“It already is hard to reconcile race and gender data; I suspect adding veteran status to that reconciliation process will not be seamless,” Alissa Horvitz, an attorney at Littler in Washington, D.C., told SHRM Online.
Archive
September 2013
SHRM research shows that concerns about favoritism, claims of sexual harassment and retaliation lead some employers to prohibit some workplace romances.
If you’re looking for love in all the wrong places, one of those places could be work.
Organizational silos are fueled by a cocktail of culture, attitude and burdensome process design, and can plague businesses ranging from Fortune 500 leaders to 10-man start-ups. They also create an environment in which sharing and collaborating for anything other than the interest of the silo is nearly impossible.
Most of you have heard the saying, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater,” or something to that effect. Basically, the idiom advises us not to discard something valuable in our eagerness to get rid of some useless thing associated with it. If you are not careful, this can happen to businesses going through a rough patch.
Online applications, screening assessments, difficult commutes and even employer bias are among the challenges that prevent disabled people from landing or keeping jobs, said participants in a recent online dialogue hosted by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL).
Sixty people weighed in during the Sept. 9-10, 2013, dialogue, which the department hosted to help the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) shape future policies on assisting the disabled in finding work.
On September 25, @weknownext chatted with special guest Janine Truitt (@CzarinaofHR) about Growing Your Own Talent.
In case you missed it, here are all of the great tweets from the chat...
While conducting leadership training not too long ago, an individual went on for several minutes about how he would never be a micromanager. In separate training with his staff, I found out that he, in fact was, a micromanager.
I often find this to be the case. Micromanager is such a negative word that no one wants to be defined that way. Yet it is the number one complaint from employees about their supervisors.
As open-enrollment season approaches, HR professionals have a few choices when it comes to relaying information about health care reform to employees, who will be hearing about the new government-run insurance exchanges that open for business in October 2013, complete with (for many) federally subsidized coverage.
There’s a regular conversation in the human resources community about the profession being a strategic business partner. In thinking about becoming more strategic, it occurred to me there’s a difference between creating a strategy and being strategic. Just because we can create a strategy doesn’t mean we can think strategically.
Those who remember The Andy Griffith Show wouldn’t ordinarily picture a sheriff’s office as a place swarming with back-stabbing and gossip. Enter the sheriff’s office of the city of Hampton, Va.
How Dare You Like Someone Else
Facebook has always been a tough nut to crack for corporate recruiters. Although the world’s largest social media platform has approximately 1 billion accounts, most Facebook users aren’t actively searching for a new job on the site, and extracting accurate, reliable and even usable candidate-sourcing data has been difficult at best.
However, a new software application from Work4 Labs in San Francisco could be the Facebook nutcracker and candidate-sourcing tool that recruiters have been waiting for, according to the company's CEO, Stephane Le Viet.
To hire or not to hire – internally – that is the question.
In the constant struggle to cut costs and improve the time-to-hire metrics, many organizations are looking for candidates in a place that may have been overlooked in the past — their existing employee base. Yes, fishing for talent from the company pond is making a comeback.
Every day millions of employees drive to and from work or spend their workday driving. Sadly, about 2,000 workers die each year on the road while commuting or working. According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of work-related fatalities among people ages 16 to 24 in the United States.
The DOL is coming! The DOL is coming! So tighten up your Family and Medical Leave Act compliance efforts.
U.S. Department of Labor branch chief Diane Dawson has announced the agency’s intent to do more onsite FMLA investigations “to increase its investigators’ access to information and save time by reviewing documents and interviewing employees onsite,” Anne Larson, an attorney at Ogletree Deakins in Chicago, told SHRM Online.
A DOL spokesperson mentioned these common FMLA violations:
On September 18, @weknownext chatted with special guest Kyle Lagunas (@KyleLagunas) about Too Many Hoops, Not Enough Hires.
In case you missed it, here are all of the great tweets from the chat...
For some time, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have been the “big three” of social media, but a new and very powerful player has changed the social media landscape: Google+. Already overwhelmed with the multiple options and rapidly expanding time and resource commitments required to remain relevant across multiple communication channels, HR consultants now find themselves faced with a big decision—stick with LinkedIn or become engaged with Google+? Or both?
The HR Consultant’s Perspective
My occupation allows me to swim in many waters. I work with Marketing, Sales and HR Leaders across the Globe. While we want to believe we live in a time of organizational alignment, we simply do not!! Marketing wants Big Data, Sales wants to see the ROI and HR wants to be accepted for their Leadership contributions. We say our mission, vision and values align us; but far too often they are swept under the rug in difference to our more immediate goals.
Fall weekends are for two things, watching my beloved New York Football Jets display their unique brand of ineptitude on fields across America (big non-relevant aside: I am starting more and more to come down on the site of Malcolm Gladwell regarding football and its eventual and likely marginalization. The only football game, college or NFL, I watched all weekend was the Jets vs Bucs, and in that game alone in the first half, two Jets players wobbled off the field, pretty much incoherent from blows received to their helmets.
This week is truly a week I eagerly anticipate every year! That is because I know when September rolls around, so does the annual Ohio State HR Conference ! I get excited because it’s a chance to break away from the day-to-day and be with my peers. I know this sounds HR Nerdish but I’m unapologetic about it.
It may not be so glamorous working for Gaga.
Stefani Germanotta, better known to you people (I call her Stefani) as Lady Gaga, employed her friend, Jennifer O'Neill, as her personal assistant from in 2009 and again between 2010 and 2011. In 2010-2011, Ms. O'Neill made an annual salary of $75K, for which she claims to have been at Stefani's beck and call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Recent studies show the time required to fill open jobs is on the rise—from 15 days in 2009 to 23 days today. Some attribute this trend to a widening skills gap, and others say economic uncertainty has instilled a fear of wasting company resources on a bad hire. While those are certainly contributing factors, there are more basic issues.
U.S. employers were again surprised by another unexpected suspension of a provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA or ACA) when, on Sept. 11, 2013, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced there will be no penalty imposed on employers that fail to distribute to workers a notice about available coverage under state- and federal-government-run health insurance exchanges (collectively referred to by the government as the "health insurance marketplace"), scheduled to launch in October 2013.
Though they are much less frequently used than H-1B visas, and in spite of calls by employers to make visas more readily available, the Department of Homeland Security recommended curtailing availability of L-1 visas in an August 2013 report.
The heart of workplace diversity lies with enlightened leadership and a genuine commitment to fairness, rather than numbers-counting to meet legal requirements, or even persuading others that it serves as a competitive advantage.
The head of a Toronto-based nonprofit is encouraging Canadian companies to consider anonymous job applications to pave the way toward bias-free hiring.
Integrating diverse perspectives is not synonymous with compromise. Compromise is defined as “an agreement or settlement of a dispute that is reached by each side making concessions” (Merriam-Webster). Essentially, each party has to give something up in a compromise. While compromise may be one way to integrate diverse perspectives where there are incongruent goals, many times in cross-cultural situations the goals are not necessarily incongruent. They are simply not understood or fully explored, leading people to assume compromise is the only way forward.
The rules on employers prepopulating or filling out any part of Section 1 of Form I-9 before employees have completed it have generated a fair amount of confusion recently because Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials have, at times, made contradictory statements.
Adding to the muddle, the regulations and published agency guidance itself are not 100 percent clear on the issue of prepopulating Section 1.
On September 11, @weknownext chatted with special guests Jonathan Segal (@jonathan_hr_law) and Sue Meisinger (@suemeisinger) about Where Have All the Mentors Gone.
In case you missed it, here are all of the great tweets from the chat...
Technology tools are helpful, but they aren’t a substitute for human creativity. I read this from the HR Bartender blog authored by Sharlyn Lauby, one of my favorite HR thought leaders. She was talking about the best way to innovate today! Read it here!
As she mentioned, the best way to innovate is to leverage the people and corporate culture that you already have in place.
My Work Sabbatical & Digital Detox
I recently did something that only the bravest men and women dare to do in our day and age. It was wild and unprecedented and took a great deal of self-control to see it through. I put down my smart phone, shut my laptop when I was finished working and passed along my iPad to my daughter to play Angry Birds for a little while. I, the sometimes queen of social media, took a social media sabbatical. What’s even crazier than the fact that I underwent a digital detox is the fact that I actually enjoyed it.
A large number of American workers remain unaware of, confused about and unprepared for looming changes to their benefits coverage, according to the 2013 Open Enrollment Survey of 2,001 U.S. consumers, conducted in August 2013 for Aflac, a provider of voluntary insurance benefits.
The cost of providing employee health care benefits at the largest U.S. employers is projected to increase 7 percent in 2014, according to survey results released Aug. 28, 2013, by the National Business Group on Health (NBGH), a nonprofit association of more than 265 large U.S. companies.
In response, the biggest corporations are continuing their shift to high-deductible consumer-directed plans and making other benefit design changes.
On Sept. 5, 2013, the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service issued two proposed rules intended to streamline the information-reporting requirements for certain employers and insurers under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA or ACA).
The most common misconception among employers about the reinstatement requirement of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is that it is an absolute requirement, Joseph Lynett, an attorney at Jackson Lewis in White Plains, N.Y., told SHRM Online.
“Many employers believe that there are no limitations on the employee’s reinstatement right under the FMLA when, in fact, there are several,” he said.
You’ve probably heard the stories in the news: Americans aren’t using much vacation time these days, either because of economic concerns or the fact that they’re worried about job security and don’t want to be away from the office for too long.
Where have all the mentors gone? Long time passing.
Where have all the mentors gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the mentors gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the mentors gone?
Favored few have picked everyone
When will we every learn?
When will we ever learn?
In September roughly four in 10 manufacturers and service-sector companies will hire, according to the latest results of the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) Leading Indicators of National Employment (LINE) survey, released Sept. 5, 2013.
Bob Filner. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Herman Cain. Samuel Kent. Suzanne Barr.
What do these five people have in common? All are (or were) powerful professionals or politicians whose reputations and careers were blemished by allegations that they sexually harassed others.
At a time when companies and government entities are pouring money and manpower into preventing sexual harassment, how can some leaders—despite being smart, educated and worldly—still not get it?
Talent is the most critical ingredient to success for most businesses. We’ve progressed to where we don’t even have to argue this point with most executives. The lights have been turned on. But, the practice of talent management is still struggling to meet the needs and expectations that an enlightened organization requires.
It is no secret that strategic leadership is critically important for today’s executives, and even more so for HR professionals charged with delivering HR services effectively and developing adaptive leaders who drive the business forward.
On September 4, @weknownext chatted with special guest Kyra Cavanaugh (@lifemeetswork) about Building Effective Workplaces.
In case you missed it, here are all of the great tweets from the chat...
The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) issued its final rules to improve job opportunities with federal contractors for people with disabilities and for protected veterans. Its final rule for people with disabilities, more controversial than the one for veterans, eliminated or made more flexible several of the proposed rule’s requirements. The OFCCP issued the final rules on Aug. 27, 2013.
There was a time when employees had few protections and were subject to abuses by unregulated management. For example:
Much like how the Baby Boomers are reshaping retirement, the even bigger Millennial generation is causing organizations to rethink how work is accomplished. Employers can benefit by listening to Millennials, said Joe Weinlick, vice president of marketing at Beyond.com, a job board and career-advice website.
Workplace Flexibility. You know you need it in your organization, but you don’t know where to start. Meanwhile, you’re losing talent to organizations that already have it.
In order to attract and retain the best talent, there is no better time to create an effective and flexible culture in your organization.
Workplace flexibility has become a key business strategy – and workplace culture initiative -- to retain and leverage the talents and skills of today’s increasingly diverse, aging, and multi-generational workforce.
If you haven’t yet negotiated a software-as-a-service (SAAS) contract with an HR technology vendor, chances are you’ll be involved in one soon, given the growing popularity of that software-delivery model.
Although vendors negotiate hundreds of these contracts annually, most HR information system (HRIS) managers negotiate only a handful in their careers. So it pays to level the playing field by understanding the common pitfalls and missed opportunities in crafting these not-so-simple contracts.