We recently hosted a webinar with Rick Betterley of the Betterley Report. Rick is the foremost expert on Employment Practices Liability Insurance (EPLI) coverage. Here are some of the notes from our webinar with him as well as from the Betterley Report. To learn more about the Betterley Report, go to Betterley.com.

To begin with, there has been an increase in rates as well as in retentions (the deductible an employer has to pay). While there hasn’t been much change in coverage, underwriters are raising rates anywhere from 10-25%. The EPLI industry is a $1.6 billion business. According to Rick, underwriters are not very excited about insuring employee leasing and temporary staffing companies, educational and religious entities, public entities, law firms, investment banks, and the entertainment industries. Also considered undesirable employers are extended care (nursing home) facilities, real estate/property management companies, auto dealers, and technology companies. What this tells me is that all of the above mentioned entities could greatly benefit from using HR That Works!

One of the greatest concerns is the ability of an employer to select the counsel they would like to use should they get sued. Of course the insurance agencies would like to make their lives simple and work solely with one of the nationwide law firms and not with your local counsel. However, if they are qualified, chances are that during negotiation you can name those local attorneys as your panel counsel. As you can well imagine, we highly recommend you use one of the Worklaw® Network firms that helps support the HR That Works program.

One of the greatest concerns in terms of exposure are class action wage and hour claims. Most insurance companies have been very reluctant to underwrite these claims except for the cost of defense. They will not underwrite indemnification (payment of the underlying wage claim) because they feel that is greatly within an employer’s control (why bother paying for overtime when you can simply have the insurance company do so for you if ever get sued). In April, Aon announced a wage and hour coverage for large employers. Unfortunately, this coverage is not available yet for small employers, but perhaps Aon has kicked off a trend.

As Rick reminds us, most larger employers have EPLI coverage; however, for most HR That Works sized employers it’s more like a 50/50 proposition. Our advice is this: Don’t go bare and negotiate for some EPLI coverage and, if necessary, with a high retention rate.

According to the 2012-2013 Edition of Jury Award Trends and Statistics, now published by Westlaw, the median award of employment practice claim in 2011 was $325,000, up from $172,500 in 2010. The median award rose from $489,951 to $528,957. The amount of claims in the $250,000 to $1 million range rose from 34% to 56%. The award median for age cases was $247,800; disability $292,500; race $215,652; and sex $150,000. As a separate category, retaliation awards had an award median of $208,275 with an award mean of $741,971.

Consistent with past years, state verdicts are generally higher than federal court verdicts, averaging more than 1.5 times the average federal court verdict award.

The probability of the plaintiff winning a case at trial hovers at 51%. Age cases 40%, disability discrimination 44%, race 50%, and sex 64%.

Even the settlements of getting more expensive. The average employment practices settlement median was $100,000 with a settlement mean being $178,063.

Statistically, a company with 100 employees can expect to get hit with an employment practices claim once in every three years. All the above is plenty of reason to make sure you have your compliance act together and purchase employment practices liability insurance. To order your copy of the report, go to http://store.westlaw.com/employment-practice-liability-jury-award-trends-statistics-2012/186040/30089008/productdetail.

Join us Wednesday, January 23, at 2PM EST for the EPLI Trends: An Update from Betterley’s EPLI Market Survey 2012 Webinar presented by EPLI expert, Rick Betterley.

Holiday Party Best Practices

Eggnog, latkes, old friends, parties – and a whole lot of beveraging! The holiday season is here! On behalf of everyone at HR That Works, let us be the first to wish you a safe and happy holiday!

Rule #1 – make sure everyone gets home safe! As the party host you in fact have liability if you fail to do so.

To protect yourself and others follow these best practices:

• Make sure that attendance at the party is voluntary.
• Hire bartenders who are trained to spot intoxicated revelers and how to handle them.
• Provide non-alcoholic beverage options.
• Provide each guest with a limited number of drink tickets instead of an open bar.
• Have real food – not just chips and pretzels – served whenever alcohol is available.
• Stop alcohol service at least an hour before ending the function.
• Confront intoxicated guests immediately and cut them off; don’t wait until they are ready to leave the party.
• Don’t inquire of an apparently impaired guest whether they think they’re able to drive home. They can’t.
• Have a taxi service available for any guest who requires one.
• Call a friend or family member to pick up intoxicated guests.
• Arrange for discounted rooms at the event location (if possible) or a nearby hotel.

Don’t forget to have a fun party. Think Mr. Fezziwig!

Accommodating Religious Needs

The holiday season makes an ideal time to focus on the law regarding religion in the workplace. It’s also a great time to celebrate our religious differences! Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on religion. There has been an increasing trends in these claims over the past years with over 4,000 claims being filed in 2011. Not surprisingly, many of these claims are combined with national origin discrimination allegations (i.e. someone alleges discrimination because they’re of Arab origin, as well as Muslim).

The EEOC makes this point about what a religion is:

“In most cases, whether or not a practice or a belief is religious is not an issue. However, the EEOC defines religious practices to include moral or ethical beliefs as to what’s right and wrong, which are sincerely held with the strength of traditional, religious views. The fact that no religious group espouses such beliefs, or that the religious group to which the individual professes to belong might not accept such belief, will not determine whether the belief is a religious belief of the employee or prospective employee. The phrase ‘religious practices’ includes both religious observances and practices.” Also, bear in mind that:

• It’s unlawful for an employer to fail to accommodate reasonably the religious practices of an employee or prospective employee, unless the employer demonstrates that accommodation will mean undue hardship in conducting its business.
• An employer may not ask about an employee’s religious background unless justified by business necessity.

The EEOC’s guidelines on religious discrimination can be found by clicking here. Here is a good FAQ on it too.

Here’s an EEOC memo on accommodating religious expression.

Lastly, here’s a great link to the religious accommodation practices at the University of Missouri.

Where they complain:
Most job-related rants are posted where employees statistically spend most of their time on the internet: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other popular social networking sites. However, disgruntled employees also use increasingly popular job venting websites such as jobitorial.com, jobvent.com, glassdoor.com, disgruntled.com, and Australia’s nakedoffice.com. The majority of cases involving employees ranting about their employers involve employee tweets or Facebook posts.
What they complain about:

Employees complain about a wide variety of issues from working conditions such as having coffee and tea available to lunch breaks and promotion opportunities. The number one area where employees seek change is having higher salaries. Employers should create an environment where employees feel comfortable discussing salary. Remember, as mentioned below, the NLRB also protects them in that conversation-even if they do so in a public forum. Other hot topics include benefits programs (health and dental insurance, retirement programs, paid time off/vacation), over-management (too many coaches, not enough players), and pay increases based on performance rather than all employees receiving a raise no matter how they produce for the employer. Employees want to be rewarded for their production.

First Amendment/NLRA issues – what is/is not protected
A social media policy raises First Amendment free speech issues. For example, if the employer is a state actor, the comments may be afforded First Amendment protection. For private employers, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has determined that certain online employee communications concerning their employer may be subject to the protections of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), even if the workplace is not represented by a union. Some states restrict employers from attempting to control the after-hours activities or conduct of their employees.

The NLRB has reported recently that in order to be a protected concerted activity, the employee’s online discussion must involve or affect a group of employees, not an individual worker. The latest NLRB report underscored two main points: Employer policies shouldn’t be so broad that they prohibit protected activity; and “mere gripes” usually aren’t protected if they’re not made in relation to group activity among employees. In one case, a restaurant fired two employees who had a Facebook conversation with a former employee about the restaurant’s tax withholding practices. The NLRB found that the firings were illegal, because the employees were engaging in protected concerted activity. The NLRB also found the restaurant’s Internet and blogging policy, which prohibited “inappropriate discussions,” was too broad and vague to be legal. However, in another case, the NLRB ruled that a newspaper could legally fire an employee who posted “unprofessional and inappropriate tweets” to a work-related Twitter account. In that case, the reporter used the Twitter account to criticize coworkers. The complaints were not concerted but instead involved the gripes of an individual employee. It did not involve his employment or involve employees in issues related to employment. Therefore, the posts were not protected.

With the above in mind, employers should consider the following:

• Create a system where employees can vent and discuss their frustrations in a private location in the office to avoid online public rants. Give them a safe place to voice their opinions in a constructive way. Listen to employees and make appropriate changes accordingly.
• Develop a social media policy consistent with the law that will establish clear and lawful parameters for the use of social media in the workplace. Avoid vague language such as “inappropriate language is prohibited”. Define what “inappropriate language” is. The policy should clearly state that the employer has the right to monitor the use of social media by employees. The employer should include language in the employees’ contract that outlines exactly the kind of online behavior that could lead to their dismissal. Be specific. See the NLRB approved Sample Social Media Policy on HR That Works.
• Identify the line between protected and unprotected speech and update the social media policies accordingly. While an individual online rant by one employee is generally not protected, discussions involving employment issues related to multiple employees generally is protected by the NLRA.
• Small business owners can sign up for Google Alerts so they know when their company is being talked about on the Web. SocialMention.com works the same as Google Alerts but scours social media sites for mention of the company. However, employers should think twice about patrolling the Internet in search of employees badmouthing the company. Such an action could be considered “surveillance” under the NLRA, which could be illegal. (Of course, getting caught is another thing).

While Maryland was the first state to pass a Social Media account access protection law, California now has one too and many states plan to follow. Here’s the statutory language:

SECTION 1. Chapter 2.5 (commencing with Section 980) is added to Part 3 of Division 2 of the Labor Code, to read:

Chapter 2.5. Employer Use of Social Media

980. (a) As used in this chapter, “social media” means an electronic service or account, or electronic content, including, but not limited to, videos, still photographs, blogs, video blogs, podcasts, instant and text messages, e-mail, online services or accounts, or Internet Web site profiles or locations.

(b) An employer shall not require or request an employee or applicant for employment to do any of the following: (1) Disclose a user name or password for the purpose of accessing personal social media.

(2) Access personal social media in the presence of the employer.

(3) Divulge any personal social media.

(c) Nothing in this section is intended to affect an employer’s existing rights and obligations to investigate allegations of employee misconduct or employee violation of applicable laws and regulations.

(d) Nothing in this section precludes an employer from requiring or requesting an employee to disclose a username, password, or other method for the purpose of accessing an employer-issued electronic device.

(e) An employer shall not discharge, discipline, threaten to discharge or discipline, or otherwise retaliate against an employee or applicant for not complying with a request or demand by the employer that violates this section. However, this section does not prohibit an employer from terminating or otherwise taking an adverse action against an employee or applicant if otherwise permitted by law.

To understand what all of that means I suggest you look at the bill analysis by both the Senate and Assembly labor committees.  Interestingly, the only opposition to the bill came from the securities and financial sector claiming it conflicted with obligations they have under Federal statutes. HR That Works Members should view the Social Media Training Module.

“Your work is to discover your work and then to give yourself to it with all your heart.” —The Buddha

This issue discusses:

• Editor’s Column: HR Survival
• 1,500 Hours of Your Life … Wasted Away On Busywork
• ‘Intentional Growth’ In Your HR Career
• Watch Those Attendance Policies!
• The Economy: Prepare for the Other Shoe to Drop

We have also provided you with the Form of the Month.

Please click here to view the newsletter in PDF.

Editor’s Column: HR Survival

An excellent article in the October Backpacker Magazine discussed five emotional aspects of preventing deadly threats. Although the “threats” facing human relations professionals might not be as extreme as dangling from a cliff, we’re certainly guaranteed a turbulent future. Here’s how the five emotional intangibles in the article might apply to the survival of HR:

1. Assess risk – As the article asks, “What’s the worst thing that could happen if I do this?” Another good question to consider is “Whose judgment would I be concerned about if things didn’t work?” You should also ask, “What’s the worst thing that could happen if I don’t do this?” This gives a broader understanding of the risk. For example, the real risk that our economy can go south again would affect your entire company, as well as you. If the risk of the economy going south is greater than the risk of improvement — and the downside is extreme — have a contingency plan. How would HR help to manage a 15%-30% drop in revenue?
2. Stay calm – The article recommends that you “Take control by forcing yourself to slow down.” When you’re used to running 75mph, it’s important to stop, breathe, and think. Give yourself the opportunity to find that safe, calm place for observation and reflection.
3. Set priorities – According to the article, “You need to be able to survive the conditions you’re in. Assess your situation and determine your most pressing needs.” Not all HR risks are equal. For example, the risk of making a poor hire is perhaps the most serious in terms of frequency and severity. Another significant risk is failing to get rid of a poor performer or an employee who is sabotaging your brand on social media. What are the three greatest risks your company faces and what plan do you have for addressing them?
4. Be a leader – In risky times, resist groupthink by discussing possible scenarios up front. Give each employee a specific assignment to focus on in risky times. What tasks can you assign to HR subordinates, other managers, or employees?
5. Stay positive — According to the article, “A powerful desire to keep living leads directly to successful survival stories. You don’t have to be comfortable to survive this situation.” I can supplement this statement by adding “A powerful desire to be a strategic HR executive leads directly to successful career stories.”

Risk management is an exercise in logic and emotion. To reduce their exposures, HR professionals must use both.

1,500 Hours of Your Life … Wasted Away On Busywork

“Work can be a life-draining affair.” —Joseph Campbell

Effective time management is essential if you wish to be a successful HR executive — and have a life at the same time. According to CEO surveys, when HR professionals focus their time on administrative and compliance duties (positions in which one is particularly likely to say “no”) their companies don’t see them as being strategic partners to the business. The problem is that HR executives spend an average of only 25% of their time on strategic activities. From a career and company goals perspective, this is akin to orchestrating their own demise.

When I advise HR executives to manage their time more effectively by minimizing administrative and compliance activities, I get a variety of “reasons” why they don’t do so:

• This simply has to get done.
• Somebody has to do it.
• I don’t have the time to delegate this right now.
• There’s nobody else here to do it.
• I’m not sure I would know how to delegate it properly.
• I can’t manage the person to whom I delegated it.

These are all poor excuses that can block your career success.

Let’s think about some numbers. Suppose you spend an average of 10 hours a week managing payroll and other administrative tasks. Let’s say you earn $40 per hour (roughly $80,000 per year) and administrative tasks such as this are the least valuable work you do. In fact, it’s work that $20 an hour people can do. On the conservative side, every hour that you do this work, the company loses $20 an hour — which comes to $800 a month or $9,600 a year. If you put this same effort into doing $60 an hour strategic work instead, the company would gain $20 every hour — and you’d be in a far better position to ask for a raise.

Think about it: If you waste 10 hours a week for the next three years, that’s 500 hours this year, and 1,500 hours during the next three years of your life that you’ll never get back! What’s more, this waste will cost the company at least $30,000.

If you label your work as “A”, “B,” and “C” work, you should be spending 80% of your time on A work, 20% on B work — and zero time on C work. Otherwise, you’re spinning your wheels.

C work basically wastes time completely. It’s nothing you can delegate; it’s just something you should stop doing. B work is administrative and can be delegated or outsourced — such as payroll and benefits administration. Focus on A work: What the business needs and what you want to get great at doing. A classic example would be training in a company that’s focused on technological advances.

To determine where your time is going — and should be going — use this checklist:

A-Level Activities:

• Meeting with the executive team to understand their vision, mission, value, goals, etc.
• Studying and understanding the company’s strategic plans, financials, succession plan, markets, branding, and other operations.
• Identifying the critical human resource needs for this organization (surveys, observation, focus groups, interviews, etc.).
• Input into the company’s overall compensation plan, including pay rates, incentives, bonuses, rewards programs, etc.
• Creating strategic plans and processes for carrying out top objectives.
• Developing training plans to support implementation.
• Input into the company’s overall risk-management plan, including assistance with the purchase of benefit programs, Workers Comp insurance, Cyber Liability insurance, and Employment Practices Liability insurance (EPLI).
• Creating systems for hiring, performance, retention and compliance.
• Facilitating creativity, branding, suggestion systems, etc.
• Implementing any other company strategic objectives to which you can provide input.

B-Level Activities:

• Payroll and benefits administration.
• Implementation of hiring, performance, retention and compliance systems.
• HRIS management.
• Delivery of training.
• Creation of employee handbook and executive contracts.
• Personnel files management.
• Attendance, vacation, and leave management.
• COBRA administration.
• Compliance posters and handouts.

C-Level Activities:

• Employee dramas.
• Meetings that go nowhere.
• Doing any $10-20/hour work.

‘Intentional Growth’ In Your HR Career

Keeping with this theme, an excellent article by John C. Maxwell in a recent issue of Success magazine identifies the key factors in “intentional growth.” Here are my recommendations on using these factors to help yourself grow as an HR professional.

• Start today. Your power lies in the present. Although it’s important to create strategic plans, you need to begin where you are. What will you do today to have a greater impact on your company and help you grow in your career?
• Take complete responsibility for growth. I’m not a fan of blame or justification. As the Buddha stated, “What comes to you, comes from you.” Your HR career and its impact on the company is what you’ve chosen it to be — at least up to now. It’s your responsibility to grow your career and make bottom-line decisions where you work.
• Learn from mistakes. I did a training program on Making Mitsakes (the misspelling is intentional). One of the best ways to prevent making mistakes is to “model” people who have been successful before you. For example, who are the most balanced, effective HR executives you’ve ever met — and what are they doing right? Chances are, if you do the same things they do, you will be equally successful.
• Rely on hard work, rather than good luck. In this economy, you need to work both hard and smart. One important caveat: Don’t think that working longer hours than everybody else is smart.
• Persevere long and hard. There are no quitters on the way to success. Expect bumps in the road. As I often state in my workshops, how we deal with what feels unfair to us determines our personal culture. People who adopt a survivor mentality, as opposed to a victim mentality, will come out on top.
• Stick with good habits. The worst habit I see in managers is poor time management (see the article “1,500 Hours of Your Life … Wasted on Busywork”) How many of you have taken a disciplined approach to how you use your time? If you’re an HR That Works Member, take advantage of the Time Management Training Module.
• Follow through, rather than talking big and doing nothing. It’s far better to get something done and then publicize it afterward, than to brag about what you will do and then trying to justify why you failed to deliver. As the saying goes, “Under-promise and over-deliver.”
• Take risks. This is a real challenge for the HR community. Having coached many HR executives, I can tell you that most of them tend to follow the rules, rather than taking risks. I encourage you to read Orbiting the Giant Hairballby Gordon MacKenzie. By the way, the term “hairball” refers to company policies and procedures — something that HR is great at developing.
• Think like a learner. Whether it’s from mistakes or study, life is one big learning lesson. To earn more tomorrow, you must learn more today. This holds true for both the individual and the company as a whole. To what degree are you enhancing your education?
• Rely on character, as opposed to talent. Having integrity, doing what you said you were going to do, when you said you were going to do it, shows character.
• Never stop growing. Don’t let yourself get comfortable for too long. You’re either growing or you’re fading. How would you describe what’s going on with you? Where do you have to coax, encourage, and inspire yourself to take the next step toward your growth?

None of this should come as news. It’s about taking action! As Maxwell reminds us, “Growth doesn’t just happen — not for me, not for you, not for anybody. You have to go after it!”

Watch Those Attendance Policies!

Every month we receive dozens of calls from employers asking whether they can terminate an employee with an attendance problem. In most circumstances, they have every right to do so — especially if there’s a well-defined attendance policy and the company holds other employees to a similar standard. Employers get in trouble when the attendance problem results from a work injury, disability, serious medical condition, pregnancy, or other protected category that impacts the employee or a family member. All too often, employers don’t ask why somebody missed work. In one case, an employer told us the employee was late for work on a repeated basis because she had been having flu-like symptoms and getting sick. The employer never asked what might be causing the problem. It turns out that the employee was pregnant. Terminating her would have been a huge, and costly, mistake.

The law does not expect employers to be doctors or psychiatrists. However, it does create a standard of liability that requires managers to determine, if there is a disability, serious medical condition, or pregnancy involved. In the end, a judge or jury will determine whether the employer met this standard.

In most circumstances, employers don’t face lawsuits for their compliance failures. But bear in mind that it only takes a single employee bringing a claim to expose you to hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages (not to mention legal costs). This is another good reason to make sure that your company purchases Employment Practices Liability Insurance. HR That Works Members should take advantage of the training modules and other tools on leave management.

The Economy: Prepare for the Other Shoe to Drop

Although I don’t pretend to be a financial expert, I have disciplined myself to learn basic accounting principles. The more financial news and literature I read, the more I want to pound my head. Here’s why:

The global economy remains shaky. The industrialized world, the U.S. included, has fallen deeply into debt. To maintain our affluent standard of living, we have mortgaged our countries, states, cities, and households. Debt is crushing us. Despite their best efforts, many nations will have to devalue their currencies eventually. Japan is one such example. In countries with aging populations (such as Japan, the United States, and Western Europe), demographic trends are upside-down. For the foreseeable future, fewer and fewer workers will be supporting more and more retirees, an unsustainable situation. Something will have to give.

Keynesian economists argue that we can keep going into debt because sooner or later we’ll have boom times and be able to pay off our obligations. For example, at the crest of the dot.com boom, governments were actually running surpluses and we thought we were rich. Those days are gone, at least for a while, until the demographics change once again.

I speak in front of many private company CEOs. Most of them are feeling shaky, even the ones with a positive cash flow. They don’t like the tea leaves either. Collectively they’re highly reluctant to put any of their cash into making investments, including hiring new employees.

Here’s why I’m sharing this gloomy prognostication: You need to prepare your company and clients in case the economy tanks by 10%, 15%, 20% or even more. I believe that such a downturn is only a matter of when, because I see no reason for things to be anything but “flat” at best.

To help prepare you and your clients for this economic crisis, I’d recommend that you follow these guidelines:

• Change all the time. How do we continue to differentiate ourselves is the question we constantly ask ourselves at HR That Works. Being ordinary, being like your competition, being the same company you were five years ago, won’t cut it moving forward. When the shoe drops, your image needs to be progressive and forward thinking — and yet offer stability.
• Generate a Plan B under which you can survive a 20% drop in revenue. It would be smart to scale this plan assuming a drop of 10% to 40%. If you don’t have the expertise to generate such cash flow projections on your own, you can easily find someone to do it for you on Elance. I did this for my company and it cost roughly $500. That’s money well spent. Knowing that you have a plan to address the worst that could happen offers great comfort.
• Tighten up performance benchmarks to improve your performance in general. This is no time to stand for subpar performance because somebody has either been there for a long time, is related to someone, is very likeable, etc. Results are what matter.
• Have your entire team watch The Accounting Game webinar on HR That Works. This is the best accounting webinar I’ve ever seen. Also, have the team watch Brad Hams’ Ownership Thinking. Bear in mind that Accounting is the course most often dropped or failed in college.
• Conduct “what if …” workshops with your management team and employees. Remember, none of us are as smart as all of us!

The primary goal of risk management is preparation. Don’t let yourself get too comfortable — and thus vulnerable. Have a plan to keep well prepared in case the economy tanks again.

Form of the Month

Reasons People Leave (PDF) – Use this checklist as a starting point in understanding the causes of unwanted turnover.

Podcast

Click here to to listen to this month’s newsletter podcast.

REPRINT POLICY: Reprints are welcome! All you have to do is include the following notation with reprinted material:

©2012 Reprinted with permission from HRThatWorks.com, a powerful program designed to inspire great HR practices.

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“No amount of happiness can buy money.” —Jack Nordhaus

This issue discusses:

• Editor’s Column: Where’s Your HR ‘Edge’?
• Social Media Background Checks Make Sense
• Life Expectancy: Reality Check
• Who’s Really Supporting The Economy?
• There’s A Lot to Know About HR!
• Getting Commissions Agreements Right
• The Cost of Not Having Employment Practice Liability Insurance
• Inspired HR: An ‘Inside-Out’ Opportunity

We have also provided you with the Form of the Month.

Please click here to view the newsletter in PDF.

Editor’s Column: Where’s Your HR ‘Edge’?

Where’s your edge? This is the question Sounds True founder, Tami Simon, asks her New Age guests. Their answer is usually the most interesting part of the interview.

So I ask you the same question. What are you doing in HR at your company that excites you? What are you doing that’s cool, different, outrageous, experimental, and otherwise, really edgy?

If your answer is silence, you have a serious problem. What do you think will happen if your competition is focused on creating an “edge” and you’re not? Kind of like Southwest Airlines vs. American, United, etc.

Pushing for the edge helps keep us going here at HR That Works. Sure we focus on doing the HR blocking and tackling as well as we can — but we also want to make sure that our clients keep looking for their edge. For example, what if you distributed the Creativity Checklist and Employee Suggestion forms to your entire workforce? I’ll bet that you can discover a lot of edge lying dormant at your company. Trust me. Just do it. One good idea can more than repay your investment in HR That Works for years to come! It can also do wonders for your career.

Here’s what we’re doing to build our edge at HR That Works:

• We recently produced the Job Security Program and book. You can find it in the Training Modules. There’s a lack of literature or programs on how to be a great employee. This program fills that void. I would encourage you to allow all your employees to spend the 90 minutes it takes to watch the program — and then task them to complete the exercises in the book.
• We’ve released the Time Management Program, a project that was years in the making. We did the Webinar months ago, got great feedback from our Members, and have produced a program that I believe all your employees and executives should watch. In today’s “squeezed” economy, time is your most precious asset.
• We’ve upgraded our website and are revamping our social media platforms. We realized that although we knew what we wanted to do with social media, we just weren’t implementing it fast enough. So we brought on third-party experts to do the job for us. If your social media platform is in the same spot we were in, using a third party can help take you to the edge.
• We’re providing cutting-edge Webinars. We’ll continue to push the edge with who we bring in to help educate you on growing your managers and company. HR is not, and should not, be viewed primarily as a way to avoid getting sued. We’re convinced that cultivating great employee relationships and a high level of trust helps minimize lawsuits. Last year we did 20 excellent webinars that you can now watch at any time. We’ll produce an equal number this year — giving us a library of more than 100 great stored webinars.
• We’ve upgraded site navigation. By now, you’ve been able to view the latest version of HR That Works. We’ve added the ability to attach documents to the audits, quizzes, and surveys. We’ll also be making it easier to upload your own documents to the SharePoint portal.

I could go on, but that’s plenty for now. I encourage you to keep asking yourself, “Where’s my edge?” To compete in today’s crazy business environment, you need to be creative, proactive, and ahead of the curve. Playing catch-up will guarantee the failure of your business — and your career.

Social Media Background Checks Make Sense

There’s been plenty of HR press about the use of social media in doing background checks on job applicants. Some attorneys have gone so far as to recommend that employers should ignore social media completely. I think that’s poor advice. If people are willing to do stupid things on their social media sites, they’ll be just as willing to do stupid things when working for you. According to a Career Builder/Harris Interactive survey, more than one in three employers rejected job candidates because of their social media activity. The four top reasons were that candidates: 1) Had posted inappropriate photos or information, 2) showed evidence of drinking or drug use, 3) demonstrated poor communication skills, or 4) badmouthed a previous employer.

Risk management is not about eliminating risk. As Walter Olson once stated, “There’s no such thing as the golden shore of legal compliance.” Ask yourself: Which is the greater risk — facing a potential discrimination claim because they showed one of the bad behaviors discussed above, or hiring them and allowing them to damage your company? You get the idea of where I think the real risk lies. The bottom line: Don’t hire a candidate until you learn everything you legally can about them.

Life Expectancy: Reality Check

How long can you expect to live? A “life expectancy analysis” provided by Lincoln Financial Group lists the impact of various factors on reducing average longevity:

• Driving record (DUI): 12 years
• Smoking: 10 years
• Hard or recreational drugs: 10 years
• Drinking: 7 years
• Lack of exercise: 6 years
• High blood pressure: 6 years
• Poor nutrition: 5 years
• Gender (male): 4 years
• Family history of heart disease: 4 years
• Failure to use seat belts: 4 years
• Neglect of regular physical exam: 2 years
• Stress: 1 to 2 years

The big three are obviously drug, alcohol, and tobacco addiction. When you add poor eating and exercise habits to the mix, you have a formula for disaster. Any wellness program must keep curbing these killers at the top of the list.

Who’s Really Supporting The Economy?

According to a report from ADP, the companies that we help with HR That Works usually have fewer than 500 employees — a size category that produce 97% of the jobs added in the private sector during April 2012! Although most of these companies intend to maintain their current level of employment, 31% expect to add more workers, compared with only 13% that expect to reduce their head count.

Interestingly, according to a Simply Hired survey, 39% of college graduates would prefer to work for a small or medium-sized business (compared with 27% at a large corporation, 19% in the public sector, 11% for nonprofits, and 4% with a start -up). The respondents see job security as their No. 1 priority (33%) followed by salary (23%), benefits (23%), and company culture (18%).

The Catch-22 is that smaller companies often offer less job security, benefits, and salary. Looks like the greatest opportunity then is to focus on building a great culture!

There’s A Lot to Know About HR!

In just three pages of the recent SHRM HR Magazine, you’ll find these topics:

A separate article on benefits included these subjects:

The point is that there’s a lot to know about HR. Great HR executives are constant learners — they have to be!

Getting Commissions Agreements Right

A recent California case, DeLeon v. Verizon Wireless, involved an attack on the company’s commission program for alleged violation of a labor code section that prohibits the secret underpayment of wages. Basically, the complaint was that the Verizon employees who were paid both a wage and a commission should not have been charged back against those commissions for customers who did not fulfill their agreements.

Verizon prevailed for these reasons:

1. The commission was clearly defined as such, and the employees already received a wage that satisfied minimum wage standards.
2. Employees knew that the commissions were not final until the customer completed their contract period, and that anything paid was considered an advance on commissions.
3. Employees underwent training which included the chargeback feature.
4. The court reminded employees that “the essence of an advance is that at the time of payment the employer cannot determine whether the commission will eventually be earned because a condition to the employee’s right to the commission has yet to occur or its occurrence as yet is otherwise unascertainable.” In this case, an advance was not a wage because all conditions for performance have not been satisfied.
5. The court reminded employers that a chargeback based on “unidentified returns” from the wages of all sale associates violates the law. There are also cases in which the employee cannot be charged with business losses i.e. work comp claims, theft, etc.

Settling commission claims can be costly — so get the agreement right!

The Cost of Not Having Employment Practice Liability Insurance

According to insurance industry estimates, fewer than 50% of companies carry EPLI — and the smaller the employer, the lower the percentage. Although the cost of coverage varies, a $1 million policy with a $5,000 deductible usually costs from $50 to $250 a year per employee. When you think about obtaining EPLI, weigh the cost of this protection against the likelihood of a claim, settlement, verdict, etc.

Check out the cost figures on claims, derived from Jury Verdict Research and other sources:

• Median award (2004-2010:) $199,600
• Mean award (2004-2010): $632,589
• Median settlement (2004-2010): $85,000
• Mean settlement (2004-2010): $515,816
• Nearly two in four plaintiffs’ verdict (39%) ranged from $100,000 to $500,000 range; 12% of verdicts were $1 million or more. Note: Verdicts tend to be higher in state cases than in federal ones.
• Legal fees, stress, additional exposures, etc. — a minimum of $25,000 per claim and going up from there.
• Loss of pre-claim non-productivity due to the fear of not letting a poor performer go because you might get sued — hard to quantify.
• Impact on the company’s loss of reputation among all stakeholders — priceless.

Note: The mean is the arithmetical average of a group of scores. The mean is sensitive to extreme scores when population samples are small. Means are often used with samples of larger sizes. The median is the middle score in a list of scores; it’s the point at which half the scores are higher and half the scores are lower. Because medians are less sensitive to extreme scores, they’re probably a better indicator with smaller samples.

That’s the potential exposure. What’s the potential of getting hit with it? According to CNA, an employer is more likely to face an EPLI claim than a Property or General Liability claim. Almost 75% of litigation against corporations involves employment disputes. Nearly 100,000 sector charges were filed in 2011 against private employers under EEOC statutes, leading to more than $450 million in settlements and charges. This does not include statistically-based claims or settlements that never see the EEOC, state agency or courtroom. More than 40% of Employment Practices claims are filed against companies with 15-100 employees.

Doing some rough math, there are about 6 million companies in the U.S. Although many of these firms are too small to bother suing, some 2.5 million businesses have 15 or more employees. My experience tells me that tripling the number of EEOC claims give a fairly realistic number of total claims filed. Dividing 2.5 million companies by 300,000 claims comes to roughly a one in eight chance of experiencing a claim during a given year — which means the firm can expect to face at least one employment-related claim over an eight-year period (of course, this probability depends on the size of the company, location, compliance practices, culture, etc.).

By purchasing EPLI, you not only cap your risk at $5,000 to $10,000 a year, but you allow yourself the freedom to let go of poor performers without the threat of litigation. Let’s say a 50-person company pays $7,200 a year (an average of $120 per employee) for EPLI coverage. Over an eight-year period, this comes to a total cost of $57,600, plus the time value of those dollars. The chances are that the company will face a claim at some time during those eight years, which will cost an average of $85,000 just to settle, plus another $25,000 in legal fees, for a total of $110,000 (see the average premium cost and settlement figures above). You’d still come out $52,400 ahead — not to mention eliminating the hassle. If the case goes to verdict, those numbers can easily triple. Bear in mind that there is no way you can amortize this expense! Of course, you might easily face more than one claim during the policy term.

The bottom line: Not getting EPLI is a gamble that could significantly impact or even wipe out your cash flow at any time.

If you’re interested in a checklist for purchasing EPLI, please contact me don@hrthatworks.com.

Inspired HR: An ‘Inside-Out’ Opportunity

Because so few companies have inspired HR practices, those that do enjoy an enormous competitive advantage. Unfortunately, all too many businesses don’t take advantage of this opportunity. Here’s why:

1. Cultivating great HR practices must be an “inside-out” job. I’ve reached this conclusion after coaching and working with hundreds of HR executives over the years. Those who believe, achieve. There are a number of reasons why someone might not believe that they’re capable of producing great HR practices:
   • They don’t have the skill set. If that’s the case, they can learn one critical aspect of HR at a time and implement this expertise. Most people can only do things one step at a time anyway.
   • They don’t feel they have the time it takes to improve HR practices. The solution is to make the time. Great HR practices offer a cost-effective return on investment. I advise HR executives to save at least five hours a week by outsourcing or delegating these activities, so they can in turn devote this time to strategic activities.
   • They don’t believe they have the support of top management. When it comes to business owners, nothing is more important than demonstrating the potential ROI of good HR practices. This is why we’ve created the HR Cost Calculator. I start my CEO workshops with an hour-long review of this form so that participants understand the math surrounding their HR practices.
2. Private companies, unlike their publicly held counterparts, aren’t required to have anything but basic compliance. There’s no Board of Directors demanding that they get their HR act together; as a result, most privately-held firms do little or no real HR.
3. HR professionals don’t get managers on their side. Begin by surveying them. HR That Works members can use the HR Department Survey to have managers rank specific practices and comment on opportunities for improvement.
4. Failing to educate everyone in the company about the opportunities that a good HR program offers them. Learn to let people know the progress you’ve made every month and how this impacts best practices and the bottom line. Show that your HR practices are better than those of the competition.

Form of the Month

10 Steps to Getting a Raise (PDF) – This form identifies the correct process for asking for a raise — the right way!

Podcast

Click here to to listen to this month’s newsletter podcast.

REPRINT POLICY: Reprints are welcome! All you have to do is include the following notation with reprinted material:
©2012 Reprinted with permission from HRThatWorks.com, a powerful program designed to inspire great HR practices.

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This list I was sent from Claims Journal has some great titles.  What I conclude from them is as follows:

1. When you  go parasailing it’s called an assumption of risk.
2. Taking ecstasy is not an accident, it’s stupid…and an assumption of risk.
3. You don’t want baby seats causing skull fractures. Bumbo?
4. I learned something: “Consumers generally need only share their names, correct vehicle insurance information and the phone numbers of insurance providers. Sharing additional personal information, such as driver’s license numbers and home addresses, puts consumers, their property and their safety at risk.”
5. I learned that Work Comp insurers want: “The elimination of sleep disorder, sexual dysfunction and psychological issues as additions to primary injuries, when determining disability awards”. Not sure what witty thing to say about that.
6. If you look at the numerous comments to this article you can see just how much of an emotional issue this is. Obesity is a choice that has nothing to do with logic; otherwise people wouldn’t be obese.
7. Did anyone really think those stupid looking Skecher sneakers would help them somehow? Seriously? Because Joe Montana endorsed them? That guy is so beat up he can hardly walk anymore.
8. The guy at the beach doesn’t want to pay for your fires and the guy in the mountains doesn’t want to pay for your coastal flooding. And nobody wants to pay for their own problem! Which is a problem.
9. Remember, work comp is a no fault system. This was an accident with no fault you can assign other than perhaps  poor walking skills or footwear being present. She gets the WC.
10. Too much dust and lint is a bad thing. Clean your ducts.

Top 10 for the Past Week

“How people can have ‘the way of success’ shown to them, visible to their naked eye, even the principles behind what they are seeing, and still not copycat it, not do it, or even perversely do the opposite?” —Dan Kennedy

This issue discusses:

• Editor’s Column: Honest Terminations
• Six Steps to Help Prevent Data Theft
• HR Internships Make Sense
• How to Build a ‘Learning Organization’
• Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette!
• The HR Executive of the Future

We have also provided you with the Form of the Month.

Please click here to view the newsletter in PDF.

Editor’s Column: Honest Terminations

I’ve had the opportunity to answer more than 3,000 “hotline calls” in the past 10 years. On many of those calls, the employer wanted to know if they’d be sued for terminating someone.

After representing hundreds of employees during my litigation career I can tell you that “how” an employer fires an employee has a lot to do with an employer’s propensity to get sued. Here are some guidelines to consider:

• Don’t create a lie to make the terminated employee feel good. Recently I received a hotline call which described how an HR consultant working with the company advised them to lie about the reason for the employee’s termination by claiming that it was a “layoff.” Horrible advice! The problem with this approach is if the employee ends up suing you for whatever reason you’ll then have difficulty proving that poor performance, etc. was the reason for their termination. Telling employees the truth is the best way to stay out of the courtroom — and don’t ask HR people legal questions that require a lawyer’s judgment!
• Don’t underestimate how traumatic the event will be for the terminated person or tell them how tough it was on you. Yes, it’s tough for you, but guess what? It’s even tougher on them and their family. Feeling bad yet?
• Don’t lose sleep over the termination. Where did management fail this employee? Did the relationship begin with a bad hire? If you’ve done everything you can to be responsible to the employee, then you should have no fear or other negative emotion associated with letting them go. Terminating poor performers allows them to work someplace where they’ll have the opportunity to perform better. It also relieves the burden on your remaining employees. Again, if you have any concerns, what is the source of those concerns?
• Don’t embarrass the employee. Try not to terminate them in front of the rest of the team, make a scene of their walking out of the office, etc. Terminate in a dignified manner, even if the employees have been less than dignified themselves. You don’t have to stoop to their level. If the employee is belligerent or obnoxious, do what you must to calm the situation and protect yourself.
• Don’t turn the termination into a one-hour conversation. By now there should be no surprises. Employees should have known that if they didn’t improve their performance they would be off the bus. Don’t negotiate or sympathize — just let them go.
• Don’t make promises you’ll regret. In a well-known case, a school concerned about the employee’s backlash (he claimed he was falsely accused of sexual harassment) offered a letter of recommendation on which a subsequent employer relied. As it turned out, the employee was once again accused of sexual harassment. When the victims of this alleged sexual harassment sued the new employer, they cross-complained against the previous employer for misrepresentation. Don’t be that previous employer!
• Finally, don’t try to buy off terminated employees with a release for two weeks of severance — all this will do is invite them to see a lawyer. Don’t offer a release when you fire employees for poor performance or because you’re in fact in an economic downturn. They don’t deserve the former and you can’t afford the latter!

If you’re an HR That Works Member, follow the Pre-Termination Checklist.

Six Steps to Help Prevent Data Theft

An excellent article in Corporate Counsel lists these guidelines to help minimize the risk of preventing data from walking out the door:

1. Ensure that employees sign confidentiality and invention-assignment agreements on the first day of work, if not before.
2. Provide meaningful training.
3. Gain control of remote-access and data-protection policies.
4. Set up data protection and employee mobility restrictions affect incoming and outgoing employees.
5. Let laptops cool off before allowing the IT department to repurpose them.
6. Don’t rely on only unpredictable non-competition covenants alone.

I encourage you to read the entire article here.

HR Internships Make Sense

The May 2012 issue of HR Magazine has a special report on how to create an HR internship. I have constantly preached the importance of HR managers delegating less valuable activities so that they can focus on more strategic areas. Having an intern is the perfect way to perform this handoff!

Other benefits of internship include:

• Provides a powerful recruitment tool
• Decreases turnover
• Contributes to positive branding
• Stresses altruism
• Improves employee morale
• Helps generate new ideas
• Adds social networking know-how

These young people usually earn $10-$15 per hour. Although it certainly helps to have interns do some grunt work, you’ll also want to give them challenging assignments and developmental training.

You can find interns by word-of-mouth, going to your local SHRM chapter, local schools, college career centers, or by visiting www.internships.com.

How to Build a ‘Learning Organization’

According to Wikipedia, “a learning organization is the term given to a company that facilitates the learning of its members and continuously transforms itself.” This concept was popularized by Peter Senge in his excellent book The Fifth Discipline. No, it’s not an old rock group; Senge ran a think-tank at MIT Sloan School of Management. His Fifth Discipline Fieldbook provides a manifesto that companies can use to build a learning organization.

According to Senge, there are five main aspects to a learning organization. Let’s discuss how each of those might apply to the HR equation.

1. Systems Thinking. This means that HR doesn’t operate in a bubble, but rather in concert with other aspects of the system. Understand how HR affects everything in your business from operations to sales, marketing, customer support, and so on. A strategic HR manager will take a cross-disciplinary approach when it comes to their HR practices, training, etc.
2. Personal Mastery. This means you commit yourself to the process of learning. How many books have you read in your area of expertise during the last year? Do you receive trade publications, attend trade conferences, network with your peers, and look for additional learning outside of your expertise? Do you make sure everyone else at your company is engaging in personal mastery?
3. Mental Models. Basically, this means the assumptions or framework in which each of us operates. To become a learning organization we have to challenge these models, and HR must be part of this conversation. A classic mental model in the HR arena is the management of performance evaluations. In most organizations, this model is more than 50 years old, meaning that it’s time to retire it. What new model can you develop that will generate integrity, trust, and better performance?
4. Shared Vision. All business authors stress the importance of this factor. Jim Collins emphasized it in his Good to Great book, as did Senge in The Fifth Discipline. How is HR helping to push out and market your organization’s vision? How are you making it “visual”? For example, if I walked into your company would I know what your vision is without having to ask about it? If not, start working with the marketing department and engage in some internal” branding” of the vision.
5. Team Learning. As the saying goes, none of us is as smart as all of us. How can we create vigorous dialogues in which we all learn from each other? I encourage you to go to the five-minute video I did on a very powerful team learning process that anyone can facilitate.

In growing your business as a “learning organization,” you’ll probably need to deal with obstructions. Opposition might come from individuals trying to protect their turf, one department not wanting to communicate with another, a lack of empowerment among leaders or employees — or an organization that’s just too big to share information fully (Senge suggests a cutoff point of 150 employees). Cultural dimensions can also impede the learning process. What barriers have you identified to building a knowledge organization? What strategies do you have to get past these blockages? If you have yet to do so, I encourage you to pick up a copy of Senge’s The Fifth Discipline as well as The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook.

Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette!

About one in five Americans still smoke. Most employers want to eliminate smokers not only from their workplace, but from their payrolls as well. In researching this article I found statistics estimating the annual additional cost to a company of a smoker at $3,000 to more than $12,000 — a costly proposition! On the other hand, trying to terminate, or not hire, smokers raises three questions: 1) Will state laws prevent you from doing so? 2) Does your policy follow the guidelines of such federal laws as ADA and HIPAA? 3) Will it really be worth the effort?

Not hiring, or terminating employees who smoke offers companies these advantages:

• Lower incidence of heart disease, asthma, lung cancer, and other diseases among employees, thus lowering company Group Health insurance rates.
• Less absenteeism and shorter breaks, increasing productivity.
• Reducing conflict between smokers and non-smokers.

The cons:

• You’ll reduce the job applicant pool by 20% to 25%.
• You might offend some of your best workers.

What’s more, state law might prohibit this practice. Twenty nine states and the District of Columbia have laws that prevent employers from discriminating against employees for using tobacco products. (A number of these states exempt people in the firefighting and health professions). Although California, Colorado and New York don’t specifically prohibit this practice, they do protect workers against discrimination for engaging in any lawful activity outside the workplace.

According to the website www.ash.org, which I highly recommend, many of these laws are “toothless and easily avoided.” I encourage you to check out this site, which does an excellent job of identifying relevant state statutes, as well as the loopholes in them.

Although smoking and alcohol use are not protected per se, the health impacts they generate might be. For example, you might be able to terminate an employee for smoking, but not for having lung cancer as a result of smoking. HIPAA allows you to “penalize” smoking employees, but limits the penalty to 10%-20% of their health insurance premiums.

There’s the argument that this is Big Brotherism at its worst: Creating a slippery slope that can lead to restrictions against the food we eat, the beverages we consume, having high cholesterol counts, etc. Plenty of smokers who abide by the company’s policy not to smoke in the workplace are highly effective employees. Do you really want to terminate workers of this caliber? Finally, this quote from a woman about how many people feel about smoking hits the nail on the head. She said, “It’s a stupid choice, but it’s a personal choice.”

The HR Executive of the Future

HR has an exciting future with incredible opportunities — yet most companies undervalue it. As Kevin Cope’s Business Acumen Webinar stresses, if you want to have a more profitable HR operation, you’ll have to be unique. To meet this goal, you’ll need HR managers that have these 10 characteristics (listed in alphabetical order):

1. Adaptable. We’re going through a period of accelerating, meaning that change is happening faster than ever. This means we need to adopt new practices quickly. Chances are that if you’ve been doing anything in the same way for the past 10 years, it’s out of date today. Adaptability happens in real time. You can’t think on it, plan on it, have a committee, produce a plan, etc. You just have to adapt, now! For example, have you adapted to today’s performance management realities — or are you using the same ridiculous performance management approach that didn’t work 10 years ago?
2. Collaborative. We need the IQ and EQ of the entire team. Today we collaborate around projects and activities, rather than job titles. To collaborate, we have to communicate, produce vigorous dialogues that result in action. Collaboration does not mean consensus — it means input from all.
3. Constant learner. To earn more, you must learn more. To learn more, you must train more. Whether you’re in an organization with five employees or 5,000, you must out-educate the competition. How do you make it easy for everyone from the owner to the rank-and-file to educate themselves? Do you provide employees with on-demand access to training materials? Do you give them CDs that they can listen to in the car or MP3s they can upload to their players? Have you taught them about the factors that drive profitability at the company?
4. Cross-disciplinary. Don’t limit collaboration to your own circle of influence — reach out beyond that. To what extent have you collaborated with your marketing director to help with internal branding? Have you spoken with the CFO to help understand the bottom-line impact of HR practices? Zappos requires new HR executives to start out by working in the warehouse taking customer orders and support calls, so that all of their executives have a cross-disciplinary view of the workplace.
5. Designer. Daniel Pink’s book, A Whole New Brain, which discusses how we’re moving to the right side of the brain, includes design as one of the factors. Think about it: One reason why Apple products are so popular is because of their design, not just their functionality. To what extent can you be a designer of your environment, your internal brand, your culture, and workflow? Pick up a few design magazines and ask yourself how you can apply this thinking to human resource practices. You’ll never know the answer until you go through this exercise.
6. Expert in time management. Most executives and employees get zero time management training and yet it’s the greatest stressor they face. Make sure you that you, and your workforce, get time management training (HR That Works has an excellent Training Module). Good time management involves 1) knowing where your time goes; 2) identifying where it should be going; and 3) determining how to replace low-value work and bring on higher value work. Although this isn’t rocket science, it requires discipline to implement. For example, how much time do you lose to distractions (an e-mail from a friend, an article in the New York Times or a Facebook page)? Because the amount of information is doubling approximately every 500 days, without time management discipline you’ll be twice as distracted as ever!
7. Innovator. When you think of human resources, does innovation jump to mind? Of course not! To become an innovator, you need be a good observer of your current environment and “think outside the box.” As mentioned earlier, pick up a magazine on design, sales, or business in general and ask how any of the principles discussed could apply to HR. Dr. Deming taught that profound knowledge comes from outside a system because the system can’t understand itself. Your breakthrough thinking in HR will come from outside the HR field, not within it. HR That Works members should take a look at the Creativity Checklist and Employee Suggestion Form. HR also has the opportunity to get everybody else to the company engaged as innovators as well.
8. New-media savvy. To what extent are you using social media tools to help empower the HR function? To what degree do you use social media outlets such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter to help build a dialogue at your company? How do you employ tools such as YouTube videos to attract, retain, and motivate workers?
9. Motivator. The last thing HR needs is to manage an endless series of dramas. A better approach would be to find a way to empower, engage, and motivate the workforce. For example, how effective are your retention policies? Are you getting the biggest bang for the buck? Are you addressing people’s psychological needs? Have you surveyed workers to determine what their emotional drivers are?
10. Technologist. It has become easier and easier to build database management programs, whether it’s for sales, finances, operations, or human resources management. Years ago there were a dozen or fewer human resource information systems (HRIS); today, there are hundreds and they’re increasingly available to smaller companies. How can you use technology to manage data more effectively? In an information society, well-managed data is essential. What tools can help drive performance management and what tools will you use for strategic HR purposes (of course we think HR That Works is the best!).

Form of the Month

How Would You Rate Your HR Practices? (PDF) – Evaluate your HR department in nine areas to find potential problems.

Podcast

Click here to to listen to this month’s newsletter podcast.

REPRINT POLICY: Reprints are welcome! All you have to do is include the following notation with reprinted material:

© 2012 Reprinted with permission from HRThatWorks.com, a powerful program designed to inspire great HR practices.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

The DOL has issued a Guidebook for Employers on the Equal Pay Act. Part of the agency’s agenda is to step up its enforcement of the law.