HR Management

Dead-wrong bereavement leave

12/08/2011

A customer service rep at a call center went out on bereavement leave at least once a month. Lots of aunts and uncles, he said. The HR department discovered the employee had a family member on the “inside” at the funeral home who was creating a fake program for each fake funeral.

Learn from the best: 6 tips from America’s top HR departments

12/07/2011

Even if your HR department has only two or three employees, it can still incorporate some of the best approaches to HR management used in the country’s top HR departments. America’s biggest companies share some basic approaches to HR that can benefit much smaller departments.

When co-workers clash, offer transfer option

12/07/2011

Personality clashes almost always affect work, and inevitably one of the combatants will file a formal complaint. Defuse that tension by suggesting that one or both co-workers transfer to other positions. Offering the transfer option to warring co-workers isn’t an adverse action as long as neither is forced to accept the offer.

Get ahead by drafting your own ‘career annual report’

12/06/2011

What have you learned and accomplished in the past five years? If you can’t answer that question, you’ll have a tougher time planning your career development … and maybe making that next great career move. Use this template to create an annual report that can help collect your thoughts each year.

Leave shameful history in the past: Warn bosses against any reference to nooses

12/02/2011

Objects can become powerful symbols. That’s certainly true of nooses, which black Americans see as infamous reminders of a past in which lynchings were relatively common, especially in the South. That’s why you must instruct supervisors and managers: Any reference to hanging, ropes or nooses is absolutely forbidden in the workplace.

The HR I.Q. Test: December ’11

12/02/2011

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

5 tips to cut flab from your business writing

12/01/2011

In business writing, you don’t receive extra credit for slathering your sentences with fancy phrases, the way you did in college. Do that in a memo or e-mail, and you can expect eyes to glaze over. Here are five “less is more” tips for writing more effectively at work.

Penn State case: Would you have called police?

12/01/2011

In light of the highly publicized scandal at Penn State University, one HR lesson is obvious: Employers can never ignore reports of misconduct or harassment by employees against anyone. But at what point does harassment cross the line into something more serious (like assault) that requires an employer to call the police?

Time to revamp policies banning guns in parking lots

11/30/2011

Many employers have workplace violence policies that prohibit employees from possessing firearms in or around the workplace. They’ll have to rethink those policies, now that Texas has a new law that limits most employers’ right to bar employees from having firearms in vehicles parked at employers’ parking areas.

Harassment: How to stop it before–and after–it starts