Human Resources Knowledge Center

30 Tips for Your Job Search

2011-12-27T11:15:00.000-08:00

First and foremost-take a personal inventory. Job hunting gives you the opportunity to go back to “square one” and inventory all over again what you are all about, what skills and knowledge you have acquired, and what you want to do. Who are you? What do you want out of life? A job? A career? Where are you going? Do you know how to get there? Have you been happy in your work/career/profession? What would you like to change? An inventory such as this is the best job hunting method ever devised because it focuses your view of your skills and talents as well as your inner desires. You begin your job hunt by first identifying your transferable, functional, skills. In fact, you are identifying the basic building blocks of your work.

Apply directly to an employer. Pick out the employers that interest you the most from any source available (web listings, yellow pages, newspaper ads, etc.), and obtain their address. Appear on their doorstep at your first opportunity with resume in hand. Even if you don’t know anyone there, this job hunting method works almost half the time, if you are diligent and continue your pursuit over several weeks or months.

Ask relatives and friends about jobs where they work. Ask every relative and friend you have now or have ever had about vacancies they may know about where they work, or where anyone else works. It may take a village to raise a child, but it takes an entire network to find a new job! If you tell everyone you know or meet that you are job hunting and that you would appreciate their help, you more than quadruple your chances of success.

Search hidden job markets. Networking is the “Hidden Job Market.” Because every time you make contact with a person who is in direct line with your career interest, you set up the possibility that he or she will lead you to more people, or to the job you are seeking. People are connected to one another by an infinite number of pathways. Many of these pathways are available to you, but you must activate them to make them work to your advantage. Most of the available jobs are in the hidden job market. They aren’t listed in the classifieds or placed with a headhunter. Find them through your network of contacts. This is your most valuable resource!

Ask a professor or old teacher for job-leads. No one knows your capabilities, dedication, and discipline better than a teacher or professor who had the opportunity to work with you in school. Since more people find their work through direct referral by other people than by any other way, this is a target audience you don’t want to miss

Spend more hours each week on your job hunt. Finding a job is a job! Treat your job hunting just as you would a normal job and work a normal number of hours per week, at least 35, preferably 40 in the process. This will cut down dramatically on the length of time it takes you to find work. Did you know that the average person in the job market only spends 5 hours or less per week looking for work? With that statistic, it isn’t surprising that it can be a long, tedious process. Improve your chances and demonstrate your discipline and determination. Devote Sundays to answering ads and planning your strategy for the next week. Don’t spend precious weekday hours behind a computer. You need to be out there researching leads, networking, and interviewing. Work smarter for yourself!

Concentrate your job hunt on smaller companies. Most new jobs will come from smaller, growing companies, typically with fewer than 500 employees, not large, restructuring companies. Although larger employers are more visible, well known and aggressive in their search for employees, it is with the smaller companies that you may have the best chance of success in finding work. Pay particular attention to those companies that are expanding and on their way to prosperous growth…they are easier to approach, easier to contact important personnel, and less likely to screen you out.

See more employers each week. If you only visit six or seven employers a month in your job search (which is the average, by the way), you will prolong your search and delay your successful outcome. This is one reason why job hunting takes so long. If you need to see 45 employers to find a job, it only makes sense to see as many employers a week as possible. Determine to see no fewer than two employers per week at a minimum! Do this for as many months as your job-hunt lasts. Keep going until you find the kind of employer who wants to hire you! Looking for a job is a numbers game. The more contacts you make, the more interviews you’ll get. The more interviews you have, the more offers you’ll get.

Be prepared for phone interviews. Would you believe that over 50% of prospective candidates are disqualified after the first phone contact is made with them by an employer? In today’s world, employers don’t have time anymore to interview every possible applicant and are using phone calls as a less expensive, less time consuming way to weed out potentially unqualified candidates. The phone interview catches many people off guard. You might receive more than just one phone interview, and you have to pass them all. The interviewer usually makes up his or her mind within the first five minutes. The remainder of the time is spent just confirming first impressions.

Create a support group. It is easy to get discouraged, depressed and despondent (the three D’s) in the job-hunt process. This can be one of the toughest and loneliest experiences in the world and the rejection you may have to face can be brutal, but it doesn’t have to be. The key is in understanding that you are not alone. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people looking for work, and you can team up with one if you choose. Many job-hunting groups already exist, such as the local Chambers of Commerce and online support groups through the Internet. Find a partner, or a larger group, and support and encourage each other. The path to success is literally a phone call away.

Contact potential employers directly through professional associations.Professional associations provide excellent networks for your benefit. Almost all committed professionals are members of at least one or two professional networks. Usually membership includes a directory, which provides you with a direct networking resource for verbal contact and mail campaigns. Additionally, most professional associations hold regularly scheduled meetings, which provide further opportunities to mingle with your professional peers on an informal basis. Finally, professional associations all have newsletters that are a valuable resource for other trade publications, associations, and help wanted sections.

Post your resume online. In today’s world there are numerous resume databases on the web. Job hunters can now tap into giant online databases when launching a search prior to interviewing. There are three primary ways to job search electronically or online: Joblines, Bulletin Board Systems (BBS), and the Internet. Many employers today have their employment opportunities accessible through a simple phone call. You can also use the advanced Resume Caster feature in ResumeMaker to post your resume to all of the top career centers on the web for thousands of hiring employers to review. You can also use the Job Finder feature to search from among more than 1 million online-listed job openings for a specific job title in the state you specify. The data is all there, waiting for you.

Promote yourself in unique ways. Promotion is creating an audience of potential employers and making them aware of your qualifications. There are many nontraditional ways to accomplish this task. For example, use electronic resume services to broadcast your resume. List yourself in appropriate trade association newsletters. Prepare 3 x 5 Rolodex cards that contain your name, address, and phone number on the front and your objective and skills from your resume on the back. Leave them behind wherever you go and give them to anyone who has reason to contact you later about a job.

Accept a temporary position or volunteer work. Be your own working advertisement by accepting a temporary position. This provides you with valuable experience, contacts, and references. Volunteer for organizations and activities with business sponsors and relationships that increases your visibility and personal contacts. Explore your possibilities and leave all options open. You never know which method may ultimately land you your ideal job.

Make cold-calls. Next to face-to-face meetings, the telephone is the most effective method available to find a job. Every call you make is an opportunity to sell yourself to a prospective employer, to pursue a new job opening, or to obtain a referral. Your technique in the initial telephone call can have a categorical impact on your chances to obtain what you want from the call. Complete at least 15 calls per day. You will be astonished at the results. Always be agreeable, gentle, and positive. Smile when you speak; the listener will hear it. Prepare a brief outline for each call and rehearse it. Create brief statements that outline how you can help your prospective employer accomplish their goals. Always, always, always ask for referrals.

Re-define your job hunt in terms of alternative possibilities. Successful job hunters always have alternative plans ready in the background and implement them at the first sign of difficulty. Prepare alternative ways of describing what you do, alternative avenues of job hunting, alternative leads and contact lists, alternative target organizations and employers to contact, alternative ways to approach prospective companies, and alternative plans to continue your job hunt through its successful completion. The jobs are out there-you just need to be sure you are using the right methods to look for them.

Seek career counseling or job hunting help online. Many service providers, through the Internet, are offering career counseling services, job hunting advice, and reference tools that you can turn to in your job hunt. Some of the best of these services are free, and the number is growing astronomically each year. Your first approach would be to visit the online career centers integrated with ResumeMaker and visit each site to determine what services they have to offer. There is a virtual community just waiting to hear from you.

Consider federal and local government sources. The federal government is a huge resource of potential job search information, available to you at little or no cost. Several Department of Labor publications, for example, can take you through your job search from beginning to end, and help with career counseling and industry research. Call your local employment office and take advantage of the services they offer.

Make sure you can survive financially between jobs. Budget for the time you will be looking for a job. It is always helpful if you can get an overall view of how your money will carry you through any work search or training you may need to take on. You will have enough worries and issues to deal with and do not want to have to be concerned about your finances.

Set and prioritize goals while job-hunting. You need to know what you want, or else you can’t ask for it. There are literally thousands of jobs open around you. Determine what it is that you want, set your goals for achieving this, and prioritize the steps that you will ultimately need to take. The more specific you are about your goal, the better your chances of getting the job you want.

Zero in on a career position and research the market. Before you start meeting people, you need to know something about the industry or field you want to work in. The more you know, the better your conversations with prospective employers will be-and the more impressed they will be with you.

Interview others for information. Interview people whose occupations interest you. You can always find someone who has done something that at least approximates what you want to do. Find the names of such persons, and go see, phone, or write them. You will learn a great deal that is relevant to your dream.

Organize a job search campaign. Organize your job search campaign. Failing to do so is a common flaw in many people’s job search strategy. Make a plan for your job search. This entails: planning and organizing your job strategy, setting up a base or operations center for your job hunt, preparing materials, and carrying out job search tactics.

Update your resume and be prepared. Update that resume! A resume is what nearly everyone you approach in your job search is going to ask for. Get your resume in top shape. Use a professional service or ResumeMaker to prepare a show-stopping resume!

Keep yourself dedicated, strong, positioned, and consistent. Job-hunting can certainly be one of life’s most stressful experiences. You have more power to keep the pressures of job hunting under control, however, than you may think. The key is to focus your job search and stay strong, dedicated and consistent. One of the curious things about the human brain is that it focuses on only one thing at a time. So keep it focused on you-and finding a job!

Seek out other Networking Groups at Churches, Civic and Community Centers and be a regular attender.

Set and Keep Regular Job Search Hours everyday.

Use Social Media like Linkediin, Jigsaw, Pipl and Plaxo to find contact information for key people inside the companies to which you apply, and follow up your applications with a direct call or email whether you have heard from the company or not.

Follow up on every lead given you to every company. Even if you do not have the interest or skill for the position, it is possible you can refer a more qualified person, AND you will have gained a new hiring contact.

Keep Track of all your job search expenses. This will earn you a larger return on next year's taxes.

*most of these leads came from this linkedin article by Jox Medalla The Editdor has added some of His own.

What is an ERP ?

2011-07-25T11:22:00.001-07:00

ERP, or Enterprise Resource Planning is an integrated computer system designed to manage all the existing resources inside a company including but not limited to financial resources, human resources, inventory and assets, etc. Usually an ERP system uses a centralized database, but recently, with the increased popularity of cloud services, the systems tend to become distributed.
Introduction:
As companies increased in size, and started to manipulate an increase number of entities (human, financial, inventory) it was obvious that a system was needed in place to manage them. Beside management, a complex decisional system was also needed that would manage various administrative workflows that are part of day to day operations.
Design:
ERP Providers usually implement standard business processes based on best operating practices. Depending on the company size, the company itself has to adhere to the business processes already modeled in the existing ERP packages, or, in the case of big corporations, it is usually the other way around, with new ERP packages build from scratch or adapted to adhere to the business processes already in use.
The main components that are part of a standard ERP package are:
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Human Resources Management
Project Management
Finance and Accounting
Manufacturing Production, Service and Delivery management
Supply Chain and Vendor Management
Warehouse and Inventory Management
Not all the possible modules are listed here and no ERP deployment is the same. A company does not necessarily needs Manufacturing Management Module, if it is in the Service business, etc.
Pros:
Unified system tracking various corporate entities from creation to consumption (ex. order tracking from acceptance through fulfillment, product manufacturing from design to shipment, project management from definition to completion and release or ever human resource from hiring campaign through hiring, promotion/demotion and termination)
data centralization – eliminates redundancies and facilitate backup and data mining procedures
structured data shaping, access and visualization – allow data access based on roles and offers views limited by scope
optimizes inventory by providing sales analysis
optimizes marketing campaigns by tracking customers and sales
Cons:
Cost – ERP packages tend to be expensive and, due to the inherent complexity of both the software itself and the multitude of existing business processes already existent in a company, the time to deployment can take years
When a company replaces its internal process with the ones modeled by the ERP package, it may result in a loss of performance
additional time is needed to familiarize all employee with the new system and the end results might not be optimal
insufficient initial funding might result in transition failure
April 15th, 2010 | Tags: advantages, benefits, cons, disadvantages, ERp System, implementation,pro, What is | Category: Editorials | Leave a comment
ERP Vendors

You can find most well known ERP Providers in the following list. Help us to keep the list updated by sending us information about related companies currently not listed.
Company Name
Package Name
Comments
SAP
SAP Business Suite, SAP Business ByDesignb, SAP Business One, SAP Business All-in-One
Oracle
JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Oracle e-Business Suite, PeopleSoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Dynamics (AX, NAV, GP, SL)
NetSuite
NetSuite
CDC Software
Epicor
Epicor Enterprise
Syspro
SYSPRO
Plex Systems
Plex Online
Infor Global Solutions
ERP Adage, ERP LN, ERP LX, ERP SL, ERP Swan, ERP SX.Enterprise, ERP VE, ERP XA
The Sage Group
Sage ACCPPAC, Sage Pro ERP, Sage ERP X3
Lawson Software
Lawson M3, Lawson S3
IBM
Maximo (MRO)
QAD
QAD Enterprise Applications
Comarch
Comarch Altum
COA Solutions Ltd
Smart Business Suite
ABAS Software
ABAS ERP
PointHR
PointHR ATS, NEON

2011-07-25T11:21:00.000-07:00

Introduction:

As companies increased in size, and started to manipulate an increase number of entities (human, financial, inventory) it was obvious that a system was needed in place to manage them. Beside management, a complex decisional system was also needed that would manage various administrative workflows that are part of day to day operations.

Design:

ERP Providers usually implement standard business processes based on best operating practices. Depending on the company size, the company itself has to adhere to the business processes already modeled in the existing ERP packages, or, in the case of big corporations, it is usually the other way around, with new ERP packages build from scratch or adapted to adhere to the business processes already in use.

The main components that are part of a standard ERP package are:

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Human Resources Management
Project Management
Finance and Accounting
Manufacturing Production, Service and Delivery management
Supply Chain and Vendor Management
Warehouse and Inventory Management

Not all the possible modules are listed here and no ERP deployment is the same. A company does not necessarily needs Manufacturing Management Module, if it is in the Service business, etc.

Pros:

Unified system tracking various corporate entities from creation to consumption (ex. order tracking from acceptance through fulfillment, product manufacturing from design to shipment, project management from definition to completion and release or ever human resource from hiring campaign through hiring, promotion/demotion and termination)

data centralization – eliminates redundancies and facilitate backup and data mining procedures

structured data shaping, access and visualization – allow data access based on roles and offers views limited by scope

optimizes inventory by providing sales analysis

optimizes marketing campaigns by tracking customers and sales

Cons:

Cost – ERP packages tend to be expensive and, due to the inherent complexity of both the software itself and the multitude of existing business processes already existent in a company, the time to deployment can take years

When a company replaces its internal process with the ones modeled by the ERP package, it may result in a loss of performance

additional time is needed to familiarize all employee with the new system and the end results might not be optimal

insufficient initial funding might result in transition failure

ERP Vendors

You can find most well known ERP Providers in the following list. Help us to keep the list updated by sending us information about related companies currently not listed.

Company Name	Package Name	Comments
SAP	SAP Business Suite, SAP Business ByDesignb, SAP Business One, SAP Business All-in-One
Oracle	JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Oracle e-Business Suite, PeopleSoft
Microsoft	Microsoft Dynamics (AX, NAV, GP, SL)
NetSuite	NetSuite
CDC Software
Epicor	Epicor Enterprise
Syspro	SYSPRO
Plex Systems	Plex Online
Infor Global Solutions	ERP Adage, ERP LN, ERP LX, ERP SL, ERP Swan, ERP SX.Enterprise, ERP VE, ERP XA
The Sage Group	Sage ACCPPAC, Sage Pro ERP, Sage ERP X3
Lawson Software	Lawson M3, Lawson S3
IBM	Maximo (MRO)
QAD	QAD Enterprise Applications
Comarch	Comarch Altum
COA Solutions Ltd	Smart Business Suite
ABAS Software	ABAS ERP
PointHR	PointHR ATS, NEON

Look Out, The I-9 Audits Are Here

2011-07-21T09:41:00.000-07:00

In June 2010, ICE issued a strategic plan for worksite enforcement to be implemented
through fiscal year 2014.. The plan is well underway, and 1000 audit notices were send out earlier this year. professional conulstats at the tip of the spear of his plan tell us that employers who completely ignored them earlier in the year are calling back asking for help.

This the ICE plan:

A key feature of this plan was to be enforcement of immi‐gration‐related employment laws, including enforcement against employers who knowingly violate the law.
In the intervening months, ICE has conducted education,Form I‐9 investigations and audits, and has imposed criminal and civil sanctions.
In its strategic plan, ICE indicated its belief that its actions would create a ʺculture of compliance.ʺ Certain industries, including agriculture, construction, hospitality, and food processing, have been the main targets of these actions.

So how do these I‐9 audits usually go?

An NOI (Notice of Inspection) gives a targeted employer three days to prepare for a meeting with ICE officials.
At that meeting, the employer’s Form I‐9 records are reviewed.
In addition to properly completed Forms I‐9 for all current and recent ex‐employees, the employer is told to turn over payroll and other employee‐related documentation, and any documentation (such as ʺno‐matchʺ letters) received from the Social Security Administration, and information about the business owners.
ICE investigators audit this information. At the audit’s conclusion, ICE notifies the employer of the results.
If no violations are found, ICE issues a letter advising that there is no basis for further investigation.
If violations are found, ICE may issue a ʺNotice of Technical or Procedural Failuresʺ and give the employer 10 days to make corrections on Forms I‐9.
If corrections are not done or not done on time, ICE may issue a ʺNotice of Intent to Fineʺ (NIF) and assess fines of from $110 to $1,100 per form.

For Each Incorrect form:

If ICE determines that information on a Form I‐9 for a certain employee is incorrect or invalid, it will issue a ʺNotice of Suspect Documentsʺ and require the employer to obtain new documentation from those identified employees to prove their identity and employment eligibility.
The employer must discharge an employee who cannot produce the required documentation. Continuing to employ identified employees without valid documentation could result in fines ranging from $375 to $3,200 per unauthorized employee for the first violation.

If fines are assessed, ICE will issue a Notice of Intent to Fine (NIF.) The NIF lists the violations, includes details about how the fine was calculated, and specifies the total of all fines .

Within 30 days of receipt of the NIF, the employer may contest the fine by requesting a hearing before an administrative law judge.

PointhHR Partners with Hirebridge

2011-07-21T06:50:00.000-07:00

PointHR announces partnership with Hirebridge.

For more than 17 years, PointHR has been providing unmatched screening services to thousands of companies nationwide in virtually every industry. PointHR is fully integrated with Hirebridge Recruiter, and has firmly established itself as the logical Background Screening choice for forward thinking companies. PointHR provides all background screen services, including: Criminal Records, Drug Screening, Electronic Offer Letter and Biometric Form I-9, Digitized Personnel Files, Automated Instant Employment Confirmation, Anonymous Employee Hotline, and More. By selecting PointHR as your Total HR Services partner you will save time and money by ensuring that you hire the best candidates, with the least risk, in a fast efficient manner. Streamline your screening now. Explore how easy it is at http://HireBridge.PointHR.com.

Hirebridge helps organizations maximize their HR resources and expand their opportunities with an affordable web-based recruiting platform. We understand that every business is unique, which is why we provide a range of on-demand services to meet the unique needs of your business. No matter the industry you are in or the size of your company, Hirebridge has a solution to meet your specific needs and can help reduce the time and cost to hire and fill your open positions.

Point HR I-9 Services

2011-07-19T10:05:00.000-07:00

PointhR was the first Designated agent for the Department of Homeland Security.
Between then and now we have learned everything abount the I9 process.
We have provided I9 audits and solutions for some of the largest companies in the
nation. An electronic I-9 form, complete with an automated and instant E-Verify check,
should be part of every employer’s I-9 management program.

As the I-9 processes and regulations evolve, the requirements are becoming
increasingly complex. Stakes are only growing higher as the government continues
to step up its enforcement of immigration employment law. Implementing a complete
electronic I-9 management system and automated E-Verify checks today,
more than ever, is vital to staying compliant.

I9Review Paperless I-9 Compliance Solution...

Electronically complete, sign and store the Form I-9.

Validation of data entered into the Form I-9.

Optional E-Verify integration.

Expiration Alert – Notifications of an employee's expiring work

authorization.

No servers or software to install or maintain.

Easy Access – Electronic I9's forms accessible in PDF format.

Audit Log – All actions relating to creation of the I9 are

captured in the audit log.

Now what?
If being a I9Review Agency sounds like the right fit for you, Let's Talk.

We are PointHR
- We have over 20 years of experience
- We service some of the country's largest Fortune 500 companies
- We were the first Dept of Homeland Security designated agent
- We provide dedicated customer care centers
- We maintain a state-of-the-art research network capable of handling over 40,000 requests per day

Contact Point HR for More information

In Some States, You Cannot Request a Credit Report for Most New Employees

2011-05-02T09:29:00.000-07:00

In their quest to hire reliable and trustworthy employees for open positions, many employers have turned to credit reporting agencies for applicant background information. Although such information may be readily available, obtaining it could lead to possible liability if the appropriate policies and procedures are not in place.

Discrimination Claims
Under Title VII, employer practices – such as basing hiring and other employment decisions on credit history information – that weigh more heavily on individuals within protected categories could lead to discrimination claims. For instance, if an employer’s use of credit reports has the effect of excluding women or minorities from certain positions, that practice could lead to liability.

In addition, a number of states have enacted or are considering enacting laws that explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of credit histories. For instance, Illinois’ newly enacted Employee Credit Privacy Act, which goes into effect on January 1, 2011, prohibits employers from inquiring about an applicant’s or employee’s credit history and from ordering or otherwise obtaining an applicant’s or employee’s credit history or credit report from a consumer reporting agency. Despite the potentially broad reach of Illinois’ new Act, there are several exceptions including:

Situations where an employer can show that a satisfactory credit history is a “bona fide occupational requirement” for a position, which is further defined in the statute;
Employers who are banks, savings and loans, or certain other financial institutions; insurance or surety businesses; state law enforcement or investigative units; state or local government agencies that otherwise require use of the employee’s or applicant’s credit history or credit report; and entities that are defined as debt collectors under federal or state statute; and
Background investigations that do not include a credit history or report as permitted under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Employers that violate the Illinois Act could face damages, injunctive relief, and liability for attorneys’ fees and costs and could also face liability for any retaliatory conduct under the Act.

Along the same lines, legislation has been introduced in, among other states, Michigan and Ohio as well. In Michigan, House Bill 4528, also known as the Job Applicant Credit Privacy Act, would prohibit an employer from failing or refusing either to hire or recruit an individual because of the individual’s credit history and from inquiring about a job applicant’s or potential job applicant’s credit history. As with the Illinois Act, certain exceptions would apply for individuals who hold positions with identified types of companies including, for instance, banks or other financial institutions.

In Ohio, House Bill 340, which was introduced on October 28, 2009, would make it an unlawful discriminatory practice for an employer to use a person’s credit rating or score or consumer credit history as a factor in making decisions regarding that person’s employment. House Bill 340would allow a person to file a charge with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission and would provide similar penalties for violations.

As these examples show, a blanket policy of requiring credit reports for all employees or applicants could lead to possible discrimination claims under state or federal law or both.

The Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act
Moreover, even when employers are permitted to obtain applicant or employee credit reports, liability can still attach if the detailed procedures set forth in the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) are not followed. Specifically, the FCRA requires employers to inform applicants that a credit check will be performed and to obtain the applicants’ written permission in a stand-alone document that is not part of the employment application.

In addition, if an employer decides to take an adverse employment action against an employee or applicant based on the credit check, the employer must first give that individual a “pre-adverse action disclosure” that consists of a copy of the credit report and a written summary of rights under the FCRA before taking the adverse action. Presumably, this requirement is intended to allow an employee or applicant an opportunity to attempt to correct any inaccuracies on the report. Once the adverse action has been taken, the employer must provide the applicant or employee with an “adverse action notice.” This notice must alert the recipient that the employer, not the credit reporting agency, made the adverse decision; inform the recipient that he or she has a right to a free copy of the report; and provide the name, address and phone number of the agency that provided the credit report so that the recipient can dispute any inaccurate information.

Employers that fail to comply with the FCRA may face liability for actual damages, attorneys’ fees, costs and punitive damages. Criminal penalties are also possible for any employer that obtains a credit report under false pretenses.

Minimizing The Risks
Some of the ways you can minimize the risks of obtaining employee or applicant credit reports are by:

Determining whether state laws govern your use of applicant/employee credit reports;
Evaluating whether the benefits of obtaining credit reports for various positions outweigh the risks of doing so;
Developing appropriate policies and procedures to govern procurement of credit reports; and
Ensuring compliance.

The Rest @ HR Bits

HR Magazine Survey Companies on Back ground checks

2011-04-28T10:11:00.000-07:00

Who Checks on What?
The December HR Magazine shared these statistics from a SHRM survey:

Companies doing criminal background checks? 73% do them for all, 19% for some, 7% no
Companies doing credit background checks? 13% do them for all, 47% for some, 40% no
Companies conducting pre-employment drug testing? 55% do them for all, 17% for some 21% no

As with most SHRM surveys, most of the companies surveyed are very large.
Usually less than 15% are the size of our Member base. Nevertheless, where does your company fit in this? We’d advise you to do criminal background checks and drug tests on everybody, and credit background check on everybody you’re allowed to by law. This will eliminate exposing yourself to unnecessary risks.

The EEOC is severely restricting credit background checks on a disparate impact basis.

The Rest @ HR That works

PointHR has been doing this for companies like yours for 17 years

Supreme Court- Complaints Do Not Have to be Made in Writing for FLSA Retaliation Claus to Apply

2011-04-28T09:13:00.000-07:00

On March 22, 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp., that retaliation under the Fair Labor Standards Act, can be based on oral complaints, not just written ones. The Court rejected the employer’s argument that oral complaints are too indefinite to provide an employer with fair notice that an employee is engaging in protected activity.

Facts of the Case: The plaintiff employee believed that the location of the defendant employer’s time clock was illegal under the FLSA because it prevented employees from receiving fair compensation for the time they spent changing in and out of work clothes. The employer had an ethics policy that imposed on employees the obligation to report suspected violations of the law and an internal grievance resolution procedure that instructed employees to immediately contact their supervisor with “questions, complaints, and problems.” The employee claimed that he “raised concerns” with his supervisor that the location of the time clocks was “illegal” and that he also advised human resources personnel (a generalist and the HR manager) that the company would “lose in court” if a legal challenge were brought about the time clock location. He also told his lead operator that he was “thinking about starting a lawsuit about the placement of the time clocks.” The employee claimed that his subsequent discharge from employment was because of these complaints. He sued under the FLSA’s anti-retaliation provision and his claims were dismissed on summary judgment. The trial court, affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, concluded that the FLSA, which prohibits retaliation against employees because they “file any complaint” required a written filing with a government agency.

The Rest @ HR That Works

Supreme Court- Complaints Do Not Have to be Made in Writing for FLSA Retaliation Claus to Apply

2011-04-28T09:11:00.000-07:00

I-9 Audit

2011-04-21T07:45:00.000-07:00

How to Document your I-9 form for H1-B Extensions (2011 Update)

2011-04-19T07:45:00.000-07:00

Background Checks are Essential

2011-04-15T07:41:00.000-07:00

FORT WORTH - East Handley Elementary School in Fort Worth needs involved parents just like any other school.

Except, at East Handley, one parent volunteer turned out to be a registered sex offender.
It didn't take a thorough background check to learn Jon Coots served eight years for a 1996 sex crime with a child since it can easily be found on the state's sex offender registry, which Sean Young and his wife were shocked to discover.

"I recognized him because I'm also in the PTA," Young said. "He's a very active member at the school. He's a member of the PTA."

Young immediately printed off the registry information and took it to the school's vice principal and principal.
"She just said, 'We should have caught it before now and we apologize,'" Young said.

Young had to fill out forms for a background investigation to volunteer, which is district policy. He said he asked the principal what happened to the paperwork on Coots.

"I think she said they had sent it to his house and that he never complied," he said.

A Fort Worth Independent School District spokesman, who declined to appear on camera, said school officials should have followed up. He also added that Coots was never alone with children in classrooms and did not go on field trips.
That doesn't impress Young.
"I've seen him alone in hallways during school hours," he said. "To me that's alarming."

The district said Coots will still be allowed into the school, but only under escort and to see his own children.

There are no new criminal allegations against him and police say no laws were broken because sex offenders who complete parole are not prohibited from helping out at a school.

But Fort Worth ISD spokesman Clint Bond told News 8 that all principals are being notified about the mistake so they can double check their own procedures.

Young said he believes the district should have sent letters home to East Handley parents. Bond said that at this point, there has been no incident involving children that would require parent notification.

by JIM DOUGLAS
Posted on February 25, 2011 at 10:39 PM

The Rest @ WFAA TV

New Court Case on Employee Emails

2011-04-12T08:13:00.000-07:00

Nolo's Employment Law Blog: Firing and Former Employees Archives

Nurses Aide Training and Competency Evaluation Programs Must do Background Checks

2011-04-11T09:25:00.000-07:00

DADS-regulated facilities and agencies are required to check the Employee Misconduct Registry and Nurse Aide Registry before hiring an individual to determine if the person is listed in either registry as having committed an act of abuse, neglect, exploitation, misappropriation, or misconduct against a resident or consumer and is, therefore, unemployable. Currently, there are three methods available to perform these required searches:

calling DADS’ toll-free number at 1-800-452-3934;
searching DADS' Sanctions Database at http://www.dads.state.tx.us/providers/NF/credentialing/sanctions

using DADS' Employability Status Search

or Here

The Cynical Side of HR

2011-04-11T07:34:00.000-07:00

39 Secrets Your HR Person Won’t Tell You

By Michelle Crouch

1. “The No. 1 thing in job security is your relationship with your boss. Even if he says, ‘I’m sorry I really wanted to keep you, but they made me lay you off,’ that’s almost never true. He probably made that decision.” –Cynthia Shapiro, former human resource executive and author of “Corporate Confidential: 50 Secrets Your Company Doesn’t Want You to Know.
”
2. “If you’re accused of sexual harassment, even if you’re found to be not guilty, people will always look at you funny afterwards. It can kill your career.” –Laurie Ruettimann, HR consultant and speaker in Raleigh, N.C .

3. “Even in jobs where you test applicants and those with the top scores are supposed to get the job, I’ve seen hiring managers fix scores to get the people they like.” –HR representative in the manufacturing industry.

4. “If you have a question, come to my office. Don’t corner me in the bathroom.” –HR professional at a mid-sized firm in North Carolina

5. “Children and hobbies do not belong on a résumé. And never, ever say, ‘Now that my kids are in college, I’m ready to get back in the workforce.’ ” –HR professional at a mid-sized firm in North Carolina

6. “Someone might tell you to ‘Be yourself’ in the interview. Don’t be yourself. That’s the worst advice ever. We don’t want people who are neurotic and quirky and whatever else. All we care about is your skill and experience.” –Laurie Ruettimann, HR consultant and speaker in Raleigh, N.C.

7. “You’re right to be paranoid. The company is always watching you, and there’s a record of everything you do: every phone call, every text, every tweet and instant message. At most companies, they save that data forever.” –Laurie Ruettimann, HR consultant and speaker in Raleigh, N.C

8. “I was asked by one CEO to hire the long-legged girl with the long dark hair even though she didn’t have the right skills. Another time, I was instructed not to hire anyone with children because the company had too many people leaving for soccer games. That kind of thing happens all the time.” –Cynthia Shapiro

9. “I know many of you met your former spouse at the company. But the thing is, for every one of you, there are five people it doesn’t work out as well for. And your office romance can and will be held against you.” –Kris Dunn, chief human resources officer at Atlanta-based Kinetix who blogs at HRcapitalist.com.

10. “Many people think, ‘If I work extra hard, I’m going to get noticed.’ But it doesn’t work that way. If you want to advance, some of the responsibility falls on you to toot your own horn. Make sure your supervisor and your supervisor’s supervisor are well of aware of what you’re contributing.” –Michael Slade, HR director at Eric Mower and Associates, an integrated marketing communications agency.

11. “I know a lot more about you when you walk in the door than you realize. I’ll search for you on the web and often use my own personal network to do a pre-interview reference check.” –Senior HR Executive in New York City

12. “Generally speaking, you only put someone on paid leave if you’re pretty certain that they might be terminated from the company once you do your investigation.” –Kris Dunn

13. “Never accept the job immediately. Say you need to think about it overnight. Once you sign on the dotted line there’s no room for negotiation.” –A human resources professional in New York City

14. “If you get fired, don’t just stomp out and go on with your life. The company may be willing to give you some severance, especially if you can point to someone different from you who didn’t get as severe a punishment. Just saying, ‘Well, I talked to my attorney’ (even if you don’t have an attorney) can also give you some leverage.’” –Suzanne Lucas, a former HR executive and the “Evil HR lady” on bnet.com

15. “If we ask ‘What salary are you looking for?’ say you’re flexible, or say it depends on the responsibilities of the job. Try not to name a salary unless we really push you, because that gives us a leg up in the negotiating.” –A human resources professional in New York City

16. “I’ve always hated the big United Way drive at work. Not because of the United Way. Great organization. Because of the smell of solicitation in the air, and because we are usually in the middle of it.” –Kris Dunn

17. “Companies do have black lists. It’s not written down anywhere but it’s a list of people they’d be happy to get rid of if the opportunity arises. If you feel invisible, if you’re getting bad assignments, if your boss is ignoring you, or if they move your office, you’re probably on it.” –Cynthia Shapiro

18. “I may say ‘I’m terminating you because you didn’t meet performance measures.’ I’m not going to say it’s because you’re a pain in the butt and piss people off every time you interact with them.’” –HR Manager at a healthcare facility

19. “I once had someone send me Forget-me-not seeds with their thank you note. Yes, thank me for taking the time, that’s great. But sending me seeds? That’s weird.” –Sharlyn Lauby, human resources consultant in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

20. “Don’t lie about your salary. Ever. Even if your employer doesn’t tell us (and most do), we’ll find out eventually. I’ve terminated two people for doing that.” –A human resources professional in New York City

21. “One time a candidate sent – I love this – a thank you card with a professional picture of herself, which quite honestly became the running joke for weeks. The picture was blown up and posted in my office with hearts drawn around it.” –HR director at a financial services firm

22. “Don’t ever tell me that you have to have this job because you’re going to lose your house, your kids have nothing to eat, your mother has cancer. Companies aren’t a charity.” –Suzanne Lucas

23. “Networking does not mean using Facebook or Linked In. It means going to events, getting your face in front of people and setting up informational interviews.” –A human resources professional in New York City

24. “We get résumés on fancy schmantzy papers. We get them with gold-pressed lettering. We get them in binders and in document protectors with ribbons. None of that sways me.” –HR Manager in St. Cloud, Minnesota

25. “98 percent of the résumés we receive when we post a position on a big jobs site like hotjobs, monster or careerbuilder are junk, people who are nowhere near qualified. We’ll get a guy who’s a bar manager applying for a director of public affairs position. Or a shoe salesman. That’s why we like posting jobs on websites that target specific industries.” –Michael Slade, HR director at Eric Mower and Associates, an integrated marketing communications agency.

26. “Your job isn’t safe just because you’re pregnant or a new mom. Lots of people get pink slips while they’re on maternity leave. Companies can do it as part of a larger layoff, include you in there and create a justification for it.” –Cynthia Shapiro

27. “Some companies do everybody’s raises on their anniversary dates. I’m not a fan of that because if the budget comes out in January, those poor people hired in December get, ‘Oh sorry, we’d like to give you more but we gave a huge increase to Bob so you’re just going to get 2 percent.’” –Suzanne Lucas

28. “I don’t lay people off at the end of the day because I think it’s rotten to get a whole workday out of someone, then lay them off. I always lay them off in the morning.” –A human resources professional in New York City

29. “I had somebody list their prison time as a job. And an exotic dancer who called herself a ‘customer service representative.’ ” –Sharlyn Lauby, human resources consultant in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

30. “It doesn’t take 40 hours a week to look for a job. So if you’re unemployed, do something: take classes, meet people, go to industry meetings, start a blog, read a book a week. Just don’t sit on the couch and eat Doritos.” –Ben Eubanks, HR professional in Alabama

31. “My Linked In profile is for myself, a way for me to find another job. It’s not a way to find a job with me.” –A human resources professional in New York City

32. “In interviews, everyone works well with others, and everyone learns quickly. Please tell me something else.” –HR manager in St. Cloud, Minn.
33. “I’ve seen managers not hire a woman because the environment is mostly male, and they’re worried that no matter how smart or talented she is, she won’t fit in.” –HR representative at a Fortune 500 financial services firm

34. “If it’s been a week or two and I tell you ‘I don’t have an update yet,’ that often means there’s a better candidate we’re talking to, but we can’t tell you that in case they decide not to take the job.” –Recruiting consultant Rich DeMatteo. Philadelphia, Pa.

35. “If you call to check on the status of your résumé and I ask, ‘What job did you apply for?’’ If you don’t know, you’re done.” –HR professional at a mid-sized firm in North Carolina

36. “When we had someone go out on disability and we knew he was faking it, we didn’t want to go to court to prove it. So we put him on the end of the assembly line in a job where we knew he wouldn’t succeed. Eventually, we were able to fire him.” –HR pro at a mid-level staffing firm

37. “I have better things to do than deal with who slept with who, or who’s talking about you behind your back. Sometimes I feel like a high school guidance counselor.” –HR professional at a mid-sized firm in North Carolina

38. “Yes, I have access to everyone’s salary but I don’t look unless I have to. There’s nothing worse than having to reprimand someone, and then seeing they make $60,000 more than me.” –HR professional at a midsize firm in North Carolina

39. “Don’t stalk me.” –A human resources professional in New York City

The rest @ Career Midway

This is sometimes true, but not the norm in my HR experience. as an HR professional, you have a professional responsibility to educate a boss who is about to make a "career decision" with their instructions. Or maybe its time to find another place to work, a place with leaders with integrity.

4 Traits Separate a Great Recruiter From a Good One

2011-03-29T06:52:00.000-07:00

Recruiting is unfortunately often a way station in a career. It is one stop on the way to becoming an HR executive or to moving on to other things. There are often very limited opportunities for advancement as a recruiter within most organizations, which further limits the number of people who choose to dedicate themselves to doing it well. Success also requires abilities that are not necessarily the strengths of those who choose traditional human resources as a career. I have found that many of the most successful recruiters had no intention of working for or in HR. They were interested in sales, marketing, communications, or similar areas and found themselves accidently being asked to do recruiting.

If you take the time to talk to recruiters who have garnered a reputation for success, you will discover that they share a few traits in common.
It is these common interests, inclinations, or skills that differentiate them from all the others. It would be useful to look for these traits whenever you are trying to find more recruiters or to identify those most likely to add the most value.

These recruiters are not real people. They are composite people that I made up from some of the best I have seen and worked with.

Trait 1: Great at networking because they have a strong interest in people

I know this sounds trite, but it is true. Every great recruiter has a need to be around and with people. They like to meet new people and seek out opportunities to do that even when they are not recruiting.

Bill Warren is a great example. He began recruiting when he was just 23 and a new college hire. The college team asked him to help out on campus and he immediately put the network he had developed in his fraternity and social activities to work. As he worked in a technical industry, he put together an on-campus special interest group sponsored by his company. They sent engineers to talk and demonstrate uses for their products in applied situations. With the blessing of his boss, he was able to spend several weeks each semester in campus building the reputation of his firm and their research. Recruiting was easy after the first year and remains that way today. Bill, meanwhile at 28, has become a full-time recruiter, where he is quickly becoming a star. When you ask him why he is successful, he just says: “I like people and want to help them do what they want to do.”

His networking skills are massive both in person and online. He cultivates relationships and understands that all solid relationships are built on quid pro quo: doing something for someone who, in turn, does something for you. It is this give and take that makes for success, and he is willing to share his career advice, mentoring skills, and technical expertise. In return he gets the loyalty and commitment of many candidates.

Trait 2: Marketing and influencing skills

Sue Smith is ranked as the top recruiter in her retail organization. Hiring volume is aggressive and needs are changing all the time. Turnover is often high and seasonal hiring presents many challenges. She has to recruit contingent as well as full-time staff, and is involved in lots of internal politics.

Yet, Sue is able to ride these waves and still make progress. While she is a good networker, where she really shines is in influencing and selling. Sue aims to get candidates interested in the work, project, and hiring manager by identifying and communicating their positive aspects, pointing out challenges when appropriate, and generating excitement. She presents well-vetted candidates to the hiring manager whom she has “presold.” Through Facebook, email, and phone calls, she uses her networks as marketing channels and targets them for specific functions and sometimes even for specific hiring managers.

Trait 3: Personalizing and leveraging uniqueness

They transcend brand by personalizing each hire and each hiring manager. Each of these recruiters has found the power and importance of personalization. Rather than rely on a generic recruiting brand, they instead brand every job and manager as unique. They know how to steer the right candidates to the right managers because they have deep knowledge of the needs and capabilities of each through their networking skills and ability to influence. While each takes a different approach, there is lots of overlap and commonality between them. They can push and pull candidates and managers toward a mutually desirable end.

Trait 4: They use technology; they are not consumed by it

Neither of these recruiters is a technology nerd. They use what works for them and whatever they can understand. They make sure both candidates and hiring managers also understand and are willing to use the tools.

Bill does this by creating special interest groups that can be either virtual or face-to-face. He lets candidates and managers gravitate toward those that match their interests and abilities. He has leveraged more technology than Sue because his primary candidates are dispersed and distant, but he is not a “techno freak” in any way.

Sue uses technology to enable communication. She has the amazing ability to implement a technology seamlessly by starting out small, experimenting with a few candidates and hiring managers, and growing it slowly when it works. She probably spends no more than one or two days a month where technology is her focus.

Great recruiters are focused on getting results, but what is more important to them is that both the hiring manger and the candidate feel that they have had a real exchange of information and that both are comfortable with the decision. I am amazed that their candidates have few regrets about accepting a job and the short-term turnover is remarkably small. Hiring managers, too, are content and pleased with their hires.

The recruiting process is not about individual recruiters, though. It is about making good matches in a seamless and efficient way. Great recruiters figure out how to do this while appearing almost in the background. The greatest praise you can get is when the hiring manger says, “Wow! Did I make a great hire last week.”

by

Kevin Wheeler

Mar 22, 2011,

I-9 Audits Doubled in 2010, New Federal Employment Compliance Inspection Center Opened

2011-03-28T08:09:00.000-07:00

The Obama administration plans to intensify a crackdown on employers of illegal immigrants with the establishment of an audit office designed to bolster verification of company hiring records.

In an interview, John Morton, chief of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, said the Employment Compliance Inspection Center would "address a need to conduct audits even of the largest employers with a very large number of employees." The office would be announced Thursday, he said.

.Mr. Morton said that the center would be staffed with specialists who will pore over the I-9 employee files collected from companies targeted for audits.

In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2010, ICE conducted audits of more than 2,740 companies, nearly twice as many as the previous year. The agency levied a record $7 million in civil fines on businesses that employed illegal workers.

Enforcement activity during the Bush administration focused on high-profile raids in which thousands of illegal immigrants were arrested and placed in deportation proceedings. Relatively few companies and their executives were prosecuted.

In contrast, the Obama administration has made employers the center of its immigration policy with "silent raids." Critics say the policy has penalized small employers while failing to target larger employers.

Mr. Morton said the new center would have the "express purpose" of providing support to regional immigration offices conducting large audits. "We wouldn't be limited by the size of a company," he said.

The audits, which have affected garment makers, fruit growers and meat packers, result in the firing of every illegal immigrant on a company's payroll. Companies say this has hurt them, especially as they can't attract American workers even during an economic downturn.

Last year, for example, Gebbers Farm, an agricultural concern in Brewster, Wash., dismissed an estimated 550 workers—about a quarter of the local population—after ICE told the company a number of its employees' hiring documents were suspect. The company declined to comment for this article.

Tom Roach, an immigration attorney in Pasco, Wash., said a client lost more than half of his workforce last year owing to an audit. "He had paid every nickel of taxes on them," he said. But the employees had presented social-security cards that the landscape company couldn't discern were fake, said Mr. Roach.

Small business owners, in particular, say they don't have the ability to police their workers. They also fear discrimination suits, as some companies have experienced, for demanding additional documents from workers whom they suspect are in the country illegally.

View Full Image

Associated Press

A U.S. immigration agent, second from left, led away three men during a search at a Poplar Bluff, Mo., restaurant last August.
.Angelo Paparelli, an immigration attorney in New York and southern California, said: "We need to take employers out of the business of performing government functions, like playing immigration police."

"Ultimately, it is in a company's best financial interest to proactively comply with the law now rather than to face potential fines or criminal prosecution for noncompliance in the future," an ICE spokeswoman said.

Mr. Morton said ICE was also seeking to expand a program enabling businesses to work with the federal government to ensure they are employing people authorized to work in the U.S. Called IMAGE, or ICE Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers, the voluntary program includes training and assessments to help a company guard against hiring illegal employees.

Mr. Morton will also announce Thursday that Tyson Foods, Inc., which employs 100,000 people and has fought immigration troubles in the past, has joined the program, agreeing to an audit of "a certain portion of existing records." The poultry processor, which says it has already taken steps to maintain a legal workforce, also agreed to establish an internal auditing process, Mr. Morton said.

Mr. Morton suggested Tyson could pave the way for other big companies to join the program. Tyson faced federal human-smuggling charges in a high-profile trial that resulted in acquittal in 2003.

"We...believe this partnership will enhance our ability to collaborate with government officials on immigration-related matters," said Tyson Chief Human Resources Officer Ken Kimbro.

"Tyson realized that employment of unauthorized workers posed a risk to their operations and stepped forward to manage that risk," says Mark Reed, a former immigration agent who runs Border Management Strategies, a consulting firm which has advised Tyson.

Since ICE initiated the IMAGE program in 2006, only 115 companies have signed on, with many reluctant to open their books to government scrutiny and to invest in training and new systems to bolster their employer-verification process, experts say.

About 11 million illegal immigrants live in the U.S., according to government estimates. Without them, experts say, such industries as construction, lodging and agriculture would be forced to radically change how they operate—sharply boosting costs for consumers or curtailing the services they provide.

Originally published 1/20/2011 By MIRIAM JORDAN

The Rest @ The Wall Street Journal

Checklist for Completing an I-9

2011-03-03T06:49:00.000-08:00

Section 1: Employee Information and Verification

To be completed on the first day of work. Earlier is acceptable, but the form cannot be completed before the employee has been hired.

1.Give the employee a Form I-9 (including instructions). Ask him/her to complete Section 1 and bring an acceptable combination of documents to you no later than their third work day.

Note: Let the employee choose the documents! Never request specific documents.

2.Check that the employee has completed all fields:

■Name: The employee must use his/her legal name in correct order.

■Address, Date of Birth, Social Security Number.

■Citizenship Attestation

■A Lawful Permanent Resident must provide an 8- or 9-digit Alien Number.

■An Alien Authorized to Work must provide the date work authorization expires and an Alien number or an 11-digit Admission number from the Form I-94.

■Sign and Date: The form is not valid without a signature.

3.Preparer and/or Translator Certification: If someone other than the employee completed Section 1.

Section 2: Employer Review and Verification

To be completed no later than the employee’s third workday by an authorized representative of the hiring department. (Contact your supervisor or the HR Contact in your department to find out if you are authorized to sign this section.)

1.Accept the first valid document or combination of documents presented. Accept only originals and do not ask for or accept more than is required.

■Valid documentation is one of the following: One document from List A, or one from List B and one from List C

■Be sure the employee has signed the documents.

■Note that Foreign Passport with an I-94 Arrival/Departure Record requires an additional Work Authorization document, such as I-20 or DS-2019.

■Make a readable copy of each document.

2.Record each Document title, Issuing authority, Document number, and Expiration date (if applicable). Use the correct lines according to the key at the far left of the page. Be sure to use the correct column for List A, B, or C.

3.Enter the employment begin date (month/day/year). Use the current date, if you are completing the form before the employee's actual first day of work. Do not leave this space blank!

4.Sign and Date

■Only the person who viewed the original documents can complete this section.

■Address should include the name of the university department or unit.

Section 3: Updating and Reverification

Only use this section when the employee’s work authorization has changed or has a new expiration date.

Handling the Completed I-9

1. Keep a copy of the completed I-9 and all supporting documents for the employee file.
2. Original tracked per SOP

Troubleshooting

1.Employee name does not match the documents provided.

■The employee must use his/her legal name. If he/she is in the process of changing names, use the current name on the I-9 form and the employee record. Once the name has been changed, he/she can present proof at Payroll Services to update his/her employee record.

■If the employee presents a Social Security Card, the name on the Form I-9 must be the same as the name on the card.

2.The employee does not have a Social Security Number.

■A citizen of the U.S. must provide proof from the Social Security Administration that an application has been made. Complete Section 2 of the I-9 using the information on the letter, if the Social Security Card is a supporting document.

■For international employees, coordinate with International Student and Scholar Services and Payroll Services as needed. Refer to the Payroll Services Webpage “Social Security Numbers for Non-United States Citizens,” for instructions.

3.The employee has a “delay” letter saying he/she has applied for the document(s).

■Most official delay letters are acceptable. Use the information on the letter to complete the I-9 and send the form to HR as usual with a copy of the letter attached.

4.The I-9 Form is late.

■Do not backdate the form. Explain why the document is late on a separate sheet of paper. Sign and date it and attach it to the original I-9. Remind all involved that federal law requires this form to be complete no later than the third workday.

5.The employee does not provide acceptable documents by the third workday.

■Employment should not continue. Contact the Human Resource Service Center (HRSC) for assistance and referral. It may be necessary to work with HRS Employee Management Services to dismiss the employee.

6.The employee is dismissed, quits, or stops reporting to work before completing the I-9 process.

■Explain why the document is incomplete on a separate sheet of paper. Sign and date it and attach it to the original I-9.

■If the employee had not completed Section 1, write the employee’s name and EID at the top of a form I-9 and attach the explanation. Remind everyone involved that the I-9 process is a federal requirement and each new hire should complete Section 1 by the start of the first workday without exception.

Adapted from this original souurce @ University of Texas

I-9 Document Guidelines

2011-03-02T16:58:00.000-08:00

It's more important than ever to make sure your employees are who they say they are and they're legally eligible to work in this country.

Why? The ongoing battle against terrorism has led immigration and work-visa policies to be scrutinized like never before. That includes new mandates for tougher enforcement and immigration reforms.

Also, the new Homeland Security Act of 2002 promises to alter the immigration landscape as the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) moves under the jurisdiction of the new Department of Homeland Security.

The simple, yet complex I-9
The bureaucratic shuffling won't change one thing: Employers must still verify that their employees are authorized to work in the United States. The process requires all employers, regardless of size, to complete an Employment Eligibility Verification form, or I-9, for each new hire. New employees have three days to produce original documents proving their identity and eligibility to work.

I-9 mistakes can be costly: Both INS and the Labor Department audit companies to check I-9 compliance. Penalties for poor documentation and recordkeeping range from $100 to $1,000 per worker. If you knowingly hire an unauthorized alien, you can be fined up to $10,000 per worker.
10 ways to avoid liability

Sidestep potential legal troubles by following these I-9 do's and don'ts:

1. Do require all new hires to complete and sign Section 1 on their first day of work.
2. Don't ask an applicant to complete an I-9 prior to extending a job offer. Information on the I-9 could be used as a weapon in a discrimination lawsuit if the applicant is not hired.
3. Do review the employee's documents to make sure they are on the Form I-9's list of acceptable documents and to make sure they appear genuine.
4. Don't ask the employee for any particular documents or more documents than required by the I-9. The employee chooses the documents, not you.
5. Do establish a consistent procedure for completing I-9s and educate your hiring managers.
6. Don't consider the expiration date of I-9 documentation when making hiring, promotion or firing decisions.
7. Do make and retain copies of all I-9 documentation employees provide. These documents will come in handy in the event of an audit.
8. Don't forget to keep a tickler file to follow up on expiring documents. Notify employees of the need to re-verify documentation 90 days before the current documents expire.
9. Do keep the Form I-9 and copies of an employee's documents for three years after the date of hire or one year after termination, whichever comes later.

10. Don't put the Form I-9 in an employee's personnel file. To protect your company against discrimination claims, keep the I-9 and supporting documentation in a separate file.

Jonathan Landsman @ Business Management Daily

ICE Inspections are up 10x in 2011, And they Arrested 196 Employers and $7 million in fines - Last Year

2011-02-19T10:12:00.000-08:00

Kibble said that in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, ICE performed 2,746 worksite investigations, more than double the 1,191 two years earlier. It arrested 196 employers and fined employers nearly $7 million. That compares to fines of $675,209 in 2008.

AP) WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is launching a new round of worksite investigations, maintaining the pressure on businesses to make sure they are hiring only people who can legally work in the U.S.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Thursday it has notified 1,000 companies of upcoming audits of their I-9s, forms that new employees complete, and of the identification documents those employees provided to show they are eligible to work in the U.S.

"The inspections will touch on employers of all sizes and in every state in the nation — no one industry is being targeted nor is any one industry immune from scrutiny," ICE said in a statement. The agency declined to name the businesses to be inspected.

The latest round of audits will differ slightly from previous ones. Agents previously were told to audit a certain number each of small, medium and large businesses, said Dawn Lurie, who advises businesses on immigration compliance.

But this time agents are being encouraged to investigate larger companies if that's where tips and leads are pointing them. A new Employment Compliance Inspection Center in the Washington suburb of Crystal City, Va., means they'll have more auditors and other resources for those larger investigations.

Audits are usually performed at the state in which a company is headquartered, but agents are being told they can audit other parts of the company if their records review shows there may be problems beyond the headquarters, Lurie said.

Lurie said the new focus for the audits is a sign that ICE is becoming more sophisticated in its worksite enforcement.

The Obama administration's worksite strategy differs from that of the Bush administration, which focused on high-profile raids that led to arrests of hundreds of workers at a single work site.

ICE still conducts raids, but they are smaller and less visible. The current administration also has been criticized for auditing mostly small businesses.

Lurie said she thinks the administration's audit tactic is having an effect.

"I do think businesses should be more frightened. Companies across the U.S. need to take compliance seriously. It's ridiculous to say you are not doing anything . we will wait until the federal government knocks at door," she said.

Companies can take small, inexpensive steps to help themselves, she said.

The administration has investigated records of such companies as Krispy Kreme and Abercrombie and Fitch. An immigration official has said such audits doubled in 2010 over 2008.

But critics say the administration's tactic isn't going far enough. At a recent House subcommittee hearing, Republican lawmakers suggested returning to raids and questioned whether more people not legally working could be detained and deported.

ICE assistant secretary Kumar Kibble told the House critics that the audits could not be assessed in a vacuum and are part of a larger enforcement strategy that helped bring about the record deportation of nearly 393,000 people last year, he said.

Kibble said that in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, ICE performed 2,746 worksite investigations, more than double the 1,191 two years earlier. It arrested 196 employers and fined employers nearly $7 million. That compares to fines of $675,209 in 2008.

The Rest @ CBS

PointHR Conducts I-9 Audits

2011-02-09T08:29:00.000-08:00

As a former HR Director,now the franchise owner of PointHR DFW. I wish I had known about PointHR when I was an HR Director.

We specialize in taking the administrative work of your employee onboarding so that your HR team can do what they do best, work face to face with your employees.

As you know the I-9 is a record of the verification of employment process, and is required to be made available to officials of the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Labor, and the Special Council for Immigration-related Unfair Labor Practices. 911 and recent immigration issues have made the inspection of these documents more frequent, so we have developed a way to take this burden off your team.

We are a federally-approved Designated Agent of the Department of Homeland Security, but we are not required to report any deficiencies in your current system.

This means we can do an I-9 Audit to help you get ready for any coming inspection,or just to get an independent set of eyes to review your process and documents.

We have a proprietary automated I-9 Gathering, verifying and and tracking process. Further, we can reduce your costs by grouping audit costs into a package of employment services which include, court checks, work confirmations, drug screens and a full set of background checks.

Attached is more information. I will be contacting you shortly to see if I can assist your team with this or other distracting administrative processes.

Lee Royal
Owner
PointHR DFW
972-538-5912 x3027
972-795-8183 (Cell)
866-661-1500 x 3027
http://pointhrdfw.com
Email me
http://pointhr.com/

http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/i-9.pdf

Pre Employment Checks - More than Public Record Database Searches

2011-02-01T20:43:00.000-08:00

A number of annual reports, including BDO Stoy Hayward's Fraudtrack 4[1] and CIFAS's [2] (the UK's fraud prevention service) 'The Enemy Within' have showed a rising level of major discrepancies and embellishments on CVs over previous years. Such business fraud cost United Kingdom businesses $1.4 billion in 2005.[3].

Almost half (48%) of organizations with fewer than 100 staff experienced problems with vetted employees.
Thirty-nine percent of UK organizations have experienced a situation where their vetting procedures have allowed an employee to be hired who was later found to have lied or misrepresented themselves in their application.

Since the onset of the Financial crisis of 2007–2010, the level of fraud has almost doubled and some experts have predicted that it will escalate further. Annual research has also shown that the number of applicants lying on their applications has been increasing steadily since the summer of 2007 when the financial crisis of 2007–2010 began. As of August 2009, nearly one in 5 applicants have major lie or discrepancy on their application.

The marketLarger companies are more likely to outsource than their smaller counterparts – the average staff size of the companies who outsource is 3,313 compared to 2,162 for those who carry out in-house checks.

Financial services firms had the highest proportion of respondents who outsource the service, with over a quarter( 26%) doing so, compared to an overall average of 16% who outsource vetting to a third party provider.

The construction and property industry showed the lowest level of outsourcing, with 89% of such firms in the sample carrying out checks in-house, making the overall average 16%. This can increase over the years.

Character Reference Check

Gaps in employment history

Identity and Address Verification - whether the applicant is who he or she claims to be. Generally includes verification of the candidate’s present and previous addresses. Can include a money laundering, identity and terrorist check and one to verify the validity of passports.

Whether an applicant holds a directorship
Credit History - bankruptcies
Criminal History Report.

Regulation

The Financial Services Authority states in their Training & Competence guidance that regulated firms should have.

Adequacy of procedures for taking into account knowledge and skills of potential recruits for the role
Adequacy of procedures for obtaining sufficient information about previous activities and training
Adequacy of procedures for ensuring that individuals have passed appropriate exams or have appropriate exemptions
Adequacy of procedures for assessing competence of individuals for sales roles

The Financial Services Authority’s statutory objectives:

Protecting consumers
Maintaining market confidence
Promoting public awareness
Reducing financial crime

The FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) is the most important regulation governing background screening.

There are a variety of important laws regulating the dissemination and legal use of this information. Most notably, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) regulates the use of consumer reports (which it defines as information collected and reported by third party agencies) as it pertains to adverse decisions, notification to the applicant, and destruction and safekeeping of records.

If a consumer report is used as a factor in an adverse hiring decision, the applicant must be presented with a

“pre-adverse action disclosure,”
a copy of the FCRA summary of rights,
a “notification of adverse action letter.”

Individuals are entitled to know the source of any information used against them including a credit reporting company. Individuals must also consent in order for the employer to obtain a credit report.

Florida Law

Florida House Bill H0775, passed in 1999, provides protection for employers from negligent hiring liabilities, provided they attempt to conduct certain screening procedures. Employers who follow these steps will be presumed not to have been negligent when hiring if a background check fails to reveal any records on an applicant. These steps are]:

Ordering a Florida state criminal record check
Taking reasonable efforts to contact an applicants past employers
Asking the applicant on the application if they have been convicted of a crime, date of crime and penalty imposed
Asking the applicant on the application if they were the defendant in a civil action for intentional tort
A driving record must be ordered if it is relevant to the performed work
The employer must interview the applicant

Types of checks

There are a variety of types of investigative searches that can be used by potential employers. Many commercial sites will offer specific searches to employers for a fee. Services like these will actually perform the checks, supply the company with adverse action letters, and ensure compliance throughout the process.

It is important to be selective about which pre-employment screening agency you use. A legitimate company will be happy to explain the process to you.

Many employers choose to search the most common records such as criminal records, driving records, and education verification.
Other searches such as sex offender registry, credential verification, skills assessment, reference checks, credit reports and Patriot Act searches are becoming increasingly common.
Employers should consider the position in question when determining which types of searches to include, and should always use the same searches for every applicant being considered for one.

Reasons

They are frequently conducted to confirm information found on an employment application or résumé/curriculum vitae.
One study showed that half of all reference checks done on prospective employees differed between what the job applicant provided and what the source reported.
They may also be conducted as a way to further differentiate potential employees and pick the one the employer feels is best suited for the position.
As workplace violence becomes more of an issue and other serious concerns since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, employers are becoming more concerned about the people they hire.
Employers have an obligation to make sure their work environment is safe for all employees and helps prevent other employment problems in the workplace.

In the United States, the Brady Bill requires criminal checks for those wishing to purchase handguns from licensed firearms dealers. Restricted firearms (like machine guns), suppressors, explosives or large quantities of precursor chemicals, and concealed weapons permits also require criminal checks.

Checks are also required for those working in positions with special security concerns, such as

trucking,
ports of entry
airports (including airline transportation).

Other laws exist to prevent those who do not pass a criminal check from working in careers involving the elderly, disabled, or children.

Recently, many jobs are using pre-employment credit checks and the trend has appear to have grown since 2000 within the United States (Bird, M., 2010).

According to a survey in 2010, many individuals felt that employers should have the right and duty to check credit reports for all jobs, while another 28 percent felt that it depended on the potential employee's job responsibilities such as banking or accounting jobs.

Possible information included

The amount of information included on a background check depends to a large degree on the sensitivity of the reason for which it is conducted—e.g., somebody seeking employment at a minimum wage job would be subject to far fewer requirements than somebody applying to work for a law enforcement agency such as the FBI or jobs related to national security.

Criminal, arrest, incarceration, and sex offender records

There are several types of criminal record searches available to employers, some more accurate and up to date than others.

These "third party" background checking agencies cannot guarantee the accuracy of their information, thus many of them have incomplete records or inaccurate records. The only way to conduct an accurate background check is to go directly through the state.
Most times using the state of choice is much cheaper than using a "third party" agency.
Many websites offer the "instant" background check, which will search a compilation of databases containing public information for a fee. These “instant” searches originate from a variety of sources, from statewide court and corrections records to law enforcement records which usually stem from county or metro law enforcement offices.
There are also other database-type criminal searches, such as statewide repositories and the national crime file.
A commonly used criminal search by employers who outsource is the county criminal search.

Citizenship, immigration, or legal working status

The hiring of illegal workers has become an issue for American businesses since the forming of the Department of Homeland Security and its Immigrations and Customs Enforcement(ICE) division. Many history making immigration raids over the past two years have forced employers to consider including legal working status as part of their background screening process.

All employers are required to keep government Form I-9 documents on all employees and some states mandate the use of the federal E-verify program to research the working status of Social Security numbers. With increased concern for right-to-work issues, many outsourcing companies are sprouting in the marketplace to help automate and store Form I-9 documentation. Some jobs are only available to citizens who are residents of that country due to security concerns.

Litigation records

Employers may want to identify potential employees who routinely file discrimination lawsuits. It has also been alleged that in the U.S., employers that do work for the government do not like to hire whistleblowers who have a history of filing qui tam suits.

Driving and vehicle records

Employers that routinely hire drivers or are in the transportation sector seek drivers with clean driving records—i.e., those without a history of accidents or traffic tickets. Department of Motor Vehicles and Department of Transportation records are searched to determine a qualified driver.

Drug tests

Drug tests are used for a variety of reasons—corporate ethics, measuring potential employee performance, and keeping workers' compensation premiums down.

Education records

These are used primarily to see if the potential employee had graduated from high school (or a GED) or received a college degree, graduate degree, or some other accredited university degree. There are reports of SAT scores being requested by employers as well.

Employment records

These usually range from simple verbal confirmations of past employment and timeframe to deeper, such as discussions about performance, activities and accomplishments, and relations with others.

Financial information

Credit scores, liens, civil judgments, bankruptcy, and tax information may be included in the report.

Licensing records

A government authority that has some oversight over professional conduct of its licensees will also maintain records regarding the licensee, such as personal information, education, complaints, investigations, and disciplinary actions.

Medical, Mental, and Physiological evaluation and records

These records are generally not available to consumer reporting agencies, background screening firms, or any other investigators without documented, written consent of the applicant, consumer or employee.

Military records

Although not as common today as it was in the past fifty years, employers frequently requested the specifics of one's military discharge.

Social Security Number

(or equivalent outside the US). A fraudulent SSN may be indicative of identity theft, insufficient citizenship, or concealment of a "past life". Background screening firms usually perform a Social Security trace to determine where the applicant or employee has lived.

Other interpersonal interviews

Employers may investigate past employment to verify position and salary information. More intensive checks can involve interviews with anybody that knew or previously knew the applicant—such as teachers, friends, coworkers, neighbors, and family members; however, extensive hearsay investigations in background checks can expose companies to lawsuits. Past employment and personal reference verifications are moving toward standardization with most companies in order to avoid expensive litigation.

Controversies

Drug tests and credit checks for employment are highly controversial practices. According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a project of the Utility Consumers' Action Network (UCAN): "While some people are not concerned about background investigations, others are uncomfortable with the idea of investigators poking around in their personal histories. In-depth checks could unearth information that is irrelevant, taken out of context, or just plain wrong. A further concern is that the report might include information that is illegal to use for hiring purposes or which comes from questionable sources."

In May 2002, allegedly improper post-hire checks conducted by Northwest Airlines were the subject of a civil lawsuit between Northwest and 10,000 of their mechanics. In the case of an arrest that did not lead to a conviction, employment checks can continue including the arrest record for up to seven years, per sec. 605 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act:

Except as authorized under subsection (b) of this section, no consumer reporting agency may make any consumer report containing . . . Civil suits, civil judgments, and records of arrest that from date of entry, antedate the report by more than seven years or until the governing statute of limitations has expired, whichever is the longer period.

Subsection (b) provides for an exception if the report is in connection with "the employment of any individual at an annual salary which equals, or which may reasonably be expected to equal $75,000, or more

Some proposals for decreasing potential harm to innocent applicants include:

Furnishing the applicant with a copy of the report before it is given to the employer, so that any inaccuracies can be addressed beforehand; and
Allowing only conviction (not arrest) records to be reported.

In Michigan, the system of criminal checks has been criticized in a recent case where a shooting suspect was able to pass an FBI check to purchase a shotgun although he had failed the check for a state handgun permit. According to the spokesman of the local police department,

... you could have a clear criminal history but still have contacts with law enforcement that would not rise to the level of an arrest or conviction [that can be used] to deny a permit whether or not those involved arrests that might show up on a criminal history.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has criticized the federal policy, which denies constitutional rights based on a criminal check only if the subject has been accused of a crime.

Public records pay sites

Taking advantage of public records availability in the United States, a number of Web based companies began purchasing U.S. public records data and selling it online, primarily to assist the general public in locating people. Many of these sites advertise background research and provide employers and/or landlords with fee-based checks.

There has been a growing movement on the web to use advertising-based models to subsidize these checks. These companies display targeted ads next to the reports delivered to landlords or employers. Some of the reports provided by these pay sites are only expanded versions of a basic people search providing a 20 year history of addresses, phone numbers, marriages and divorces, businesses owned and property ownership. Usually, these sites will also provide a nationwide criminal report for an added charge.

The Rest @ Wikipedia

Point HR

Facebook Job Trends for HR People

2011-01-20T12:26:00.000-08:00

Facebook Job Trends

Facebook jobs

ll Rules to Sell to Sell To Me

2010-07-13T08:36:00.000-07:00

As recruiters and vendors heat up with the economy, so will the time I spend with Vendors. So I like these "rules of engagement" by Donato Diorio....

11 Rules to sell to Donato Diorio

1.     Get my name right. I can see how people mistake my first name for a last name, but it’s not brain surgery. It shows respect.

2.     Personalize. I will not respond to a mass emails. Period.

3.    Understand what my company (Broadlook) does. Can you believe that there is some idiot out there that keeps trying to sell me a list of recruiting firms? Talk about selling ice to an Eskimo.

4.   Show me that I am special. Customize your sales pitch for my company. Don’t use generalities. Research what my company does and ask me good questions. I don’t have a burning need to seek others approval, but if you take the time to tell me.

5. Call and email. You will probably get voice mail, but I will listen to it. The email will give me your contact information if I like what I hear. Tell me you will also be sending me an email. Be articulate, gosh, I’m sorry, but if your accent is so heavy that I have to listen to your voice mail a few times to understand it, it will get deleted at the very beginning.

6. In your voice mail, say your phone number two times. Give me a chance to write it down if I like what I hear. Don’t use a voice mail script. If you do, you are not at the level yet to successfully sell to me. Try again next year.

7. Don’t use a negative sell. i.e. The economy is bad, and you can help. Bad for who? Do your homework.
8. I’m an optimist. I love hanging up on pessimists. Realists welcome.

9. Know your product inside out. If you can’t answer nearly all my questions, you should not be reaching out to me. Have you manager or top sales rep do it.

10. Don’t call me if someone else at my company makes the decision. I don’t make the decisions on office supplies.

11. Did I mention… get my name right?

The Rest @ Sell2me

Seven Things Human Resources Wants to Know During Your Interviews

2010-07-10T19:36:00.000-07:00

The Human Resources Interview is an early, if not your first contact with a company. keep in Mind HR can say no to you, though they cannot say yes by themselves. Therefore, don't overlook this part of the interview process. (Thanks Z). The objective for HR is to eliminate fakers, assess your reliability and fit for your prospective team and company. They also want to assess the risk of your committing organization-damaging behavior.

There are several things they want to know; Help them answer these questions without evasion, while demonstrating respect for them and your former organization, and you will do well.

1. Are your resume credentials and experience real or exaggerated?
This will be checked outside the interview.

2. Why did you leave your last job, or why are you seeking to leave your current company? Do you treat your previous company and colleagues with respect?

3. Is the company a stepping stone or rest stop in your career, or do you really want to find a home here? How long do you really intend to stay?

4. How would you interact with their company's culture? Is your humor appropriate? Do you listen Well? (etc)

5. What is your potential for long term employment and development within the company? Do you want to make a contribution to the company, you want to work hard and grow in the company, or simply rent your time by the hour?

6. Are you going to be happy with the money they can pay you now, and is their room to grow in the future? IF you must have the top pay in a given range, you may not get a raise for a couple of years. This makes for an unhappy employee in the future.

7. Are you here to serve and make others around you better, or are you there to be served, and use the others around you to enhance your own objectives?

Keep in Mind, two key Human Resources roles are risk management and to be the keepers of the company culture. treat them and their roles seriously, with respect, and not just a gate keeper, and you will do well.

Lee Royal

Hiring Military On Twitter

SHRM Reports beneifts of Hiring Military Veterans

2010-07-03T21:26:00.000-07:00

The training and long hours spent preparing for the battlefield has proven to pay off for veterans when leaving the military and entering the civilian workforce.

In hiring veterans, employers report added rewards after onboarding these employees including

Responsibility,
Teamwork
The ability to work under pressure.

Almost four in 10 (38%) of human resource professionals nationwide have hired a war veteran in the past three years, according to a study by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

The Rest @ Thoughts from Training Time

Military Hire

HR Dashboard
On Twitter

****************************************************************************************

How Can Military Experience translate to Business Roles?

2010-07-02T21:58:00.000-07:00

How Can Military Experience translate to Business Roles?

Military leaders have a work ethic forged .in the toughest environments. They build teams and create synergies that have an immediate positive impact on any organization. They make excellent leaders, Managers, Engineers, Sales Representatives, and Field Service Technicians.

Some Examples

Manufacturing Engineering: engineer degreed, with 4-7 years of experience as officers in the military.

Chemical or Mechanical Engineer degreed, with no experience but 4-7 years of experience as officers in the military.

Maintenance Leadership: experience developing or carrying our detailed, complex maintenance schedules, prioritizing repairs, and leading maintenance technicians

Supply Chain roles, with experience planning and carrying our distribution of a Hugh diversity of materials using complex software tools and performance measures

Maintenance Technicians, with experience trouble shooting from the part down to internal component level, with combinations of electrical, electronic, mechanical, and hydraulic systems

Quality Assurance roles. Many have successfully passed a 2 year nuclear power plant quality assurance program.

Program Management: most officers have developed, implemented, or diagnosed and repaired complex, multi level programs such as training, maintenance, process and procedures, & organizational change, system audits.

The Rest @ Military Hire

Title Staff Air & Water Compliance Engineer/Scientist

2010-06-30T20:10:00.000-07:00

Responsibilities include self-directed work to provide: air program support including

preparing air permit applications for stationary equipment,
permit modifications for new or existing equipment,
maintaining air emission inventory documentation and ODC documentation,
greenhouse gas emission estimates, and provide on site compliance support;
Water program support, including storm water compliance inspections and sampling,
SWPP plan implementation for an industrial facility,
Inspecting construction sites for storm water pollution,
Preparing permits for Section 404 certification or SWRCB 401 water quality certifications.

Additional experience with EMS, asbestos management, SPCCs, first responder procedures, spill cleanup, EPCRA, hazardous materials / waste, and a qualified recycling programs a plus.

Pprovide full technical and managerial support, but candidate must possess excellent verbal and written communications and editorial (QA/QC)
Able to work independently and as a team member in a client setting,
Candidates must also be able to communicate with clients, agencies, and technical and management staff.

Requirements

Successful candidate will have 4+ years experience and responsibilities, effectively communicating with clients, managing projects, and managing water compliance programs.

BS Degree in environmental, geology, civil, or any of the engineering or sciences is a plus.
CHMM certification or PE license a plus.

Salary Survey Resources

2010-04-05T12:27:00.000-07:00

SalaryExpert.com is arguably the most comprehensive free salary site, breaking down compensation data by location, etc., for over 32,000 job titles. You do need to download the Full Version mini-app from their homepage, however, for the expanded job title list data.
Salary.com is one of the most comprehensive, and breaks down compensation by bonus, options and salary for thousands of job titles in most metro areas. Their calculator is syndicated for use on many career web sites.
Jobstar links to over 300 salary surveys on the web
CareerJournal, the career site from the Wall Street Journal has fairly current, varied data from authoritative sources.
Computer Industry Salary Survey - The 2001 survey was conducted by Dowden & Company, a compensation research firm based in Pennsylvania, for about 25 job titles in the industry, broken down by U.S. region.
ComputerJobs also links to various computer industry salary data.
BestJobsUSA - Broken down by industry, the 2001 surveys are in PDF format.
Monster.com Salary Center is powered by data from staffing firm Robert Half International.
Pencom lets you select your location, industry, job title and years of experience and displays salary results free.
Occupational Employment Statistics - OES is a Federal Government entity that tracks employment data, in turn used by many of the fee-based salary services.
WageWeb has free compensation data for hundreds of jobs, but access to the database which allows you to sort data based upon geography, industry, or company size is fee-based.
VerticalNet runs sites for dozens of different niche industries, from baking to semiconductors. If you click the Job Search link on any of these sites, then click the Salary Survey link on that page, you can contribute and then receive salary data, such as for the Oil and Gas industry.

Geographic cost of living comparison engines

Data Masters - Cost-of-living comparisons for the current year for 400 U.S. cities and metro areas.
Homefair - creators of the first widely-syndicated Web version of the geographic salary comparison calculator, they now offer numerous Web-based calculators.

Source Recruiting Online

Lee Royal
On Twitter

Key Provisions of the New Health Care Law

2010-03-21T15:08:00.000-07:00

I am counting the Votes, the President has set his victory press conference already, and the final law will be published into the CFR next week.... so, here is the executive summary followed by two longer articles from competing semi-neutral papers ( Washinton Post, well maybe not neutral)

Anyway, to HR people here are the key points, until SHRM's people can do a better analysis:

Almost every individual will be required to get health insurance.
If you employee 50 or more people, and the government is forced to subsidize your employees, you will be forced to pay a penalty of $2000 per employee per year.
Denial for pre-existing conditions is going away
Insurance exchanges with minimum standard coverages will be set up.
Dependents can stay on their parent's plans up to age 26.

How all this will be implemented will shake out in about 90 days, but it changes the way we do Health Care in America, for better or for worse, we will see.

-Editor

(The following is from Reuters)
Democrats, who have a majority in Congress, were taking a two-step process. The House was set to vote on approving the version of the healthcare legislation passed by the Senate in December. If the House passes it, that would give it final congressional approval and President Barack Obama could sign it into law.

The House also was set to vote separately on a series of proposed changes to the Senate-passed measure. If these changes win House approval, they would then go back to the Senate for senators to approve before the changes then also could be signed into law by Obama.

Here are key provisions of the Senate-passed legislation and the proposed changes.

INSURANCE MARKET REFORM

The legislation would require substantial insurance market reforms that would bar insurers from excluding people for pre-existing medical conditions and prevent them from arbitrarily dropping policy holders.

Insurance exchanges would be created in which small businesses and individuals without employer-sponsored coverage would be able to shop for coverage. Plans offered on the exchange would have to meet minimum benefit requirements.

The proposed changes would allow dependent children to remain on their parents' health policies until age 26.

The Senate bill requires insurers to spend at least 85 cents of every premium dollar on medical care in small group markets and 80 cents in large group markets. The proposed changes also would require Medicare Advantage insurers to spend at least 85 percent of revenues on medical care.

COVERAGE MANDATES, SUBSIDIES AND MEDICAID

Individuals would be required to obtain health insurance. Those who fail to obtain coverage would face fines of up to 2.5 percent of income by 2016.

Firms with more than 50 workers who do not offer medical coverage could face fines of $2,000 per full-time employee.

Federal subsidies would be provided to help people with incomes up to 400 percent of the poverty level purchase coverage on the exchange. Proposed changes would sweeten those subsidies for lower income people.

Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor, would be available to everyone with incomes up to 133 percent of the poverty level, which stood at $10,830 for an individual and $22,050, for a family of four. Many states have eligibility requirements below those levels.

The proposed changes would get rid of a special deal in the Senate bill that would have provided more money to Nebraska to cover costs of increased Medicaid coverage.

FINANCING

The final proposal makes some adjustments to the revenue measures in the Senate-passed bill.

The Senate bill included a 40 percent excise tax on high-cost health insurance plans. The proposed changes would delay implementation of the tax until 2018 instead of 2013. The tax would kick in on plans costing $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for family coverage. A higher threshold is allowed for plans covering mostly women, older workers and retirees as well as those in high-risk professions.

The bill calls for raising the payroll taxes for Medicare, the government health insurance plan for the elderly and disabled, to 2.35 percent from the current 1.45 percent for individuals earning $200,000 or more and for couples earning $250,000 or more. The proposed changes would apply the tax to some investment income as well for those high-income groups.

The bill imposes fees on medical device manufacturers, insurance providers and brand-name pharmaceuticals. The proposed changes would delay implementation of those fees.

It also puts a 10 percent tax on indoor tanning services that use ultraviolet lamps goes into effect on July 1.

MEDICARE

The legislation would freeze payments to insurers that provide coverage to Medicare patients in 2011 and begin reducing the subsidy in 2012.

It would also gradually close the gap in drug coverage for Medicare beneficiaries by 2020. Those who enter the coverage gap, the so-called doughnut hole, in 2010 will get a $250 rebate. In 2011 they would get a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs.

(Reporting by Donna Smith; Editing by Deborah Charles)

-The Rest @ Reuters

Washington Post's take

-- Congressional Democrats have released a final version of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul bill in advance of a House vote planned for Sunday. Some features of the legislation, which makes changes to the bill the Senate passed on Christmas Eve:

COST: $940 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

HOW MANY COVERED: 32 million uninsured. Major coverage expansion begins in 2014. When fully phased in, 95 percent of eligible Americans would have coverage, compared with 83 percent today.

INSURANCE MANDATE: Almost everyone is required to be insured or else pay a fine. There is an exemption for low-income people. Mandate takes effect in 2014.

INSURANCE MARKET REFORMS: Starting this year, insurers would be forbidden from placing lifetime dollar limits on policies, from denying coverage to children because of pre-existing conditions, and from canceling policies because someone gets sick. Parents would be able to keep older kids on their coverage up to age 26. A new high-risk pool would offer coverage to uninsured people with medical problems until 2014, when the coverage expansion goes into high gear. Major consumer safeguards would also take effect in 2014. Insurers would be prohibited from denying coverage to people with medical problems or charging them more. Insurers could not charge women more.

MEDICAID: Expands the federal-state Medicaid insurance program for the poor to cover people with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, $29,327 a year for a family of four. Childless adults would be covered for the first time, starting in 2014. The federal government would pay 100 percent of costs for covering newly eligible individuals through 2016. A special deal that would have given Nebraska 100 percent federal financing for newly eligible Medicaid recipients in perpetuity is eliminated. A different, one-time deal negotiated by Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu for her state, Louisiana, worth as much as $300 million, remains.

TAXES: Dramatically scales back a Senate-passed tax on high-cost insurance plans that was opposed by House Democrats and labor unions. The tax would be delayed until 2018, and the thresholds at which it is imposed would be $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families. To make up for the lost revenue, the bill applies an increased Medicare payroll tax to the investment income and to the wages of individuals making more than $200,000, or married couples above $250,000. The tax on investment income would be 3.8 percent.

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS: Gradually closes the "doughnut hole" coverage gap in the Medicare prescription drug benefit that seniors fall into once they have spent $2,830. Seniors who hit the gap this year will receive a $250 rebate. Beginning in 2011, seniors in the gap receive a discount on brand name drugs, initially 50 percent off. When the gap is completely eliminated in 2020, seniors will still be responsible for 25 percent of the cost of their medications until Medicare's catastrophic coverage kicks in.

EMPLOYER RESPONSIBILITY: As in the Senate bill, businesses are not required to offer coverage. Instead, employers are hit with a fee if the government subsidizes their workers' coverage. The $2,000-per-employee fee would be assessed on the company's entire work force, minus an allowance. Companies with 50 or fewer workers are exempt from the requirement. Part-time workers are included in the calculations, counting two part-timers as one full-time worker.

SUBSIDIES: The proposal provides more generous tax credits for purchasing insurance than the original Senate bill did. The aid is available on a sliding scale for households making up to four times the federal poverty level, $88,200 for a family of four. Premiums for a family of four making $44,000 would be capped at around 6 percent of income.

HOW YOU CHOOSE YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE: Small businesses, the self-employed and the uninsured could pick a plan offered through new state-based purchasing pools called exchanges, opening for business in 2014. The exchanges would offer the same kind of purchasing power that employees of big companies benefit from. People working for medium-to-large firms would not see major changes. But if they lose their jobs or strike out on their own, they may be eligible for subsidized coverage through the exchange.

GOVERNMENT-RUN PLAN: No government-run insurance plan. People purchasing coverage through the new insurance exchanges would have the option of signing up for national plans overseen by the federal office that manages the health plans available to members of Congress. Those plans would be private, but one would have to be nonprofit.

ABORTION: The proposal keeps the abortion provision in the Senate bill. Abortion opponents disagree on whether restrictions on taxpayer funding go far enough. The bill tries to maintain a strict separation between taxpayer dollars and private premiums that would pay for abortion coverage. No health plan would be required to offer coverage for abortion. In plans that do cover abortion, policyholders would have to pay for it separately, and that money would have to be kept in a separate account from taxpayer money. States could ban abortion coverage in plans offered through the exchange. Exceptions would be made for cases of rape, incest and danger to the life of the mother.

GOP HEALTH CARE SUMMIT IDEAS: Following a bipartisan health care summit last month, Obama announced he was open to incorporating several Republican ideas into his legislation. But two of the principle ones - hiring investigators to pose as patients and search for fraud at hospitals and increasing spending for medical malpractice reform initiatives - did not make it into the legislation released Thursday. The legislation incorporates only one, an increase in payments to primary care physicians under Medicaid, an idea mentioned by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.

The Rest @ The Washington Post

On Twitter

Niassan America Gos to Shared HR Model

2010-03-06T11:40:00.000-08:00

SSON spoke to Dwain Stevens, Sr Manager of HR operations, Nissan North America, about their North American HR Shared Services strategy and how HR Technology played a pivotal role in cutting costs and adding value.

SSON: I would like to start by asking you to explain Nissan North America’s HR shared services strategy.

Dwain Stevens: Our strategy was not just to develop HR shared services, it was to transform human resources throughout the entire company, to add more to the business. As part of that transformation strategy, one of the end products was to develop shared services, and the strategy for the shared services was to basically standardize all the HR practices as much as possible throughout the company, as well as remove any administrative, transactional-type tasks from the HR personnel within the different locations.

How have you leveraged technology to transform HR and effectively lower costs?

In the past we didn’t have an effective way to share information with all employees that was HR-centric. We had an employee intranet, but because of the way that it was technically designed, all the employees didn’t have access to it, just certain employees. So we needed technology, a dynamic employee portal, where we could put all kinds of HR-related information, and make it available to employees 24/7. That way, when people have a question, they can look for the answer themselves via any computer—and most of our employees do have computers, whether at work or at home. What’s more, if people needed to make some sort of change that was HR or benefits-related related, they could go online, make those changes themselves and not have to wait for someone in HR to fill out the forms, enter that data, make that change and then see the change take effect later on. Online access has improved everybody’s lives—helping employees obtain the information faster, because of the transactions being faster. It has also eliminated a lot of duplicate entry and non-value-added tasks from HR.

But you moved to a different technology platform, and what was the business case for doing that?

The business case was to save money in a much more efficient and effective way. We carried out an analysis to find out how a portal could help us do that or how can a shared services center could do that. And we ran the numbers, and believed—and have confirmed—that it did make us more effective and much more efficient.

What technology requirements did you choose, and why did you choose them?

Our technology requirements were an employee portal that was available 24/7, and was available to 100 percent of our employees. We wanted single sign-on capabilities, and we wanted it to be HR-centric—in other words, we didn’t want generic or standard service center portal or call tracking technology. We wanted an integrated solution—not two separate solutions that we would have to integrate ourselves. And, again, single sign-on capabilities, which then directly tie to our HRMS system—those were the primary requirements. After extensive research, including lots of analysis, and lots of demos, we chose the Enwisen AnswerSource HR Service Delivery suite, because it met our technology requirements, and it was a great value.

Fantastic, and what were the challenges in moving to the new platform and integrating the new system?

The main challenge that any organization faces is change. Since we were basically transforming human resources, we were going to change the way in which HR services were delivered throughout the entire company. It affected employees, the managers and especially the HR people. We found that communicating what we were doing, and when and how, and doing it in a way that encouraged the employees to believe that it was going to be better for the entire company worked best. That was one of the major changes, because if you think about it, we were going to change their jobs, what they did, where they did it and the technology that they used. We basically upset their entire world. And then from the employees’ perspective, they were used to seeing HR people, more HR people in the facility answering their questions, instead of looking for information on their own. So, through the technology we encouraged employees to do more for themselves. That was a big challenge. Many people, including myself, like somebody to their my hand.

Do you think you’ve mastered that now and has it been really accepted at ground level?

I think that it has definitely been accepted, because I would say that while they don’t have any choice but they still have the HR people in the affiliates. But what HR people are doing in the plants is very different to what they were doing before. And it is still accepted because our call volume is still steady, and at times it grows. When we have HR initiatives, we do a very good job of communicating what those initiatives are—it could be a simple benefits change, it could be a massive benefits change, and it could be communications from the CEO. So when we communicate to the employees, they will call the service center. The service center has become a hub for many different types of initiatives when the employees have questions. After the initial communication goes out, they direct the calls to the service center, for those kinds of things, as long as they are routine, and it has become much more accepted.

What do you think are the major benefits of moving to the new platform, as well as integrating a multi-tier approach?

The major benefits affect different groups of people differently. From an employee’s perspective, because we have a HR portal, a lot of HR-related information—for example, policies, even cafeteria menus—directly links into their pay system. They can see their pay slips to vendors, can find all kinds of information, such as what do they do when they have a baby, get married or just life events. With that technology, it encourages people to help themselves. People want information when they want it, and don’t want to have to wait for somebody else to provide it, so it improves their quality of life.

Then when it comes to transactions, there’s less paper to fill out. For example, they don’t have to fill out the piece of paper with the change form—they do it online. So the problems of the form getting lost, or delays when somebody receives it to when somebody enters that information, are gone. It speeds up the transactional process, from the employee’s perspective.

From HR perspective, since we removed that administrative/transactional stage from some of the HR people, we’re able to focus on different types of work. We have a group of people at the HR service center that focus on the administration as well as the transactional side, but we also partner in the service center with other groups of people, like the business affiliates, when they have a major change. We are their partners in the administering the change and we are partners with expertise when it comes to the conversation of benefits. Because we have data information, we know what the employees’ questions are and we partner with them to share information to say, "here is what they like, here is what they don’t like," and they’re better able to come up with a better benefits change. And then from the business perspective, because we have become much more efficient, much more effective, we have saved money, and saved time. So, everybody wins: the employee, HR and the business.

How much you have saved since integrating the system? Or can you put a percentage on it?

I think the amount of money that we saved would be confidential, but let me say this: When we did the analysis of HR, we were in the bottom quartile of expenditures. That means we were spending more money than our peers. Since we have instituted the HR transformation, we are now in the top quartile, spending the least amount of money compared with our peers.

How long did it take you to achieve that?

The overall transformation, if you think about it from start to finish, was probably a couple of years—maybe two to three years—but the transformation to the HR service center, which really saved the most money, was probably a year and a half from start to finish. If you look at total analysis from implementation, of the technology change, and the launch the service center that was about three to three and a half months. We did a few months prep work before that.

What were some of your key performance indicators for measuring success? You have just explained cost-savings, but how are you tracking key performance indicators and how are you meeting them?

Our primary KPIs are call-center related, and then service-related. For example, how quickly we answer the phones—that’s one KPI. The other KPI is to make sure that people don’t abandon the call. So the first KPI is service levels; the second KPI is abandonment rate. And then the other key measure is first contact resolution, which is an indication of customer service. On all those three primary KPIs, we are at or above the world-class measures.

How many CSRs do you have serving your population of 12,000 employees?

How we are structured may be different to others, because of what tasks that we’re responsible for. We basically have three groups of people, and we follow the traditional tier terminology that many HR call centers use, or any kind of call center really does. Tier Zero is our HR knowledgebase portal technology; Tier One is the HR service center staff directly answering the phones from employees. For us, Tier Two is our benefits administrators, and then we have our COEs, which is Tier Three. For Tier One we have eight people for 12,000 employees and we have two people on nights; and although we might not get any calls at night we currently do it for employee relations.

We are a non-union company, and want to maintain that, so we struck a balance between holding people’s hands and being available for people—that’s why we have the people at night. I would say this about having a HR centralized service center: some people would say, ‘well, you took a HR person away from us in the plant.’ But what we really did, instead of one person being taken away from the plant, we added eight people available to you, basically 21 hours a day, five days a week. By adding eight customer service reps, we have more people available to take your calls, so that improves customer service for employees.

Your self-service platform has obviously been quite effective, because if you can reduce it to eight people responding to 12,000 employees, would you agree with that?

Yes, I do, but it is hard to quantify how many people get their questions answered from the technology. We know how many people access the technology, but we don’t know how many people get their questions answered by it. We do know, because of the technology dashboards, that the portal does get a lot of use. When people call the service center, typically their questions are more complicated than just simple information, so that the length of calls is longer. That’s OK with us; that’s why we’re here, to answer those complex calls. I will also say that our Tier One people on the phones do other things besides answer calls, because call volume is unpredictable, and there are times when call volume is low. So we have taken administrative tasks that can be done in between calls, or we can take somebody off the phone to give them the time to do these administrative tasks. By taking on administrative tasks at Tier One, and it removes work from other higher, more expensive Tier Two and Three staff. And we have also centralized some of those tasks that used to be done by the local nationwide affiliates. So we are able to better utilize our resources.

Are there any other metrics that you could share from the 'Win' HR project?

Our service levels are in the mid 80s, so that means that we’re answering 84-85 percent of the calls within 60 seconds or less. Then our average talk time is four and a half to five minutes. Our first contact resolution rate is not as high as I would like, but there is a factor in there that is beyond our control. Our first contact resolution rate is when the rep is able to answer the first question at the first call: and that’s in the low to mid eighties, anywhere between 82-84 percent typically, sometimes higher. The reason it is not higher, is that we have partnered with other groups that don’t fall within the HR umbrella. For example, payroll does not fall under the HR umbrella, neither does a group of people called lease car, a benefit that we give our employees. Because we don’t have total access to the information that those groups do, and we’re the center point of contact, employees who call us with payroll-related questions, or their lease car questions require more time to research. And we’re able to answer those questions anywhere between 60-70 percent of the time, first contact resolution. But that brings the overall score lower. If we took out lease car, and if we took out payroll, our first contact resolution would be over the mid 90s.

What other areas of HR do you see being transformed in the next two to three years?

From the service center perspective, even from day one after we launched—we went live in September within three to four months—we started an initiative to change the way we provide health coverage. Instead of the traditional PPO plan, we went to a consumer-driven health plan, which is major change for how healthcare is delivered. Within 12 months the entire company was on this new CDHP health plan. Now that amount of work took a tremendous amount of time—not just from our CEO, but from the service center, too, and we were able to do that within a year. And this was with a newly launched service center with new people and newly launched responsibilities and, we did that very effectively.

So we have found ways to constantly standardize our processes, consolidate our policies, automate our processes, and streamline things—in other words, more ways of doing more with less. A good example for this is when we launched this new CDHP plan. When it came time for people to enroll—it was a mandatory enrolment for 13,000 employees at that time—and we were looking at how we were going to take the call volume, with eight reps, we considered hiring more reps and even outsourcing the Tier One calls. It was estimated that we needed 70 people to take all the calls based on our population and the type of plan that was changing. Nissan is very frugal, that is part of our culture and we are very aggressive on cost, too. So, we literally hired 24 people ourselves, trained them, gave them some intensive training on the new technology as well as the new plans, and then with the right tools, the right training and the right time, they were able to take the new call volume with the new CDHP enrolment. And our service levels, even though our call volume went up six times the average of the norm, our service levels were in the mid 90s, with only 24 additional people, which is a testimony to our people, as well as on how we did the training and how we partnered with our contractors but also a testimony to the technology that we used.

The automobile industry was very affected through the recession. Have you seen any "green shoots" of recovery?

Yes, HR really led the way in the re-engineering the efforts; it started a couple of years ago. The company has found ways of restructuring itself without affecting too many people. We hardly had any layoffs, we had people that volunteered to leave, and they were incentivized to do so—because we were very aggressive in our re-engineering efforts, and our cost cutting. Again, this is without massive forced layoffs, so it put us in a position to save money. So we were able to turn around a profit. I think we lost it one quarter, and then we turned it around the following quarter. So it couldn’t have happened without that aggressive re-engineering, not just within HR but from the other parts of the organization. In fact, our market share had gone up during this recession, while others have lost it. This is without any government bail outs

The Rest @ Human Resources IQ

Lee Royal
On Twitter

The Role of HR Generalist in a Small Company

2010-03-06T11:18:00.000-08:00

Most of the smaller organizations or businesses have a position known as human resources generalist. Actually, it is not possible for these small companies to afford many human resources positions. In such organizations human resources managers do not have any human resources assistants that could assist them in their tasks.
Human resources generalist should have knowledge about all the tasks related to human resources in an organization so that he need not depend on any type of employees required for the job.
It is very important that the executives ensure that the human resources generalist that they are hiring has adequate knowledge about all the requirements of the organization. Along with being an expert in understanding the functioning of the operations and works of the business, he or she should be competent to handle all types of mediation, written, oral, organizations and interpersonal skills.
There is no one is the organization on whom the human resources generalist can delegate his duty, therefore he or she should be capable of multi-tasking. A human resources generalist should have quick learning ability as every business has specific requirements that need to be met.
A human resources generalist need to have more qualification or education than any human resource coordinator or assistants to handle various areas of work and the diverse task list. A bachelor’s degree in diverse fields of study would be an added advantage.
Human resources generalist need to understand the running of the business and the way to communicate with everyone at any level in the organization. This is very important to carry on with the tasks of human resources generalist.
Although most of the human resources generalist have good knowledge of computers and administration but a qualified generalist have an added edge over the others. To carry out tasks of clerical duties you need to have good understanding of computers programs. You would also require a good level of organization to handle all the tasks easily.
Although the limitation of requirement of human resources generalist in smaller companies limit the job prospects. Moreover, there may not be good scope for promotion to management at senior management positions and human resources department due to the limited size of business. But this is the best way to gain some experience in the field of human resources.
Once you gain some experience, you can easily step up the ladder and join some larger corporation for better management positions. In cases where you need to have some knowledge and experience to apply for a job, your this past experience of being an assistant or coordinator would be very beneficial for you. They would consider you as an individual who is experienced and is seeking for job change to work on more advanced platform and is ready to take more responsibilities.

The Rest @ Tweet My Blog

Lee Royal
On Twitter

Do Applicant Tracking Systems Really Help Humans?

2010-02-21T11:57:00.000-08:00

Human Resources is a lovely discipline occupied by thousands of wonderfully insightful intelligent people. Formally, the field is referred to as Industrial/Organizational Psychology (or the name on your degree). The science behind Human Resources aims to make organizations more productive while ensuring productive and healthy lives for its workers. Translation: workers happy, company thrives. They even used to call it PERSONnel!

But then the HR folks wanted a part of the technological revolution and they upgraded themselves in a big way. A marriage formed between HR + IT and it formed a whole new world (HRIS). But somehow the technology tornado swept through and sucked the Human out of Human Resources.

The HR departments are no longer filled with “people people.” Instead, the pressure to keep up with the Technology Jonses has forced traditional HR folks into bits and bytes decoders.

Back in the day … and by back in the day, I mean back in the day when I first graduated college (1996), I was still thinking about the quality of paper upon which I printed my resume. I wore a navy suit with pantyhose and pumps. I carried a leather portfolio and sent a handwritten thank you note.
Today our job hunt begins and ends with the computer; it is our porthole into the market. We log on to let the world know that we’re looking. We have to be our own email marketers and drive our own viral campaigns. We network online, we apply online, we click to send our saved resumes and the upload yet another cover letter. We always email to follow up. We summarize decades of experience with a maximum number of characters and we send it out into the online abyss.

I worked at a recruitment advertising agency for 7 years so you figure I’d be able to navigate some sort of back end armed with the inside scoop. Wrong. Turns out I don’t have the formula any more than anyone else does.

Most large companies have applicant tracking systems (ATS), which are databases designed to hold and process the millions of resumes. When you are applying to a job online or via email, your resume is automatically going into this database. Often you may be applying to a position that isn’t even available; the company just wants to build a “pipeline” of candidates.

When the company is ready to hire someone, the first order of business is to have the HR folks search through this ATS. The hiring manager provides the HR person with cryptic keywords and then they go into the massive database, laden with millions of our career histories and conducts a keyword search. Code given, code entered, resumes served.

If you know the correct code that will yield your resume, hurray for you. The rest of us better figure out the code. The current economy means companies can get the best bang for their buck; employees come cheap. It’s the simple principle of supply and demand.

When I worked for the recruitment advertising agency, my clients often wanted me to advertise hard-to-fill jobs on very obscure Websites. One client was seeking a highly specialized nurse. The position was so distinct – there was only 18 known practitioners in the country. I thought a better approach would be to call the 18 nurses and give them a personal pitch. The client preferred to psychologically guess which Websites they might be visiting. In this instance, technology brainwashed (and trumped) the human.

The online job-hunting marketplace has gotten so overwhelming, they created a search engine to further simplify the process. Or so you think. These one-stop shops (like Indeed and Simply Hired) let you enter a title and a location and voila – jobs at a click. But how many of these jobs are legit?

It’s often the same job on different sites. The job boards have gotten very nepotistic and have created relationships and partnerships all over the place. When a company advertises on one site, they get a dozen others as a bonus. What this means for a job hunter is same job, different www.

Oh the online forms! Some of the big sites like Monster and CareerBuilder let you store your resume and apply to jobs with a click. Many of the large companies mandate you fill out their own profiles on their company’s career page. Fun!

You cruise around the Fortune 500 Online world filling out forms ad nauseam. Hours of virtual paperwork to earn some space on a database. You spend countless clicks inputting your life into online boxes. You indicate your gender, your nationality, if you’re a veteran. Have you ever been convicted of a crime? Have you ever worked here before? Sometimes the experience will lend itself to a little “pre-screen” interaction where they give you a series of questions and you click off some buttons answering what they want to see.

You customize a cover letter with their words.

I feel ahead of the game. The older generation is at a disadvantage in this technologically dominated new job-hunting universe. It is not enough to maintain expertise in your profession of choice; you also have to be proficient in navigating the Web 2.0 and Social Media world. Without it, you might not stand a fighting chance.

But for the thousands of those currently unemployed, they should use the technology rather than compete with the technology. Candidates have to be louder than the technology. They have to integrate a little human back into the mix.

If you find yourself enthralled in a slightly older school of job hunting, you may find yourself busting out the suit, pumps and folios and doing the headhunter dance. That scenario usually plays itself out like so:
You find a job online and apply for it, often unknowing that you’re really applying to a headhunter. Said headhunter will call you and ask you a series of questions and then hopefully deem you worthy of an in-person interview.

When you come in for your in-person, you use your tiniest handwriting to fill out a 10-page archaic paper application. This is the exact same content you filled in when you sent in the “application” online. You wait to be called and then get escorted into a cubicle conference room. There you make small talk and answer the same questions the headhunter asked you over the phone. This time they write it down. They put it in a file with your name on it. They tell you all about their unparalleled opportunities. They direct you to complete the online application at home. The say they’ll be in touch. Sometimes they are.

… And that’s what happens when you add the human element.

The Rest @ Hearts Everywhere

Lee Royal

On Twitter

Culture and Perfmance Management Instrument Must Match

2010-02-05T11:20:00.001-08:00

Human Resources: Holistic measurement http://bit.ly/ckYGC0

How Do We Value Human Capital?

2010-02-02T20:30:00.000-08:00

The Last Candidate Gets the Job

2010-02-02T20:09:00.001-08:00

The Joys of Mass Interview Day

2010-02-02T20:04:00.000-08:00

Hilarious

2010-02-02T19:54:00.000-08:00

Thanks Punk Rock HR

Outsourcing HR

2010-01-31T19:19:00.000-08:00

HRLearningcetr on Twitter

Lee Royal

What is Human Resources

2010-01-31T19:11:00.001-08:00

HR Metrics

2010-01-29T19:08:00.000-08:00

Interesting article by L.Ruettimann with lots of good comments, checkit out....

-Lee Royal

When I talk to HR professionals about social media tools and social recruiting, I’m always asked, “What should we measure?”

Back in the day, I learned about corporate recruiting from HR professionals who were rooted in the manufacturing industry. Recruiting was an extension of the supply chain. Demand planning principles were invoked. We used math. (Well, they used math.) Some forecasting involved. Recruiters worked like cost accountants and forensic scientists to understand how headcount was tied to the business. A workforce plan was created, and it was aligned with products and services. No one assumed that headcount lasted forever. You weren’t entitled to replace an employee who left your department. You budgeted for your headcount like you budgeted for the cost of paper, chemicals, and supplies. Then entry-level Corporate Recruiters, like me, would have to fill openings that were approved through the workforce plan.

I realize that no one does recruiting like that, anymore. Corporate leaders hang onto headcount with ever fiber in their being. Those slots on the org chart might be lost through attrition, but no one in marketing will give up headcount to sales or IT. That’s just not how the world works.

So when I’m asked what HR should to measure when it comes to their social recruiting efforts, I shrug my shoulders. What’s your brand strategy? What is your organization trying to accomplish? What do you need to learn? What’s the time frame? What story are you trying to tell?

You can’t measure anything until you have a recruiting strategy, and you can’t have a recruiting strategy until you understand how your hiring process links into the way you operate your company. You can’t operate a company by hiring people through job boards, employee referrals, and social media tools and THEN ask, “What should we measure?”

Unfortunately, corporate strategery is hard and everyone likes a road map and a list. So here are some ideas of what you can measure to determine if your social recruiting strategy is working. There are 1,000 more ideas. Suggest some. Please.

Speed/length of recruiting cycle
Source of hire
Time to fill
Quality of hire: skills and cultural fit
Online viewing patterns/behaviors
Conversions from blog/email/twitter campaigns to candidates to hire
Career site conversions from passive viewer to candidate to hire
SEO/Job Board/Advertising campaigns, conversations, and conversion to hires
Costs for traditional recruiting events versus enhanced online presence.
Retention rates based on sourcing methodologies
Sentiment of candidates sourced online — positive v. negative experiences
How interactive tools on your career website are being used
Subscribers to career website blog/email/newsletter
Comments/engagement on posted material on career website
Number of downloads of career materials
Inbound links to career website/blogs
Fans/followers/group members for corporate social profiles
Lawsuits
Workplace violence incident ratios
Turnover
Ennui

What am I missing?

The Rest @ Punk Rock HR by L.Ruettimann

Lee Royal
********
Twitter

Can Facebook be used for Hiring Decisions?

2010-01-23T06:52:00.000-08:00

Social media permeate the employment life cycle
Employers must address their use and misuse before, during and after an employee's tenure.
Renee M. Jackson

January 11, 2010

Social media are any type of Internet-based media created through social interaction in which individuals primarily produce, rather than consume, the content. In the workplace, the prevalent social media are video-sharing Web sites (YouTube), social networking Web sites (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter), online multiuser virtual worlds (Second Life, World of Warcraft) and personal or corporate blogs.

The increased use of social media in the workplace, by employees and employers alike, presents both opportunities and risks for employers because social media now permeate the entire life cycle of employment: during pre-employment inquiries, throughout the period of employment and after separation from employment. Employers must consider and address the use and misuse of social media at each stage.

Employers can now access more information about applicants through social media than was previously available through traditional hiring practices.

On Dec. 9, 2009, a privacy policy change affecting all 350 million Facebook users made each Facebook user's name, profile picture, current city, gender, networks, list of friends and list of "pages" publicly viewable by other Facebook users and also set some users' photo albums to public.

Only through obscure privacy settings can Facebook users affirmatively make some, but not all, of this information private.

Through standard disclosures such as these, or through voluntary disclosure of other personal information such as commentary and photos, applicants may reveal more information about themselves through social media than they normally would during the hiring process.

In making hiring decisions, employers can lawfully use information relating to an applicant's illegal drug use, poor work ethic, poor writing or communications skills, feelings about previous employers and racist or other discriminatory tendencies.
Employers may also lawfully consider an applicant's general poor judgment in maintenance of his or her public online persona.
Employers, however, may face liability under federal, state and local law for using any information learned from social media about an applicant's protected class status — race, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, etc. — in a hiring decision.
It may be hard for the employer to prove in later litigation that it only viewed, but didn't actually use, the information obtained in a social medium when making its hiring decision.

Employers should consider whether the benefits of using social media to screen applicants outweigh the risks. If an employer wants to supplement traditional hiring practices with a social media search, the employer should consider the following approaches.

Employers should screen applicants in a uniform manner by creating a list of the social media they will search for each applicant and the lawful information about each applicant desired from the social media search.
If all applicants cannot be screened using the lawful criteria because an employer does not have the time, resources or inclination to do so, employers must be consistent, objective and nondiscriminatory in selecting subsets of applicants to screen.

• Employers should have a neutral party, such as an employee in a nondecision-making role, conduct the social media search, filtering out any protected class information about the applicant and reporting only information that may lawfully be considered in making the hiring decision.

• Employers' representatives should not "friend" applicants in order to gain access to their nonpublic social networking profiles.

• Employers must be able to point to a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the hiring decision, with documentation to support the decision.

• Employers that are considering making an employment decision based on information found in social media should consult with counsel prior to doing so.

DURING EMPLOYMENT

Employee use of social media can result in external business generation and internal creation of a collegial atmosphere through less formal interaction and shared experiences between co-workers. On the other hand, employee use of social media can create awkward and potentially harassing situations when such use turns inappropriate.

For example, when a supervisor wants to be a subordinate's friend on a social networking site, it can create awkwardness between the supervisor and subordinate. If the subordinate accepts the invitation, the supervisor can access the subordinate's potentially inappropriate or revealing nonpublic profile.

If the subordinate doesn't accept the invitation, he or she may be concerned that his or her employment opportunities may suffer or that the supervisor will be offended. In more extreme cases, misuse of such sites can give rise to claims of co-worker or supervisor sexual harassment or hostile work environment.

The most obvious hazard regarding the use of social media during employment is internal to the organization: Employees may spend so much time using social media during working hours that productivity decreases.

However, the biggest risk of social media in the workplace is external employee misuse: Employees can easily make unauthorized disclosures of confidential company information, such as trade secrets, proprietary information and personnel matters. Employees can easily disparage the company or its customers in a way that leads to corporate embarrassment, public relations problems or damage to the employer's brand or image.

To address these risks, employers must first consider the proper level of encouragement of social media use in the workplace.

For some industries or positions, the use of social media might be appropriate for business development. For others, an outright ban may be appropriate because the work force has no business reason to use social media at work or while using the company networks, facilities or equipment.

At a minimum, employers must insert broad language encompassing social media into existing information technology, code of conduct, harassment and confidentiality policies. Employers should consider adding the following features, if appropriate, to such policies:

• A clear statement that misuse of social media can be ground for discipline, up to and including termination.
• A prohibition on disclosure of the employer's confidential, trade secret or proprietary information.
• A request that employees keep company logos or trademarks off their blogs and profiles and not mention the company in commentary, unless for business purposes.
• An instruction that employees not post or blog during business hours, unless for business purposes.
• A request that employees bring work-related complaints to human resources before blogging or posting about such complaints.
• A prohibition on using company e-mail addresses to register for social media sites.
• A prohibition on posting false information about the company or its employees, customers or affiliates.
• A general instruction that employees use good judgment and take personal and professional responsibility for what they publish online.
• A demand that all employees with personal blogs that identify their employer include a disclaimer that the views expressed on the blog are those of the individual and not the employer.

All supervisors and human resources professionals must be trained in the appropriate use of social media and how to consistently enforce the employer's social media policies. Any policy addressing social media during employment must use broad language and be updated frequently because social media will change quickly over time. Employers should consider incorporating language specifically referencing social media into the confidentiality provisions of separation agreements.

THE RECOMMENDATION DILEMMA

Even post-employment, social media creep into the relationship between the employer and the former employee. Supervisors and co-workers are increasingly asked to "recommend" former employees on LinkedIn after separation from employment. This "recommend" feature allows people in a professional network to write positive professional reviews about other people in their network, which will be visible on the former employee's LinkedIn page.

A positive recommendation on a person's LinkedIn page is the same as an employment reference, and should uniformly be treated as such under the employer's post-employment reference policy. Employers could also consider adding to their post-employment reference policy a prohibition on managers from "recommending" or commenting on the job performance of former employees via social media without prior specific authorization from the human resources department.

The takeaway message regarding social media in the workplace is that employers can no longer ignore the risks. Employers must be cautious in addressing these emerging workplace issues, even though employment-related litigation over social media is in its infancy. First, employers must understand the myriad issues surrounding social media in the workplace in order to strike the appropriate balance in the eyes of their employees and the law. Then, employers must craft appropriate policies and procedures regarding social media that are consistent with their industry and firm culture, and apply such policies in a consistent, objective and nondiscriminatory way.

Renee M. Jackson is an associate in the Boston office of Nixon Peabody and a member of the firm's labor and employment practice group.

The Rest @ Law.com

Lee Royal

California Pregnancy Rights

2010-01-21T06:28:00.000-08:00

Policy Tracking

2010-01-19T10:00:00.001-08:00

HR Interview

2010-01-19T09:56:00.000-08:00

What do I do if My Non-Compete Agreement Has Been Broken?

2010-01-16T09:10:00.000-08:00

About once a month I get a call from an attorney or a client asking me to get my scorched earth battle gear on because they want to go after an employee/former employee who is competing against them in business after having signed a non-compete agreement.

Sometimes, their stories are compelling and the facts are clear that action must be taken. Sometimes, however, the battle is one of principle that, ultimately, will cost the business owner more in heartache, time away from their own business, and legal warfare fees than the fight is worth.

Whenever the situation is such that the fight is one of pride and principle rather than of solid legal merit, I point my client or colleague to Jay Shepherd’s (Shepherd Law Group) excellent blog post “Eight Ways to Lose a Non-Compete Case.”

His bottom line advice: If you’re truly wearing the white hat (i.e., are the “good guy”), and your agreement is narrowly drafted, and your secrets or customer relationships are indeed in imminent peril, then you’ve got a fighting chance of winning. Otherwise, wave goodbye to the former employee and get back to work.

The Rest by Mary Ann Hisel @ Texas HR Law

The 8 ways to lose a noncompete are:

Put your faith in the language of the noncompete agreement.
Try to enforce against any old employee.
Make sure the noncompete is broadly drafted.
Focus [only]on geography, duration, and scope.
Wait a while to file.
Ask for the injunction before you've developed enough evidence.
Don't worry about which state to file in.
Focus on the law instead of on the story.

Details.... from Jay Shepheard

Lee Royal

EFAST2 Goes Live 1/1/2010

2010-01-16T08:52:00.000-08:00

When Congress passed the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA), it enacted several provisions that affect your Form 5500 filing. The first provision requires that you file Form 5500 electronically, thereby eliminating the expensive paper processing system currently in use by the government.

The second important provision of the PPA relating to reporting and disclosure is the creation of an electronic public disclosure “room” on the Department of Labor’s (DOL) web site. Both of these provisions apply to just about every Form 5500 filing made after December 31, 2009.

Meet EFAST2

The new fully electronic processing system is known as EFAST2 and is scheduled to go live on January 1, 2010. Electronic filing applies to all Form 5500 reports filed for plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2009, except Form 5500-EZ which will be filed directly with the IRS on paper. In addition, any amended or late filings submitted after December 31, 2009 must be filed electronically using the new system.

Three Components
EFAST2 has three components:

I-REG, the Internet registration system, used to apply for credentials to, among other things, sign Form 5500 on behalf of the plan sponsor, the plan administrator or both;

I-FILE, the Internet filing system, which provides the ability to go online to create, edit and submit filings for a valid form year and plan year; and

I-FAS, the Internet filing acceptance system, which is the function that actually processes the transmitted filing.

Internet Registration System (I-REG)
I-REG is the first stop for anyone wanting to interact with the new EFAST2 system. Each person will need an Internet connection and an email address to sign up for credentials via the I-REG program. There’s more about establishing your electronic credentials below.

Internet Filing System (I-FILE)
I-FILE is a free, limited-function, web-based application that provides the ability to create, edit and submit filings for a valid form and plan year. The I-FILE application includes validation, authentication and specific edit tests/checks to make sure the filing is complete before it is submitted. While most third-party preparers will opt to use software created by an EFAST2-approved vendor, a plan sponsor may find the application useful for preparing filings for welfare plans or small retirement plans.

Internet Filing Acceptance System (I-FAS)
I-FAS, as previously noted, actually processes the filings as they are electronically submitted. The most important feature of I-FAS is that it establishes the “filing status” of the transmitted filing. The possible filing status messages are:

Filing Unprocessable: Generally indicates that the EFAST2 system could not open the file that was transmitted. In this case, the filing is not treated as filed.
Processing Stopped: Indicates that the file could be read but that critical errors were detected. The filer should plan to file an amended return to perfect the data. The filing is treated as “filed” for purposes of the “timely filing” rules.

Filing Error: Indicates the file contains errors that are less onerous than indicated by a Processing Stopped filing status; however, the filer should plan to file an amended return to perfect the data. As with the Processing Stopped filing status, the Filing Error status message is treated as “filed.”

Filing Received: The optimal filing status message inasmuch as it indicates to the filer that the filing appears to be complete. Of course, the DOL or IRS may later request additional information; however, the filing is treated as complete until and unless there is further notification from the agencies.

Who Needs Credentials?
The person(s) who signs the face of the Form 5500 on behalf of either the plan sponsor or the plan administrator (or both) must apply for “signer” credentials using the I-REG system. Plan sponsors will receive a postcard from the DOL, probably in January 2010, inviting them to apply for their credentials. There are several important rules about these electronic credentials:

Only one set of credentials will be issued for each email address. Signer credentials permit the user to sign as the plan sponsor, the plan administrator or both. If, for some reason, a person wants multiple credentials, he or she must use distinct email addresses to apply for such separate credentials.

An individual may apply for credentials as a filing author, filing signer, schedule author, transmitter or third party software vendor. Typically, persons who sign Form 5500 will require only the filing signer credentials because they will rely on their service providers to actually author and transmit the filing.

The credentials belong to the individual, not the business for which he or she works. Think of the credentials in the same way you think of an individual’s social security number—the social security number always follows the individual, no matter where or whether he or she is employed. For this reason, individuals who have signer credentials will want to update their profiles whenever their email addresses change so that any notification from DOL is delivered to them in a timely fashion.

The majority of I-REG applicants will be seeking signer credentials only. The individual applying for credentials will log in to I-REG at www.efast.dol.gov to register for his or her credentials. There will be a series of input screens for the person to act upon, culminating in the assignment of specific electronic credentials, comprised of a User ID and PIN.

Form 5500 preparers may apply for author and/or transmitter credentials in a similar fashion, although the need for such credentials will be driven by which EFAST2-approved third-party software vendor is selected.

Where Do I Sign?
While the new system is referred to as a paperless system, that is only on the part of the government. Plan sponsors must maintain a fully executed (wet signature) copy of the Form 5500 with all schedules and attachments. If the filing is for a defined benefit plan, the wet signature copy of the actuarial schedule, Schedule SB or MB, must be part of the plan’s permanent records as well.

The instructions for the 2009 Form 5500 indicate that the filer may store the plan’s copy electronically, so long as the electronic copy captures the handwritten signatures.

The electronic “signing ceremony,” as it is dubbed, will be a new process for plan sponsors next year. Depending on the software used by your service provider, you will receive a notification (most likely by email) inviting you to link to the provider’s software. There, you will be presented with a series of screens to act upon, thereby executing the signing ceremony. By inserting your User ID and PIN, you will have effectively signed the filing electronically.

The plan sponsor will no longer ship a paper filing off to Lawrence, Kansas. Instead, in many cases, the service provider will transmit the electronically signed filing and provide the plan sponsor a copy of the filing status report for its records. The filing status, as described earlier, is proof that the filing was processable and verifies the date and time of receipt by the EFAST2 system of the electronic filing.

Electronic Public Disclosure Room
The DOL has long maintained a Public Disclosure Room that holds all of the Form 5500 filings ever filed by any plan; however, access to data is available only by phone or by making a written request. Beginning with the 2009 Form 5500, the DOL will be building an electronic public disclosure function on its web site.

Only the filings processed by the EFAST2 system will appear on this database and information also will continue to be accessible through the old Public Disclosure Room. The DOL expects to post filings to the new site within 24 hours of receipt by the EFAST2 system.

What Do I Need To Do?
Fortunately, your service provider will be able to manage much of the transition to the electronic filing system for you. Software providers are still working out the details of their solutions so that everyone is ready for the January 1, 2010 go-live date. Watch for specific instructions from DOL and your service provider so that you are ready to make the jump to electronic filing.

The Rest @ Midwest Pension and Profit Sharing Services

Time Off Law in California is a bit Convoluted...

2009-06-02T08:57:00.000-07:00

This is from Lawmemo.com a great site for employment law issues

Time Off In California: State And Federal Laws On Employee Leave, Vacations And Holidays
By Tyler M. Paetkau Bio email Littler Mendelson P.C.

V. TIME OFF ISSUES UNDER THE CALIFORNIA "EIGHT HOUR DAY RESTORATION AND WORKPLACE FLEXIBILITY ACT OF 1999"
Background And Overview Of AB 60
1. Name and Purpose of Law
"AB 60" misnamed the "Eight-Hour Day Restoration and Workplace Flexibility Act of 1999." It is the opposite of "flexible": It is restrictive, cumbersome and costly.

In AB 60, the Legislature declared that the eight-hour workday should be protected and reaffirmed the state's commitment to upholding the eight-hour workday as a fundamental protection for working people.

AB 60 was organized labor's reaction to the Industrial Welfare Commission's elimination of "daily" overtime in 1998. The supreme irony is that most union employees covered by a valid collective bargaining agreement that pays premium wage rates are not even covered by AB 60. Unions now use AB 60 as an organizing tool.

2. Definitions

(a) "Workday" and "day" mean any consecutive 24-hour period beginning at the same time each calendar day.

(b) "Workweek" and "week" mean any seven consecutive days, starting with the same calendar day each week. "Workweek" is a fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours, seven consecutive 24-hour periods.

(c) "Alternative workweek schedule ("AWS") means any regularly scheduled workweek requiring an employee to work more than eight hours in a 24 hour period

3. New Overtime Rules
Any work over eight hours in one workday; any work over 40 hours in any one workweek; and the first eight hours worked on the seventh day in any one workweek must be compensated at no less than one and one half times the regular pay rate.
Any work in excess of 12 hours in one day and any work over eight hours on any seventh day of a workweek must be paid at a rate that is not less than twice the regular pay rate. "An employee may be employed on seven (7) workdays in one workweek when the total hours of employment during such workweek do not exceed thirty (30) and the total hours of employment in any one workday thereof do not exceed six (6)."

These overtime requirements do not apply to employees working an alternative workweek schedule ("AWS") adopted under AB 60 (see Sections V(A)-(B) below).

4. Ridesharing Is Not Time Worked
When an employee commutes in a vehicle owned, leased, or subsidized by the employer for the purpose of ridesharing, it is not considered part of a day’s work.

5. Exemptions

The Industrial Welfare Commission ("IWC") may establish exemptions from the overtime provisions for executive, administrative and professional employees. The employee must be engaged in duties that meet the test of the exemption and the employee must earn a monthly salary equivalent to no less than two times the state minimum wage for full-time employment to be exempt.

The IWC must conduct a review of the duties that meet the test of the exemption. Based upon this review, the IWC may adopt or modify regulations pertaining to duties that meet the test of exemption by July 1, 2000. On January 1, 2001, the IWC adopted revised Wage Orders incorporating in the changes to the State’s wage and hour laws effected by AB 60; most of the Wage Orders have been updated as of January 1, 2002, and are available for downloading from the website of the California Department of Industrial Relations, which includes the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (“DLSE”), also known as the California Labor Commissioner.

See www.dir.ca.gov/DLSE.

The IWC may establish additional exemptions to hours of work requirements if it finds the hours or conditions of labor may be detrimental to the health and welfare of employees in any occupation, trade or industry. AB 60 does not require the IWC to alter any exemption from the provisions regulating work hours that was contained in any valid wage order in effect in 1997. The IWC may review, retain, or eliminate any exemption from the provisions regulating work hours that was contained in any valid wage order in effect in 1997.
(a) Registered nurses and pharmacists not exempt

Registered nurses and pharmacists shall not be exempted from coverage under any part of the orders of the IWC (used to be covered under "professional" exemption), unless they individually meet the requirements for established for executive or administrative employees. 2001 Wage Order, Section 1(A)(3)(f).

(b) New definitions of "administrative," "executive" and "professional" exemptions in New 2001 Wage Orders
New 2001 Wage Orders contain more detailed definitions for each of these three oldest exemptions, including some exempt duties.

(c) Public employee exemption
All public employees previously exempt from California wage-hour laws and regulations are exempt under AB 60. California Labor Code § 515, added by AB 60, provides that nothing in AB 60 requires the IWC to alter any exemption that was contained in any valid wage order in effect in 1997.

(d) Outside salesperson and "inside sales" or "commissioned" salesperson exemptions
Outside salesperson exemption applies if employee "customarily and regularly works more than half the working time away from the employer’s place of business selling tangible or intangible items or obtaining orders or contracts for products, services or use of facilities." 2001 Wage Order, Section 2(M).

"Inside" salesperson exemption applies if employee’s "earnings exceed one and one-half (1½) times the minimum wage if more than half (½) of that employee’s compensation represents commissions."

(e) Unionized Workforce Exemption
AB 60 does not apply to employees covered by a valid collective bargaining agreement if the agreement expressly provides for wages, hours of work, and working conditions of the employees, and if the agreement provides premium wage rates for all overtime worked and a regular hourly pay rate of not less than 30 percent more than the state minimum wage.

6. Meal Breaks
Any non-exempt employee that works over five hours per day must take a meal break of not less than 30 minutes. If the total work period per day is no more than six hours, the meal break may be waived with consent by both the employer and the employee. A non-exempt employee that works more than 10 hours per day must take a second meal break of not less than 30 minutes. If the total hours worked is no more than 12 hours, the second meal break may be waived by mutual consent of the employer and the employee, but only if the first meal break was not waived. Unless the employee is relieved of all duty during a 30-minute meal period, the meal period shall be considered an “on duty” meal period and counted as time worked. An “on duty” meal period shall be permitted only when the nature of the work prevents an employee from being relieved of all duty and when by written agreement between the employee and the employer an on-the-job paid meal period is agreed upon.

If an employer fails to provide a meal period in accordance with the applicable Wage Order, the employer shall pay the employee one (1) hour of pay at the employee’s regular rate of compensation for each workday that the meal period is not provided.

In all workplaces where employees are required to eat on the premises, a suitable place for that purpose shall be designated.

Exception for health care workers: Those employees in the health care industry who work shifts in excess of eight hours in a workday may voluntarily waive their right to one of their two meal periods. To be valid, the waiver must be in writing, signed by both the employee and the employer. The employee may revoke the waiver at any time by providing the employer at least one day’s written notice. The employee shall be fully compensated for all working time, including any on-the-job meal period, while such a waiver is in effect.

The IWC may adopt or amend working condition orders regarding break periods, meal periods, and days of rest for any workers in California consistent with the health and welfare of those workers and AB 60.

7. Other New Burdens on Employers (Final 2001 Wage Order)
a. Record-keeping
b. Meal periods from 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.
c. Reporting time pay
d. Licenses for disabled workers
e. Cash shortages and breakage
f. Uniforms and equipment
g. Meals and lodging Change rooms and resting facilities
h. Seats, temperature, elevators, DLSE discretionary exemptions, and posting requirements

8. Penalties
Any employer or person acting on the employer's behalf who violates, or causes to be violated, a section of this chapter or any provision regulating hours and days of work in any order of the IWC will be subject to a civil penalty as follows:

(a) For any initial violation, fifty dollars ($50) for each underpaid employee for each pay period that the employee was underpaid in addition to an amount sufficient to recover underpaid wages.

(b) For each subsequent violation, one hundred dollars ($100) for each underpaid employee for each pay period that the employee was underpaid in addition to an amount sufficient to recover underpaid wages.

(c) Wages recovered pursuant to this section will be paid to the affected employee.

The new civil penalties in AB 60 are in addition to any other civil or criminal penalty provided by law, e.g., "waiting-time" penalties under California Labor Code Sections 201-204.

A. Using Alternative Workweeks To Provide Employees With Time Off
"Upon the proposal" of the employer, employees may adopt an alternative workweek schedule ("AWS") that authorizes them to work up to 10 hours per day within a 40-hour workweek without overtime pay.

The alternative workweek may be a single work schedule that would become the standard work schedule for all workers in the unit, or several work schedule options that each employee of the unit would be able to choose.

Work beyond the hours scheduled under the adopted AWS, up to 12 hours in a day, or beyond 40 in a week, must be paid at one-and-one-half (1½) times the employee's regular rate; work over 12 hours in a day or any work in excess of eight (8) hours on those days worked beyond the regularly scheduled AWS must be paid double the employee's regular rate of pay.

The IWC is required to study the costs and benefits of AWSs and report its findings and recommendations to the California Legislature by July 1, 2001.

1. "Interim" And "Final" Wage Orders
Proposals for AWSs must designate a regularly scheduled alternative workweek in which the specified number of workdays and work hours are regularly recurring, e.g., "4-10." The actual days worked within that AWS need not be specified. "If the employer proposes a menu of work schedule options, the employee may, with the approval of the employer, move from one menu option to another." 2001 Wage Order 4, Section (3)(C)(1).

A work unit may consist of an individual employee as long as the criteria for an identifiable work unit are satisfied.
Any AWS adopted under AB 60 must provide for not less than four (4) hours of work in any shift.
"Nothing in this section shall prohibit an employer, at the request of the employee, to substitute one day of work for another day of the same length in the shift provided by the alternative workweek agreement on an occasional basis to meet the personal needs of the employee without the payment of overtime." (Emphasis added; note IWC uses the term "agreement," but it is actually a written "proposal" by the employer, which the work unit must "adopt" through a two-thirds vote, secret ballot election procedure.)

If an employer, whose employees have adopted an AWS, requires an employee to work fewer hours than those that are regularly scheduled by the AWS, then the employer shall pay overtime at one-and-one-half (1½) times the employee's regular rate for all hours worked in excess of eight (8) hours, and double the employee's regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of twelve (12) hours for the day the employee is required to work the reduced hours.

2. AB 60's Effect on Prior Alternative Workweek Arrangements
Any AWS that is authorized by AB 60 and was in effect on January 1, 2000, may be repealed by the affected employees. (This provision is unclear because AB 60 did not "authorize" any alternative workweek until January 1, 2000; probably means any AWS adopted under AB 60 after January 1, 2000 may be repealed.) Any AWS that was previously adopted pursuant to Wage Order Numbers 1, 4, 5, 7, or 9 of the IWC is automatically null and void, unless the AWS is no more than 10 hours work in a workday and was adopted by a two-thirds vote in a secret ballot election pursuant to wage orders of the IWC in effect prior to 1998.

Any employee that is voluntarily working an AWS of no more than 10 hours in a workday as of July 1, 1999, may continue to work that alternative schedule without daily overtime, if the employer approves a written request of the employee to work that schedule.

3. Alternative Workweeks - Health Care Industry
Employees in the health care industry that have adopted an AWS by two-thirds vote in a secret ballot allowing for workdays that exceed 10 hours a day, but not over 12 hours in a day pursuant to Wage Orders 4 and 5 in effect prior to 1998, will be valid until July 1, 2000. Employers in the health care industry must make reasonable efforts to accommodate any employee who is unable to work the AWS established as a result of a valid election.

Any employer that operates a licensed hospital or provides personnel for the operation of a licensed hospital who creates a regularly scheduled workweek that includes no more than three working days of no more than 12 hours each within any workweek, must make a reasonable effort to find an alternative work assignment for any employees who participated in the vote that authorized the schedule but are unable to work 12-hour workday schedule. Employers will not be required to offer an AWS if there is no AWS available or if the employee was hired after the adoption of the 12-hour, 3-day schedule. This section remained in effect until July 1, 2000, and as of that date was repealed.

B. The Alternative Workweek Election Procedure
1. Adoption of an AWS

An AWS may be adopted only if it is approved in a secret ballot by at least two-thirds of the affected employees (or the single employee if applicable) in a "work unit." The employer must report the results of any election for an AWS to the Division of Labor Statistics and Research

("DLSR") within 30 days of the results being final:
Reporting election results to DLSR: (a) Mail to the Chief, Division of Labor Statistics and Research, Attention: Alternative Workweek Election Results, P.O. Box 420603, San Francisco, CA 94142; or (b) may be filed in person at 455 Golden Gate Avenue, 5th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94102.

The report to DLSR "shall include the final tally of the vote, the size of the unit, and the nature of the business of the employer." Furthermore, the report of election results "shall be a public document."

Election must be held during regular working hours at the employees' work site.
Employers "shall bear the costs of conducting any election held pursuant to this section." (Includes both elections to adopt and to repeal AWSs.)

"[A]ffected employees in the work unit' may include all employees in a readily identifiable work unit, such as a division, a department, a job classification, a shift, a separate physical location, or a recognized subdivision of any such work unit. A work unit may consist of an individual employee as long as the criteria for an identifiable work unit in this subdivision is met."

Prior to secret ballot vote, employer must disclose the effects of the proposed AWS in writing to the affected employees, including effect on wages, hours and benefits.

Such disclosure "shall include meeting(s), duly noticed, held at least fourteen (14) days prior to voting, for the specific purpose of discussing the effects of the alternative workweek schedule." 2001 Wage Order 4, Section (3)(C)(3).

Employers must provide the disclosure in non-English language if at least 5% of the affected employees "primarily speak that non-English language." 2001 Wage Order 4, Section (3)(C)(3).
Employers must mail the written disclosure to employees who do not attend the meeting.
Failure to comply with the above requirements "shall make the election null and void." 2001
Wage Order 4, Section (3)(C)(3).

Upon a complaint by an affected employee, and after an investigation by the DLSE, the DLSE may require the employer to select a neutral third party

Employees affected by change in work hours resulting from adoption of AWS may not be required to work those new work hours for at least thirty (30) days after the announcement of the final results of the election.

Note that AB 60 prohibits an employer "from intimidating or coercing employees to vote either in support of or in opposition to a proposed" AWS. But new provision adds: "[N]othing in this section shall prohibit an employer from expressing his/her position concerning that [proposed] alternative workweek to the affected employees." 2001 Wage Order 4, Section (3)(C)(8) [emphasis added].

2. Repeal of an AWS
Upon a "petition" of one-third of the affected employees, a new secret ballot election shall be held and a two-thirds vote of the affected employees shall be required to reverse the AWS. 2001 Wage Order 4, Section (3)(C)(5).

The repeal election must be held not more than thirty (30) days after the petition "is submitted to the employer."

Repeal election cannot be held within one year "after the date that the same group of employees voted in an election held to adopt or repeal" an AWS. (Employees cannot change their minds more than once per year.)

Generally the same election procedures for adoption of AWSs apply (see Section B(1) above), such as the requirement that the vote take place during regular working hours at the employees' work site.

If AWS is "revoked," the employer shall comply within 60 days, but the DLSE may grant an extension "[u]pon a proper showing of undue hardship," a phrase that is not defined either in AB 60 or in Final Wage Order 2001. 2001 Wage Order 4, Section (3)(C)(5).

C. Make-Up Time For Personal Obligations
If an employer approves a written request by an employee to make up time missed due to a personal obligation, the make up work, if performed in the same workweek as the time lost, may not be counted as overtime, except for hours that exceed 11 hours of work in one day or 40 hours in one workweek. 2001 Wage Order 4, Section (3)(M).

An employee must provide a signed written request for each occasion that they wish to make up time.

An employer may, but is not required to honor the employee's request for make-up time.
An employer is prohibited from "encouraging or otherwise soliciting" employees to request this approval to take personal time off. An employer may, however, "inform an employee of this make-up time option."

"If an employee knows in advance that he or she will be requesting make-up time for a personal obligation that will recur at a fixed time over a succession of weeks, the employee may request to make-up work time for up to four (4) weeks in advance."

Careful policy drafting and documentation.

D. The Duty To Provide Reasonable Accommodation Under AB 60

The employer may not reduce an employee’s regular hourly pay rate as a result of the adoption, repeal or nullification of an AWS.

The employer must make a reasonable effort to find a work schedule not to exceed eight hours in a workday that accommodates an employee who was eligible to vote in the AWS election but is unable to work the AWS. The employer is permitted to provide a work schedule not to exceed eight hours in a workday, to accommodate an employee who was hired after the election and is unable to work the alternative schedule.

The employer must explore any available reasonable alternative means of accommodating the religious belief or observance that conflicts with an adopted AWS, in the manner provided by subdivision (j) of Section 12940 of the California Government Code, also known as the "Fair Employment and Housing Act" ("FEHA"). 2001 Wage Order 4, Section (3)(B)((4).

E. Time Off Requested By Exempt Employees
Primary danger is the employer risks losing the benefit of an exemption for entire class of employees if the employer treats them as non-exempt. For example:
Docking an exempt employee's salary for absences from work of less than one day, even if the exempt employee has exhausted vacation and sick leave.

For certain other leaves that are legally required (e.g., jury duty), employers arguably cannot deduct pay from an exempt employee's salary for absences of less than one full week without risking reclassifying the employee as nonexempt.

Unlike federal law, DLSE takes the position that deductions from the salary of an exempt employee for the infraction of any rule are impermissible.

Requiring exempt employees to keep timecards and/or paying them on an hourly, as opposed to salary, basis. (Note: AB 60 changed California "remuneration" standard to a "salary" standard: In addition to satisfying the "duties" test for the particular exemption, exempt employee must also earn a monthly salary equivalent to no less than two times the state minimum wage for full-time employment.)

“Recission” of Miles Locker letter regarding “salary basis” test for exempt employees, and update on pending litigation against the IWC regarding its adoption of FLSA “weekly” salary basis test.

F. Recent California Legislation On Employee Sick Leave (AB 109) And Other Recent California

Time Off Legislation

1. Use of sick leave to care for ill spouse, child or grandparent
AB 109, effective on Jan. 1, 2000, does not require employers to offer sick leave to employees. It also does not prohibit policies that restrict sick leave to employees who fall into specific classifications (e.g., full-time, exempt) or who satisfy eligibility conditions (e.g., a probationary period or six-month waiting period).

However, AB 109 applies to all employers who provide sick leave. If an employer provides sick leave, it must allow employees to use a portion of their annual leave entitlement to attend to an illness of a child, parent or spouse.

The amount of sick leave that is available in any calendar year may not be less than the sick leave that would have accrued over a six-month period at the employee's then current rate of entitlement.

The calendar year is the 12-month measuring period used to compute the amount of sick leave that is available.

Equivalent to one-half of the annual sick leave accruals.
If employee already has used all of his/her accrued sick leave, the employer need not advance sick leave that the employee is expected to earn in the future.
Employers can impose restrictions and conditions on use of sick leave to care for family members (just as employers may do with use of sick leave to care for employee's own illness). E.g., employees must satisfy a waiting period or provide a medical certification of illness, reasonable notification rules.

Based on broad definition of "sick leave" in the statute, one could argue that paid time off and combined leave programs (leave "banks") that allow employees to use paid leave benefits for a variety of different absences, such as sickness, vacation and personal days, would be subject to the sick leave rules of new Cal. Labor Code § 233.

No extension of maximum leave under the California Family Rights Act ("CFRA") or the federal Family and Medical Leave Act ("FMLA"), regardless of whether the employee receives sick leave compensation during that leave.

§ Prohibitions against discrimination and remedies.
Note new legislation affecting “domestic partners.” New AB 25 affects employers in a variety of ways. For example, domestic partners can now use up to half of their accrued sick leave to care for a domestic partner. Employers are not required to offer sick leave. However, if they do, they must allow employees to use up to one-half of their accrued sick leave to care for a sick child, parent or spouse, and now, a registered domestic partner or child of a registered domestic partner. Cal. Labor Code § 233. AB 25 does not, however, extend to domestic partners rights under California Family Rights Act to care for the serious health condition of a domestic partner. See Cal. Gov’t Code § 12945.2.

2. Other Recent California “Time Off” Legislation
California bill-tracking website: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/

G. Recent Wage And Hour Law Changes
1. Computer software exemption
New exemption (SB 88) for employees in computer software fields who:
(a) earn hourly rate of $41.00 (now increased to $42.64, tied to increases in Consumer Price Index);
(b) are primarily engaged in work that is intellectual or creative and requires the exercise of discretion and independent judgment; and
(c) are highly skilled and proficient in the theoretical and practical application of highly specialized information to computer systems analysis, programming and software engineering.

2. Recent Bell v. Farmers Insurance Exchange "Administrative" Exemption Decision
Narrows application of the administrative exemption and relies on the "administrative/production worker dichotomy" from federal law under the FLSA.
For more information and updates, check the IWC's website: www.dir.ca.gov/Iwc.

3. Update on Wage-Hour Class Actions
Recent developments, including Sav-On Drugs appellate opinion reversing trial court order granting class certification in a wage-hour exemption case.

4. Lactation Accommodation (AB 1025)
AB 1025 adds Sections 1030 through 1033 to the California Labor Code. The bill requires every employer (private and public) to accommodate a lactating employee. Employers must provide a reasonable amount of time to allow employee to express milk. The break time shall run concurrently with the rest period already provided to the employee under the applicable Wage Order, if possible, and any additional break time shall be unpaid. However, employers are exempted from the break time requirement if the break would seriously disrupt the employer’s operations. Employers must make reasonable efforts to provide the employee with a room or other location, other than a toilet stall, near the employee’s work area, for the employee to express milk in private. The employee’s regular work area is acceptable if it otherwise meets these requirements. Finally, employers are subject to a $100 penalty per violation, and the Labor Commissioner may issue citations.

VI. USING TELECOMMUTING AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO TIME OFF

A. Advantages And Disadvantages

Employees enjoy the privilege, convenience and flexibility of telecommuting. Allowing it can be good for employee morale. An estimated 10% of the U.S. workforce now telecommutes, and the percentage is expected to increase over the next few decades. There are many reasons for this trend, including employee retention issues, technological advances that have made working from home more feasible, crowded freeways and the lack of suitable parking near work sites, and the increasing numbers of working parents who require more flexible work arrangements.
Even the government has joined the telecommuting revolution, as last year a Senate bill proposed giving telecommuters a $500 tax credit, mostly to cover furnishings and electronic information equipment needed for telecommuting. The Governor of Virginia also proposed $10 million in tax incentives for employers who permit telecommuting. Recent studies have suggested that telecommuting arrangements have improved employees’ productivity and efficiency.

By virtue of technology alone, employers may be swept into telecommuting arrangements without first assessing the business and legal implications, including potential liability issues that arise primarily in the context of employee work hours, home safety and accommodations.
B. Issues All Employers Should Consider In Conjunction With Telecommuting
Telecommuters are protected by most labor and employment laws, including the federal Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"), the California Labor Code and the Occupational Safety and Health Act ("OSHA").

Under the FLSA, for example, an employer may not refuse to pay a non-exempt employee for overtime worked on the grounds that work was performed at home. Employers must comply with the FLSA without regard to an employee's place of working. This means that employers must be careful to collect accurate data from non-exempt telecommuters regarding the number of hours worked at home. Employers should not allow employees who they do not trust to telecommute, as the employer is to some degree relinquishing control over record-keeping, overtime and the like by allowing employees to work from home.

Although OSHA withdrew one of its advisory letters, employers should take care to assure themselves that employees are working in a safe environment at home. OSHA is not precluded from regulating home offices by statute. In keeping with its purpose, OSHA officials have indicated that the agency will inspect home offices in the case of serious injury or death, especially if manufacturing work is conducted at home.

Employees are entitled to workers' compensation benefits for injuries "arising out of and in the course of employment." There is no requirement that the employee be located on the employer's premises to sustain a compensable injury. More than 20 years ago, a California appeals court permitted a college professor to recover workers' compensation benefits when he slipped on his lecture notes while preparing his class syllabus at home. Similar cases are likely to arise in the future as more and more employees perform work at home. To prevent injuries and minimize liability, employers should be keenly interested in the safety of an employee's home office. Periodic home-office inspections are advisable. Employers should also consider requiring telecommuters to complete a self-certification safety checklist.

In addition to liability under labor and employment laws, telecommuting raises other legal issues. For example, telecommuting may involve the use of employer-owned equipment and the storage of the employer's proprietary information at home offices. These circumstances may require review of employer and employee insurance policies to confirm whether employer-owned equipment and other information are covered in case of loss. Such confidential information use and storage also makes it difficult to protect the employer's "trade secrets," such as customer lists, billing history, key contacts, data and preferences. Furthermore, employers should assure themselves that employees would return equipment and information upon demand.

Recent case law suggests that an employer should offer telecommuting as a form of "reasonable accommodation" for disabled employees under the ADA and FEHA. Employers should consult with their legal counsel regarding these issues, including the important legal issue of whether the employee is a "qualified individual with a disability."
Employers can minimize the potential liability associated with telecommuting arrangements by creating a telecommuting agreement or adding telecommuting provisions to an existing employee handbook. Such provisions should clearly set forth the terms of any telecommuting arrangement and might include provisions such as the following:

Define telecommuting and make it clear telecommuters are still subject to all of the employer’s policies and procedures even though they will be working off-site.

Agreement by the employee to return any employer-provided equipment upon termination of the telecommuting arrangement or termination of employment.

Agreement by the employee to return all of employer's proprietary information upon demand.
Acknowledgment by the employee that he or she received a home office checklist to ensure that the home working environment is safe. Any safety checklist for the home office should comply with current OSHA guidelines and should be designated as derived from those guidelines.

Set out the work hours and days for telecommuters.

Advise telecommuters that the employer retains the right to terminate the telecommuting arrangement at any time, without cause or advance notice.

Grant the employer the right to inspect the telecommuter’s home office and state when such inspections can occur.

Agreement by non-exempt employees to work no more than 40 hours per week without the express permission of a supervisor and to keep accurate time records.

Non-discriminatory standards for a telecommuting arrangement to protect employers from claims that telecommuting was denied to particular employees for discriminatory reasons.
Agreement by the employee to promptly report any accidents that occur while he or she is working in the home office.

Specific guidelines regarding reimbursement for expenses related to the home office.
Detail what equipment telecommuter will be using, who will be providing it, who is responsible for maintenance, damage, loss, etc.

Consider confidentiality and protection of trade secrets policies.
Agreement as to liability insurance for accidents that occur at an employee’s home office. Consider defining/limiting work space for which employer will assume some responsibility, e.g., no employer liability if someone drowns in the employee’s home swimming pool.

Every employer who allows employees to perform work from a home office, during or after normal business hours, should be aware of the legal issues raised by telecommuting. Employers should adjust the telecommuting arrangement with these issues in mind so that they may minimize potential liability while allowing employees to take advantage of the benefits of telecommuting.

Source Lawmwmo.com

2009-05-21T14:21:00.000-07:00

Congressman proposes Paid Vacation Act
Updated: Thursday, 21 May 2009, 12:36 PM EDT
Published : Thursday, 21 May 2009, 12:35 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (WOFL FOX 35) - Florida Congressman Alan Grayson introduced the Paid Vacation Act of 2009 on Thursday in hopes of improving productivity at American companies and providing a spark for travel and tourism industries, Grayson officials announced.

“Why are paid vacations good enough for the Chinese, French, Japanese, and German employees, but not good enough for us? In other countries, its a matter of right. Everyone is entitled to it. In our country, it is a matter of class,” Grayson wrote in a release.

“Over time we are coming to realize that whatever your background, wherever you grew up, wherever you live, there are certain basic elements that people need to have enjoyable lives. They need health care. They need a decent paying job. And for a good life, they need time off,” he added.

The Act would require at least one week of paid vacation for employees at companies with at least 100 employees. Full-and-part workers would be eligible for the vacation after one year of service.

FoxNEws

Personnel Record Keeping

2009-05-20T12:11:00.000-07:00

In general, employers must keep all personnel or employment records for one year.

If an employee is involuntarily terminated, his/her personnel records must be retained for one year from the date of termination.

If a claim of discrimination is filed, all relevant personnel records must be retained until final disposition of the matter.

Under the ADEA, employers must also keep all payroll records for three years.

Employers must also keep on file any employee benefit plan and any written seniority or merit system for the full period the plan or system is in effect and for at least one year after its termination.

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), employers must keep payroll records for at least three years.

Employers must also keep for at least two years all records (including wage rates, job evaluations, seniority and merit systems, and collective bargaining agreements) that explain the basis for paying different wages to employees of opposite sexes in the same establishment.

HR Village

What Records Should I Keep?

Private Demogrphic Records

Emergency Contact information

Home address

Home Contact Information

Employee Registration and Personnel Actions

Offer Letter

Job descriptions

Employment application and resume

Test documents used by an employer to make employment decisions . College transcripts

Signed acknowledgements

Promotion or demotion

Performance evaluations

Disciplinary notices or documents

Transfer or layoff

Rates of pay and other forms of compensation

General training records

Letters of recognition

Termination/resignation letter or form

Release to provide reference information

Pay and Attendance Records

Pay Records

Deductions

Paid Time off

Garnishments

W-4 Tax deduction authorization

Benefit Records

Enrollment Documents

Plan Change Notifications

401k Loan documents

Work Authorization Records

I-9

Release to provide reference information

How Long Should I Keep Payroll Records?

In general, a good rule of thumb is to keep files for the longest amount of time required

California requires employers to keep payroll records two years under the state's Labor Code

Four years under the state's Unemployment Insurance Code,

Federal government requires three years from date of last entry under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Source HR Resource

What Should I Keep?

How Secure do I Keep Records?

Under the Data Protection Act 1998, you also have important legal duties relating to how you keep staff records and what you do with them.

In addition, employees are entitled to access certain records and can seek compensation for damage or distress suffered as a result of a breach of the Act.

This means that you should take care when recording information about your staff.

What do Keep Records On?

More generally, you should keep records - eg minutes - of:

meetings with workplace representatives

any disciplinary action you have ever taken, in particular disciplinary hearings

individual and collective redundancy consultation meetings and agreements

negotiations relating to information and consultation agreements

Keeping staff records: the business benefits. Keeping staff records beyond those required by law may help you:

match staff resources with production or service requirements
avoid or defend tribunal claims when a dispute with an employee arises
assess the performance and productivity of individual employees or teams
ensure that you are treating job applicants and workers consistently and fairly

make decisions in relation to staffing levels, eon recruitment and redundancy

The level of detail in staff records

Interview Stories

2009-01-01T15:18:00.000-08:00

All HR pros have seen job candidates do dumb things. But these interview bloopers are just unbelievable.
Staffing firm OfficeTeam recently asked recruiters and hiring managers about the strangest things they’ve seen interviewees do.
Our personal favorite was the guy who performed well in the interview — but on his way out, he walked right through a glass door, shattering it.
Some of the other highlights:
One candidate took a personal approach and repeatedly addressed the interviewer by first name — too bad it was the wrong one.
Another realized halfway through the interview he was applying for the wrong position. He unsuccessfully tried to convince the company he was right for that job, too.
One particularly dedicated candidate was told he didn’t get the job — and then showed up to work the next day.
What strange behavior have you encountered? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
AKPC_IDS += "3604,";

Related Stories
The death of etiquette in interviews
Picking out the best in a crowded employment market
My best HR management idea: Stopping new-supervisor screw-ups – in 20 minutes
Best of HRRecruiting: Manager’s interview notes cost company big
37 Responses to “Candidate leaves interview — right through a glass door”
Cindy Says: July 24th, 2009 at 8:08 am
One I will NEVER forget is an applicant for a senior level IT job. He constantly was putting his little finger in one ear or the other, looking at it and then flicking or rubbing what was there onto the chair! It was such an unconsious gesture on his part but so distracting because it was all throughout the 30 minute interview. I was worried he was going to go fishing elsewhere before the interview was over. Luckily, his credentials were not as impressive as he had mad them sound through a background check. I wasn’t sure if he had OCD and if it would have been covered by ADA!
Kay Says: July 24th, 2009 at 8:40 am
1st place - I had a cnadidate show up for an interview drunk and was very upset when we told them we would not doing the interview due to thier impared state. Thier reply “Um ok I can come back tomorrow when I am “more soberer”. We respectfully declined.
2nd place - I asked an accounting/data entry clerk if they had 10-key by touch the response - with arm movement “oh no you didn’t”. I further explained that it was required due to the nature of the job, the response “I don’t know what type a place this is but I ain’t touching nobody”.
And folks think HR is boring….
Cindy Says: July 24th, 2009 at 8:58 am
Kay - love the accounting clerk one!!!!!!!! hilarious!
coriHR Says: July 24th, 2009 at 8:58 am
Cindy that has got to be the funniest yet grossest thing I’ve heard as far as interviews go. Too bad you didn’t have any QTips to offer him. I don’t think I could have made it through without getting sick. It does sound similar to a Turets type thing, at least with a manager I had who had Turets. He used to just yell at people and had weird actions while doing it over the smallest issues and used to always make one girl cry. Needless to say that guy stressed me out with all the yelling he did (he never yelled at me though) so I left..Oh did I mention the President of the company drooled when speaking?
RRS Says: July 24th, 2009 at 9:04 am
Funny Kay, can someone top this one….
I actually had a telephone interview for a high school student Intern position. The candidate stated that she just graduated from high school so I asked her how well did you do and what was your grade point average. She stated “I don’t know, I just took my diploma and put it on the wall”, I did not bother to open my report card. I then asked her “Have you ever had a clerical position before”? She stated “what, I repeated clerical…she said what, I spelled the word clerical and then she said “what’s that?”. I told her that I would let her figure that out and I ended the conversation quickly and as professional as possible. I have no idea if anyone ever hired her but for sure we did not.
Cindy Says: July 24th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Cori-I grew up with 5 brothers. Very little grosses me out to the point of extreme reaction. This interview was maybe 10 years ago and I still remember it the vividly!
Another incident I had was remember when nearly transparent clothing was all the rage to the point you could see a bra quite clearly? I had one very endowed applicant show up for an interview she was very articulate, was looking very nice, make up, demure skirt, heels, clothes fit well. She had one of those blouses on………..minus the bra.
Felecia Says: July 24th, 2009 at 9:23 am
I had a candidate that was having a bad hair day. When the interview was over and she left the room, one of her weave tracks had fallen on the floor. Her her was long on the sides but there was one area in the back of her head where there was barely any hair. It was a pretty akward situation.
Mike Says: July 24th, 2009 at 9:36 am
The sans bra one has happened to me a few times. Not to mention applicants dressing like they were about to head to a night club, or had just returned from one.
One of the funniest I encountered was a gentleman who came into the lobby and told the receptionist that his father was the local fire chief and it had been arranged for him to start work. HR had never heard of this guy. We decided to interview him. He sat sideways in his chair and never looked at us across the table. He said the 10% of 400 was about 90 or so, then he said “I’m not great with that kind of math, but I can read a tape (tape measure). We pulled one out of our little box we use for mechanic interviews, he couldn’t tell us where the inch and 7/8″ mark was. At the end of the interview, he reminded us that his father was a fire chief and had 2 degrees, so obviously since he was his son he was no dummy. He re-applied 3 months later.
PS Says: July 24th, 2009 at 9:36 am
We are a very professional office (financial services) and I’ve had more than one employee show up with children in tow. One such employee got mad at us because we suggested rescheduling her interview for another time when she could arrange a sitter. Her response, “I don’t have anyone to watch her during the day”. Seriously???? Then how was she planning on working? We passed.
Angie Says: July 24th, 2009 at 9:57 am
A number of years ago I was toward the end of 2 weeks of recruiting for a new manufacturing facility my employer was opening. I had been administering 2 different pre-employment tests, alternating every half hour, for most of that time. As anyone who does multiple presentations in a short time knows, it becomes difficult to remember whether you said something to this group of if that was the prior group. I either stumbled over words or repeated myself in giving directions for a test. One applicant looked up and asked, “Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast?” I brushed it off, got the test started, and promptly found the person who had interviewed her to make sure she wasn’t hired. Not surprisingly, the interviewer had already decided not to hire her, but this sealed her fate.
Kellie Says: July 24th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Funny stuff! Here’s my craziest interviews: One candidate, when asked why she wanted to leave her current position replied, “Just between you and me, my boss is a member of the Brazilian mafia.” If that’s true, I don’t think I’d be repeating it, and if it’s not, why say something so like that? One candidate for an administrative assistant position fell asleep in the reception area and was snoring loudly. Another candidate for an accounts payable position cursed at me 3 times during the interivew. The resume of the year goes to the candidate applying for a proofreader position, and in her cover letter she said, “I am interested in applying for the Proffreader opening.” If you can’t spell proofreader, then it’s probably not the right job for you!
HRDirector Says: July 24th, 2009 at 10:57 am
1 - I had one interviewee show up to interview for a clerical position in our outside sales department in bedroom slippers and what was clearly a pajama top. Her hair was uncombed and she looked as though she’d just rolled out of bed. She didn’t apologize for how she looked, so she may have been perfectly comfortable with it!
2 - The best one was an applicant for a fairly high level manager position. This candidate came in, could not sit still, and beside digging in his ear like Cindy mentioned, he constantly blew his nose into a hanky, and then checked it out. He also constantly adjusted various areas on his body throughout - very disconcerting! Seemed like a harrassment charge looking for a place to happen…
Nomi Says: July 24th, 2009 at 11:14 am
I’ve had several adult women show up for interviews with the kids. Screaming, unhappy kids who disrupt the office so badly I have to ask them to leave. I’ve also had several show up with their grandmothers, mothers, etc. We’re talking 35 to 40 year old women bring their family to an interview. You would think they would be experienced enough to know better.
The grandmothers are the worst. They want to be involved in the interview and they have had a tendency to chew me out when I don’t hire their granddaughters. I have a feeling they are desperately trying to get these women and children out of their houses by making them get a job.
This is an employee with drama that I don’t need.
Ann Says: July 24th, 2009 at 11:27 am
My favorite interviewee was about 15 years ago, the candidate was a man in his mid-50s. After a few minutes of small talk I asked him to tell me why type of office environment and management style he preferred and why. I can’t fully tell you his full response based on the numerous repeated racial/ethic slurs, but here is hte edited version: “I like an office where people are comfortable, I hate this PC cr**. I miss the days when you could make fun of b(slur for women), n(slur for African Americans), c(slur for Asian), s(slur for Latino), c(slur for middle Eastern), and f(slur for gay).” I thanked him for his time and explained to him that we were a diverse organization and that we do not tolerate language like that. He became indignant and told me I was missing out on a great opportunity to hire someone like him. A great opportunity for what?? A lawsuit?? The kicker- I got a call from the Dept of Labor a few weeks later, he tried to claim that I was practicing age discrimination. I repeated verbatim (no edits) what he had said during the interview. Needless to say, his age discrimination claim didn’t go any further.
GBERGR Says: July 24th, 2009 at 11:31 am
We once had a lobby full of applicants for a customer service representative position. Their appearance ran the gammut from hobo to hooker. One female applicant wore cut-offs and a t-shirt. The t-shirt had a hole in conspicuous area, and the lady wasn’t wearing a bra!! Another female applicant wore a red chiffon cocktail dress complete with rhinestone-studded spaghetti straps. Wow!
Cynthia Says: July 24th, 2009 at 11:32 am
My all time favorite is when an applicant was walking on the entrance to our building. He passed my window that had mirror reflective coating on the floor to ceiling windows - he could not see in and see me but I could see out and see him. As he passed my office he started looking at himself to see if he looked ok for the interview. He even checked out and adjusted his personal equipment (if you get my drift).
I did not know the person I saw was my candidate until I met him in the lobby and I had to keep a straight face during the entire interview.
Pat Says: July 24th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
OMG!! Thank you all for sharing your experiences! I was in tears (laughter) reading them all. Can’t say I have any story that will top any of them. However, I have had several candidates show up, inappropriately dressed for an interview either in very casual (t-shirt style and/or very revealing blouses/dresses). Once had two candidates (they were friends & applying for the same position) show up in sweat pants & shirt …. the position was for a Sales Assistant!! Thanks again, All!
Kathy Boyle Says: July 24th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
A few years ago I was interviewing for a position in our purchasing department. The male interviewee had written on his resume that he was a mime. During the interview his facial expressions ranging from toothy grins to exagerated frowns had me coughing and crying trying not to laugh, I could barely look him in the face trying not to laugh. It was the longest interview I have ever suffered through. At one point I thought it was a joke management was playing on me.
lwn Says: July 24th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
I had an in-person interview scheduled with a male candidate whom I had interviewed over the phone. The HR rep informed me that my candidate Amanda had arrived for her interview. I told her that I didn’t have an interview with an Amanda that it was with Matthew. The HR rep looked at me and nodded her head indicating she knew that and said this is your candidate. I went out and met a person who was quite apparently a guy who was dressed in drag. She never said anything about interviewing over the phone as Matthew and it was really hard to conduct the interview because the appearance was so distracting. I don’t know if this was a case of schizophrenia, just a gender issue or if she was in the process of changing her gender. Definitely a strange experience I will never forget!
Jill Says: July 24th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
I have an application from a guy who was applying for a Teller/Maintenance position. We didn’t have any openings for a Teller/Maintenance position at the time but we let him fill out an application anyway and this is what he wrote:
Employment HistoryFor the prior 3 months, he had been working at a local bowling alley as a “Pin Setter Mechanic”. His “Reason for Leaving” says “Wrongful Firing”. On the “May we contact this employer?” question, the guy checked “No”.
Now during that same 3 months, he also worked at a local Parts store, where he was a Delivery Driver. Reason for Leaving? He put “Fired, Question Motives”. He also checked “No”, we could not contact that employer either.
EducationHe received a 2 yr degree in Automotive Maintenance Repair at a Vo-Tech.He also received his 2 year degree in Nursing at a local college. He obviously was a man of many talents.
ReferencesThe first one listed both a first and last name.The second one had the initials “BJ”The third one said “Jeff M”He didn’t know any of their addresses but they all had the same phone number.And the frosting on the cake can be found on the back page. The question is “Have you ever been convicted of a felony or any offense including acts of dishonesty or breach of trust such as shoplifting?”Answer: “Possible, but not confirmed it so please let me know”
Please let him know what? Please let him know if he has been convicted of a felony or please let him know if we want to hire him? I was stumped
Joyce Says: July 25th, 2009 at 10:58 am
I will never forget the applicant I interviewed for a heavy truck driving position. It didn’t bother me that he showed up dressed in a wife beater t-shirt, it was the pot leaf earing in his ear that said DO NOT HIRE ME for a safety sensitive position.
Essie Says: July 25th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
A woman sloppily dressed in old jeans and a baggy T walked in the front door, talking on her cell. She stopped only long enough to look at me and say “Job Application”. I waited until she looked at me again, still talking, and pointed the building across from us, saying “Next door.” Before she could get there, I called over and said “Don’t hire the one walking in the door right now.”
Darla Says: July 27th, 2009 at 9:09 am
I once interviewed an obviously very angry man. Not only had he practically shaved his nose off that morning before coming in, leaving a big sore on it, but his fly was down and as he continually, casually rocked back and forth in the chair during the interview, his fly was opening and closing with the rocking motion as though his voice was coming out of his pants…needless to say, the angry attitude alone eliminating him from the choices.
KathyC Says: July 27th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Love these stories!
Howard L Says: July 28th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
I was taking applications for a “reciever” at our recycling scales. We do background checks. On one of the consent forms it asks “are there any other names you have gone by?” I’m guessing so we can search maiden names as well…
Anyway, one guy put “Crimeboy” the other name he went by!! We got a roaring laugh reviewing that application…
Angel M Says: July 28th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
I showed up to work one morning and my fisrt candidate to interview was passed out in front of the main door. He was out celebrating that he had gotten an interview.When i questioned the security guard why he left him there, he told me that he was here to see me so he let him sleep it off.So the guy was not interviewed and our security guard was terminated for not performing his job to our satisfaction.
Another HR Manager Says: July 28th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
I was holding interviews for a tutoring center position working with children. One resume I received had a gap in employment. When I asked the candidate about it, she said she, “took time off to have a boob job.” She also shared that this was a job-related activity, as it related to her hobby as an amateur porn star.
Really, you think I am going to let you work with my students? What would you say to them?
Debi Says: July 28th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
We recently had a guy come to our office to fill out an application - and he was already wearing one of our logo-shirts! Talk about coming in with confidence. Evidently his brother had worked for us about 10 years earlier - still had our shirt.
HRP Says: July 29th, 2009 at 6:44 am
Of all my years in HR, probably the funniest experience was when we were accepting handwritten applications. We had an entry level job and we received an application from a Neopolitan Elff. In the box labeled “Sex” he had written, once or twice a week! True story.
Jim Rittgers, SPHR Says: July 29th, 2009 at 7:33 am
HRP –
“In the box labeled Sex” ????? Was that 40 years ago when some applications asked that question?
HRP Says: July 29th, 2009 at 7:49 am
Dear Jim Rittgers, SPHR……You are close…..39 years ago, I was a co-op in HR. Believe it or not, I was turned down for a job because my skirt was too short! I have stories that would probably curl your hair…….
stacy Says: July 29th, 2009 at 8:12 am
I am new to the HR world as I just graduated from college a little over a year ago. I never dreamed that half of the examples my professors used in school would really happened! I woke up from that dream a little over a year ago when I received my HR recruiting position with my current company. I can not believe the way people represent themselves in resumes, cover letters, and in interviews. It’s UNBELIEVEABLE!!
My most recent resume came from a person who was recommended from an internal employee. I don’t know if this applicant just assumed they would receive the job because they knew someone within the company? It really bothers me when people want to get a job so bad that they don’t put any time and effort into our company. With the economy the way it is, people should be particularly careful as there are NUMEROUS applicants applying.
In this applicants cover letter they mention several highlighted skills. One of the skills was “attention to detail”. The person even went on to describe how this skill is a good representation of them and how it is extremely beneficial. In the VERY next sentence, the person says, “I look forward to the possibility of joining your close knit team at - - - - (insert a company name here that is NOT our company!)” I could not believe it. How can you list attention to detail as a top skill and then have that as your next sentence?
This applicant also gave us a good laugh by mentioning an award received in college for perfect attendance. Okay, maybe that would tell us that they will be dependable at work, but our attention was quickly taken away from the intended purpose when the applicant mentioned the class in which it was awarded, “Human Sexuality”. I’m sorry, but we were no longer thinking about their dedication to their school work, but rather the interest in the particular topic of discussion!
Thanks for all the great laughs this morning! =)
HR Mgr Says: July 29th, 2009 at 8:21 am
Several years ago I worked for a company as a recruiter hiring oilfield workers. Our application included the question “Have you ever been convicted of a felony?” One classic applicant wrote, “No, but I did have one Mister Meaner”. I have kept a copy of that application in my humor file ever since…
Cheryl Says: July 29th, 2009 at 10:35 am
About twice a year I get a resume from a gentleman who encloses lengthy explanations for why he left each prior employer. It reads like a soap opera. He left his first employer because they were discriminating against him. He got an attorney to represent him and it’s still an open case. He was fired from his second job because he spent too much time on the phone with his attorney discussing the lawsuit from his first job. He currently has a restraining order against him from our state senator because he called his office so many times to complain about his second job that a restraining order was placed on him by the senator’s office. (His second employer was apparently also harassing him because his new supervisor was friends with the supervisor from his first job so they were obviously out to get him.) I mean there are 3 pages of explanations that involve lawsuits, complaints to the EEOC, DOL and the state capital! Does this guy actually think someone is going to bring him in based on this resume?? His last cover letter also stated in big letters that he DOES NOT NEED INSURANCE unless he gets hurt at work then he would expect the employer to pay for it.
Unbelievable.
Mary D. Says: July 29th, 2009 at 11:49 am
While escorting an applicant to my office for an interview, the applicant answered his ringing cell phone while exiting the elevator. He held up one finger to indicate “wait a minute” and ducked around a corner and proceeded a short distance down a hallway in the opposite direction from the way we were headed. I continued on to my office and shut the door. I don’t know what happened to the applicant. But, since he didn’t attend the interview and never called again, I think he got the message.
A little off the subject is my most memorable…an individual’s attempt to get a job interview. Our receptionist tells most individuals to send their resume that I don’t take walk-in appointments. So, one day our receptionist calls telling me that I have a surprise waiting for me in the lobby. After questioning if it was flowers, a gift or something similar she said no it was someone from my past who wanted to surprise me. Again after much questioning she told me he was very good looking, wanted to surprise me and to please come to the lobby. Upon entering the lobby, I saw two seated gentlemen. I approached the receptionist and asked her where is my surprise as I looked around the lobby. She giggled and pointed to one of the seated gentlemen. As I approached the gentleman I introduced myself and asked if I could help him. I heard our receptionist in the background gasp and say oh no. Then the gentleman introduced himself stating that he was looking for a job. My response was, “So, you claim to be someone from my past.” He immediately responded, “No, but I would like to be someone in your future.” As I walked away, I told him it was obvious that we don’t have a past, but it was even more obvious that we don’t have a future. Then I called our receptionist and told her to call her relief because I wanted to see her in my office immediately. No, she wasn’t in trouble, we just had a really good laugh over some people have all the nerve.
Janet Whitaker Says: July 29th, 2009 at 11:50 am
About 16 years ago, a young man came in for an interview carrying a very large convenience store soft drink. When he sat down, he said, “Sorry about the drink, but the Prozac makes me very thirsty.” Yeah, that’s just what I wanted to hear…
HRD Says: July 29th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
About 5 years ago I was interviewing candidates for an internal training position. The incumbent would present training sessions to all employees from VP-level to blue-collar, union workers. I was looking for someone with confidence and poise along with our other pre-reqs to fill the position. I couldn’t afford someone whose feathers were easily ruffled. A woman came in for the interview. Her resume looked perfect for the role.
She got stuck in the turnstile going through security. She tripped over her own feet walking to my office. She heard a noise, turned quickly and her glasses fell off. Then, during the interview, she laughed so hard at one point that mucus came flying out of her nose and onto my conference table. She wiped it up with her hand and then on her pants.
I couldn’t get out of that interview fast enough.

HR Morning