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).

HRN Management Group is pleased to announce the signing of our 600th active Performance Pro client. The distinction of being the 600th client belongs to Promedica Federal Credit Union located in Toledo, OH.