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HR Management, HR News & Trends

Do You Want to Be the Company Sued By a Medal of Honor Winner?

by on Nov 30, 2011, 1:10 PM  |  2 Comments
Dakota-Meyer2

How would you like to be the company known for getting sued by the only living Marine recipient of the Medal of Honor from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?

Better yet, how would you like to be the human resources executive who had to handle something like this after this real-life hero, who you had in your employ, quits and decides to sue you for slandering his character?

The Wall Street Journal has an amazing story about how former U.S. Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyer, who was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Obama last September for his actions in saving 36 lives during a battle with the Taliban in 2009, has sued giant British-based defense contractor BAE, his employer after leaving the service. Read more…

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Benefits, Rewards & Recognition

Why You Should End Your End-of-the-Year Bonuses

by on Nov 30, 2011, 12:15 PM  |  1 comment
Photo by istockphoto.com

In my reader just yesterday, I had several articles pop up on bonus compensation plans for the end of the year.

At first, I was hopeful. Have organizations finally figured out that lump-sum end-of-year cash bonuses fail on multiple levels and so are turning to a rewards approach proven to be more successful?

Have organizations finally decided to overthrow these compensation holdouts in favor of:

  • Year-round recognition and rewards given in a timely manner?
  • Recognition and rewards linked to individual performance and effort, not just results? Read more…
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HR Insights, HR Management

Enforced Holiday Fun: A 100% Preventable Employee-Morale Virus

by on Nov 30, 2011, 11:10 AM  |  No comments yet
scrooge_magoo

I’ve seen many a workplace holiday season come and go, and with another one upon us, I wonder: Why does writing this make me feel like Scrooge lecturing Bob Cratchit?

Here’s the deal: I have worked in lots of offices where some of the staff really got into holiday planning and making sure that everyone was involved in the festivities. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but one of the problems that crops up during the holiday season time and time again is that all that holiday fun can get in the way of getting real, live work done.

And like it or not, sometimes work has to still get done, holiday season or no. Read more…

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Classic TLNT

When It Comes to Workplace Incentives, Just Show Me the Money

by on Nov 30, 2011, 9:42 AM  |  No comments yet
showmethemoney1

Editor’s Note: This is only TLNT’s second holiday season, but there’s a lot of great content you might have missed at this time last year. So for the next two weeks, we’re republishing a daily “Classic TLNT” holiday post that might help you cope with the season (and your workplace) a little bit better. 

A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to the HR Happy Hour Internet radio show and the subject drew my attention. It was about rewards, motivation and incentives and how they best operated in the workplace.

Paul Hebert and Trish McFarlane were co-hosting the show and I thought I would call in about the question I always have about incentive programs: Why don’t we just use cash as the incentive of choice?

The problem I always have with incentive programs is that the incentive is always some sort of hat with a company logo, an iPod, a gift card, a trip or some other non-cash reward. Those are all great as long as I want any of those things (and I generally don’t unless the trip is all expenses paid to Mexico with my wife). But what if I don’t want any of those things? Read more…

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TLNT Radio

Bridging the Disconnect Between Job Candidates and Hiring Managers

by on Nov 30, 2011, 9:25 AM  |  No comments yet
© frank peters - Fotolia.com

Editor’s note: The TLNT Radio show is a weekly podcast where we talk to the top minds in talent management. New episodes are posted here at TLNT every week. Make sure you subscribe to TLNT and get our daily newsletter for the latest, or subscribe to our podcast in iTunes to automatically get updates.

If you ask hiring managers, you might believe there is a shortage of talent, and if you asked job candidates, you might believe that there are many jobs out there they are qualified for but never get called back on.

The problem, as we’ll cover in this podcast, is that they are both right.

Read more…

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HR News & Trends, Legal Issues

Here’s How Union Election Rules Will Be Changing Soon

by on Nov 30, 2011, 8:58 AM  |  No comments yet
NLRB

By Eric B. Meyer

Yesterday, the National Labor Relations Board  gave a glimpse into how it plans to change the way your workplace may become unionized.

As the Board explains here, the new rules that it intends to implement will limit the number of issues that an employer and union can raise prior to a union election. The rules will also deprive the parties of the right to be heard on pre-election appeals.

As one of my favorite labor-law bloggers, Seth Borden, at Labor Relations Today notes, this could place your company between a rock and a hard place: Read more…

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HR Insights, HR Management

Why Everyone Needs to Have an Organizational Expiration Date

by on Nov 30, 2011, 7:45 AM  |  2 Comments
© klikk - Fotolia.com

We got home from vacation recently, and like most families, we were foraging through the cupboards and refrigerator to make dinner our first night back home.

I poured some milk for my son and he asked me, “is that milk all right?” like somehow I hadn’t considered its feelings, but what he mostly meant was, “is it still good?”

Sure, the expiration date had passed a day or so prior, but I did the Dad smell test and that milk was more than all right. My son wasn’t in agreement, so our “all right” milk took a trip to never-gonna-get-drunk-land down the sink.

Expiration dates on food are great because they both help us understand when something goes bad, and, protects us from ourselves and what we think is good and bad – which can be subjective. It makes me think that we should have expiration dates on our employees! Read more…

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Talent Management

Why You Need to Build an Infectious and Positive Workplace Culture

by on Nov 29, 2011, 11:55 AM  |  1 comment
Reviviong work ethic

By Eric Chester

A positive attitude at work is infectious, so the more you call it out to others and encourage it in key employees, the easier it will be for you to radiate it throughout your culture.

This starts with the small things you do, like calling out the guy who works the double or the receptionist who comes in when it’s snowing, but it continues with how far you radiate those kinds of things each day.

To create a positive culture, talk to your young people about the good things that are happening throughout your business. If you can’t share positive news about the company, shine the light on some-thing good that’s taking place in your community, the nation, or the world. Make it your mission to be a purveyor of good tidings. Go out of your way to be the beacon of light when everything else they may be exposed to drags them down. Read more…

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Legal Issues, Recruiting and Staffing

3 Tips to Help Guide Your Social Media Check on a Potential New Hire

by on Nov 29, 2011, 10:37 AM  |  5 Comments
Backgroundchecks

By Eric B. Meyer

According to this recent SHRM survey, only 18 percent of companies have used social media to screen job candidates. Most cite the legal risks of screening candidates as the reason for not implementing a social-media background check.

While a social media background check may not be useful in certain instances, I can imagine many situations in which a company would benefit from checking up on candidates online before filling a job opening. Heck, consider that 89 percent of employers plan to use social media for recruiting this year.

Have I piqued your interest? Here are some suggestions about how your company can safely run a social-media background check. Read more…

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Classic TLNT

Overcoming Fear of the Holiday Party

by on Nov 29, 2011, 9:42 AM  |  No comments yet
Holiday parties can be a challenge for management and HR. From the HR blog at TLNT. (Photo by istockphoto.com)

Editor’s Note: This is only TLNT’s second holiday season, but there’s a lot of great content you might have missed at this time last year. So for the rest of this week, we’re republishing a daily “Classic TLNT” holiday post that might help you cope with the season (and your workplace) a little better. 

Nothing cracks me up more than war stories from employment lawyers talking about the holiday season.

One guy I know says his phone is ringing off the hook on the Mondays after the typical holiday party weekends (usually the first three full weekends of December). Everyone (and I mean everyone) has a story about managers who drink too much, flirtatious co-workers, and multitudes of sexual harassment policy violations in the course of a couple hours.

What has always been the gist of these proclamations has been to either eliminate the holiday party or eliminate every single risk factor (primarily alcohol). If you’re going to eliminate all of the fun things that have some inherited risk, you should save your budget and cancel it completely. And certainly, there is some bias I bring along here because there is nothing I like less than being involved in throwing a party. Read more…

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