I had never heard the term “chronic loneliness” until COVID-19 changed our world. Even though the feelings aren’t new, Professor John Cacioppo helped us better understand it in 2008 in his book Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection. Now, loneliness at work is getting a lot of attention, and for good reason. In 2024, Gallup found that 1 in 5 employees worldwide feel lonely daily. What’s even more interesting is that loneliness depends on how people work. Around 25% of remote workers say they’re lonely, compared to 16% of people who work only in offices. Hybrid workers (who split time between home and office) are somewhere in the middle at 21%. Working remotely can make people feel isolated, but it’s not the only reason people feel lonely.

Here’s why this is important: loneliness is not just an emotional issue; it can significantly impact job performance. Lonely employees may lose focus, stop caring as much, or call out sick more often. Over time, this can lead to burnout, low team spirit, and more people quitting. When individuals feel like they don’t belong, it becomes challenging to stay motivated or connected to their work and team.

More research, like a study published in the Harvard Business Review, found that loneliness isn’t just about being alone physically. Even people who work face-to-face with others can feel very lonely. This tells us something important: being around people is not enough. What really matters is feeling connected, understood, and like you belong.

Chronic loneliness at work isn’t just about sitting alone. It’s about feeling disconnected even when coworkers surround you. Coworkers, managers and HR professionals often miss these signs because everyone seems busy and productive. But being busy doesn’t mean people aren’t lonely.

I recently read a helpful article from RWJBarnabas Health about building real connections at work. They explained that strong relationships at work make teams happier, healthier, and stronger overall. Here are some simple, practical ways to build better connections at work:

• Embrace Authenticity: Encourage your team to show their true selves. When everyone feels comfortable being genuine, it fosters trust and strengthens real connections among team members. It’s incredible how much more vibrant and collaborative a team becomes when individuality is celebrated!
• Engage in Meaningful Conversations: Broaden your discussions to encompass more than just work-related topics. Take a moment to ask about personal interests, upcoming weekend plans, or family happenings. These interactions create a warm atmosphere and nurture connections, allowing individuals to feel valued and understood.
• Build Stronger Connections: Make it a habit to organize team activities or informal gatherings. These moments strengthen relationships and foster a vibrant sense of community among team members. Come together to nurture meaningful connections and create a warm, lively atmosphere where everyone feels welcomed and valued. By consciously nurturing real connections, we can transform our workplaces into communities where everyone feels seen, valued, and truly belongs.

Belonging at work goes beyond a passing trend – it’s a vital element that shapes our workplace culture and fuels our collective success! It goes beyond simply being part of a team; it involves feeling valued, heard, and comfortable being yourself. When individuals truly feel they belong, they do more than complete their tasks; they thrive, contribute innovative ideas, and inspire those around them.

When people feel they belong, they are more engaged, creative, and likely to stay with a company long-term. They take chances, share ideas, and support their coworkers. When organizations cultivate employee belonging, they unlock the potential for lower turnover, stronger teamwork, and remarkable overall success.

Creating belonging isn’t a one-time task; it needs to happen every day. It’s in how leaders give feedback, handle mistakes, and recognize accomplishments, big and small. It’s about fostering a workplace where people feel safe speaking up, sharing their thoughts, and being themselves without fear of judgment. At Monarch Consulting, belonging happens naturally when people build real connections. Here are some ways we create a culture of belonging within our team:

• Open and Honest Communication: We hold regular check-ins where team members can freely share their challenges and successes. This ensures everyone feels heard and valued.
• Personal Acknowledgement: Whether we say a simple “thank you” in a meeting or recognize someone’s strengths during a project, we ensure people know their contributions matter.
• Celebrating Milestones: We celebrate professional and personal achievements, from work anniversaries to major life events.
• Flexibility and Understanding: We respect that everyone has a life outside of work. Offering flexibility and accommodating personal needs helps people feel supported.
• Inclusive Decision-Making: We involve our team in decisions that impact their work, reinforcing the idea that every voice matters.

Belonging is built in everyday moments – the “Good morning!” on Slack, the thoughtful check-in, and the appreciation of different viewpoints in a meeting. It’s how we choose to interact with one another every day.

A workplace where people feel they belong is one where they do their best work. It’s where teamwork and connection fuel performance; well-being is a priority, and every employee knows they are valued. Belonging isn’t just a feeling – it’s the foundation of a thriving workplace.

By Kimberly Kafafian

You may be familiar with a financial audit, but what about an HR audit? Getting a pulse on your organization’s policies and procedures can be just as valuable as understanding your numbers. If you want your workforce and bottom line to thrive, it’s important to assess if your HR practices are running optimally, in compliance with regulations, and aligned with your strategic goals. Unfortunately, in my experience I’ve found that this task is often overlooked or not even considered. Many leaders simply don’t understand the advantages of investing in this valuable tool or the gains it can unlock. Let’s break down exactly what an HR audit entails and why you should conduct one.

What is an HR Audit?

An HR audit is a comprehensive review of your HR policies, procedures, documentation, and systems to assess their effectiveness, efficiency, and compliance with legal and regulatory requirements. In essence, it’s a proactive check of your HR functions that identifies areas for improvement and growth. Regular HR audits can help you strengthen operations, reduce risks, and create a workplace culture that fosters engagement, performance, and growth.

At Monarch Consulting, our HR audits focus on the following key areas:

Compliance Review

We take a deep dive into our client’s policies, procedures, and documents to ensure that they comply with all the current regulations.

Talent Management

Evaluating recruiting methods, onboarding systems, performance management processes, and employee development initiatives uncovers weaknesses and opportunities to drive success.

Compensation and Benefits

Assessing pay structures, benefit offerings, and employee satisfaction provides the intelligence you need to ensure your employees feel appreciated and rewarded, which is important for attracting and retaining talent.

Employee Relations

Analyzing employee feedback, workplace culture, and communication practices empowers you to create an environment where everyone feels valued and respected, helping to drive engagement, innovation, and the bottom line.

Documentation and Record-Keeping

We look at the accuracy and completion of record management, along with identifying appropriate digital tools to streamline processes so HR teams can put their efforts toward strategy rather than manual tasks. 

Why an HR Audit Should Be a Vital Part of Your Organization’s Strategic Planning Process 

Regular HR assessments provide the insights leaders need to position the company for long-term success while creating a work environment that supports employees at every level. Over the course of my career as an HR professional, I’ve seen first-hand the advantages comprehensive audits provide.

1. Ensuring Compliance and Reducing Legal Risks

Compliance is one of the top challenges organizations face as understanding and navigating employment laws can be quite complex. And non-compliance can be costly, as you face fines, lawsuits, and damage to your company’s reputation. An HR audit helps mitigate these risks by ensuring your policies and procedures align with current local, state, and federal regulations, and identifying and addressing potential issues before they escalate.

2. Improving Operational Efficiency

HR functions like recruiting, hiring, onboarding, payroll, performance management, and employee training are essential to the smooth operation of any organization. Inefficiencies in any of these areas can lead to wasted resources, poor applicant/employee experiences, and a lack of alignment with business objectives. An HR audit helps identify areas where you can make improvements. Perhaps a complicated onboarding process is frustrating new hires. Or maybe your performance management system isn’t providing the actionable feedback employees need to grow. An audit helps you enhance these processes.

3. Boosting Employee Engagement and Retention

Employee engagement is critical to retention, productivity, and overall business success. A poorly executed HR function can result in dissatisfaction, which may manifest in higher turnover rates and decreased performance. Auditing your HR functions can help you assess how well your HR practices are working to create a positive, engaging environment where your employees are motivated to do their best. For instance, evaluating your benefits offerings, compensation structures, and career development opportunities can ensure they are competitive and aligned with employee expectations.

4. Aligning HR Practices with Strategic Business Goals

HR can best drive growth when its practices align with the company’s values and overarching goals. The audit process assesses how well your talent management strategies, such as recruitment and training, coordinate with your business needs. It can help identify gaps in employee development programs or reveal opportunities for optimizing workforce skills. Aligning HR practices with business goals enables you to better support growth initiatives.

An HR Audit Spurs Long-Term Success

An HR audit can help your organization run more smoothly, stay compliant, and grow efficiently. Because it is inherently proactive, you can identify potential problems before they become major challenges, as well as uncover opportunities to mitigate risks and foster employee engagement and retention. Audits give you actionable recommendations for positive change.

By Kimberly Kafafian

“What kind of benefits do they offer?” This has become a buzz phrase for today’s job searchers. Over the last few years, benefit packages have taken a front seat, as employees seek a better work-life balance that salary alone just can’t provide. So how do you create the right package to attract and retain the right workforce? Here are some strategies we use when helping our clients build their benefits offerings.

Strategies for Building a Better Benefit Offering

Understand Your Workforce

Not all employees are interested in the same benefits. You need to dig deep and determine what each demographic is desiring. For example, younger workers may be more focused on a flexible work schedule and retirement plans, while older employees may want to be able to work remotely to care for children and aging parents, as well as have opportunities to phase into retirement. How do you find out this information? Conduct surveys and focus groups to get a pulse on what really matters to your teams, as well as what benefits you are currently offering that are actually being used.

Provide a Varied Offering

You want your benefits package to be attractive to workers of all demographics, so be sure to hit on offerings that provide value to your entire workforce. For example, even if only a portion of your employees take advantage of eye or pet insurance that’s enough of a reason to offer it.

Don’t Overlook Soft Benefits

Benefits don’t have to offer a financial value in order to be valuable. Flexibility as to when you work and where you work is in high demand, as is a great culture. Promote an environment where collaboration and innovation is valued and celebrated both among onsite and remote workers.

Voluntary Benefits Are Appreciated

Everybody loves a great deal, so consider adding voluntary benefits into the mix. Some popular options include life insurance, additional disability insurance, gym memberships, financial counseling, student loan repayment programs, pet insurance, legal counseling, and identity theft protection.

Determine Your Budget

While you may want to create a golden package with all the bells and whistles, first analyze your finances to see what you can afford to allocate to benefits. You don’t want to create a package that you need to cut down the line. That will lead to an unhappy workforce.

Vet Providers and Vendors

Before you make any leaps, do your research to find the right insurance providers and benefits vendors for your business needs. Professional employee organizations could be a good option for insurance as they can help reduce costs. Other things to consider include the vendor’s user experience along with how easy the platform is to integrate into your systems. You want platforms that are easy to access and that provide optimal support.

If you need assistance creating your employee benefits package, our team of experienced HR professionals can help.

From on-demand to year-long support, Monarch helps manage your people, reduce your administrative workload, and free up time so you can focus on business success.

Call or email us to arrange a complimentary consult.

By Dan Darabaris

Offering a great benefits plan is key to attracting and retaining workers. Today’s talent is not just looking at compensation, but considering the whole package you offer before they even apply! To remain competitive when it comes to recruitment, you’ll want to go above and beyond mandated benefits. Hopefully, you know what those are so you are compliant, but if you’re unsure, we’re going to break them down for you.

Benefits Required by Law

As you’re putting together your benefits program, it’s important to note just what benefits you must provide. Some benefits are state regulated, while others are required by federal law. Generally, there are three types of employee benefits that all employers must provide regardless of where the business is located. These are standard in every state, across all industries. 

Social Security and Medicare

Social Security and Medicare are actually considered statutory benefits that are partly funded by the employer and the employee through taxes mandated under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA).  Both of these benefits are not accessible until later in life. Social Security is available to those that have worked for a minimum of 10 years and have paid Social Security taxes. If you are disabled under the age of 65, you can also receive these benefits. Employers and employees each pay 6.2% of wages up to the taxable maximum of $160,200 (in 2023). Medicare is available to those over 65 who have paid Medicare taxes for at least 10 years. The current Medicare tax rate is 1.45% of gross wages for the employer and 1.45% for the employee, for a combined total of 2.9%.

Unemployment Insurance

Employers are also mandated to contribute to unemployment insurance at both the federal and state levels. This is a benefit employees may receive as a result of layoffs or wrongful termination. Although contribution to unemployment is required at both the federal and state level, the benefit is administered at the state level, so the amount that each employer is required to pay varies from state to state. Regardless of the amount, every state must provide this benefit for both part-time and full-time workers.

Workers Compensation Insurance

As of June 2023, all states but Texas require that employers carry workers compensation insurance. This benefit covers those employees who are unable to work because of a workplace injury or illness. If the employee becomes injured or ill as a result of their regular job duties, the employer is required to pay for their medical bills and a certain amount of income while they recover. Employers typically have the option of obtaining private workers compensation insurance or purchasing a policy from a state run program.

Additional Mandated Benefits for Employers with 50 or More Full-Time Employees

In addition to the above, organizations employing 50 or more full-time workers must also provide two additional mandated benefits.

Health Insurance

These larger employers must provide health insurance to their workforce with employee contributions for individual health coverage not exceeding a specific percentage of their income. For 2023, that percentage is capped at 9.12% 

Family and Medical Leave

Workers at larger companies also benefit from the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which requires companies with 50 or more employees to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave with protected job security during a 12 month period for qualifying family and medical reasons, such as the birth of a child, a serious or chronic illness, or caring for a family member with a serious or chronic illness.

State Mandated Benefits

Disability Benefits

A few states also require employers to provide for disability benefits. This benefit applies to workers who miss more than a week of work due to illness or disability. As of June 2023, the following requires employers to provide disability benefits:

• New York
• New Jersey
• Rhode Island
• California
• Hawaii
• Puerto Rico

Paid Sick Leave

More and more states are requiring employers to provide paid sick leave. Although long-term medical leave is provided for under the FMLA as mentioned above, there is no federal law requiring employers to provide for paid leave for short-term illness. So, states and local governments are starting to lead the way, with some expanding the coverage to include the employee’s child, spouse, registered domestic partner, parent, parent-in-law, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, or any person whose relationship with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship. It’s important to know what your state and local governments require.

As an HR professional with years of experience, I recommend to my clients to think of the above benefits as the bare minimum. If you want to attract and retain a qualified workforce, your benefits package needs to be much more robust. Think seriously about also offering paid vacation time, retirement plan contributions, employee wellness programs, employee development programs, tuition reimbursement, pet insurance, gym memberships, or unique onsite amenities.

Hopefully this list helps clarify what employee benefits are mandatory. If you’re still confused, we can help you identify the right benefits to offer your workers.

From on-demand to year-long support, Monarch helps manage your people, reduce your administrative workload, and free up time so you can focus on business success.

Call or email us to arrange a complimentary consult.