Practical Solutions To Your Workforce Questions

Not knowing how to deal with some problems within your workforce can make your job miserable. That’s what managers tell me all the time–and that’s why I developed the HR HelpLine.

The HR HelpLine provides expert, confidential advice on all employee issues so you can effectively run your organization. Business owners, senior managers & HR professionals use this service to solve their human resource problems and get practical advice on difficult workforce situations.

Call Rick Dacri at 207-967-0837 for a FREE initial consultation. I guarantee you’ll get the answers you need.

TOP TEN BENEFITS TO THE HR HELPLINE

10. You’ll get answers to all your workforce questions FAST Whether as basic as an attendance issue or as complicated as handling a sexual harassment claim-I’ll have expert advice for you.

9. You’ll always know how to address the difficult employee issues I’ll provide you a back to basics approach to dealing with employees–practical and uncomplicated

8. Employment law will finally be clear to you No more legalese-just straight answers–a simple, uncomplicated approach

7. You’ll always be talking to an expert whom you can trust You’ll only talk to me, Rick Dacri, who’ll find solutions for you that makes sense

HR HelpLine: When You Need Expert Advice

Managing people is hard and often frustrating.  Throw in those ever changing employment laws, lawyers that want to sue, employees who “know their rights,” a bruising economy and everyone demanding more and more of your time, and your job just got very complicated.

Well, I can help you with the people side of the business. Since I started my business in 1995 I have provided my clients with practical, uncomplicated, expert advice on how to make managing easier. Through my HR HelpLine, I have provided managers, just like you, the human relations expertise and hands-on skills needed to improve employee productivity, mitigate risk, and eliminate headaches that comes with managing people.

My clients call me for help on a number of difficult issues, from how to deal with the cook who came to work smelling of booze, to the clerk who hasn’t showed up to work in days, to the injured nurse who has refused to return on modified duty, to the manager who gets bit “handsy” with his female staff. You name it, I’ve been asked.

Regardless of the issue, if it is impacting your workplace, I can provide you with the assistance and expert advice you need to rectify the situation.

Want to know more? You can click HR HelpLine for a more detailed description of the service or you can call me direct at 207-967-0837. It’s that easy.

Incidentally, when you call the HR HelpLine, you speak only to me, Rick Dacri. No rookies. And, beyond the unlimited phone and email access, I’ll also give you a subscription to my management newsletter, The Dacri Report; a copy of my book, Uncomplicating Management; and regular updates and alerts designed to help make managing a bit easier.

Sound too good to be true? Give me a call and we can talk a bit more about it—and when you do, I’ll even send you a copy of my book—Free. See, I’m a nice guy too!

EEOC Reports Nearly 100,000 Job Discrimination Charges

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reported that it received nearly 100,000 workplace discrimination claims during its 2012 fiscal year. These claims do not include those filed through state agencies. Retaliation, race and sex discrimination which includes allegations of sexual harassment and pregnancy were, respectively, the most frequently filed charges. The Commission further reported that it obtained $365 million for those who brought forth these claims.

To prevent discrimination from occurring in your company, you should do the following:

Harassment Prevention Training: What Must Be Included

If you’re truly serious about a harassment prevention program, which must include training of your managers and workforce, then get rid of those old video-based programs and move to conducting an interactive program, facilitated by an expert trainer who can answer employee questions and who can emphasize your company’s commitment to a harassment free workplace.

Your harassment prevention program should provide your managers and supervisors’ awareness of the issue, clarity in what the company expects of them, understanding of their obligations under the law, and the critical skills necessary to address any issues they confront in the workplace. By training your management staff, you will demonstrate your commitment to a harassment free workplace-a critical piece in defending the organization against any potential harassment claim.  

Your employee program, similar to the management session, should promote a respectful environment and foster awareness of the issues, clarify what the company expects of them, and provide employees the critical skills necessary to address any behaviors directed at them or towards a fellow employee. To learn more about harassment prevention programs, contact me.

Rick Dacri

Dacri & Associates

Best Buy: Inappropriate Relationship Destroys Careers

Best Buy founder Richard Schulze is stepping down as the company’s Chairman of the Board after it was revealed he failed to inform the Board when he learned that CEO Brian Dunn was having an inappropriate relationship with a female employee. Dunn resigned last month.

Once again, careers are destroyed and company reputation’s harmed because key executives do dumb things—one having a relationship with a subordinate and the other for failing to report it after receiving a written statement about it, in clear violation of their company’s policy.

 Best Buy acted appropriately in accepting both “resignations.” Their internal audit showed Dunn’s behavior was inappropriate and resulted in a negatively impacted work environment. Turns out this apparently consensual relationship was not a secret at Best Buy as the consenting partner spoke openly about her friendship.

As for Schulze, his 46 year career at Best Buy ends because his failure to report “exposed the employees to potential retaliation and the company to potential liability” according to the company.

While there has been no claim of sexual harassment, the potential exposure is there. All executives and managers can learn from this:

1. Have clear policies and procedures outlining appropriate workplace behavior;
2. Have in place policies on fraternization and sexual harassment and follow them strictly;
3. Conduct annual training;
4. When violations occur, take the appropriate actions, regardless of who may commit them—and never delay in taking action.

Finally, managers and executives must understand, having a relationship with a subordinate, whether consensual or not, is like playing with fire—eventually someone is going to get burned.

 If you and your organization need help in addressing such problems or want to take proactive steps to prevent this from happening in your company, give me a call.

 Rick Dacri

Dacri & Associates, LLC

2012 Checklist for People Management

Annual physicals are a must for good long-term health. The same applies to your organization’s people management. To start the year off right, here is your checklist:

1. Are your employees coming to work everyday, being productive, making few mistakes,  rarely getting hurt, and always willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done right?
2. Are your policies, systems, and procedures consistently being applied and compliant with state and federal employment laws?
3. Have you reviewed your employee handbook and policy manuals? Do your managers know what’s in it and are they following it?
4. Do  your supervisors have the skills and knowledge to confidently confront  most workforce issues?
5. Are you properly classifying your employees as exempt or non-exempt? Have you checked all independent contractors?
6. Have you reviewed your workers’ compensation program? Are injured employees returning to work quickly? Do you have up-to-date loss runs? Is your experience modification rating less than 1.0? Are open claims being closed?
7. Have  you provided annual sexual harassment prevention training for managers and employees? Have you distributed your policy to all employees? Do employees understand that harassment will never be tolerated? Do supervisors  understand their responsibilities? Are complaints being properly and promptly investigated?
8. Is  your performance management program working? Are you seeing an improvement  in employee’s performance? Are employee goals being met? Are supervisors trained to give appraisals? Are employees educated to receive appraisals?
9. Are you growing and developing your people? Are training programs in place?  Are skills being developed? Are employees being coached? Is performance  improving?
10. Are  you successfully recruiting star performers? Do you have a recruitment brand that draws candidates to your door?
11. Are your compensation programs working? Are you getting value for your payroll  dollars?   Are your wages competitive with the market?
12. Do  your employees know what is expected of them? Do you have clear accountability systems in place? Is performance consistently improving?
13. Are you confident that your employees are doing the right things when dealing  with your customers?
14. Are you retaining your best people? Do you have a plan in place to ensure that your stars will not be poached by outside recruiters?
15. Have you put in place succession plans in case you lose a key employee?
16. Are  you confident that things will be better this year than they were last year?

Fostering an environment where employees are “willing to give their all” to guarantee the success of your organization is paramount.  When managers take care of their employees and inspire them and when employees believe in their boss and their organizations, then success is guaranteed. This is pragmatic, uncomplicated, bottom line approach to business and the right medicine for 2012 and beyond.

 

Human Resource Department: 10 Tips to Operate Without One

How do you effectively operate your business without a formal Human Resource Department?  After all, aren’t those folks in HR the “people people” who handle all those employee issues while the rest of us do the real work?  Aren’t they the experts on pay, benefits, compliance, and forms—something the rest of us would never dare to touch?

A well run Human Resource Department can provide an organization tremendous value with their expertise.  Having someone to lean on to handle the difficult employee and legal issues can provide any manager peace of mind.  However, some companies are just too small to afford a dedicated department while others believe they can operate just fine without HR.

So how do firms successfully manage without a formal HR group?  Here are 10 tips:

1. Give managers the authority to make HR decisions: when situations occur, managers must be able to act, without the need to have to kick a decision upstairs.
2. Encourage innovation: productivity improvements can only occur with a steady stream of new ideas come from the people closest to the operation.
3. Train managers in their new responsibilities: before you can hold managers accountable for hiring,  retaining, and motivating their staff, you have to train them on how to do it.  These are complicated concepts, so education is key to a successful transition.  You need to prepare your managers first.  If you just dive in, you’ll probably  make mistakes.
4. Hold managers accountable for workforce decisions: without accountability, nothing good happens.  Hold the managers accountable for hiring      quality staff, retaining good employees, increasing productivity, etc.  And when good things happen, reward them.
5. Develop systems that promote consistency: without consistency, productivity, morale and profitability will dip.  Develop good systems and standards, encourage lots of communications between the      managers, and follow your procedures.  When deviations from procedures do occur (and they will), make sure everyone knows why.
6. Know the law: state and federal laws change frequently.  Have an outside expert regularly monitoring regulations that can impact your workplace.
7. Use an outside expert to handle thorny  workforce issues: no matter how skilled your staff may be, there are  going to be times when you need specific expertise.  You don’t want a manager guessing about      how to handle a sexual harassment investigation.
8. Utilize experts to help with problems  and to train and coach your managers: to ensure that your managers  have the skills to do handle their new responsibilities, get them the needed expertise.
9. Address workforce issues immediately: when behavior issues are handled right away, there is far less stress for the managers and fewer concerns for error and lawsuits.
10. Involve your employees: employees are a vast resource that when tapped can offer an abundance of ideas.

Operating without a HR department is not easy.  For smaller organizations there is little choice.  Regardless, preparing your organization and managers to directly oversee their workforce can be positive for all.  Training, systems, accountability standards, outside expertise and the commitment to make it work is the formula to bringing your workforce closer and focusing your managers on your most important asset—your people.

(This article was part of my regular column in the York County Coast Star, November 17 2011 edition)

 

13 Tips To Prevent Sexual Harassment Claims

Presidential contender Herman Cain’s reputation has been permanently soiled by the sexual harassment charges leveled against him. Whether or not he did it, there will always be a question in people’s minds. With two settlements in his past, it’s hard to side step the “where there’s smoke there’s fire” issue. Being accused of sexual harassment never goes away. While anyone can be falsely accused, every individual and organization should take proactive steps to ensure that claims aren’t made against you or your company.

 Here are 13 tips to help protect you:

1.  Don’t do it.
2. Treat everyone respectfully.
3. Be careful when mixing business and socialization—particularly when alcohol is involved.
4. Drop using those so called endearing terms such as “dear” and sweetheart.”
5. Keep your hands off others and your body in your own orbit.
6. Look people in the eyes – just the eyes.
7. Don’t feel the need to share those funny, but a bit “off-color” jokes or stories.
8. Don’t even think about asking out a subordinate for an after work drink or dinner.
9. If  you’ve got a problem in the love department, don’t feel the need to share it; and speaking of sharing, no one wants to hear about your dreams.
10. If you need to hug, think spouse.
11. Clean up your language, particularly your adjectives.
12. No texting or emailing anything that is not work related and as for sexting, are you out of your mind even thinking about it?
13. While at work, work!

Final tip: before you do anything, ask yourself “would I do this in front my mother?” Hopefully, that will keep you out of trouble and keep your reputation intact.

 

Cost of Workplace Incivility

Incivility has consequences. We are becoming more sensitive to the problem of bullying, but incivility is also a problem  

 A 2010 WBI U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey shows that even “lower-level” disruptive behaviors in the workplace—the type of behavior that doesn’t quite reach the level of bullying or harassment—create a wide range of spillover effects. Of those who have faced incivility at work:

• 48 percent intentionally decreased work effort.
• 47 percent intentionally decreased time at work.
• 38 percent intentionally decreased work quality.
• 80 percent lost work time worrying about the incident.
• 63 percent lost work time avoiding the offender.
• 66 percent said their performance declined.
• 78 percent said their commitment to the organization declined.

 Disruptive employee behaviors can create negative work environments and unhealthy consequences for employees. We know that employees who experienced bullying, incivility or interpersonal conflict were more likely to quit their jobs, have lower well-being, be less satisfied with their jobs and have less satisfying relationships with their bosses than employees who were sexually harassed. Furthermore, bullied employees reported more job stress, less job commitment and higher levels of anger and anxiety.

 Employers should take proactive steps to prevent workplace bullying and incivility, including company wide education, policy, complaint procedures, and swift investigation of complains. Remember, organizations where employees respect each other do not have problems of incivility and bullying.

Wrong Side of a Discrimination Claim

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) recently reported that it received a record number of claims from employees in 2010 – nearly 100,000 new claims. Retaliation claims are the most frequently filed, but disability discrimination claims are on the rise, increasing by nearly 20% in 2010, and sex discrimination and religious discrimination cases continue to increase as well. Not surprisingly, the EEOC reports that the cost to employers of resolving these claims also continues to increase.

There are five key strategies to eliminate claims of discrimination and harassment:

1. Invest heavily in management training. Train all your managers annually in employment law basics, communication skills, and how to treat employees with respect.
2. Review all your management practices. Focus on hiring, promotion, discipline, layoffs/termination, performance appraisals and documentation.Make sure they do not contain any discriminatory practices.
3. Have a broad anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policy. The courts and the EEOC interpret having no policy negatively. Include a complaint procedure, language discouraging inappropriate behavior, language alerting employees that all employees should file claims promptly, and a process to protect employees and witnesses from any retaliation.
4. Follow your state law guidelines. Multi-state employers must know all state laws to ensure compliance.
5. Zero tolerance. Be emphatic to everyone that harassment and discrimination of any kind will never be tolerated.

Organizations that train and educate their workforce and foster a culture of respect, rarely have claims brought against them.