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| Volume 8, Issue 15 |
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In This Issue:
 Recognition: The gift that keeps on giving year round
 Innovative layoff alternatives
 Heads up! As layoffs increase, so does résumé fraud
Job applications: What can you ask? How long should you retain them?
Communicating during tough times: 7 common employee gripes
Dishing out bad news? 6 tips for your emotional survival
How to coach 'problem' employees: A 4-step plan for managers
 Taming employee benefits programs
Predictive hiring: Know the terrain outside the talent pool
 Video: Tips for making better hires
'Onboarding:' Crucial feedback for executive hires
Bridging the gap between Boomers and Gen Y
 Are you ready for the ADA amendments act of 2008?
 Internet as an effective medium of propaganda
 Creating people advantage: How to address HR challenges
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Recognition: The gift that keeps on giving year round
Want to show employees you care? Recognition strategist Globoforce offers five tips to energize and engage employees throughout the year.
'Tis the season for holiday planning, and companies are beginning to break out the fruit baskets and catalogues in search of that perfect employee gift. But, there's faulty thinking embedded in that well-intended initiative, one that could cost companies their very best talent. Frequent ongoing recognition—not just one-time
displays—is what truly drives up employee engagement and satisfaction levels to create a year-round culture of appreciation. In turn, this positive culture can impact company performance by as much as 27 percent, according to a 2007 Gallup survey...
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Innovative layoff alternatives
As layoffs spread, some companies are coming up with ways to soften the blow. Offering employees the ability to cut wages or work hours, or to take sabbaticals while retaining benefits and a percentage of their pay, may allow companies to cut costs -- and preserve jobs long-term.
Just how bad will the economy get? For employers facing tough decisions about layoffs, the question is far from rhetorical. If the current economic turmoil is contained sooner than expected, premature layoffs could be a disaster. If not enough employees are laid off and the recession continues, the company's bottom line could suffer. And
in any scenario involving layoffs, morale among those employees remaining at the company is sure to plummet. Some companies consider alternatives to layoffs, such as voluntary retirements or salary cuts, hiring freezes, reductions in hours or the cancellation of business trips and/or costly perquisites. Even standard benefit
packages and matching contributions to 401(k) plans might come under the microscope. According to Wharton management professor Peter Cappelli, director of the Wharton Center for Human Resources, the use of creative layoff alternatives...
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Heads up! As layoffs increase, so does résumé fraud
Raise your skepticism a few notches. Résumé fudging is on the rise again.
The percentage of applicants who falsify their educational credentials and job experience typically goes up when the economy heads south. Recent layoffs and the financial meltdown have applicants feeling desperate, and desperate applicants tend to add that extra punch to their résumés. Investigators at Kroll, Inc., which does
employee background checks, estimate that 20% of job applicants exaggerate their educational backgrounds. More than 60% of HR pros told the Society for Human Resource Management that they have uncovered inaccuracies when checking the veracity of résumés. Applicants lie most about...
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Job applications: What can you ask? How long should you retain them?
No federal or state law requires employers to use job applications. But if you do require applicants to fill them out, know the legal do's and don'ts of what questions to ask.
For example, don't ask for information that would reveal protected-class status, such as age, race or religion. Nor should you ask a woman her maiden name or have a check-off box on your application with the choices “Mrs.” or “Miss,” which would reveal an applicant's marital status. Stick with “Ms.” Graduation dates. With respect
to age, avoid asking applicants when they graduated from high school or college. If you did, someone might say “1945” and you would know that person is over age 40. But are you violating the Age Discrimination in Employment Act by asking for those dates? The EEOC has issued some guidance hinting that...
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Communicating during tough times: 7 common employee gripes (and how to respond)
It's a new day in the American workplace. The global financial meltdown has workers merely nervous on a good day, fearful for their jobs on an average day … and downright angry when their fears are about to be realized.
In Chicago, 250 unionized employees of Republic Windows and Doors are five days into a sit-in that began when the company shut down with just three days' notice. Management says it can't borrow the working capital necessary to keep running. Furious workers say that's just cover to open a new plant in Iowa. And they say they're owed 60 days'
notice of the shutdown—plus severance pay—under federal law and their union contract. Labor experts say this kind of ugliness can be avoided, even in today's panic-inducing economy. The solution to staying productive (and in business) during tough times lies
beyond labor relations and beyond compliance with the law. Employers that plan on surviving the recession know that managers must...
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Dishing out bad news? 6 tips for your emotional survival
Announcing layoffs and cuts in pay, health care coverage, 401(k) plans and other benefits can exact a personal toll on you, too.
The price is higher for solo practitioners in small organizations who know many employees personally and lack HR co-workers for moral support. Here are six tips from psychologists and HR experts to help you cope with the stress that results from telling employees things that cause them anguish:...
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How to coach 'problem' employees: A 4-step plan for managers
When faced with a poor-performing or disruptive employee, it's easy for supervisors to play the wait-and-see game and simply hope the situation will improve.
But problems rarely solve themselves. And that's especially true with problem employees. In most cases, problem employees...
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Taming employee benefits programs
Benjamin Franklin said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," and that certainly is the approach being adopted by leading organizations looking to contain rising health care benefit costs.
Medical insurance is far and away the most expensive benefit offered by organizations, and it can be a budget buster. A new research study published in July 2008 from research firm Aberdeen Group found the cure isn't in reducing medical care coverage, but in finding ways to make it less needed. For example, include wellness programs and
disease management programs, both of which attempt to rein in the need and cost of other health care by keeping employees more healthy to begin with. If a company is aggressive about containing costs, it may tie employees' participation in such programs to the amount they pay into the company health plan or how much they must
provide in health-service co-payments. The study, "Taming the Benefits Management Beast: Driving Costs Down and Satisfaction Up," surveyed more than 330 organizations regarding their investments in benefits management programs and in systems to manage those programs. Aberdeen collected data against 10 metrics assigned to distinct
workforce management elements, including improvements seen in revenue, recruiting and retention. Data revealed best-in-class organizations are achieving significant gains in the areas of...
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Predictive hiring: Know the terrain outside the talent pool
Despite economic uncertainty, the next several years will see the demand for qualified talent begin to exceed the supply.
Across all industries and professions, recruiting is no longer a matter of simple workforce assessment and strategy execution. Organizations must adapt their predictive hiring strategies if they want to remain competitive in today's marketplace.
Something Old, Something New "Predictive hiring" is a new term for a discipline that previously has been recognized as human capital planning, strategic talent planning and workforce planning. But terminology aside, the concept boils down to...
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Video: Tips for making better hires
Bad hires can cost plenty. A new book proposes four deliberate steps to hiring the right person for your company's needs and culture.
As the United States slips into a recession, it's not surprising that many managers are reassessing their corporate strategies. But in a compelling read, authors Geoff Smart, CEO of management assessment firm ghSmart, and Randy Street, president of
ghSmart executive learning, make the case that managers' biggest problems may not be what they're doing—but who they are hiring...
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'Onboarding:' Crucial feedback for executive hires
An emerging ritual to measure performance 90, 100, or 120 days into a top manager's new job can stave off disaster or reinforce excellence.
"I never knew you felt that way." Those words often evince an epiphany that can save a rocky relationship—including one between a high-priced hire and the company that paid the bounty for him or her. Indeed, those words frequently encapsulate the reaction business executives have when presented with feedback from a so-called onboarding
process, which serves up a consensus view of the first impression he or she has made on an employer 90, 100, or perhaps 120 days into a new management role. Also referred to as executive integration or assimilation, onboarding happens long after the kind of employment orientation intended to familiarize an executive with his or her new
colleagues and working environment in the early days of the job. Orientation enables an executive to perform in a new role, whereas onboarding offers the first feedback on how the executive is fulfilling that role...
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Bridging the gap between Boomers and Gen Y
Make the work meaningful, stress feedback positive, and be flexible in letting people figure out how to accomplish the task.
The other day I walked into a local restaurant and listened as a fiftysomething manager lashed out at a twentysomething employee. Such interactions occur far too frequently in workplaces across the country. For the two generations to work effectively with one another, they need to recognize how their different life
experiences and expectations affect they way they communicate. As a business owner, it's your job to create an environment where this is possible. Tamara Erickson, author of a new book, Plugged In: The Generation Y Guide to Thriving at Work, and I spoke
recently about common misunderstandings between boomers and Gen Yers—and ways business owners managing both groups can resolve them...
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Are you ready for the ADA amendments act of 2008?
When President George W. Bush signed legislation to expand the protections afforded by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, it broadened the definition of 'disabled,' triggering important changes for employers. Being informed of these changes—and in compliance with the new law—is a must for employers and HR.
Anyone reading the recently passed ADA Amendments Act might be tempted to ask, who isn't covered? Created with the intent to restore the protections that were originally laid out in the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, but which have been steadily eroded since by the courts, the new amendments are so expansive and cover so many
individuals and impairments, they might as well be called the "Americans Accommodation Act." Kidding aside, employers need to be aware that the standard for what is classified as a disability has been altered significantly. There could be an initial wave of litigation aimed at companies to test the new boundaries of the amendments, so
it's critical that employers are prompt and thorough in managing employment processes and are fully educated on the new compliance requirements...
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Internet as an effective medium of propaganda
Tilton has, no doubt, lost support among his employees and the public. The speed of destruction was enabled by the Internet and is there for a long time to come for everyone to see..."
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The Internet is being used as a simple tool for disaffected employees to disparage managements, writes Makovsky...
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