Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

HR Compliance Developments Going into 2025

According to Dayforce research, nearly half (48%) of surveyed leaders believe that increased compliance and regulatory complexity will impede their organization’s ability to achieve its business objectives. This could be due in part to the sheer number of emerging workforce compliance trends and how many different areas they impact. 

This shift requires substantially more oversight than the compliance function needed in the past. To help simplify the situation, I’ve rounded up key workforce compliance trends that should be top of mind for HR professionals through 2025.  

Non-compete agreements 

In certain nations, including Malaysia and Mexico, most post-termination non-compete agreements have generally been prohibited for some time. Then, in the spring of 2024, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission published a final rule that would effectively ban all non-compete agreements between employers and workers. The exceptions to the rule pertain to existing agreements with senior executives, sale-of-business non-competes, and causes of action that accrued before the rule’s effective date of September 4, 2024. 

Expanded leave requirements 

Globally, the parameters of paid and unpaid leave are constantly in flux. Most interesting is the increase in laws that allow employees to take paid time off (PTO) for any reason. Generous accommodations for new parents and senior caregivers are also becoming an expectation for employers of a certain size. Just this spring in Japan, Parliament passed legislation requiring companies to offer flexible working options to employees with young children to help them balance work with child rearing. 

Minimum pay thresholds 

In the U.S., the beginning of 2024 was marked by an increase in the minimum wage in more than 20 states, and more changes are occurring in individual states and localities as the year progresses. Canada continues to raise its minimum wage every year, while European countries continue to realize the effects of 2022’s Minimum Wage Directive, which took aim at in-work poverty. If you have employees in the U.S., you should note that in April, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued a rule updating overtime pay requirements. This rule increases the minimum salary threshold for employees to be exempt from overtime pay, with the first phase having taken effect on July 1, 2023 and the second phase on January 1, 2025. 

For more compliance happenings, read the full article on Dayforce.com.

Essential New Read: The Skills-Powered Organization

My friend Ravin Jesuthasan is a leading voice on skills-based employment. His latest book, The Skills-Powered Organization: The Journey to the Next-Generation Enterprise, which he cowrote with Tanuj Kapilashrami, is an essential read for leaders who are in the difficult spot of touting the importance of skills without fully understanding how to shape their organization accordingly. This Q&A with Ravin captures some of the highlights, and I hope you’ll pick up a copy for a deeper dive.

Ravin, now did you come to collaborate with your co-author?

Tanuj and I have known each other for about 4 years. We both sit on a couple of committees at the World Economic Forum and have long had a common interest in how skills can unlock significantly greater productivity, agility and engagement. My interest and the ideas in this book stem from and build on the four books I have written with my good friend John Boudreau. Perhaps most importantly, we wanted to write a practitioner’s guide. A book that was rigorous with research and frameworks AND clearly demonstrated how leaders can make these changes in their organizations

Can you share why you have focused your content on skills?

The growing volatility and velocity of change in the world necessitates a different set of building blocks for work. The IMF estimates that uncertainty over the last 3 years is up 2.5X over the previous 30 years. For companies, crisis is no longer a one-off event, but a recurring one. Think of the 4 shocks we are experiencing today: 

• The climate crisis
• The energy impact from the invasion of Ukraine.
• Geopolitical issues with China and the Middle East
• The technology shock and especially AI

All independent events but with massive feedback loops. Each of these 4 shocks is world shaking, but cumulatively happening in a 18 month period, puts us in unprecedented times. In Work Without Jobs, John Boudreau and I introduced the concept of a new work operating model and this books builds on an extends that idea with a deep dive into why skills need to be the currency of work; in order to enable organization to respond (and thrive) in this rapidly changing world of ours

What does this journey look like for a typical organization?

In our research we identified 3 core capabilities of the skills-powered organization. The capability of work design is essential to understanding the true demand for skills and how they can best be connected to work. Talent development is pivotal to ensuring skills are acquired in a timely and efficient manner based on the demand signals from work design. Last, talent deployment is the critical capability of enabling the expression of the demanded skills across a variety of work engagements with optimal efficiency, effectiveness, and impact

How did Standard Chartered Bank get started and what can its experience teach us?

As I mentioned, the thing that was attractive to me about partnering with Tanuj was to tell the story of a progressive organization that was bringing these ideas to life and fruition. Standard Chartered is a 170-year-old, leading international banking group with a rich history and legacy.

For Standard Chartered, the skills-powered journey started with transitioning the narrative from jobs to skills. It began with a commercial business case based on its own strategic workforce planning analysis, highlighting the jobs and skills within the organization that would soon no longer be relevant (which it refers to as “sunset” roles). This might be due to changing client expectations or the evolution of technology and automation of tasks. New jobs and skills would also be created and demanded as a result (“sunrise” roles). The strategic workforce plan (SWP) also highlighted the broader impact of the changing demand for skills—the disproportionate displacement of junior roles and the resulting cost implications as the organization shifted from a pyramid to a diamond shape.

Additionally, it highlighted the potential impact on gender diversity due to the higher number of women currently employed in sunset roles and with many sunrise roles being currently more male dominated. The tangible economics of “build” versus buy versus borrow versus bot,” and the far-reaching impact of decisions related to upskilling and reskilling, created a compelling foundation for the board and the global management team who made skills a critical element of the overall strategic plan.

What do you believe leaders who want to build a skills-based organization should do first?

As we often say, you have to eat the elephant one bite at a time. There are 3 things we defined as being pivotal to this journey:

1. Establish a North Star to anchor your journey: So, what do we mean by a North Star? It is a clear statement about your vision to guide your direction and program of work to becoming a skills-powered organization. A North Star is simple and enduring—it is your touchstone to ensure you remain on track and is clearly aligned to addressing specific business needs.
2. Experiment, experiment, experiment: We have seen through the Standard Chartered examples the power of prototypes and experiments in enabling the shift in mindset, skill set, and toolset. Experiments are critical for testing and applying the design principles underpinning the skills-powered organization before they are deployed across the organization
3. Focus on the key enablers of success: Too often organizations believe the answer to any problem is to throw technology at the problem. We define 8 critical enablers for this journey (including AI and technology):

•  Leadership (where every change journey starts)
•  Governance
• Employee engagement in the journey
• Culture and change management
• The HR function and its role
• Functional processes, such as finance, IT, and legal
• Technology and AI
• Foundational enablers (e.g., skills taxonomy and data)

Thanks, Ravin! 

A New Era in Tech-Based Recruitment

Communicating with the passive candidates whose email addresses you’ve stored in your CRM isn’t a new idea. Taking a page from the marketing team’s playbook and segmenting those candidates into groups based on a common qualifier (location, career stage, etc.) isn’t necessarily new either.

What has changed in recruitment segmentation, however, is the power of technology to help talent professionals do it more effectively. First of all, since recruitment segmentation came onto the talent acquisition scene as a popular strategy, the ability to automate email campaigns and customize their cadence to the individual has grown far more sophisticated. This is done by creating intelligent workflows.

According to IBM in a recent white paper, intelligent workflows are processes created by combining artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to enable organizations to segment candidate pools and decide how to modify the experience based on the candidates’ expectations and needs.

Organizations can use segmentation and automation hand in hand to design the recruitment experience based on candidate availability, work effort and experience and to provide different levels of service at the right point in time in the hiring process.

“Automation is especially crucial in terms of speed of engaging candidates — and keeping them engaged throughout the entire process,” wrote the IBM authors. “Even with higher unemployment rates, top candidates are in high demand, and competition to hire is fiercely competitive. Organizations that do not automate the process to the degree that it both entices and meets the candidates where they are are likely to see top recruits accept offers with competitors.”

The IBM authors pointed out that by deploying intelligent workflows, HR leaders can access real-time information that gives them a complete picture of their labor and talent pools. The strategy also allows for a more conscious approach to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). “Instead of having to wait for historical data and react to changes that have already occurred, recruiters can create and change experiences to open doors for candidates in ways previously not possible,” they said.

They cited the example of one company that shifted from a center-based employment model to a co-location model, which meant that 40% of their employees would work virtually. But many employees in contact center positions preferred working on site, and attrition occurred.

The company then used segmentation to determine talent availability and virtually manage the recruiting process through texting, self-scheduling and video interviews. Because so many of the organization’s employees did not want to make the move to remote work, the organization added a personalized touchpoint to encourage top talent to remain in the pipeline. As the organization examined the data and was informed of the shift in preferences, recruiters adjusted their approach to improving hiring success.

Of course, the best use of software-driven intelligent workflows incorporates human recruiter creativity. My favorite example is from a Recruiting Daily blogger, Christine Hampton. She has used intelligent workflows to segment and automate communications to passive candidates by, among other things, the rejection reason and recruitment event.

“If a candidate tells me they are on a contract till December, then slamming them with jobs right now will just frustrate them,” she wrote. “I note if the candidate is interested, and I set up a multi-channel cadence to stay in touch till their contract is complete.”

Christine explained that you can have separate segments for a myriad of rejection reasons – “just started a new job,” “happy in current role,” “can’t meet salary requirements,” etc. Not only does this approach align with future recruitment marketing campaign messaging, but it also saves time and creates a platform for starting personal conversations with candidates.

She added that if you’ve been recruiting for a while, you have likely attended many events. “You meet a candidate at a job fair, and they pique your interest, but the timing isn’t right. Three months later, an opportunity arises, and you think, ugh, what’s the name of that lady I met three months ago? She had red hair, about five feet five inches, and had glasses,” she said. “I am sure I’ve had a few missed connections in the past before the CRM existed.  Now I keep a folder for the specific event and date, and the candidate is easier to find (and communicate with).”

The bottom line is an ironic one. In this new era of recruitment segmentation, the best TA professionals will leverage technology to become even better at developing strong human relationships with their top candidates.

To learn more about how to leverage technology to build a stronger talent pipeline, check out my recent webinar with SilkRoad and ERE Media!

New Book from Barry Moltz Promotes Agility Among Business Owners

The following is a guest post from my longtime friend and colleague, Barry Moltz. Barry's new book (linked below) is a must-read for business owners emerging from the pandemic crisis.

My work with thousands of small business owners over the past 20 years inspired me to write about how to make changes.

Well, that is not exactly true. More accurately, my frustration and the resulting challenges working with small business owners forced me to write this book. Let me explain.

I’m often asked by many companies and small business owners I don’t know to help them. They are referred to me, hear me speak at an event, or find me online. Typically, they’re feeling stuck by a problem, and their companies can’t move forward. For example, their business growth is stagnant or worse—they’re either losing money or not making enough to grow their companies or be motivated to keep going. After analyzing the situation, if I agree to work with them, we mutually decide on a go-forward strategy. I help them assemble a detailed plan to make any changes and the critical success factors and actions that need to be completed. They agree that taking these specific steps will help them solve their issues, grow their companies, and make more money.

And then, almost nothing happens.

Unfortunately, most small business owners implement a few easy steps but never take the critical or difficult ones that could make a difference. This has long frustrated me since we worked hard to develop a well-thought-out plan and were both excited to see the result. While it may not work perfectly once it is put into action, I know the plan will move their companies forward from where they are stuck now. I also feel bad because they are paying me their hard-earned cash to help them, and we both had agreed on the actions they needed to take and the time frame they needed to do it in. In the past, I tended to blame the inaction on myself. Did they not trust me enough to take significant steps, or did I just give them bad advice? However, after doing the research, I realize I was not the main reason for their inability to change.

I wrote my new book, “ChangeMasters: How to Actually Make the Change You Already Know You Need to Make” to figure out why small business owners do not make the changes or take the actions that they know will help them reach their goals. Where is the gap between the sincere intent to make these changes and the actions to actually do it? What holds most people back and keeps them stuck on the same path over and over again? Why are they still so comfortable not making any changes and staying on the path that clearly does not work for them—one that is not adding to their happiness or feeling of success? What steps do they need to take to slowly break free and start to make those changes today that will help them in the long run?

In this book, I reveal much of the psychological research around why change is so hard for so many people and the real-life strategies that every small business owner can employ to make the changes they need to make in their companies right now.

It starts with:

Narrowing the one change you want to make.

Identifying how you are currently doing that now.

What is driving the change (emotional, financial, etc.)?

What will happen if you don’t make the change?

What is the smallest first step you can make to start that change?

I am not trying to convince you to make a change but rather help you make the changes you already know you need to make but have not been able to do.

Creating a Culture Where Employees Feel Safe

Each month, the UKG Workforce Institute poses a top-of-mind question from the world of HR and include several perspectives from our advisory board (including me!)

“What are two ways companies can create a culture where employees feel safe speaking up, asking questions, and/or providing feedback?”

“Rather than focus on aggregate corporate culture, ask where in the organization this is a problem that is impacting business results, then look deeply at the individual cases to determine the root cause. Be careful about assuming speaking up and asking questions is the natural and correct way of being. There are many ‘good’ reasons why managers may not want employees to speak up, and we need to be open to understanding — not merely dismissing — those reasons.” — David Creelman, chief executive officer, Creelman Research

“First, start early by conducting candidate experience surveys. Not only does the organization make sure its strategy is on target but, when done right, it sends the message that the organization values employee feedback. Then, practice empathetic listening. This will help to reduce misunderstandings and create better connections.” — Sharlyn Lauby, author, HR Bartender blog

“Leaders should look at their new hybrid cultures as an opportunity to boost employees’ sense of belonging and take diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) efforts to the next level. Consult your employees — especially those in marginalized groups — before establishing new rituals to ensure they are as fair and inclusive as possible. Additionally, hybrid-workplace communication must be more frequent and purposeful, with employee-listening mechanisms built into the daily experience, so people can provide opinions and feedback on their needs and wishes. Scheduled digital messages and verbal check-ins are standard protocol top to bottom, but what about side to side (peer) and cross-functionally?” — Alexandra Levit, author, Humanity Works

“First, start with trusting your employees and train managers to trust their employees. Consider this sentiment from Aron Ain, the CEO of a well-respected worldwide company: ‘employees have to un-earn my trust.’ State clearly to employees that you trust them and also state the kinds of actions or events that will likely result in losing your trust. Second, develop managers in such a way that they communicate with their employees whenever they are on the pathway that will result in a loss of trust, unless the respective employee changes their path. Clearly state (to an employee) how to change the path in such a manner that will avoid the loss of trust. It is only from a position of mutual trust that we can expect employees to be open in their communications to management and each other, such as asking questions, making suggestions, or providing feedback.” — Dennis Miller, assistant vice president of HR and benefits administration, The Claremont Colleges

“Employers create a culture where employees feel safe giving feedback by 1) asking for it and 2) responding positively and transparently to it. Asking for feedback should begin from their first interview encounter with the company. Ask candidates about their experience: what went well, what could have been improved, whether or not the experience makes them more/less excited to work with the company. Within their first 30 days of work, ask about their onboarding and orientation experiences, as well as how the job is measuring up compared with what was shared during the interview process. Ask about their benefits, their compensation, the systems being used, the processes being followed, their managers, the coworkers — everything you can think of! Solicit their feedback as early and often as possible. Once you receive their feedback, respond to it. If you send out a survey, publish the results. If you ask an employee for their feedback, thank them. If your employees make suggestions, acknowledge them, especially when you use those suggestions as a factor in business decisions. If you cannot use their suggestions or take action on something they’ve requested, explain why the petition isn’t possible at the time (or ever). When we treat our employees like capable adults who contribute value to our organizations, they will feel the safety and support they need to behave as such.” — Sarah Morgan, chief excellence officer, BuzzARooney, LLC

“Vulnerability goes a long way in creating a culture where employees feel safe speaking up or asking awkward questions. For example, leaders shouldn’t be afraid to anticipate what’s on the mind of employees, go first, and ask and answer the tough questions that people are thinking. Technology can also aid in the creation of a culture where employees feel secure providing feedback. Using surveys and communicating the anonymity behind the questionnaire can be one way to ensure workers that employees’ psychological safety is a priority.” — Laurie Ruettimann, host, Punk Rock HR podcast

Everyone Can Have Good Brand Positioning

Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management professor Philip Kotler made a career breaking down brand management into its component parts. His 2003 book Marketing Management defines brand positioning as the act of designing the company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the mind of the target market. Brand positioning is at the intersection of brand and product, and business owners must focus on both.

Why Companies Should Lead With Brand Positioning 

Simply changing an offering or releasing a new one may not be enough to affect purchase behavior because the customer has no reason to trust you. “Many companies put the product at the center of their organization. They lead with a laundry list of product features, and if the company has more than one category or wishes to expand, it can be tough to get customers to shop the whole brand,” says Sunny Bonnell, co-founder of branding agency Motto and co-author of Rare Breed: A Guide to Success for the Defiant, Dangerous and Different.

"Plus," Bonnell continues, "when product overshadows brand, the company is always at the mercy of the market.” By also considering the mark a brand’s image makes on a customer’s heart, effective brand positioning primes customers to view new and improved products as favorable and credible choices. “A better bet is to put your brand’s point of view at the center of the business. The brand is the emotional hook that ties everything together, superseding the product," she adds. 

“Brand positioning is essential because it captures your unique proposition, value statement, essence, aesthetics and appeal,” says Liem Le, CEO and founder of virtual community Little Lion. “Often, it may be your first interaction with the customer, and you want to make an ‘amazing, I can't look away and want to hear more’ first impression. It may be your only chance to ‘pitch’ your audience, so you can’t skimp.”

“Brand positioning that means something special and appeals to your audience creates tremendous value and can work wonders for your bottom line, employee morale and customer loyalty,” says Bonnell. “Strong brands are like a magnetic force. They draw people in and become revenue-generating machines, yielding benefits like ability to charge a premium.”

When they feel connected and close to a brand, customers are also more likely to accept product mishaps and foibles. This is why some argue that you perfect your brand positioning before you adjust an existing product or experiment with a new one.

For the rest of the piece, head over to the AMEX Business site.

This Veteran's Day, Broader Your Diversity and Inclusion Strategy

According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, as of June 2019, 200,000 service members transition from military to civilian life annually. In the last several years, the federal government has taken many steps to support them — including the Joining Forces Initiative in 2011, which called for companies to hire and train 1.5 million military veterans and their spouses, and the the Forever GI Bill passed in 2017, which ensures that student veterans can take advantage of the educational benefits they’ve earned at any point throughout their lives.

However, the transition to civilian employment may not always be an easy or successful process.

Per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate among veterans has more than doubled year over year to almost 7 percent this year. And according to Gallup’s 2019 annual survey on employee engagement, a majority of all employees including veterans have jobs in which they are not engaged.

The lack of job security and satisfaction is a profound concern. In an October 2020 piece for Military Times, Leo James reported that more than 6,000 veterans take their lives every year.

In light of the escalating stress and financial pressure associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, this Veteran’s Day we need to do more than simply thank our former service members. Leaders can make their veteran employees feel included and valued by leveraging these specific strategies.

1. Address their military experience.

DeVry University’s Green Zone Elite training program offered several tips to increase leaders’ veteran sensitivity, and this one is at the top of the list.

Leaders should encourage veteran employees to discuss their military service in the context of the job.

“Take the time to understand and respect the transferable skills veterans bring to the table by virtue of their Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) and leadership skills informed by their rank,” DeVry recommends in a press release.

“In the workforce, I quickly advanced with the project management and leadership skills I learned during my time in the Navy,” said DeVry University alum Dan Fettig, a former enlisted sailor and current Navy Reserve Intelligence Officer and the T-TAURI Engagement & Capabilities Implementation Manager at Lockheed Martin Space.

“As I navigated my career, I have found there’s an opportunity for employers and fellow team members to learn more about how the military trains veterans with transferable skills and better understand how and why veterans operate the way we do," Fettig says.

2. Provide veterans with structure.

Although this is more difficult to do in pandemic times, we must remember that veteran employees are accustomed to a set workday, timely meetings and predetermined performance objectives. It may be necessary, especially when a veteran employee is new to the organization, for a manager to outline exactly what their days will look like and the precise expectations upon which they will be evaluated.

3. Emphasize teamwork.

Most veterans have a finely-honed sense of camaraderie and are motivated by a shared purpose and strong relationships. Veterans should connect with their teams early and often, even if engagement is entirely remote.

If a leader has a choice between an individualized or team approach to a project, it’s more psychologically beneficial for many veterans to work alongside others.

Leaders can also boost veteran morale by helping them help others.

“Through our Veterans Employee Resource Group, we run campaigns to have our veterans refer other veterans,” Mike Thiel, a U.S. Navy veteran and talent acquisition manager at Micron Technology, said in an October 2020 Tech Republic conversation about helping military veterans transition into civilian jobs with the help of artificial intelligence.

“To give these opportunities to veterans who are very scared of transitioning, to be able to provide something for them, is huge,” Thiel said.

4. Use a retrospective lens.

According to DeVry, military veterans are accustomed to “After Action Reviews” that assess successes and opportunities for improvement.

Once a project or assignment is completed, civilian leaders can follow suit by hosting a reflection meeting to discuss the progress and outcomes. Postmortem meetings are good practice for everyone, but they may be doubly useful to veterans who may feel insecure about the differences between military and civilian employment.

5. Educate your workforce about stereotypes.

Civilian employees may view veterans in a certain light and may expect them to only be qualified for specific jobs and/or have specific personality traits and attributes.

Leaders are well-served to create training programs—or at least self-serve online information—that educate their workforces about veteran myths versus realities. Anti-bias initiatives targeted to other forms of discrimination should also include former service members.

6. Be mindful of mental health challenges.

In his Military Times piece, Leo James reported that since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, funding for veterans' mental health care has increased fourfold from $2.5 billion to $10 billion a year. This is good news, but we must keep in mind that in the wake of the pandemic, everyone’s mental health needs will increase and veterans may be a particularly vulnerable population.

Leaders should check in frequently with veteran employees, ask about their general well-being, be on the lookout for warning signs of depression and anxiety (isolation, moodiness, changes in work performance, etc.) and provide helpful resources.

This Veterans Day, so many organizations have illustrated their commitment to former service members by hiring veterans in record numbers. Now, in conjunction with overall diversity and inclusion objectives, they must ensure their leaders are equipped to support this group in meaningful ways.

Please visit the original piece at American Express Business.

Managing Your Data in the New Normal

Amid social distancing, stringent lockdowns and a second surge of COVID-19 cases, business owners can no longer rely on splashy launch events, mom-and-pop friendliness or a dynamite location to build customer relationships. Today, every business is competing for eyeballs and purchases made on digital channels.

Data-based approaches can help you stand out more effectively.

To successfully stand out, you’ll need to understand data optimization basics, including gathering customer information, responding to real-time feedback and reducing inefficiencies that lose revenue and diminish trust.

Gathering Customer Information

Data optimization commonly refers to collecting all the information at your disposal and maximizing the speed and comprehensiveness with which business-critical information can be extracted and analyzed.

If you have a website, this could be the most sensible place to start data collection. You likely have a handle on how many people are visiting and what pages they’re viewing, but are you using an analytics tool to assess where they are coming from, the content they spend the most time reading, and which page prompts them to leave? Do you know where your most active visitors live, how old they are and what products or services they most frequently purchase? These questions form the foundation of your business, and therefore are critical to your data-optimization efforts.

Feedback forms or emails are essential, but in today’s climate you’ll likely want to be more proactive about seeking out qualitative information about how customers value your offerings and their experience with your organization.

You don’t have to invest in a pricey or unwieldy customer survey to do this. Instead, try pushing a few questions to targeted visitors based on the defining characteristics above. You can also use analytics features embedded in the big four social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter) to ascertain what people are saying and the general sentiment around your brand.

If your customer relationships are rich with engagement points, CRM software can be a wise investment. These tools help monitor your interaction with current and potential customers, leverage data analytics to track customer history and details and suggest data-driven strategies to grow relationships.

For more where this came from, check out the full article at AMEX Business.

Effective Writing is More Important Than Ever

Good writing is infrequently considered a business skill, but when practiced, it can make everything from brand building to email marketing more effective. It's especially important now that businesses have been relying on digital channels to stay connected to their customers during the pandemic, finding themselves competing for attention with virtually every brand that has a social media presence.

Now is an excellent opportunity to hone your writing skills and craft a style that stands out in the era of social distancing — not to mention emoji, images and acronyms. 

1. Make your communication easy to digest.

Writing may not have been your strongest subject in school, and English might not be your first language—but as a business owner, your credibility depends on steering clear of grammatical pitfalls.

While you can absolutely take advantage of the “smart” features in word processors or presentation software to catch spelling and grammar errors, don’t rely on them exclusively. When in doubt about a word, phrase or sentence, check out online resources like Grammarly, 5 Minute English, FluentU and Grammar Girl.

If you’ve ever received advice for giving a memorable presentation, you might have heard this rule: “Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them.” This guidance applies to every form of written and oral communication. If you want your reader to absorb the message, share what you're about to say and why, explain the details and then summarize the key points.

Aim to get to your main idea quickly. Pretend you only have less than 30 seconds to sell a product to a just-browsing customer in a store, and make your document easy to scan with large headings.

2. Know your audience.

Your content and tone will vary depending on the target of your communication — for example, is your audience an investor, a customer segment or a group of frontline employees?

Think through what this audience wants to hear from you. What is this group worried about? What answers to do they need?

You may need to do some research via survey and interviews to determine where and how your audience consumes content. If your audience will be more receptive to certain messages and completely turned off by others, you want to know that before you start writing. A few questions to consider asking:

• Do people read an internal blog or e-newsletter?
• Are they on public social channels or is real-time instant message more their thing?
• Do they value expert advice?
• If they visit multiple channels, what would they most prefer to read on each one?
• Is there a particular type of content that your organization is best suited to deliver? 

Remember that your communication must strike a balance between what you need to say and what your target audience wants to hear. This is admittedly tough, so even if you are writing to a large population, it may help to imagine a single person reading the communication.

For the rest of my tips, head over to the AMEX Business site.

Becoming a Remote-First Organization

Companies looking to improve their work-from-home (WFH) productivity may want to adopt some of the principles of distributed work.

The most evolved version of work from home, distributed work refers to operations that are remote-first rather than office planned. Companies like WordPress and Zapier have been 100 percent distributed for years, with all of their employees — from their executives to HR to sales and marketing — working from their homes and offices around the globe.

Having entered this situation so suddenly, it's no surprise that many business owners have been winging WFH. But given that working from home and distributed workforces will continue even as we emerge from COVID-19, business owners can use the pandemic as a catalyst to permanently transform work for the better. According to a March 2020 Gartner survey of 317 CFOs, "74 percent of respondents said they will move at least 5 percent of their previously on-site workforce to permanently remote positions post-COVID 19."

Being strategic about distributed work demands a wider lens. Now is the time for businesses to adopt some of the principles of distributed to prepare for a remote-friendly future.

1. Get comfortable with managing remote teams.

To fully realize the benefit of distributed work, small-business owners must get away from a strong preference for employees to work onsite and use company space and equipment at scheduled times. If you only allow remote work in an emergency, you won't have the necessary infrastructure in place to support fully distributed work, and employee access will likely be slow and clunky. 

Being comfortable with distributed work requires trusting your employees. You can cultivate trust by stepping up communication and letting your people know you support them and are giving them the freedom to do their jobs when and how they feel it is most appropriate and effective. 

Boost your comfort level by tracking the productivity of WFH employees during the pandemic. You don't have to use software to record their every keystroke or micromanage their daily tasks — it's more about having a concrete idea of whether employees are achieving their goals as efficiently at home as they did in the office.

When it comes time to ease restrictions, seek employee feedback about an onsite schedule that makes sense. By using a survey tool or individual interviews to collect this information on a broad scale, you may find that some employees are more comfortable with returning to the workplace than others. This can help guide your decision regarding how distributed your post-COVID organization will be.

2. Embrace asynchronous work.

Accepting that closings will be long term, many companies have simply moved in-person activities online. Tools like Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Google Hangouts facilitate real-time meetings. Employees can access share drives, email and company applications remotely, but everyone is largely working the same hours whether they have distractions (e.g. children doing eLearning) or not.

On a recent podcast, Automattic CEO and WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg shared a secret for effective distributed work: a move from synchronous (everyone performs work tasks at the same time) to asynchronous processes (employees work on their own time). For instance, a synchronous process might require people to travel, sit in a meeting room and provide immediate reactions to an idea. An asynchronous process might involve presenting an issue via instant message, prompting team members to think through it in detail and then respond within a predetermined deadline.  

Organizations can shift to asynchronous processes by first evaluating whether set business hours are necessary, and if so, for whom (e.g. customer service staff). Consider how you might change your performance model to evaluate employees on the quality of their contributions rather than the time it took to produce them. For example, an agile performance management system relies on continuous feedback to establish, accomplish and reconfigure goals that align with business needs, and employees are measured on their progress against these goals in real time. 

When you stop relying on synchrony, you have the freedom to source talent across the globe. Think about assembling teams based not on who is geographically proximal, but who is best for the job. This way, you can move operations forward 24 hours a day as employees "pass the baton" to overseas colleagues.

For the rest of the post, head over to the AMEX Business site.