Employer benefits and resources for hiring veterans

November 11, 2010

According to the U.S. Census Bureau there were 21.9 million military veterans living in the United States in 2009.  Of that number the Bureau reported that only 9.8 million veterans aged 18 to 64 were in the labor force.

The Department of Veteran Affair’s Veteran Benefits Administration’s Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (VR & E) Program is a national employment resource for employers.

The VR & E Service provides effective vocational rehabilitation services to veterans with service-connected disabilities. Enabling our injured soldiers, sailors, airmen, and other veterans with disabilities for a seamless transition from military service to a successful rehabilitation and on to suitable employment after service to our Nation.

Learn more about the VR & E Service and the various programs and tax credits available to employers who hire veterans especially disabled veterans.

One such program, the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) is a tax credit for businesses that hire individuals from certain qualified groups, of which one is disabled people who completed or are completing rehabilitative services from a state or the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs. 

The Department of Labor offers an informative fact sheet about the target groups covered by the WOTC.   The credit can be as much as $4,800 for each new disabled veteran hire and the employer may hire as many new individuals who qualify for these tax savings.

To find qualified veterans to hire:

  •  locate the VR & E Office in your state use  this link  to the Department of Veteran Affairs “Facilities Locator & Directory” web page. Scroll down the page and click on your state. Under “Veterans Benefits Administration” click on the Regional Office. You will find the address and phone number to contact the Regional Office. When you make contact ask for the VR & E Service Officer or VR & E Service Employment Coordinator.
  • You may also send an   email  indicating your interest to hire a veteran from the VR&E Program, a description of the position and the best means to contact you. Your email will be directed to the appropriate VR&E Service Office and you will be contacted.
  • Visit the National Resource Directory for a thorough list of programs available to help employ veterans.

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Posted by HR Diva

Banish Employee Burnout

November 4, 2010

Has the recession got your organization doing more with less?  Are you relying on fewer resources and smaller teams who are taxed to keep your organization afloat, competitive and profitable?

 Banish employee burnout and keep your organization running smoothly with happy employees performing at optimum levels.

Be aware of the signs of burnout:

  • Even stars crash and burn. Your star performers are most susceptible to burnout. Their champion attitudes will push them further and farther to do more and they can push themselves right over the edge.
  • Mistakes. Little ones and big ones become more frequent. These mistakes can become costly against your bottom line.
  • Burnout goes home. The toll on your employees goes beyond the work environment: illness, auto accidents, home problems and abusive behavior, to name a few.

Quell the flames of burnout:

  • Provide training for managers and supervisors to help them avoid overloading staff. Be sure that they recognize the symptoms and the risks of employee burnout.
  • Offer relaxation options like yoga or meditation or even just a quiet room to sit and think.  A focus on wellness and being centered can calm a stressed environment and refresh your employees.
  • Try to minimize the cause of burnout: an imbalance in work/life time. Discourage working late and coming in early, as well as taking work home. Insist that vacation days are used, even if it’s just for staycations. Make it a company policy if you need to.
  • Use teambuilding activities. Or, take it a step further and combine teamwork with philanthropy through a group volunteer project. When people feel like part of a team, a greater cause, and community, they know they’re not “in it” alone.

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Posted by Biz Dev

Looking Up Job Applicants Online

October 7, 2010

A recent CareerBuilder survey found almost half of the hiring managers surveyed admitted to researching job candidates online by searching on their names. The survey found that Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace are the top sites screened. Eleven percent of these managers reportedly search blogs and seven percent follow job applicants’ Twitter posts.

Surprisingly, 35 percent of employers reported declining to hire someone based on what they found on these social networking sites—with top reasons being the posting of inappropriate photos, content about drinking or using drugs, badmouthing previous employers or clients, and demonstrating poor communication skills.

Employers must understand, however, that researching job applicants online is risky. You may come across information that is inaccurate or misleading, and social media sites almost always contain information that employers cannot legally consider in making hiring decisions. For instance, if you learn someone’s race, age, sexual orientation, marital status, or similar data from reading someone’s blog or social media page, and then do not hire the applicant, there is the potential liability of a discrimination claim.

One way around this is to have somebody else in the company do the search—someone who does not screen applicants or make hiring decisions. This intermediary could then pass only pertinent, legal information on to the decision maker.

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Posted by HR Diva

Social Media Policies:Developing Your Policy (Part II)

September 23, 2010

If you are crafting a social media policy from scratch, it doesn’t need to be long.

Some companies have no more than 10 clear, easy-to-understand bullet points in their social media policy.

You may want to include some of the following:

• Whether participating in social media at work or at home, and no matter what the “privacy level” setting, employees are expected to conduct themselves professionally. (Some companies physically ensure that employees have privacy settings set properly on their personal Facebook and Twitter accounts.)

• When posting about the workplace in any medium, employees must make clear that they are not speaking on behalf of the company, and they may not post a company logo, graphic, trademark, slogan or similar.

• Employees must not post material that is embarrassing or damaging to the company, may be confidential or proprietary, is critical of the company, or which may, in any way, expose the company to liability.

• Whether the employee is at work or home, all company policies on company loyalty, ethics and anti-harassment apply to social networking.

• The employer reserves the right to monitor employees’ use of social media, whether the employee participates from work or home.

• Any violations of this policy, whether intentional or unintentional, may lead to disciplinary action, up to and including dismissal.

State clearly who at your company is responsible for overseeing online activity, and let employees know they can and should go to that person if they are unsure about whether something is permissible to post.

Some employers advise employees to keep photos and other more personal content away from social media sites where work friends and professional contacts would see them. This type of a decision should be aligned with your company’s culture.

Once you’ve created your social use policy, don’t merely hand employees a revised copy of their employee handbook. Train your employees so they fully understand the new rules, as well as the risks, they take by not complying and the consequences. You may want to include interactive training or tests to ensure that employees demonstrate understanding of your new policies.

Post your policies where they can easily be seen. Many companies remind their employees of their social media policy from time to time (annually, quarterly, in pay envelopes or elsewhere). Best practice is to have employees to sign an acknowledgement that they have read and understand the material (as you would with any other important policy).

As technology changes, your social media policy may need to change, too. Be sure to communicate changes to your employees accordingly. You may want to consult with an experienced labor and employment attorney to discuss legal aspects of creating a social networking policy.

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Posted by Biz Dev

Social Media Policies:The Need for Documented Policies (Part I)

September 16, 2010

We live in a world where one mismanaged business-related incident can go “viral” on the Internet and/or become a source of litigation. So, should your company have a social media policy? The experts say yes, although the form and content of such policies can vary widely.

Social media use policies can vary significantly, even within an industry, and each company’s policy is a reflection of its corporate culture. For instance, Zappos, the Las Vegas-based online shoe company known for its customer service (and for having been purchased for $847 million in 2009 by Amazon.com), is an often-quoted example of a business with a very liberal social media policy.

The company puts all new hires for its corporate office through an extensive, four-week “customer loyalty training course” at full salary. After the first week of induction into the company’s culture, these new employees are offered $2,000 to leave the company—no strings attached, no hard feelings. (This, the CEO explains, weeds out anyone who is just there for the money.) More than 97 percent turn down the money and stay on.

Here’s where the social media policy comes in: After their training, employees are expected to use their own judgment to represent the company online in a way they feel fits the Zappos culture.

At the other extreme, some companies entirely prohibit the use of social media in the workplace. While this draconian approach may appear to be a simple way of addressing the issue, the organization may be missing out on the benefits of social media and risking having dissatisfied employees vent their frustrations on social networks while away from work.

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Posted by Biz Dev

Cutting edge benefits trends

September 9, 2010

For the eighth consecutive year, MetLife has surveyed employers and employees on pressing issues facing the U.S. benefits industry. Despite the challenging economic times,  the survey results show that most employers did not reduce the level of benefits offered.

Key findings from this year’s Study of Employee Benefits Trends include:

  • The majority of employees say benefits help them feel more loyal to their employers.
  • A  link between benefits and productivity.
  • Health and wellness programs continue to gain popularity with employers.
  • New insights that can help you identify opportunities to realize the full potential of your benefits programs while maximizing the return on your benefits investments.

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Posted by Biz Dev

Managing the virtual workscape

September 2, 2010

If your company has a good mix of Boomers, Gen-X, Gen-Y and the emerging workforce of Millenials, then it’s very likely that there are pressures and influences on your business to support a virtual workscape – the workplace of your mobile, telecommute and distance workers.

When managing employees from a distance, you need to learn how to keep your team on task, even when you can’t be there to watch over everyone.

Are you realizing the opportunities that come from having employees in different locations? Or do you find it difficult to get the best out of these workers?

Here are three steps to minimize the stress and anxiety of managing a virtual workforce:

1. Set clear productivity expectations.  Make sure both manager and employee understand and agree to what is expected.  Hours on duty, modes of availabilty, reporting methods, and accountability for completed tasks.

2. Keep open lines of communication.  Be sure that there are regularly scheduled meetings with the supervisor or your teams to keep everyone on the same page and the operation running smoothly.  Email, instant messaging, Webcam conferencing, social-tools like Yammer, and the telephone are all viable tools to tether your virtual worker to the office team.  Collaboration software like Basecamp or SharePoint can help manage lists, projects, and knowledge sharing.

3. Provide access. For any distance worker to succeed – the essential tools required to do their job must be readily accessible.  This includes hardware, software, files, documentation, knowledge base and their teammates. Provide a clear outline to your virtual worker about how to handle  access to sensitive files from outside of the office, what paper files are or are not allowed off-premises, and have a clear understanding of how these files will be accessed whether via a hard-drive, laptop, flash-drive or remote log-in.  Make sure you and your virtual worker understand privacy and confidentiality policies that fit your company, before signing up or setting up an online storage service such as Box.net which allows users to easily upload your files and access them from any computer.

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Posted by Social Maven

Top three reasons for wellness in a down economy

August 12, 2010

In a recession, cash-strapped employees could be exercising less, eating more fast food and stress levels could be increased.

Employers who choose to maintain or even expand funding for employee wellness programs will maximize the benefits of a healthy happy workforce. Here are a few ways your wellness dollars translate to ROI for your organization by implementing wellness as a business solution.

1. Wellness = priority = more productivity . Employment services firm Manpower found that workers are eight times more likely to be engaged in their work when employers regularly beat the wellness drum. Employees said working for a company that promotes wellness encourages them to be more creative and innovative.

According to the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Productivity losses related to personal and family health problems cost U.S. employers $1,685 per employee per year, or $225.8 billion annually.

2. Attract and maintain the best talent with wellness. The latest Principal Financial Well-Being Index reveals that 45% of employees working for small and midsize companies consider wellness benefits a reason to stay in their jobs. Their favorite wellness perks: on-site fitness rooms, discounts on gym memberships and at-work weight-loss programs.

3. Maintain wellness. Even during the recession, a Towers Watson and National Business Group on Health study shows that more than half of companies are maintaining or increasing spending on wellness.

A separate survey by Fidelity Investments shows that, on average, employers spend nearly 2% of their total health care claim dollars on wellness programs. Half plan to add at least one more health improvement plan in 2010, and 89% will maintain their current programs.

According to experts, employers that start wellness programs can see a positive return on investment “within the first few years of adoption.”

Harvard researchers found that for every dollar a company spends on wellness it can save $3.27 on medical costs, and $2.73 in absenteeism costs.

Coca-Cola’s fitness program recouped $500 per year per employee, despite the fact that only 60% of their staff was enrolled.

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Posted by Biz Dev

IRS Releases Health Care Reform Guidance

July 22, 2010

IRS Releases First Round of Health Care Reform Guidance
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued the first installment of what is expected to be an avalanche of guidance on the new health care reform law. The guidance confirms that an employer-sponsored health plan may provide coverage free from federal income tax to an employee’s children up to age 27.

If you’re a SHRM member, you can receive additional resources on this topic. Visit SHRM’s Express Request web site and select key term ADULT CHILDREN: COVERAGE VS TAX EXCLUSION in the Health Care Reform section.

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Posted by Biz Dev

Employees don’t leave companies, they leave managers

July 15, 2010

Ultimately, the challenge of attracting, hiring and retaining employees is all about relationship building. The main reason most employees leave a job is not the pay or the line of business, it’s their manager. This conclusion has been reached by many on-the-job HR professionals and is clearly supported by extensive research.

For more than a decade, The Gallup Organization has been assessing employee engagement at tens of thousands of worksites worldwide. The Gallup Q12 process, which has been completed by nearly two million employees, is based on a survey that asks respondents to rate 12 statements on a scale from one to five:

1. I know what is expected of me at work.
2. I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right.
3. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.
4. In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.
5. My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.

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Posted by Biz Dev

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