Archive

On October 31, SHRM We Know Next chatted with Sharlyn Lauby and Eric Chester about "What Does Work Ethic Look Like?"

Is it 90% perspiration and 10% Red Bull?  Does it depend on how your parents raised you and does it look different according to your generation?  What if you have a solid work ethic, but you're in a toxic workplace environment?  Regardless of how Nextchatters defined work ethic, they agreed that a positive attitude and a solid work ethic are connected, and that great employees possess both.

Real leadership is rare, but the present circumstances of high unemployment, staggering debt, stagnant growth and record budget deficits calls for “bold, principled, far-sighted actions by America’s leadership class in both the public and the private sector,” said former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates.

Gates told attendees of the World Business Forum here Oct. 3, 2012, that it’s important to distinguish between leadership and management.

When an employer is faced with a sexual-harassment lawsuit, one of its best defenses is that the company took reasonable care (e.g., policy, training) to prevent sexual harassment (and then addressed complaints in a manner that is reasonably designed to end the sexual harassment)

Back in 1964, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart coined the expression “I know it when I see it” to describe his threshold test for pornography. I was reminded of the phrase recently (not in a conversation about porn) but in a discussion about work ethic. When asked to define work ethic, the person said, “I don’t know if I can describe it but I know it when I see it.”

Striking down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as unconstitutional Oct. 18, 2012, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals noted that the law “has varying impact on more than a thousand federal laws.” That includes numerous federal employment laws, as the AFL-CIO noted in a friend-of-the-court brief filed in the 2nd Circuit case.

Edie Windsor, 83, challenged DOMA after the federal government taxed her more than $363,000 when her spouse, Thea Spyer, passed away in 2009. Windsor and Spyer first met in 1963, married in Canada in 2007, and lived in New York.

This week I had the honor of attending SHRM’s Workflex Conference as a member of the press team. Here is what the workflex conference is all about taken right from the website.

The 2012 Workflex Conference is an innovative conference that offers solutions for HR professionals and other business leaders who are actively engaged in building and implementing effective and flexible workplace strategies.

1. Yoga
2. Bikram Yoga
3. That other kind of yoga
4. ummmm......

I have three kids three and under. Like I have time on the weekend to come up with 172 anythings...let alone something requiring a scintilla of creativity, save channeling my inner Andy Warhol at the children's museum yesterday -- 4 likes on Facebook for the uncensored version, yo.

As Election Day approaches, employers should review their policies for compliance with state law requirements for providing employees with time off to vote. Some states have no rules, but others require all employers to provide employees with time off to vote and impose civil and criminal penalties for noncompliance.

Have you ever made a comment thinking it was innocuous, but it really had damaging effects?
  
Let me help you out with this.  Your comment usually starts with: “It’s just....”  You don’t mean this to be harmful, but you don’t see how your position is calling the situation simple or “below you.”
 

Every day, millions of working moms live by routines.  The alarm rings.  You wake the kids, feed them, make lunches, rush them to daycare or school, and then maybe hit the coffee shop on the way to the office. 

Later it’s shopping, errands, dinner, homework … and then 12 hours later – Rinse.  Repeat. 

For most working moms, the constant merry-go-round is a source of great stress that can result in discouragement, bouts of anxiety, and even physical illness.  When mom’s burned out, everyone suffers.  

As new college graduates continue to inundate the job market and economic concerns have caused older employees to stay in the workforce longer, today’s companies often have employees representing four distinct generations. With more than 50 years separating some employees, managing these multigenerational teams can be incredibly challenging.

In case you missed it, here’s what happened on We Know Next this week.

Youth unemployment and skills shortages are driving some business leaders to get more involved in the education of the future workforce. Often, they focus on the need to prepare young people for jobs in industries and professions that are growing the fastest.

Very high levels of youth unemployment have been a key characteristic of the post-recession, low-growth global economic environment. The latest findings from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reveal just how devastating the recession was worldwide.

For the final post in this short series I wanted to write briefly about the consequences of lazy hiring. I’ve already written about lazy leadership and lazy employees, so I thought lazy hiring was a good way to wrap it up. This one will be brief because I just can’t imagine that anyone reading this doesn’t understand the consequences of lazy hiring.
 
And yet it happens….
 

By the year 2020, approximately 50 percent of the US workforce will be composed of Generation Y workers – those born between 1976 and 1991 – and only 25 percent baby boomers. The US workforce will change dramatically in the next eight years. "We are facing a huge generational shift as baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) leave the workforce, and that means we have to rethink our workspace," says Michael O'Neill, senior director of workplace research for Knoll, Inc.

In case you missed it, here’s what happened on We Know Next this week.

The Form I-9 is on the verge of the first substantive change in 25 years, according to Mary Pivec, an immigration attorney with Williams Mullen in Washington, D.C., but its release date is a topic of some debate.

As we all know, the glass ceiling is the invisible and sometimes impenetrable barrier that prevents women of talent from rising as high as men of equal talent.  While we undeniably have made progress as a society, men still have disproportionate power at the top in most organizations.

As we all know, the glass ceiling is the invisible and sometimes impenetrable barrier that prevents women of talent from rising as high as men of equal talent.  While we undeniably have made progress as a society, men still have disproportionate power at the top in most organizations.

When I have described glass ceiling issues, I have had some men dismiss the issues because they have never have experienced them. I have never experienced labor pains, but I would be a fool to dismiss their existence simply because I never have experienced them.

Six in 10 U.S. employers that provide retiree health care coverage are considering alternative strategies for delivering this benefit in light of market changes under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), according to newly released findings from a 2012 survey by HR consultancy Aon Hewitt.

Of those employers planning changes to their coverage, 63 percent are implementing or considering subsidized coverage through the individual market.

Health Care Reform's Impact

If an adversary or threat can exploit a vulnerability to harm an asset, then you have risk.

With the increase in advanced, multidimensional threats, some organizations are considering the services of a corporate threat intelligence program, or developing an in-house program—dedicating staff and other resources to deep inspection and analysis of data to avoid the sorts of attacks, crises and events that can cost a company millions, endanger personnel and damage its reputation.

The Form I-9 is on the verge of the first substantive change in 25 years, according to Mary Pivec, an immigration attorney with Williams Mullen in Washington, D.C., but its release date is a topic of some debate.

Kevin Lashus, an immigration attorney with Jackson Lewis in Austin, Texas, told SHRM Online that he is “guessing that the form will be finalized by the end of the calendar year and will be released for use at the beginning of January 2013.”

For the third consecutive month, more HR professionals in the manufacturing and service sectors report that their organizations will be hiring in October 2012 compared with October 2011, according to the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) Leading Indicators of National Employment (LINE) survey, released Oct. 4, 2012. Likewise, seasonal job gains are likely to be slightly higher than a year ago but still below pre-recession levels, according to the annual holiday hiring forecast released Sept. 24 by Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.

CEOs by nature are time-starved species.  Critical to their success and that of their organization is how they carve up the hours on the clock. Those who invest their time advancing their company’s business model or seeking a new one are adding value to their organizations.  ‘Advancing the model’ is just another way of saying improving or fortifying the company’s competitive advantage.

Changes in maternity rights, agency work, data protection, executive compensation and immigration laws were the main trends seen in employment law globally in 2011, according to the Global Employment Institute (GEI) of the International Bar Association. GEI asked lawyers from 40 countries to respond to 20 questions about the most relevant changes in laws involving employment, discrimination, immigration and industrial relations in their countries during 2011.

Major Trends

The Leadership Deficit: Recruiting and Retaining the Multi-Generation Workforce

For a variety of reasons, including limited budget, many U.S. companies have had to put some management development initiatives on hold during the past four years, according to a survey released Sept. 13, 2012, by AMA Enterprise, a division of American Management Association International. Forty-seven percent of respondents delayed at least one program, and 36 percent did so in several cases. Among the 17 percent of organizations that have thus far avoided delays, a majority conceded that there are planned initiatives that may yet be postponed.