HR Briefing articles from January 2003

HR Briefing archives from January 2003

White House repeals UI-funded leave. (Regulatory Update).(unemployment insurance, overturns Birth and Adoption Unemployment Compensation Rule of 2000)
January 15, 2003... The Bush Administration intends to bar states from using unemployment insurance (UI) funds to help parents who go on leave to care for newborns or newly adopted children. The move would overturn an order originally proposed by the Clinton...

EEOC reissues antidiscrimination guidelines behind 9/11 bias.(Equal Employment Opportunity Commission)(Brief Article)
January 15, 2003... * Responding to criticism from Arab-American groups that it did not effectively combat a wave of workplace discrimination after the terrorist attacks, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has issued updated guidelines to...

Find out how ethical your organization is. (Ethics).
January 15, 2003... Corporate ethical dilemmas that have surfaced during the past 12 months focused on the misconduct of CEOs and other high-level executives. But no one in the workplace has a monopoly on unethical behavior. In a telephone poll of 1,500...

Study shows HR not in synch with workers.(Brief Article)
January 15, 2003... * USATODAY. com and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) recently asked both workers and HR professionals what they valued most in their work lives. The responses between the groups--a total of 1,000 people--showed some marked...

You be the judge.(terminations under Family Medical Leave Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act)
January 15, 2003... FMLA "Are you going to tell me what's going on with you, Nick, or am I going to have to hear it through the office grapevine?" asked Brad Hughes, Nick Osgood's supervisor. "What makes you think something is wrong?" asked Osgood, a...

Build support for change.(First Among Equals)(Book Review)
January 15, 2003... * It's a myth that people resist change, say Patrick J. McKenna and David H. Maister, co-authors of First Among Equals (The Free Press, 2002). "People resist what other people make them do--not what they themselves choose to do," say the...

Job openings taking longer to fill.(Brief Article)
January 15, 2003... * If you find yourself saying, "This used to be faster" when you're recruiting job candidates, you're right. Hiring is taking longer these days. A study by Caliper, a Princeton-based HR consulting firm, shows that employers are now...

What are some applicants thinking?(humorous comments on job applications )(Brief Article)
January 15, 2003... * Most job candidates strive to make a good impression in interviews. But sometimes recruiters meet applicants that leave them laughing, if not eager to make a job offer. When asked: What are the funniest things anyone ever said during a...

Can technology maintain the "human" factor in HR? (Technology).
January 15, 2003... Can technology relieve HR managers of burdensome administrative tasks while keeping the workplace humane for employees? Yes, according to ACT*1 Personnel Services (Torrance, Calif.). The temporary placement firm says that technology can...

Workers are restless.(ready to leave jobs )(Brief Article)
January 15, 2003... * A sluggish economy hasn't made employees eager to remain in their jobs, according to the ComPsych Corporation, a firm specializing in employee assistance programs (EAP), work-life issues, crisis intervention, and other HR support services....

How well are you treating your temporary workers? (Contingent Staffing).
January 15, 2003... The temporary/employer relationship can be a match made in heaven or the mismatch of the century. Here's what you can do to make the relationship successful: * Hire the right person. Employers work hard to find people who are adaptable...

Economy hits middle-aged, white-collar workers hard.(Brief Article)
January 15, 2003... * White-collar workers no longer have the protection they once had during hard economic times. For years, many white-collar workers were accustomed to expanded career opportunities, promotions, and pay increases. Now a generation of...

U.S. relies on immigrant workforce.(Brief Article)
January 15, 2003... * A new study of U.S. census data by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University showed that during the past 10 years, half of the 16 million new entrants into the U.S. workforce were new or recent immigrants. The...

Sex bias case costs Salomon $3 million. (In the courts).(Salomon Smith Barney Inc. versus Tameron Keyes)(Brief Article)
January 15, 2003... Employers who want to know just how costly a discrimination case can be ought to ask Salomon Smith Barney Inc. An arbitration panel ordered the securities firm to pay more than $3 million to settle a gender discrimination case against...

Companies offering information on dying. (New benefits).(from Dying with Dignity)(Brief Article)
January 15, 2003... Five Wishes at Work, a program of the nonprofit organization Dying with Dignity (Tallahassee, Fla.), is making available to employees for fee information on how to prepare for dying. The information comes in a 12-page pamphlet that...

Slight gain in female top executives. (Employment surveys).(Brief Article)
January 15, 2003... A biannual survey by Catalyst, a New York-based women's advocacy group, shows that during the past two years there's been a 3.2 percent increase in the number of women holding top corporate slots in Fortune 500 companies. The survey...

Workplace camaraderie raises morale, productivity.(Brief Article)
January 15, 2003... * A recent study by the staffing firm Randstad North America and market research consulting firm RoperASW, showed that with Americans spending more time at work than anywhere else, co-workers are increasingly becoming surrogate families for...

Job interviews reveal trouble later on.(Brief Article)
January 15, 2003... Stephen Hirschfeld, a founding partner in the law firm Curiale, Dellaverson, Hirschfeld, Kraemer & Sloan (San Francisco), says that you can identify early trouble signs with a potential hire in a job interview. Here are the signs and...

Wrongful discharge claims up as jobs disappear. (Wrongful Termination).
January 1, 2003... Wrongful discharge claims used to be rare, but that was before the economy took a downturn, says Stephen Hirschfeld, a founding partner in the law firm Curiale, Dellaverson, Hirschfeld, Kraemer & Sloan (San Francisco). Up until 18 to 24...

NLRB: no unionization for Allstate contractors.
January 1, 2003... The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) handed Allstate Insurance officials a victory by not allowing the company's agents to form a union. The Office and Professional Employees International Union had petitioned the NLRB to reverse...

Major identity theft case calls for workplace vigilance. (Security).
January 1, 2003... Federal law-enforcement authorities recently uncovered the largest case of identity theft on record. A ring of thieves stole credit and banking information from 300,000 people nationwide. The thieves carried out their crime largely by...

Plan now, or lose your competitive edge, say futurists.
January 1, 2003... * Challenger, Gray & Christmas reports that 1.2 million jobs were cut from the beginning of 2002 through October. But are things looking better for the economy and business, in particular? "Absolutely," says Roger Herman, a strategic...

Open enrollment. (You Be The Judge).
January 1, 2003... "It's not too late to enroll your brother in our health care plan. That's what's so good about our insurance company--it accepts plan enrollments after the open enrollment deadline," said Harriet Linear, the HR director at Mercy General...

Don't view appraisals with disdain, says psychologist.
January 1, 2003... * If you dread the performance evaluation process, your attitude may be helping to create the grief you're experiencing. "Companies that are successful with performance management view [performance evaluations] as a process that continues...

Workers want more retirement-investment advice.
January 1, 2003... * American workers say they want to be better educated about diversifying and allocating assets in their retirement-investment portfolios, according to the 2002 Participant Satisfaction Survey by American Express. The survey results show...

HR Briefing index January 1, 2002-December 15, 2002 Issue N. 3001-3024.
January 1, 2003... HR BRIEFING INDEX January 1, 2002-December 15, 2002 Issue No. 3001-3024 Issue page Age Discrimination in Employment Act Does reassigning a veteran employee ...

Where do you post jobs on the Internet? (Technology).
January 1, 2003... With more than 40,000 job boards plus other online recruitment options, deciding where to post jobs can be overwhelming at first glance. Yet finding your way through this maze is easier than you might imagine. To start with, here's how you...

Select job posting boards carefully.
January 1, 2003... To select the right boards for your job postings, Steven Rothberg, president and founder of CollegeRecruiter.com (Minneapolis, MN), recommends that you: * Review what boards are available. If you feel overwhelmed with the choices...

Coming up in HR Briefing ...
January 1, 2003... * The latest developments in employment law * Take better care of your temp workers through technology

Our readers ask ...
January 1, 2003... Q We are currently advertising for and accepting applications for labor positions. Is it illegal--unfair--or unethical to ask job applicants for identification such as a Social Security number, driver's license number, or picture I.D. before...