anyone’s prices. “You can get a $30 a month membership (for $20) … having a discount, encouraging women to come in, in an attempt to make it a little easier for them to do so, I think is a good business practice and just the right thing to do.”

So, first let me call B.S. on this entire thing and say I don’t believe Rich the owner one even little bit!

The type of gym that Garvin runs is more likely frequented by weightlifting dudes. He knows if he can get more women to sign up, even more, weightlifting dudes will show up. This is just good old fashion marketing, wrapped in activism for a hook.

Can you imagine if you actually tried to do something real like this in your workplace!?

Hey, employees!

This year we’ve decided instead of actually fixing pay inequality, we’re just going to reduce the cost of everything females might pay for in our environment! Health insurance is now 30% off! Coffee at the coffee bar is now 30% off and get scones buy 1, get 1! All full priced menu items in the cafeteria will be 30% off for women only.

Male employees don’t get upset, you make more money!

Have a great week!

HR

Yeah, that probably wouldn’t play well! But, is that the ‘right thing to do’?

So, this sounds completely crazy. Of course, you would never charge employees differently for the same access to healthcare and cafeteria food! I mean come on!

But, what do you do when you know you have certain employees making less for doing the same work? Do you automatically do what’s right and adjust their salary to make it equitable?

Giving your female employees a 30% discount on cafeteria food and drinks sounds ridiculous, but so does paying a woman less for doing the same work.

Career Confessions from GenZ: How Does GenZ Want You to Communicate With Them?

Posted on by
8

Career Confessions from GenZ is a weekly series authored by Cameron Sackett, a Sophomore at the Univesity of Michigan majoring in Communications and Advertising. Make sure you connect with him on LinkedIn:

One of the things that my generation is most notorious for is our cell phone usage. According to The Washington Post, current teens are spending over 1/3 of the day on their phones. Now, I’m going to be upfront and say that I’m an avid phone and social media user, and I understand the potential dangers of spending too much time on your phone. On the other hand, I don’t foresee my cell phone usage habits or my generation’s changing significantly any time soon.

Due to this, companies are looking at changing how they recruit their candidates. As I am just dipping my toes into the workforce, I am starting to see how the interview process may be changing in the age of cell phones.

The majority of my communication with potential employers for all jobs that I’ve had has been e-mail. This is something that I’m all about. E-mail is like a more formal version of a text, where you don’t have the pressures to respond immediately and you can spend time thinking of a more formulated response.

Personally, I think that e-mail should stay as the main form of communication for communicating with candidates. I’ve heard that some companies are trying to implement texting or text messaging like platforms into their hiring process. Here’s the way I see it: when I text someone, I’m usually typing in an informal way and I typically respond ASAP. Also, a lot of errors occur in texting, like typos or texting the wrong person. These are easily fixed when you’re talking with your friends but not necessarily a potential employer.

I’m totally open to texting in the interview process, but I have my concerns.

Now when it comes to the more direct form of communication, let me dispel a common myth about Gen-Z: we don’t hate talking on the phone, we hate calling people on the phone. There is a HUGE difference between answering a phone call and calling someone and personally, I would much rather answer the phone than call someone. In addition, I think most of my generation does better in a face-to-face style of an interview because it allows for more of a personal connection. This may scare many people, but when a relaxed environment is created in an interview, I think that many of us would come to prefer in-person interviews.

Lastly, I don’t want to see recruiters messaging me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat or any other social media platform. This isn’t because my social media profiles are inappropriate, thankfully I have some monitors on my profiles to keep them nice and clean (I see you Mom and Dad), but it’s because I see social media as a place that I can use for fun and enjoyment. I don’t want to have to constantly worry about messaging potential employers back on these platforms when I just want to use them to share/follow people and things I like.

Now, I am on the older side of Gen-Z (my 14-year-old brother is in Gen-Z too, how crazy!), so my opinions might not hold for the kids currently in middle and high school. I can say this: I (and most other college students) check our emails just about as much as you do, so that’s a good place to start!

_________________________________________________________________________________

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a GenZ? Ask us in the comments and I’ll have Cameron respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for Cameron? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with him on LinkedIn.

Besides being a Dad with a network, I thought the best way to get my son some ‘real-world’ experience would be to put himself out there as a writer! Let him know what you think and let us hear what you would like to learn about the next big generation entering our workforce!