In these economic times, it is pretty common for the regular guy on the street to know someone who has had to relocate to keep or find a job—it might even be himself. But most people don't think very often about the other side of the coin, the side that business owners and company managers cannot avoid: needing to relocate employees.
There have always been business cycles, and relocation plans have been around for millennia, just ask a nomadic tribesman. The nomads, however, could pack up their yurts and take their houses with them. Today's businesses have their problems complicated by a reeling housing market.
Weichert Relocation Resources Inc., a company that specializes in relocation and assignment management, has seen some early signs for optimism in 2010. For one thing, there has been a drop in the rate at which companies have had to add or increase their loss-on-sale assistance. A year ago, 40% of companies surveyed were having to ante up or improve their existing relocation packages, but fewer businesses find that necessary now.
The number of companies that had given their employees added incentives to sell their existing homes quickly have dropped, as have the number that increased coverage for temporary living assistance. At the same time, companies are weighing more closely which employees will be transferred and are instituting tiered benefit packages for those who are relocated. In a nutshell, 90% of the companies in the Weichert survey had changed their policies in response to the recessionary business environment.
The most frequent changes were made as a response to the real-estate market, and not about internal company affairs. These changes put more restrictions on employees who wanted to take advantage of relocation assistance, such as requiring that transferees work with a qualified real-estate broker and make list-price reductions when advised.
Ellie Sullivan, director of consulting at Weichert, says that one of the most effective changes made by companies comes in their improvement of the pre-decision process. Many companies had no pre-decision rubrics at all before the most recent recession. Now, 65% of the companies surveyed are offering pre-decision counseling. Potential transferees receive counseling on the new location and home sale issues. Giving an employee more information before a transfer is a "done deal" saves costs for a company by reducing the number of transfers that don't work out after the fact. Lina Paskevicius, consulting manager at Cartus Global Consulting, believes that putting more time into the pre-decision assessments is becoming "the new normal."
It can be hard for a company to persuade employees to move during a volatile economy, but new and updated approaches and policies can result in better all-round results.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Employment Law - When it Pays to Outsource
Employment law takes account of nearly every area of the employer/employee relationship. The only exceptions are related to collective bargaining. That leaves many areas like workers’ compensation, minimum wage regulations, employment discrimination, workplace safety, whistleblower protections, and unemployment compensation in the list of topics covered by employment law. For the small businessman, that is a lot to deal with. Unfortunately, this is one of those times when the old adage, "what you don't know can't hurt you" will probably let you down sooner or later.
To complicate things further, it's not just one set of laws the business owner has to deal with, there are regulations at both the federal and the state levels and many localities add on a few more of their own. Instead of ignorance being bliss, it is a snare for lawsuits, fines, and penalties.
Some examples:
• The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) To quote the US Department of Labor, "FMLA provides certain employees with up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per year. It also requires that their group health benefits be maintained during the leave." Having an employee take family medical leave involves record keeping and paperwork, some of which is supposed to remain confidential.
• The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) This law regulates the standards for the basic minimum wage and overtime pay, and regulates the hours that a minor is allowed to work. That's more recordkeeping and more paperwork tracking the hours worked and the wages paid.
• The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) Quoting the US Department of Labor again, "INA sets forth the conditions for the temporary and permanent employment of aliens in the United States and includes provisions that address employment eligibility and employment verification." You might need forms for application for H-1B and H-1B1 Non-immigrants (form ETA-9035), the Application for Permanent Employment Certification (form ETA-9089), the Application for Alien Employment Certification (form ETA-750A), and Part B of this application: Statement of Qualifications of the Alien (form ETA-750B), and the Application for Alien Employment Certification for Agricultural services (form ETA-790). Employers certified for H-2A contracts must keep records of a worker's hours.
Small business owners who find it more profitable to work on their company than to fill out forms will like the services of a PEO. Helping employers stay in compliance with employment law is only one of the services a PEO can give.
To complicate things further, it's not just one set of laws the business owner has to deal with, there are regulations at both the federal and the state levels and many localities add on a few more of their own. Instead of ignorance being bliss, it is a snare for lawsuits, fines, and penalties.
Some examples:
• The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) To quote the US Department of Labor, "FMLA provides certain employees with up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per year. It also requires that their group health benefits be maintained during the leave." Having an employee take family medical leave involves record keeping and paperwork, some of which is supposed to remain confidential.
• The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) This law regulates the standards for the basic minimum wage and overtime pay, and regulates the hours that a minor is allowed to work. That's more recordkeeping and more paperwork tracking the hours worked and the wages paid.
• The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) Quoting the US Department of Labor again, "INA sets forth the conditions for the temporary and permanent employment of aliens in the United States and includes provisions that address employment eligibility and employment verification." You might need forms for application for H-1B and H-1B1 Non-immigrants (form ETA-9035), the Application for Permanent Employment Certification (form ETA-9089), the Application for Alien Employment Certification (form ETA-750A), and Part B of this application: Statement of Qualifications of the Alien (form ETA-750B), and the Application for Alien Employment Certification for Agricultural services (form ETA-790). Employers certified for H-2A contracts must keep records of a worker's hours.
Small business owners who find it more profitable to work on their company than to fill out forms will like the services of a PEO. Helping employers stay in compliance with employment law is only one of the services a PEO can give.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Listening is Not a Multi-tasking Activity
Listening is not a multi-tasking activity—unless you're an auctioneer. Multi-tasking works then because the auctioneer stays alert for short specific signals. Attentive listening requires a considerable amount of focus, and attentive listeners will excel in making the other person feel heard. Bidders at an auction always know when they have been heard because the price goes up, but auction house tactics can hurt a business.
Hopefully you learned the first key to being an attentive listener when you were in kindergarten. Don't interrupt. What you may not have learned then is that interrupting entails more than speaking out of turn. Eye rolling, yawning, and staring out the window are interruptions that show you are not actively listening.
The second key to know is that people rarely cut to the chase. Most people like to set the stage before they begin to make their point. Let them talk; you will learn quite a bit of the subtext from listening to how they frame their story.
A third and crucial key is that responding with platitudes or grinding criticism will make you look like a jerk. When someone has just shared a concern, don't brush them off. They want the respect of being understood. It's human nature to not be so forthcoming in the future when you weren't heard in the past. You need your employees to have confidence in you, and attentive listening builds trust.
How to Hear What a Ditz is Really Saying—or trying to
It can be tough to have to listen to scatterbrained and eccentric persons. It can be tougher to know what they mean. Here are some tips for checking to see if what you heard is the same as what they think they said.
• Recap by stating a question. If Mary just spent three minutes talking about toner, dry cleaning her sweater, missed deadlines, and a broken doohickey, recap with, "You'd like me to call someone to run maintenance on the copy machine, right?
• Say it back. Summarize your understanding of the situation and see if they agree.
• Say it another way. If possible, find a simile or metaphor that fits the situation. If the complaint was about too much work and too little help, say, "So, am I to understand that you feel like the Little Red Hen?"
These responses help you to generate useful feedback and to avoid potentially costly misunderstandings.
Hopefully you learned the first key to being an attentive listener when you were in kindergarten. Don't interrupt. What you may not have learned then is that interrupting entails more than speaking out of turn. Eye rolling, yawning, and staring out the window are interruptions that show you are not actively listening.
The second key to know is that people rarely cut to the chase. Most people like to set the stage before they begin to make their point. Let them talk; you will learn quite a bit of the subtext from listening to how they frame their story.
A third and crucial key is that responding with platitudes or grinding criticism will make you look like a jerk. When someone has just shared a concern, don't brush them off. They want the respect of being understood. It's human nature to not be so forthcoming in the future when you weren't heard in the past. You need your employees to have confidence in you, and attentive listening builds trust.
How to Hear What a Ditz is Really Saying—or trying to
It can be tough to have to listen to scatterbrained and eccentric persons. It can be tougher to know what they mean. Here are some tips for checking to see if what you heard is the same as what they think they said.
• Recap by stating a question. If Mary just spent three minutes talking about toner, dry cleaning her sweater, missed deadlines, and a broken doohickey, recap with, "You'd like me to call someone to run maintenance on the copy machine, right?
• Say it back. Summarize your understanding of the situation and see if they agree.
• Say it another way. If possible, find a simile or metaphor that fits the situation. If the complaint was about too much work and too little help, say, "So, am I to understand that you feel like the Little Red Hen?"
These responses help you to generate useful feedback and to avoid potentially costly misunderstandings.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Bullying - It's not just a playground thing
The Workplace Bullying Institute—yes, it really exists, and despite its name, it is actually anti-bullying—commissioned a study that found that 37 percent of the U.S. workforce have experienced bullying at work at least once in their life. With numbers that high, bullying is far more widespread an issue in the workplace than sexual harassment. While most organizations have policies to deal with sexual harassment, only a scant minority have policies in place to deal with bullying.
Momentum is building to pass laws and regulations to deal with bullying if employers won't police themselves. Unchecked workplace bullying creates so much discontent and stress with its accompanying feelings of disengagement by the victim that it would be in an employer's best economic interest to develop a policy without waiting to be forced into it by a law. With statistics available that show bullying eventually results in economic losses, it at first seems surprising that more companies have not come out with anti-bullying policies.
At least part of the problem is that there are different kinds of bullies. A law might help a worker have legal recourse with aggressive bullies, but what about the backstabbing and manipulative bullies? The bottom line is that onsite employers and managers need to be nipping bullying tendencies in the bud and not waiting until problems spiral so far out of control that the legislature attempts to do their job for them.
Here are some suggestions on how to get started:
Since manipulative behaviors are accompanied by a lack of respect for others, make "Respect" one of your company's core values. Train managers in the character of respect and take a few minutes to teach about respect at all employee meetings.
Management needs to be aware of bullies. That means realizing that manipulative behaviors don't have to display anger or overt threats; passive aggressive bullies exist. It means taking every report seriously and not excusing it without first investigating.
When bullying behaviors are reported, investigate and look for patterns. Take a friendly face-to-face approach with the accused bully. Do they seem real and transparent or not? Do comments from other co-workers tend to fall along the same lines?
Train the entire staff in conflict resolution. It's a skill all employees can benefit from, not just upper management.
Conduct exit interviews when employees leave. You'll get some of your most candid appraisals from exit interviews.
Momentum is building to pass laws and regulations to deal with bullying if employers won't police themselves. Unchecked workplace bullying creates so much discontent and stress with its accompanying feelings of disengagement by the victim that it would be in an employer's best economic interest to develop a policy without waiting to be forced into it by a law. With statistics available that show bullying eventually results in economic losses, it at first seems surprising that more companies have not come out with anti-bullying policies.
At least part of the problem is that there are different kinds of bullies. A law might help a worker have legal recourse with aggressive bullies, but what about the backstabbing and manipulative bullies? The bottom line is that onsite employers and managers need to be nipping bullying tendencies in the bud and not waiting until problems spiral so far out of control that the legislature attempts to do their job for them.
Here are some suggestions on how to get started:
Since manipulative behaviors are accompanied by a lack of respect for others, make "Respect" one of your company's core values. Train managers in the character of respect and take a few minutes to teach about respect at all employee meetings.
Management needs to be aware of bullies. That means realizing that manipulative behaviors don't have to display anger or overt threats; passive aggressive bullies exist. It means taking every report seriously and not excusing it without first investigating.
When bullying behaviors are reported, investigate and look for patterns. Take a friendly face-to-face approach with the accused bully. Do they seem real and transparent or not? Do comments from other co-workers tend to fall along the same lines?
Train the entire staff in conflict resolution. It's a skill all employees can benefit from, not just upper management.
Conduct exit interviews when employees leave. You'll get some of your most candid appraisals from exit interviews.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Creating Fully Engaged Employees
In the Gallup Management Journal, Curt Coffman uses a clever acronym for disengaged employees; he calls them "cave dwellers." CAVE stands for "Consistently Against Virtually Everything." Whimsical as that may be, disengaged employees are a troubling reality that can be costly for a small business.
Recent slippage in the economy has exacerbated the problem. Fears of job loss or unwanted transfer, postponed or lower-than-expected raises, and reductions in hours or assignments are all linked to the economy, and are all likely to have negative effects on commitment to the job. For many small businesses, employee disengagement is like being hit with a double whammy; in an economy where efficiency and productivity are needed the most, businesses are experiencing higher turnover rates and insecure leadership.
The good news is that there are simple, inexpensive ways to turn the tide and help get employees more actively engaged in their work. The keys are clearer communications and stronger relationships.
• Ask for Input
The employee who is working "in the trenches" often knows the lowdown on ways to improve or streamline operating procedures, but if they have disengaged with a "nobody hears me" attitude, the business is poorer because of it. Asking for input and allowing employees to be heard takes only a few minutes a week, but it boosts morale, and when an employee does have a good idea, it can boost the bottom line as well.
• Have a Purpose on Purpose
You probably told new hires about the purpose of the company during the interview process—when they had a hundred other thoughts swirling in their minds, but do your employees still remember that purpose in the here and now? Employees need reminders. Something as simple as a pep talk to refocus on your company's purpose will help people feel like they belong as part of the team. Slogans and banners posted in employee break areas also help to keep your business goals spotlighted.
• Communicate
Remember Show and Tell times from grade school? Those were designed to practice and build good communication skills. Keeping your employees invested in their work calls for a grownup business version of clear communication. Show them with action and tell them with words that you are a trustworthy leader. Managers who build sturdy, confident relationships with the people they manage will build a sturdy business. A good manager can answer an employee's questions with assurance.
• Recognize Efforts
Good workers often feel unappreciated. Big successes usually get recognition, but it's recognition of the effort, not the success, that boosts employee engagement. Very few people are able to be like Thomas Edison who, after repeated failures, was able to optimistically say, "I found 586 ways that won't work!" There are several variations of that quote and Edison probably said it more than once. A good boss will repeatedly encourage optimism in his employees too.
It's primarily the boss's responsibility to come out of his cave, build relationships, establish communication, and keep his employees engaged and ready-to-work.
Recent slippage in the economy has exacerbated the problem. Fears of job loss or unwanted transfer, postponed or lower-than-expected raises, and reductions in hours or assignments are all linked to the economy, and are all likely to have negative effects on commitment to the job. For many small businesses, employee disengagement is like being hit with a double whammy; in an economy where efficiency and productivity are needed the most, businesses are experiencing higher turnover rates and insecure leadership.
The good news is that there are simple, inexpensive ways to turn the tide and help get employees more actively engaged in their work. The keys are clearer communications and stronger relationships.
• Ask for Input
The employee who is working "in the trenches" often knows the lowdown on ways to improve or streamline operating procedures, but if they have disengaged with a "nobody hears me" attitude, the business is poorer because of it. Asking for input and allowing employees to be heard takes only a few minutes a week, but it boosts morale, and when an employee does have a good idea, it can boost the bottom line as well.
• Have a Purpose on Purpose
You probably told new hires about the purpose of the company during the interview process—when they had a hundred other thoughts swirling in their minds, but do your employees still remember that purpose in the here and now? Employees need reminders. Something as simple as a pep talk to refocus on your company's purpose will help people feel like they belong as part of the team. Slogans and banners posted in employee break areas also help to keep your business goals spotlighted.
• Communicate
Remember Show and Tell times from grade school? Those were designed to practice and build good communication skills. Keeping your employees invested in their work calls for a grownup business version of clear communication. Show them with action and tell them with words that you are a trustworthy leader. Managers who build sturdy, confident relationships with the people they manage will build a sturdy business. A good manager can answer an employee's questions with assurance.
• Recognize Efforts
Good workers often feel unappreciated. Big successes usually get recognition, but it's recognition of the effort, not the success, that boosts employee engagement. Very few people are able to be like Thomas Edison who, after repeated failures, was able to optimistically say, "I found 586 ways that won't work!" There are several variations of that quote and Edison probably said it more than once. A good boss will repeatedly encourage optimism in his employees too.
It's primarily the boss's responsibility to come out of his cave, build relationships, establish communication, and keep his employees engaged and ready-to-work.
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