Two of my employees keep butting heads and can’t seem to communicate with each other. They have both approached me separately to talk about the other, but I can’t seem to get the full story. Do you have any advice on how to manage this?
The legal side of things: Part of managing conflict properly is knowing when the conflict is crossing a line legally. This is known as high-risk conflict. What are the employees saying when they come to you? Have there been any accusations of harassment, discrimination, physical threats, etc? The kind of complaint that’s being brought up makes a difference in how you approach things.
While high risk conflict is a real concern, it’s much more common for workplace conflict to be in the low to medium risk zones. Still, It’s important to remember that things aren’t always as they seem. You said yourself you haven’t been able to get the full story, so at this point you’re just piecing things together. It’s always safest to avoid making any decision about how to address conflict until you’ve covered all your bases.
Now for the human approach: As a manager, your response to employee conflict can make all the difference. That’s why a key part of conflict resolution is communication.
Talk to both employees (separately) and ask questions to get to the core of the issue. When did this conflict start? What are some examples of what they’re upset about? These conversations should help you decide what the best course of action is.
Think about how your response to the conflict impacts your employees and the situation as a whole. You don’t want to place the responsibility to solve the conflict solely on the employees. Your job, after all, is to manage.
That doesn’t mean that the employee(s) won’t have to do anything - depending on what is going on, there may be changes one or both employees have to make to their attitude or work style, for example. However, you should make sure that employees feel heard and know that you are actually going to help address the issue.
As always, make sure you document this all - from the initial complaint to the steps you take to resolve the issue. You can log all written and verbal communications by adding notes to the employee files in backstageHR.
We cover examples of effective vs. ineffective manager responses, the different levels of conflict, and much more in our new Conflict Guide. Check it out here. If you’re a CEDR member and conflict has got you stumped, contact the Solution Center.
I’m curious about what kind of health benefits other employers in my industry offer. I’m thinking of switching things up this year. What options do I have?
The legal side of things: If you’re a large employer, which when it comes to health insurance means having 50 or more full-time employees, you are required to offer a group health plan under the Affordable Care Act. There are some specific requirements your plan has to meet to comply with the law, and we recommend working with a health insurance broker on finding a group plan option that works for you.
If you’re a smaller employer, it’s entirely up to you whether you offer any type of benefit. Group health insurance plans tend to be the most common choice for providing a health benefit, but there’s more out there! A group plan can also be challenging if you have a small team, since the premiums are high and you may not have enough employees wanting to participate in the plan.
A good alternative can be a Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRA), which allows your employees to enroll in their own healthcare plan and you reimburse them using pre-tax dollars. If you’re not sure whether an HRA or a group health plan would be right for you, CEDR’s partner Take Command Health is able to walk through those options with you.
Now for the human approach: We get this question from members quite often. It makes sense to want to know what employers in similar situations are offering and see how your policy compares. Because employers have so much flexibility when it comes to benefits, there’s not exactly a “standard” policy for most employers to follow.
We recently sent a poll about this topic to our newsletter subscribers specifically because we get this question so often. You can view the results here.
You’ll see that there are a lot of businesses that provide some type of alternative benefit, such as providing a stipend each month to help with the cost of insurance. This is often done because a new hire negotiated for a health benefit when accepting their offer but you don’t have a group plan, or a group health plan isn’t feasible for the business.
On the surface, this seems like the ideal option for an employer that doesn’t have the ability to offer their own plan but wants to offer something. Unfortunately, there’s several drawbacks.
Stipends given outside of an HRA are taxable income. It has to go through your regular payroll and be subject to taxes. So this does increase your payroll taxes, and the net amount to the employee is less than what an employer contribution would be under an HRA or a group health plan.
Since stipends are viewed as part of the employee’s compensation, those amounts have to be rolled into overtime pay calculations which can again increase your payroll costs.
Last major problem we’ll mention here is that employees quickly come to see the stipend as part of their regular wages, making it a lot harder to stop providing the benefit down the road.
You can read more about each of these kinds of health coverage and more in the CEDR Guide to Employer Health Benefit Options.
My employee hasn’t shown up for a shift in three days and hasn’t contacted anyone to let us know what’s going on. Should I consider this job abandonment?
The legal side of things:There’s no firm rule on how many consecutive days an employee has to miss for their absences to be considered job abandonment. That said, general HR best practice is two days of no-call no-shows. That’s typically the standard unemployment administrative law judges will use when distinguishing between a resignation and a termination.
Why not call it abandonment or resignation the first time they're a no–show? Waiting until day 2 leaves room for the possibility that the employee had a true emergency and could not get in touch. Think sudden hospitalization or something similar. But two consecutive workdays of not calling in? Even the unemployment judges at that point are rarely going to buy there being a legitimate excuse.
Even if the employee doesn’t formally resign, there’s still several steps in the separation process. For example, you’re still required to issue their final paycheck according to state law. Note that some states have different timelines for resignations vs. terminations. If you offer any paid time off benefits, make sure to follow your state’s payout laws and include this time in their final paycheck.
Now for the human approach: It’s easy to jump to conclusions and assume that an employee who doesn’t show up for work for three days has no interest in coming back, especially if they’ve been disengaged or have a history of performance issues. However, that assumption can hurt you.
The employee hasn’t contacted anyone, but have you made any attempt to contact the employee? If you have and haven’t received any response, we would recommend reaching out to their emergency contacts as well.
There could be a legitimate reason, such as an accident or medical issue, for why the employee hasn’t been able to contact you. In any case, not making an effort to connect with the employee can make it easier for them to claim they were planning on returning to work and were in fact terminated.
The scenario above isn’t the most likely. We’ve talked many, many members through this issue and the majority of the time, it is in fact job abandonment. The point here is that you need to cover all your bases before making that call. Once you’ve gone through the proper steps and determined that it is indeed job abandonment, you can send the employee a letter confirming their resignation.
As a reminder, your employee handbook should include your attendance and no-show policies. If you’re unsure about how to handle a no-call no-show, or an employee gives you a reason for being absent without contacting you, contact an HR expert to talk about your options.
