Human Resources

Absolutely!! Harassment and discrimination claims in the workplace should not be taken lightly.   The Department of Fair Employment & Housing defines sexual harassment as harassment based on sex or of a sexual nature; gender harassment; and harassment based on pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.

Every company, even companies with one employee, are required to take actions against sexual harassment and to have a sexual harassment policy.  The guidelines employers must follow are clearly outlined in the “Facts about Sexual Harassment” DFEH – 185 pamphlet.

At the time a complaint occurs, the employer must:  quickly stop the harassment; investigate; properly discipline if harassment is proven; correct the effects of the harassment; put actions into place to ensure harassment does not recur.  At no time shall the employee be retaliated against for filing a complaint. continue

Have you heard this story before?  John, a small business owner, is heading into a team meeting.  The team is getting ready to email an advertisement to John’s prospective and current clients.   The ad looks great.  It is his answer to bringing in new business.  The dollar signs are running through his mind.  As the meeting begins, John quickly discovers that the wonderful process for gathering prospective and current client information has not been getting done.   The database is not ready and will not be ready for a couple weeks.   The excuses start to fly.  John’s dream of getting this ad out quickly fades.

By implementing accountability factors for each position, businesses can ensure their structure is functioning efficiently and appropriately.   These factors identify the key functions of the job and outline how they relate to the future success of the organization.  They should be tied to an employee’s performance evaluation and salary increase.   Use the following steps to design your accountability factors: continue

As Election Day approaches, politics inevitably seeps into the workplace. What if employees become disruptive, argumentative, annoying, or just plain unproductive on account of politics in the workplace? Does an employer have the right to limit political activities of employees in the workplace?

The answer is: “It depends.” In the private sector, in some jurisdictions, it is unlawful for employers to prevent employees from engaging in political activities or affiliations. But that does not mean employees are free to engage in any kind political activity on the clock, in the workplace.

In California, for example, Labor Code Section 1101 makes it unlawful for an employer to make, adopt, or enforce any rule, regulation, or policy: (a) Forbidding or preventing employees from engaging or participating in politics or from becoming candidates for public office. (b) Controlling or directing, or tending to control or direct the political activities or affiliations of employees.  Labor Code Section 1102 makes it unlawful to coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or following any particular course or line of political action or political activity. continue

What happens when an employee with a mental disability misbehaves in the workplace? If the mental disability causes the employee to misbehave and violate workplace conduct rules, can the employer discipline the employee?

The EEOC has tackled this thorny ADA question, and many others, in a new publication titled: ”The Americans With Disabilities Act: Applying Performance And Conduct Standards To Employees With Disabilities.”

An EEOC press release acknowledges that employers struggle greatly with the ADA’s vague proscriptions and mandates. “The EEOC continues to receive numerous questions on these topics from employers and from individuals with disabilities, indicating that there is still a high level of uncertainty about how the ADA affects these fundamental personnel issues. This document will serve a critical need and enhance compliance with the ADA.” The press release can be found here

According to the new guide, the ADA permits employers to apply the same performance standards to all employees, including those with disabilities, and emphasizes that the ADA does not affect an employer’s right to hold all employees to basic conduct standards, notes the press release. “At the same time,” cautions the EEOC, “employers must make reasonable accommodations that enable individuals with disabilities to meet performance and conduct standards.”

For example, the EEOC provides the following hypothetical example: continue

On June 23rd the Internal Revenue Service announced an increase in the standard mileage rates for the final six months of 2008.

The rate will increase to 58.5 cents a mile for all business miles driven from July 1, 2008, through Dec. 31, 2008. This is an increase of eight (8) cents from the 50.5 cent rate in effect for the first six months of 2008.

The IRS announced the unusual mid-year increase in recognition of recent gasoline price increases. The IRS normally updates the mileage rates once a year in the fall for the next calendar year.

“Rising gas prices are having a major impact on individual Americans. Given the increase in prices, the IRS is adjusting the standard mileage rates to better reflect the real cost of operating an automobile,” said IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman. “We want the reimbursement rate to be fair to taxpayers.”

While gasoline is a significant factor in the mileage figure, other items enter into the calculation of mileage rates, such as depreciation and insurance and other fixed and variable costs.

The optional business standard mileage rate is used to compute the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business use in lieu of tracking actual costs. This rate is also used as a benchmark by the federal government and many businesses to reimburse their employees for mileage.

To view the IRS announcement: Click Here

Employers should consider increasing the reimbursement rates to match the new IRS rate. Generally, employers must reimburse employees for travel expenses incurred in the course of work. For example, in California, Labor Code section 2802, subdivision (a), requires an employer to indemnify its employees for expenses they necessarily incur in the discharge of their duties. Note that in California, paying the IRS rate does not guarantee that the employer has fully reimbursed the employee for actual travel expenses. The California Supreme Court recently addressed employee travel expense reimbursement in a case titled Gattuso v. Harte-Hanks Shopper, Inc.

The article presented herein is intended as a brief overview of the law and is not intended to substitute as legal advice. Any questions or concerns regarding any statute or case law should be addressed to a licensed attorney.

The U.S. Department of Labor recently issued an opinion letter on the topic of pro-rated salaries for exempt employees.

An employer inquired whether it is an acceptable practice to pro-rate the minimum allowable salary of an exempt employee to reflect his 20 hour per week part-time status, by paying the worker $15,000. In a letter dated February 14, 2008, the DOL responded that salary pro-ration is not allowed.

The rule applies to all exempt classifications subject to the salary test. The most common exempt classifications are executive, administrative, and professional. Properly classified exempt employees are not entitled to overtime and are exempt from various other wage and hour rules. To qualify, exempt workers must be paid a minimum salary set by law, and also perform certain defined duties.

Under federal law, exempt employees must be paid a minimum salary of $23,660 annually, or $455 per week. This minimum amount must be paid even if the employee works part time. An employer wishing to pay an employee less than the minimum would have to classify the worker as a regular hourly non-exempt employee.

The minimum may be higher in some states. For example, in California the minimum salary is higher: $33,280 or $640 per week. As under federal law, payment below the statutory minimum would cause the employee to lose exempt status.

Employers are reminded that paying the minimum salary does not necessarily qualify employees for exempt status. Under both state and federal law, the employee must also meet a “duties test” that focuses on the job duties of the employee.

For more details, here’s the link to the DOL opinion letter.

The article presented herein is intended as a brief overview of the law and is not intended to substitute as legal advice. Any questions or concerns regarding any statute or case law should be addressed to a licensed attorney.

One of management’s key responsibilities is selecting the right people to perform the functions needed by the business to operate productively. Hiring the wrong person can affect your business for years. Businesses have even been found legally liable for damages to property and injury to customers as a result of employee incompetence because they failed to uncover the candidate’s depth of ignorance at the time of hiring.

Whether you’re about to hire your first team member or you’ve already hired dozens, there are some basic steps to the process that you need to keep in mind.

Step 1. Know exactly what you’re looking for before you start looking

The first thing to do is to clearly define the person you’re looking for in terms of their education, skills and competencies required to perform the job. But it needs to go much further than that. You also need to clearly set out the type of person you need to help you achieve the vision you have for your business. Qualities like friendliness, integrity and enthusiasm are important in a smaller enterprise.

Step 2. Consider how you’re going to find them

How you go about getting the word out about your position goes a long way toward determining the quality of the candidates you’ll get applications from. You can advertise directly, which means you get to do all the qualifying and screening yourself. Or, you can use an outside source such as a government placement service or a fee-based recruitment agency. Don’t rush into this decision. Identify your options and talk with someone from each agency you could use. You’ll get a lot of good ideas doing this and eventually find the agency with access to the biggest pool of quality prospects.

Step 3. Plan your interview process carefully

The attributes you chose in step 1 will now become the basis of your interview questions. Many of these issues are easily turned into questions, for example about their education, background and work experience. Others, such as their degree of enthusiasm, are subjective and require your own assessment.

Ask at least a few open ended questions to extract the candidate’s feelings on particular subjects. Get their ‘take’ on important areas like their attitude toward customer service and their relationship with co-workers and supervisors. Give them some ‘what if’ questions to see how they might behave in certain situations.

Step 4. Thoroughly check their resumes and references
Do thorough background checking on candidates you think might be worth hiring. Even if they’ve made a terrific impression during the interview there may be something lurking in their past that can cause you problems in the future.

A pre-employment investigation is easy to arrange and will quickly tell you if they have any criminal convictions or a history of problems with employers. Contact their former employers and ask them for a reference. They may not be willing to say much, but even their guarded answers may tell you that there’s been some sort of conflict in those previous positions.

You may even consider having an outside testing firm administer standard tests for things like emotional stability and intelligence.

Step 5. Get them up to speed fast

After you’ve appointed the person, a well planned induction will get your relationship off to a good start. This will introduce them to your business, to its culture, and to their workmates. Arrange for any training needed, such as on operating a particular piece of equipment or in the use of the software your company uses, to be conducted soon after they start.

Hiring is really about people and not just a set of skills that any one of several candidates may possess. Dedicate your hiring process to getting the right person in every respect; the future of your company depends on it.

Information in this article is sourced from RAN ONE, Inc

As a business owner you expect and hope that the great employees that you have taken such trouble to hire will all get along. Even in the best companies, issues between employees still arise.

Intervening in employee disputes is a risky action and, often as not, ends up with the business owner or manager alienating both parties. A better way to proceed is set up a policy that will enable management to listen to any employee with a grievance, yet still encourage those with disputes to do everything they can to resolve it among themselves.

This should be a formal policy, stated in writing. It should also become a part of employee orientation and be incorporated into the company’s policies and procedures manual.

Be a mediator – not a judge

While it’s preferable to allow people to resolve their own disputes, if that doesn’t happen or if the conflict is affecting their performance or the business itself, then you will have to play a part. In this situation make your role one of mediator rather than as judge and jury. Have a plan and work to it or you’re likely to make things worse.

Guide them through a simple process that makes them think about why the problem arose and what they can do about it. Begin by seeing each of the parties separately. Here are some of the questions you can use to be sure and get their side of the story:

• Ask each of them what has been said and done
• Ask each of them why the other person feels that a dispute exists
• Ask each of them if any other co-workers are involved
• Ask each of them what they feel would end the dispute

Make careful notes and when the sessions are over compare records to identify the major points of difference or misunderstanding.

Bring the parties together in a neutral environment

Now that you’ve familiarized yourself with the parties in the dispute and how they feel about the key issues, bring them together in a location outside the work area of any of those involved. Summarize their respective positions and try to get them to be objective about their position as well as that of the other person.

If it’s a realistic idea, propose to both parties their own solutions – the answer they each gave about what would resolve the dispute for them. Start from those positions and try to work them both towards a middle ground that will probably be a compromise but hopefully will be acceptable to each of them. Point out where the parties have seen things the same way and try to build an agreement from those foundations.

Your role must be to remain objective and impartial. Even if you personally feel that one of the parties is ‘wrong’ and the other is ‘right’ your place is to help both parties see things clearly and work it out between themselves.

Ignore complaints that are anonymous

Complaints that are unsigned or made anonymously (telephone calls or emails) must be ignored. Once an anonymous complaint about an employee is investigated it has been given credibility. You become the villain because you’re the one making the accusations.

Information in this article is sourced from RAN ONE, Inc 

The positions in most small to medium businesses have evolved into their present form rather than having been created with specific objectives and duties. This means that the roles of team members often overlap or don’t incorporate everything the person could be doing. A thorough review of each position will clarify these vital details and put your business in a position to run more efficiently. The review should be done in conjunction with the person in the position so that both of you gain a clearer understanding of the role and its responsibilities.

Tasks of the position

Begin by making a simple list of all tasks each employee does – ‘answer telephones’, ‘purchase stationery’, ‘collect mail’ and so on. For each task list the outcomes that the work is to accomplish. Be as comprehensive as possible and ask why each task contributes to the functioning of the business. ‘Answering telephones’ makes a contribution to sales, to accounts, to public relations and frees up managers to spend their time more effectively. Then create a brief outline about how each task is performed:

• Is it performed manually or with the use of equipment?
• Is it performed independently or with the assistance of someone else in the office?
• Is it required to be performed at specific times of the day?
• How much time does it take each time the task is performed?
• What skills are required for completing the task?

Priority of each task

Assign each task a level of importance according to its contribution to the business. Use only three classifications:

• Essential – the business will not survive unless this task is done
• Valuable – contributes to the functioning of the business but not essential to its survival
• Nonessential – if the task was not performed it would have no effect on the business

This requires some sensitivity to people’s feelings as everyone thinks that what they do is important. Duties such as picking up the owner’s dry cleaning or collecting money for a weekly lottery entry may be part of somebody’s responsibilities but contribute nothing to the business.

Document the essential tasks

Prepare a ‘how to’ step-by-step manual for performing each essential task in the business. As you do this, go through every step and ask whether this is the best way to do it or if there is a way to improve it. If the person now performing a task leaves the business it will be much simpler to bring a new person up to speed because you’ll have a written procedure they can follow.

Examine the valuable tasks

Tasks that are considered valuable deserve closer examination. Each should be analyzed to answer the following questions:

1. Should this function be performed by someone else in the business?
2. Are the outcomes of the task the same as another task that is being performed?
3. Is the task being performed at the optimum time of day?
4. Is the equipment being used appropriate for the task?
5. If the task is performed with others, are you using the best combination of team members?
6. Is too much time being spent on the task?

There are a number of tasks that are valuable to a business but could be handled in a way that adds more value. If the person doing the task is struggling then consider training them up or reassigning the task; or perhaps they’re being performed inefficiently because the wrong equipment is being used; or maybe they are just being done in a way that consumes too much time.

Eliminate the nonessential tasks

The final step in your review is to eliminate any nonessential tasks. This will free up team members’ time for better performance of their other duties and for new tasks that may have been put aside because there wasn’t time for them.

Information in this article is sourced from RAN ONE, Inc