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.

HRN is once again offering open enrollment quarterly online Performance Pro user training. Two one-hour online training sessions are being conducted on Wed. January 23rd at 9am and 1pm Mountain Standard Time. This is an excellent and economical way to train appraisers that are new users of Performance Pro or those who simply require a refresher course. If you are interested in attending email HRN at support@hrnonline.com.

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.