Many thanks to all of you who participated in our reader study. Look for more in the near future!

The results are in, and it’s official! Working America, a community affiliate of the AFL-CIO, holds a contest every year in which people tell their bad-boss stories. The three best (worst?) get published. Take a look at the winners. Sound like anyone you know?

No. 1
An office manager in Kansas City, MO, was asked by her boss to organize an employee outing. She planned a trip to a major league baseball game two months ahead.

Our heroine got a group ticket rate, arranged for snacks, carpooling and ticket distribution. Just one problem: She wasn’t able to predict the future; she didn’t realize that it would rain on game day.

Most bosses would understand that even the best employees can’t control the weather, right? Most would, but not this one.

“My boss informed me that I had picked that particular date because I knew it would rain,” she wrote in her worst-boss submission to contest.  She ended up losing her title because of the “blunder” and had to take a pay cut.

And a few months later, the boss asked her if she would like to organize another picnic. She declined. The boss then went to the company’s board and complained about the employee’s lack of cooperation.

No. 2
A driver for a small, rural ambulance company in Illinois tells his story.

All three of the company’s ambulances had problems. One had no lights or sirens, another had no functioning brakes and the third had no heat.

On a cold Christmas Day, our hero was forced to pick one of the faulty ambulances for emergency duty. He chose the one with no heat, figuring that was better than tooling around in a vehicle that had no brakes or siren. 

So our driver froze all night, along with the patients he was transporting. When the driver complained, the boss decided to make things worse by pairing the driver with a member of the staff that no one liked.

The employee liked to complain about her problems, especially her marital problems and sexual shortcomings of her husband, who also worked for the company. The stories went on for the entire cold 14-hour shift.

And after that, the boss fired the driver.

No. 3 (tie)
Two sad stories just couldn’t be separated, so they share third place.

(a) One boss was less than sympathetic when a worker reported that his grandfather was diagnosed with terminal cancer and was given less than two months to live.
After telling his boss of the situation and how it might have an impact on the worker’s attendance and productivity, the boss just said: “I don’t know why you are worried about him. He is just your grandfather and he is going to die anyway.”

(b) A fast-food manager was working the night shift. The phone rang. It was his wife, screaming that their house was on fire.

He makes a frantic call to his boss to find a substitute manager. The boss says he can’t find anybody to come into work and that the manager must stay and keep the business open until the usual closing time. The manager then asks his boss why he can’t come in. Answer: It’s the boss’s “family night” and he doesn’t want to ruin it.

The manager closes the store early and rushes to his burning home. 

He gets fired (no pun intended). 

Question:
To cut absenteeism provide an extra incentive, we’re thinking about giving out small bonuses or other rewards for going a year without missing any days. Are we obligated to pay that perfect-attendance bonus to an employee who has taken FMLA leave but hasn’t missed days for any other reason?

Answer:
Generally, you must pay the attendance bonus. That’s according to Linda Hollinshead, an employment-law attorney with Wolf, Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen.

For purposes of attendance, FMLA leave is treated as if the employee was there. Given that, the attendance bonus must be paid to someone on FMLA leave.

Thousands of HR directors have wondered the same thing, and many have taken the leap to outsourcing. For some, it has proved to be the better way. For instance, in a Conference Board study, 51% of the HR managers who tried outsourcing said they “achieved all objectives.”

You may be looking at that glass as half-empty, and with good reason. The simple math tells us that 49% were unhappy with their outsourcing arrangements.

The differences between the two groups?

The Conference Board study highlighted them, as did Judy Coffey-Hedquist, an outsourcing analyst for Mellon Financial. Here’s what to watch out for, and what worked:

Beware: loss of ‘company culture’
Outsourcing efforts that yielded the least satisfactory results were:

• recruiting
• training and development, and
• employee communications.

Why weren’t those areas good for outsourcing? Too often, the contractor didn’t grasp the company culture and as a result it was a bad marriage between the two.

Recommendations from the study: Unless you decide your recruiting, employee development and communication efforts are in dire need of outside help, try to keep them in your domain.

Areas to consider
Of course, when you’re making an outsourcing decision, your CFO and CEO will be focused on one spot: the bottom line. Fact is, there’s more to be saved by outsourcing in some areas than in others.

The sweet spot for savings: so-called “transaction” tasks, those that involve a lot of that dreaded paperwork and little brainpower. Examples: signing up employees for benefits or making individual changes to meet employees’ benefit-change requests. Work like that is usually time-consuming and, frankly, a waste of HR talent.

Most companies that outsourced successfully to save money and improve services to employees tended to use a contractor for tasks involving:

• retirement programs, such as 401(k)
• administration, and
• management of pension and health benefits.

Narrowing them down
So let’s say you decide to outsource some transaction-heavy tasks. Which ones do you try? How many of them?

Most of the successful companies phased in their outsourcing, starting with one key function, building a success and then looking at another function to outsource.

Warning: Many contractors will try to get you to bundle - by signing up for several services at once. To get you to do that, they’ll try to catch your CFO’s attention by pointing out your company can save by buying a group of services all at once instead of paying for them individually at different stages.

Best bet: Go the phased-in route, outsourcing one function at a time so you’re not in too deep if you realize the idea isn’t working. You can always renegotiate contracts later if you like the contractor and want to do more business.

Note about contract terms: Most contractors will give you a price based on servicing a minimum number of employees. Ask whether they’ll cut the price if you later go below that minimum number.

The report, from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), called on the IRS to develop strategies to stop employment-related fraud and ID theft - since a lot of ID info is tied to payroll-related, such as Social Security Numbers. 

TIGTA suggested that the IRS coordinate with other federal agencies to investigate allegations of ID theft. IRS officials said they’d consider some of the suggestions but won’t adopt some of the major ones, such as:

• Identifying instances of ID theft and stopping individuals from committing employment-related ID theft, or
• Notifying employers when an employee uses someone else’s identity - which could be uncovered when there’s a mismatch on Form W-2.

The agency’s reasoning: It’s up to employers and employees to keep their systems and data secure, and it doesn’t want to get mired in legal questions of privacy. Here’s a relevant passage from the IRS response:

“The IRS will continue to update its strategies to make its efforts more effective and efficient in the areas of identity theft awareness, prevention, detection and prosecution. IRS management is in the process of developing its vision for the future of the Privacy, Information Protection and Data Security office. Management stated that the Criminal Investigation Division is increasing the recommendations for prosecutions of identity theft cases under traditional statutes within the IRS’ jurisdiction. However, management does not plan to more actively identify or stop individuals from committing employment-related identity theft or notify employers of the problem. Management stated that it is prevented by confidentiality and disclosure provisions in the Internal Revenue Code  from taking actions to stop continued use of another person’s identity for employment and that it is broadly restricted from sharing taxpayer information with third parties.”

Click here to see the full report and response.

Her story:
Our employees were always asking about the possibility of starting a flex-time program, but it just wasn’t practical for us.

Most of the jobs we have require that people be at their workplaces for set hours each day. So, as much as we wanted to use flex-time, the demands of business wouldn’t allow it.

We explained that to our employees, but they still grumbled a bit. A lot of them had families, and wanted the ability to modify schedules so they could make it to a daytime recital, ballgame or other similar event.

Maybe there was a way to accommodate them without having a full-blown flex-time program.

‘Flex 4′
There was. We called it “Flex 4.”

We gave each employee four hours to “play with” every two-week pay period. In other words, they could use four hours of flex time every two weeks, but they’d have to make sure they somehow put in the full 80 hours by the end of the two-week period.

For instance, if you left two hours early one day, you’d have to make sure you made up the two hours by the end of the pay period.

The system requires a little more tracking than we were used to, but it’s been well worth it. Our employees love it, and the system presents almost no disruption to our schedules.

(Ginny Priborsky, HR manager, Mac Tac Nellis, North Las Vegas, NV)

The scene
“Let’s talk for a minute about that presentation we heard yesterday,” said CFO Brian Bucks.

“Sure,” HR manager Sharon Cale replied. “I thought that software vendor did a good job of describing how to set up a Web site where managers and employees can find out about their benefits and responsibilities.”

“Oh, the presentation was fine,” he nodded, “but …”

“Is this about money, Brian?” Sharon smiled.

‘Show me the payoff’
“Hey, I’m the CFO, right?” he smiled back. “Sounds like we’d be spending a chunk of money on technology that I’m not sure we need. And I don’t see the payoff.”

“I guess it’s time for me to do a little presentation of my own,” Sharon said as she pulled out a legal pad with a list of names and dates.

“I’ve kept a 30-day record of the things I spend my time on,” she explained. “Turns out, I spend about half my day responding to the types of information requests the site is designed to handle.”

“I’m impressed with your due diligence,” Brian laughed. “But maybe not impressed enough to cut a check.”

“I understand the pressure you’re under,” Sharon said evenly. “So let’s talk about another plus: informed employees who are happy and more productive.”

“Good point, but I’m still not sure which way to go on this one,” he admitted.

If you were Sharon, what would you say or do next?

Rob Snyder, HR director, Franklin Savings, Cincinnati
What Rob would do: It looks as if convincing the CFO might take a little more work and data, so if I wanted to move forward on this, I’d do a straight cost-benefit analysis. That would take some time to do, but if you really think the technology is a good idea, the effort will be worthwhile.
Reason: You have to speak the language of the CFO to get approval for something like this. Show the savings, and you have a better chance of success.

Theresa Lane, HR director, Lane Exteriors, Barnstable, MA
What Theresa would do: More than pointing out how it would help me, I think I’d focus more on how it would help employees and save them time (and the company’s money as a result). Along with that, I’d try to get support from other departments. If a lot of people get on the bandwagon and show some real interest in the technology, you have a better chance of getting approval.
Reason: Your argument has to be something more than “this is great for HR.” Support from outside HR - along with the money-saving aspect - will give you a big boost.

Linda Russo, HR manager, JR Contractors, Holden, MA
What Linda would do: To get the CFO’s attention, you have to talk savings, but I’d also try to bring in HR managers from other companies that are using the system successfully. Maybe I could use my contacts to find someone or ask the vendor to provide several names of people we could talk to.
Reason: It always helps to hear about the experience from someone who’s been there. On top of that, you might learn about some of the pitfalls and get a better idea of what you want to do.

Question:
We have a lot of older, experienced workers who are quite knowledgeable and productive. Many of them have been making noises about retirement soon, and we’re concerned about all that experience walking out the door.

Any ideas on what we can do to keep them?

Answer:
First, realize that people are going to retire, says recruiting expert Annette Cummings. There are efforts you can make to keep them a while longer, but sooner or later, you’re faced with the same problem — they leave.

So, as a start, try to make sure your older workers are involved in projects they’re interested in. That’ll keep them for as long as possible. And as much as possible, allow them to work part-time or flexible schedules that suit their lifestyles.

As for the longer term, your supervisors should try to make sure that sharp younger workers are teamed up with the veterans so that the knowledge and experience will be passed along when the vets eventually leave. That’s really the only way to ensure your organization doesn’t suffer from “brain drain.”

The guide is primarily for federal employers and contractors, but the advice can be applied by any employer that has questions such as:

• When advertising jobs, what’s an appropriate statement indicating our policies on ADA accommodations?
• How should we respond to applicants who ask about accommodations?
• How do we decide which accommodations present an “undue hardship” on our business?
• What do we do if we think an applicant’s or employee’s disability presents a health or safety hazard to that employee or co-workers?

You can access the guide by clicking here.

The facts: 
Citing an employee’s low performance and lack of cooperation, a supervisor fired the employee. The firing came about 60 days after the employee filed a complaint with government officials stating that the company engaged in practices that presented a health and safety hazard to employees. An investigation showed the complaint to be without validity; there were no safety violations. The employee still filed a lawsuit claiming that the firing was done so because of the safety complaint.

The employer said:
The decision to fire the employee was based strictly on performance and behavior. Besides, there could be no retaliation claim because the complaint was without merit and didn’t result in any penalities for the employer.

Who won the case? 

Answer: The employee. A judge refused the employer’s request to dismiss the case and sent it to trial, meaning a likely costly settlement for the employer or hefty legal fees.

Why:

The judge said the firing indeed looked suspicious, coming on the heels of a complaint about a safety violation. And when it looks suspicious, it goes to trial.

What about the fact that the complaint ended up being nothing more than that - a complaint - and the company had committed no violation?

Doesn’t matter, the judge explained. The employee doesn’t have to prove the validity of his complaint to show there was retaliation. He complained, and he got fired. Let a jury decide if one and one equal two.

One more thing, the judge noted: Safety complaints involve matters of “public policy” since possible violations affect more than just the single employee. As such, those complaints - even more than others - fall under special legal protections.

When an employee complains about something as serious as safety and then gets fired, your managers have to be certain to have the right documentation.

There’s not much you can do to stop an employee who’s bent on suing, but you can prepare a good defense.

Cite: Kohrt v. MidAmerican Energy Co.