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.

One state government entity is getting an up-close and personal look at the challenges posed by the laws it must enforce. Ironically, the Utah Anti-discrimination and Labor Division (UALD), the state agency charged with enforcing the state’s employment discrimination laws, now has been accused of committing employment discrimination and retaliation itself.

In a lawsuit filed recently in Utah federal court, a former UALD claims investigator says she was subjected to discrimination and sexual harassment along with other female employees. She also alleges the UALD retaliated against her by terminating her employment after she registered her complaints.

According to the filed court complaint, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) considered the matter and decided there was reasonable cause to believe that the UALD violated the law in its conduct towards the plaintiff. The case will now play out in federal court.

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.

An article in the February 2008 issue of HR Magazine presents some interesting and somewhat troubling statistics that relate to the mindset of our future business leaders. A Junior Achievement / Deloitte & Touche USA LLP survey conducted among 726 U.S. teens concluded that for more than one third of them succeeding at all costs was the primary career objective.

 

• 38% of teens ages 13-18 said in the Sept 2007 online survey that lying, cheating, plagiarizing or behaving violently sometimes is necessary.
  
  Other findings released were:
  
  
• 71% feel prepared to make ethical decisions when they start working. (I don’t know if this is good news or bad news).
  
  
• 24% think cheating on a test is acceptable; 54% of those teens say their personal desire to succeed is their rationale.
  
  
• 23% think violence toward someone is acceptable in order to settle an argument or take revenge.
  
  
• 27% don’t think it’s fair for an employer to suspend or fire a worker for behaving unethically outside of work.
  
  
• 57% don’t think it’s fair for employers to make hiring or firing decisions based on what employees or job candidates have posted on the Internet.

 

Source: HR Magazine, Feb 2008, Kathy Gurchiek, Ethics, Schmethics, U.S. Teens Say, pg 26

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.

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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.