Trending HR topics: #metoo, social media, mental wellness
Aaron Call, G&A Partners’ executive vice president of sales and operations in the western United States, recently participated in a human resources roundtable hosted by Utah Business Magazine, along with other HR and business experts from across the Utah community.
Below are Aaron’s top takeaways about the #metoo movement, social media’s place in the workplace, and mental wellness.
How has the #metoo movement impacted your employees?
“The #metoo movement has created a very unique awareness. We’ve seen an uptick in awareness of people willing to just go talk to a manager or just speak out a little bit more about what’s actually taking place. For a long time, employers just stood behind their employee handbook and said, ‘That’s our guideline.’ If we can really talk about how that kind of behavior fits within our culture, then I think we’ve taken that step of being acutely aware of what’s happening and incorporating good behavior into our culture to where the guideline is the minimum standard.”
In regards to employee communication within and outside the workplace…
“One more piece is when you add in social media. Employees nowadays are more comfortable with each other because they’re following each other on Instagram or Facebook. So somebody posts something on Facebook, a coworker likes it, so all of a sudden there’s this thought connection. There’s this comfort level at work. And maybe outside of work it was just fine. But as a work conversation, it’s not okay.”
Where are we in regard to technology and social media? Are we embracing it yet? Are we banning employee social media?
“We give our employees things to post about all the time. We’re constantly sending out, ‘Hey, here’s a cool article that highlights something that we’re good at. Post it.’ And everyone can do that from their work computer. We want people to understand that if they come and work at G&A, that we’re embracing [social media]. But it is very business specific. We’re constantly looking for ways to make it a bigger part of what we do.”
We’ve seen a rise of mental health wellness. Do you have any programs like that?
“It comes up in almost every interview we do. We start with the physical side, all the weight loss and all the fun things you can do. And then mental health gets layered in a way that I’m already in the wellness program, I’ve used the EAP [employee assistance program], I’ve got great health insurance, and now there’s this other piece that I’m afforded.”
To read the full roundtable discussion, including real-world examples from other panel participants, click here to read the full recap of the HR Roundtable in Utah Business Magazine.
