How to Establish a Severance Plan

No business owner or manager wants to think about letting employees go. Unfortunately, it is a part of doing business that your organization should be prepared for. Help your business prepare for the unexpected by setting up a severance plan with the tips below from Prescott HR. 

What is a severance package?

A severance plan includes a set lump sum payment that a terminated employee receives when they are let go from a company through no fault of their own. You may have seen this in the news recently as tech companies like Meta and Twitter laid off large numbers of their staff. Companies typically have to lay off employees for reasons like economic hardship or when they downsize. It’s important to note that severance packages are not required by law. However, establishing a severance package is a gesture of goodwill as an employer that you want to take care of your staff in the event that unforeseen layoffs or downsizing. 

 

What’s included in a severance package?

Your organization’s severance package can include a variety of different benefits. It should be designed to help carry a terminated employee through several months of unemployment while they search for a new job. Here are some considerations to include in your organization’s severance package: 

  • A lump sum of money, usually based on the salary and number of years the employee has worked at the company 
  • A continuation of insurance benefits, including health, vision, dental, or life insurance
  • A lump sum payout of any unused sick days or paid-time-off days
  • Stock options, if your organization has them
  • Assistance with finding a new position for the terminated team member

 

Document your organization’s severance package

When you’re ready to form a severance package for your organization, it’s essential to put the plan in writing to keep your team on the same page. A severance package should be a legal document that clearly states the terms of the agreement the organization is taking with any future terminated employees. Discuss your options for drawing up this legal agreement with a lawyer or your organization’s legal team. The purpose of creating a legal document for your organization’s severance package is to prevent a terminated employee from filing a future lawsuit. This agreement should include why the employee was terminated, the conditions the terminated employee must meet to receive the severance package, and the right of the organization to end or change the severance package. You can even include a non-disclosure agreement that the terminated employee must sign to receive the severance package. 

 

Work with Prescott HR

Does your organization need help with establishing a severance package? We are here to help! Prescott HR offers a wide range of services that can help your organization evaluate your current policies and incorporate new ones, as needed. Our unintimated HR practices allow us to be focused and effective, providing your business with precisely what you need. Give us a call today at 443-351-8818 or contact us online.

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  • Kimberly Prescott
  • Blog
  • January 23, 2023

Employee Retention Strategies for the New Year

Finding and keeping good employees has become a major challenge for organizations across the country in recent years. It’s not enough to just recruit the best talent, how do you provide a better work experience so they want to remain with your organization? Learn our tips for employee retention strategies below!

 

Why Employee Retention is Important

The American labor market is highly competitive right now, meaning it can be harder to attract and retain a good workforce. Your organization must be willing to adjust its standards to meet employee expectations and remain competitive within your field. Here are our tips for retaining your employees in the new year and beyond:

 

Start at the Top

One of the top reasons that employees leave their roles is poor management. Luckily, poor leadership can be fixed! Start by evaluating how your organization’s upper-level management interacts with team members. Managers must be included in annual performance reviews, where their leadership skills are assessed thoroughly. If you identify a manager who needs work, there are training and leadership development opportunities available to help them improve.

 

Evaluate Your Benefits Package

Next up, your organization needs to evaluate how your employee benefits package compares to other companies in your industry. A strong employee benefits package can entice even the most loyal workers to leave their current roles. The pandemic has introduced a world of new options for employee benefits that have become strong hiring tools, including more flex or remote work options, childcare stipends, parental leave, lower healthcare costs, and more. 

 

Encourage Your Employees to Grow

Another top reason that employees leave their roles is that they feel like they cannot grow within their current position. To excel at employee retention, your organization must be willing to invest in your current team by providing opportunities for promotions and continuing education. Set up a time each year to review your employee’s long-term goals and ask how they see their roles evolving within your organization. Also, make it clear to your team that your organization is always willing to invest in its future by providing continuing education stipends or advanced leadership training.

 

Recognize and Reward Accordingly

Finally, a major point of contention with employees who leave their position is feeling undervalued. Strive to make consistent employee recognition a goal for your upper management team. Rewarding your employees does not even have to be an elaborate gesture; it can be as simple as giving a team member a special shout-out before a group meeting, or leaving a thank you note on an employees desk when they aren’t expecting it.

 

Work with Prescott HR

Does your organization need assistance with employee retention? We are here to help! Prescott HR offers a wide range of services that can help your organization recruit AND retain a dependable workforce. Our unintimated HR practices allow us to be focused and effective, providing your business with precisely what you need. Give us a call today at 443-351-8818 or contact us online.

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  • Kimberly Prescott
  • Blog
  • January 2, 2023

Prescott HR | Re-evaluating Your Organization’s Benefits in 2023

The start of a new year is a great opportunity to re-evaluate your current employee benefits package. A competitive employee benefits package can help recruit new talent, retain your best employees, and increase office morale. If you are ready to re-evaluate your employee benefits package in 2023, keep reading for some helpful tips from the experts at Prescott HR!

 

The Importance of Employee Benefits

As briefly mentioned above, employee benefits are an incredibly powerful hiring and employee retention tool that deserves your organization’s full attention. Your organiztion should prioritize a time to re-evaluate the benefits you offer at least once per year to ensure you are remaining competitive with other companies. A strong employee benefits package can help your office run more efficiently by conveying to your employees that you value them. Without a strong employee benefits package, you may see employee retention decline, lower recruitment rates, and low employee engagement.

How Can My Organization Re-Evaluate Our Employee Benefits?

Now that you understand the importance of a strong employee benefits package, what should you do next? We recommend taking the start of the new year as an opportunity to sit down with your upper management team to discuss potential changes to your employee benefits. Here’s how: 

  1. Arrange a time to sit down and discuss only the benefits package. Do not try to fit this discussion into a meeting with several other topics. Employee benefits will require the full attention of a dedicated meeting in order to be successful.
  2. Think about what your employees want. Try to put yourself in your team members’ shoes. What sort of perks do you think that your team would benefit from?
  3. Research other organizations. In order to remain competitive in your field, be sure to research other employee benefits packages from businesses like yours. 
  4. Don’t be afraid to ask your team! Send out an anonymous survey or poll your employees. Ask them to weigh in on the kinds of employee benefits that matter to them. You may be surprised how they answer.
  5. Clearly write out your employee benefits package. In order for this to be successful, you need to clearly state your employee benefits in writing. Also, be sure to include when a new employee will start receiving benefits after being hired. 

What are Some Common Employee Benefits?

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed the way that employers and employees think about their benefits packages. Here are some common employee benefits that you may want to consider adopting at your organization: 

  • Extended paid-time-off
  • Flex or remote work options
  • Paid maternity and paternity leave
  • Childcare compensation
  • Employee wellness packages
  • Continuing education reimbursements
  • Student loan payment assistance
  • Retirement account contributions

Work with Prescott HR

Does your organization need help to re-evaluate your employee benefits in 2023? We are here to help! Prescott HR offers a wide range of services that can help your organization evaluate your current policies and incorporate new ones, as needed. Our unintimated HR practices allow us to be focused and effective, providing your business with precisely what you need. Give us a call today at 443-351-8818 or contact us online.

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  • Kimberly Prescott
  • Blog
  • October 24, 2022

Gen Z and Workplace Expectations

Gen Z, also known as “Zoomers,” is the generation demographic succeeding Millenials. Born in the mid to late-1990s and early 2010s, this generation is starting to enter the workforce and they are bringing a slew of new expectations with them. If you aren’t sure how to manage Gen Z’s workforce expectations at your organization, keep reading for a few helpful tips from the experts at Prescott HR!

 

What is Gen Z Like?

To better understand Gen Z, it’s helpful to take a look at trends in the generation’s overall upbringing. Gen Z is the first generation to have grown up with access to the Internet and portable electronic devices from a very early age, which is why they are often dubbed “digital natives.” Studies have shown that members of Gen Z are a more educated, well-behaved, stressed, and depressed demographic than generations before them. These are all important considerations to keep in mind when hiring Gen Z employees at your organization.

 

What are Gen Z’s Values?

While this is a broad assumption of an entire generation’s values, there are trends in what Gen Z expects between an employer and employee relationship. Here are several important factors:

 

Work-Life Balance

This is a big one. Flexibility at work is a top priority for Gen Z workers and often falls at the top of the list for this generation’s job seekers. Gen Z values their professional lives almost as much as their personal lives, so they want to work for an organization that does not compromise their freedom outside of work. We recommend offering flex or remote work options to your employees to help establish a proper work-life balance in the office.

 

Health and Wellness

In line with a better work-life balance is access to important mental health and wellness resources at work. As mentioned above, Gen Z is one of the most stressed generations of our time. Having access to health and wellness programs at work is a great way to appeal to this younger generation and demonstrate that you value their well-being in and out of the office.

 

Social Issues

Gen Z is a very organized generation, especially when it comes to social and cultural issues affecting our country. They are one of the most involved generations in organized social activities that advocate for change. That’s why many Gen Z employees want to work for organizations that align with their values. As an employer, this could mean offering paid time off for your employees to volunteer with an organization that matters to them.

 

Work with Prescott HR

Does your organization need help with understanding Gen Z and their workplace expectations? We are here to help! Prescott HR offers a wide range of services that can help your organization evaluate your current policies and incorporate new ones, as needed. Our unintimated HR practices allow us to be focused and effective, providing your business with precisely what you need. Give us a call today at 443-351-8818 or contact us online.

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  • Kimberly Prescott
  • Blog
  • September 5, 2022

Here’s What Quiet Quitting Means

There’s a new workplace buzzword popping up in the news that you may have already heard by now: quiet quitting. If you own or manage a workplace organization, you’re going to want to keep reading about this new phenomenon.

Learn more about quiet quitting from the experts at Prescott HR. 

What is quiet quitting?

An important thing to understand about the term “quiet quitting” is that it’s not a literal term. Rather than assume quiet quitting is when an employee decides to leave their job abruptly and without much fuss, there is actually a deeper meaning behind it.

Quiet quitting is when an employee performs all of their regular work but refuses to engage with the “hustle culture” of many workplace organizations by not engaging in work behavior that goes above and beyond their job description. 

What are the signs of quiet quitting?

If you run an organization, you may have noticed some behavior shifts over recent years with your employees. Here are several signs of quiet quitting that your team may be performing: 

  • Not engaging in or attending team meetings
  • Reducing contribution to team projects
  • Lack of passion or enthusiasm for their role
  • Arriving late to work or leaving early
  • Displaying a negative attitude at work or during team functions

Why are employees quiet quitting?

Quiet quitting is far from a new phenomenon. Many employees have been engaging in this behavior for years, as it is not technically required for a team member to go above and beyond in their role to perform their work well.

So why is quiet quitting coming up in the news recently? The COVID-19 pandemic changed many things in the workplace, including team members’ comfort with voicing how they are feeling in their roles.

The rise in quiet quitting could be due to a lack of growth opportunities in your organization, unmanageable workload, low pay, or overall employee burnout. The COVID-19 pandemic has allowed employees to evaluate the overall satisfaction of their careers, which has led many to seek more work-life balance. Quiet quitting can help facilitate that balance.

Why is quiet quitting problematic for employers?

While we are all required to perform our work roles within our designated job descriptions, many companies often rely on employees who are willing to step up and take on extra tasks outside of their usual roles. When an entire workforce starts engaging in quiet quitting, this can disrupt the usual flow of your organization’s business.

Plus, quiet quitting can lead to lower team morale within your organization, which can lead to hiring or employee retention issues. 

Work with Prescott HR

Is your organization experiencing team members who are quietly quitting? We are here to help! Prescott HR offers a wide range of services that can help your organization evaluate issues that may be contributing to a lack of engagement amongst your employees, including burnout or lack of growth opportunities.

Our unintimated HR practices allow us to be focused and effective, providing your business with exactly what you need. Give us a call today at 443-351-8818 or contact us online. 

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