The good, the bad and the ugly: Improving the employee leave experience

Leave has never been more important to employees than it is right now. But HR has also never had more on its plate. Listen as Unum leave experts discuss the policies, practices and technology that can make the difference between a best-in-class employee leave experience and one that misses the mark, putting your attraction and retention efforts at risk.

·       A perfect storm. Rising employee expectations, a tough labor market and increasing legal complexity are creating a perfect storm for leave management professionals. HR’s role has become increasingly strategic, and they can’t spend time being bogged down in managing administrative tasks. [02:52]

·       Emerging importance of employee experience. Nationally, employers have shifted from focusing on paid leave to making the leave experience easier and more personalized. [05:35]

·       Bad experiences work against your recruitment and retention goals. If you have great policies, but people don’t know about them or you make it hard to use them, that’s a bad experience. Education and ease of use are critical to success. Employers also need to have holistic policies that address their entire employee population, instead of just focusing on families with children. For example, caregiving needs are growing for employees with aging parents. [07:32]

·       Combine self-service, planning tools and human interaction for the best experience. Compliance is important, but don’t forget that every leave represents a challenging life event for employees.[10:15]

·       Look for ways to take the burden off HR’s shoulders.  The result will be higher retention and more people returning from leave ready to work. [14:06]

 Featured speakers
Ellen McCann
Assistant Vice President, Leave Solutions, Unum Group 

Ellen McCann serves as a leading expert in applying benefits and benefits technology to power modern solutions to more effective employee leave programs, stronger regulatory compliance and enhanced digital HR transformation. In this role, she combines more than 30 years of employment law experience with practical knowledge of the complexities of leave and accommodation management to help develop and create solutions that enable employers to address the challenges of leave and accommodations. She is an acclaimed national speaker on leave management issues including FMLA and ADA, and is a certified trainer for SHRM and CE credit.

Miyuki Iwahashi
Assistant Vice President, Leave Tech Solutions, Unum Group 

Miyuki Iwahashi drives the product strategy for new enhancements for Unum Leave Logic – an industry-leading leave education and planning SaaS solution – and supports initiatives for Unum’s rapidly expanding solutions business. In this role, Miyuki interacts with employers, employees and partners to understand how technology solutions can enhance the employee experience and revolutionize the future of leave in the workplace. Prior to joining Unum, Miyuki pioneered innovative employee programs, including a redesign of an employee-centered leave program and was recognized for her work.

Transcript

Claire:

Today on HR trends.

Ellen:

Some of the things that I see and that we're paying attention to now, particularly with employee experience being so front and center in everyone's mind is, employers may have the best of intentions and they pass really great, or they adopt great leave policies, but they make it so hard for their employees to actually access those benefits, learn about those benefits, or take the leave that they've just completely undermined their goodwill, right?

 Because they might have something that's great, but if it's so difficult for the employee to access it and take it, it's a bad employee experience. It adds stress to the leave experience and it really makes the employee doubt the employer's intention in passing that policy because it's almost a losery.

Miyuki Iwahashi:

So when we think about leave education and the experience, a lot of it is like helping to educate the employee, not just the leave event, but their life event. What are the options? What are all the things that you want to know about and you want to prepare for?

Claire:

Welcome to HR Trends. Today our conversation is about the good, the bad, and the ugly, improving the employee leave experience. Leave has never been more important to employees than it is right now. But HR has also never had more on its plate. Today, we're talking to two leave experts about the policies, practices, and technology that can make the difference between a best in class employee leave experience and one that misses the mark, putting your attraction and retention efforts at risk.

 We have two amazing guests with us. We have Ellen McCann of Unum. Ellen has more than 30 years with employment law experience, with practical knowledge of the complexities of leave and accommodation management. She's also helping develop and create solutions that enable employers to address the challenges of leave and accommodations, such as Unum Total Leave. Ellen is an acclaimed national speaker on leave management on issues such as the FMLA and ADA. Ellen, we're so glad you're with us.

Ellen:

Thanks Claire. It's great to be here.

Claire:

We also have Miyuki Iwahashi, who drives the product strategy for new enhancements for Unum Leave Logic and industry leading leave education and planning SaaS solution. She also supports initiatives for Unum's rapidly expanding solutions business. Prior to joining Unum, Miyuki pioneered innovative employee programs including a redesign of an employee centered leave program. Welcome, Miyuki.

Miyuki Iwahashi:

Thank you. Glad to be a part of the conversation today.

Claire:

So let's start, and Ellen, I'm going to quote something you said recently at our amazing HR tech experience in Las Vegas where we recorded an interview with you and you said that we're in the midst of a revolution when it comes to leave programs. You said, "Leave is more important today. It's being used more. The legal landscape's getting more complex and HR priorities are shifting with a more strategic role." Can you unpack those thoughts?

Ellen:

Sure, Claire. I think we really are, I mean we're in a space with regard to leave that we've never been in before and there are all these factors that are coming together to really create this revolution, if I use another one of my favorite cliches, a perfect storm. And these things are coming together all at the same time and it's really changing the way employers need to look at leave.

And so when we talk about employee expectations, we all know employee expectation is a new thing that everyone is focused on. We want to make sure our employees are happy. If they're not, they have many choices of other places they can go. And so we know that leave has become more important than ever. In a recent poll, we've seen that employers are ranking leave second, only to health benefits and that's tied with retirement.

And that's a statistic, and again, it makes me feel old, but I've been doing this for over 30 years. That's a statistic that I don't think we've seen before, that leave has taken that much prominence and employers are recognizing that. But we also know that employees are taking leave in record numbers. I mean, we've seen it here at Unum for our customers employees leave that we administer for them, there are definitely record number of leaves that are being taken.

 And of course, the legal landscape isn't getting any easier. It's only getting more complex. Many states are starting to pass paid family and medical leave programs. That adds to the complexity here. And so employers are struggling with how to make sense of all of this. And this is all going on really at the same time, when we're seeing HR have more demands on them than maybe they've ever had in their careers.

I think one positive thing that came out of the pandemic, at least in my experience, was HR really got a seat at the table and it was a strategic seat that they may not have had before because this pandemic happened and no one knew what to do. So they looked to their HR folks because it was about people. It was about keeping people safe. It was about making sure that they could continue to keep the lights on and make sure they were protecting their employees. And who better to solve those problems in hr?

 So HR now has this great strategic seat at the table. They want to keep it, but they can't keep it if they're bogged down with all of the administrative tasks that are related to leave. And again, that's happening at the same time all of these other factors are also at play.

Claire:

Fascinating. And I'm wanting to get us to that conversation around what are those great experiences and what are the terrible experiences that employees should know about? Before we go there, Miyuki, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this too. You've got so much background around employee education and planning and in this environment where a lot of people are choosing jobs possibly based on the benefits mix. Any thoughts on this?

Miyuki Iwahashi:

For sure. I loved, Ellen, what you said about that perfect storm. And my journey started in employee experience back in 2015, where in California, which is where I am based out of, we saw a lot of companies like Google and Netflix and Facebook and Microsoft adding new paid leave policies or expanding their existing paid leave policies. And there was a lot of activity at that time and focus for employers that were in competitive labor markets to really have the best benefits and look at their benefits as a competitive way to track and retain talent.

 And I think what's really exciting about what we're seeing now is this is expanding to the national scale, where all employers are really starting to look at employee experience in all aspects and lenses and really non-traditional senses too, even the leaves of absence and what does that experience look like?

So it's an exciting place to be, I think where employees are expecting more and they're expecting these consumer grade experiences where things are simple, they're easy, they can access them quickly, and it's an exciting time for the market and for HR tech solutions. And how do we meet HRs need as they're expanding into these strategic roles and really being a driving force for culture and values and reflecting the culture and values of their companies through the benefits and the experiences they provide? So I think it's an exciting place for us to be and looking forward to diving in more today.

Claire:

I'd love to begin maybe with, and I just want to say we're recording this on Halloween, so what better place to start than the horrific leave experiences? So a lot of employers listening in, they might be thinking, okay, so what are my employee experiences around leave like, and have I looked at this recently? And I wonder maybe, Ellen, let's start with you and then Miyuki, you add in. What are some terrible leave experiences like today that employers might not realize are actually causing a lot of friction for their employees?

Ellen:

Some of the things that I see and that we're paying attention to now, particularly with employee experience being so front and center in everyone's mind is, employers may have the best of intentions and they pass really great or they adopt great leave policies, but they make it so hard for their employees to actually access those benefits, learn about those benefits, or take the leave, that they've just completely undermined their goodwill, right?

Because they might have something that's great, but if it's so difficult for the employee to access it and take it, it's a bad employee experience. It adds stress to the leave experience and it really makes the employee doubt the employer's intention in passing that policy, right? Because it's almost a losery, you have this out there so you can go to the press, you can talk about your new paid parental leave policy or whatever it may be.

But boy is it hard for me, an employee, to even find out about it or to take the benefit. And so we have to stop, I think, as employers, hiding the information that our employees need. And I'll let Miyuki talk more about employee education and planning 'cause that's really her expertise. But we have to recognize that employees need to be able to find information, access it, and know what they need to do.

 I think another, I guess trick or scary experience I've seen employers have, keeping with the Halloween theme is, employers may have drafted some great policies. Miyuki mentioned paid parental leave policies. That was, a lot of employers five, 10 years ago really started looking at that. And those are great policies, they're really helpful for employees, but employers didn't stop to think about the percentage of their employees that might not benefit from that policy.

 So maybe they've already had their children or maybe they're not going to have children, but they're caring for aging parents or partners. And so employers may put all their eggs in one basket, if you will, or all their candy in one Halloween bucket, now I'm going too far. But nonetheless, you have to think about your entire employee population and are you meeting the needs of your employees holistically, not just doubling down or focusing on one aspect of your population?

Claire:

Miyuki, you must jump in here.

Miyuki Iwahashi:

It's so interesting when we think about the leave experience and the traditional leave of absence, which was very much focused on compliance and risk management for a long time. And I think that's the focus of a lot of employers still. But on top of that, how do we figure out what employee experience means in the leave of absence?

 And for a lot of employees, they're going on a leave of absence maybe for the first time, maybe for the second or third time. And what we found is even if it's a second or third time, employees are almost going through it for the first time. They don't always remember the processes they took or who they reached out to or what their policies were. That might have probably changed by now. So when we think about it from the employee experience, it's really that life event experience.

They're not thinking about it from the bounds of my leave of absence. They're thinking, okay, I'm having a baby. What does that involve? There's so many aspects, a lot of important aspects are working with their employer or their third party administrative leave that their company has, to be able to take that leave of absence. But for a lot of employees, it starts way before that leave event, before that claim.

 So what we've discovered in a lot of interviews and research is that employees are wanting to get information and they want to get it easily simply and have access to it at any time, really on their time. Especially in this world where you have employees that are working from home or virtually and they're using their own devices. The traditional workday and how people work is very different. The expectations are different. They want to be able to self-serve information and then get things when it's convenient, whether it's having a conversation with their spouse or their partner and being able to discuss their benefits that their employer provides.

And what we found, to Ellen's point, she had brought up a really good point about finding the information. A lot of employers will have great benefits and policies, but it's really difficult for their employees to find and for their managers to find. So if you have great policies out there, but employees are struggling to go on the internet or find that perfect policy document that outlines what's offered or piecing together different information that they're trying to make sense of, then you're asking the employee to do a lot of work and understanding things.

And for the most part, these policies are written by legal experts and by HR teams that are either very well versed or have gotten a lot of great insights from their own subject-matter experts at the company. So it's not always easily understandable by the average employee. So when we think about leave education and the experience, a lot of it is helping to educate the employee, not just the leave event, but their life event.

What are the options? What are all the things that you want to know about and you want to prepare for? A lot of times with Leave Logic, for example, we see employees that are planning for a new baby. Both mothers, fathers, they're coming into this solution months and months ahead of being ready to submit their leave request. And in some cases, they might reach out to their third party administrator or their HR team and sometimes they'll get met with advice to check back in when you're closer to taking your leave.

 And for employees that are really trying to plan their life event, they want that information early and they want to access it and they may not always be ready to share that with their HR team and they want to do it confidentially. And so we have a lot of employees who are coming in, sometimes six, seven months early, when they're trying to find information like, what are the benefits that are available? How do these work with the state benefits, the federal benefits?

 There are so many different kinds of benefits when you're looking at statutory states that have paid leave programs, like California. So there's a need there for employees for wine to get that information early on and throughout the life event really, even after the returning back to work. How do we ease their transition?

Claire:

It's wonderful. And you're both making me think of how well intentioned a lot of this is, the creating. And yet, the experience of how the employee is receiving that is telling it potentially horrific. So you were explaining, Ellen, how it's so interesting how the human mind might jump to conclusions. Oh, they're trying to hide it from me. Oh, they don't want me to take. When it's actually, it's just bad processes.

 And I know, Ellen, Unum's been really ahead of the hack here in the sense of Unum Total Leave, which is this really awesome mobile first way of actually ... For example, an employee has to go on an intermittent leave and boom, there you go, so easy, using their phone. And how does that experience itself of like you said too, Miyuki, the consumer experience then lead to loyalty or retention. I wonder, Ellen, can you speak more on, both of you, to that a little bit more? How does the best experiences then change that?

Ellen:

I think the best experiences are experiences that mimic or mirror what our employees are doing outside of work. And so we need to come into the age where we recognize that our employees are calling for a car on their phone or groceries and they're having all these great digital experiences and a lot of employers are still asking employees to fax the medical information or to call five people in order to ask for leave. And so we're taking what is already a stressful, confusing experience and making it unfamiliar to employees who are living in a digital world.

And so we need to bring that digital world to them and we need to give employees those experiences that match the experiences they're having in their lives. But not only that, we can't stop there because we know that not everyone wants a digital experience. So there will still be employees who would like to pick up the phone and speak to someone. So that has to be there, has to be an option for them.

 And so it's really about making a more modern leave experience, having those digital capabilities, but also meeting employees where they are and letting them communicate with their employer or their lead administrator in the method that makes the employee feel more comfortable and meets that employee's need. Recognizing, Miyuki said it best, this is a very personal experience for the employee. Even if they've done this a couple of times, it's still going to be stressful. They still need to have education information.

And so what's the best way to get that information to them? It's to allow them to choose the way they communicate and the way they interact. And so making sure that you have multi-channel communication is, in my mind, the best way to meet the employee where they are and give them that good experience that they deserve.

Claire:

Wonderful. Miyuki, love to hear it from you as well on that.

Miyuki Iwahashi:

Yeah, I loved what you said, Ellen, about meeting employees where they are. I think that's hitting the nail on the head, where employees really want to be able to self-direct and self-select whether they want to pick up the phone or find the information on their own and having personalized experiences. We talked a lot earlier on about employers focused on employee experience and what does that really mean? And we're seeing a lot of HR teams really take employee experiences, not only HR strategy but company strategy.

How do we find products and solutions that help to reinforce the values that we have, the culture that we're trying to bring within our companies and for our employees. And a lot of that is finding the solutions that can help you meet employees where they are. And sometimes it looks different for every organization. So I think it's looking to see what are my organizational goals, what are the things that I want to solve for? What is most important to my employee population?

And some of it's demographics, some of it's depending on the industry that you are and finding ways to also personalize and tailor that experience to that employee. So when I think about the best leave experiences, they're the ones where HR knows their population and they're bringing in the solutions that make the most sense for that experience that their employees are expecting.

 When we think about, I think some really great leave experiences that we hear, it's employers that are really being thoughtful about the communications and helping employees to meet them where they are. And if they're looking for that information early on, they can get it. What's fascinating too is when we look at states that have a lot of complex leaves and there's federal leaves, state leave, there's corporate leave policy, employees often struggle to figure out how does this all work together?

A common practice that we see is employees that will build these Excel spreadsheets and try to map out, how do these benefits all coordinate together, and what are the different steps? And I think that the employers that have really put together a fantastic experience are bringing in solutions to help them do that at scale.

 HR, like Ellen said, there's so many things that they're having to work on now. Their world and their view has grown so much in terms of responsibility and what they're responsible for. And so when we can take off some of that burden that's on their shoulders and free them up, scale those processes, those repetitive functions and be able to spend the time talking with your employees, I think that's when you can have that personalized experience and a really solid experience for employees. And sometimes it means that you can move to technology solutions and you don't have to go to those Excel spreadsheets. And at the same time, you're making it easy for HR teams too.

Claire:

It's so interesting and it's making me think, again, of where, you're just talking, Miyuki, about the state complexities. And my goodness, I mean, when you look at the complexity year by year and the exponential growth of that complexity, you look at all the remote workers who are now everywhere potentially crossing all those state lines. I'd love you both, if we could finish, what is the new tech landscape that's actually helping HR do this, deliver that consumer experience and cover all your compliance? Maybe Ellen, you could start, I know Unum's doing some amazing work here.

Ellen:

Absolutely, Claire. And really, technology is helping so much in this space because there are so many laws that apply and you really have to apply some logic and some rules around when does this employee get entitlement to a certain protection? How does it work in conjunction with other protections? How many laws apply to this employee?

And so being able to build out the rules engine that then can drive correct decisions has been a key to our success. And so we have 22+ years experience in complying with leave laws since we took that experience and it enabled us to build the rules, so that we can lean into technology to make sure those rules are applicable when they need to be and accurately and the right decisions are being made and we're freeing up our people from having to do some of that administrative work that we can do through technology.

It leaves our people there to help employees when they need to speak to them when something's really complex, but it frees them up so a lot of that administrative work can be done through technology and it also can be done much more accurately because as we build in those rules around the different laws, the different protections, we know the right decisions are going to be made. So it really is a game changer, when it comes to leave administration.

Claire:

Amazing. And Miyuki, could you add to that 'cause I know the technology's then also helping the employee experience too, right?

Miyuki Iwahashi:

Right. So definitely, there's so many solutions that are available to help employers these days. I think one of the things that I'm super excited about when it comes to Unum Solutions is we have so much to meet all of the different employer needs. And I think that's really important when employers are looking at the solutions that are available out there today and really thinking at the ones that are going to meet the mark for what they're looking for from a compliance standpoint and from experience standpoint.

 One of the things that we see with Leave Logic that's been very helpful for employers when they're thinking about, how do I scale my own support? And a lot of that with comes with education on the rapidly changing regulatory landscape and paid leave landscape, where it is really hard for HR teams to keep up with it when they get escalations or their employees are trying to make sense of things that they're hearing from their colleagues, to be able to go into a solution and learn about those benefits, to learn about, okay, I'm in Washington, what does that look like? Or, I'm in Texas, what does this look like?

 And HR teams don't have to be experts anymore, when they get escalations. Their management teams don't need to be experts anymore. They can rely on solutions to help guide the employee and guide them in a consistent way and a personalized way, which I think is really important. It's not just that process, but it's having a really good process where employees come out of it feeling good about the experience and they feel confident about it and it's a reflection of that company, so they're wanting to come back.

We see employers that are able to retain employees for longer. The rates of employees returning back from a leave are higher. These are all great indicators that the leave experience is going really well. At the same time, I think it's important to think about, how is it helping HR? There's so much on HR's plates outside of just the leave or claim experience.

And so we think about the types of questions that employees might come to, to either their HR team or their supervisor. Things like, I've heard about this free breast pump that I get. How do I get it? Or where's the mother's room? I'm about to come back to work. How do I sign up for support for lactation support? I've heard that's a company benefit.

So now with technology solutions like Leave Logic, HR can put all of their common questions, all of the benefits that they're trying to get their employees to know about or to utilize all in one place. And we think a lot about having a one-stop shop. I think consistent feedback from employees is like, I don't want to have to find all the places to go to. Help me out. And in doing so, I think it's also helping out HR teams too, to be able to scale HR teams support and have a really great experience for their employees.

Claire:

It's just so wonderful. Thank you both for chatting with us. I know we're going to hear from you more in 2023. It's going to be about retention, isn't it? And it's going to be about all those investment businesses make into having these programs. Let's make sure they feel good when employees use them. And my goodness, when they do, the amount of loyalty that we see and so on. Thank you both so much for coming on the show.

Ellen:

Thank you.

Miyuki Iwahashi:

Thanks for having us.

Claire:

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