Ohio fared well in a recent Forbes magazine ranking of how hospitable the nation’s 50 largest cities are to working moms. Cincinnati ranked the nation’s sixth-best metro area for working mothers, while Columbus came in 13th.
With so many companies focused on downsizing to contain costs in a down economy, many employers have failed to prepare for a pending change that will significantly alter workforce demographics. Beginning in 2011, the first of the baby boomers will turn 65. As the rest of the roughly 70 million baby boomers follow, we’ll see a major shift in the age of our society—and our workforces. This shift will have a significant impact on employers.
As the person closest to your work, you’re also the best one to identify ways to improve efficiency and reduce costs associated with your job—which is exactly what most C-suite executives and business owners focus on. Just because they don’t ask for your innovative ideas doesn’t mean they’re not interested. Get your creative juices flowing with these five questions:
If you have a robust college-student recruiting program, make sure you consider students from all age groups for your open positions—co-op and internship programs, too. That way, other employees can’t point to your college-student recruiting program as direct evidence of age bias.
“The leaders of my organization say they understand how HR works, but they really don’t have a clue—and aren’t too interested in finding out.” That's a common complaint from HR professionals across the country. So how do you “train” your boss on HR and erase some of his or her misperceptions? Try these three strategies.
Half of the college seniors who intern at Enterprise Rent-A-Car wind up working there after graduation. Indeed, the St. Louis-based company for many years has made BusinessWeek’s list of the 50 Best Places to Launch a Career.
Don’t depend on comprehensive health care reform to significantly cut the cost of the health insurance benefits you provide to employees. Many of America’s best companies have found that a few best practices do a remarkably good job of improving employee health and controlling health care expenses. Here are some of the best practices in health benefits used by America’s best employers.
Alumni
programs have become crucial for customer relationship building, strengthening brands, and recruiting the best and brightest. Consider these tips for building your own alumni program as part of a relationship marketing plan:
Participation in new “social media” outlets is on the rise, creating many questions for employers. Should we be using social media to develop business or to recruit new talent? Should we allow employees to use social media at work? What types of restrictions do we need? Can we monitor off-duty conduct? And what are the potential liabilities?
Employers that need seasonal employees often rely on foreign workers to fill those slots. Workers from other nations must apply for an H-2B visa before coming to the United States to work. Until now, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals had not yet decided whether expenses related to H-2B workers’ travel to the United States had to be reimbursed by the employer. It has now decided that they do not.
It’s true and here’s why: Because legions of colleagues, current and past, have access to a job candidate’s profile on LinkedIn, their scrutiny keeps the candidate on the up-and-up. So potential hires are far less likely to lie about their job titles or dates of employment on a public profile as compared to a paper résumé.
IBM managers “all the way up the chain” are on Facebook—and if you’re not, “You feel like you’re doing something wrong,” one employee said. But most businesses don’t have a social media culture like IBM’s. Instead, more than half of all U.S. companies prohibit the use of such sites at the office. Such policies may create more problems than they solve.
Twin Cities employers have another recruiting tool. Ronald McDonald is lovin’ it here! In honor of the 30th anniversary of the Happy Meal, McDonald’s hired Sperling’s Best Places Research to evaluate the nation’s 50 largest metropolitan areas for family fun. When the results were tabulated, Minneapolis came out on top.
During a time of layoffs and budget cuts, you might not think a lot of organizations would be encouraging their employees to take lengthy sabbaticals—or that employees would feel secure enough to accept the offer. Yet six-week to six-month job pauses remain as common as ever. There are good reasons why the sabbatical is enduring even as other benefits become expendable.
In past recessions, furloughs—requiring employees to take a certain number of unpaid days off—were mostly limited to blue-collar workers. But this downturn is different. In the past two years, everyone from tech firms to state government has furloughed their white-collar employees. Experts offer the following options for furloughs:
When HR director Kris Dunn is in recruiting mode and gets your phone’s answering machine, he uses the occasion to judge you as a leader. “Good energy and kind of dynamic-sounding in your voice mail greeting? Cool. I’m more interested,” he says.
A survey of small business leaders performed by California-based TriNet Group says employee morale at small businesses was up or holding steady in the second quarter of 2009, according to 75% of respondents.
Movers who work for All My Sons Moving & Storage can check online to learn if they need to make the trip to headquarters to pick up a truck. CFO Ormando Gomez is recruiting more Internet-savvy movers—by using the Internet to recruit them.
If your organization is limping through the economic downturn, you’ve no doubt considered cutting down your labor burden to save money. Before you resort to radical surgery—in the form of layoffs—consider a more benign cure that increases the odds of a full recovery. Furloughs—requiring staff to take unpaid time off—can reduce payroll costs without inflicting long-term damage.
CEOs want their HR leaders to break outside the operational box and become more strategic players. But many HR pros are so bogged down by daily process, they have trouble lifting their heads out of the weeds. Here's a self-assessment to help you gauge the strategic value you bring to your organization.
When fans of natural cosmetics maker Burt’s Bees learned the company was selling itself to Clorox, a buzz of protest followed, as customers complained the bleach maker was not environmentally friendly. In response, CEO John Replogle went blogging ...
Large organizations have long realized that HR interns contribute to the bottom line. They’re inexpensive, productive and eager to impress. Now, with budgets cut to the bone, HR departments can use all the talented, low-cost staffing they can get. That’s especially true for small and midsize HR departments. Here are the best ways to find HR interns:
Whether they’re shooting off their own tweets or following others, employees using Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and personal blogs are creating liability and PR risks with their online rants, raves and company gossip. We’ve gathered the best of HR Specialist’s recent coverage of social media’s HR implications. You’ll find sound legal advice, and maybe a laugh or two.
Forty percent of Ohio’s 153,310 nurses will leave the profession within the next 10 years, according to a state government survey. It won’t be easy to train replacements because the state lacks qualified nursing school instructors. A bill in the Ohio Senate seeks the best ideas to combat the coming shortage.
According to a recent survey, 22% of employees say they use some form of social networking five or more times per week, and 15% admit they access social media while at work for personal reasons. Yet, only 22% of companies have a formal policy that guides employees in how they can use social networking at work. Here are seven key questions to ask when drafting a social networking policy for your workplace.
Managers and employees have opposing views of privacy when it comes to employees’ off-duty postings on social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook. In a recent Deloitte survey, 60% of executives said they have a right to know how employees portray their companies online, but 53% of workers said their off-duty posts are none of their employers’ business.
Just in the last few weeks there have been a slew of articles in the business press about recruiting. All have a common theme: prepare for the deluge…of candidates.
Family-friendly practices have suddenly taken a back seat as struggling businesses focus on the bottom line. Now employers are looking for other ways to give employees time off, albeit involuntarily. But when employers impose furloughs, forced shutdowns and reduced work schedules on exempt salaried employees in increments of other than a full week, it can jeopardize exemptions under the FLSA.
Full-time employees of Lehigh Valley Hospital & Health Network don’t pay for health insurance. Plus, the organization hands them a fistful of “wellness dollars”—$700 to be exact—to spend on anything from gym memberships to massage therapy. Not only does the program help current employees, but also it has improved recruiting.
Is your team producing the revenues and margins that you desire on a consistent basis? If not, fear not. A success formula can be implemented by any business owner in any industry to dramatically upgrade any sales organization.
Smart compensation pros can use this recession as an opportunity to re-evaluate how they pay employees. Here are four recession-smart compensation strategies that you might decide to continue even after the economy rebounds.
Two Ohio companies have made the 2009 Fortune magazine “100 Best Companies to Work For” list: Southern Ohio Medical Center, headquartered in Portsmouth, and OhioHealth, based in Columbus.
Three companies headquartered in Florida have made the 2009 Fortune magazine “100 Best Companies to Work For” list: Publix Super Markets, headquartered in Lakeland; Baptist Health South, of Coral Gables; and JM Family Enterprises, based in Deerfield Beach.
Two companies headquartered in Minnesota have made the 2009 Fortune magazine “100 Best Companies to Work For” list: General Mills of Minneapolis and the Mayo Clinic of Rochester.
Fifteen companies headquartered in California have made the 2009 Fortune magazine “100 Best Companies to Work For” list. Why did so many California companies make the list? Great benefits seem to be the reason.
Two companies headquartered in New Jersey have made Fortune magazine’s 2009 “100 Best Companies to Work For” list: Atlantic Health, headquartered in Morristown; and Novo Nordisk, based in Princeton.
If you think you might be leaving your job, voluntarily or not, you’ll need a comprehensive search strategy. Using a headhunter for yourself isn’t the same as using one to fill an HR position on your staff. You should be familiar with the two types of search firms: contingency and retained.
The global economic crisis that has forced U.S. employers to slash their salary budgets has not spared HR salaries. A new report says HR pros' base pay and incentive compensation grew more slowly last year. Compensation isn’t expected to rebound in 2009, either. Find out where you stand.
Organizations that appeal most to employees age 50 and older make it a point to focus recruiting efforts on that group. And they stuff their benefits packages with perks that help older employees balance work with caregiving responsibilities. Here are five best practices your organization can adopt.
Demand for highly skilled administrative professionals will remain steady this year, predicts the 2009 Salary Guides from Robert Half International. While starting salaries for admins are expected to rise 2.6% on average in 2009, employees with specific skills can command even more.
If your organization isn’t already planning or implementing measures to cut labor costs, it may soon have to. News that the United States has been in a recession since December 2007 suggests that HR professionals should prepare to reduce the labor burden—if only as a contingency plan.
A federal judge has given final approval to the settlement of a race discrimination lawsuit brought by financial advisors against Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc. The settlement establishes a $16 million fund, of which $14 million will be divided among class members who submitted claims.
New England College has filed suit against poetry professor Anne Marie Macari, alleging she stole its innovative master’s degree program in poetry and set up shop at Drew University in Madison.
Fewer employers may be hiring in 2009 (only 14%, compared to 32% last year), but the outlook isn’t entirely grim. Some employers will increase salaries, while others plan to offer flexible work arrangements.
Does your organization recruit via “word of mouth?” While
companies may be spending less on recruitment efforts during these
difficult economic times, be careful. A new court ruling says that
relying too heavily on this hiring tactic could, in fact, trigger a
discrimination lawsuit …
Everywhere you turn, something or someone is being promoted as “environmentally friendly.” U.S. employers are no different; they’re jumping into all kinds of green practices in a bid to improve their public images, boost employee morale/loyalty and potentially cut costs ...
To help your business stay relevant and organized in online
communities, Frank Gruber, a product strategist and social media expert
at AOL, offers the following advice:
From surveys of employees' lifelong dreams to alumni reunions to baby showers for moms-to-be, here's a rundown of seven innovative benefits practices employers are using to reward and retain the staff they need. They're compiled from the popular "What's Working" pages of HR Specialist's Compensation & Benefits newsletter.
The Minnesota Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities has recognized 11 companies for their innovative approaches to employing developmentally disabled workers. Award recipients include three grocery stores: Coborn’s in Buffalo, Byerly’s in Golden Valley and Culver’s in Stillwater.
Say your CEO tasks you with cutting HR department costs. You know technology can help slay that cost dragon, but you have no idea where to start. Instead of combing through hundreds of vendor web sites, use these nonbiased resources to search for the right HR tech products.
New research shows that more workers of retirement age are staying in their current jobs or returning to work, in part because of the sinking economy and dwindling nest eggs. Many of these older employees aren’t seeking full-time return at their past pay rates. They’re hunting for “bridge jobs.”
Snagging the best admins today means going beyond your local paper’s classified ads. More than half of employers find it challenging to recruit skilled professionals because of a lack of qualified staff and the higher cost of recruiting, reports a recent CareerBuilder.com survey.
If you want support from the C-suite for work/life benefits, tout flexible schedules and telework as tools that do more than aid recruiting and retention. In a recent survey, CFOs said that for flexibility to succeed, organizations have to perceive it as more than an employee perk.
Most managers have faced this dilemma at least once in their careers: A candidate looks great on paper and gives a knockout interview; but two weeks into the new job, you're less than enthused. You now have a choice: Cut your losses or run a salvage operation.
As an HR pro, you may have had to guide managers through tough decisions about which functions, jobs and people must be preserved as your organization digs in to survive tough economic times. Don’t neglect your own department!
In many cases, the best candidates for your job openings aren’t in the job market. They’re happily employed elsewhere, and they need a major incentive to show up at your door for an interview. A new start-up job board intends to create that incentive ...
On-site scuba lessons, desks on wheels, employee shopping sprees and unlimited time off are just a few of the ways innovative employers recruit, reward, retain and refresh workers. See if any of these best practices—some simple, some extravagant—inspire you to take a fresh look at your company’s perks.
“Our People Are Our Greatest Assets.” It’s been one of the business world’s favorite clichés for decades. For just as long, it’s prompted eye rolling from the greatest assets themselves. Now a provocative BusinessWeek article takes HR to task for allowing talking the talk to stand in for walking the walk. Do any of these accusations sound familiar?
More than 60% of all job seekers rely on web sites to learn about employment opportunities. Yet the career pages on too many employers’ sites remain hard to use, uninformative and so frustrating that many potential applicants simply give up and go looking elsewhere. If only there were some good examples of how to do career sites right! Good news: Here are links to the nation's 25 best.
Your organization wouldn’t offer flexible work arrangements like flextime and compressed workweeks if managers didn’t believe the benefits—better employee engagement, recruitment and retention—outweighed the costs. Still, a recent survey by Hewitt Associates found that few organizations have formal and consistent policies in place to manage their flex programs ...
Technology company EMC saves money on recruiting by sending its high-potential employees to school—at an in-house university. More than half of the Hopkinton, Mass., organization’s corporate-level director positions are filled from within ...
Employee transfers have always somewhat of a hard sell for employers. But making a move in the current housing market is fraught with peril for all parties.
It's possible for an organization to keep or even add employee benefits while tightening its belt and saying no to labor-intensive new products. How? Offer more voluntary benefits, which require little to no administration by HR and are paid for entirely by employees who choose to accept them ...
Winning a spot on any of the dozens of coveted “best companies” lists can reap your organization a world of positive publicity and boost your reputation among potential recruits. But to win, you need to know how to play the game. Compensation & Benefits asked the experts to share some tips for placing well on the many “best companies to work for” lists ...
Say you’ve decided to hire a professional employer organization (PEO) to handle some of your HR services—or you’re considering new PEO vendors to replace your current one. You have a choice of more than 700 PEOs to choose from. Prices and services offered by PEOs vary so much it's hard to spot the best deal ...
Verizon Wireless is keeping its employees longer by keeping them educated and trained. The Basking Ridge, N.J.-based company pays tuition for employees to earn business-related degrees ...
Think for a minute: How’s the ROI on your employee referral program (ERP)? If you can’t name one great ERP-related hire in the past five months, that’s not a good sign. As a result, it may be time to jump on a more modern method of sparking internal recruiting ...
Your organization’s youngest workers learned an important lesson about the workplace from their parents: You can’t count on keeping the same job for your whole career. If you want your talented Gen Y employees to stick around, you’re going to have to change the way you look at employee benefits. Here are three things they want that might surprise you ...
Temping isn’t just for rookies anymore. Demand for qualified HR temporary staff is way up and is gaining among all HR pros—both novice and experienced—who are using temp employment to further their careers at all levels. Here are some tips to navigate the temp-HR landscape ...
Think for a minute: How’s the ROI on your employee referral program (ERP)? If you can’t name one great ERP-related hire in the past five months, that’s not a good sign. As a result, it may be time to jump on a more modern method of sparking internal recruiting ...
As medical care gets more expensive—and employees stay as unhealthy as ever—your organization probably is trying to cut costs wherever it can. One of the best ways: implement programs that prevent disease. Preventive services such as immunizations, preventive medications, screenings and counseling are effective at keeping employees healthier ...
Say you need just the right person for a key executive position, so you bring in a recruiting firm for the first time. But the result is a small, inferior candidate pool and/or the new hire jumps ship after three months. The process takes longer than it should and you overpay for inefficient service. Advice: If you must hire a recruiting firm, avoid these common mistakes ...
With gas prices shooting past $4 a gallon, employees with long commutes may be rethinking their job choices. You can help ease their pain (and collect some tax breaks) by introducing commuter-assistance benefits and programs. We offer tips and case studies that explain how to do it.
Nearly two-thirds of all job-seekers rely on web sites to learn about employment opportunities, according to a Gallup Poll. Yet the career pages on many employers’ web sites remain hard to use, uninformative and so frustrating that many potential applicants simply give up and go looking elsewhere. But some organizations do get it right ...
Your organization wouldn’t offer flexible work arrangements like flextime and compressed workweeks if managers didn’t believe the benefits—better employee engagement, recruitment and retention—outweighed the costs. But few organizations have formal and consistent policies in place to manage their flex programs. Try these eight ways to make sure your flex plan works for your organization—plus six ways to measure its effectiveness.
“What do you think, Mom?” College grads entering the work world are likely to ask such questions when weighing job offers, according to a new study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). As a result, some employers are reaching out to parents, but overdoing it can be a turnoff ...
Many of the new teachers who take jobs with the Charles County, MD, public school system need help adjusting to small-town life after they are hired. That help comes in the form of a teacher-services department staffed by a secretary, a veteran teacher and an HR specialist ...
You view your employee referral program as a hands-down success, but take a closer look at those referred candidates. Do they have the same skills, backgrounds, racial and ethnic traits as the people who referred them? Has that led to a homogeneous-looking workforce? That’s a big red flag. It indicates that your referral program may actually be creating what recruiting consultants call “employee inbreeding.”
Despite the economic gloom that’s dominated the headlines for the last year, there’s a ray of hope for employees—and perhaps a sign that employers are bullish on business prospects for 2009. A pair of new surveys shows that employers are proceeding with plans to pay their workers more next year.
A recent study conducted by CNBC concluded that Texas is “America’s Top State For Business.” The cable TV news study scored each state on 40 measures of competitiveness covering 10 categories ... Texas’ highest rankings were in economy, technology and innovation, transportation and cost of living.
You expect colleges and universities to prepare your youngest workers for their new jobs. But are you prepared for them? Twentysomething employees expect the workplace to greet them with technology that is no less cutting edge than the tools they use in their personal lives and on campus. Here are seven ways to use technology to retain Gen Y’ers ...
If, like many employers these days, you cut down on recruiting costs by using a computer-based kiosk application system, consider adding a warning before applicants begin the process. Colorado makes it a crime for a person to knowingly access “any computer, computer network, or computer system … to obtain, by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations or promises, money, property, services … or other thing of value” ...
For a week each year, the Society for Human Resource Management’s Annual Conference becomes the center of the HR world. HR Specialist editors have joined 13,000 of our peers in Chicago this week for four days of professional development covering HR’s hottest topics and presented by the profession’s leading experts. Here’s some of the best from the world’s biggest HR conference.
Many companies design succession plans so they can spot the next generation of leaders early and develop current employees to their full potential. But if everyone tapped for special treatment comes from the same race or gender—or the chosen group excludes older workers or the disabled—employers may find themselves facing discrimination litigation ...
If your organization hires summer interns, be prepared to offer them more than a lunch and a souvenir coffee cup. If you hope to cultivate those interns as future permanent employees, it is important to pay them ... But beyond the big bucks, try these tactics to recruit capable interns who will consider signing on permanently after graduation.
Are you under pressure to make your work force better reflect the racial or ethnic composition of the surrounding community? If so, be aware that manipulating hiring or promotions to achieve that goal at the expense of any particular race may mean a reverse discrimination lawsuit ...
Question: “What’s your favorite technique for handling telemarketing calls? We
get several every day and it’s very frustrating. It’s bad enough
getting them at home much less at work, too.” — Jeannette Clarke
Recruiting foreign workers who come to the United States via work visa programs requires carefully adhering to Title VII and other discrimination laws, just as if you were recruiting U.S. workers. Make sure you (or your representative) aren’t pushing foreign workers into different visa programs based on sex or some other protected characteristic ...
Most employers that offer health insurance to employees also let them buy additional coverage for family members. Perhaps it’s not so unusual then that some companies provide optional pet health insurance. After all, for many people, pets are part of the family, too ...
As U.S. senators, front-running presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama each earn $169,300 per year. But what if pay rates in the Senate reflected demographic realities of the modern American work force? Then Clinton would make $130,361 a year, while Obama would earn $125,282.
Can a boss hire or promote people simply because he has a religious
obligation to “help his own?” Can managers incorporate their religious
beliefs when making employment decisions?
Your organization could be missing out on some top talent if you shrug off the new high-tech applications and résumé tools that could someday make paper résumés obsolete. Here are some of the more popular high-tech methods that candidates (especially young ones) are using to market themselves, plus some of the advantages and disadvantages of welcoming them ...
Question: “We’re looking to expand the reach of our recruiting efforts, so I’m
considering using some of the larger online services such as Monster,
Hotjobs and Careerbuilder. However, I’m worried that we’ll be buried in
e-mailed resumés and applications from every unemployed person out
there. Does anyone have experience (as an employer) using these
services? What tips can you offer to make them as productive as
possible?”—PT, Tucson
Advances in genetic research have renewed attention on the workplace implications of genetic testing. Genetic research has many potential benefits. But there is growing concern that employers with access to genetic information may use it to discriminate ...
You may have seen the "60 Minutes" report last Sunday on the "millennials"—the 80 million Americans born between 1980 and 1995. They're your new employees and they're...well... different. Some of them even want mom and dad to come along with them to job interviews. And that's just fine by some large employers.
Sometimes you have to sweeten the pay pot to attract highly qualified employees. But before you pay wildly dissimilar salaries to people in the same or similar positions, make sure you justify the differences. There are two ways to do that ...
Are you overpaid, underpaid or in the right ballpark? A new survey of 88,000 HR professionals provides average compensation levels for dozens of HR positions. Plus, it highlights an important trend--incentive compensation is growing more common in the HR world.
As the HR profession celebrates National Work and Family Month—you knew October was National Work and Family Month, didn’t you?—it’s time to stock up on innovative benefits ideas from U.S. employers. From wellness incentives to “future leave,” these best practices help attract and retain great workers ...
Recruiting and interviewing potential new hires can be time consuming, but for many employers the process is far from boring. In fact, given some of the wacky things candidates include on their résumés and blurt out during interviews, hiring may be the funniest part of an HR pro’s job.
Unless you take great care to document how you use Internet and university job sites, you may find yourself spending quality time with an EEOC auditor.
Q. My family has operated a small medical supply business for many years. Lately, our business has really taken off, and we now have more than 20 employees in different job categories. We are wondering whether we should develop written job descriptions for the different positions. If so, where should we begin? ...
Florida employers were required to have smoke-free workplaces since the mid-1980s, but the state recently amended the Florida Clean Indoor Air Act to comply with the Florida Health Initiative. The law prohibits smoking in an “enclosed indoor workplace” with the exception of ...
One-third of the federal government’s chief human capital officers say their employer should replace its general schedule pay system with pay for performance ...
When it comes to recruiting and retaining, organizations don’t need to reinvent the wheel or create bold initiatives to attract and keep the best workers. Sometimes, simply doing the tried-and-true things right are all you need ...
When Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta wanted to create a central staffing pool of nurses last fall, it launched the “100 Nurses in 100 Days” recruitment drive. It was unheard of to hire that many nurses in such a short period of time, says Megan Graham, director of recruiting. To attract enough nurses, the hospital had to get creative with its recruitment efforts ...
Unfortunately, your HR personnel files are a goldmine for identity thieves,
filled with all kinds of juicy personal data. But a new court
ruling shows that the rise in identity theft doesn’t excuse employees
from disclosing their SSNs to employers ...
No doubt you’ve read recent accounts about the prevalence of identity theft and the use of Social Security numbers to obtain fraudulent credit cards and other documents. But the rise in such crimes does not excuse employees from giving their Social Security numbers to employers ...
Earlier this year, the EEOC announced its Eradicating Racism And Colorism from Employment (E-RACE) Initiative to “strengthen its enforcement of Title VII and advance the statutory right to a workplace free of race and color discrimination” ...
Having a hard time finding seasonal help this summer? You’re not alone. The age-old summer ritual of American kids working at the local movie theater and swimming hole is quickly eroding. Fewer than half of 16- to 19-year-olds were either working or looking for work in June, down from 60% just seven years ago ...
Efforts to increase diversity and retention form the basis of two programs at New York-based Deloitte & Touche. The Breakthrough Leadership Program identifies about 25 of the company’s top minority professionals who exhibit leadership qualities ...
Adopt a “zero tolerance” policy for managers or supervisors who make racist comments. Those caught making derogatory or discriminatory comments (à la Don Imus) should be promptly shut down. If you don’t fire or at least remove them immediately, their words may come back to hurt the company ...
Don’t keep it a secret if your organization does good for the community and the environment. Let employees and job applicants know about your corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts ...
Turnover among female employees at New York-based KPMGhas declined by 22 percent in the past three years. One big reason: The KPMG Network of Women, or KNOW, helps female staff with professional development ...
HR is becoming less of a task-oriented profession and more of a project-management one. The biggest example: outsourcing. Follow these tips to use outsourcing to demonstrate your business acumen ...
Question: “We’re revisiting our health plan, and are looking at when new
employees should be eligible for coverage. Insurance companies we’ve
spoken to say we can sign people up for coverage after the first full
month of employment. A couple of executives think we should let
employees sign up only after they have completed our 90-day
introductory period. The company will be paying half the employees’
premiums. How long should an employee be on the payroll before becoming
eligible for company-paid health insurance?” -- Evey, New York
Find out what people (possibly your ex-employees) are saying about your organization on their personal blogs, some of which have heavy readership. To do this, plug your organization's name into a blog search engine ...
Almost a quarter (23.8 percent) of the people answering a new Right Management Consultants survey say they think it's very possible or somewhat possible that they could lose their jobs in the next 12 months ...
Your unique vantage point in HR equips you to identify managers with the potential to become company leaders. By sharing your insights with top execs, you'll help build organizational excellence and make yourself more valuable. Use these tips to alert top execs to possible future leaders they might be missing ...
Soaring health costs are forcing many small firms to shift more cost burden to employees or drop coverage. But be aware that many companies are taking a third option: offering a limited medical health insurance plan (or "mini med") that provides bare-bones health coverage ...
For the first time, the Internet is producing more than half of all new hires. A Booz Allen Hamilton survey shows that 51 percent of all new hires in 2005 came via some form of Internet recruiting connection ...
A CollegeGrad.com survey of 500 recent college graduates asked, "Which size company you'd most like to work for?" The response: 70 percent favored small to midsize companies ...
Demand is rising for employees who speak multiple languages. But employers need to be cautious about hiring: Some apparently bilingual employees who look good on paper don't always pan out as promised in the language department ...
Immigration solidified itself as the top hot-button HR issue of 2006 last month. Amid the backdrop of immigrants' rights rallies around the country, Congress is debating legislation that could add to employers' duties and risks in policing immigration ...
The EEOC recently sent a powerful signal about its enforcement priorities when it published newly revised employer guidance on workplace race and color discrimination. The message: Employee complaints of race bias or color bias will be pushed to the top of the EEOC's inbox ...
A federal investigation of companies that allegedly backdated employees' stock options already involves more than 100 companies, and it has prompted the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to require more disclosure of executive pay ...
Soaring gas prices earlier this year led many employees to seriously consider bailing out of their long commutes and find jobs closer to home. While gas prices have moderated (at least for now), many employees still face long, expensive, time-wasting trips to work. To ease employees' pain, employers are increasingly turning to creative commuter benefits ...
If your organization is eager to lure younger talent, the average 2006 college graduate owes $20,000 in student loans. That's why a growing number of organizations are turning student debt into a powerful tool for recruiting and retaining recent grads ...
While some Baltimore residents suffer through a one- or two-hour commute every morning, employees at Johns Hopkins University are sleeping a little later. Since the university began participating in Baltimore's "Live Near Your Work" program in 1998, about 220 employees have received $2,000 grants to buy homes close to the university's three campuses ...
Two consecutive years of explosive job growth in the executive employment market are creating hiring headaches for HR professionals across the country. According to a recent ExecuNet survey, two-thirds of corporate recruiters already believe that the supply of qualified executive talent falls short of the growing hiring demands of corporate America ...
It's back-to-school time, and not just for children. Many of your employees—and would-be employees—will enroll in college classes this fall. And while those courses will make employees more competent and promotion-worthy, they'll also wreak havoc on their schedules, both at work and at home ...
Supporting a balance between employees' work lives and personal lives "is in the best interest of national worker productivity." At least that's what Congress declared in 2003 when it decreed that October shall be deemed "National Work & Family Month" ...
Good news on the recruiting front: “The young and the restless” are flocking to Atlanta. They’re the most coveted demographic in the nation: 25- to 34-year-old, highly educated professionals ...
Dogged for over a decade by lawsuits alleging racial and sexual discrimination, the city of Fort Lauderdale has been working to change that atmosphere. But two recent instances of hostile employee pranks marked a major setback for the city’s effort ...
Say you’re part of an overworked two- or three-person HR department that struggles to keep up with basic administrative duties. Advances in HR self-service technology and the need to cut costs are pushing some organizations to transfer basic HR duties to their management team ...
In the process of recruiting, hiring, firing and just running a business, employers accumulate a large amount of personal data from applicants, employees and business associates. Florida law requires employers to take reasonable steps to safeguard such personal data ...
Facing pervasive labor shortages, many hospitality employers in Florida are paying big bucks to recruit employees from as far away as Brazil and Romania ...
Fortune’s latest list of the “100 Best Companies to Work For, 2007” includes five Ohio employers, led by California-based Vision Service Plan, which ranked No. 23 ...
Say you want to implement a new training program for sales reps. But every time you propose a new HR initiative like this, executives question whether it can work or say the company can’t afford it. Next time, take a different approach ...
In their zeal to attract good candidates, HR people and hiring managers often show job candidates only a shiny, happy picture of the organization. That's not smart ...
More HR professionals are turning to search engines and social networking sites to dig beyond a candidate's résumé. But the benefit of uncovering such red flags can carry some big legal risks. Here's how to Google for candidates in the most legally safe way ...
Employees of 1-800-Contactsin Salt Lake City can feast on prime rib with Yukon Gold potatoes and a vegetable for just $2.50 in the company restaurant, a treat from their employer ...
HR Law 101: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars discrimination based on race, national origin and religion. The law applies to all employers that have at least 15 full- or part-time workers and includes U.S. companies that employ Americans abroad ...
HR Law 101: Sex discrimination and sexual harassment are illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The law requires that employers treat male and female workers equally in all terms and conditions of employment ...
When ranking the number of entry-level professional positions available, Dallas ranks third in the country behind larger markets New York City and Chicago ...
Looking for ways to boost your recruiting efforts and retain the best talent? Take a cue from the eight New Jersey companies chosen for Working Mother magazine's list of the "100 Best Companies" for women to work ...
Employee benefits are, in many cases, a lot like other pieces of an organization's culture: They're there because, well, they've always been there. But in these days of constantly rising health insurance costs, employers can't afford to keep providing benefits just because that's the way they've done things in the past, said Gary Kushner, president of Kushner & Co. benefits consulting firm ...
Fortune’s latest list of the “100 Best Companies to Work For, 2007” includes four Michigan employers, led by Wisconsin-based S.C. Johnson, which ranked No. 7 nationally ...
Employees at Amherst, N.Y.-based Ivoclar Vivadent started walking in the spring, and for 20 weeks, they didn’t stop. Thirty teams of four people each used pedometers to count their steps and competed to see who could walk the most. ...
Law firms often eschew scheduling flexibility because their income is based on billable hours. But the loss of a few hours isn’t as expensive as recruiting new lawyers. That’s why law firm Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Grahamintroduced its Balanced Hours program, allowing its busy lawyers to telework and flex their schedules ...
If your organization aims to attract a younger, more hip clientele, watch how you convey that idea to employees who don’t fit your target demographic ...
Say the wrong thing during the hiring process, and you’ve got a lawsuit on your hands. Here are three tips to help keep supervisors’ feet out of their mouths ...
HR Law 101: In 2007, the EEOC introduced E-RACE, an initiative for “Eradicating Racism And Colorism from Employment.” The initiative’s goal: to eliminate recruiting and hiring practices that lead to discrimination by limiting an employer’s applicant pool. The EEOC noted that the makeup of an employer’s workforce is “highly dependent on how and where the employer looks for candidates.”
HR Law 101: Some employers and employees choose to enter into an employment contract. Usually the worker is seeking job security, while the company wants to protect its trade secrets and sales territories. However, if you sign an employment contract, you may find that you’ve given away more than you bargained for ...
Think you’ve got no time during the holidays for recruiting, and that nobody’s looking for work, anyway? Wrong! December and early January may be among the best times to hire, says Right Management Consultants VP
Katherine Ponds.
“Whole” leaders balance head, heart and guts, while “partial” leaders
lag in one or two qualities. Here’s a series of questions to determine
if you or your organization are balanced, along with adjustments you
can make:
A key employee jumps ship to work for your competitor. Over the next several months, you lose some of your best customers to the competition. Unless your former employee signed a nonsolicitation agreement, there’s little you can do.
Even though we warned you recently not to let employees take undue advantage of them, flexible work options continue to offer small businesses a significant advantage over large businesses in recruiting and retaining employees.
“I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” It may be the punch line to an old joke, but it can also be a valuable message that small business owners overlook.
Hugh Panero did not give up. The chief executive at XM Satellite Radio spent two years recruiting
investors to support his plan for becoming the world’s largest
subscription radio service. He nearly saw it slip away when the backers
set a make-or-break deadline.
Issue: Some new job boards this year take their cues from dating sites, trying to match employers with applicants. Benefit/risk: Such sites can eliminate unqualified applicants, but they're fishing in ...
Issue: Safety-conscious companies look beyond the bottom line. Benefit: In addition to reducing costs and boosting morale, safety can be promoted as a recruiting tool to applicants. Action: Reduce ...
Issue: Right now, your organization's public image may be under attack on Web sites, chat rooms and blogs. Benefit: By putting out such brush fires before they rage out of ...
Issue: Recruiting "passive" job candidates requires a different strategy than ones used to attract active job-seekers. Benefit: Choose the right words in that initial contact to prevent quick rejections and ...
Question: My friend was sent on an interview by a placement agency.
She felt uneasy about the position after the interview because they told her
that she would have to work overtime frequently. She, unexpectedly, was offered
the position although she let the company know that she needed a set
schedule.
When the agency called my friend, she told them that she was concerned about
the overtime that she was told would be expected of her. She told the agency
that, to make an informed decision, she wanted to speak to the interviewer again
to get clarification. She was told that she could not contact the employer
directly.
The agent told her that she had spoken w/other people whom she had placed
with the company, and none had worked overtime in the past few months. The agent
also told her that if she was concerned about not being able to pick up her kids
up from daycare on time, most daycares are open until 6 p.m., so a little bit of
overtime shouldn't affect her.
Is it me or does this sound suspect? I realize that these placement agencies
are salespeople and will make the position sound as great as possible to get
their fee.
My friend doesn't want to take a position and end up having to leave soon
after. Should she go against what the placement agent said and contact the
company directly, or just refuse the job and risk not being sent on another
interview again? The agent was very upset about her apprehension. -- Vita, Pittsburgh
You can now simplify your online recruiting process by registering for an Internet address that ends in ".jobs." The .jobs domain was approved earlier this year and SHRM announced that registration ...
THE LAW. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) makes it illegal to discriminate in the work-place against people over age 40 on the basis of their age. The law ...
Issue: Becoming more involved in a local college's career programs, beyond attending job fairs and posting openings. Risk: Your organization can morph itself into an employer of choice for interns ...
Issue: Your Web site's "Career" page is the first (or only) experience that many potential applicants have with your organization. Risk: Blow this opportunity, as many do, and those star ...
The U.S. Labor Department launched a campaign to build awareness of its Employer Assistance & Recruiting Network (EARN), which matches skilled disabled employees with private-sector job openings. The site, www.earnworks.com, has ...
To help streamline your recruiting process, your organization can now apply for an Internet address that ends in ".jobs." The jobs domain was approved earlier this year and will be up ...
Issue: Some employers have begun firing employees who smoke and refusing to hire job candidates who do. Should you do the same? Benefit/risk: Corporate smoke-outs can reduce your health costs ...
Issue: Forty-four percent of employees are "passive" job-seekers, meaning they might accept a job offer but aren't actively seeking one. Benefit: Knowing how to manipulate the Internet to find such ...
If you're looking to fill seasonal or permanent positions, check out a new government program that helps employers hook up with college students with disabilities. The Labor Department's Workforce Recruitment ...
Starting as early as August, you'll be able to publicize job openings online using a Web address that ends in ".jobs." The Internet's main oversight agency just gave its final approval ...
Ever since media reports focused earlier this year on a Michigan company's strict policy banning smokers on staff, many employers have asked the question: "Can we, should we, do the same?" ...
The hassle and cost of slogging to work is a big reason that good employees quit. And commuting pains aren't easing: Two-thirds of new jobs are now located in the suburbs, ...
Issue: Employees tend to refer people with similar characteristics to themselves. Risk: Overrelying on employee referrals can create a homogeneous work force and spark discrimination complaints. Action: Limit referrals ...
Employee-referral programs have become one of the most successful and least expensive recruiting strategies. But even with their popularity, employee-referral programs can be double-edged swords. Relying too much on employee ...
Janice Bryant Howroyd was the first to integrate her North Carolina high school, where her teacher explained “why Africans were so well-suited to slavery and how we’d be much poorer as a society if we went any further with this affirmative action.”
Issue: With the economy heating up, headhunters are on the prowl for talent. Benefit: Developing a strategy will position you as a big-picture person who's got the organization's best interests ...
Issue: The 2003 upturn in HR salaries picked up pace in 2004. Benefit: Such robust pay growth provides more bargaining power with your boss and on the open market. ...
Issue: Performing an HR department audit to gauge your organization's compliance and lawsuit risks. Benefit: Head off legal action, streamline your HR processes and earn kudos from the boss for ...
While the presidential election outcome won't likely change your competitors' hiring plans, it could produce a small economic boost in certain industries, according to a new poll by outplacement consulting firm ...
Small employers may be hurting their productivity by offering more generous family-and-medical leave benefits than legally required. That's the message of a new National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) study, ...
Expect the presidential election outcome to produce a small economic boost in certain industries, according to a new survey by outplacement consulting firm ...
One of the first indicators of an improving job market is a rise in temporary-help jobs. Why? Many organizations, still cautious about taking on full-time employees, test the market first by ...
If you’re hoping to hire top talent, you’ve probably thought about recruiting one of a competitor’s brightest and the best: someone with proven skills and achievements. Maybe you should think again.
Issue: How much should you, or the hiring manager, "sell" a position versus giving the full picture, warts and all? Risk: Providing an overly rosy scenario will create ...
Who is a serious applicant, and who is simply a "résumé blaster"? It's an important question, and the federal government is making it easier for you to decide.
At age 8, Michael Dell answered an ad in a comic book promising a high school diploma by taking a simple test. The saleswoman who showed up at the Dells’ door a few weeks later nearly fainted when “Mr.Michael Dell” turned out to be a kid in a red bathrobe.
Noncompete agreements are easier signed than enforced. So your noncompete restrictions must give the person a "reasonable opportunity" to pursue a livelihood in his or her chosen field. What's considered ...
Issue: You probably track several HR-related numbers, but are you sure you're tracking the right ones? Benefit: By tracking the right metrics, you enhance your perception as a strategic partner. ...
Issue: More employers are offering domestic-partner benefits to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples. Benefit/risk: Such benefits can provide a good recruiting tool, but thorny legal and tax issues must be ...
Issue: Imaginative cash rewards are the key to successful employee-referral programs. Benefit: Employees hired through employee referrals have higher retention rates. Action: Read below to gauge whether your rewards ...
Issue: New managers need your help, especially in their first three months. Benefits: Smoother management transitions, and they'll see you as an asset rather than as a nuisance. Action: ...
Issue: Drafting a legally sound employment contract and avoiding "implied contract" claims. Benefit/risk: While employment contracts can offer your organization additional legal rights, they also expose you to new legal ...
As AFL-CIO union membership continues to decline, it's trying another tack: creating an army of nonunionized workers to rally support for its causes. Rather than organizing individual workplaces, this program, dubbed ...
Issue: The recent slow growth in HR pay hikes picked up speed in 2003. Benefit: Stronger pay growth nationwide gives you more bargaining power in your shop ... or on ...
Issue: "Intraplacement" involves the entire company in identifying job-growth opportunities for ready employees. Benefits: Boost retention, cut recruiting costs ...
Monster.com recently notified users that scam artists could be using its job board to pose as employers and post phony want ads. The bad guys' goal: Collect personal information from unsuspecting ...
Look into turning your back-office duties over to a professional employer organization (PEO). New trends and fresh players have heightened competition among PEOs, which serve as a "co-employer" and handle recruiting, ...
Because a temporary staffing agency wanted to protect its investment in recruiting and hiring temps, it made its temps sign restrictive covenants preventing ...
Although Congress has debated the idea, no federal law specifically prohibits job discrimination based on an employee or applicant's sexual orientation. Employees ...
There are six million illegal immigrants in the United States and tough federal sanctions against businesses that hire them. But your business can benefit from federal immigration law by taking advantage ...
If you’re ramping up your hiring, you need to fill positions quickly and efficiently with the right people. By streamlining the recruiting process, you can plug holes faster without overlooking top candidates.
Are you networking to advance your career? Don’t just rely on setting up informational interviews, mingling at professional mixers and attending trade shows.
After waves of downsizing in recent years, many companies are now reversing course and filling job openings like mad. If you’re ramping up your recruiting, you may wonder whether to rehire former employees.
