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In today’s edition:
Diversity transparency
🩺 Reproductive health
Snap poll
—Kristen Parisi, Adam DeRose, Sam Blum
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Angelina Bambina/Getty Images
In 2023, women and people of color still don’t have enough seats at the corporate table. And while there are some state agendas aimed at rolling back DE&I efforts, professional services firm KPMG is forging ahead with its goals of being a more equitable workplace, according to its latest figures.
Zoom in. KPMG, which has more than 35,000 employees in the US, announced “Accelerate 2025” in 2020. The US initiative aims to bring on underrepresented talent across its team, according to the company’s website. KPMG believes it has ambitious goals, as it looks to double its representation of Black workers in partner and managing director roles by 2025, and have 50% of those roles come from underrepresented groups overall.
It’s one thing to set such an ambitious goal, but it’s quite another to remain accountable to tracking progress.
The latest numbers from KPMG provide a glimpse into how the company is doing. Underrepresented groups now make up 42.6% of partners and managing directors, up from 39.3% in 2020. Black professionals made up 7% of KPMG’s workforce in 2022, up from 6.1% in 2020, with a 9.3% goal by 2025. Finally, the number of Latinx employees at KPMG reached 8.1%, up from 7.1% in 2020, but still a ways from the 10.7% goal.
Elena Richards, chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer at KPMG, told HR Brew that this transparency is key because it builds trust internally and with the community.
Keep reading.—KP
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Hiring and onboarding aren’t cheap, but turnover is the costliest business expense in the game.
So, what’s your turnover turnaround plan? To start, you’ll need strategies for compensation, pay equity, and pay transparency to attract and retain the employees you need.
Luckily, ADP TotalSource®, the largest Professional Employer Organization (PEO), will give you a dedicated HR pro to do just that. Sweet stat alert: PEOs can lower employee turnover by 12%–14%.
Your TotalSource professional will also keep a focused eye on your expenses to help you stay on track. Probably not a coincidence that businesses using a PEO grow 7%–9% faster (just sayin’).
Take ADP’s free interactive quiz to see if a PEO is right for you and get a free personalized benchmark report to turn valuable insights into pivotal action.
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Robyn Beck/Getty Images
As the federal courts weigh the fate of abortion pill mifepristone, companies and HR departments can do little more than wait.
“These cases impact employers of all sizes in every state,” said Jen Stark, co-director of the Center for Business and Social Justice at BSR, a nonprofit group that works with companies on social justice issues. “There’s a lot of impact, but candidly, very little [that] companies can do within their walls at this moment.”
Following the Supreme Court’s decision last summer to overturn Roe v. Wade, many companies developed policies preserving access to reproductive healthcare for their employees in states where access is banned or restricted, including covering or subsidizing the cost of transportation expenses to access care.
“[For] employers who haven’t yet [begun to] or can continue to evaluate and commit resources and update programs and policies to ensure that access to reproductive healthcare is inclusive and accessible across their workforce, that’s certainly still a need,” said Stark, who has held roles at Planned Parenthood, the University of North Carolina, and the American Red Cross. “But at the same time, while we all watch what ping-pongs between the courts in the days ahead, there’s not more bus, plane, or train tickets that employers can help offset and offer.”
According to Stark, it’s on business leaders to speak out against this ruling publicly, and to communicate behind the scenes to lawmakers in states advancing additional abortion restrictions about health and safety implications to their workforce, as well as their effects on a business’s ability to attract and retain talent.
Recent BSR research found that almost 90% of adults who accepted a job that required them to move considered the state’s social policies before committing.
Keep reading.—AD
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Hannah Minn
These days, layoffs are commonplace, but the ways in which employers are conducting them are not. (See: mass Zoom layoffs and staff reductions via email.)
The most recent example of the evolving layoff playbook came when McDonald’s closed its US corporate offices so it could lay some employees off remotely. We asked HR Brew readers if they’ve ever heard of this tactic and if they’ve ever had to administer layoffs in this fashion.
Among respondents, 28% said they’d never had to conduct layoffs in this manner, while 6% answered that yes, they have done exactly that. The majority, or 67%, answered that they’d never heard of deploying this kind of method to lay off staff.
Experts told HR Brew that this strategy could become an increasing norm as hybrid models become more common, but there are alternative and perhaps more compassionate ways to downsize.
As ever, if you hear of companies laying people off in unconventional ways, email [email protected]. For completely confidential conversations, ask Sam for his number on Signal.—SB
Today’s quick question:
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Today’s top HR reads.
Stat: 53% of women feel lonely in the workplace, according to a new survey. (Fortune)
Quote: “I have to reiterate: ‘Hey, I am a human. My name’s Brookelyn, and I’m real.’”—Brookelyn Castro, a sales rep, speaking about the growing prevalence of companies using bots to be more competitive in consumer sales (the Wall Street Journal)
Read: Move over “quiet quitting,” and say hello to “turnover contagion,” a phenomenon that occurs when workers quit in a domino-like fashion. (BBC Worklife)
Shift into hire gear: By deploying Paradox globally, GM’s hiring team saved $2m in recruiting contractor costs…in under 6 months. And the benefits didn’t stop there. Get the full scoop in Paradox’s latest webinar.*
*This is sponsored advertising content.
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Samsung exposed factory workers in Vietnam to toxic chemicals, a whistleblower alleges.
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An internal memo at JPMorgan Chase mandates that all senior managers have to report back to the office full-time, with some exceptions.
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Amazon CEO Andy Jassy expressed confidence that cost-cutting measures would be beneficial for the company.
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The law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell told employees that their bonuses could be reduced if they don’t adhere to the in-office attendance policy.
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Catch up on the top HR Brew stories from the recent past:
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