Employee Relations

5 ways to extract great ideas from your employees

01/26/2010

Employees are often the best sources of ideas because they are closest to the daily details of the organization. But too often, employees are sitting on great cost-saving, business-generating ideas because they’ve never been specifically asked. Here are five strategies to help encourage their input.

Communication is top benefit at Arizona American Water

01/25/2010

At Arizona American Water, HR goes “overboard” with employee communication, says Senior HR Manager Linda Stillman, sending electronic newsletters around the office, paper newsletters to employees’ homes and setting up teleconferences to share information.

OK to aggressively question suspected thieves—as long as your intent isn’t malicious

01/22/2010

Some employees are light-fingered, and it isn’t always easy to catch them stealing. Loss-prevention staff often presses hard when interviewing employees they suspect are pilfering. That’s appropriate, as is reporting the case to police. As the following case shows, aggressive questioning during an initial investigation doesn’t equal malicious intent.

Your Best Defense: Prevention

01/22/2010

HR Law 101: When drugs don’t seem to present a problem in a workplace, it’s easy to develop a cavalier attitude about them. That’s not very smart. Drug abuse often begins with a single offender and then spreads out malignantly. Experts say your best defense is to detect drug abuse when it first appears and to root it out immediately …

Disciplining safety violators: Don’t just holler

01/20/2010

What do your supervisors do when they catch workers breaking a major safety rule? Simply yell at the worker? A new court ruling highlights the importance of enforcing safety rules with discipline and documentation.

Michigan title company thrives on posted ‘isms’

01/19/2010

At real estate settlement firm Title Source, President and CEO Jeff Eisenshtadt doesn’t care who’s right. He cares what is right. Around the office, Eisenshtadt has posted signs containing what he calls “isms”: They’re the words of wisdom that he expects his employees to live by—and that he uses during their evaluations.

How can HR help? 60% of workers live paycheck to paycheck

01/19/2010

As the economic downturn trudges on, many workers are struggling with household budgets. In fact, six out of 10 recently surveyed workers said they live paycheck to paycheck. Savings rates are dropping and retirement funds are drying up. Here’s how HR can provide genuine help—without adding budget costs.

The HR I.Q. Test: January ’10

01/18/2010

Test your knowledge of recent trends in employment law, comp & benefits and other HR issues with our monthly mini-quiz …

Not sure it’s sexual harassment? Take steps to end it anyway

01/15/2010

Not every complaint about alleged sexual harassment turns out to be true. Sometimes, the harasser may simply be a difficult personality. He or she may have it in for all co-workers, and the harassment that someone complains about may be completely unrelated to sex. That doesn’t mean, however, that you should ignore the behavior. Your best bet is to discipline the employee.

Training, recognition keep turnover under control

01/14/2010

In an industry that suffers from 100% annual turnover, Universal Protection Service in Santa Ana, Calif., boasts a much lower rate: 65%. “Anyone in HR will be aghast at that rate because it sounds horrendous,” admits HR VP Paula Malone, “but compared with the industry average, it’s actually good.” The reasons for the relatively low turnover: continuous training and on-the-spot recognition.