Month in Review: July 2021 at The Workforce Institute at UKG

Today’s post comes to us from the executive director of The Workforce Institute, Dr. Chris Mullen, Ph.D., SHRM-SCP, SPHR.

As we close out the month of July, I wanted to provide you all with a recap of the content we published this month from our terrific board of advisors at The Workforce Institute. Here’s a look back at the topics we’ve been covering, in case you missed anything:

The People Purpose Podcast Bonus Episode: Reboarding – The Return of the Employee

The People Purpose Podcast hosts Julie Develin and Chas Fields explain what “reboarding” is and share some of the business implications and what it means to the organization and for employees. Listen to this episode to learn what you need to consider when bringing employees back to the office after an extended period of time, including culture shifts, backup plans, and technology that can help with identifying training gaps.

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Putting Design Thinking to Use in Your Organization

Program Manager of Human Insights at UKG and seasoned design thinking connoisseur, Cecily Tyler, wrote the second in a two-part-series on design thinking, covering the nuts and bolts of applying design thinking in your organization and sharing some of the benefits of design thinking in organizations.

In her previous post on design thinking, Cecily wrote about what design thinking is and how she came to believe in it as a useful framework for enabling innovation.

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The People Purpose Podcast: Mental Health and its Impact on Work

Mental health is an area of focus that continues to grow in importance for employers. In another timely podcast episode, Chas and Julie dive into the importance of destigmatizing mental health at work by covering practical elements to increase organizational awareness surrounding the important relationship between managers and employees and how organizations can build upon Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) by taking an intentional and strategic approach.

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Report Details the Impact of COVID?19 on Government Workforces

Since 2009, the Center for State and Local Government Excellence at ICMA?RC has issued an annual state and local government workforce trends report.

Workforce Institute board member and former Executive Director of the International Public Management Association for Human Resources (IPMA?HR), Neil Reichenberg, contributed a post on this new research detailing the impact of COVID-19 on government workers and how governmental organizations are responding to these shifts in preferences and needs.

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The People Purpose Podcast: Building Business Continuity Through Recruitment

The number of job openings that are available in the United States is at an all-time high. What does this mean for companies that are having trouble keeping up with their operations due to staffing shortages?

In this episode, Julie and Chas explore ways to ensure business continuity by active recruiting through a lens of a saturated job market, or “the Nuclear War on Talent,” as Chas describes it.

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Equitable HR Practices Expert Sarah Morgan Joins The Workforce Institute at UKG Board of Advisors

We were so excited to welcome our newest member, Sarah Morgan – equitable HR practices expert and Chief Excellence Officer at BuzzARooney, LLC, who joins our distinguished board of advisors. Sarah brings decades of expertise and a passionate vision for creating real change – not only in the ever-evolving world of HR, but throughout society.

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Essential Workers Are Everywhere — And They ALL Need Our Support

Immediately upon joining the board, Sarah contributed this important post on the danger of losing sight of our essential and frontline workers who have been back (or never stopped going) to their workplaces, risking their health and safety daily to provide service and support to the rest of us – a trend that has been observed as we focus our attention on the group of employees just now starting to return to office and traditional work settings.

While safe returns for those who have been working remotely throughout the pandemic is important, it cannot come at the expense of those who continued to leave their homes during the thick of COVID-19, and this is an area that we can all contribute to.