Category Archive for "Human Resources"

When the British National Audit Office looked into the sick leave record of the 6,500 employees working for the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in Swansea they knew something was wrong; drastically wrong. 

More than 1,000 DVLA employees took more than 21 days off sick. Average number of sick days used per employee stood at an astonishing 13.1 days a year. The average is 6 days in the British private sector.

The auditors said there was a correlation between “the levels of sick leave and relatively low paid, repetitive administrative tasks.”  The sick leave at the DVLA cost the British taxpayers £10.3m a year. 

The issue concerns administrators and business owners here in the United States as well.

The number of sick leaves reported by the U.S. Federal Employees Retirement System employees, for example, has been the subject of a Congressional Research Service study in 2004. 

There have been several proposals to improve sick leave management in the public and private sector. 

One is to allow a total number of paid days off for the employees and let them proportion it into vacation, sick leave and personal days. Anything beyond that total would be unpaid days, up to a certain limit. Violation of that limit would trigger an unscheduled performance review. 

Others have proposed cash payment for total unused sick leave days. A one-time payment formula developed by the Federal Managers Association proposed to pay 10 percent of the hourly rate of a retiree’s high-three salary for any sick leave balance over 500 hours. 

Another alternative is to ensure that employees with ailments like high-blood pressure receive good long-term care since short-term treatments rarely cure such problems, leading to frequent sick days off. 

All these solutions require a close harmonious working relationship between the management, HR and the employees since without full employee participation and good management incentives sick leave will continue to drain limited corporate resources.

Finding good employees is a must to grow your business and it’s easier said than done. But you can try the following market-proven methods:

• Invite referrals from your employees, suppliers and vendors, with a monetary award if the referred person is hired.

• Place ads in high-traffic recruitment sites like Monster, Dice, CareerBuilder, as well as Craigslist classifieds.

• Get in touch with your local business chamber, Lions, KC, or any other professional organization you are connected with.

• Organize and advertise an Open House with coffee, donuts, sandwiches and present a physical or web-based tour of your company to the prospective hires.

• Check with the veterans organizations since there are a lot of well-trained and qualified veterans who are looking for work. Veterans make excellent disciplined employees if their qualifications match.

• Consult with your local university or community college and inform them of the jobs available for the qualified new graduates.

• Hang employment posters at senior citizen centers and communities. You’d be surprised at the number of well-experienced retirees who are looking for an opportunity to go back to work for one reason or another.

Workplace harassment is something all small- and mid-sized companies should take seriously. It’s not only against ethical and human rights standards of our times but also a cause for high-cost litigation that can ruin a company’s reputation and empty its coffers.

But gone are the days when “harassment” only meant “sexual harassment.” That is still one of the most wide-spread forms but is not limited to it.

There are for example religion, ethnicity, national origin, and age-based forms of harassment too.

Here are some examples:

• Cracking a joke about the forehead marks with which some developers show up in office on Ash Wednesday.

• Making a sarcastic remark around the water cooler about the “curry eaters” and “onions heads” at the accounting department.

• Showing mock compassion for the “grandpa” at the shipping department who once complained about the weight of the outgoing packages.

The definition of the “sexual harassment” has been expanded as well.

Now it’s no longer necessary to have a physical or overt pass at another colleague to commit sexual harassment.

A risque screen-saver on one’s personal computer, for example, or a worker insisting that his friends look at his beach photos showing naked swimmers, would be enough to generate a serious harassment complaint.

There are other harassment modes like

• denying assistance and withholding crucial information and thus steering another colleague towards failure;
• constantly ridiculing someone;
• sending embarrassing or threatening messages through email or telephone;
• constantly criticizing petty matters and insignificant points;
• regular threats of dismissal or demotion without any apparent reason;
• etc.

It would be well advised to put all your new hires through a standard harassment training and issue them a certification when they successfully pass the test at the end. Most companies do that both to make their harassment policies crystal clear to all concerned and also to protect themselves against future law suits.

A column I’ve read recently on “business myths” got me thinking about the veracity of some of the most cherished business principles:

1) “You need to take a risk to become an entrepreneur.”

This is certainly true. But given the fact that almost 60% of new businesses close their doors within the first 3 years, it’s clear that just taking a risk is not enough to succeed in business life.

(”In a study in Columbus, Ohio, Professor H.G. Parsa of Ohio State University, tracked new restaurants from 1996-1999. In the first year, 26% closed. Another 19% closed the second year, and 14% the third. Collectively, 59% of new restaurants closed [within] those three years.” USA Today)

Perhaps one should change that to read “you need to take serial risks until you succeed.”

2) “You have to have a killer business plan.”

Sure, it wouldn’t hurt to have a “killer” of a business plan. But let’s face it: are we all offering “category killer” goods or services? How many times we have seen another sandwich shop opening right next to the four others already there?

When last week I offered to a client of mine to submit a 3- or 5-year plan to his banker, he shot back saying in his fast-changing market segment you’re lucky if you can put together even a ONE year plan; the conditions are changing that fast and the variables in his line of business are that hard to control.

3) “You need to have a strong USP – Unique Selling Proposition – to differentiate yourself from the herd and succeed.”

This is true of course. But sometimes this principle is confused with building a “brand,” which more often than not means at least a “national brand.”

The last time I checked, it takes anywhere from $10 to $100 millions dollars to build a nation-wide “recognition” for any new brand.

If that’s what it took to build a successful business, there would not be 24 million plus small businesses in America today. Obviously you can survive and do reasonably well even if your USP is not at the level of a “brand.”

4) “Entrepreneurs are born.”

Really? Does this mean “people cannot change”? How come Joshua Bell can learn to play the violin but Jane Smith cannot learn how to run a music store?

If you only follow the seminars held every month by cpSphere and make yourself available to the important lessons shared during those seminars you’d be far ahead than an entrepreneur who was “born” that way but never educated himself in the science and craft of entrepreneurship.

There is nothing more costly for a small- or medium-size business than a top-notch talent’s resignation. Years of expertise and critical know-how is hard to replace and has a high dollar cost.

What’s more, the flight of top talent is also demoralizing on the troops that stay behind. The question “what’s wrong with our company so that so-and-so has left?” becomes inevitable.

So what can you do to stop the brain-drain?

A recent Wall Street Journal article has focused on the issue and here is the summary of its conclusions:

– The worst thing you can do is to pretend it’s not happening. Denial is not solution.

– When company changes hands or there’s a merger, the new management sometimes deny that anything worthwhile was done in the past. In their zeal to upgrade operations they disparage the existing talent and cast a shadow on their track record and credentials. Watch against that counterproductive managerial reflex.

– Top talent cannot be made happy with good pay alone; they need to have a challenge at work, a channel to grow professionally and contribute to the collective outcome with their creative solutions. They need to be acknowledged for their individuality. Such recognition and peer-respect is its own reward for top talent.

– Professional growth is important but salaries that do not match the industry standards also make top talent susceptible to external offers. HR departments should periodically evaluate the compensation of such individuals to make sure they reflect the current rates.

Companies like United Parcel Service, Lehman Bros. and Deloitte Touche have launched “mentoring and management-development programs” to retain their top performers, WSJ reports. It is a critical business issue that is worth committing extra resources to in this day and age of global competition.

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