Compliance

I’m Going Crazy!

Sondra is good at starting businesses because she knows how to convince people to part with their money.  Her latest venture almost doubled in size during the first year.  But every spare dime went back into the business often leaving her a bit short when it was time to fund the payroll account.

Being short on payday wasn’t a problem with her first hire, her sister Lena.  Younger sisters can be bullied for the sake of family solidarity, but Sondra’s best friend, Marla, demanded payment on time every week.  Marla’s now her ex-BFF and is blocked on Sondra’s personal and business social media sites.

After the bruising fights with Marla, Sondra decided to hire people she didn’t like.  At least when they screwed her, Sondra was prepared to be disappointed.  This clever talent acquisition plan worked until Sondra opened a second retail location.

With two retail locations and a constantly expanding line of products, Sondra can’t keep up with the details.  It seems that the more she sells, the less money she has in the bank. Adding a second store also quadrupled her headaches because she now bounces between the two locations without accomplishing much.

She is constantly bombarded with employee requests for time off from work.  A few employees think that their work schedules are advisories allowing them to come and go as they please.  She’d like to fire the laggards but that would mean the store lacks enough staff to stay open.  Besides, she needs to revise the job descriptions before reposting the jobs in hopes that the next batch of employees has the qualifications she wants.

Sondra’s been delaying taking action because she hates administrative tasks. But she also knows her business is beginning to implode because she’s stuck making up the rules as she goes. 

What are some options for Sondra to regain control of her life and business?

  1. She can sell the business to a competitor and become a management consultant telling other entrepreneurs how they can be successful like her.
  2. She can create an employee handbook that explains time and attendance and leave policies (among many other things) so that employees don’t waste her time asking her about these issues.
  3. She can set aside time each week to do a high level review of what her business needs so that it can grow successfully.

Many small business owners become bogged down in the details of running their business and fail to grow smoothly.  A critical point of failure happens when a business lacks an effective process for hiring and retaining employees.

Corporate Compliance Risk Advisor helps small businesses with up to 50 employees to create HR policies that work for the company and its employees.  Then we integrate the HR policies into the company-wide compliance program for a more seamless, lower risk operation. For more information, contact us at info@complianceriskadvisor.com.

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Bacon, Bags and Bayou

Another update from the Jungle…..

Gwen became the temporary manager of Wade’s department when he failed to return from a business conference in New Orleans.  While reviewing the expense reports submitted by several of Wade’s subordinates who also attended the seminar she noticed some odd charges on their company credit cards.

David bought industrial sized plastic trash bags with his company card.  He told Gwen that he hosted a party in his hotel room that got out of hand and he didn’t want to burden the housekeeping staff with the cleanup.  Tiffany said she bought a dozen bottles of household cleaners so that she could help David clean his room.

Jillian claimed that she needed to buy twenty rolls of duct tape to mail her seminar materials home, but Gwen didn’t see any postage charges. Ethan said he bought ten pounds of bacon because he often feels hungry in the middle of the night.  He declined to explain how he cooked bacon in his hotel room.

David, Jillian, Tiffany, and Ethan also racked up substantial charges for a boat ride into the bayou. They told Gwen they chartered a boat tour as a reward for putting up with Wacko Wade at the conference.  Then they regaled Gwen with the saga of Wade’s behavior at the conference.

During the opening segment of the conference, Wade raised his hand just before a scheduled break to ask a series of questions based on a garbled hypothetical.  By the time the presenter had responded, the entire break time was gone. That meant the next presentation started late, which also meant delaying lunch.

At the end of the day, Wade was at it again, asking another series of convoluted questions. Shouts of rage echoed around the room and people twisted in their seats trying to locate the idiot holding up their chance to get sloshed in the French Quarter.  The presenter was also annoyed because he wanted to ditch his suit and tie. He cut off Wade in mid-question.

By the second day of the conference, audible death threats floated in the air near Wade.  His subordinates skipped lunch to huddle in Ethan’s room, evolving a diabolically clever plan.  They began communicating via Instagram messages at Tiffany’s suggestion since these messages aren’t saved in a database.    

Of course, they didn’t tell Gwen about their diabolically clever plot; only about Wade’s obnoxious behavior.  As she stared at their innocent expressions, Gwen sensed that she might be missing something.  She wondered, “Is it worth it to ask HR to begin an internal investigation”?

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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Freedom from Rules

Another update from the Jungle…..

Linda opened her business one year ago when she was fed up with all the petty rules and employee bickering at her last job.  Her friends Julie and Rhonda joined her.  They agreed that their new business would be a happy place where workers were free to be creative and enjoy coming to work. That was the last time they agreed on anything.

Their infectious optimism enticed customers to try their products.  Soon they were overwhelmed with customers, but lacked the organizational structure to keep up. The storefront was in shambles and their workshop was littered with half-finished orders. 

After the usual 90-hour week, Rhonda skipped a day to catch up on her sleep. Since she neglected to tell the others, their shop was closed when a customer arrived to pick up her order.  When Linda returned to the office after making a delivery, the fuming customer taught her a few new words.  As soon as the offended customer left, Linda left a scathing voicemail on Rhonda’s phone, using some of the words she had just learned from the customer.

Two hours later, Rhonda galloped into the office. She screamed at Linda that she had been working non-stop for months and couldn’t take it anymore and wished she had never left her old job to work with such an ungrateful witch. Julie bounced out of the workshop to say that Linda’s rotten inability to set priorities was the cause of their problems.

Then Julie noticed that one of the customers was recording their fight with her cell phone.  Julie chased the customer around the store trying to grab her phone. The customer fled out the door with Julie still chasing her.  Rhonda collapsed onto the floor sobbing hysterically.

When Julie returned, the store was empty of customers. Linda announced that she was tired of not knowing where the other two were or what they were doing. 

What options are available to Linda?

  1. She can close the business and go live in a hut in the Rocky Mountains to get in touch with her feelings.   
  2. She can ditch her friends and start over with her worst enemy because, at least then, she would know what she’s getting. 
  3. She can adopt some basic HR policies to ensure the business can grow without imploding.

Most new business owners want to avoid written rules because they dislike bureaucratic boondoggles. They quickly learn that there is a huge difference between bogging down in bureaucratic rules and creating a framework of HR rules to allow the business to grow effectively.

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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Heck, No, You Can’t Go!

Another update from the Jungle…..

Fred was looking forward to a brilliant career. He’s young, educated and ambitious. His ambition has already helped him overcome the handicap of his parents naming him Rolex Fredericksburg, in honor of the city where he was conceived and his father’s favorite watch brand.  He graduated from college with honors and immediately landed a great job.

Of course, his brilliant career depends on getting past the Condor-sized buzzard he works for.  Randall seemed like a nice guy when Fred interviewed with him.  Randall rambled on at length about the training opportunities offered by the organization and how the organization believes in promoting from within. He bragged about his subordinates who have gone on to amazing careers.

Fred saw his brilliant future shimmering before him and immediately accepted Randall’s job offer.  He volunteered for special projects to gain experience and applied for every training course he could find.  Randall was overjoyed to have such an ambitious young man working for him and shoveled more projects on to Fred. 

Last week, Fred found another opportunity for advancement.  Of course, it would mean a temporary reassignment for two years to a distant office, but the additional experience and skills could ignite the trajectory of Fred’s career.  This morning, Fred meets with Randall to present his proposal.

Fred says he’ll return after two years and he’ll lead workshops to train others on what he learns during the two year reassignment. Randall stares blankly at him, then at the one page proposal. No, he says, evading Fred’s eyes, he can’t sign off on the proposal. Fred is much too valuable to the team to be lost for two years. Besides, there’s no guarantee, aside from Fred’s promise, that he will return to Randall’s department.

Fred glares stonily at Randall. His honesty and integrity are being questioned by the idiot who hired him less than a year ago.  His initial impulse is to jump up, run around the corner of the desk, and knock Randall into orbit.  Instead he excuses himself and walks out.

What options are available to Fred?

  1. He can slap the taste out of Randall’s mouth and tell HR he was temporarily insane with disappointment.
  2. He can begin a surreptitious campaign to push Randall into early retirement in order to clear the hurdle in his career path.
  3. He can quit at the first opportunity and pursue a brilliant career elsewhere.

In today’s tight labor market, employers who fail or refuse to invest in the development of their employees are likely to lose their best people to competitors who are willing to make the investment.   

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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I’ve Got My Eye on You

 Another update from the Jungle…..

Jayne accepted the first job offer after college because she was worried about making her student loan payments. She also wanted to prove to her parents that she could take care of herself.  In hindsight, Jayne wondered if living at home was really so bad because her new employer is insane.unnamed-5

During the endless rounds of interviews employees gushed about the joys of working for the company and its founder, Wesley, but Jayne was an English minor in college and she can read subtext. She quickly picked up on the jokes about timed bathroom breaks and monitored phone calls.

One young woman sheepishly admitted that she was busted for her negative comments on her personal Facebook page.  All the employees in that interview session laughed when Jayne said that she had heard that employees couldn’t be forced to provide access to their personal social media accounts to their employers. They assured Jayne that it was no big deal.unnamed-1

Jayne was young and desperate so she took the job despite feeling uncomfortable.  At orientation, she was required to sign a confidentiality agreement that allows the company to search her personal belongings at any time to ensure that confidential information is not stolen.     

Jayne’s discomfort zoomed into paranoia after she updated her LinkedIn profile with a description of her new job.  The next day, Rhoda, the HR Director, told Jayne that she had violated the company’s social media policy which covers postings on LinkedIn.

unnamedThe policy requires employees to include a statement that Wesley is a brilliant and inspiring boss and the employee is privileged to work for and learn from him.   Rhoda also told Jayne to change her head shot because it didn’t show her as a happy, loyal employee.  Jayne asked how she could show loyalty in a photograph. Rhoda shrugged. Jayne returned to her cubicle, a blob of raging paranoia.

What options are available to Jayne?

  1. She can stroll around the office humming the lyrics of a Buffalo Springfield song, “paranoia strikes deep/into your life it will creep”.
  2. She can embrace her paranoia and flit around the office in a Star Trek uniform talking to her co-workers about Klingons.
  3. She can hide in her cubicle pretending to work while she searches for a new job.

Most employers have social media policies setting parameters on what employees canunnamed-4 post and reserving the right to monitor employees’ social media for violations of the policy.  However, the more restrictive and intrusive these policies are the more likely that they will be found to have violated federal and state laws.

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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The Not-So-Little Prince

Another update from the Jungle…

unnamed-36Vicky is the HR person for her company because her business partners are guys who would rather face a starving lion bare-handed than deal with employees. Lately, she’s been seesawing between the urge to kill one of the younger workers or to knock his block off.

Gus is a 30-something millennial who thinks he is a prince who can set his own rules. So Gus ignores the rule that says he should show up on time to work everyday. He also ignores the one that says he should tell his supervisor if he leaves the office during the workday.

Vicky learns that Gus has continued to ignore her verbal warnings when she receives a phone call from Frank, the company founder. Frank is a brilliant man, but he refuses to learn how to use an electronic calendar, his email account, or the internet. When Frank started his career, people actually talked to each other. He sees no reason to change his unnamed-34work habits now.

Frank asks if she declared a work holiday without telling him because he’s alone in the office and needs help with the copier. Vicky is flummoxed. She runs through the list of all twenty employees while Frank breathes heavily down the phone line. Gus is missing.

The next day, Vicky calls Gus to her office. Gus arrives twenty minutes late and slouches into a chair. He takes a big gulp of his energy drink, bored and disinterested, and demands an explanation for being dragged away from his work.

unnamed-35Vicky stares at him through a red haze. The last time a young male addressed her in such a surly tone, he got whapped up-side the head and lost his driving privileges for a month. But her son was sixteen at the time, not a 30-something! With superhuman strength, Vicky restrains herself.

She explains to the oblivious Gus that their small staff requires collaboration, and that means notifying others when he leaves the office. Gus drains his energy drink and tosses the container in the trash, splashing Vicky’s foot. He suggests that Frank should be given an iPad with everyone’s calendar loaded on it. Then he would know where all his staff is at any time. Vicky feels the red haze gathering again.

unnamed-37What options are available to Vicky?

  • She can congratulate herself on her self-restraint for letting Gus live.
  • She can look around for a frenemy who can be conned into hiring Gus.
  • She can give Gus a final warning but begin planning to replace him.

In the actual situation, the millennial was given another chance to improve. He is apparently still unaware of how close he is to termination for cause.

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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I Need a Job, But Not That One

Another update from the Jungle…..

Nancy has been the HR manager at her company for several years. Over that time, she’s looked at scores of resumes and interviewed many job applicants. She has a lot of practice since her employer tends to have less than ideal employee practices, leading to a revolving door.

Nancy converted her experience into a thriving hobby of helping friends of friends and family to spiff up their resumes and practice interviewing techniques. She thinks of her unofficial placement service as passive resistance to her company’s less than stellar notions of how to treat employees. Her boss thinks she’s brilliant at spotting talent without realizing that her hobby is the source of the candidates she uncovers.

Last week Nancy agreed to meet with Mercedes, who recently moved to town and would like some help with her job search. Mercedes shows up ten minutes late. Mercedes says her family moved to town about six months ago, and she’d like a job that allows her to use her college degree in marine biology.

That’s unfortunate, thinks Nancy, since they live in a land-locked state, a time-zone away from the ocean. Nancy takes another look at Mercedes’s resume to see whether any of her work experience might be transferable to another industry. Mercedes volunteers that she’s had a couple of job interviews but they weren’t “right” for her. What wasn’t right about them? asks Nancy.

Mercedes says the first company requires some evening and weekend work, but she wants her weekends free. The other interview was with a company in a neighboring suburb. Mercedes doesn’t want to sit in traffic, and besides, the salary they offered was too low. She’s really hoping for a job that pays a salary comparable to what she made on the west coast.

Mercedes rambles on for several more minutes on what she wants from her future employer. She has a garbled explanation of why every suggestion made by Nancy won’t work for her situation. Gradually, Nancy realizes that Mercedes has just wandered on to earth from a distant planet.

How might Nancy advise Mercedes?

  1. She can tell Mercedes to have a nice life and bail on her.
  2. She can suggest that Mercedes look for a modern day Daddy Warbucks to take care of her.
  3. She can give Mercedes a few pointers on refining her job search to increase the chance of finding a job she wants.

HR managers (and small business owners) expend many hours reading resumes from job seekers who aren’t clear about what they want to do. Some decide to outsource the task to placement services.

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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Did PTO Policies Inspire Paid Sick Leave Laws?

Another update from the Jungle…..

Last week’s story was about a sick employee who would not take time off from work because she didn’t want to burn through all her PTO days. As a result, she infected many of her co-workers spreading misery to everyone. If her company had offered paid sick leave separately from her PTO, would she have taken time off to get well rather than coming to work sick?

Years ago, employers began combining vacation and sick leave into a single category of leave called personal time off (PTO). PTO was administratively easier for employers to track in their HR and payroll systems. As an added bonus employers didn’t have to worry about violating HIPAA privacy because there was no need to verify that an employee was sick. It was easier for employees, too, since they didn’t have to fake symptoms or explain the gruesome details of their illness to justify their sick leave requests.

But PTO policies can be unnecessarily restrictive. A former employer of mine allowed only ten days of PTO a year. The practical effect was that everyone showed up sick in order to save a few days for a paid vacation. PTO restrictions didn’t apply to the owners or senior managers. Not surprisingly, morale was tanked, and turnover was astronomical.

Poorly designed PTO policies raise employer costs through poor morale and permanent recruiting efforts. Not only that, the policies seem unfair to workers. So it’s not surprising that many states are considering paid sick leave laws. Arizona, California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington now require paid sick leave. Washington, D.C. and a growing number of cities also require paid sick leave.

Tennessee is unlikely to enact a paid sick leave law any time soon. However, Tennessee employers with multi-state operations need to plan how they will address these laws.

  1. They should compare the cities and states where they have operations with those that require paid sick leave and verify they are in compliance with applicable laws.
  2. They should revise their employee handbooks to address paid sick leave laws, either by creating a separate handbook for affected locations or adding jurisdiction-specific addendums.
  3. They could design a company-wide paid sick leave policy to comply with all the jurisdictions where they have operations.

Deciding whether to change a PTO policy to add more days or creating a separate paid sick leave policy depends on a number of factors, notably the company’s corporate culture and the cost of offering the revised benefits.  The worst decision would be to ignore this issue.

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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3 Revisions For Your Sexual Harassment Policy

Another update from the Jungle…..

It’s amazing how quickly our social expectations are evolving on the topic of sexual harassment. Not so long ago, off color comments, body groping and other objectionable behavior was tolerated, particularly when committed by powerful people. All that is changing and employers need to adapt. Here are three suggested revisions for employers reviewing their sexual harassment policy and training.

Managerial Support

Every employer I worked for insisted on annual sexual harassment training for the staff. But most managers never showed up for the training or left early. That’s unfortunate, since the most common form of sexual harassment is still male bosses harassing women subordinates.

But accusing the boss of inappropriate behavior is the fastest path to ruining a woman’s career. That’s why Harvey Weinstein wasn’t publicly accused of sexual harassment until after he lost his status as a Hollywood power broker. Employers can avoid a Weinstein moment by requiring managers to participate in training and to set the example on what behavior is acceptable.

Realistic Training

One employer I worked for used the same training video year after year until employees stood in front of the screen, miming the actors and repeating the dialogue. The scenarios were blindingly obvious, like the woman who gets fired after refusing to date her boss. Everyone got their ticket punched for the yearly training and no one learned anything.

Training materials must include realistic scenarios of everyday occurrences. Training must also acknowledge that deciding what is harassment can be subjective. I once worked with a man who always spoke in double entendres. Most the women in the office claimed that they were outraged, but they continued flirting with him. Was he harassing them or not? That’s a much more realistic scenario than the boss dating his secretary cliché.

Clear Complaint Process

Deciding whether to complain begins with actually reading the relevant section of the employee handbook. The relevant section is usually buried in a long paragraph at the end of the anti-harassment policy section of the handbook. It may not be clear whether the complaint process applies to other situations, including the separate sexual harassment policy.

Assuming the harassed employee decides to make a complaint, she (or he) will immediately have two fears. What if the process requires reporting to your supervisor and that’s the harasser? How does the person complaining avoid retaliation? To be effective, the complaint process should be easy to read, have alternative paths for reporting a complaint, and ensure confidentiality as much as possible.

Our society is evolving.  Employers need to move quickly to adapt.

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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Next!

Another update from the Jungle….

Pam owns a small company and she’s preparing for her next round of job interviews. She feels like she spends a lot of time hiring new employees because she has a revolving door as employees bail out for bigger companies that offer more fringe benefits or higher pay.

She approaches the interviewing and hiring process with a mixture of dread and anticipation. She gets excited when she thinks she may actually find that perfect match of personality and skill set to fit her company. But more often her anticipation evaporates into dread or even fascinated horror.

One recent job applicant, Stuart, earnestly explained that he would not be able to provide identification if he’s hired because the CIA might find him and then his life would be in danger. Sam listed his probation officer as a character reference since that was the only person who saw him on a regular basis. Tamara said her mother was forcing her to look for a job and how long would the interview take anyway.

Pam went home that night to pour a stiff triple shot of single malt scotch. As she sipped her scotch, she thought that finding a good employee is as difficult as finding Prince Charming. No one ever looks as good in person as they do on paper.

The next day, Pam is back in the office shuffling through a new stack of resumes. She weeds out the ones with typos and scary details. Then she sets up a new batch of interviews. The first interviewee, Kim, has a nose ring but says “yes, ma’am” and “no, ma’am” when responding to questions. Annie, the next contestant is covered in neck and arm tattoos and wears a metal-studded dog collar. Sam sits bolt upright and barely utters a complete sentence.

Pam is getting desperate. She needs employees to keep her business afloat.

What are Pam’s options?

  1. She can accept the fact that her employees won’t stay long and adapt her business model to reflect the reality of the revolving door.
  2. She can outsource much of the hiring process which will save her time. Of course, a staffing agency may not have any better luck than her at finding appropriate job applicants for her company.
  3. She can close her business and go work for a distillery since her single malt scotch is the only thing bringing her happiness at the moment.

The above examples of job applicants are taken from actual interviews, although names have been changed to protect the innocent, the scary, and the downright weird.

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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