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volume III issue I January 2015 |
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Leaders, Recalibrate Your Course for 2015 Millions of people watch the Times Square ball drop during the last 60 seconds of every passing year. According to the Official Site of Times Square, the actual notion of a ball "dropping" to signal the passage of time dates back long before New Year's Eve was ever celebrated in The Big Apple. The first "time-ball" was installed atop England's Royal Observatory at Greenwich in 1833. This ball would drop at one o'clock every afternoon, allowing the captains of nearby ships to precisely set their chronometers (a vital navigational instrument). Wouldn't it be nice if we, as leaders, had a 1 p.m. daily reminder to set our navigational instruments? You probably started 2014 with a strategic plan and had a handful of high priorities for you and your team to tackle. As the year has come to a close, you're now reporting on that plan and setting a new one for 2015. You, like many, may have found you've dropped the ball (a different ball) on a few things. It's likely that the "balls" on your strategic plan are made of rubber and nothing broke –strategic plans are meant to be flexible because conditions change all the time as we work. If you've ever read or heard the commencement speech given by former Coca Cola CEO Bryan Dyson, then you know how he offered a great visual illustration of juggling the balls of our life: Work, Family, Health, Friends and Spirit. His powerful message reminds us: "work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls – Family, Health, Friends and Spirit – are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for it." Read on. Evaluate Employee Referral Programs & Their Benefits Two vital aspects of your role as a recruitment professional are implementing an employee engagement strategy as well as fulfilling your company's recruitment needs. No doubt you are well informed on HR trends and innovations, specifically mobile recruitment trends and innovative technology that bring them to your company. These trends, you are told, will vastly improve your candidate pool, will better engage your employees, solidify your company branding, and improve the candidate experience involved in the hiring process, yet you are concerned. Concerned about the risk involved in wasting resources, concerned about embracing new technology and, more importantly, concerned that it will not make a difference to the results you are seeking. BUT, if you don't bring your HR practices up-to-date, what is the alternative? Read on. Transparent Wage Policies: Honest or Chaos Provoking? A common policy found in many businesses is a prohibition against the disclosure of wage information. This type of policy serves the purpose of preventing workers from battling with HR and each other over who is getting paid what and why. Keeping wages under wraps also prevents employee jealousy about managerial and executive salaries. After all, if nobody knows how much the CEO is making, then nobody can be upset about it. A non-disclosure policy is particularly useful when employees with the same job descriptions are not being paid the same, keeping in mind there can be many legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for wage differences. For example, one employee may have more skills or experience than another. For these reasons and others, non-disclosure policies traditionally have been accepted as the best way to keep all employees happy while respecting employee and employer privacy. However, some are beginning to question whether transparent policies are a more honest way of doing business. Transparent wage policies prevent employees from wondering if the company is hiding information. More importantly, transparent wage policies help employees gain a clear understanding of what they need to do to take their careers to the next level. Still, such policies have an obvious downside. Read on. Monitoring Employees: How Far Can You Go? As shifting privacy lines allow employers to reach further and further into employee conduct, it's increasingly important that you know the legal limits. Many employees will question the legality of increased employer monitoring of offsite conduct, especially when employees are off-duty. Such monitoring may include the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking and video surveillance. It could include reprimanding employees for things like speeding tickets. These practices are usually within an employer's legal rights, but managers need to be aware of what is and is not permissible from a legal perspective. Monitoring On The Clock One of the most debated employee monitoring practices involves GPS tracking of company-owned and personal automobiles and cell phones. GPS tracking is often used by employers to monitor employee travel routes and to verify that work time is being accurately recorded on time sheets. Employers sometimes suspect that their employees are being less productive than they should, and this may be with good reason. According to a 2013 online survey by salary.com, 69% of U.S. workers who were polled said that they waste time every day when they are supposed to be working. Read more. Employees Have Right to Use Company Email for Protected Communications Last month, the National Labor Relations Board reversed established precedent, concluding that employees must be allowed to use the employer's email system for protected communications made during non-working hours by employees who have been granted access to the system for work purposes. In a 2008 decision that reflected decades of earlier precedent, the Board concluded that if the employer banned use of its system for all non-work related uses, it did not violate employees’ rights to engage in protected concerted activity. In Guard Publishing d/b/a Register Guard, a 3-2 majority of the NLRB directly reversed this earlier line of reasoning. The majority justified its reversal by noting the unique nature of email communications. The Board said that email had become so ubiquitous in most businesses, that it has become the predominant means of employee communication. Therefore, employee access is necessary for concerted activity. Read more. |
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> FEATURE ARTICLE Recalibrate Your Course > TIP OF THE MONTH Evaluate Employee Referral Programs & Their Benefits > Q & A Transparent Wage Policies: Honest or Chaos Provoking? > LEGAL UPDATES Monitoring Employees: How Far Can You Go? Employees Have Right to Use Company Email for Protected Communications Area Temps, Inc. 1228 Euclid Avenue Cleveland, OH 44115 Toll Free: 1.866.995.JOBS www.areatemps.com |
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