Chris James, Author at Flare HR

How to address mental health in the workplace

Posted on October 14, 2020August 9, 2023 by Chris James

Addressing mental health in the workplace is becoming increasingly important – for several reasons. First, employees can’t perform their best when they’re not mentally well. Work also tends to be a primary source of stress for many people, which means that companies have a responsibility to help alleviate some of that burden. Given this, it’s critical for HR teams to prioritise and support the mental health of their workforce. We’ll share ideas to help you accomplish this.

The importance of mental health in the workplace

Before we get into the recommendations, let’s take a closer look at how mental health issues are impacting your employees. According to the 2019 Thriving Workplace Survey National Report, which surveyed over 10,000 Australian workers in a broad range of industries and occupations, 50.6% of the Australian workforce had experienced a mental health condition.

Unfortunately, work was one of the top reasons for these mental health issues – with two in five employees reporting that their workplace either caused their condition or made it worse. This is largely due to factors like high-stress deadlines, unmanageable workloads, and demanding clients. As a result, these work-related mental health conditions cost approximately $543 million in workers compensation and $750 million in life insurance claims paid to Australians.

Despite these pervasive issues, more than half of Australian workers don’t believe their employers have taken any actions to improve their wellbeing. This demonstrates that there’s a clear gap between what employees need to perform their best and what companies are actually doing to support this need.

Ideas to help employees with mental health at work

If you truly want to address the mental health of your employees, there are various steps you can take as an HR team. Some of these recommendations come in the form of additional benefits, while others are behaviors you can start putting into action today. Choose whichever ideas are the most aligned with the needs of your workforce, and go from there.

1. Invest in mental health benefits

Now is a great time to update your benefits package and include offerings that improve emotional wellbeing. For example, we’re partnering with Headspace for Work to support Flare’s customers on their journey to bring mental health programs and wellbeing into their workplaces. Another idea is to cover the cost of counseling sessions or a virtual therapy app for your employees.

If you have a limited budget and can’t introduce significant programs like this right now, start small. Give employees designated “mental health” days to take time away from work and recharge. Or host a virtual series of employee-led wellness events to guide people through meditation or yoga sessions. There are many creative ways to incorporate more mental-health focused offerings into your employee benefits.

2. Create a culture of wellness

Aside from benefits, we encourage organisations to make wellness a foundation of their company culture. What exactly does this mean? This means making work a place where it’s normal and encouraged to be honest about topics related to mental health. There are several ways to achieve this type of culture.

First, invest in mental health training for the entire company. This will help everyone better navigate conversations about mental health and develop more compassion for those who are struggling. Also, consider introducing safe spaces for employees to discuss their own progress or hardships with their mental wellness – this can be in the form of an Employee Resource Group, Slack channel, or monthly meeting. Finally, encourage your executive team to lead by example. When the CEO is willing to speak openly about a tough topic, it’ll inspire the rest of the organisation to follow suit.

3. Commit to specific goals

It may be helpful to identify metrics when it comes to these mental health initiatives. Not only will it help you track progress, but it’ll also hold everyone accountable to these investments. So whether it’s aiming to reduce the stress levels of employees by 10% or having 90% of your employees feel that their mental health is supported at work, commit to specific goals.

From there, you can use regular wellness surveys, employee focus groups, or one-on-one conversations to gauge how your company is progressing. Collecting this type of feedback can also alert you to programs that aren’t performing as they should and give you an opportunity to iterate on them as needed.

Mental health plays such a huge role when it comes to the overall happiness, performance, and wellbeing of your employees. Don’t overlook this critical aspect of your HR strategy and make sure to introduce initiatives that support the mental health needs of your workfroce.

If you have any employees who need support, be sure to check out Wellness@Work, a free hub designed to support HR and Australian workers by giving them access to free content.

If you’re looking for an additional HR software to support your business, Flare offers a free onboarding software with employee management and benefits. To learn more, please request a demo.

How HR can help employees with financial wellbeing outside of salary

Posted on October 7, 2020August 11, 2023 by Chris James

A lack of financial wellbeing is costing Australian businesses an estimated $31.1 billion in lost revenue every year. But more importantly, it’s negatively impacting the overall health of employees, who are having to take more sick days and struggling to be productive at work as a result of their financial stress.

What can HR teams do to support workers who are having trouble with their finances? Clearly, simply providing employees with a paycheck isn’t enough. In this post, we’ll explore additional ideas to help your workforce achieve better financial health.

How HR can support employee financial wellbeing

While paying employees a fair salary is an important part of financial wellbeing, there are other components to take into consideration. For instance, even if an employee makes a high salary, a lack of basic money management skills won’t set them up for success in the future.

That’s why HR needs to find other ways to advocate for the financial wellbeing of their employees – outside of their salary. We encourage HR leaders to work closely with their C-suite and finance teams to support initiatives that can set employees up for success – not only in the present – but also in the future. We share recommendations in the next section.

Ideas to help employees with financial wellbeing

There are many modern solutions to choose from when it comes to helping employees with their financial wellbeing. We share some of our favorite ideas below:

1. Encourage savings

Whether it’s to their superannuation account or a separate retirement account, it’s important to encourage your employees to put aside as much money as possible. There are a few ways to motivate employees to save. One of the most effective ways is to set up a system that allows workers to automatically take a portion of their paycheck and deposit it into their savings accounts. This way, your employees don’t have to make the challenging decision to manually take money out of their paycheck – it just goes into their savings without them noticing and will accumulate over time.

The benefits:

Sets employees up for success in the future
Allows employees to save for major milestones, such as purchasing a house or starting a family
Serves as a financial safety net in case of emergency

2. Provide flexible payment options

More and more employers are opting for flexible payment options for their employees. It’s easy to see why. Flexible pay is a great option for employees who want to access their paychecks on their own time instead of following the standard payroll schedule. So instead of receiving a paycheck every two weeks, an employee can choose to cash out what they earned in real time.

The benefits:

Allows employees to choose a compensation schedule that works for their needs
Relieves the stress of having to worry about whether they’ll receive a paycheck in time to pay rent or cover their next bill

3. Support major expenses

Many times, what prevents employees from experiencing better financial wellbeing is the major recurring expenses in their lives. For example, monthly car payments. Having to budget for the mortgage – on top of taxes, gas, and maintenance costs – for several years can be financially burdensome. To relieve the stress of this expense, your company can either offer company car loans or set up a novated lease that allows employees to finance a new or used car with payments out of their salary package with pre-tax deductions.

The benefits:

Makes major expenses more manageable and easier to budget for
Saves employees money in the long run
Doesn’t require a long-term commitment and offers more flexibility in terms of options

4. Create financial education opportunities

A lack of financial literacy is a huge blocker when it comes to employees achieving financial wellbeing. In fact, a survey found that fewer than half of all Australians could answer five basic financial questions correctly. To improve financial literacy, we recommend introducing various educational opportunities for your workforce. This can include anything from hosting financial literacy workshops to offering free sessions with financial advisors as a company benefit.

The benefits:

Empowers employees to take their finances into their own hands
Arms employees with the knowledge to make smart financial decisions

There are many things HR teams can do to improve the financial wellbeing of their workforce – even beyond just paying a salary. Identify which of these recommendations align with the needs of your organisation and get started on them today.

If you have any employees who are in need of support, be sure to check out Wellness@Work, a free hub designed to support HR and Australian workers by giving them access to free content.

If you’re looking for an additional HR software to support your business, Flare offers a free onboarding software with employee management and benefits. To learn more, please request a demo.

10 free tools for remote working teams

Posted on September 16, 2020August 11, 2023 by Chris James

With COVID-19 keeping everyone away from the office, the need for tools that accommodate remote teams continues to grow. Unfortunately, many companies are also having to keep their budgets small and can’t afford to invest in pricey software to meet their needs. Thankfully, there are several free tools out there that HR teams can use to make their jobs a bit easier. We share our top recommendations in this post.

10 free tools for remote HR teams

While there are many great options to choose from, we selected some of our favourite tools to make remote work easier for HR teams and employers. To help put them into action faster, we also shared ideas on how to use them for HR-related projects and initiatives below.

1. Asana

Asana is a task management platform that makes it easy to collaborate on projects with other team members. This is a great tool for remote work since it allows people to keep tasks organised, communicate with one another, and keep track of progress – all in one virtual workspace. Below are a few ways HR teams can use Asana:

Create a to-do list for new hires that they can check items off as they go
Manage ongoing projects with other members of the HR team
Document processes (i.e. for onboarding and offboarding) that managers and leaders can easily reference

2. Slack

Communication is key – especially when it comes to remote work. Having a communication platform that can be used via desktop or mobile, such as Slack, makes the experience of working with decentralised teams much more seamless. Here are ideas on how HR teams can use Slack to their advantage:

Create a Slack channel specifically for new hires
Regularly check in on employees to make sure everyone is feeling supported
Set up reminders for upcoming virtual webinars, events, or meetings

3. Flare HR

At Flare, we offer multiple products that are free for companies to use – such as a remote onboarding software and an exclusive benefits and discount platform. These offerings can help streamline all your HR processes and provide a better overall experience for your employees. With Flare, you can:

Add new employees quickly and integrate with your ATS
Easily generate employment contracts and policy documents
Send new hires a link and have them enter information, sign contracts, upload certiﬁcates and more through a simple online interface
Give your workforce access to exclusive benefits and discounts with leading retailers like Woolworths, JB Hi-Fi, and Amazon

4. SurveyMonkey

Surveys are an incredibly important tool for all HR teams to have at their disposal. If you don’t have the budget to afford a more comprehensive surveying platform, you can always use a free version of SurveyMonkey to create your own. Here are a few types of surveys you may want to consider distributing to your workforce:

Employee engagement surveys
Pulse surveys
Onboarding and/or new hire surveys
Offboarding surveys
COVID-19-related surveys

5. Donut

When everyone is physically apart, it’s difficult to foster a sense of community. Donut is a great solution. This tool can help everyone – from people within your own team to other employees across the organisation – stay connected to one another by setting up virtual hangouts. Donut also integrates easily with Slack so you don’t have to download another platform to use it. There are lots of creative things you can do with this tool:

Set up randomised “Donut dates” to encourage relationship building across teams
Assign new hires a buddy through Donut to help them ramp up and onboard faster
Create learning opportunities by connecting employees looking to learn new skills with experts inside your organisation using Donut

6. Zoom

Video calls are essential for remote work. This technology gives us that face-to-face time we need but otherwise wouldn’t be able to access outside the office. We love Zoom because it offers a free version that can host up to 100 participants and unlimited 1:1’s. They also offer an array of fun, virtual backgrounds to make meetings a bit more interesting. HR teams can use Zoom for multiple use cases, such as:

Interviews with potential candidates
Training sessions (such as a financial literacy workshop or DEI session)
Company-wide meetings or celebrations
Virtual events like happy hours or costume contests

7. Chimp or Champ

Right now, employees are struggling with their wellbeing as a result of Covid-19. That means that it’s more important than ever to keep a finger on the pulse and check in with your workforce regularly. Chimp or Champ is a great tool that lets you send out an anonymous weekly employee happiness meter to see how everyone is doing. There are a few things you can do with the feedback you collect:

Develop initiatives according to the happiness levels of employees
Create a monthly report to keep track of overall employee wellbeing (and make sure to share it with your leadership team so they’re aware too!)

8. Dropbox

You likely work with lots of large documents in your job – such as contracts for new hires and legal documents for employees. Due to the file size, these documents are difficult to send through email. And we unfortunately don’t have the luxury of printing them out and handing directly to someone. In cases like this, Dropbox can be a huge help. It’s a platform where large files can be shared and downloaded. With this tool, you can:

Create a shared folder for new hires that contains their contracts, forms, and other benefits information
Upload recordings of past trainings or webinars that all employees can easily access

9. Loom

One of the challenges with remote work is finding the right time to host meetings and events. Since everyone is working across different time zones and schedules, it’s challenging to find a time that’s convenient for everyone. Loom can help by letting you record presentations or announcements in advance. The tool then gives you a link so you can easily share the recording and let employees catch up when they have time. Here are a few other ways you can use Loom:

Create videos that explain the onboarding and offboarding process
Pre-record training sessions so employees across all time zones can view it at their leisure
Have your CEO record messages or announcements to share with the organisation

10. Calendly

Being able to effectively schedule meetings is even more important in the remote world than it was in the office. Calendly is one of the best tools you can use to make the scheduling process a bit easier and more transparent. It integrates with popular calendar apps and shows people your availability so they can easily schedule a meeting or appointment with you. Some of the benefits of using Calendly includes:

Making scheduling easy for potential candidates who are interviewing
Simplifying the scheduling process across time zones
Reducing blockers to scheduling meetings for larger groups

Using the right tools can make the remote working experience so much easier. Make sure to take advantage of the free ones we mentioned above to create a better work experience for yourself and a better HR experience for your employees. To learn more about Flare HR’s free onboarding software and employee benefits, request a demo.

How to run a financial literacy workshop for employees

Posted on August 27, 2020August 11, 2023 by Chris James

We constantly hear about the importance of financial wellbeing. But how can we actually help our employees achieve this state? The answer lies in building up their financial literacy. While there are many ways to accomplish this, we believe that workshops are one of the most powerful approaches to financial education. In this post, we’ll share recommendations on how to run impactful financial literacy workshops for your employees.

What is financial literacy, and why is it so important?

Before we dive in, let’s explore exactly what financial literacy is and why it’s foundational to achieving financial health. Financial literacy is having the knowledge to make informed financial decisions. This can be anything from understanding how to invest at the right times to knowing how to save toward a significant milestone like a house or a car.

A lack of financial literacy is a significant problem in Australia. A survey found that fewer than half of all Australians could answer five basic financial questions correctly. The reason why this is significant is because low levels of financial literacy translates to poor financial health.

That same survey found that poverty rates among the least financially literate are twice as high compared to the most financially literate. People with lower financial literacy are also less likely to participate in household budget decisions, tend not to save as much money, and are more vulnerable to financial stress – a factor that costs Australian businesses an estimated $31.1 billion per year in lost revenue.

Related article: 5 Ways to help your employees improve their financial wellbeing

Steps to run a financial literacy workshop for employees

One of the best ways you, as the employer, can help combat these low rates of financial literacy is with education. Workshops, in particular, are a great way to get your employees engaged in their financial education. Not only are workshops interactive, but also having a large group of people at your organisation participate in them can make learning about finances less intimidating for others.

1. Identify your employees’ needs

Before you design your financial literacy workshop, it’s important to understand exactly what your employees want to gain from the experience. That’s why we recommend distributing a short survey ahead of time to figure out what your workforce most wants to learn from the workshop. This will help you design a curriculum that’s truly valuable.

For example: perhaps your workforce feels most urgently about learning how to save money – especially given the current circumstances with COVID-19. Instead, you host a workshop that’s solely focused on investing because you made an assumption about what would be interesting to the company. As a result, you disincentivise employees from joining future workshops since they’re not addressing their most pressing needs.

2. Craft a workshop series that addresses these needs

Once you have a clear understanding of what your employees want to gain from the workshop, it’s time to use that feedback to craft your workshop series. Outside of the content, there are other considerations to think about as well. Use the questions below to guide the design of your workshop:

How many workshops will there be in total?
How long will each workshop be?
What will be the cadence of these workshops (bi-weekly, monthly, etc.)?
How will we accommodate for employees in different time zones?

Make sure to answer these questions from the perspective of what’s best for your employees. So if you know many of your employees have young children, try to schedule shorter sessions that happen at a reasonable time of day. Or, better yet, have multiple session options so people can choose a time that’s best for their schedules.

Related article: 10 Ideas to help you boost your employee engagement

3. Choose a top-notch facilitator

It’s critical to choose an engaging, professional, and knowledgeable facilitator for your workshop sessions. Facilitators are trained to lead conversations about various financial subjects, but they’re not necessarily certified accountants or financial advisors.

There are a few criteria to take into consideration when choosing a facilitator. Choose an individual who has expertise in the specific topic you want to address – whether that’s budgeting or investment portfolios. Similarly, make sure they have experience facilitating in a virtual environment since most of us are still working remotely. The last thing you want is to hire someone who is uncomfortable on video calls and ends up leading an unproductive session.

4. Set expectations

It’s important to be clear with your employees about what they’ll gain from these workshops. You don’t want them to go into the experience thinking they’ll receive personalised financial advice from their facilitator. Instead, in all your communication about the workshop, let people know that the purpose of these workshops is to gain a basic understanding of important financial subjects. If they want additional resources to improve their sense of financial wellbeing, there are certainly ways you can support them! But these financial literacy workshops are solely for general education.

5. Build anticipation around the workshop

Now that you have the financial literacy workshops scheduled and in place, how do you get your employees to actually join? In addition to announcing the workshop at your next all-hands meeting, there are other creative tactics you can implement to build anticipation around the workshop:

Set up catchy Slack reminders about the upcoming workshop
Incentivise participation by offering a random prize drawing for those who join
Ask the CEO to join and encourage participation
Communicate the benefits that come with increasing financial literacy
Take photos (or screenshots) and create a “teaser” video after the first workshop to encourage more people to join for the next one

6. Follow up with a survey

Finally, just as we started the financial literacy workshop with a survey, we want to end with one too. After the first session, ask your employees how they felt about the experience. Specifically, did they gain value from it? If not, what could have been improved? Also ask questions about the facilitator to make sure they’re the right fit for your workforce. You can then use all the feedback you collect to make adjustments before your next workshop.

Workshops are a fantastic way to help your employees with their financial literacy and, in turn, improve their sense of financial wellbeing. Use the steps we outlined above to run a financial literacy workshop that will be impactful for both your workers and your business.

If you have any employees who are in need of support, be sure to check out Wellness@Work, a free hub designed to support HR and Australian workers by giving them access to free content.

If you’re looking for an additional HR software to support your business, Flare offers a free onboarding software with employee management and benefits. To learn more, please request a demo.

What is a novated lease and how does it work? Here’s everything you need to know

Posted on August 19, 2020August 9, 2023 by Chris James

We’re always trying to think of the best benefits to offer our employees. Ones that will either relieve or solve a pain point they’re facing and generally make their lives easier. A benefit that you may not have considered yet, but checks both of these boxes, is a novated lease.

If you’re unfamiliar with this concept, don’t worry! In this post, we’ll explain exactly what a novated lease is, what the benefits are, and what this financial offering looks like in action.

What is a novated lease?

In the simplest terms: a novated lease allows employees to finance a new or used car by having their employer make payments out of their salary package with pre-tax deductions. These payments include the cost of running expenses as well, such as maintenance, insurance, and petrol.

In other words, it’s a deal between an employee, a finance provider, and an employer to lease a vehicle. The key word here is lease. As you might be aware, this is a bit different from renting or owning a car. With a lease, your employee is paying down a certain amount for a specified period of time (usually anywhere from one to five years). At the end of the lease period, they can choose to take out a new lease with a different car, extend the existing lease, or buy the car by paying the residual amount.

You may be wondering: why should I offer my employees a novated lease when they can just finance their own cars? This is a great question. As you’ll see in the next section, a novated lease comes with many benefits.

The benefits of a novated lease

There are many upsides that come with offering a novated lease – for both the company and your employees. Let’s dive into some of the top benefits below:

For employees

Tax savings. Of course, the biggest advantage to a novated lease is the tax break! Since the novated lease payments are coming out of your employee’s pre-tax income, that means your employee’s taxable income will be significantly reduced. Your employees also don’t have to pay the goods and services tax (GST) that they would normally have to if they were buying a car themselves. As a result, they’ll have much more disposable income to spend in other areas of their life.

Less logistics. Another benefit of the novated lease over other methods of financing a car is the reduction in logistics. Instead of having to manage multiple payments – from monthly loans to car maintenance expenses – everything is simplified into a single monthly deduction from your employee’s paycheck. And since the process is largely managed by the employer and the finance provider, your employee doesn’t have to stress about budgeting or scheduling payments.

Flexibility. A novated lease also gives your employees more flexibility. At the end of their lease, employees can choose to upgrade to a different type of vehicle, brand, or style since they don’t own the car. For example, if their family grows, they can opt to start a new lease for a larger car to accommodate their needs. Similarly, if the employee ends up loving the car they leased, they can also choose to buy that car by paying off the remaining cost.

For employers

More talent. Offering a novated lease is a great way to stand out from the competition when it comes to attracting new talent. It’s a fantastic benefit that will help employees save money and demonstrates that your organisation cares about their financial wellbeing. The best part? It costs you very little to do so – especially compared to alternative options like managing a company fleet.

Low risk. Another great benefit is that there’s very little risk to your business with a novated lease. Vehicles under this agreement aren’t considered an asset or liability to your company. Plus, the vehicle doesn’t become your responsibility if your employee decides to leave before the end of the lease.

How does a novated lease work?

Now that you have a clearer understanding of the novated lease, let’s talk about what it looks like in action. At Flare, we offer a novated lease option that employers can register their workforce for. Once you’re signed up, the steps to get your employees set up with a novated lease are fairly straightforward:

Check eligibility. If your employee wants to take advantage of the company’s novated lease benefit, you just have to make sure they’re eligible! Eligibility requirements tend to differ depending on the organisation. For instance, some employers don’t extend the benefit to casual workers since their pay tends to fluctuate. Once you’ve determined that your employee qualifies, give them the thumbs up to pick a car!

Enter into a lease agreement. As we mentioned before, this will be a three-way agreement between you, your employee, and a finance provider. At this step, you’ll decide things like how much of the employee’s pre-tax salary will be taken out for the repayments under the novated lease, how long the lease is for, etc. There’s also some paperwork that will need to be completed, such as the finance lease agreement and the novation agreement.

Make repayments on behalf of your employee. Once all the details of the lease are settled, all you have to do is make sure to set up the deductions from your employee’s pre-tax salary and make repayments directly to the finance provider. Aside from that, the car is largely your employee’s responsibility. They will come to you if they have additional questions or concerns.

As you can see, the novated lease is a great benefit to consider adding to your employee offerings. Not only does it give your workforce a flexible financing option for a car, but it also provides them with many additional benefits like tax savings and reduced stress around the logistics of owning a car. If you’re curious to learn more, check out Flare Cars for more information.

A guide on how to onboard new employees remotely

Posted on August 11, 2020August 11, 2023 by Chris James

As COVID-19 continues to keep employees remote, companies have to start thinking about how to adapt their HR processes accordingly. One of the most important experiences to consider is employee onboarding. The type of onboarding program you have in place has a significant impact on factors like new hire retention and productivity. In fact, a study found that a structured onboarding experience resulted in 69% of employees being more likely to stay with a company for three years and 50% greater new-hire productivity.

While being remote does present some challenges to the onboarding process, we believe there are things you can do to make it just as strong as one that’s in person. Below, we outlined a five-step process to help you get your new hires onboarded remotely:

1. Start with preboarding

Many employers wait until the new hire’s first day to start the onboarding process. But there’s actually a step that comes before that called preboarding. The purpose of this step is to get your new hires up-to-speed before they start their new roles so they don’t feel overwhelmed on their first day. Preboarding activities have also been found to increase first-year retention by as much as 80 percent. These activities can include:

Filling out documents (employment contracts, super information, etc.)
Reviewing benefits options
Collecting personal information (employee’s favorite snack, personal hobbies, etc.)

To help companies manage this process remotely, Flare has a free digital onboarding software that lets you add new employees to your ATS, generate documents, and gives your new hires a seamless way to auto-sign contracts and share important information with the company.

Related article: 10 Ideas to help you boost your employee engagement

2. Create a warm welcome experience

Once you have all the preboarding logistics squared away, you can focus on creating a warm welcome experience for your new employee’s first day. Since your team won’t be able to take them out to a welcome lunch or greet them in person, it’s important to find other ways to make them feel excited about their new job. Below are a few ideas you can try:

Send a welcome card that’s been digitally signed by the CEO, their manager, and their new team members
Gift the new hire with a prepaid card to their neighbourhood cafe; They can grab a coffee and get to know their teammates through virtual hangout sessions
Host a virtual welcome party with the whole team
Ship a ‘welcome pack’ that contains the new employee’s favorite treats, movies, or board games

The last thing you want is for your new hire to feel isolated on their first day. These ideas will help your employees feel like they’re already part of the team and get them excited about their new company – even when they’re not physically at the office!

3. Establish a support system

Any employee’s first day can feel a bit scary – especially when they’re remote and don’t have the luxury of asking the person sitting next to them a question or getting to know people over lunch. To make sure they feel supported from day one, it’s important to establish a system that they can turn to if they have questions, need help, or simply want to feel more integrated into the company. Here’s how:

Set your new employee up with a designated buddy. This is their go-to person if they have any questions, need someone to chat with over a virtual lunch, or simply want to learn more about the company
Create a Slack channel for new hires. At Flare, we have one called #newbies that contains helpful resources and is a dedicated space where new employees can feel safe asking questions
Encourage the new hire’s manager check in with them frequently during the first 30 days to make sure the transition is going smoothly

Related article: 5 Ways to help your employees improve their financial wellbeing

4. Run induction sessions

In addition to helping your new hires feel socially integrated, you want to make sure they understand the various aspects of the business as well. This is where virtual induction sessions can be helpful. The purpose of these sessions is to meet with different leaders within the organisation – from the CEO to the Head of Engineering – so they can better understand how the business operates.

Not only that, but induction sessions can help new employees put faces to names and develop a clearer view of how their specific role contributes to the broader mission of your company. This allows new hires to recognise that they’re a valuable part of the organisation and helps them find a sense of meaning in their work.

5. Collect feedback

Finally, remember that your onboarding process doesn’t end after 30 or 60 days. There are ways to continuously iterate on and improve your program – especially if your remote onboarding process is brand new. The best way to do this is to distribute an onboarding survey to new hires after they go through the experience. This provides an opportunity for them to share feedback on what worked, what didn’t, and how they felt coming out of the onboarding process – all valuable input that you can use to strengthen your existing program.

As you can see, a powerful employee onboarding experience can have a significant impact on your business. Thankfully, there are ways to make sure this process is effective, welcoming, and informative – even when doing so remotely. Follow our recommendations to make sure your onboarding process goes as smoothly as possible for your new remote employees.

To learn more about Flare’s free digital onboarding software, and how it can save you on time and paperwork, request a demo here.

What to do when you can’t give your employees a pay rise

Posted on July 28, 2020August 9, 2023 by Chris James

With Australia now experiencing a new wave of COVID-19 outbreaks, companies continue to feel the pressure of the pandemic. Unfortunately, this also means that employees may have to keep waiting for their promotions and pay rises due to constrained resources. This, of course, is likely to lead to lower employee morale.

But there are ways for companies to mitigate the negative impact of the pandemic. One of the best solutions is to consider expanding your benefits offerings. These additional offerings can support your employees in key areas during this challenging time and also provide some financial relief to make up for the lack of a pay rise. Below, we share four categories of benefits to consider:

Flexible work benefits

According to a study, a flexible work arrangement is one of the ‘must have’ benefits for Australian employees. This is especially prevalent now, as employees are feeling the stress of balancing their work and home lives once again. Here are some flexible work benefits to consider:

Flexible working hours. The 9 to 5 schedule doesn’t work for all employees – especially those with families and children. Allow your workforce to choose their own hours so they don’t have to stress about being online at a time that’s inconvenient for them. This will not only relieve stress but also demonstrate to employees that you understand and respect their individual needs.

Work from home options. Whether your employees have recently returned to the office or are still remote, it may be a good time to either extend or offer up work from home options as an alternative to being in the office. As COVID-19 cases escalate again, you want to make sure everyone feels safe while they work.

Home office setups. If you do have employees working from home, relieve some of the burden by paying for their home office set up. This can include covering the cost of a new desk, chair, monitor, or whatever else they need to work comfortably from home.

Financial benefits

Even if you can’t directly provide a pay rise, there are other ways to financially support your employees – while staying within your HR budget. Below are a few ideas of the types of financial benefits you can offer:

Employee discounts. At Flare, we have an exclusive benefits and discount platform. that provides your employees with discounts from hundreds of leading retailers, including Amazon, Woolworths, and Foot Locker. Giving your workforce access to these types of benefits can ease some of the financial burden they’re feeling right now.

Novated car leasing. Offering employee benefits like novated car leases and salary packaging can help your employees reduce their taxable income and therefore reduce their income tax. Flare offers novated car leasing to customers as part of employee benefits.

Real time pay. Imagine if employees could access their pay after each day’s work rather than waiting for the weekly, fortnightly or monthly pay cycle? This could soon be a possibility. Flare will soon be offering real time pay as part of employee benefits so that employees can access their pay for a small fixed fee for when they really need it.

Equity. If you can’t afford to increase the salary of your employees, consider giving them more equity instead. This is an investment that can pay off many times over in the long run, and it gives workers more stake in your organisation – which, in turn, can boost morale and engagement.

International payment transfers. You may have employees with family members outside of Australia that they’re providing financial support to during COVID-19. If you want to help them save on expensive transfers, consider offering WorldRemit as a benefit – they offer much more affordable international money transfers. They’re also a partner on our own benefits platform!

Physical and mental health benefits

Your employees are dealing with many stressors right now – from feeling anxiety around their job security to worrying about the health and safety of their family members – which can come with negative physical and mental health side effects. To help them combat these potential problems, you may want to consider the following benefits:

Wellness budget. If you have the funds to do so, consider giving each employee a wellness budget. They can use this money to invest in self care. For example, they can use this budget to cover the cost of a massage, new running shoes, or an online meditation course – anything that helps improve and maintain their sense of well being.

Fitness subsidisation. Staying active can go a long way. And the great news is that there are tons of virtual fitness classes these days. So whether it’s an online yoga course or a cycling class, pay for your employees to indulge in their favorite exercise routines – it gives them one less thing to worry about cost wise and encourages them to get moving.

Healthy snack delivery service. If you want to make healthy eating more accessible for your employees and boost their morale, provide them with delicious snacking options! Companies like Snacks With Bite will deliver healthy snacks directly to your employees’ homes. It’s one less decision they have to make, and it’s something they can share with the rest of their family.

Family benefits

As schools start to close down again due to the new wave of outbreaks, parents are scrambling to figure out how to balance work and family life for the second time. Not receiving the pay rise they were expecting can further exacerbate your employees’ stress levels. To help, here are a few benefits you can offer:

Childcare support. If your working parents do find themselves back at home with the kids, give them the funds to hire additional childcare support. Maybe they can have a trusted babysitter take care of the kids in the morning, when they’re the busiest with work. Or they can hire an in-home chef to prepare healthy meals for the family if they don’t have time to.

Fun family activities. It’s challenging for parents to always think of new, stimulating things to do with their children. To help, send your working parents “family care packages” that contain fun activities – such as puzzles, at-home scavenger hunts, or s’mores kits. This is one less thing that your employees have to think about and gives them a reason to spend quality time with their families.

Even though your employees will be disappointed to not receive the pay rise they’ve been waiting for, they’ll appreciate your efforts to compensate them in other ways in the meantime. Take care of your employees’ needs during this challenging time, and you’re likely to see a more engaged and productive workforce.

Want to give your team access to more employee benefits and discounts? Flare Employee Benefits gives your workforce access to an exclusive benefits and discount platform of leading retailers like Woolworths, JB Hi-Fi and Amazon. If you’re looking to implement more employees benefits in your company, reach out to [email protected] to learn more.

Understanding the finances of your international workforce

Posted on July 27, 2020September 7, 2023 by Chris James

For Australian employers there are many considerations to be taken into account when employing people from overseas. One that may not be so obvious is understanding the financial circumstances of these employees with international backgrounds.

For example, did you know that many international employees may have loved ones living overseas with a financial responsibility to regularly send a proportion of their earnings back home? This financial assistance, known as ‘remittances’ supports their loved ones with daily living expenses like paying for rent, utilities, groceries, health and education.

This following article outlines some of these considerations and the role you can play as an employer to support your employees.

Global Remittances

Remittances are an essential source of income for millions of families around the world and remitters play a key role in the social and economic development of their countries.

In 2019, global remittances reached a record US$554 billion and they are instrumental in many countries. For example, personal remittances received in Nepal made up over a quarter of the country’s GDP in 2019. In the Philippines, it is a well-established cultural practice to head overseas to work. In fact, 2.2 million, at any time, of these overseas Filipino workers are engaged in industries as diverse as healthcare to seafaring. From Australia, both India and China are also substantial recipients of remittances. Many remitters will see their remittance as a non-negotiable financial commitment, in the same vein as Australians might regard their mortgage payment. Behaviour varies, but many remitters will send money home as many as four times a month.

Financial Access

Like all employees, migrants working in Australia require an Australian bank account to receive their salary. Fortunately, unlike other countries, it is very easy to set up, with the ability to apply for one online regardless of location, with many free or low-cost options.

However, for recent arrivals to Australia, applying for credit cards is not as simple. Banks will usually require some credit history here in Australia before granting even a small credit limit. This can place a credit card off limits for new arrivals, which can be a source of frustration for migrants who have enjoyed well established financial affairs in their original home country.

Tax and Super

The rules relating to taxation and superannuation are complex, and vary according to the individual circumstances of your employees.

In general, many people from overseas who have worked and earned super while visiting Australia on a temporary visa, can apply to have their super paid to them as a departing Australia superannuation payment (DASP) after they leave.

On tax, as long as foreign residents have earned more than $1 in Australia during the financial year they can choose to lodge a tax return. This lodgement can even be done online in your employees’ home countries after they depart. If your employees are leaving Australia permanently, they may be eligible to lodge an Australian tax return early. In this instance the process is offline and is known to take longer.

The monies received from a superannuation payment or a tax refund, regardless of amount, is highly valued as an extra boost of financial support for when your international employees are returning to their home country.

What can you do as an employer

Understanding the unique financial considerations of your international and migrant workforce is a great first step, but there are also a few practical ways you can help:

Sending money home: For remitters, maximising the amount their friends and family receive whilst ensuring the security of the transfers is paramount. Due to lack of awareness, many new arrivals will default to using their bank to transfer money home. However, the Australian Government (in the ACCC’s 2019 report) expressly highlighted that using digital non-bank alternatives, such as WorldRemit, can be a cheaper and faster way to send money home. Also, for employees who are working in remote locations, the fact that these services are fully digital means they can be accessed from a smartphone at any time (without having to visit a bank branch or agent location). Helping make your employees aware of these alternatives, can ensure their families and friends are receiving the greatest amount possible by way of remittances without delay.

Financial access: As employees establish themselves in Australia, you may find they come to you more frequently than others for proof of income or employment, as they navigate the likes of housing and credit applications. Bear in mind your company expenses policy, where they require employees to front large expenses before being reimbursed, may be unduly burdensome (or not possible) for new arrivals who don’t have a credit card.

Tax and Super: Each individual is different so the best thing you can do is direct your employees to the ATO website, which has extensive resources relating to international tax and access to superannuation. The ATO guidance suggests that employees check with their employer before they depart to make sure that all super contributions have been paid – so don’t be surprised if you receive these sorts of queries from your team.

WorldRemit is currently offering the first three transfers free to all Flare users. You can access WorldRemit through the Flare employee benefits portal.

Simple strategies to promote emotional wellbeing in your workplace

Posted on July 20, 2020August 11, 2023 by Chris James

We live in an increasingly stressful world. Everything from rising costs to escalating pressures in the workplace are contributing to mental health issues in our employees. Given this, prioritising emotional wellbeing is more important than ever. But what exactly is preventing our workers from achieving emotional wellness, and what can we do to help? These are questions we’ll address in the rest of this post.

Why is emotional wellbeing important?

As of 2019, 50.6% of the Australian workforce had experienced a mental health condition, and two in five of those workers reported that their workplace either caused their condition or made it worse. These work-related mental health conditions cost approximately $543 million of workers compensation and $750 million in life insurance claims paid to Australians each year.

It’s clear that emotional wellbeing, or lack thereof, is a huge problem that infiltrates the workplace. There are a few reasons why it’s important for employers to address this problem head on: first, since one of the main sources of stress is from work, it’s every company’s responsibility to help alleviate some of that burden. Secondly, without addressing emotional wellbeing, we can’t expect our employees to perform their best at work. Mental health issues can affect everything from an employee’s satisfaction with their job to the bottom line.

Related article: 5 Ways to help your employees improve their financial wellbeing

Barriers to emotional wellbeing

It seems as though more and more employers are investing in emotional wellbeing programs each year. But if this is the case, why do mental health issues continue to be a problem among Australian workers? It may be that the programs aren’t explicitly addressing the most common barriers to emotional wellbeing, which include:

Lack of education and training. A survey found the most common barrier to achieving an emotionally healthy workplace is lack of appropriate skills in managers. Therefore, investing in more training and education around mental health and wellbeing can help break down this particular barrier.

Fear of stigma. Even though the conversation around emotional wellbeing is becoming more commonplace, that doesn’t mean the stigma around mental health issues doesn’t exist. In fact, research has found that mental health is the issue Australian workers feel most uncomfortable discussing with their managers.

Access to the wrong resources. Finally, it may also be the case that you’re not offering the resources that employees actually need to improve their emotional wellbeing. Unless your decisions were backed by feedback and data from your workforce, there’s a good chance that your employee wellness program isn’t aligned with people’s mental health priorities.

In the next section, we’ll cover simple strategies that will help your organisation overcome these common barriers.

Related article: 10 Ideas to help you boost your employee engagement

3 simple strategies to promote emotional wellbeing at your company

Your emotional wellbeing strategies don’t have to be complicated or break the bank. Start off with one or all three of these strategies to start taking steps in the right direction:

1. Make mental health trainings a requirement

Sometimes mental health can be tough or uncomfortable to talk about. That’s completely natural. But that’s why we encourage HR teams to invest in mental health training – not just for employees, but also for the managers and leaders at the company as well.

These educational opportunities can give everyone the practice they need to navigate conversations about emotional wellbeing, respond with more empathy to people who are struggling, and understand what next steps might look like. While you don’t want your managers to play the role of therapist for your employees, they should – at the very least – know how to handle those initial conversations and connect their direct reports to the right resources.

2. Normalise conversations around emotional wellbeing

It’s unsurprising that Australian employees don’t feel comfortable talking about mental health at work. This usually stems from a fear of judgment or – worse – a fear that it’ll affect their career development. The best way to assuage these fears is to normalise conversations around mental health in the workplace so that your employees know this is a challenge that almost everyone is dealing with.

Don’t just wait for Mental Health Month to have these conversations – instead, make it a normal and accepted part of your company culture. There are several ways to accomplish this: ask your leaders and managers to speak openly about their own mental health struggles; create safe spaces or Employee Resource Groups where people can speak openly about emotional wellbeing; and make it ok to take mental health days.

3. Customize your benefits offerings

This may also be a good time to revisit your benefits offerings. Even if you have an incredible benefits package that gives employees stipends for massages or virtual therapy sessions, that doesn’t mean it’s what your workforce needs. Maybe it turns out that they’d rather have flexible working hours and more mental health days instead.

The only way to find out what your employees truly need is to ask them. You can do this through one-on-one conversations or, if you have a bigger organisation, send out a wellbeing survey to identify the current gaps in your benefits. Once you have this information in hand, you can actually customise your offerings to align with your employees’ priorities.

Don’t overlook emotional wellbeing when it comes to your overall HR strategy. The mental health of your employees has the potential to make a huge impact on their happiness, productivity, and desire to stay with your organisation. Use our strategies to demonstrate that you care and to promote the importance of emotional wellbeing in your workplace.

If you have any employees who are in need of support, be sure to check out The Flare Wellness Network, a free hub designed to support Australian workers by giving them access to benefits and offers, while encouraging businesses to partner together in an effort to support the wellbeing of the Australian workforce.

If you’re looking for an additional HR software to support your business, Flare offers a free onboarding software with employee management and benefits. To learn more, please request a demo.

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