- How do you feel about President Obama's health care reform?
- How is the COBRA stimulus plan working for your organization?
Friday, July 24, 2009
HR Talk
This forum is for you to comment and share your thoughts.
Minimum Wage Increase
The federal minimum wage for covered nonexempt employees is $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009. The federal minimum wage provisions are contained in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and can be found at http://www.dol.gov/.dol.gov/.
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) prescribes standards for the basic minimum wage and overtime pay, affects most private and public employment. It requires employers to pay covered employees who are not otherwise exempt at least the federal minimum wage and overtime pay of one-and-one-half-times the regular rate of pay. Many states also have minimum wage laws. In cases where an employee is subject to both the state and federal minimum wage laws, the employee is entitled to the higher of the two minimum wages.With this change, employees who are covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act will be entitled to be paid no less than $7.25 per hour. This increase is the last of three provided by the enactment of the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007. Every employer of employees subject to the Fair Labor Standard Act’s minimum wage provisions must post, and keep posted, a notice explaining the Act in a conspicuous place in all of their establishments so as to permit employees to readily read it.
Click the link below to download your poster http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/regs/compliance/posters/minwage.pdf
Monday, July 6, 2009
Hiring the Best Candidate
The best people to hire are those who will position a company to profit as it moves into the future. New hires not only should possess the immediate skill sets that you are looking for but those that the company will need in the future. Of course, we as HR must first be clear about the organizations strategic direction for the future, so that we can hire talent to help the company to achieve their goals.
Understand the Job That You Are Hiring For. If you do that finding the right people to hire will be much easier. Analyze the job by asking yourself, what kinds of people perform well at this job? Ask those who already work in the position? Speak with the manager and learn of his/her needs. Observe the behaviors of those in the position and ask them questions. This will drive your selection standards. You will find that your hiring process will go smoother and yield you the best match.
Be Legal. If you cannot remember EEOC, Title VII, Title I, Title V, Equal Pay Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, please, please, please take a moment and review them by logging onto the EEOC website. If the interviewee feels that they have been denied because of discrimination, they can file a lawsuit. This can cause your organization a bad name, compensatory damages, and possibly punitive damages.
Build a Standardized Hiring Process and Use It. This if by far the best advice anyone can give to HR. Your standardized hiring process should include criteria-based screening of an adequate number of candidates, a background check, standardized assessments and structured interviews. The more important the position, the more rigorous the hiring process should be. But do not go overboard.
Hire Top Talent Get More Profit. The right person will make contributions to your company’s productivity and profitability that far exceed salary cost. But the wrong person can cost plenty.
A Bad Hire Is Worse Than You Think. According to the Harvard Business Review, 80 percent of turnover is caused by bad hiring decisions. These are costly mistakes. The U.S. Department of Labor calculates that it costs one-third of a new hire’s annual salary to replace him. These figures include money spent on recruitment, selection and training plus costs due to decreased productivity as other employees fill in to take up the slack.
But these numbers don’t reflect the intangible damages an exiting employee can have such as lost customers and low employee morale across the rest of the organization. And, turnover costs climb even higher as you move up the organization: mid- and upper–level managers can cost over twice their annual salary to replace.
Interviewing Alone Doesn’t Work. Traditional interviews don’t help you select top talent. I always look for something extra. If candidates performed special projects or task in college, do they have a blog or website that I can review, have them bring samples of their work to the interview and explain the process.
The Most Neglected Aspect of Hiring is a Job Analysis. Doing this helped me cut down the number of people I needed to interview. A job analysis, the most neglected aspect of hiring. If performed correctly, a job analysis provides a list of the personal attributes required to work effectively in the role. This list of attributes is identified first by breaking down a person's job into logical parts.
Once a business knows what the position requires, the hiring process is faster and more effective because job candidates are evaluated on a common set of criteria. When you know exactly what talents are required—you know what to look for and what to test for. Remember turnover is reduced when the person fits the job. It is what it is: people love their jobs when the position matches their personality, attitudes, and skills.
Matching People to Jobs. Candidate screening, personality and skill assessments, performance-based interviews and behavioral based interviews all help identify top candidates. No single technique is the best, so use multiple techniques this will give you the best employee(s). Hiring people or the best person for the job does not need to cost a lot or take a long time.
Understand the Job That You Are Hiring For. If you do that finding the right people to hire will be much easier. Analyze the job by asking yourself, what kinds of people perform well at this job? Ask those who already work in the position? Speak with the manager and learn of his/her needs. Observe the behaviors of those in the position and ask them questions. This will drive your selection standards. You will find that your hiring process will go smoother and yield you the best match.
Be Legal. If you cannot remember EEOC, Title VII, Title I, Title V, Equal Pay Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, please, please, please take a moment and review them by logging onto the EEOC website. If the interviewee feels that they have been denied because of discrimination, they can file a lawsuit. This can cause your organization a bad name, compensatory damages, and possibly punitive damages.
Build a Standardized Hiring Process and Use It. This if by far the best advice anyone can give to HR. Your standardized hiring process should include criteria-based screening of an adequate number of candidates, a background check, standardized assessments and structured interviews. The more important the position, the more rigorous the hiring process should be. But do not go overboard.
Hire Top Talent Get More Profit. The right person will make contributions to your company’s productivity and profitability that far exceed salary cost. But the wrong person can cost plenty.
A Bad Hire Is Worse Than You Think. According to the Harvard Business Review, 80 percent of turnover is caused by bad hiring decisions. These are costly mistakes. The U.S. Department of Labor calculates that it costs one-third of a new hire’s annual salary to replace him. These figures include money spent on recruitment, selection and training plus costs due to decreased productivity as other employees fill in to take up the slack.
But these numbers don’t reflect the intangible damages an exiting employee can have such as lost customers and low employee morale across the rest of the organization. And, turnover costs climb even higher as you move up the organization: mid- and upper–level managers can cost over twice their annual salary to replace.
Interviewing Alone Doesn’t Work. Traditional interviews don’t help you select top talent. I always look for something extra. If candidates performed special projects or task in college, do they have a blog or website that I can review, have them bring samples of their work to the interview and explain the process.
The Most Neglected Aspect of Hiring is a Job Analysis. Doing this helped me cut down the number of people I needed to interview. A job analysis, the most neglected aspect of hiring. If performed correctly, a job analysis provides a list of the personal attributes required to work effectively in the role. This list of attributes is identified first by breaking down a person's job into logical parts.
Once a business knows what the position requires, the hiring process is faster and more effective because job candidates are evaluated on a common set of criteria. When you know exactly what talents are required—you know what to look for and what to test for. Remember turnover is reduced when the person fits the job. It is what it is: people love their jobs when the position matches their personality, attitudes, and skills.
Matching People to Jobs. Candidate screening, personality and skill assessments, performance-based interviews and behavioral based interviews all help identify top candidates. No single technique is the best, so use multiple techniques this will give you the best employee(s). Hiring people or the best person for the job does not need to cost a lot or take a long time.
SIfting through the Resumes
How do we as HR professionals sift through the hundreds of resumes that we receive for job postings? I remember at my previous job posting a resume for a mailroom clerk. I received over 300 resumes for this posting. People who were overly qualified, people in between and people with no work experience.
How did I sift through it all? It took me a couple days. I had piles and piles of resumes all over my credenza and the floor. I could have looked at this with many bad thoughts. Instead I took this as an opportunity to build our candidacy pool. I had the data entry clerk enter those who would most likely be qualified for positions within our company.
That took it down to about 145 resumes. Then I went through and reviewed resumes with receptionist experience, or anyone with 2 or more years of mailing, copying and ordering experience. That of course dropped the qualified down to 15. I ended up with only 3 qualified persons in the end. We did hire someone out the three.
However, over the next couple months I never had to post a job because I was able to find and hire qualified applicants from the resumes that were acquired through the mailroom clerk posting. Out of 7 postings I only had to post for two. Not only did I save myself and the company time but also money. Sometimes, the many resumes that we receive can help us out in the long run.
How did I sift through it all? It took me a couple days. I had piles and piles of resumes all over my credenza and the floor. I could have looked at this with many bad thoughts. Instead I took this as an opportunity to build our candidacy pool. I had the data entry clerk enter those who would most likely be qualified for positions within our company.
That took it down to about 145 resumes. Then I went through and reviewed resumes with receptionist experience, or anyone with 2 or more years of mailing, copying and ordering experience. That of course dropped the qualified down to 15. I ended up with only 3 qualified persons in the end. We did hire someone out the three.
However, over the next couple months I never had to post a job because I was able to find and hire qualified applicants from the resumes that were acquired through the mailroom clerk posting. Out of 7 postings I only had to post for two. Not only did I save myself and the company time but also money. Sometimes, the many resumes that we receive can help us out in the long run.
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