» Employee Relations

It Only Takes Once

C.J. Westrick — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:00:19 +0000

I know there are some of you business owners who think you can wait to worry about HR until you’re a little bigger. My question is, “what are you waiting for?”

Recently I had a business owner call me in a panic. He was a one-person business who happened to be using an unemployed friend once in a while for the past few months. The friend was paid in cash.

One afternoon the business owner had to run home for an emergency and had his friend hold down the shop while he was gone. As luck would have it, a rep from the Labor Board stopped by and learned the friend was working for this company… off the books. The business owner returned to his office to find a $1,000 fine for not having workers’ compensation insurance and a stop-work order, preventing him from using his friend until he was legit.

I was able to give the business owner the advice he needed to deal with this situation and to prevent future problems. Sadly, I also had to let him know that he should expect a visit or call from EDD and the feds regarding the unpaid payroll taxes, plus fines and penalties for not hiring legally in the first place. (Make a note that state and federal government offices are real touchy about not receiving their share!)

This particular business owner was lucky. Because he had only used his friend on occasion and for only a few months, the total he’ll owe will probably be fairly low (under $2,500) between the state and federal government offices involved. In some cases, you can be hit with four years’ worth of unpaid overtime, missed meal or rest breaks and, of course, the money and interest the state and feds should have been receiving all that time. That’s before the fines and penalties.

The really bad news is that his business is now known to those government offices and he’ll have to be sure to be legit going forward. This was a wake-up call for him and an expensive lesson.

So, in the words of Dirty Harry… do you feel lucky?

Yet Another INS I-9 Form

C.J. Westrick — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:15:57 +0000

We’ve been waiting for an update to the Immigration and Naturalization Services’ (INS) I-9 form since the last version expired and it’s finally here. Delete the version you’ve been using and replace it with this NEW I-9 Form!

This new I-9 form expires August 31, 2012, so it looks like we can stop worrying about which version to use for a while. However, with Homeland Security calling the shots on what’s considered the best documentation, don’t be surprised if we see changes before 2012.

Remember that every employee needs to complete this form upon hire and, if they used identification that needs to be renewed, make sure you get the updated information as needed. You don’t have to have current employees fill this out again. However, read the instructions that are part of the form whenever you have questions about what to do.

Promoted Into Disaster

C.J. Westrick — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:01:09 +0000

When promotions aren’t a reward or even a good career move

Let’s see if this sounds familiar. Bob has been a fabulous employee but you’ve been concerned lately because he’s been in the same position for over two years and you’re afraid he might leave the company. The answer seems obvious… you’ll promote him. In fact, you believe that he’ll be such a great influence on the people reporting to him that you’ll end up with a whole team that’s fabulous. You pat yourself on the back while thinking you’re pretty fabulous, too!

There are two big problems with this solution. The first problem is the way we think about promotions. We’ve all gotten wrapped up in the belief that success requires climbing the corporate ladder. Don’t take it personally; both employees and management have gotten stuck in that mindset. Since there are fewer and fewer positions available the higher you go in a company, it’s obvious that promotions are limited. Think of your business first: did someone leave to create a job opening or do you have a legitimate need for this new role? If you create new positions just for the purpose of rewarding someone, you’ve set a dangerous precedent that’s very hard to correct. It’s important to be creative in retaining your employees without constant promotions.

The second problem is the way we think about promotions. I’ve noticed a large percentage of companies that seem believe a new title magically gives an employee new skills. This can easily lead to disaster on several levels. Unless Bob has the right skills, he’ll probably be a poor supervisor and a legal risk to your company. Some of these skills may come naturally to Bob but real training is needed for many of the skills.

Putting Bob in a supervisory position removed him from a position he excelled in and put him in a position for which he has no experience or training… and, possibly, no aptitude. Even with training, he may never be a good supervisor if he doesn’t have the right aptitude for a supervisory role. Statistics say that 70% of employees blame their supervisor when asked why they left a company.

Let’s face it. Some people will never become a great supervisor, even with training. In fact, I know people who will do just about anything to avoid supervising people because it’s so stressful for them. This is where aptitude comes into play. A good supervisor really enjoys supervising people, including the challenges. These are the type of people who will benefit from a promotion to a supervisory position… and will be much more likely to be successful in the job.

So, let’s do a status check on Bob’s promotion. You no longer have fabulous Bob in his old position. You have not-so-great Bob as a supervisor. And you have less-than-fabulous Sam now doing Bob’s old job. Meanwhile, a lack of success in his new job could easily wear on Bob’s confidence and force him to leave your company. You could try to salvage this by offering Bob his old job back (assuming you still have an opening) but this is rarely successful because it looks like a demotion, no matter how you word it. How’s that brilliant idea of a promotion looking now?

Change your mindset about promotions. Determine whether or not your fabulous employee has the needed skills and knowledge or can be trained for ANY new position. Communicate with your employees to find out what they’d like to be doing in a year or two. You might be surprised to find that many are perfectly happy doing their current job and don’t have ambitious plans.

Don’t lose a good employee by making the mistake of thinking a promotion is the only or best solution for rewarding good performance. Either do your homework or plan to do some recruiting.

Sick and Tired

C.J. Westrick — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:13:39 +0000

I’m typically very healthy and rarely catch whatever bug is going around. But last month a series of early morning meetings and late nights (aka lack of sleep) resulted in a minor cold that lasted about three days. But two weeks later it came back with a vengence. I’ve now had this latest cold more than two weeks and it’s still hanging on just enough to be irritating.

There were a few days when my brain was working at about half speed, I was really tired from not being able to sleep through the night, and I was sucking down cough drops in such quantity that they were making me slightly nauseous. My question for you is … at what point do you want someone in that condition to stay home from work or come in?

Sick time is a tough issue. You may provide paid sick time and find it’s abused by use of the ever-popular "mental health" day. You may offer a bonus for perfect attendance but find you have employees who come to work and contaminate others just to say they never missed a day of work. PTO plans have similar issues because vacation and sick time is blended together and employees want to save all the days available for when they feel good and want a day off.

Regardless of which plan you use to account for sick days, it’s not perfect. You’re usually relying on your employee’s honesty and ability to handle the symptoms of their illness.

Do I have a magic pill for you? No. Sorry, the best I can tell you is to monitor sick days and days when you wish someone would stay home because they are contaminating the other employees. Watch for patterns (like significantly more Fridays and Mondays). Also consider the type of jobs your employees have because some of them probably shouldn’t be working (operating equipment, driving, etc.) if they are taking various drugs to alleviate symptoms. Then develop a policy or explanation of how you want employees to deal with illnesses.

Wellness programs are becoming more popular. Talk with your health insurance carrier to find out if they offer any ideas or programs intended to keep employees healthy. In the same way that a cold runs through an entire family, I’ve seen a cold or the flu run through an entire company. It’s hard to be productive and profitable when half your employees are out with the flu. It’s more cost-effective to work to prevent illnesses rather than dealing with the aftermath.

Five Reasons to Take Charge

C.J. Westrick — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 03:53:12 +0000

No matter how many times I might offer suggestions, train managers, or talk about it, there will always be a few of you that are not properly dealing with your bad employees. Why is that?

The most common reasons were compiled by the CNN.com staff. After reading what they put together, I have to agree with most of them. Listed below are the ones I’ve seen most often:

The employee brings more value to the company than s/he costs. I’ve seen this in companies where the technological knowledge of the company is connected to this employee. Prevent becoming too reliant on one employee by ensuring every employee keeps accurate and consistent logs of their work. While you may be reluctant to fire that employee, you need a backup plan for any type of "what if" that would prevent the employee from returning to work.
The boss is afraid of the employee. You can laugh but some employees can be downright scary! You hire someone who, at first, is great because they are proactive and take charge of their job. Unfortunately, over time they also take over the whole office and appear to be telling everyone else what they should be doing. Pretty soon, you’re afraid of the repercussions of disciplining or firing the employee.
If you’re already in this position, call in professional help (an experienced HR consultant or employment law attorney) who will help you work through this. If you want to prevent this from happening to you, do your job as a manager and counsel your employees as events occur. The longer you let things go, the worse it will get.
S/he is not really a bad employee. Usually this means the employee may really intend to do a good job or be a good employee but just can’t get it together. Maybe they do a fabulous job when they are working but are consistently late to work, absent, or a number of other things that you wouldn’t normally put up with if they didn’t do such good work.
The only viable solution here is to determine your policies and make sure all your employees, including the best and worst, follow them. As soon as you make allowances for one employee, others will soon expect special allowances too.

Do you see yourself in these examples? Deal with it. Don’t try to justify your actions to date, just change your behavior and take charge. You’ll love the difference it makes with the rest of your employees.

One Size Does NOT Fit All

C.J. Westrick — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:00:31 +0000

If you’re around me much, you know I preach consistency when making HR decisions. However, now I’m going to flip that around and say that the same action does NOT work in every situation. Am I being inconsistent in my teachings? Not at all!

Consistency is needed when making decisions to ensure you aren’t being discriminatory. If you are making a decision that will create policy, you must be consistent in how that policy is applied. I think the problem with remembering to be consistent comes when you are too focused on solving the problem without backing away to see what or who else your decision may affect.

Here’s an example of a narrow focus with attendance. You have one employee, Roger, who always shows up late to work and you’re trying to figure out how to make Roger arrive on time. This is only one of the problems you have with Roger, but it’s the one you’re currently going to fix. So you think, think, think. Aha, you’ll tell Roger that in the future if he is late to work again, he’ll be written up and continued tardiness will lead to termination. Perfect, right?

Did you give any thought to Joe, the fabulous employee who is late every once in a while due to childcare issues? You can’t discipline Roger without applying the same discipline to Joe or you run the risk of being charged with discrimination. You have to find solutions that work but that can be equally applied to both your best and worst employees.

The flip side of this is applying the same solution to similar but different problems. Confusing, huh? I worked with a client to create what turned out to be a series of three memos related to a specific attendance issue with one employee. The first memo laid out the problem and the "rule" this employee was to follow. At the same time we enhanced the policy in the Employee Handbook to match the rule in the memo. The other two memos were follow-ups based on continued poor attendance and a disregard for the new policy.

Where the problem came in was a few months later. I discovered the company was continuing to use my "three memo sequence" every time they had any issue with an employee. If the employee ended up receiving all three memos due to a continuing problem, they were terminated. Yes, even some of my clients act without asking me first! Go figure! Now, can you guess where my concern lay?

The fact that the company was consistently using the three-memo sequence for disciplining employees could easily make that sequence a policy. This means the company could be prevented from immediately terminating an employee or using another method or sequence for disciplining employees. Once your actions become a pattern, employees expect to see that pattern every time and can call foul when it’s not applied.

Human resources isn’t like accounting where everything is black and white. Legally, there are a lot of gray areas that we have to tip-toe around. Always take a look at what you’re doing when it comes to employee relations and ask yourself two questions: Am I willing to use this same treatment on both the best and worst employees? Am I using this disciplinary method because it best fits this particular situation?