As they return to work, there are number of other factors that continue to to stress out employees.  Here is a list of the most frequently voiced issues that come between employees and the companies for which they work:

• Lack of upward mobility -  Gone are the days when a factory worker might feel content turning bolts on the same conveyor belt for 40 years.  As technology, workplace innovation, and changing norms spark evolutions in every industry, workers desire the opportunity to acquire new, more significant skill set.
• Toxic work environment -  Given that workers spend as many work week hours with their co-workers as they do with their familes, they desire to have work environments that are comfortable.  Their leaders and environment can make the job site a place of great enthusiasm or pervasive misery.
• Poor Administrative Leadership - If a business is a ship, the sailors want the captain and officers to head out to sea and engage in some interesting cruises.  The crew seems to get discouraged and apathetic however when they come to accept that the ship is just going to stay tied to the dock.
• Lack of Company Loyalty to Employees - This concern precedes the pandemic layoffs by several decades.  Employees want to sense that the company recognizes their value.
• Inadequate Compensation - This goes beyond the notion of simply being underpaid.  Compensation implies not only a salary but also a range of benefits that can contribute to an employees health, future retirement, programs to achieve a work life balance, and even recognition for a successful job well done.  This could include Group Health Insurance, 401k Plans, and Paid Time off policies among other benefits.

There are a great many opinions about how a company can promote loyalty within its workforce.  Before focusing on the specefics however, it's worth noting that virtually every solution emphasized by researchers and experts has at its core the notion that management should be engaged with workers.  This is to say that the best and most creative ideas for promoting corporate enthusiasm among a company's workers will not succeed if the employers are not regularly interacting with the employees.  Here is a compilation of some of the best ideas for promoting a positive and team focused culture in the workplace:

• Demonstrate esteem for all employees -  The idea behind getting rid of office walls originally had less to do with cost-cutting and increased productivity than it had to with a form of workplace equality.  When employees are treated iwth honest and deference they tend to return the same.
• Establish a desired corporate culture- If upper management maintains a postive attitude of integrity it will pervade the entire business.  Also, never underestimate the power of establishing written policies about behaviour that includes an emphasis on mutual respect.
• Empower your leaders - More than anything leaders need to feel comfortable with transparency.  Employees want to be able to know why they and the company are making the decisions that they are.
• Insist on enhanced training and continuing education- If employees are encouraged to build build upon their knowledge and abilities it will not only demosntrate to them that they are valued, but also will ensure that they are able to keep up in the rapidly evolving business world.
• Defined policies for dispute resolution - This idea extends to all personnel matters.  Create and continually update your employee handbook and follow it assiduously in all pertinent matters.  Employees evaulate the degree of fairness they receive based upon the degree to which the rules were applied equally to all.

Having discussed the reasons workers experience greater than normal stress these days and having explored those things they most want in a workplace, there is a new tool that employers are turning to in an effort to relieve their employees from some of the financial stresses they frequently encounter -       On Demand Pay.

This boils down quite simply to an app employees can download on a smartphone that allows them to draw an immediate advance on their regular pay. Several important principls about this should be stressed:

• The money they are receiving is money they already earned that they would otherwise receive in their paycheck
• This process does not in any way interefere with the company payroll methods.  It is simply a way of shortening the time period between an employee earning and being paid for it. 
• The funds drawn by the employee automatically come out of the employee's next check.
• It doesn't cost the company anything to participate in this program.  The employees pay a small, flat fee anytime they wish to use on-demand earnings this way.

Jason Field

Business Development

Tapcheck

Los Angeles, CA

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