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Wellness

6 tips to make your paid time off policy a competitive advantage

Are you using your paid time off policy to your advantage?

Don’t spend all your time working,” he said, on his 70th birthday. “You’ll regret it.”

That refrain is one I’m increasingly hearing from older relatives as they become too frail to travel. They either feel glad they travelled when they were younger, or regret that they didn’t when they could.

Either way, the moral is the same: don’t let your life revolve around work.

Not just because having life experiences and making memories is important, but also because breaks help us recharge.

Visiting new places stimulates creativity and a sense of awe. Getting away from constant work notifications calms our overstimulated nervous systems.

The data backs up the importance of PTO, too: the most satisfied US workers take an average of 15 days of PTO per year. However, average vacation time for employees is just 11 days after a year of service.

In the EU, four weeks is required as standard. This does not include parental leave, sick leave, allowance in lieu, or any other form of leave.

On top of that, in countries like France, it’s illegal for managers to contact their employees — or expect a response from them — outside of working hours. Not just immoral, illegal.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

How can you ensure your paid time off policy gets the most out of your employees — and provides you with the best ROI?

Don’t give unlimited leave

Unlimited leave can, paradoxically, encourage employees to take less leave. They don’t want to be seen as taking the paid time off policy for granted by taking too many days off. Instead, they overcompensate by taking fewer days, if any.

The only way to mitigate this is for your senior leaders to set examples by regularly using their PTO. And for them to actually disconnect during those breaks. If they still reply to non-urgent emails on PTO, it’s not a break.

Have PTO expire

Offering a rollover paid time off policy is another trap. I’ve seen many friends and colleagues fall into it over the years.

So much so that at a previous role, a colleague accrued almost an entire year of leave. She’d felt too busy to take a break!

She ended up taking almost all of December off — the team’s busiest month — because her vacation days wouldn’t roll over. As a result, the rest of the team struggled to keep up with deadlines.

When she returned, she felt refreshed. Her colleagues felt exhausted.

Funny how that happened.

Whether employees take a break or not, work won’t stop. Workloads never end. Employees must create boundaries themselves, scheduling the break and trusting their colleagues to pick up the slack.

If they don’t trust their colleagues to handle things while they’re gone, that speaks volumes about your hiring process, team dynamics, and company culture.

The delays and stress caused by someone taking large chunks of leave at your busiest time can cost you money in the long-run, both in terms of missed deadlines and stressed employees.

A use it or lose it paid time off policy encourages them to take the time off in that year. This will benefit them — and your business — far more.

Allow trading and purchasing of PTO

To give employees the opportunity to travel or just take longer breaks, give them the option to trade PTO with a colleague, or purchase more. This ensures you don’t lose their internal knowledge, but they get a break.

Alternatively, you could allow them to take an unpaid sabbatical as part of your paid time off policy. That way, if they wish to go away for a prolonged period, they can.

I’ve known colleagues to do both of these options in the past. They came back calmer and full of new ideas.

No contact during PTO

I’ve seen a lot of videos from Americans who work in Europe who are surprised not just that Europeans get so much time off as part of their paid time off policy, but that their bosses won’t contact them out of hours. This is a legal requirement in countries like France, so companies won’t take the risk. 

Allowing employees to fully switch off from work means they can come back recharged. If they’re constantly worried they’re going to get a notification from their boss about something that’s URGENT (unless you’re a surgeon, it’s rarely actually urgent), they won’t be able to enjoy themselves eating dinner, let alone on vacation.

Separate sick leave and vacation time

Vacation time and sick leave shouldn’t be in the same group of your paid time off policy. There’s nothing relaxing about being sick.

Employees need that time to recover from their ailment(s), but they also need time to mentally switch off. That’s almost impossible to do when you’re not feeling well.

Don’t require employees to use vacation time for medical appointments.

You shouldn’t punish employees for having health issues that require medical appointments, whatever they may be.

Your disabled or chronically ill employees need their PTO even more to recharge so that they can perform at their best. If they lose PTO for medical appointments, they lose the chance to recharge.

Instead, allow them to make the time back. Or have a separate form of PTO that they can use for hospital, doctor, or dentist appointments.

Employees with health challenges will think more outside of the box. They’ve spent much of their lives having to adapt leading them to think more creatively. They can be some of your most intuitive, innovative employees. But that can only happen if they feel supported by their employer and their paid time off policy.

Conclusion 

Your paid time off policy reflects your company culture. It shows how much you value employees’ health and time outside of work, or if you expect them to work like AI agents.

If you want to get the most from your employees, you need a clear paid time off policy that you encourage employees to use. That way, they get time to recharge and can plan any vacations around the time they have.

Providing the option for acquiring more leave to take longer breaks shows employees you understand the importance of time off but don’t want to lose them as an employee just because they want to go on vacation for a week.

Want to create a better company culture for your employees? Employee groups connect employees across your organization with different backgrounds, interests, and goals. This improves teamwork, innovation, and the overall atmosphere. Using Workrowd, you can manage them faster, and better. Get in touch to find out more.

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6 tips to make your paid time off policy a competitive advantage
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8 tips to plan a team offsite that supercharges company culture
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High-potential employees: how to identify and engage them

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Company Culture

8 tips to plan a team offsite that supercharges company culture

The average company now has 2.6 offsites per year. They’re increasingly becoming social activities, with just 36% of team offsite time being used for work. The policy must be working, too, as companies that have more frequent offsites are more likely to exceed their financial targets.

On top of that 79% of people find that traveling for work boosts job satisfaction. In Europe, it’s 83%, and in Asia that figure is 96%.

Here’s how to get more from a team offsite to supercharge your company culture.

Company offsites aren’t the only way to connect employees. Employee groups foster connections before and after your team offsite, developing relationships that can improve employee communications and create a more welcoming workplace. Discover how to run your employee groups with less effort — while getting more information — using Workrowd. Get in touch to book your free demo today. 

Set a budget

If you want employees to travel for work, they shouldn’t have to foot the bill. Yet 65% of employees experience some level of personal financial impact. Not everyone can afford that. Many will be living paycheck to paycheck. Factor that in when budgeting for your team offsite. Ensure it’s as easy and fast as possible for employees to book or expense what they need.

Tools are available where employees can book through them. That means they don’t need to use their own money to organize anything — it comes straight out of the company account. They still get all the travel information to their contact details, but the bill goes directly to you.

Hire someone to organize it

An overworked employee isn’t the best person to organize a team offsite.

Someone whose job it is to organize offsites means they have more time to research locations that can accommodate everything you need. They have dedicated time to read TripAdvisor reviews and contact venues to find out if they have space when you want it.

As this is their sole job, they can also respond to queries faster. That means things can be dealt with and organized sooner, too.

Pick somewhere with good transport links

There’s nothing worse than having to travel to the middle of nowhere, and change at multiple stations or airports, to get to where you need to go. Make travel less stressful for your employees by picking somewhere with good transport links.

It’s why a lot of people meet in or near major cities in the US. They have the best transport links.

If you’re too far from the airport, it’s a nightmare to get everyone where they need to go. US transport — regardless of how you travel — is mostly centered around urban areas. It can be challenging, and your venue may be more expensive, but factoring these things in will make your employees’ travel time shorter and tickets less expensive.

Change locations

Changing the location each time you hold a team offsite makes it fairer for employees who had to travel farther for your last one. 

It’s not just the cost of travel, but the time and energy that it takes, too. Jet lag hits some people harder than others. Sometimes even a long train journey can be stressful, especially if there are multiple changes or delays.

If you want employees to enjoy your offsites and get more from them, ensuring they don’t dread them because of stressful travel is a contributing factor.

Consider travel limitations

To be an inclusive employer, you have to consider someone’s travel limitations if you expect them to travel more for work.

For example, I enjoy traveling, but it triggers my chronic fatigue. Especially if I have to navigate train stations alone.

How can you help employees mitigate things like this? 

Train stations often offer assistance for disabled people traveling with or without support. That means there’s someone to help with luggage, find the next station, etc. These small things can make a big difference.

Accommodate dietary requirements

I have heard too many stories from friends who have gone to a team offsite and ended up starving because everything is full of gluten and they’re celiac, or it’s full of dairy and they’re lactose intolerant or vegan. 

It shouldn’t be that hard to accommodate dietary requirements in 2026. Especially when fruits and vegetables are naturally gluten and dairy free and just about everyone can eat them. 

Support venues that can and do cater, not just for your employees but because it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. These companies get more attention and customers, so then their competitors see this and start to get better at accommodating, too.

Nobody wants to be ill when traveling, let alone when traveling for work.

Or even have the stress of carrying medication or supplements when traveling in case they eat something that triggers them. Save them the stress, seriously. Most people won’t. I guarantee you they’ll appreciate it.

Invite family

If employees have to travel for a team offsite, inviting their family along can be a cheaper way for them to explore new locations with their family.

In a cost of living crisis, this is a much cheaper way for people to get a vacation in. Obviously you don’t have to pay for family, but even one cheaper flight can make a huge difference.

Remember those who can’t come

For whatever reason, there will be people who can’t come. For example, childcare, parental care, or their own health issues. Find ways to include them, such as through video calls.

One way I found that worked well at a past team offsite was for each person who couldn’t come to remote in via an assigned laptop. Someone was in charge of the video call on that. 

We then broke off into small groups, so it was easier for those laptop people to voice their thoughts and opinions even though they weren’t physically in the room.

Conclusion 

Company offsites help employees connect with their colleagues on a personal and professional level. It can be a way to get things done faster, or brainstorm ideas for the next year.

Wherever you decide to organize your team offsite, remember to make it inclusive. The more inclusive you make it, from travel arrangements to dietary requirements, the better an experience it will be for your employees. Meaning they’re more likely to enjoy it and want to stay working for you, rather than dread the next time they’re in the same room as their colleagues.

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6 tips to make your paid time off policy a competitive advantage
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8 tips to plan a team offsite that supercharges company culture
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High-potential employees: how to identify and engage them
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Learning & Development

High-potential employees: how to identify and engage them

High-potential employees are more productive than the rest of your team. They’re dedicated and hardworking, going above and beyond without you even needing to ask.

With the right support, you can turn them into high performers. High performing team members are so valuable that they drive 400% more productivity and are 91% more valuable than the average employee. However, they’re prone to burnout and will leave if they feel unsupported.

So how do you spot your high-potential employees? And how do you support them?

How to identify high-potential employees

Your high-potential employees notice things your other employees don’t. They pay attention to business practices even when they don’t need to, considering how their actions — and those of their colleagues — will affect your business in the short- and long-term.

Because of this interest, they’re likely to ask questions about what’s going on so that they can understand what’s happening and why.

They have an ability to see the bigger picture and actively use it. This is an important skill to nurture, and one that many people who work for you won’t have, or won’t apply at work.

You therefore need to support your high-potential employees as much as possible, because if they feel supported, they’ll go above and beyond.

How to support high potential employees

Have a formal development program

Whether you’ve identified your high-potential employees yet or not, you need a formal development program in place.

That includes understanding:

  • How someone progresses up the career ladder
  • What training opportunities are available
  • Details of coaching and mentoring
  • Potential external mentors who may be able to help them
  • Anything else that may be able to help someone grow

If someone with high potential joins you and finds that you don’t offer progression opportunities, they’re unlikely to stay when a better opportunity comes along — high performers are 15% more likely to leave if they’re not being actively developed.

Worse, only 18% of companies have a formal process for developing internal talent. 20% have nothing.

Provide them with training opportunities

Your high-potential employees are also at a higher risk of leaving if they feel unhappy or unsupported. They can be your biggest advocates and lead to the biggest internal transformations, and even motivate the rest of your team — so long as you offer them opportunities to progress.

For example, could you invest in training on how to use AI in their role? Skills they need for a promotion? Upskilling or reskilling opportunities? The list of ways to support them with training is endless.

Ask them what they want and where they want to go. They need to feel included in the plan and not like a passenger — a lack of agency is just as likely to nudge someone out the door.

Offer coaching or mentoring

A coach can support employees in growing new skills, while a mentor can help them develop within your organization or the wider industry.

Your employee groups are undervalued tools for connecting employees with internal coaches and mentors. It’s not easy to find someone, and as a result many people never do. Leaving them floundering.

You can set up a group where those who have space can offer coaching or mentoring, or those in need of it can ask for recommendations.

Workrowd can help you organize those groups, making your employees more likely to use them. Want to find out more? Get in touch to book a demo.

Include them in business decisions

Your high-potential employees know what’s going on in your business. Because of that, they will probably spot things those too close to a situation won’t.

Getting their opinions on business decisions means you get a unique perspective: they can sum up employee sentiment and understand why the C-Suite wants to make the decisions it does. So then they can help the two levels communicate, and if required, find a middle ground.

Bring them in on interviews

Interviews aren’t just about seeing if someone is a good fit for your business. They’re also an opportunity to sell your business as an employer. Who better to do that than an employee who’s excelling in their role?

Including high-potential employees in interviews also helps with their development. They get to know more about how the company operates outside of their department, and you get more people who can conduct interviews. Perfect if you’re a high-volume employer.

Pay them fairly (if not better)

The pay for many roles hasn’t changed in around a decade. That’s not how you attract or retain high performers.

High performers know what they’re worth, they know companies will compete for them, and they want to be paid accordingly. 

If you’re not willing to pay the rates, as high-potential employees level up, they’ll leave to work for someone who’ll pay them more in line with what their time and hard work is worth. 

Set up an employee group

High-potential employees often have different goals from other team members. Creating a group where they can share resources and ask for advice connects them and keeps them motivated. It can also mitigate burnout because they have a supportive community around them.

Like attracts like, and, as the old rule says, we’re a product of the five people we spend the most time with. If employees spend more time talking to other high-potential employees, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. They support each other’s growth and progress.

Watch for burnout

Because high-potential employees work so hard, it’s painfully easy for them to burn out. You therefore need to support their physical and mental wellbeing. Their line manager and HR team play a key role in this. Things like:

  • Making sure they go to lunch
  • Reminding them they don’t have to start at 7am and finish at 10pm every day
  • Encouraging them to use all their PTO

While rollover PTO policies can be nice, sometimes they discourage employees from taking their leave because they know they won’t lose those days. Especially if said employee feels like they have too much to do, or just want to get one more thing over the line before they can relax.

If someone feels too busy to take PTO, it’s a sign they could be overworked. Step in and remind them that the business’s success doesn’t rest on their shoulders: it should be a team effort.

Conclusion 

Your high-potential employees could become your biggest asset. So long as you support them.

To do that, you need to include them in business decisions and provide growth opportunities throughout their tenure. The more they feel supported and included, and like they have opportunities for progression, the more likely they are to stick around.

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6 tips to make your paid time off policy a competitive advantage
team offsite
8 tips to plan a team offsite that supercharges company culture
high-potential employees
High-potential employees: how to identify and engage them
Categories
Employee Retention

5 tips to build an employee retention plan that works in 2026

42% of employees who leave an organization say their manager could’ve prevented their move. That means companies aren’t doing enough to implement an employee retention plan that works.

When replacing someone costs anywhere from 40% to 200% of their salary, people departing unexpectedly gets costly. So what can you do to improve your employee retention plan?

Start with your onboarding

First impressions matter, and your onboarding is the first time someone sees inside your company. If job descriptions are the window dressing, and interviews are your shop floor, then onboarding is the first time they open the doors to enter your stockroom. And if they don’t like what they see, they won’t stay — a third of turnover happens within the first year.

Your onboarding can change that.

Onboarding is easy to underestimate and even easier to get wrong. But it’s an essential part of an effective employee retention plan. Only 12% of employees strongly agree that their organization’s onboarding is “great,” proving that there’s something almost every organization can do to improve theirs.

Onboarding can be a stressful time for everyone, but with a defined process it becomes easier and faster.

You design it once (or once for each department), then you only need to make periodic updates, such as if policies or staff contacts change.

Your onboarding should include:

  • Introductions to key colleagues (ideally in person or on a call, before there are any stakes or difficult decisions involved)
  • Policies they need to know like health and safety
  • How to book PTO
  • Who to contact when they’re sick
  • Approval chains (for example in marketing, who decides when a social media post is ready to go live?)
  • How to use any tools they need, along with login details

To make onboarding easier, make sure you know who’s responsible for creating/deleting accounts for each of your tools. That way it’s quicker to set up accounts when someone new joins, and you/the new hire knows who to speak to if something goes wrong.

On top of that, when someone does leave, you know who should delete their account to remove any potential security risks.

Train managers

Managers are the top reason people leave a job. Over 70% of employees would quit because of a bad manager. Considering managers are who employees typically deal with the most, can you blame anyone for quitting if they hate their boss?

Most managers never get any formal management training, despite people management being a completely different skill than the one people are often promoted from. 

Knowing how to lead a team doesn’t happen by osmosis; it requires active work. 

If someone doesn’t know where to get that advice, they’re more likely to make it up as they go along. Which is only going to end badly for their employees and your company’s retention efforts.

The solution is simple: train your managers! They need to understand how to handle employee conflict, how to talk about difficult subjects, ways to lead with empathy and so much more. If you want your employee retention plan to actually work, you need to include manager training as a key component.

Don’t create a culture of fear

There are a couple of ways a business can create a culture of fear.

Firstly, if someone is constantly worried about their job. Companies that do endless rounds of layoffs make employees afraid that they’ll be on the chopping block next.

So then they either work themselves to the point of burnout, or they switch off and don’t bother, because what’s the point if they’ll be let go soon? Layoffs can do more harm than good if your employee retention plan doesn’t support the team members you want to stick around.

Secondly, if employees don’t feel able to speak up when something is wrong, or able to challenge the status quo.

Just because something has always been done the same way, that doesn’t mean it’s the best way to do something.

Unfortunately, I’ve had the displeasure in the past of working with managers who say that they’re open to criticism, but then when criticized, shut that person down. Or worse, let them go. That is not healthy. It is a culture of fear.

Nobody should feel trapped in a role that makes them feel unsafe. It has negative consequences for their physical and mental health. Not just in terms of stress and burnout, but in terms of chronic pain, anxiety, depression, and more.

Work on your culture

Culture, engagement, and work-life balance are the main reasons 69% of employees leave.

Company culture requires ongoing work. If you start to neglect it, it will inevitably deteriorate. It needs to be included in your employee retention plan.

Everything from how your CEO talks to employees, to how colleagues speak to one another, reflects and impacts your company culture. These have a far bigger impact than how much free food you give someone or how fancy the chairs are in your office.

Treat employees with respect — and get them to do the same with each other

At work, we will inevitably disagree with colleagues. That shouldn’t descend into arguments or personal jabs, though.

The ability to agree to disagree, or have a polite debate, seems to have been eroded by the internet. It doesn’t have to be that way, though.

If you want to create a healthy work environment, you need to show your employees how to be respectful to one another. That starts with how managers speak to each other, and employees, within meetings.

It’s especially visible when senior leaders disagree with one another. If things get nasty, it can quickly make the rest of the team uncomfortable.

There’s no need for that.

Teach your team how to communicate calmly and fairly, without losing their temper. 

At the end of the day, most of us aren’t running countries or working in healthcare. None of it is actually as important as we’d like to think. It isn’t worth arguing over. Remembering that can help you design an employee retention plan that goes the distance.

Conclusion 

Company culture is central to employee retention in 2026. Employees need to feel safe working for your organization, and that comes from your managers’ attitudes, workplace communication policies, and whether or not they feel invisible. Seemingly simple things, but actually, ones that have a huge impact on how people within your business feel working for you.

Want to gather input to improve your employee retention plan? With Workrowd, you can send employee feedback surveys — and it’ll analyze the results for you. Less effort, more info. Get in touch to find out more.

paid time off
6 tips to make your paid time off policy a competitive advantage
team offsite
8 tips to plan a team offsite that supercharges company culture
high-potential employees
High-potential employees: how to identify and engage them
Categories
Company Culture

Building trust in the workplace: why it’s important and how to do it

Why do executives believe that workplace trust is 16% higher than employees do? A disconnect is happening somewhere between what employees experience and what executives think is happening — or perhaps, in how they come across. Either way, building trust in the workplace isn’t something anyone can afford to overlook.

Businesses need to find a fix for this. Employees who don’t feel trusted won’t necessarily quit. In fact, they’ll do something that will hurt your bottom line much more.

Why building trust in the workplace is important

You might think the top reason for building trust in the workplace is employee retention, but actually, it isn’t.

Low trust doesn’t lead to more resignations, it leads to something worse: employees staying but putting less effort in.

So you don’t spend money hiring, you lose money because everything moves at a snail’s pace.

I’ve seen this happen in real time, at previous organizations I’ve worked for where leadership changed, management styles changed, and employees struggled. No one knew what management expected or what direction we were going in. Instructions were confusing at best, contradictory at worst. Instead of building trust in the workplace, they allowed it to completely break down.

Over time, people did leave. But months before that, they went quiet. Took longer to reply to messages, didn’t produce as much as they once did, didn’t seem as engaged during meetings — instead, they looked forlorn.

Communication barriers increased and team collaboration all but vanished. The people who’d created a strong community for the organization all disappeared as well, literally or metaphorically.

That business no longer exists.

Tips for building trust in the workplace

So how do you avoid that mistake?

Be open — and say when you don’t know something

Building trust in the workplace starts with openness. Employees need to know what’s going on and what it means for them.

It’s also important to be comfortable saying “I don’t know” or “Can I get back to you?” That will build confidence much more quickly than pretending you have an answer and changing your mind later.

Flip flops decrease trust, especially if they become commonplace. People start to wonder if what you’re saying is true, or if you’ll change your mind tomorrow.

Involve employees in decisions

83% of employees would trust their employer more if their supervisor involved them in important decisions.

Most employees won’t ask you to include them out of fear you’ll penalize them.

We’ve all worked somewhere someone got into trouble for voicing their opinion, even if they were told that they should, or that the company had a policy of “radical candor.”

If you offer employees the opportunity to speak up, or ask for their input, however, they’ll feel more included and like they have a greater stake in what’s happening.

Listen 

Over two thirds of employees feel that having a manager who listens to them is very important for building trust in the workplace. Their manager hired them because they think they’d be good at their job, so why wouldn’t their manager listen to them?

HR teams also need to consider how they listen to employees. For instance, regular employee feedback surveys give you the opportunity to find out what your team really thinks.

Using Workrowd, you get the data analyzed automatically, too, meaning you have more time to act on the results.

Offer career advancement opportunities

61% of employees feel that career advancement opportunities are key to building trust in the workplace. Investing in advancement opportunities is a subtle communication that speaks to employees’ future within your company.

If employees feel like working for you is a dead end, where they’ll be stuck doing the same thing forever and never earn any more, they’re not going to want to stick around long-term.

If there’s a progression plan in place, they can see that you’re invested in their future and want them to continue working for you.

Prioritize flexibility around work

Office-based working has its benefits. But so does remote work. That’s why flexibility matters so much.

Many employees perform better in their own spaces, so long as they can come together with colleagues for planning and meetings.

An office should be a middle ground, not somewhere they must be present during all working hours.

Commutes are expensive and can limit where someone could work from — meaning you might miss out on the best talent for the role not because they don’t want to work for you, but because getting to your office isn’t feasible.

Flexibility is key to building trust in the workplace. Giving employees the ability to work from wherever shows you trust them to do their jobs. You don’t have to see them as physically present at a desk to know that they’ll achieve something.

69% of employees state that flexibility around where they work would build more trust. Yet just 39% of executives offer this flexibility.

Think about when work happens

We often talk about where work happens, but spend little time on when.

Despite the ubiquity of the 9-5 model, it’s not the best way for everyone to work. It’s just become habit.

Just over 7 in 10 employees feel more flexibility around when work gets done would help with building trust in the workplace, yet 43% of executives offer this. 

Some of my best work — whether that’s school essays, novel writing, or client work — has come at midnight. For you, that might be well past your bedtime. But for me, if I know that’s when I do my best work, why would I want to miss out on that?

The same is true for your company. Your best employees may have unconventional working hours, but isn’t what matters the quality of their work?

Don’t track online activity

Employees don’t want to feel like you’re watching their every move. 

Over a third of employees who work for companies with remote work policies would trust companies that track their online activity less. Which makes sense, because the subtext of this move is that you don’t trust them to do their job when at their work laptop.

It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: the company doesn’t trust the employee, so then the employee doesn’t trust the company. It can make employees wonder what else their employer is monitoring. It’s certainly doesn’t support efforts towards building trust in the workplace.

Conclusion 

Employee trust is difficult to build but easy to lose. It’s not a one and done situation; you have to consciously work at building trust in the workplace to grow your relationship with your employees and get the most from that. That means showing you value them, but also making them feel like they’re more than just a cog in the machine.

Want to find out what your employees really think? With Workrowd, you can send surveys at set milestones. Find out where your employees are really at and what’s going on within your company. Get in touch to learn more.

paid time off
6 tips to make your paid time off policy a competitive advantage
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8 tips to plan a team offsite that supercharges company culture
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High-potential employees: how to identify and engage them

Categories
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging

AI gender bias part 2: here’s what employers can do about it

As I explored in last week’s post, AI gender bias is a major problem. It disproportionately impacts women because we do a lot of invisible labor, both at home and at work. That means we have less energy to learn new tools.

On top of that, AI is more likely to disrupt industries that are predominantly worked in by women.

Businesses therefore need to do more to support the women in their workplaces. Your most capable leaders could be buried under the weight of responsibility and you’ll never know without providing them with the support they need.

Don’t assume everyone starts from the same point

Our energy levels ebb and flow just like AI credits. And, just like AI companies change the rules over how many credits a task takes seemingly whenever they feel like it, so too, do our bodies.

Some days, we might fly through tasks within a few hours. Other times, what would normally come easily takes gargantuan effort. That’s not a problem with the person, but with the system being unable to adapt.

The pressure is always on to perform at work. But sometimes, when you’re juggling a gazillion responsibilities and you slept badly last night, and you’ve got no appetite because you’re worried about your dog at the vet, or waiting on a child’s test results, you just don’t have as much mental bandwidth.

No one comes to work with the same energy level as their colleague, and nobody has the same energy level every day.

Rather than worry about how switched on employees are, and how many AI credits they used this week, focus on what they’re actually doing.

Are they doing the work? Are they doing it to a high quality?

That should matter more than their AI usage or how long they spent signed into Teams last week. If they’re doing the work, does it really matter if it was at three o’clock in the morning when the kids were asleep, so long as they didn’t expect anyone to reply right away?

Combatting AI gender bias means being willing to meet employees where they are so they can do their best work, and you can get the best out of them.

Have diverse decision makers

Just 29% of C-Suite executives are women, despite making up 49% of entry-level roles. Even now, in 2026.

It’s harder for female-led businesses to get investment. Even now, in 2026.

Women still have to do more work to get the same results, and not due to any lack of ability.

Businesses that have more diverse leadership teams are more profitable, more sustainable, and more adaptable. So why aren’t more women making it to the top?

It’s time to remove the groupthink. If businesses truly want to innovate, they need to overcome AI gender bias and remember the importance of diverse decision making.

Teach people when to use AI (and when not to)

Despite the prevalence of AI, most people aren’t taught how to use it. They have to figure it out on their own.

This trial-and-error approach takes longer than an hour-long or day-long training session. It gets expensive, too.

Some people are faster learners than others, but isn’t it better to get everyone on the same page earlier? That way, they know when it is (and isn’t) acceptable to use AI. They don’t put your internal data at risk, nor do they create security flaws in your software.

They also know how to use it properly, so then you don’t waste credits on someone figuring out how to use it. Since women have less spare time for learning due to everything else on our plates, this can be an important step towards reducing AI gender bias.

Remember your company culture

Technology companies have to evolve faster than ever. But prioritizing habits that can lead to burnout, like working late nights and weekends, is just going to mean you miss out on next-generation employees who value their out-of-work life.

Employees’ hobbies and interests shouldn’t be an afterthought. They’re an important part of what makes someone who they are.

They can even improve your company’s ability to innovate if you allow people the time and space to explore, rather than expecting their lives to revolve around work.

Since women are at higher risk of job-related burnout, this is another area where AI gender bias comes into play.

Praise (and promote) everyone equally

Men are 27% more likely to be praised for using AI than women, according to Lean In. If we use it to do a good job, the response isn’t a high five, it’s questioning if we actually did the work.

We need to level the playing field when it comes to AI gender bias. Either praise everyone equally for the same job, or don’t praise anyone at all.

To work on this, it might involve training everyone — or updating everyone’s training — on unconscious biases.

Even with prior training, bad habits are easy to slip back into. Think about driving a car: when it’s been a long time since you last took a test, bad habits like putting your foot on the gas when driving down a long, straight road, or forgetting to use indicators can happen.

Alongside this lack of recognition, women often have to prove we’re capable before we receive a promotion. Meanwhile, men get promoted on their potential.

Ask — and actually listen

All of your employees are feeling the weight of AI, regardless of their role. And regardless of AI gender bias. Budgets are ballooning and employees are being told to just “find what it can do” without any real guidance a lot of the time.

Checking in with them to see how AI is impacting their role shows them that you do value them and want to know how you can help.

Sending an employee survey is a simple way to ask these questions. An anonymous survey allows employees to air their grievances and concerns without fear of consequences.

Workrowd can send surveys for you. Choose set milestones or groups, and let the software analyze the data. It’s quick, simple, and gives you more time to act on the results. Get in touch to find out more.

Conclusion

When it comes to innovation, there are always winners and losers. However, the reason certain groups fall behind isn’t always because they’re bad at something. It’s because those in charge don’t include them in key decisions.

Underrepresented groups have different experiences. When projects exclude our voices, accommodations that factor in our life experiences get overlooked.

People often mistake those accommodations as slowing down progress. But actually, they can speed it up. Because it means you don’t need to change or update things retrospectively, which is a far more cumbersome process.

Combat AI gender bias and support the women in your workplace with Workrowd. Send employee surveys and organize your employee groups to help your business grow. Get in touch to find out more.

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Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging

Gender bias in AI: AI is worse for women than men. Why?

Women do twice as much invisible labor as men. From childrearing, to laundry, to grocery shopping, to family timekeeping. They’re the school’s default emergency contact, they’re keeping the family peace, they have to ensure everyone is fed. So it’s no wonder that we also face gender bias in AI.

On top of all of this, there’s the mental gymnastics of what to wear every day. Don’t be too revealing, but don’t look too buttoned-up and serious, either. Too casual? Too formal? A woman can’t walk into an office in jeans and a hoodie and expect colleagues to take her seriously. We are judged far more harshly by our outfits at work than men, which adds to the pressure.

Then, there might be the additional burdens of their own, or a family member’s, health issues — especially as they get older.

Many middle-aged women are responsible both for raising children and caring for their aging parents.

And women spend 25% more time in poor health than men, no doubt because of medical gaslighting, diagnostic delays, and the fact many medications and treatments were only tested on men. So we don’t actually know if certain treatments even work for women, because for too long (until the early 1990s) we were treated as “smaller men” in medical tests.

Plus, there’s the extra strain on the body that comes with periods. A woman’s hormones can drop 40-60% in just a few days, while men’s — if they change at all — will drop 1% in a year.

I feel exhausted just writing all that.

And let’s not forget, this is all before factoring in work itself. 

Do more with less?

AI’s pitch it that it allows us to do more by freeing up tedious tasks. But it can’t do the invisible labor. It often simply means that employees do more with less colleague support, as businesses make employees redundant to fund ballooning AI budgets.

The goalposts are moving all the time, too, with the expectation of output increasing while the financial rewards don’t. Not for employees without shares, anyway.

AI amplifies the existing systems. That includes the invisible labor that women take on, both at home and at work.

Scanning the room to prevent bad moods from escalating, keeping everyone from panicking about AI taking their jobs, the list goes on. These invisible tasks don’t get any credit, but someone has to do them or the company culture falls apart. Just another way in which gender bias in AI shows up at work.

Name the invisible labor

Invisible labor doesn’t just happen at home. It just goes unnoticed at work because, well, the clue’s in the name.

From taking meeting notes, to organizing social events, to making the next round of coffee, it almost always falls on women.

But if someone can send an email and create a calendar invite, they have the basics to organize an event. AI can help them if they’re unsure. Isn’t that the whole point?

Gendered roles are so twentieth century. Gender bias in AI doesn’t need to continue them.

Remember AI can’t lead

The invisible labor that so often falls on women cannot be outsourced to AI. But the jobs we do to pay the bills can.

This is yet another aspect of gender bias in AI. It only adds to the stress and pressure women feel in workplaces that were never designed for us.

While the assumption is often that managerial positions are all about strategy, they’re increasingly becoming about emotional intelligence, too.

The best leaders know how to read the room and adapt accordingly; they’re strong negotiators and can keep their own feelings out of a situation. This is a skill that women learn from a young age. We’re taught that our emotions are inconvenient and so we must mask them, especially if we’re sensitive or neurodivergent.

Check your health insurance policy

One way you can support the women in your workplace is to ensure your health insurance covers therapy and diagnosing conditions like ADHD.

Many women are finding out in their 40s and beyond that they have ADHD, autism, or both, but not every insurance provider will cover the diagnosis or treatment.

However, getting the diagnosis can give women a new view on life and the challenges they face — including their ability to adapt to the increasing pace of change and gender bias in AI present in the 2020s. Change is often worse for neurodivergent folk, and the only suitable word for the current tech climate really is “rapid,” wouldn’t you say?

Support, diagnosis, and treatment can help them find adaptations and give them ideas for how you can make your workplace more accessible for everyone — and therefore more innovative, too, since the organizations on the cutting edge are the ones that have diverse leadership in every aspect of the word.

Connect your employees

Your employee groups are an important tool to support your team members in these strange times that we live in. They can share their priorities and challenges, and get advice from those who’ve been there.

Right now, community matters more than ever — it can often be what gets us through a tough spot.

The old saying “a problem shared is a problem halved” is actually true. Even just talking about what we’re going through can lessen some of the burden.

So, your ERGs, mentorship schemes, or even coaching can support your employees when they’re juggling more than the average workload. This can help them overcome gender bias in AI in order to continue thriving in your workplace.

Not getting the most from your employee groups? Workrowd can help. Better organize your groups, get your employees using them, and easily measure the results. Contact us to find out more.

Conclusion 

Women risk losing ground in the workforce purely because of the additional societal weight that we have to carry. That doesn’t have to be the case, though. There’s plenty more that companies can do to support the women in their workforce and mitigate gender bias in AI. 

And, by supporting women, they support all their other employees, too. It evens the playing field, allowing everyone within an organization to grow. It also creates a more welcoming company culture. Which can only be a good thing, right?

Stay tuned for part two, where we’ll delve into how businesses can support women in the workplace alongside AI adoption.

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Employee Engagement

Top talent is looking for purpose-driven work; here’s how to provide it

What we want from work has changed. When it’s hard for so many to cover basic living expenses, and employers demand they work harder for longer hours, employees need more to keep them motivated than just money. Purpose-driven work can fill that need.

When people feel like their work has a purpose, they’re more likely to be engaged and therefore work harder.

On the flip side, if someone feels like their work is all-consuming and lacking in purpose, they’re more likely to become disconnected and disengage.

What is purpose-driven work?

Purpose-driven work is when employees do something that fulfills them.

Usually, this comes with working in a role that aligns with their personal and professional values.

For instance, someone who cares about the environment working in green energy.

Feeling like their position is a contributing factor matters, too. When someone feels that their job is important to the company mission, they’re 3.6 times more likely to have a strong sense of work purpose.

What are the benefits?

When employees’ purpose matches their employer’s purpose, they’re more engaged. In fact, there’s a 41% difference in engagement between employees with a strong work purpose and those without: 9% of employees with low purpose are engaged, while 50% who have a strong work purpose are engaged. That’s a huge difference in productivity, culture, and revenue right there.

Purpose-driven work also comes with a lower risk of burnout. Just 13% of employees who have a strong work purpose feel burnt out “always” or “very often.” On the flip side, 38% of people with a low work purpose say the same.

It also improves employee retention: 68% of those with low purpose are actively job seeking or watching for opportunities, compared to 41% of those who do have a sense of purpose.

How to provide purpose-driven work

Communicate your mission everywhere

I once worked somewhere that valued treating everyone like a human. All meetings, therefore, started with a check-in. Everyone was asked how they were, how their weekend was, etc. That was a concrete way to embody the company’s culture and remind people of it at every meeting, even if the questions felt tedious.

Companies that don’t do small talk, or small check-ins, can feel cold and impersonal. The human side of business matters now, more than ever, especially in the context of purpose-driven work. Talking to someone about how they stay cool in a heatwave or what they watched last night can make a big difference in fostering employee connections.

Share it in interviews

Your job interviews are an important way to measure how someone will feel working for an organization like yours. If they feel it’s too fast or too slow for the way that they work, it’s a sign of a cultural mismatch that would be a waste of their time and yours.

With hiring being so expensive, you want to get it right the first time. Communicating your company purpose and the opportunity for purpose-driven work is a key part of that.

It’s worth including the company mission in job descriptions, as this can weed out those who are a wrong fit. But if you really want to emphasize how important it is to your organization, reiterate it when interviewing too. Then you can see how they react to it while you’re speaking to them and get a better feel for how they really connect with it.

Onboarding

Your onboarding sets the stage for your working relationship with an employee. It’s the difference between them staying for years or leaving before their probation period is over.

If you leave them to figure things out for themselves with no documentation, no colleague introductions, and no mentor, of course they’re going to feel lost and confused.

If you connect them with a mentor who can show them what your business is all about — what drives it and what your goal is — they’re going to feel like you actually want them as a part of the team.

When their mentor, manager, and any groups they join all share the same mission with them, it starts to become concrete. So then they can get on board much more easily than something vague you said in a job description that they’ve probably forgotten by now.

The more we repeat a message, the more it sticks in our brains. And the more important it feels. For purpose-driven work to really hit home, employees have to internalize your mission.

Use employee groups

Not only can employee groups help you share your mission, but they can also reflect it. The types of employee groups you have will say a lot about your business and the types of people you attract.

How you integrate them into your business matters, too. For example, do you consult them during product development? Do they help employees learn new skills and gain promotions? The more integral they are to your business operations, the more it shows you value your people. And the more it can help them feel connected to purpose-driven work.

Want help managing your employee groups? Workrowd’s got you covered. Get in touch to find out more.

Collect employee feedback — and act on it

Collecting employee feedback, such as in a survey, is only half the solution. If you really want to prove to employees that you’re interested in what they have to say, you have to do something with their feedback.

Too many organizations don’t act on employee feedback then wonder why people leave.

Want to send surveys faster? And skip all the number crunching with automatically analyzed results? Workrowd enables you to do just that, giving you more time to make changes within your organization.

Conclusion

It’s one thing to say that you’re a mission-led business. But if you want a truly purpose-led culture, and to attract employees who want purpose-driven work — and who’ll also work harder for you to achieve your goals — your company culture needs to reflect that purpose.

Everything from how you communicate to what you don’t say tells employees and outsiders what your true company purpose is.

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Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging

6 ways to combat gender discrimination in the workplace

Gender discrimination in the workplace remains a real problem. Whether you call it DEI or something else, corporate equality initiatives have failed. 

McKinsey found that women and men have the same ambition levels, but 11% fewer women want promotions.

At every stage of the corporate ladder, women are still underrepresented. 

The report found:

“Women early in their careers are far less likely than men to be people managers. As a result, far more entry-level men are on a path that can lead to promotion. Our survey revealed that four in ten entry-level women have not received a promotion, stretch assignment, or opportunity to participate in leadership or career training in the past two years.”

On top of that, there are fewer women in leadership roles than a few years ago. Despite 80% of businesses telling McKinsey that inclusion is still important. So what’s going wrong? And what can businesses do about gender discrimination in the workplace?

What to do about gender discrimination in the workplace

Clearly, hiring more women into leadership positions isn’t doing what everyone thought it would. More visibility doesn’t mean more acceptance. Just ask female MPs in the UK—despite making up 50% of the cabinet, the gender discrimination in the workplace and ‘boys’ club’ attitude has gotten worse, not better.

Lucy Powell, Deputy Labour Party Leader, said:

“It created more of a culture of not feeling that you could speak out on things […] for fear of giving you a black mark against your name. That is the culture and the atmosphere that we really need to address.”

How can one of the most powerful women in the country still feel that way? It just proves that getting more women into leadership positions is only part of the challenge.

Offer training 

No one wants to hear this, but it’s true. You have to educate everyone within your organization about gender biases and unconscious biases. Even your CEO.

Attitudes have a trickle-down effect, and the only way to learn to think differently is to learn what it’s like for people who don’t come from the same background as you.

This sort of education is essential when it comes to reducing gender discrimination in the workplace.

Skip the stereotypes—and teach emotional regulation

The assumption has always been that women are more emotional. But are we?

Women aren’t allowed to show anger, for example. Society tells us that to do so is ugly and unbecoming. (Insert eye roll here.)

Men, meanwhile, can show anger, even in the workplace. They might shout at someone who’s made a mistake, for example. Their (often female) assistant might tell people to avoid him when he’s in a bad mood.

This pandering to one type of emotion but vilifying it in other genders is part of the problem. It is undeniably an example of gender discrimination in the workplace. It’s time businesses put more effort into teaching people how not to stereotype and instead have proper emotional regulation.

Colleagues and employees are not verbal battering rams. Managers shouldn’t shout at them because they didn’t get their way or something went wrong.

Coaching is a useful tool for teaching emotional regulation, especially as someone climbs the corporate ladder.

Over half of managers never receive any coaching or management training, so doing this would invest in your company’s future, both in terms of leaders and the rest of your workforce. It will create a better environment for everyone, too, while decreasing gender discrimination in the workplace.

Lead by example

Your C-suite’s attitude to everyone else is a contagious disease. If they make even the tiniest sexist comment, it makes that attitude more accepted for everyone else to express.

So then it gives those who feel much more strongly the impression that they can make such comments—or worse.

Your leadership must set an example. They must treat everyone, from the rest of the C-Suite right down to the cleaner or any office pets, as their equal. No talking down, no talking over, and no ignoring or taking credit for other people’s ideas.

Combatting gender discrimination in the workplace should be part of combatting all discrimination.

Update your dress code

Do you have a dress code or is it based on vibes? If the men come in suits and you have no formal dress code written down, I guarantee the women panic about what to wear.

Samantha Harman discusses this predicament in her book, Just Get Dressed. It’s about enclothed cognition: how the clothes we wear impact how we feel about ourselves.

If a man repeats the same suit every day, no one notices. This is also a conscious choice that comes from privilege, she argues. Steve Jobs’ signature turtleneck was from Japanese designer Issey Miyake and cost $300.

What if a woman tried this hack?

A couple of news channels in Canada and Australia asked the same question. In response, viewers emailed them asking if the female outfits were due to budget cuts. Nobody noticed the men repeating their suits.

Even our clothes carry double standards. If that’s not gender discrimination in the workplace, I don’t know what is.

Organize employee groups

An ERG designed for women to support each other not only offers a place to discuss juggling family, relationships, health, and work, but they can also discuss when they’ve faced gender discrimination in the workplace.

It can act as a canary in a coal mine, giving you information on where the problems lie so that you can do something before they get worse.

Want help organizing your ERGs? Workrowd has everything you need. Get in touch to find out more.

Don’t blame the men

There is no one person in an organization who creates a toxic culture, and it isn’t the fault of the men who work for you.

In fact, women can be guilty of this kind of attitude, too.

They climbed to the top, space feels limited, and they don’t want anyone to come in and replace them. This isn’t every woman—the same as not all men are sexist—but it’s something to be aware of.

For instance, when someone is placed on a hiring panel in the name of “diversity” they’re less likely to pick the person like them so that they’re not seen as biased.

I ran a women’s magazine a few years ago, and the biggest criticisms came from other women. Many of the men I spoke to, meanwhile, were happy to write for me and did amazing biographies on women like Boudica and Christine McVie from Fleetwood Mac. In fact, I’d say the men were more supportive.

All this ties back to training: everyone needs it, because very few of us are aware of our unconscious biases.

That is, after all, why they’re unconscious. It’s also why it can be so hard to combat gender discrimination in the workplace.

Conclusion 

Just because rates of gender discrimination in the workplace have gotten worse and instances have become harder to spot, that doesn’t mean there isn’t something you can do about it. It’s on leadership and HR to create a culture where everyone feels included and is treated with respect. Failing to do this will open the doors to people who do see themselves as superior to others and refuse to treat everyone as their equal.

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Employee Engagement

6 engagement activities to boost collaboration in the workplace

Whether your employees work in an office or remotely, collaboration in the workplace can make or break your business.

It’s not just good for engagement and morale: organizational silos cause 67% of collaboration failures. So you need to do something to break down those walls if you want your teams to succeed.

It’s not easy, though. 41% of employees feel it’s difficult to collaborate across departments, and 56% of remote team managers struggle to foster collaboration. Something needs to change. In 2026, when there’s more technology than ever to get us to connect, it shouldn’t be this hard.

Here are our tips on how to boost collaboration in the workplace by building a more collaborative culture:

Ask employees for feedback

Without your employees, you don’t have a business. You need them to be productive to do their jobs, and collaboration in the workplace is a key part of productivity. So why wouldn’t you ask them what they think?

Asking how they feel about collaboration within your organization, and ways you could improve it, will give you insights you’d never considered before.

Employees won’t always tell their team leads what’s going wrong until it’s too late, and supervisors may not think to ask to prevent it.

Sending regular surveys to find out can give you more insights that could prevent issues from spiraling, Or stop them from happening in the first place.

With Workrowd, you can automate the sending of employee feedback surveys. So then you get regular responses. The platform also analyzes the results for you, meaning you get faster insights, too. Get in touch to find out more.

Organize group gatherings

Your employee groups encourage collaboration in the workplace between team members from different departments. They can get to know them without the pressure of work, fostering better relationships and therefore better collaboration. Why not take things a step further?

Organizing gatherings where members from all groups can connect encourages those groups to work together, too. They could meet up around a particular speaker or just for a networking event.

If you really wanted to encourage collaboration in the workplace, you could give them the budget to organize the event themselves. This gives them additional responsibility and forces teams to collaborate and compromise, teaching them new skills and growing their network internally and externally.

If you’re not there yet with your groups and think they could be working harder for your business, Workrowd gives you everything you need. Keep all your employee initiatives together in one place, making them easier for team members to find and sign up for.

Use focus groups to inform new products and services

Employee focus groups could give you insights you’d never considered before that differentiate you from your competitors.

For example, disabled employees can tell you when something isn’t accessible. This matters whether your brand is built on accessibility or not: accessible products and services work for everyone, increasing your potential customer base and therefore the amount of money you can make. But without asking someone who has accessibility challenges, you may never spot the gaps.

Focus groups can also stop you from making huge faux-pas, such as the one that Starbucks fell into in South Korea recently with a marketing campaign that backfired.

Have regular check-ins

Regular check-ins mean you can solve problems before they become deeper issues. Letting things spiral can mean that tasks need to be redone, costing time and money.

But be sensible with your timing. 9am on a Monday morning isn’t it. Nobody’s caffeine has kicked in yet. Team members haven’t caught up with their emails. Those of us who aren’t morning people are still creaky from rolling out of bed five minutes earlier.

Do it at a more reasonable time, that allows people to catch up and remind themselves what happened last week, like 10am.

Alternatively, have the catch-up on a Friday afternoon. Let’s be honest: hardly anyone does anything on a Friday afternoon anyway. So a meeting to cover what’s been done, and what needs to be done next week, is actually perfect for a Friday afternoon.

That way, you can hit the ground running on Monday morning, no meeting required. Resulting in better collaboration in the workplace with less wasted time.

Evaluate your tech stack

Is your tech stack actually helping employees do their jobs, or is it making their jobs harder?

Sometimes tools that do more are simply too complicated. Not everyone has the time or patience to learn them. More is not always better.

Your team members are the ones using the tools, so you need to know what they think. You could send a survey or ask in an all-hands depending on your team size. 

The more responses you have, the easier it is to get a consensus. It might be that they need more training, or it might be that you need to migrate to a different tool.

Ultimately, your tools should be improving collaboration in the workplace; not holding your team back.

Do a team-building activity with no devices

Relying on AI from beginning to end of any process is asking for trouble. It can’t think critically, and it can’t always problem solve. Humans still need to check its outputs. (See previous story about South Korea and Starbucks.) 

But when so many people now rely on AI to do work for them — and are encouraged to do so — how do they hone the creativity and critical thinking skills that make them good at their jobs?

Team-building activities where technological devices aren’t allowed force your employees to use their brains and lean into their own strengths. They have to get creative because there’s no other way to problem solve. Perfect for reinforcing their existing skills, developing new ones, and learning what their team members’ strengths are so that they can apply them when they’re back in the office. Not to mention boosting collaboration in the workplace.

Activity options are endless. It could be anything from an outdoor challenge to games like Pictionary. Even jigsaw puzzles can help expand problem solving and collaboration skills.

Conclusion 

Encouraging collaboration in the workplace doesn’t have to be expensive or overcomplicated. It’s as simple as asking what your employees want and getting ideas from them. They’re your most valuable asset, after all. And they’re the ones your decisions will impact. So why not get them involved?

If you’d like to find out what your employees really think, try Workrowd. Send automated surveys at specific milestones and get the responses analyzed automatically — giving you more time to act on the responses. Get in touch to book your free demo.

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