Save your marriage, someone needs to return to the office: As offices open up, and for some partners who have been navigating the challenges of living and working together under the same roof for more than a year, the prospect of one or both spouses returning to the office is a mixed bag of emotions. One survey by Groupon estimated that the additional togetherness is the equivalent of an extra four years of marriage. And while some research has found that forced togetherness brought couples closer, other research found some negative feelings brewing too. “I would say to my husband, ‘I married you forsaking all others, but not forsaking all others,” says psychologist and leadership consultant Camille Preston, founder and CEO of AIM Leadership. “I was going to have dinner with others. I was going to socialize with others.” Source: Fast Company 6/30/21

If I go back, do I need to wear a mask?  Nearly six in 10 U.S. adults (57%) believe employees should be required to wear a mask when working at an on-site work location, even after being vaccinated for COVID-19, according to results from the latest American Staffing Association Workforce Monitor® online survey conducted from June 10–14 by The Harris Poll among 2,066 U.S. adults aged 18 and older. Notably, 70% of Blacks/African-Americans and 64% of Hispanics/Latinos believe employees should be required to wear a mask when working at an on-site work location, even after being vaccinated for COVID-19, compared with 50% of Whites/Caucasians.  Interestingly enough, while two in three U.S. adults (66%) believe employees have a right to know if their co-workers have been vaccinated against COVID-19, a majority (60%) also say their personal vaccine status is no one’s business but their own.  In particular, 70% of Baby Boomers say employees have a right to know their co-workers’ COVID-19 vaccine status compared with 66% of Millennials and 60% of their Generation X counterparts. The largest support for privacy regarding their own COVID-19 vaccine status comes from Generation X (68%), closely followed by Millennials (67%), with half of Baby Boomers (52%) sharing this sentiment.  Source: American Staffing Association 6/24/21

New attraction tool—remote work as the new signing bonus? After almost a year and a half of working from home, many white-collar employees say they are not willing to return to corporate offices full-time. Even whispers of returning have been enough to send some professionals searching for an exit—and plenty of bosses are welcoming them to new jobs with the promise they can work remotely, at least most of the time. “Remote is going to be the new signing bonus,” Marc Cenedella, founder and chief executive of Ladders. “Instead of dangling, ‘We’ll give you $10,000 if you sign for this job,’ it’ll be: ‘Instead of having to commute 35 minutes every day, go to work, and get in your car and drive 35 minutes home, you can work from your home office all the time.’”  Source:  Wall Street Journal 6/26/21

Tennessee to require organizations to post signage if they allow transgender use in multi-person restrooms:  Tennessee will become the first state in the United States to require businesses and government facilities open to the public, to post a sign if they allow transgender use of multi-person bathrooms, locker rooms, or changing rooms associated with their gender identity. The law became effective July 1.   Organizations would be charged a class B misdemeanor to those who won’t post the signs within 30 days of being warned they’re breaking the law.  The law requires that the following sign be posted wherever transgender people are not prevented from using the multi-person bathrooms, locker rooms, or changing rooms of their choice: “This facility maintains a policy of allowing the use of restrooms by either biological sex, regardless of the designation on the restroom.”  The ACLU will be filing a suit against this law.  Source:  Tennessean 5/19/21, NBC News 5/28/29,

It’s a good time to be in HR: Human resources job postings are up 52.5% from their pre-pandemic baseline. That's far outpacing the average job posting bump of 30.5%, according to data from the jobs site Indeed.  Companies are beefing up their HR departments to navigate the return to work. Firms are facing two massive challenges in the next year or so: They need to figure out what balance of remote and in-person work functions best for their workforce, and they need to fill open roles as droves of workers quit in "the great resignation."  Both problems require HR professionals to solve. Companies are looking for remote work experts to help managers run hybrid or all-remote teams. And they're seeking experts in recruiting and onboarding to fill jobs quickly and seamlessly, says Ann Elizabeth Konkel, an economist at Indeed. Before the pandemic, the human resources department was on the automation chopping block. Now, as workplaces undergo rapid and dramatic transformations, it's essential.  Source:  Axios 6/24/21

But automation may still replace HR: At Amazon, machines are often the boss—hiring, rating, and firing millions of people with little or no human oversight. Stephen Normandin spent almost four years racing around Phoenix delivering packages as a contract driver for Amazon.com Inc. Then one day, he received an automated email. The algorithms tracking him had decided he wasn’t doing his job properly.  The 63-year-old Army veteran was stunned. He’d been fired by a machine. Increasingly, the company is ceding its human-resources operation to machines as well, using software not only to manage workers in its warehouses but to oversee contract drivers, independent delivery companies, and even the performance of its office workers. People familiar with the strategy say Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos believes machines make decisions more quickly and accurately than people, reducing costs and giving Amazon a competitive advantage.  Yet, the people side of relationships will be most affected.  Source:  Bloomberg 6/28/21

Recruiters need to increase use of social media to attract Generation Z: 65 million members of Gen Z account for more than 20% of the U.S. population but are expected to comprise as much as 30% of the workforce by 2030, according to government data.   “For this new generation of digital-native workers, which spends around six hours a day on social media, it makes perfect sense for employers to take that a step further by meeting them on their social media platforms,” says Kevin Parker, CEO of HireVue, a hiring platform that features video interviewing.  TikTok, the popular social media platform known for viral dance videos and quirky content, soon could be used as a recruitment channel that showcases youthful creativity.  For Gen Z-ers, uploading a video resume will feel natural, explains Arran Stewart, co-founder and chief vision officer of blockchain-powered recruitment platform Job.com. For employers, the format will paint a clearer picture of who a candidate is. “There’s so much more that, as humans, we read out of visible videos than we do from some words written on a piece of paper or within a PDF of a resume,” Stewart says.  Source: EBN 6/28/21