Hot HR Tips from Edward Navis, SPHR

Okay…so two of your employees begin to spend time together. They fall in love, move in together, and even name their first child after you. It happens a lot, and many happy families begin with a work-based relationship.

But there is a dark side to the entire affair. What if they break up and one decides that working in the same zip code as the “ex” is just slightly less pleasant than shoving a rusty nail in your eye? What if they are both valued employees and you (like most people today) cannot afford the inevitable cost of 2-3 times the departing employee’s base salary just to keep peace in the family?

A more bothersome scenario: what if someone decides to file a sexual harassment suit? Believe me – courts have recognized lawsuits for far more than just the “traditional” type of suit in which a supervisor withholds a promotion or discipline by demanding…ahem…favors. Even the employees who work with our two lovebirds can file suit.

So what’s an entrepreneurial CEO to do? Well, there’s no stopping love, but there are modifications you can make to your handbook that will protect you. For example, there should be a statement that says that two people involved in a relationship cannot work on the same team, nor can one be in a supervisory relationship over the other. There are many other options, but they need to be customized to your business and your ambiance, if you will. After all, you don’t want to appear like you’re going to swat cupid with a two by four as soon as he flies into the room.

Be sure to contact me for more information: 973-256-3757 or via email at ed@FullSpectrumHR.com.

062509

The Customer Service Question

I’ve long known that world class customer service in any company is a function of sound HR strategies. Consider this:

GIGO – Garbage In, Garbage Out. Your customer service reflects your hiring abilities. In many cases, poor service was evident in the hiring process, but no one knew how to look for it.

Systems – Many system choices made independently of HR and its knowledge of the human capital’s ability can cripple your customer service function. Case in point: a client once hired me to teach his new CRM to his employees. The system was hefty and quite complex, and required many costly hours of training. Further, there was no remote access to the program, limiting an employee’s ability to service customers while on the road or to telecommute. Finally, the underlying database was proprietary and made the space shuttle look like a little red wagon. There were very few people who knew how to service it, and that created a whole new drama around staffing.

The Axiom: I’ve found that employees treat your customers as they believe the company treats them on a day-to-day basis.

The answer? Have an HR strategist help you with your customer service plans and policies. Customer Service is, at the end of the day, a predominately human function.

Be sure to contact me for more information: 973-256-3757 or via email at ed@FullSpectrumHR.com.

062409

A client recently asked me how long she must retain applications and resumes. It’s a good question.

Federal antidiscrimination laws require that you save employment applications and resumes for at least two years after you receive them. This applies only to documents from applicants you did not hire.

You’ll want to set different document retention standards for those you do hire. Though not required by law, hold on to the applications and resumes of those you do hire for the duration of their employment plus three years (at least).

Be sure to contact me for more information: 973-256-3757 or via email at ed@FullSpectrumHR.com.

061809

The topics of same sex marriage and legal protection for members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered communities have been in the news quite a lot lately.

Regardless of your personal feelings, here are some hard cold facts:

1. While federal law does not yet provide protection for the LGBT community, it’s clearly a matter of time before that will change.

2. Many states and municipalities currently do provide such protection. To name a few: New York State, New York City, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Dade County, and many others.

3. Lawsuits for violations of these can cost you millions of dollars.

4. Asking the wrong interview question or making the wrong remark to an employee could land you in court.

It’s time to create a friendly, positive, and safe environment for all Americans, regardless of their affectional status. Make sure that your benefits provider allows for domestic partner benefits, and that your employee handbook says so. In your non-discrimination statement, be sure to include sexual orientation, gender identification, and affectional status as protected from any form of discrimination in hiring, promoting, or work opportunities.

Why? Because it’s the law in many places, and will soon be so nationwide. More important, you’ll want to do this for one very monumental reason:

It’s the right thing to do.

Be sure to contact me for more information: 973-256-3757 or via email at ed@FullSpectrumHR.com.

061609

Assigning a “buddy” to all new hires is a good way to help a new employee acclimate to your company, its informal rules, and the various proven roads to success.

Your buddies, chosen from your veteran, high performing employees, should be selected wisely. They become the voice of the company for new people and set examples for existing employees. They should be the role models you want everyone else to emulate.

Of course, they will need some education on mentoring techniques, and we need to ensure that they have the bandwidth for and an interest in these new responsibilities.

Customize your buddy program to your company’s needs and atmosphere. For example, have the buddy take her new employee to lunch weekly for the first two or three weeks. (You, of course, pick up the tab.) Make sure the buddy and the new hire get to spend time together, and have the buddy perform unannounced checkups to be sure the new employee is “doing well” and feeling good about the decision to join your company.

These are simply some beginning ideas. There’s much more to buddy selection, management, and retention. Be sure to contact me for more information: 973-256-3757 or via email at ed@FullSpectrumHR.com.

061109

Brian Staker, a brilliant business writer working with a leading magazine called “Utah CEO Magazine”, has written a terrific article about recruitment and retention. It’s great reading. Click here or paste this url into your browser: http://www.utahceomagazine.com/article.php?id=327

Be sure to contact me for more information: 973-256-3757 or via email at ed@FullSpectrumHR.com.

The “I’ll work for peanuts” employee could spell more trouble than savings.

In an economic downturn, job seekers often try to entice employers by offering their services at a greatly reduced rate.  Sometimes that rate is a mere fraction of that of similarly qualified employees.  As tempting as the offer may be, you could find yourself defending a pay discrimination lawsuit down the road.  Remember: regardless of the economy, you should still hold the standard of equal pay for equal work and qualifications if the cut-rate employees are members of a federally or state protected class (disability, race, religion, age, etc.)

On a similar note, a recent court decision found in favor of a sixty year CFO facing a job loss because of tough financial times.  He offered to take a steep pay cut, bringing his salary down to $60,000 annually. His offer was rejected, but he later found out that his replacement, much younger than he, was earning more than that.  He filed an age discrimination claim, and things aren’t looking too good for the employer right now.

041409

There’s no lack of discussion about millennial employees (born circa 1987) anywhere on the web or in business journals. The reviews on this generation are still coming in, but “mixed” seems to describe those we’ve received thus far.

Words describing millennial employees range from “technically brilliant” to “cocky,” from “frighteningly expedient” to “lazy,” and “impressively exact in their work” to “lacking work ethic.”

They can be a bit impatient, wanting now the six figure salaries that their predecessors labored for years to achieve. Often their take on work is that if they can get a full day’s work done in an hour, why shouldn’t they take the rest of the day off?

A friend of mine, a CEO of a company with 300 or so employees, got just that response when he came upon a group of new employees sitting - yet again - in the lunch room working on what must have been their ninth cup of designer coffee and playing games on their credit card-sized phones. He asked them why they were still there as opposed to doing their work. They explained that they’d all completed their assigned projects within a few hours, and felt that it was now perfectly reasonable to spend the rest of the day in repose. “After all,” one of them said, “it hardly seems fair to penalize us because we work faster than the older employees.”

Foul! Unless the employee had contracted to receive pay on a per project basis (and my friend swears that’s not the case,) then this particular style of thinking smells like a trout that’s been rotting in the sun for a week in August and is only half as useful.

Here’s a piece of fact to chew on: for all his talent, expedience, technical savvy, and exactitude, this millennial forgot an important point.  His employer, my friend, was paying not only for the product he produced, but for his time as well. If he finished his project early, a more constructive tack might have been to find something else to do: to raise the bar on his own performance, so to speak. That’s how “the older guys” got those six figure salaries: by showing dedication and commitment: by managing their careers like they were important. I’m not suggesting that 16 hour days are the only acceptable path to professional success, but I’m sure that an approach of doing “only what they ask me to do” just won’t cut it, now, in this economy, nor any time in the future.

Be sure to contact me for more information: 973-256-3757 or via email at ed@FullSpectrumHR.com.

The CEO of one of New York’s many high tech start-ups recently told me that he’d “saved the day” by convincing a resignation-bound employee to stay. The employee had cited a competitor’s offer of a substantially higher salary as her reason for leaving.

My client felt that the best strategy here was to “gently grill” (his words, not mine) the employee for facts about the new job. She said they’d offered her a bigger base and a larger bonus structure. He told her he’d beat their numbers by 10%, if she’d give him the chance. Miracle of miracles: she did. She rejected her new offer and promised her current employer that she’d stay with him.

I guess he showed her.

But she’s really running that company, and I told him so. He should remain abreast of the compensation trends and his employee’s needs. Most employees resign because of a poor relationship with their manager, and as they do not know how to fix that problem, allow the lure of financial reward to influence their judgment. For every employee that resigns for a bona fide, substantial increase in salary, there are hundreds who look at the counter offer and ask, “If you truly appreciate me enough to do this, why couldn’t you say something about it before I resigned?” In other words, “I had no idea you even cared.”

There’s a little secret about salary offers that many execs ignore when an employee claims they’ve been offered a really big increase by another employer. When hiring, most employers use the new hire’s last salary as part of their calculation of what they are going to offer. Few will offer a salary that comprises more than a 10% increase. There’s no real formula or theoretical reason for this; the hiring company simply feels that this is a “reasonable number.” There are a good number of employees who threaten resignation because of a higher salary offer (particularly those with skills in high demand,) who are simply blowing smoke as a ruse to get more money.

As I suggested to this now somewhat deflated CEO: counter offers are the corporate equivalent of swallowing a slow-acting poison. It surrenders the management of your company to someone motivated entirely by a paycheck, instead of passion for the cause and loyalty to the employer. And when it gets around that this technique works (and it will get around - believe me when I tell you this) others will line up with their letters of resignation in one hand and their wallets in the other.

So the next time an employee tells you he’s resigning because he was offered more money, ask him when his last day will be (because you’re going to hold them to it) and get an HR professional to do an in depth exit interview to find out what’s really going on. Then take a cold, hard look at the ways in which you have or have not built trust and loyalty with your employees. That relationship is the key to retention – and profit.

Be sure to contact me for more information: 973-256-3757 or via email at ed@FullSpectrumHR.com.

022409

In my book, PeopleThink, I describe at length that the basic element required for professional success is a strong business relationship between people at all levels of the company.

This relationship was never more important than it is now, in these difficult economic times.  If you’re an executive who’s recently downsized some employees, this relationship will help repair the inevitable (and very expensive) problems caused by layoffs, such as reduced morale, mistrust, etc.  If you are an employee or a manager, remember that your relationships with each other, colleagues, and the executive level will also greatly improve the quality of your work life. 

It’s something we all must work together to achieve.  Take your eyes off the recession and focus on making things better.  The alternative - continued mistrust and anxiety that normally go hand in hand with these tough times - will only lengthen the recession and allow more water in a company boat that may already be teetering on disaster.

021409

There is an increasing fervor around video/podcast resumes.  Of course, I have my two cents…

I regularly advise my clients, whether job seekers or hiring companies, to avoid pictures, videos, podcasts, and the like.  Let’s look at it from these two different perspectives.

Job Seekers:  When you opt for a visual format for your resume or decide to attach a picture, you are asking the hiring manager to make a judgment based on your appearance alone.  You’re hoping he will see the professional demeanor, hear the timbre of your voice, and then decide that you are the greatest thing since the microchip.  That’s not going to happen.  At best, the hiring manager will view your document and decide to call you in because your picture enhances your candidacy.  (It’s more likely that you’ll get a call because he/she is sexually attracted, and that’s a dangerous place to be.)  At worst, you’ll get rejected because you remind the reader of a disliked relative.  In fact HR advises hiring managers not to view resumes with pictures, so the chances are good that your visual c.v. will end up in a trash file.

Hiring Companies:  Opening a resume with a picture or a podcast from an applicant places you in the unenviable (and legally dangerous) position of knowing the gender, approximate age, and race of your candidate, and you jeopardize your ability to claim that you rejected the resume solely on its lack of merit.  Make it a firm policy to delete such submissions and you’ll save yourself untold legal fees and headaches.

Be sure to contact me for more information: 973-256-3757 or via email at ed@FullSpectrumHR.com.

020909

While most of us were either sleeping or partying on January 1st of 2009, a new law went into effect that dramatically increases your chance of getting hit with a very expensive lawsuit.

The American with Disabilities Act (ADA) dictated to employers that it was illegal to discriminate against an employee or candidate because they had a disability.  

The ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA), which became law at 12:01 AM on New Year’s day, did away with a few specific and critical words previously in the ADA. Previously, a disability had to be “substantially limiting” of “major life activities” before the courts would consider it a true disability, and therefore worthy of protection under the ADA.  Now, the standard for ADA classification is much lower.  

There are other changes as well.   The ADAAA’s definition of “major life activity” is substantially broader than that of the old act.  In short, this means that there are more opportunities to get sued.  And the change came during a tough economy, an historic hotbed for increased employment litigation. 

The answer?  Just like sexual harassment and discrimination prevention training, include ADAAA training on your annual list of “must dos”.   With a little creativity, you can make it a short affair that employees actually enjoy and learn from.  Be sure to contact me for more information: 973-256-3757 or via email at ed@FullSpectrumHR.com.

020209A

I’m a firm believer that any level of success is dependent upon good relationships with good people.  I have been fortunate to have some great strategic partners, and I wanted to take a moment to introduce them to you in case you’ve not had a chance to read about them on the Web site.  Either way, you can find them on my strategic partners page at http:www.fullspectrumhr.com/strategicpartners.html.

Wendy Weiss, “The Queen of Cold Calling”, is an absolute master at creating great sales people by demystifying cold calls and making them an important tool for any sales professional.  Her “Cold Calling College” is a terrific learning experience, as are all her products.  Her Web site is www.WendyWeiss.com.

Remington Business Group enables small companies do business in the USA and other countries, and helps small American companies do business overseas through its partner network. Through extensive knowledge, dedication, creativity, efficiency and hard work, Remington Business Group ensures that its clients’ business needs are met anytime, and every time. Yoav Amiri is the owner.  Visit: www.remingtonbusinessgroup.com.

Russ Korins is an experienced process consultant and attorney who uses his innate knowledge and experience in consensus building to help corporations decide on business development and marketing strategies. A graduate of Yale and NYU Law, he is a bright and welcome addition to my network. More information: www.russkorinsconsulting.com.

012609

I usually do not ask for favors in my blog entries.  But after a few weeks of reading the scores of resumes I’ve seen for jobs of all types and at all levels, I feel compelled to enlist everyone’s assistance.

I’ve noticed that almost all of these resumes – with very little exception – list something I call “Boy Scout Traits”.   They include statements like “very organized”, “great under stress”,  “loyal”, “hard-working” (though most ignore the need for a hyphen), “great sense of humor”, and many more.

I do not meant to slight the Boy Scouts, nor do I want to insinuate that anyone might list something on the resume that’s not true.  But whenever I see one of these entries, I remember my scouting days – miserable as they were – when I stood there saluting and swearing that I’d be honest, true, healthy, wealthy, wise, that I’d take a shower every day, and who knows what else.

That’s why I need your help.  If you are looking for a job, PLEASE stop doing this.  Don’t just tell me you can multitask, handle tough calls, shine in stressful situations, or can leap tall buildings in a single bound.  Give me concise examples of your skill.  And if you are not job hunting, but happen to know people who are (and who doesn’t?), please tell them I’d like them to stop as well.

 This will, of course, make my job easier.  But it will also, coincidentally, improve your chances of a meaningful response.

An important part of having exempt (or “salaried”) employees is the fact that they do not earn overtime.  (The term means that they are “exempt” from the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.)

But you can fall into a costly trap if you are not careful.  Allowing an exempt employee to use paid time off (vacation, sick time, personal time, etc.) in increments of less than a full day (i.e. “half a vacation day” or hourly increments) can jeopardize the employee’s exempt status.  A complaint by a disgruntled employee will trigger a wage and hour audit (an experience that makes an IRS audit look like a day at an amusement park) and you’ll have to pay back overtime for the duration of an employee’s tenure, and probably some hefty fines as well.

So remember: exempt employees must take paid time off in full day increments only.

In my book, PeopleThink, I describe at length that the basic element required for professional success is a strong business relationship between people at all levels of the company.

This relationship was never more important than it is now, in these difficult economic times.  If you’re an executive who’s recently downsized some employees, this relationship will help repair the inevitable (and very expensive) problems caused by layoffs, such as reduced morale, mistrust, etc.  If you are an employee or a manager, remember that your relationships with each other, colleagues, and the executive level will also greatly improve the quality of your work life.

It’s something we all must work together to achieve.  Take your eyes off the recession and focus on making things better.  The alternative - continued mistrust and anxiety that normally go hand in hand with these tough times - will only lengthen the recession and allow more water in a company boat that may already be teetering on disaster.

While most of us were either sleeping or partying on January 1st of 2009, a new law went into effect that dramatically increases your chance of getting hit with a very expensive lawsuit.

The American with Disabilities Act (ADA) dictated to employers that it was illegal to discriminate against an employee or candidate because they had a disability.  

The ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA), which became law at 12:01 AM on New Year’s day, did away with a few specific and critical words previously in the ADA.  Previously, a disability had to be “substantially limiting” of “major life activities” before the courts would consider it a true disability, and therefore worthy of protection under the ADA.  Now, the standard for ADA classification is much lower.  

There are other changes as well.   The ADAAA’s definition of “major life activity” is substantially broader than that of the old act.  In short, this means that there are more opportunities to get sued.  And the change came during a tough economy, an historic hotbed for increased employment litigation. 

The answer?  Just like sexual harassment and discrimination prevention training, include ADAAA training on your annual list of “must dos”.   With a little creativity, you can make it a short affair that employees actually enjoy and learn from.  Be sure to contact me for more information: 973-256-3757 or ed@FullSpectrumHR.com.

Bad hiring decisions continue to abound.  While I can fix most of them, some are beyond repair and hit the bottom line with a cost of many thousands of dollars.  Please: use behavior-based interviewing.  That means you’ll ask the candidate for specific examples of how they’ve handled like circumstances in the past, and drill down with follow-up questions.  Want to learn more? Contact me at 973-256-3757, via e-mail at ed@FullSpectrumHR.com, or go to my Web site at www.FullSpectrumHR.com.

In shaky economic times, it’s common for employees to feel  nervous and uncertain about their continued employment.  This results in dropped productivity, less effective overall performance, and premature job searching.  (After all, employees tend to feel layoffs are imminent, especially if they’ve seen coworkers laid off in the recent past.) 

Honest feedback about day-to-day accomplishments and problems will go a long way to improve performance. If a problem exists, talk about it directly, honestly, and without emotion.  State what you are looking for and what you’re willing to do to help the employee achieve that goal.  Be reasonable, however. One of the most common reasons for employee attrition is poorly identified/articulated goals.  Each goal should be specific, measurable, action-oriented,  reasonable, and time-bound.

Give honest, “from the heart” feedback when the employee does something well.  Make sure the feedback is timely, specific, and sincere.

Lilly Ledbetter’s case stood before the Supreme Court in 2007 and was denied.  Now there’s a law named after her - the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act - and it expands the employee’s right to sue for unfair pay practices.

Until now, employees had one year from the date of the offense  to file a lawsuit.  This new act all but abolishes that time frame, and renews the one year time limit with each successive pay check.

In Lilly’s case, she worked at the same company for many years and only recently discovered that her salary was lower than those of less tenured and less qualified men in her job class.  Her gender discrimination suit sparked this law, surely to be signed into law by President Obama.

What does that mean for the rest of working America?  Ensure that your pay scales and salary changes are evenly balanced and not subject to charges of discrimination.  Any consultant worth their salt can help you with that.

I’ve recently seen a few “off-the-shelf” handbooks that have contradictory statements that will lead to legal problems for those who use them.  Most notable are statements that contradict a state’s at-will employment statutes and entire sections that will make it virtually impossible to discipline an employee.  This reaffirms something I’ve been telling my clients for a long time:  handbooks should be written specifically for your company by someone who’s spent the time to get to know you and your business, and who is knowledgeable in federal, state, county, and municipal laws.  You might spend a little more now, but will no doubt save many times that in the near future.

There are several reasons that employers are having difficulty finding the right employees to meet their needs, even in this, a buyer’s market.  First, we are in the first stages of a severe worker shortage that the HR industry has been worrying about for some time now.  As the baby boomers begin to retire, they will leave gaps in service that this country is numerically unable to fill.  (The baby-boomers were of the “zero population” age and produced far fewer children than did their parents.)  We’re already seeing the effects, and many businesses reluctantly hire younger, less experienced, and less mature replacements.

As well, there are numerous people who do not design jobs appropriately, and that reflects in their job postings.  Frequently unclear, they often do not represent the type of candidate the company really needs.  It’s not uncommon for a new client to describe a  job to me and then show me a completely inadequate – and thus far ineffective – job posting.  I break down the requirements for them, and recommend that they list first a general description of the job, and then have a list of “must haves” and a list of “nice to haves”.  If a candidate is missing one item on the “must have” list, we drop him from consideration.  Both lists must be reasonable.

I’ve found that a lot of employers do not source well, either.  Most jobs in this country, regardless of the economic state du jour, are gotten by networking.  Savvy employers (and all of my clients) network with potential candidates whether they are hiring or not.  You should not wait until you’re dying of thirst before you begin to dig a well. 

Foreign companies are taking advantage of the lower dollar to explore opportunities in the American marketplace.  They are hiring, and I’d recommend looking into them as potential sources of job leads.  Meanwhile, a hint about job boards: don’t expect any serious response to your posted resume if you post it under “anonymous”.  (They all offer this option.)  Why?  Because unscrupulous search firms post anonymous resumes and use the responses to get leads on job openings.  (If Recruiter A responds to an anonymous resume with an E-mail and tells of an opening in a certain company, the recipient - Recruiter B - tries to steal the assignment and fill it before Recruiter A knows what’s happened.)  As a result, few recruiters will respond to these resumes.

Bad hiring decisions continue to abound.  While I can fix most of them, some are beyond repair and hit the bottom line with a cost of many thousands of dollars.  Please: use behavior-based interviewing.  That means you’ll ask the candidate for specific examples of how they’ve handled like circumstances in the past, and drill down with follow-up questions.  Want to learn more?  I’m teaching these principles – and many more – in “How to Hire Great Sales People.”  Click here to register, or paste http://www.fullspectrumhr.com/teleconference-2.html into your browser.

If you are job searching, you also have a responsibility to ensure that the hiring decision is a good one.  Make sure you pursue (and eventually accept) a job that’s truly a good match.  Many people are now grabbing any job they get, but that’s a recipe for disaster.  (It’s a lot like marrying the next available single person because you don’t want to be lonely.) Answer all the interviewer’s questions (regardless of how he asked them) with true examples of how you’ve performed in the past.  (That’s a behavior-based answer to a behavior-based question.)  For more information, sign up for Job Seeking University by clicking here or pasting http://www.fullspectrumhr.com/teleconference.html into your browser. 

Remember that each person has a profound effect on the day-to-day course of his job.  When you replace someone (for whatever reason) be sure to examine the job as the rest of the company currently perceives it.  Perhaps the exiting employee added something that’s now critical, or deleted something that the others still need.  Write a comprehensive job description.  When you write your posting for the job boards, break it down into the following headings:

Overall Job Description: No more than 5 sentences giving a high level overview of the job.

“Must have” skills and experience: if any of these are missing from the resume, discard it.

“Nice to have” skills and experience: those that will enhance the minimally qualified candidate.

About the company:  A description of the company and why applicants should consider you.

In Return: As much info as possible about compensation.  Contrary to popular belief, there’s nothing wrong with listing a salary, but that’s your decision.

Despite the histrionic reports you’ve heard of late about the economy, this is more a crisis of Human Resources than anything else.

Why?  The economic downturn directly affects how money goes from the employing company to the employee’s pocket.  That’s a critical HR element.

Lately, I’ve been addressing three groups in my newsletters: small and mid-sized businesses, recruiters, and job seekers.  It’s at times like this that we all seem to relearn how valuable HR is to our livelihoods.  For example, I’m learning how my inside knowledge of recruitment strategies and tactics helps job seekers.  When I provide these clients with this information and they follow the advice, they get jobs faster than they otherwise might have.  

Employers are realizing that adjusting to this new economic trend might include downsizing, but more commonly requires human capital budget control and organization redesign.  HR does that.  Another point in the HR column.

Finally, recruiters are also re-learning business in this new economy.  Employers are far less willing to spend 20-30% of the base salary for someone who harvests resumes and passes them on.  They must rethink how they do business, and begin to use sound interviewing techniques on each candidate PRIOR to submission.  I know a small handful of recruiting firms that are thriving in this economy.  They all have one thing in common: they interview candidates BEFORE they send in the resume, and they conduct this professional interview on a face-to-face basis.  They also have skilled HR people in their arsenal of resources.  Once again, it’s HR to the rescue.

I guess the bottom line is that HR is not a cost center for anyone but, in fact, a mission critical profit center that’s well worth the investment.

Where would the work world be without HR?

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) completed a survey in 2008 in which it explored the impact of social networking on recruiting efforts.

It’s clear: more hiring departments are using social network sites to check out potential candidates, and the information they find does influence their hiring decisions.  More than half said they’d be disinclined to consider a candidate who’d posted questionable information about themselves.

Many still expressed concern over the legalities of using social networking information.  After all, that which offends a hiring manager might be a “statement of self” to a candidate.  The fact is that using some of this information in a hiring decision could violate federal and state employment laws.  But until there’s actual or case law to establish that fact, America’s hiring managers are “kind of winging it”.  

I’ve always told my clients not to use the Internet to perform unofficial background checks, nor should they look at profiles on MySpace, Facebook, etc.  I stand by that advice.  There are better ways to examine a candidate’s readiness and ability to perform the job, like behavior-based interviewing.

For job seekers, the advice is clear.  If you have a social networking page, be sure to keep it “professional” in its contact.  If you would not want your grandmother to read it or if you would not want to see it on the cover of USA Today as a quote under your picture, then don’t post it. 

If your company does not have an active union avoidance program - regardless of the number of employees you have - then the new Employee Freedom of Choice (EFCA) is a warning.  Unionization will soon become terrifyingly easy.  If you have three employees and two of them sign the union’s card at the representative’s request, then your company is now a union shop, and you can kiss productivity, innovation, and the employee’s desire to do a good job goodbye.

Union avoidance is a complex process, and most effective when begun in advance of a unionization effort.  Call for more information: 973-256-3757.

I recently found a great resource! Go to http://jobradio.fm.  It’s live talk radio about jobs and careers, 24/7.  While I don’t agree with everything I heard, every show is professional, thought provoking, and informative.  It’s well worth your time to listen in while you continue your search.

If you constantly change pay and schedules for exempt employees, you could be in hot water for violating the Fair Labor Standards Act.

“Exempt” status (often called “salaried status”) is reserved for those employees whose jobs meet certain administrative, managerial, or executive criteria.  In addition, they must also earn in excess of $455 per week, but the job description must satisfy BOTH criteria.

If the employee’s responsibilities and/or pay do not meet these criteria, you MUST pay him as a “non-exempt” (sometimes referred to as “hourly”) employee who is eligible for overtime.

Be careful.  Wage and hour audits are nasty.

The I-9 form is the federal government’s tool for ensuring that every employee in the US is legally entitled to be an employee.  You must have one for every person classified as an employee, including yourself.

The form takes just a few minutes to complete.  Keep them in an “I-9″ folder separate from other employee records.

Start using the new I-9 form for all new hires in 2009.  You can find it at http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/I-9.pdf.  

Many small businesses neglect this simple and quick requirement of the federal government.  Doing so can be costly.  Fines reach up to the many thousands of dollars and can include jail time if the feds determine that you acted intentionally.

This is an easy fix.  Just do it, and you won’t have to worry.  

As always, call if you have questions: 973-256-3757.

The trend in American businesses to downsize when times get tough has (again) begun its ritual backlash.  

According to the Society for Human Resource Management, the world’s largest professional HR management association, companies that have laid off employees in the past are now experiencing unwanted, increased attrition among their highest performers.

In addition, there’s always a ripple effect that accompanies layoffs.  Remaining employees produce less over the long haul because they are upset and frightened by their colleague’s departure.

Try alternatives to downsizing.  Ask your employees to help you save money.  Go to a four-day work week for a while: it will slash your payroll by 20% and your employees will be more likely to stay.  Create an arrangement with other companies to “loan out” your employees for a limited period.

The American workplace has experienced this phenomenon over and over again.  We are continually “surprised” by the economic downturn and therefore aim at the biggest target (payroll) to reduce costs.  As a result, our businesses barely survive the downturn and take longer to “get back on their feet.”  That’s the best case scenario.  The worst case scenario is that of an otherwise vital business sinking beyond redemption because its executives did not hire strategically, prepare for downturns before they happen, or explore alternatives to downsizing.

There was once a time when the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) required a fair and confidential election before allowing a union to represent your employees.  Soon these elections will be a relic of the past.

President-Elect Obama co-sponsored a bill allowing unions to claim victory simply by getting employees to sign a card requesting representation.  And he has promised to sign it into law once he gets into the White House.

Currently, a union must obtain signed cards from 30% of the employee body to demand an election.  EFCA will change that.  Soon, they will need nothing more than signatures from 50% plus one employees.  Once obtained, unionization is mandatory and your employees do not have the ability to vote in a free and confidential election.

Unionized organizations historically struggle to maintain a reasonable bottom line.  Union contracts promote mediocrity in performance, limit a business owner’s right to manage the company, and add expensive bureaucracy to daily business practices.

Unions notoriously use lies and strong arm tactics to get these cards signed.  Employees would traditionally sign them to get the requesting representative to stop bothering them, and then vote against the union in secret ballot.  But with the removal of the secret ballot proposed by EFCA, unionization is just a few signatures away.

The best way to avoid unionization is to become your employee’s best advocate. Learn to trust them and help them trust you.  But this is easier said than done.  I began my HR career by fighting unions, so I know that the employee’s attempt to organize is usually in response to management that does not have insight.  It is, I believe, an organizational temper tantrum.

It’s easiest - and now imperative - to fight unionization before your employees start to talk about it.  Be sure to contact me for more information: 973-256-3757.

Verifying your employee’s eligibility to work legally in the US is a requirement that a lot of small businesses in this country fail to meet.  Violating this requirement could cost you serious fines and even jail time if the federal government determines that you knowingly ignored or violated the law.

In the updated version of the form, fewer documents meet the standard of “acceptable proof”, and expired documents, previously allowed, are no longer acceptable as they are more prone to tampering.  

On hire, ask your new employee to provide you with the documentation required to prove eligibility as specified in one of the three pages of the new I-9.  Ensure that this is done on the first day of employment.

Keep completed I-9s in a separate file, and be sure to make clear provisions for the document’s security.

You can find the new I-9 form at http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/I-9.pdf.   

As an HR consultant who designs and implements strong people-based business strategies for small and mid-sized businesses nationwide, I teach my clients to rely predominately on networking - social and otherwise -  for their recruitment and hiring strategies.  Approximately 85% of all hiring done in the US is a result of networking, and my clients have saved as much as 86% when they use it to hire as opposed to traditional methods.  

The following is a conservative cost comparison between traditional recruiting strategies and those associated with social networking. We’ve based this example on a position paying $75,000 per year.

Traditional recruitment cost is $36,365 vs. $5,004 for a hire in which the company successfully uses networking to find candidates.  (Get the complete breakdown on these figures by sending a request to ed@FullSPectrumHR.com.)  

When calculating advertising costs, we allot for one ad while networking to gather one or two alternate candidates. We calculate other costs accordingly as well.  We also assume that hiring managers in our sample company have received education in behavior-based hiring practices. Companies with uncoordinated and gut instinct-based interviewing practices can expect longer interviewing and search periods, often lasting 16 weeks or longer.

These are costs related to recruitment only. Please note that the actual cost to replace an employee is 2 to 3 times the employee’s base salary, as there are costs associated with employee attrition not relevant to this comparison.  All numbers are rounded to the dollar.

 For the past two years, I’ve been helping job seekers as well by sharing my inside HR knowledge and experiences with them.  People who network generally cut their job search time in half.  I’ve had clients who use LinkedIn, Plaxo (for the legal community), Twitter, and other online sites.  As well, they use industry-based organizations for networking.  I even had one client who started his own networking group by posting it on www.meetup.com.  He found a job in 6 weeks, and continues to host the invitation only group.  

I’ve also noticed that candidates who network for opportunities (as opposed to using only the job boards) generally get jobs twice as fast as candidates who rely exclusively on advertising.

I’ve long believed that laying employees off in an economic downturn is a tragic mistake.  It costs an employer about 2-3 times the employee’s base salary.

But that’s old news, and I’ve long encouraged my clients to take cost saving measures instead of downsizing.  Some examples:

1. Reward cost saving measures proposed by employees.  (Delta Airlines had a famous example of this that moved along the journey to non-smoking flights and saved them millions each year in fuel costs: an employee recommended removing the little trays in the ashtrays that the crew would have to remove and clean after each flight.  Reducing the plane’s weight by removing these little trays and reducing turn around time saved millions.)
2. Ask employees to postpone education by 1 or 2 semesters, reducing tuition assistance (if you offer it).
3. One of my clients had to hire temps to fill in gaps left by busy workers.  We found out that of his 125 employees, about half spent 20 minutes each day taking personal calls on their cell phones during work hours.  The average employee earned $31/hour.  He simply asked them to stop making personal calls during work, unless it was a true emergency.  They agreed, and saved the company almost $155k per year, saving 3 full time equivalents.  
4. One client in NYC was losing money every day because employees typically arrived at work around “9-ish” and then ordered breakfast and didn’t start working until 10 or so.  My client offered bagels to those employees who arrived at work by 9, thus eliminating costly delays.

Contrary to popular belief, HR people get downsized as well.  And when it comes to a job search, they often need the same support that the rest of the world needs.

Today, I’m going to speak for an In-Transition group of a central NJ chapter of the Human Resource Management Association (HRMA).  It’s a perfectly good opportunity to remember that when it comes to our own job searches, the toughest thing to find is objectivity.  Job searching is tough for everyone, even the hiring professionals.

That said, I’d like to remind everyone that patience is far more valuable than any other resource right now.  The employment roller coaster is about to enter some tough spins and turns.  Your patience, though it sometimes seems hard to come by, will be your best friend.  And rest assured: the roller coaster ride will end.  

I promise.

As an HR consultant, I’ve been a part of a lot of people-related business decisions.  I’ve observed that businesses often use an economic downturn as an opportunity to rid the company of poor performers.  So the first tip is to make sure that you are indispensable to the company every day of the year.  If this is the first time you’ve thought about increasing your net worth for your employer, it might be too late.

That said, these are some other tips that have helped people keep their jobs.

1. Meet with the boss and ask how you can help improve the company’s numbers. Suggest non-traditional things like offering to give back some vacation time, offer to take on extra assignments, or using paid time off if work is very slow.  I even know of one employee who offered to work 2 days a month without pay for the following three months.
2. Find ways to save money and suggest them to the boss.  Make a thorough business case for each suggestion.  Don’t suggest downsizing others as this will read as a bit cut-throat.  (When the FAA deregulated airfares in the early 1980’s, a Delta airlines employee figured out that removing the little trays in the ashtrays in the non-smoking sections of each flight would save the company millions each year in saved fuel costs.  (Each flight was lighter.)  That’s the type of creative thinking we need to see!  As well, take a cold hard look at your job and suggest cuts on convenient resources you could truly do without.
3. This tip is for non-sales people:  if you can go out and get a new client.  Tell the boss you did this just to help: no financial reward needed.
4. Exempt employees:  if you tend to be a clock-watcher and start promptly at 9 and end at 5, stop it.  This is an “all hands on deck” situation.
5. Finally, think like the CEO does: lower costs and higher revenues now rule the business world.

A client recently asked me if exit interviews were really necessary, and if a “stay” interview (exploring ways to convince the resigning employee to rescind the resignation) was a good idea as well.

I believe well-conducted exit interviews are critical for the obvious reason: it helps a company learn about ways they can improve retention.  Stay interviews are another story.  They do not work because of the following reasons:

1. Once the employee has resigned, my only tool to lure him back is, in all likelihood, a salary increase.  Great employers do not engender loyalty with money, but with relationships.
2. I’ve seen more than one example in which employers play “Let’s Make a Deal” with an employee who threatens to leave, and it never works out.  Inevitably, the employee “threatens” to leave again 6-12 months later.

The best way to retain employees is to combine solid compensation with a strong interpersonal relationship.  If the employee has resigned (or is thinking of resigning), then the relationship is not strong and would take a long time to repair.

It’s been quite a week!  First of all, my latest book, Confessions of an HR Professional: Secrets for Getting Your Foot in the Door has hit the presses.  To order a digital copy, go to http://www.FullSpectrumHR.com and click on the “HRCoachNow” or Products tab.  The paper back copy will be available later in the week at the same site.

This brings me to more news.  The Web site is getting a much needed facelift.  It should be done Tuesday afternoon.

FInally, I’ve also gotten some great press.  The Times Union was kind enough to invote me as a guest blogger.  To see the blog, please go to: http://blogs.timesunion.com/classconflict/?p=890%C2%A0.  

Check them out.  Thanks!

Amidst all of the noise about the economy, it’s important to keep a few critical points in mind if you are looking for a job, or if you think you might be looking for one soon.

First, stay focused and remain optomistic.  Lots of companies are hiring, despite what you’re hearing.  (I’m as busy as I’ve ever been.)

Make sure your resume is tight and customized to the specific opportunity for which you are applying.  You’re asking an employer to shell out thousands and thousands of dollars for someone he does not know, and to do so during economically stressful times.  Truthfully highlight your skills and experiences as this potential customer needs to see them.  Make sure your resume is error-free, easy to read, and contains relevant information.

Networking is the holy grail of a job search.  In all sorts of economic times over the past thirty-some years (and yes, there have been times that were worse than this one), networking has always been responsible for 80-85% of the hiring in this country.

Finally, I have three new resources.  My latest book, Confessions of an HR Professional: Secrets for Getting Your Foot in the Door is now available for download from my Web site, www.FullSpectrumHR.com.  Click on the “HR Coach Now!” tab.  Also on the same page: Two teleconferences specifically for job hunters:  Secrets of a Great Resume, and Job-Hunting in Tough Econoic Times.

Last month, I informed a client of mine about the effects of a recent and now pervasive habit in his workplace. His employees were using their cell phones to text and make calls during work hours (not break times), and it was beginning to interrupt his work flow.

His company has 34 employees and the average salary there is $37 per hour.  If each employee spends only ten minutes on the phone or texting every day, it costs him…are you ready?…$50,592.00 per year.  That’s the cost before we factor in the cost of lost business, on-the-job accidents resulting from a misdirected attention span, and other costs.  Interestingly, his employees feel overworked and have asked him to hire another employee.  If they’d just cut their phone and texting time in half, that new employee would be much easier to afford.

Employers pay not only for the employee’s physical activity, but their attention to detail and focus on work as well.  They pay for these products for the duration of the time that the employee is at work.  Texting or talking on the cell phone at work to handle non-urgent personal matters is selfish and inconsiderate, and comes at the expense of production and customer service.

And if you happen to be unlucky enough to ride on a train in which the conductor is texting while on the job…well, the news speaks for itself.

Just because we have technology does not mean we have to use it constantly, and I wish there were more people out there who remember the times before cellular phone technology during which we all went to work and maintained appropriate contact with people in our lives by calling them on our breaks or from home.  Sure, we could always call from the office to check on a sick relative or to handle a crisis, but there is no way you can convince me all those cellular calls and texts during business hours are true emergencies.

Just my two cents.

There was a time when an employee getting downsized would receive a few weeks of notice and a farewell party on her last day.

Times sure have changed.

A recent survey by Cyber-Ark revealed that a full 88% of IT administrators admitted that they would steal valuable password and access information should the company fire them.  These rarely altered passwords give the terminated employee access to payroll, client records, employee files, and operating codes.  In the wrong hands, this data allows someone to do everything from altering and deleting financial records, selling client contact and pricing data for sale to the highest bidder, and accessing other passwords to crashing all or part of the entire system.

Prevention is easier than it seems.  First, change passwords and access codes on a regular basis.  New passwords should be completely different from all other passwords in every way.  (A client told me he once learned this lesson the hard way.  He routinely rotated the system access passwords to contain the name of one of his three children.  An ex-employee used this data and hacked into the system.)

Second, have a brief conversation with your highest level IT person just before you terminate the employee. Tell her to deny the terminated employee all system access immediately after seeing you bring the employee into the office for the termination discussion.  (Alternately, ask the terminated employee to come to the office, and then ask them to wait a moment as you step out to call IT and request the system access denial.)

Accompany the terminated employee back to his desk.  Help him pack up or offer to send his personal belongings to his home address.  Do not, under any circumstances, allow the employee to use the computer.

Some terminated employees can adopt hostile behaviors.  Because one employee can do so much damage with so little effort, the days of the long pre-termination notice and farewell parties are over.  It’s sad, but unfortunately a necessity in today’s server-based workplace.  

It may seem like something said by a person who’s been living under a rock, but believe it or not, hiring continues and is even rising in some sectors.

How is this possible?  Well, the media’s reporting techniques tend to rely on government collected information.  They also tend to hyperbole, trying to generate higher sales.  

But the fact is that smaller businesses are continuing to look for employees at all levels.  The general concerns over our economy are influencing the manner in which they hire.  Decisions are slower and more deliberate, but the hiring continues nonetheless.

I tell my clients that there’s both less and more to economic fluctuations than meet the eye.  On the one hand, the downturn is nothing more than an expression of fear as opposed to a result of true economic indicators.  It lacks any tangible cause and is probably more generated by the press than anything else.  (Yes, I know the sub-prime market crashed, but the true ripple effect of that event has yet to be isolated and accurately measured.)

While the psychogenic aspect of an economic fluctuation brings comfort to some, it is worrisome as well. The fact that emotions drive this enormous part of our lives only increases the unknown element, and the unknown increases anxiety.

So my message to both job hunters and employee seekers is simple.   If you are in need of people, make sure the need is real and definitely long term, and then proceed with your hiring.  If you are on the job search side, take a deep breath and continue looking.  You will find a job.  The bottom line for both: Keep moving. This will end sooner than later, and the road ahead will seem more clear and easy to navigate

There’s no lack of discussion about millennial employees (born circa 1987) anywhere on the web or in business journals. The reviews on this generation are still coming in, but “mixed” seems to describe those we’ve received thus far.

Words describing millennial employees range from “technically brilliant” to “cocky,” from “frighteningly expedient” to “lazy,” and “impressively exact in their work” to “lacking work ethic.”

They can be a bit impatient, wanting now the six figure salaries that their predecessors labored for years to achieve. Often their take on work is that if they can get a full day’s work done in an hour, why shouldn’t they take the rest of the day off?

A friend of mine, a CEO of a company with 300 or so employees, got just that response when he came upon a group of new employees sitting - yet again - in the lunch room working on what must have been their ninth cup of designer coffee and playing games on their credit card-sized phones. He asked them why they were still there as opposed to doing their work. They explained that they’d all completed their assigned projects within a few hours, and felt that it was now perfectly reasonable to spend the rest of the day in repose. “After all,” one of them said, “it hardly seems fair to penalize us because we work faster than the older employees.”

Foul! Unless the employee had contracted to receive pay on a per project basis (and my friend swears that’s not the case,) then this particular style of thinking smells like a trout that’s been rotting in the sun for a week in August and is only half as useful.

Here’s a piece of fact to chew on: for all his talent, expedience, technical savvy, and exactitude, this millennial forgot an important point.  His employer, my friend, was paying not only for the product he produced, but for his time as well. If he finished his project early, a more constructive tack might have been to find something else to do: to raise the bar on his own performance, so to speak. That’s how “the older guys” got those six figure salaries: by showing dedication and commitment: by managing their careers like they were important. I’m not suggesting that 16 hour days are the only acceptable path to professional success, but I’m sure that an approach of doing “only what they ask me to do” just won’t cut it, now or any time in the future.

5/22/07

We’ve all seen them before: the handbooks that large corporations give to new employees on their first days on the job.  They usually make for pretty boring reading, much of it in legal-eze. 

But these are important documents, not only for large employees, but smaller companies as well, and I recently worked with a company after the owner learned this lesson the hard way. 

Gabe started his high tech business after closing his 20 years of tenure at a Fortune 50 company, taking a $350,000.00 package along the way.  His dream was to build a place where his employees would feel at home: safe and secure, unlike the years he’d spent at the corporate grindstone.

A year later, Gabe’s business had grown to five employees.  His technical genius, Steven, was hired only 2 months after opening the doors and became the company’s third employee.  After several months, Steven expressed his concern over the new company’s financial stability, and that’s where Gabe made his big mistake.  In a good-hearted effort to help Steven feel more secure, Gabe, said, “It’s OK Steven.  You’ll always have a job here.”  Two other employees overheard the conversation.

Not long after that, Steven’s performance began to slip.  He was frequently late and often left work incomplete.  Gabe confronted him repeatedly, and finally decided that there was no other option; Steven had to go.

Three weeks after his termination, Steven filed a lawsuit claiming that Gabe had violated a verbal agreement that promised him perpetual employment.  Steven’s attorney alleged that as there was no handbook outlining the company’s employment practices, and therefore his client had every right to interpret the statement “you’ll always have a job here” as an employment contract.

To make a long story short, the case never went to court and Gabe’s attorney was able to convince opposing counsel that there was, in fact, no real grounds for a lawsuit.  But it was close, and in addition to the nearly $20,000.00 in legal bills, Gabe lost another employee who maintained a close friendship with Steven.  Business faltered and service dropped as Gabe scrambled to replace his two employees.

He’s now back on his feet and growing again, but Gabe learned that a solid Employee Handbook not only expresses clear performance expectations, but states that he’s an at-will employer who can terminate anyone with or without reason or warning, and that nothing – save a written document signed by him – can change that.

The CEO of one of New York’s many high tech start-ups recently told me that he’d “saved the day” by convincing a resignation-bound employee to stay. The employee had cited a competitor’s offer of a substantially higher salary as her reason for leaving.

My client felt that the best strategy here was to “gently grill” (his words, not mine) the employee for facts about the new job. She said they’d offered her a bigger base and a larger bonus structure. He told her he’d beat their numbers by 10%, if she’d give him the chance. Miracle of miracles: she did. She rejected her new offer and promised her current employer that she’d stay with him.

I guess he showed her.

But she’s really running that company, and I told him so. He should remain abreast of the compensation trends and his employee’s needs. Most employees resign because of a poor relationship with their manager, and as they do not know how to fix that problem, allow the lure of financial reward to influence their judgment. For every employee that resigns for a bona fide, substantial increase in salary, there are hundreds who look at the counter offer and ask, “If you truly appreciate me enough to do this, why couldn’t you say something about it before I resigned?” In other words, “I had no idea you even cared.”

There’s a little secret about salary offers that many execs ignore when an employee claims they’ve been offered a really big increase by another employer. When hiring, most employers use the new hire’s last salary as part of their calculation of what they are going to offer. Few will offer a salary that comprises more than a 10% increase. There’s no real formula or theoretical reason for this; the hiring company simply feels that this is a “reasonable number.” There is a good number of employees who threaten resignation because of a higher salary offer (particularly those with skills in high demand,) who are simply blowing smoke as a ruse to get more money.

As I suggested to this now somewhat deflated CEO: counter offers are the corporate equivalent of swallowing a slow-acting poison. It surrenders the management of your company to someone motivated entirely by a paycheck, instead of passion for the cause and loyalty to the employer. And when it gets around that this technique works (and it will get around - believe me when I tell you this) others will line up with their letters of resignation in one hand and their wallets in the other.

So the next time an employee tells you he’s resigning because he was offered more money, ask him when his last day will be (because you’re going to hold them to it) and get an HR professional to do an in depth exit interview to find out what’s really going on. Then take a cold, hard look at the ways in which you have or have not built trust and loyalty with your employees. That relationship is the key to retention.

An employee’s ability to do harm to a company has grown exponentially over the years. Twenty years ago, a disgruntled employee had to be able to crack a safe or forge a signature to steal money. Now, any employee with minimal computer knowledge and a mouse that works can do serious damage, especially to small businesses with fewer security layers and simpler systems.

There’s a common thought that if you are going to give an employee access to the company funds, use of a credit card, or other such privilege, that you must run a credit check to ensure a healthy credit rating. After all, if the candidate has shaky credit, s/he is more likely to abuse the system, steal money, and God only knows what else.

The rather standardized practice of running a credit check on a potential employee is, in fact, wasted effort and money. It could as well disqualify otherwise terrific candidates.

The fact is that someone’s credit rating can go south for many reasons, none of them remotely connected to honesty. A divorce, a pending mortgage application, illness, or an extended period of unemployment can equally lower a rating. Not all cases of poor credit resulted from someone who just decided not to pay his bills and mishandle his finances. And remember: the guys at Enron had terrific credit ratings.

One more point: there are no studies proving that people with poor credit are any more or less likely to steal or mismanage company funds than anyone else.

A criminal background check is a far better indicator of possible future problems. A candidate with a felonious conviction is statistically far more likely to commit another crime than someone who had never violated the law. Make sure that your job application states your intention to perform the criminal background check, and make sure the employee signs the application. As it’s best to perform the check after the employee has begun work, be sure that your employee handbook and your offer letters clearly state that all job offers are contingent upon the satisfactory completion of a background check.

It’s no secret that the government requires all employees to meet basic legal eligibility standards for employment in the United States. But apparently many companies do not know that they have to be ready to prove eligibility, as a recent report from HR.com shows a marked rise in hefty fines and even jail time for employers who cannot prove their employees’ legal right to work in this country.

Sparked in part by the Department of Homeland Security’s actions in a post-9/11 world, and in part by the current debates we have about eligibility for citizenship, this increased vigilance translates to a simple fact for American employers: you must have documentation for each employee – including yourself – that shows legal employment eligibility.

The form you must use for this is a federal form called an I-9. (The government link for the form is http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/i-9.pdf, but you can also Google “i-9” to find the link. Don’t buy the form; it’s free at this link.)

Have the employee complete the top of the form, and you (or a designee) will complete the lower half. The link also contains a list of acceptable documents the employee can use as proof of eligibility. Divided into three groups, the employee may choose one document from Column A, or one each from Columns B AND C.

If the employee’s status is temporary (for example, an H1-B visa be sure to redo the I-9 as soon as the employee receives their new documents. Their eligibility must be continuous; even a week’s lapse can be problematic.

I recommend to my clients that they photocopy the employee’s proof, draw a line through the picture, initial it, and note the date on which they viewed the original. While there is no part of the law that requires photocopies of the proof, inspectors do ask for them. Best to stay on the inspector’s good side.

Keep the completed forms in a separate folder (probably marked I-9) and keep it locked up securely.

I-9 compliance is an easy and quick way to avoid huge fines. And if you feel you can’t make the bright orange prison jumpers work, I-9 compliance will help you walking among the free.

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave them here or via email at ed@FullSpectrumHR.com.

Clients frequently ask me about the best way to ensure that the candidate for one of their positions will, in fact, be willing and able to do the job, and do it well.

The answer lies in a technique called “behavior-based interviewing.” In this technique, I’ll ask a candidate to describe - in detail - a specific time when he’s used this skill in the past. For example, instead of testing a programmer on his knowledge of C# (the responses to which could be nothing more than those he “studied” just before the interview,) I ask him to describe the last project in which he used C#. I follow up with questions like:

“Which employer was this for?”

“What were some of the problems you encountered?”

“How did you fix them?”

And so on…

Other examples:

“Tell me about the most difficult customer you had at your last employer. What made him tough to deal with? How did you handle it? What was the response?”

“Tell me about a specific time when you disagreed with your manager. How did you handle it? What was the outcome?”

“When was the last time you had to complete a project with little or no help from your manager. How did it work out? What did your manager say? What problems did you encounter?”

“Tell me about a specific instance when you had to respond to more than one urgent request in a short time period. How did you do it? Did you ask for help? What was the response?”

Asking hypothetical questions like, “Can you multi-task?” will get you hypothetical answers. Unless the candidate can describe - in detail - a specific time when he’s actually performed the task, then you won’t know if he’s actually had the experience. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior…and that’s what behavior-based interviewing helps you explore.

Feel free to respond with questions or comments here or via email at ed@FullSpectrumHR.com