Hiring managers checking social media to create candidate profiles:  Nearly 75% of hiring managers responding to a recent survey said they check applicants’ social media, results from ResumeBuilder.com show.  The majority said they aim to obtain answers to questions they can’t ask job candidates; managers said they most often look for a worker’s age, political activity, gender identity, and marital status.  Managers were largely split on whether they tend to pass on candidates based on their information found online. Some of those responding to the survey (41%) said the practice of looking at candidates’ social media is “definitely” acceptable at their company. Slightly fewer said they believed it was acceptable. Only 6% said they believed it was unacceptable, and only 2% said they know it is; 14% said they were unsure.  If managers are doing this, EEO liability could attach. Managers need to be warned not to do this even knowing that they want a complete profile of the candidate.  Source:  HR Dive 6/20/23

Number one perk for attraction and retention of younger employee pool – paid time off:  A survey conducted by Georgetown University, in partnership with Bank of America, found that young adults looking to change job/fields cite paid time off (65%) and a flexible work schedule (58%) among the top benefits impacting their choice of an employer. In addition, 73% of young adults want benefits that can travel with them if they change jobs. The Young Adults and Workplace Wellness Survey examines attitudes and priorities of 1,032 working-age Gen Z and younger millennials (ages 24-35) as these young adults return to the office. Business for Impact's AgingWell Hub at Georgetown's McDonough School of Business worked with Edge Research in fielding the survey. Also, 54% of female young adults say a more flexible work schedule or environment is a significant factor in considering a new employer compared to 44% of male young adults. Source: Georgetown University

More employees want a 4-day workweek: Nearly nine in 10 professionals (89%) across the world are keen for their employer to implement a four-day work week, indicating stronger demand for the scheme as more organizations trial it, according to a new report.  In a survey among 2,000 professionals, Robert Walters found that 46% of the respondents would be willing to sacrifice socialization and relationships with colleagues for the implementation of a four-day work week.  Only few of the respondents would accept a 10 to 15% pay increase (16%) or office-based perks like complimentary lunch or breakfasts (2%) over a shorter work week. The findings come as a four-day work week emerges as the most desirable perk on a job description for 44% of employees, followed by the ability to work from anywhere (28%). "With 46% of professionals willing to forego socials and business relationships, companies should be mindful that poor company culture comes at a price," said John Mullally, Managing Director of Robert Walters Hong Kong, in a media release.  Source:  HR Director 6/27/23

Looking for workers, try the 80-year-olds:  Roughly 650,000 Americans over 80 were working last year, according to the Census Bureau, about 18% more than a decade earlier. Some people have been pressed back into duty by inflation and stock-market volatility, while the fading pandemic made others who took a break feel more comfortable clocking in again. Many cite a simpler reason to keep working—they just want to.  Nearly half log full-time hours. Though some run a cash register or pump gas to stave off boredom, 80-somethings are more common in professional, managerial, and financial roles than in service jobs, federal data show. Workers over 80 are a sliver of the overall U.S. labor force and a rarity in the highest echelons of business.  In the S&P 500, 1.6% of board members are at least 80, up from 1.3% a decade ago, according to Equilar, which tracks corporate leadership trends. Two chief executives in the index are older than 80, Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett, 92, and Teledyne Technologies’ Robert Mehrabian, 81, who returned as CEO in 2021 when a younger executive retired.  Source:  Wall Street Journal 6/25/23

Is proximity bias a social equity issue? Recent U.S. Department of Labor data shows that women are more likely than men to work from home, a reality that means preferential treatment toward in-office workers may disproportionately harm female employees, experts say. Of the approximately 50 million women with a full- or part-time job who worked on an average day last year, more than 40% — about 20.5 million employees — logged remote hours, the BLS found. For men, the figure is 28%, equating to about 17.5 million workers of the 62 million who worked an average day in 2022, according to the bureau. The widespread adoption of remote work has pushed proximity bias — the tendency for managers to give preferential treatment to employees who are more physically nearby — into the spotlight.   The BLS' findings are supported by an American Bar Association study that found female attorneys were less likely than their male counterparts to work in the office and that women are typically "significantly" more concerned about detrimental impacts that teleworking could have on their careers, like missing opportunities for business development or being overlooked for assignments, paid less, reviewed less positively, or viewed as less committed to their jobs. Source:  Law360 6/27/23

Helicopter parents just can’t help themselves: Anxious parents have shepherded their kids through high school, college, and a pandemic. Now, they’re entering the workplace. Recruiters and hiring managers say they are seeing an uptick in parents inserting themselves into their children’s professional lives, calling up hiring managers, applying for jobs on their behalf, and even showing up on the job to help mediate conflicts. Human resource professionals say they tend to take a dim view of parental pop-ups on jobs sites, and that too much intervention risks making their children seem unmotivated, or excessively dependent on help from others – even in interviews.  In Zoom interviews with prospective candidates, Shawna Lake, a recruiter and career coach in Zionsville, Indiana, sometimes sees parents moving around in the back of the room. “You’ll sometimes even hear them talk, whispering, ‘say this,’ or ‘ask about that,’” she says of questions about perks and whether a job can be done remotely.  Source:  The Wall Street Journal 6/7/23