When one employer tried to pry into prospective employees’ use of the Internet, the exercise didn’t play well when the public got wind of it. More…

A woman files a gender discrimination charge against her employer. Her fiance works at the same company. Three weeks after the woman files her discrimination complaint, he gets fired. Retaliation? More…

The federal minimum wage rises again next month but there’s more involved than just issuing fatter paychecks. More…

Companies need to continue paying for employees’ healthcare coverage while they’re on FMLA leave. But can you recover any of that cost if an employee decides not to come back? More…

Should employees get workers’ compensation benefits when they develop health problems caused by job-related stress? Yes, according to one court. More…

A survey asked HR managers to predict their company’s key human-resources indicators. Here’s what they said. More…

Employees of the city of Brooksville, FL, will have to follow a new dress code, including the mandatory wearing of underwear. We have just one question. More…

One of the trickiest areas in completing Form 5500 is properly tallying and reporting the number of participants in your benefit plans. More…

How to tell if you’re too nice to be a boss

Hey, some people just aren’t cut out to sit in the corner office. And maybe it’s not your fault.

How do you to tell whether you’re one of those who are better off in the pack than leading it? Trisha Scudder, executive coach and founder of the Executive Coaching Group, explains in Forbes:

You can’t draw the line between personal and professional. Let’s say employee Suzie (a) comes to you and tells you her father is gravely ill and (b) later repeatedly drops the ball on big accounts, causing the clients to leave. Would your sympathy for Suzie’s problems with her father stand in the way of firing her? Strike one.

You still want to hang out with the gang — at all costs. You now supervise some of your work buddies, and you’re faced with a making a move that will have a negative impact on some of them. Do you hesitate because you know the decision will deprive you of their friendship? Strike two.

You love workplace chit-chat and gossip. Employee A stops you in the hallway and says, “Hey, did you hear about how Johnnie got disciplined for faking an expense report?” You answer: “No, what happened?” Strike three. You’re out.

Combine that information with a study out of Australia concluding that “management types” are born, not made. In other words, people who make it as managers generally have specific personality traits that were formed at an early age. For instance, successful managers in the study tended to be “less agreeable.”

The 10 red flags that a good worker will be a bad boss

When someone gets promoted into management and turns out to be a nightmare, HR often asks, “Why didn’t we see this coming?” All the signs probably were there, but maybe no one was looking for them.

People who fail as bosses – or at least make their employees miserable – tend to share 10 weaknesses. If you can spot them in managerial candidates, you might be able to save yourself and others a lot of aggravation by keeping the problem people out of management or guiding them to work on their skills.

Here are the common weaknesses spotted by Jackie Harder, a training consultant in Florida:

1. People who’ll make bad managers tend to shun learning and training. Some will do so because they just don’t like learning new things; others think they know it all already.
2. They’re not excited about their work. Oh, they’ll do it on a competent level, but you know they’re not passionate about it.
3. They avoid unpleasant situations and people. It’s easier to go around unpleasantness, so they never learn to deal with it – and that it’s not the end of the world.
4. They avoid risk – all risk – for fear of making a mistake or being criticized. What they don’t understand is that everyone makes mistakes and everyone gets criticized.
5. Standing by your ideas is a good trait. Never changing your mind is a bad one. Does the candidate you’re talking to refuse to be swayed by even the strongest facts?
6. Similarly, they refuse to admit they’re wrong – but of course believe everyone else is.
7. When things do go wrong (often because of their own blunders), they can’t let it go and move on.
8. They don’t have a clear picture of their strengths and weaknesses.
9. They prefer to work alone, often forgetting that management, first and foremost, is about dealing with people. Managers need to be able to talk to other people, listen to their input, make them part of your organization, get their best effort and push them to succeed. And that’s just the beginning, as you know.
10. They prefer to stay in the background when working in groups or teams. Don’t expect someone like that to change his or her spots when they get a management position.

America’s 5 most overpaid bosses

We’re not sure what the point is of compiling this list, except to convince us that we’re worth at least every cent we make.

The list was put together by Forbes magazine, and matches the executive’s salary with company performance (or, rather, nonperformance):

• Kenneth D. Lewis, CEO of Bank of AmericaTenure as chief: Eight yearsAverage annual company performance during that period: Lost 8%Average annual salary during that period: $29.7 million
• Jeffrey R. Immelt, CEO of General ElectricTenure as chief: Eight yearsAverage annual company performance during that period: Lost 12%Average annual salary during that period: $14.4 million
• Ramani Ayer, CEO of Hartford Financial ServicesTenure as chief: 12 yearsAverage annual company performance during that period: Lost 8%Average annual salary during that period: $13.5 million
• James R. Tobin, CEO of Boston ScientificTenure as chief: 10 yearsAverage annual company performance during that period: Lost 7%Average annual salary during that period: $8.5 million
• Robert E. Rossiter, CEO of Lear Corp.Tenure as chief: Nine yearsAverage annual company performance during that period: Lost 29%Average annual salary during that period: $5.5 million

Incentive ideas: Shorter Fridays lift productivity

Nowadays most companies need to squeeze out every possible productive hour from their employees.

Even so, it may be worthwhile to encourage supervisors to send employees home a little early on Fridays. Studies suggest that this incentive can boost productivity the rest of the week.

What’s more, it’s a benefit that employees covet, especially this time of year. A recent OfficeTeam poll of 457 workers age 18 and older found employees would most prefer these summertime job perks:

• flexible schedules (38%)
• leaving early on Fridays (32%)
• special activities, such as a company picnic (6%), and
• relaxed dress code during the summer (5%).

The hidden trap most managers miss in performance reviews

Amid cuts in salary and benefits, disgruntled employees are using a new lawsuit weapon, one that’s probably sitting in every supervisor’s file drawer: the standard written performance review.

No, employees aren’t necessarily suing over bad reviews. Instead, they’re using the reviews to support charges of discrimination, retaliation, harassment and a slew of other expensive accusations.

Typical – and expensive – case

Here’s how one typical caseturned on a review and what you – working with your company’s supervisors – can do to help shield against charges like these.

The details: An employee got fired after receiving a string of bad evaluations from her supervisor. Not exactly a rare occurrence. What was rare: She had previously complained about discrimination.

Using the performance reviews as evidence, she won $1 million in damages. The court saw the reviews and her firing as retaliation for those complaints. How did the company and her supervisors get tripped up?

Employment-relations expert Sunil Vatave points out the two danger

signs that get the attention of courts:

1. A sudden downward change in review ratings that followed the employee’s complaint. The plaintiff had received several good performance reviews before the group of bad ones. The judge started asking why – which led to the second danger sign.
2. Vague review standards too loosely tied to actual performance.

What’s vague? Typically, standard such as “the ability to get along with co-workers” is one. In other words, it’s something that’s hard, if not impossible, to measure .

Vatave’s analysis is that the organization’s HR manager could have prevented the problem and saved the supervisor from creating the mess.

Closing the gaps

First, realize the cure doesn’t involve your haggling with supervisors over setting standards and handling reviews. You wouldn’t want to do that

anyway, and most supervisors would resent it.

You can ask to take a look at performance reviews before they’re official, to make sure they’re in compliance with laws and company standards (while making it clear to supervisors you’re not getting involved

in the actual review).

In your capacity as the HR manager, try to:

• Make sure crucial standards are explained and measurable. It’s reasonable that a supervisor might mistakenly list “getting along with others (nonmeasurable) as a key component, when what’s really meant is “completes team projects on time” (measurable). Pointing out those differences can save a lot of aggravation later on.
• Check that the standards are applied equally to all employees in similar positions. A gap in how standards are applied can become an expensive loophole in court. Judges will want to know why a standard was applied one way to an employee and another way to another employee.

You’re in a great position to spot such gaps, particularly if the workers involved are supervised by different people. Again, you can save a lot of trouble just by pointing out the problems and guiding supervisors .

Cite: Settlegoode v. Multnomah School District 1.

(Sunil Vatave is with the firm Technical Difference, Inc., in Bonsall, CA.)

Obama: EFCA’s ‘card check’ is dead

President Obama announced that the Employee Free Choice Act’s controversial “card check” provision lacks the Congressional votes to push the measure over the top. That doesn’t mean the EFCA is dead, however.

The president has offered a compromise version of the EFCA bill without card check — the controversial provision obligating employers to recognize unions after a majority of workers have signed cards, rather than after an election.

And now-democratic Sen. Arlen Specter — who had opposed EFCA and card check — said that he’d support a compromise EFCA bill with no card-check provision. On top of that, Specter has said he’ll support bill provisions that:

• speed up union elections
• allow employees to campaign at their work sites without retaliation, and
• impose stiffer penalties on employers who violate of labor-organizing rights.

So any final bill is likely to be tougher on employers than existing legislation, and won’t exactly be EFCA-lite.

Do you really need a social-networking policy for employees?

Maybe you haven’t encountered any problems with employee posts on Facebook, MySpace and the like. The question is: Should you wait till you have a problem?

Consider the numbers — and the odds that your organization will have a problem:

• About half of all adults in the U.S. have a Facebook or MySpace account.
• The number of people using Twitter has grown by 1,300% in the past 12 months.

So it’s a pretty good bet that some of your employees using those sites at some time or another, and for who-knows-what.

Further, a study by Deloitte of 2,000 workers nationwide showed:

• 74% of employees who responded said they were aware that such sites make it “easier” to damage an employer’s reputation.
• 53% said their networking pages weren’t an employer’s business; that number rose to 63% for employees in the 18-to-34 age bracket.
• 17% said their companies had policies regarding posts to social-networking sites.

It’s another matter altogether whether you have the time and resources to monitor employee activity — at work or at home — on such sites and how postings might affect your company’s reputation.

Still, you can have in place a simple policy that gives you the authority to take steps should you somehow uncover a damaging entry. And having a policy removes the “I didn’t know” excuse if an employee does post something damaging.

So, what should a policy look like? Generally, the less complicated the better. In fact, yours can boil down to two main parts:

1. Establish that employees have no right to absolute privacy when they post on a social-networking site. And it doesn’t matter where they connect from. If it’s on the site, it can be read. And it can be used as grounds to discipline an employee.
2. Remind them that the policy extends to instances of harassment, discrimination and any other behaviors that are barred by law or company policy.

Don’t forget to note that the company has no desire to play Internet cop or keep employees from enjoying social-networking sites. The policy is in place to protect the company and its employees, not to prevent people from using the Web sites in usual, harmless ways.

Here’s an example of one company social-networking policy.

Congress considers another – yes, another – health plan

These days, Washington is brimming with ideas for healthcare overhaul. The latest one: a proposal by Sen. Ted Kennedy for universal coverage — and it partly throws funding back into the laps of employers.

The plan is called the American Health Choices Act. The highlights:

• All Americans would have access to “essential health care benefits,” with no annual or lifetime limits, under coverage provided through a public insurance agency.
• Employers — along with workers who are deemed financially able to contribute — would have to subsidize part of the cost of coverage.
• The government would subsidize premiums for people with incomes up to 500% of the poverty level ($110,000 for a family of four), and private insurers would have to pay out a specified percentage of their premium revenues in benefits.
• The program would pay doctors and hospitals at Medicare rates, plus 10%.
• Included in the program would be home- and community-based care for 10 million people with severe disabilities.
• Individuals would be subject to financial penalties if they did not have health insurance. The penalties would be levied as part of an individual’s income tax and would be collected by the Internal Revenue Service. Low-income individuals would be exempt from the penalties.
• The benefits of the program would be set by a panel of experts that would set minimum coverages that insurers would have to provide.
• “Dependent children” coverage would extend to age 26.
• Income limits to qualify for Medicaid would be lowered, essentially opening up such coverage to millions more.
• Funded by the federal government, states would establish “health benefit gateways” to disseminate information about premiums and benefits and assist in enrollment.
• The Department of Health and Human Services would establish the new government-sponsored plan, which would compete directly with private insurers.

The bill offers broader benefits and more government involvement than the plan being written by the Senate Finance Committee. Senate Democratic leaders expect some merger and compromise involving the two bills, probably by the end of the summer.

‘Keylogging’ to check Internet usage: Is it legal?

More and more employers are making use of “keylogging,” or the recording of keystrokes on an employee’s computer to provide a map of what Web sites the employee is visiting. Is the process legal?

Typically, keylogging is done secretly, so the employee is unaware of it. Just as typically, it’s implemented because the employee is under suspicion of using a computer in an unauthorized or illegal way. So far, so good.

However, some targeted employees have dredged up a section of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act as a defense — and a reason to sue employers for invasion of privacy.

Title I of the ECPA amended the federal Wiretap Act covers the “interception of electronic communications,” making it an offense to “intentionally intercept . . . any wire, oral, or electronic communication.”

Test case
The issue came up in a California federal-court case, Brahmana v. Lembo. The question was whether a key logger that records keystroke information in transit between the keyboard and the computer’s central processing unit violated the EPCA.

The short story is that the court didn’t find the company general keylogging to be in violation of EPCA.

There’s a complication because, using the keylogger, the company captured some of the employee’s confidential passwords and used them to access private accounts. The court is allowing the case to continue to determine whether using the passwords violated the EPCA.

So, at this point, the verdict is:

• Keylogging to track Internet usage? Probably OK.
• Using keylogging to access private info? Probably not.

Study: Health reform a boon to small biz

Based on the results of a study, an MIT economist insists that Obama-style healthcare reform would give small and midsize businesses a big boost.

The economist, Jonathan Gruber, did the study for the Small Business Majority, a nonprofit healthcare advocacy group. The study was done against the backdrop of data indicating that small businesses in the United States at one time were major providers of health coverage: 67% offered coverage to employees in 1995, compared to 38% in 2008.

Here are the conclusions of the study — and apparent benefits for small businesses under healthcare reform:

• Reduced costs. Small businesses would pay less to provide health insurance to their employees.
• More jobs. The study concludes that if we stick with the current system, healthcare costs will cause a loss of 178,000 small-business jobs by 2018. Introducing reform would save about 120,000 of those jobs.
• Better wages. The study cites exploding healthcare costs as causing cuts in wages at small businesses. With reform bringing these costs down, more money would be left to pay wages.
• Better profits. Reform would bring down costs, thus increasing profits.
• Better applicants. Workers who feel tied to their jobs because they fear not finding comparable benefits would be freed up to change jobs. Small businesses providing health care would have a greater talent pool from which to choose employees.

The study assumes three components of a reform package, with variations:

1. An obligation on some or all employers to contribute to employee coverage.
2. Penalty payments for those that don’t.
3. Tax credits for those that do.

Here’s the full study.

A researcher asked several highly successful HR execs how they made it to the top. They identified six traits that made them stars in their profession. Which ones do you have? Which ones don’t you have? More…