Month: April 2016

Mentor, Schmentor

Mentor4Grace is an assistant manager for her company. She’s always looking for opportunities to improve her performance so that she can get promoted. She hears that Diane believes in mentoring young talent and asks for a transfer to Diane’s department.

At their first meeting, they set performance goals for Grace. Grace wants to take some management classes to prepare for promotion. She also wants more responsibility to prove that she can be a good manager.

Diane applauds her goals and immediately asks Grace to help train a new hire, David. Diane also encourages Grace to be “proactive” by volunteering for internal assignments as part of a strategy to get noticed by senior management.

So Grace volunteers to lead a team that will make recommendations for streamlining some of the company’s operating procedures. Her committee’s recommendations are forwarded by Diane to senior management. A month later, Grace reads an email from the company president that praises Diane for the committee’s recommendations.

Grace asks Diane why none of the committee members were mentioned in the president’s email and receives an evasive answer.  Grace concludes that she and her team will never be recognized. She decides to do all she can to help her committee members get recognized for their hard work. She’s already quietly mentoring three of them and helps two of them find places in departments away from Diane.

Mentor5She decides to not bail out herself because she believes she is in line for a promotion that is opening soon. The company has a policy that requires an employee to be in a position for at least a year before being eligible for promotion.

This morning Grace learns that David will get the promotion she wanted. She also learns that the company is supporting Diane’s nomination for an award based on her mentorship of younger women professionals.  Grace asks several female co-workers; no one knows who Diane is supposed to have mentored.

What should Grace do next?

  1. She can create a fake resume for David and send it to competitors in the hopes they will hire him, leaving her the promotion she deserves.
  2. She can accept that Diane’s nickname starts with a capital “B” and stop volunteering to do work for which Diane will steal the credit.
  3. She can recognize that her career advancement requires an internal transfer or a new employer.

The above scenario is a composite of the experiences of many women, and some men, professionals. Managers like “Diane” can tank morale faster than obviously rotten managers. A good HR program should include performance assessments that neutralize the toxic effect for a “Diane”.

If your company is struggling with HR issues, Corporate Compliance Risk Advisor can help you create HR policies that are appropriate for your company’s size and then serve as a resource to your staff as the policies are implemented.

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Working with a Jerk

Jerk1Jenny is excited about her new job with an insurance company.  She isn’t excited about insurance, of course; no one is. She’s excited about being employed again. None of her previous jobs had lasted very long as her employers were acquired or downsized.

Jenny’s new boss, Dan, assigns her to work with a more experienced co-worker, Alan. Since Alan didn’t join them, Jenny trots down the hall to his office to introduce herself. Alan’s office is a mess with files stacked haphazardly on the desk and floor. It looks like a fire marshal’s exhibit of a fire hazard.

Jerk2Jenny says that Dan has asked her to work with Alan while she is in training. She asks how she can help him with some of the claims he is working on. Alan flips through several folders on his messy desk and says he’ll get back to her.

After a week of stalling, Alan agrees to take Jenny along to a meeting with an insured that has filed a claim. The insured company’s office is on the other side of town. During the meeting, Alan tells Jenny to wait while he goes down the hall to look at some sensitive documents. Jenny waits in the conference room talking to a representative of the insured.

Finally, she asks whether Alan has finished his review of the sensitive documents. She learns that he left twenty minutes ago. Jenny is stranded at the insured’s office late in the day as rush hour begins. She calls a cab to take her back to her office where she parked her car.

The next day Jenny tells Dan that she would like to work with a different co-worker. She doesn’t tell Dan all the details of the prior day’s meeting but says that the current arrangement isn’t working. Dan calls Alan to his office and asks how things are going with Jenny’s training. Alan acts surprised and says he thinks it’s going well.

What should Jenny do next?

  1. She can tell Dan what really happened but she’s the new kid on the block and there’s no guarantee he’d believe her.
  2. She can complain to the HR representative who is 800 miles away at the company HQ and has a history of deferring to local managers.
  3. She can bide her time learning as much as possible so that she can find a better job with nicer co-workers.

In the actual situation, “Jenny” chose the third option. She learned new skills that increased her marketability and eventually moved to a new employer with nicer co-workers.

If your company is struggling with HR issues, Corporate Compliance Risk Advisor can help you create HR policies that are appropriate for your company’s size and then serve as a resource to your staff as the policies are implemented.

 

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Ebook Link:  https://hrcompliancejungle.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/skh-employee-theft.pdf

Bored to Tears

Trng-2Celia is the HR manager for her company and she handles the internal training when the staff needs to be updated about new employment laws or regulations. She’s been very busy lately preparing to explain the proposed regulations by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) on new overtime rules and the DOL’s new “economic reality” test for independent contractors.

Celia’s fascinated by the process of how these new rules are formulated. She wants to understand why the DOL perceives employment problems that need to be fixed. She thinks understanding this background will help her explain the new rules to her fellow employees. Celia creates a PowerPoint presentation that summarizes what she’s learned.

The big day arrives and her co-workers reluctantly gather in the training room. Celia begins her presentation with PowerPoint slides about the Fair Labor Standards Act which is the basis for the new guidance and rules. Then she talks about DOL’s reasons for changing the rules.

Trng-3After ten minutes, an employee asks how the new rules will affect his job. Celia tells him “we’ll get to that in a minute” and clicks through to the next slide. The third time she repeats that phrase, employees begin shifting in their chairs. Some employees surreptitiously check their devices for emails or the latest Candy Crush game.

At the half hour mark, Celia notices that the crowd has thinned. The smart employees grabbed seats near the back of the room so that they could escape. The sycophantic employees and those angling for promotions are hopelessly trapped near the front of the room and forced to continue listening to her presentation.

Celia limps through the rest of her presentation and asks if there are questions. People glare at each other to ensure no one is stupid enough to prolong the suffering by asking questions. Celia ends the training session and one person is trampled in the dash for the exits.

What could Celia do at her next training session to keep people engaged?

  1. She could use flashier PowerPoint slides to keep everyone’s attention.
  2. She could create handouts with key points for discussion and stop using PP slides.
  3. She could revise her presentation to explain how the new rules will specifically affect her co-workers’ jobs.

The above scenario is an only-slightly fictionalized account of dozens of in-house training sessions that I’ve experienced over the years.  No co-workers were ever trampled so there was nothing to break the monotony.  To avoid Celia’s fate at your company’s next training session, consider using the third option by making the information specific and relevant to the employees.

If your company is struggling with HR issues, Corporate Compliance Risk Advisor can help you create HR policies that are appropriate for your company’s size and then serve as a resource to your staff as the policies are implemented.

 

Join the HR Compliance Jungle today. Click here!

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Ebook Link:  https://hrcompliancejungle.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/skh-employee-theft.pdf

I’m Independent Until I’m Not

Josh runs a localDriver1 courier service. He decides which jobs to accept and negotiates delivery fees with customers. When a customer calls, Josh looks at the roster of drivers and goes down the list until he finds a driver to handle the job.

His couriers are part-timers and include college students, stay at home moms, and a few Uber drivers. He treats everyone as an independent contractor because they use their own vehicles and set their own hours. All Josh requires is a clean driving record and proof of insurance.

Driver3Yesterday, Ron, a college student driver, was involved in a fender bender while making a delivery.  Ron is desperate to avoid telling his parents about the car. His parents bought the car for him as a reward for dropping his beer and pizza plan for college studies and getting serious about graduating.

Ron asks Josh to help pay for the repairs but Josh declines. He points out that Ron is an independent contractor, not an employee. Josh adds that it’s not his fault Ron was talking on his cell phone while driving and not paying attention to the traffic signals.

So Ron calls his mom to give her a hint that the car insurance premium may, possibly, kind of, increase due to unforeseen circumstances.  Like any experienced mother, Ron’s mom gets the real story within minutes. After she finishes explaining that idiots who can’t multitask shouldn’t try to drive and talk at the same time, she asks for more details about Josh’s courier business.

Driver2Ron’s mom works in HR for a major corporation and she’s just read about the U.S. Department of Labor’s new “economic realities” test. She thinks that Ron is actually an employee and not an independent contractor.

What should Ron’s mom do next?

  1. She can use her HR experience to compare Ron’s description of how the courier business is run to the DOL test and assess whether he’s an employee.
  2. She can ask one of the corporate attorneys at her company to give her an off-the-record assessment of the DOL test.
  3. She can contact Josh directly to argue that he should pay for the auto repairs because she believes her son is actually an employee of Josh’s business.

DOL released guidance on their new “economic realities” test about a year ago. This new test looks at whether a worker is economically dependent on the “employer”.  If yes, then the worker is an employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Expect to hear much more about this test.

If your company is struggling with HR issues, Corporate Compliance Risk Advisor can help you create HR policies that are appropriate for your company’s size and then serve as a resource to your staff as the policies are implemented.

Join the HR Compliance Jungle today. Click here!

Ebook Link:  https://hrcompliancejungle.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/skh-employee-theft.pdf

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Visit us: http://www.complianceriskadvisor.com/