A recent CareerBuilder.com article by Kate Lorenz (http://www.careerbuilder.com/jobseeker/careerbytes/cbarticle.aspx?articleID=817) found the number of Americans whose employer allows them to work remotely at least one day per month increased 63 percent, from 7.6 million in 2004 to 12.4 million in 2006 (according to a 2007 report issued by WorldatWork). In total, the sum of teleworkers (both employed and self-employed) working remotely at least one day per month has risen 10 percent from 26.1 million in 2005 to 28.7 million in 2006. I’ve worked with many home-based colleagues, coworkers, and vendors over my career. Being in marketing, I regularly associate with home-based writers, designers, event planners, photographers, developers, programmers, etc. to perform my job. I don’t even think twice if I’m having a conference call with an associate and I hear a dog bark in the background or a baby being fussy. I do think twice about working with a home-based colleague if after several attempts my calls are not returned or receipt of my email’s confirmed. It all comes down to performance and professionalism.

Appraisal inflation is common in many organizations. But lenient or overly generous appraisals can have unintended consequences and real costs. Some of those issues and what can be done about them are discussed below. The Employee Is Hurt: Lack of accurate & meaningful feedback isn’t provided and the employee isn’t really made aware of his strengths or weaknesses. There is no understanding that a gap may exist between how an employee views herself and how a manager views her. Without true feedback the employee is unable to focus on what he needs to do to improve and to plan training or activities around that. An employee may have limited opportunity for advancement or development if she’s not aware of what she needs to work on.

A Federal appeals court in New York has ruled that employers must pay for overtime worked even if the employer did not approve it in advance. The case involved a nursing staffing agency’s policy refusing to pay for overtime not approved by a supervisor.

Although it must pay for the time worked, an employer remains free to have a policy requiring pre-approval of overtime and to discipline an employee for violating a rule that overtime must be approved in advance.

Note that such discipline must be imposed consistently and in proportion to how similar offenses are handled in order to minimize the risk of a retaliation claim under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

There’s certainly no right answer to the question.  It definitely depends on the nature of an organization, types of positions involved, role of the manager, and a number of other things.   But the subject comes up periodically in HR literature, often driven by consultants and professors who observe business trends but may never manage staff.

 

Managers, naturally, have their own ideas about the number of employees they can successfully oversee.   A recent (3/24/08) Wall Street Journal article “Overseeing More Employees with Fewer Managers” revisits the issue.  It notes that for some time the optimal number of people to manage was thought to be somewhere from 7-10. 

But the advent of flatter organizations, electronic communication (e.g., email, voicemail) and increased use of technology may permit oversight of a much larger number. At least some people think so as they suggest that as many as 30 employees can be effectively managed.  Those who advocate such an increase note that such a shift also requires a change in business practices and management style.  It may require such things as greater use of pay for performance, training, cascading of corporate goals, team goals and accountabilities, and more communication.   This issue can clearly be controversial and raises a number of significant questions and concerns.

Apparently faking a cough over the phone wasn’t enough for an employee wanting to get out of work. No, a Washington man apparently wanted a little more time off and had a flair for the dramatic so he had a friend shoot him in the shoulder to avoid work and a looming drug test.  He told his boss he was hit in a drive by shooting.   No word on whether the time off has morphed into permanent time away from the job.

 

While there still seems to be some disagreement among those in the military over whether waterboarding is torture, it appears that at least one supervisor thought it could be a motivational tool.  A Utah company and its supervisor are being accused of using this technique of making someone feel as though he is drowning, to motivate sales staff.   It is alleged that a supervisor took his team outside, held an employee down, and poured water into his mouth and nose. The employee, who claims he didn’t know what type of motivational exercise he was volunteering for, has sued claiming he is now sick and depressed.   The company president suspended the supervisor for 2 weeks, indicated that the actions were against company policy, and that the employee knew what he was getting into.

 

I couldn't make this stuff up. Reality is indeed stranger than fiction.

In the “old days” when the snow began to melt, the birds reappeared, and many Americans became excited about the NCAA basketball tournament, employers might worry that employees would spend too much time discussing the games and the office pool. Well, those days are gone.  This year, for the first time, all but one of the 63 games are available online.  Many early games are played during business hours.  You’re probably thinking… that will mean that a lot of employees will spend too much time watching games and checking score updates.  You’d be right.  But IT people see an even larger problem.  All that watching and use of bandwidth can bring networks down.  Many are fighting back and installing filters that block the online coverage.  So much for the technology revolution and the added productivity that has come with it.

A report from the Pew Center on the States has found that for the first time, one in every 100 American adults is behind bars. In the last 30 years the prison population has tripled, now standing at 1.6 million, with another 725,000 in municipal jails.  One in 36 Hispanic men is incarcerated and one in fifteen black men (one in nine black men from 20-24). The U.S. keeps more people in prison than any other country, even China. As a percentage of population the numbers are particularly attention getting.

 

That’s tragic, shocking, or interesting you may say, but what does it have to do with HR?   Well, most of those people eventually get out and apply for work.  Issues surrounding criminal backgrounds checks, how to handle results from such checks, avoiding discrimination against people with criminal records, and negligent hiring have all become more common issues.  If you haven’t had to face them yet, you most likely will.  It may be time to review your policies and procedures.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has just released its numbers involving private sector discrimination filings for 2007. They’re up by 9%, the highest increase since 1993, as the EEOC received 82,792 filings. Bias charges based on race continued to be the most frequent. Race has been the most common claim since the EEOC went into business in 1965. Interestingly, for the first time, retaliation was the second most common charge and was at record levels. Claims based on sex/gender moved to third. The next most common, in order, were filings based on age, disability, national origin, and religion.

The United States Supreme Court has issued several decisions that will impact employers.


First, regarding an age discrimination claim, the court has ruled that a charge questionnaire filed by an employee with a civil rights agency may be enough to actually be a filed charge. This decision poses the possibility that a wider range of documents filed with such agencies, short of formal charge documents, will have to be considered by the agencies, most of which now face charge backlogs.

Second, in another age discrimination case, the Court has ruled that courts can allow, but must carefully consider whether to allow, so-called “me too” evidence, i.e. evidence of another employee who also has claimed that the employer is biased in a context unrelated to the pending lawsuit (e.g. involving other employees, other supervisors and another department of the employer).

Finally, the court has expanded the type of lawsuit that can be filed regarding retirement benefits. The Court ruled that a 401(k) plan participant may sue to recover losses allegedly caused by a plan’s failure to properly implement investment directions. The plaintiff in that case claimed that the plan’s investors had not followed his directions on how to invest his 401(k) funds and thus should be liable for the related losses.

OK, so I haven't exactly been inundated with emails from avid "HR Fact Friday" readers wondering why there was no posting last week, but nonetheless I feel the need to account for myself. So what's my excuse . . . I took a few days off last week to take advantage of the deep, and fluffy, Utah powder. Yes, I went skiing, and it was a wonderful experience. Here in Utah, skiing is a multi-million dollar tourist and recreation mega-industry. And why? Because the snow in Utah is the best in the world. Something about the climate, humidity, and temperature combining to create ultra-fluffy snowflakes. All I know is the stuff is wonderful and this year . . . thankfully quite abundant. So last week we got some fresh dumps of snow up in the mountains surrounding Salt Lake City and I loaded up my skis and made the short drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon which leads to Alta and Snowbird resorts. Which brings me to the photo below which should include the caption: All work and no play (especially when there is fresh powder at Alta) make Paul cranky. Be assured, HR Fact Friday will be back this Friday.

If you receive a number of “official looking” offers to sell you government posters or scary sounding letters warning you of the dangers of being out of “poster compliance,” you are not alone. Many private firms sell government required posters. Some are quite ethical and simply provide a service by combining some of the required postings or presenting them in more attractive formats.  Others are less than ethical, by trying to appear as though they represent the government or by attempting to sell “updated” posters which really aren’t.   In any event, required posters are basically available for free through government agencies.   A good place to start your poster hunt is the Department of Labor’s website at www.dol.gov/compliance/topics/poster.htm.   At the site you will find a number of links to federal postings and even state sites.   You probably can’t stop the annoying mailings but you can smugly throw them away knowing you got your posters for free.

Who says government programs are not effective? The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently released its annual enforcement statistics. Inspections and cited violations are on the rise. Employee illness and injury at the workplace is on the decline.

In fiscal 2007, OSHA conducted 39,324 total inspections, a 4.3 percent increase over its stated goal of 37,700.  Total violations of OSHA’s standards and regulations were 88,846, a 6 percent increase from fiscal 2006.  The agency cited 67,176 serious violations, a 9 percent increase from the previous year and a more than 12 percent increase over the past four years.  The number of cited repeat violations also rose, from 2,551 in FY 2006 to 2,714 in FY 2007.    

“The fact that OSHA surpassed its inspection goal for FY 2007 proves our enforcement commitment remains strong,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA Edwin G. Foulke, Jr.  “The significant increase in citations for serious and repeat violations documents OSHA’s focus on identifying and eliminating severe hazards in the workplace.”

Fatality and injury and illness rates have continued to decline to record lows.  The injury and illness incidence rate of 4.4 per 100 employees for calendar year 2006 was the lowest that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has ever recorded.  Workplace fatality rates hit an all-time low in calendar 2006 with 3.9 fatalities per 100,000 employees.

---

Source: SHRM

You probably haven’t gotten over the excitement of the January 28th Amendments to the Family and Medical Leave Act which provide two new forms of leave relating to military service. Well get ready for more thrill and chills. On February 11th, the Department of Labor released its “much anticipated” revised FMLA regulations.

Employee absenteeism seems to be a growing problem. According to an annual survey by Careerbuilder.com 1/3 of employees admit to calling in sick even they though weren’t.  Increasing, many employees view sick leave as an entitlement or another form of vacation rather than time to be used when hit with the flu or accumulated and used should they be unlucky enough to have a long term illness.

 

We’ve probably all heard plenty of unbelievable excuses.  Some of the crazier ones, complied by Careerbuilder were found at www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/workflie/01/21/out.sick.  They include:

 

·         An employee’s dog wasn’t feeling well , so the employee tasted the food and got sick.

·         At her sister’s wedding, an employee chipped her tooth on a Mint Julep, bent over to spit it out, hit her head on a keg, and was knocked unconscious.

·         Someone put LSD in my salad.

·         Stuck on an island-   canoe floated away.

·         An employee was upset because his favorite American idol contestant was voted off.

·         A groundhog bit the employee’s car tire, causing it to go flat.

While some major employers are considering layoffs this year, further fueling fears that the U.S. economy is sliding into recession, small-business owners are poised to add jobs.  According to the Alternative Board, a Westminster, Colorado-based firm that provides advisory services, about 57 percent of the nation’s small businesses plan to hire more people in 2008. Less than 4 percent expect to downsize. Small firms also expect big things in 2008: Nearly 73 percent envision greater profitability, and 61 percent will increase their capital spending.

 

Affected workers transitioning from a large company to a small or medium sized employer will appreciate having a job and paycheck, but can expect the total benefits package they receive to provide less and cost more out of pocket. Small and medium sized businesses are feeling the crunch of constantly rising health benefits costs. Current trends are for small and some medium sized businesses to reduce or cut health care benefits completely. Another trend is for employers to offer lower cost, high deductible HSA plans. As a result of the trend for large corporations to downsize and small businesses to add headcount, America's healthcare coverage crisis may very well be the make or break presidential election issue of 2008.

Data Source: Workforce Management

Most Moms harp at their kids to do their homework, get good grades, and stay in school. Well Mom was definitely right, at least when it comes to the correlation between education and income levels.  According to numbers recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau, 86% of Americans over 25 are high school graduates.  Twenty-nine percent of us hold at least a bachelor’s degree.  Those with that college degree make, on average 55% more than high school graduates, earning $56,788 vs. $31,071.   Those with associates’ degree or some college earned slightly more than high grads ($34,650).   Advanced degree holders fared the best, averaging $82,320 annually.  Individuals who didn’t graduate from high school averaged $20,873.

 

Continued gaps remain between men and women at various education levels.  Male advanced degree holders averaged $101,441 vs. $59,636 for women.  Male high school grads earned $37,356 vs. $23,236 for women.  More information is available at www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/educ-attn.html.

On January 28th, President Bush signed into law a defense authorization bill (H.R. 4986) which expands the Family and Medical Leave Act. Among other things the new law expands FMLA coverage. It requires covered employers to:

As a child of the 70’s myself, and having been born and raised in California, I just couldn’t resist sharing the following employment law ruling in a case involving a California employee whose doctor recommended his use of marijuana to treat chronic pain. The employee filed a disability discrimination claim against his employer for firing him after testing positive for drug consumption. I have to admit I have mixed feelings on the case. I feel for the employee, and his painful condition, but I support the employer for enforcing a legitimate zero tolerance drug policy.

You’ve no doubt seen news reports of Americans seeking medical care abroad.  They’re either uninsured, underinsured, or simply trying to save money by having surgery in Latin America, Thailand, or India.  As you might have guessed this trend hasn’t gone unnoticed by corporate America seeking to save money on their health care or insurance carriers hoping to roll out a new product.

 

According to a recent report by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, 11% of surveyed employers cover medical tourism.  Those surveyed were Certified Employee Benefits Specialists and therefore part of large organizations.  However, don’t be surprised to see this trend extend beyond the very large companies to others seeking to find another way to control costs. 

 

A couple of other interesting findings from the survey included the increase in coverage (from 1999-2007) in other types of care that haven’t been considered mainstream.  Acupuncture coverage increased from 14% to 34%, massage therapy 8% to 13.5%, and nutrition therapy 5% to 12.8%.

 

As we start a new year it’s a good time to review workplace developments of 2007 and make sure that you’ve integrated applicable ones into your policies and practices. The information that follows highlights a few selected federal developments. Remember to check your state law as well. The states were very busy in 2007. In 2008 you can expect to continue to see a lot of activity on the federal and state levels that will significantly impact the workplace. Several possibilities are discussed below. In a slight modification of an old, trite saying: nothing is certain but death, taxes, and changes in HR law.

Is another form of mandatory employee leave on the horizon?  Beginning December 13, 2007 most New York employers must give employees who work 20 hours or more at least 3 hours of leave to donate blood within any 12 month period.  Illinois requires certain employers that let employees take time off to donate blood to use up to one hour of paid leave every 56 days.

Employers contemplating cutting back on medical benefits might want to mull this: A new survey shows that workers place an extremely high value on health care coverage.

In fact, according to a survey of 1,200 adults sponsored by the Center for State and Local Government Excellence, 84 percent of the respondents said that health insurance has become a “very important” characteristic when choosing a new job.

In fact, medical insurance outranked all other 14 benefits and offerings in the survey. Remarkably, pay ranked 10th on the survey—right below “being creative and intellectually stimulated.”

Another benefit—the corporate pension plan—ranked fourth, cited by 76 percent of respondents as being most important when evaluating a potential job.

---

Reprinted from Workforce.com. Filed by Mark Bruno of Financial Week.

Cost increases for U.S. group health care plans continue to hold steady as more employers take steps to keep spending under control. Most often, employer healthcare spending controls results in higher employee out of pocket spending via higher copays and deductibles. Unfortunately it’s the small employers with under 200 employees that feel the rising premium affects the worse and as a result fewer and fewer are able to afford to offer employee healthcare benefits. Group health plan costs increased 6.1 percent this year to an average of $7,983 per employee, up from $7,523 last year, according to a survey of nearly 3,000 employers released last month by Mercer.

Remember Clark Griswold sweating out receiving his Christmas bonus check to cover the downpayment on a new swimming pool in National Lampoon's all time Holiday classic, Christmas Vacation? Nearly every time I watch that movie with other people, the question invariably gets asked, "Have you ever received a Christmas Bonus?" A conversation then follows where individuals offer up their best, or worst Christmas bonus stories. I have noticed a trend over the years that fewer and fewer people can say they currently receive any kind of specific holiday bonus. Most concede they and their spouses are invited to attend a company "holiday event" such as a lunch or dinner party and/or are presented with a nominal gift card or voucher for a Holiday turkey, ham or cheese roll. Holiday social events and nominal gifts are looked forward to, appreciated and acknowledged, but really not considered by the worker to be a "bonus" even though providing them is completely optional and costs the company thousands of dollars to provide.

In a continuation of yesterday's posting . . . here are tips 6 - 15 from the HRN white paper entitled "Congratulations! You're a Supervisor. Now What?". Tips 1-5 were posted 12/20. To view and download the complete white paper go to: http://www.hrnonline.com/promo/freeNewsletter.asp. Click on the "Current Whitepaper" link. You can also quickly sign up to receive free monthly HR industry white papers.

As a service to the HR community, HRN Management Group researches and publishes monthly HR industry white papers. These informative documents can be received, at no cost, around the middle of each month simply by subscribing on the HRN website (http://www.hrnonline.com/promo/freeNewsletter.asp). Typically we do not post white papers to our blog but this month's has relevance to a much wider audience than the professional HR community. The white paper is for both new, and perhaps not so new, supervisors and managers and offers 15 tips to help them better understand and be more effective in their supervisory role. Today's posting includes tips 1 through 5. Tomorrow for my regular HR Fact Friday posting, I will include tips 6 through 15.

The power of the Blogosphere. Looks like others are paying attention to the retirement savings issue and looking for ways to encourage employees to enroll in retirement savings plans. Automatic enrollment is a good start . . . but what good is automatic enrollment if the employer has a 6-month or 12-month waiting period for plan participation eligibility?

#1. if an employee changes employers 5 times in their career, and each employer has a 12 month waiting period, that's 5 years out of 30 (16%!) that they will be inelligible for contributing to a retirement savings plan.

#2. En employee, especially early in their working career, is less likely to enroll after a 12 month period because they have become accustomed to budgeting their finances based on their paycheck prior to any 401(k) contributions being withheld. They will have a perception that they can't afford to bring home 3% less in their paycheck (even if the company is matching their contribution). In reality they are turning down a 3% pay increase because of the company match. And the 3% employee contribution is pre-tax so it's effect on the bottom line take home pay is hardly noticable.

With all that said . . . I was happy to read the article below that was posted this week on Workforce.com titled "Lawmakers Urge Ending 401(k) Waiting Periods"  (http://www.workforce.com/section/00/article/25/26/36.html).

The report found that more than one out of every three American workers born in 1990 will have zero dollars in a 401(k) or other similar style retirement savings plan! The GAO report estimated 36.8 percent of today's 17-year-olds will have no money in a 401(k) or similar plan when they retire. The numbers will be worse for low-income workers: 63 percent of them will have zero dollars in a 401(k)-type account when it comes time for them to retire.

In training, and in these postings, I often repeat myself by emphasizing that a supervisor who engages in a personal romantic relationship with a co-worker is involved in highly-risky behavior that could lead to lawsuits, job loss, marital difficulties and ruined careers. Such relationships usually create conflicts of interest and often lead to sexual harassment claims if/when the relationship ends. Recent news headlines may provide another example of the problems related to such relationships. The American Red Cross recently fired its CEO for engaging in a personal relationship with another Red Cross employee, perhaps one he supervised. The Red Cross, while not releasing details of the matter, stated that it concluded the married CEO had used poor judgment in the situation and that his ability to lead the Red Cross was diminished as a result.

A new study by Ernst & Young reveals that while employers are increasingly aware of the developing talent shortage that will be caused by retiring baby boomers, few companies are taking meaningful steps to deal with it at the critical middle management level. The report, the 2007 Aging U.S. Workforce Survey: Challenges and Responses-An Ongoing Review, found that while 41 percent of companies think the middle management level will be hit hardest by a retirement-related talent drain, 75 percent of them are doing succession planning for senior management positions only.

A recent article in the New York Law Journal outlined the following interesting ten commandments of employee performance evaluations: 1. Don’t let the time slip, if it is an annual review, do it on an annual basis. 2. Tell the truth. 3. Remember the audience and be accurate but professional…now is not the time to “Donald Trump” someone.