Look Around HR

The issue of guns in the workplace has been on the front pages since the Florida legislature recently passed a new law prohibiting employers from banning guns in their parking lots. Business interests have immediately filed injunctions to stop this, and the general assumption in HR is that we would be safer to continue outlawing guns anywhere on company property.

However, an interesting situation occurred in Iowa about a month ago that involved a pizza delivery man. He was delivering the pizza to an apartment complex when an armed robber approached him. James Spiers, who was delivering the pizza, reacted immediately, grabbed the gun from the robber, and pulled out his own gun and shot Kenneth Jimmerson, who tried robbing him.

It was deemed that Spiers acted in self-defense and would not be charged. He had a permit to carry the gun. However, Pizza Hut did not feel the same way about the situation.

After initially suspending Spiers, he was fired about two weeks ago and given a severance package that included two months pay.

Here is what Pizza Hut had to say about the situation:

Vonnie Walbert, vice president of human resources at Pizza Hut’s corporate offices in Dallas, also told the Des Moines Register that the company prohibits employees from carrying guns “because we believe that that is the safest for everybody.”

Walbert did not say whether Pizza Hut had a written policy in place banning weapons at work.

The only person that would have been safe if Spiers was not carrying a gun would have been the armed robber.

This is similar to a story from Florida last year where an apartment leasing agent was fired for grabbing his shotgun and going to help a woman after he heard gunfire. Colin Bruley may have helped save a woman’s life by getting to the scene of the crime so fast, but it didn’t help him save his own job.

Remember the good ole days when fears of lawsuits were not hanging over your head on everything you do (I am only 23 so I don’t…). Now, we can only give out minimal information on things such as employment verifications. And the reason we do this is because we fear a lawsuit if you talk bad about an ex-employee and they don’t get that new job. So today’s take seems to be- as little information as possible.

Ready for the latest story that will make you scratch your head? A worker sued for workers comp because he hurt his foot at work. Sounds normal…but he hurt his foot rocking the snack machine in the break room trying to dislodge a candy bar that was stuck (h/t: HR Blunders).

This was done while on an unpaid lunch break and this is not part of his job responsibilities (although he is a maintenance worker).

The comp board ruled his claim could go forward because the event wasn’t a “recreational or social activity”. The insurance company appealed and the Court of Appeals reversed the initial decision and sent it back for further consideration. Read the case here.

The final decision has not been made yet, and we will keep you updated.

I guess we live in a world where we have to put a warning sign on the snack machine reminding employees not to shake it. I don’t know if this has more to do with frivolous lawsuits or an uneducated public.

P.S. It’s amazing the things people will do for their 75 cent candy bar.

From the Daily Mail (in the UK):

When his father couldn’t find anyone to enjoy a pint with, Jack Hammond’s son decided to buy one for him.

A friend, that is, not a pint.

He has put a notice in the local post office advertising for someone to accompany his elderly father to the pub twice a week.

The successful applicant will get £7 an hour plus expenses and the promise of excellent conversation with 88-year-old Mr Hammond, a retired engineer.

Your posting includes the great pay you are offering, the great benefits your company has, your generous PTO, but still can’t nab that candidate you are looking for? Little did you know that a new fringe benefit would be free alcohol.

For years, members of the Colorado state legislature have unsuccessfully tried to push legislation to make Colorado a right-to-work state. However, petitioners recently gathered more than 130,000 signatures (nearly twice as many as the required amount) and the issue is likely headed to the voters in November.

The Secretary of State’s office will have to verify the signatures and make sure they are legit. If the voters approved the measure, workers would not be forced to join a union and pay dues- if they choose not to.

Like so many times, this issue pits business vs. labor. As a result of this petition, labor has tried to make up their own initiatives on issues such as mandatory cost of living increases, requiring employers to offer health insurance, and laws to make it harder to fire employees.

Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat, opposes the right-to-work measure, and called for all sides to back down.

“There are still opportunities to de-escalate this and get to a place where none of these measures appear on the ballot,” said Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer. “The governor will continue the conversations he’s been having and will talk with the business community and labor organizations and try to get there.”

A Better Colorado is the organization that is leading this effort. You can follow them here.

There are currently 22 states that are considered Right-to-Work states. About half of those have Constitutional amendments guarantying the right. There are currently two national organizations that spearhead this movement. The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is the legal arm of the movement, while the National Right to Work Committee focuses on the legislative side. They are separate organizations.

Rob Diel worked in the Information Technology department at Chrysler for ten years, but was recently fired for a strange- but very legitimate reason. He posted Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli’s e-mail and office phone number in the comments section of a Detroit Free Press story on the newspaper’s website.

The story he was commenting on was about the decision for Chrysler to outsource several hundred IT jobs. Diel was expecting to lose his job at the end of May. The comment has since been deleted but here is what he said under the name “Chryslerworker:”

“Boycott Chrysler. If Chrysler is going to screw all the American workers, than (sic) it is only fair that America screws Chrysler. E-mail Nardelli and tell him what a great job he is doing.”

According to the Free Press, Nardelli began to receive scores of telephone calls and e-mails. Also, to make the situation for Diel worse- he did this on a company computer, which employees are not allowed to use for personal business.

Diel may have been losing his job in a month regardless, but he now has a recognizable name and a ton of bad publicity when he goes for his next interview. Why would an employer not think he is going to do the same thing if he gets upset about something at his next job? As this Google search shows, this is all over the web. Not exactly a wise move.

The Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, who oppose the labor backed Employee Free Choice Act, released a 30 second commercial they will begin to run in hopes of influencing public opinion- and political candidates- on this one issue.

The essential effect of this legislation is it will take away the right of employees to cast a secret ballot when deciding union membership. With the “card check,” you just need a majority to sign a card; with those names public to the employer, other employees, and union bosses.

The Heritage Foundation has written a number of essays on this subject in opposition to the dangerous bill. Here is a sample from James Sherk (with Heritage):

The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would disenfranchise 105 million American workers. For union organizing elections, the legislation would replace the secret ballot with a system of “card checks,” where union organizers pressure workers to publicly sign a card stating they want to join a union. Workers would never have the option of voting against union membership, and millions of workers could be forced into a union without ever getting the chance to vote on the matter. Congress should preserve a worker’s right to vote in privacy on union membership.

When it gets down to it, I’ll call a spade a spade- this is the Democrats thank you letter to the labor unions who helped drive them to power in 2006 and now want some reward for their hard work.

Anyway, check out the ad. It’s a good one…

According to a new study, none of the top three presidential contenders make the grade. Using methodology to rate and pick top executives, Top Gun Ventures would not recommend Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Barack Obama (D-IL) or John McCain (R-AZ) for the nation’s top job.

The selection criteria included leadership, organizational capabilities, skills to manage a troubled economy, and ability act as commander in chief during a war.

Obama had the lowest score at just 57 percent (or 17 out of 30 possible points). Hillary was slightly higher at 60 percent, while McCain scored the highest- 70 percent. Keep in mind the firm usually only recommends candidates who score a 90 or higher.

“If I presented this slate of candidates for the top job at a corporation they would politely kick me out the door,” said Don Tuttle, a managing partner at TGV.

Ouch!

The search firm also rated three other potential candidates, including two former presidential wannabe’s, but none of them measured up. Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and former GOP presidential candidate, received the high score of 77. Jack Welch, the businessman and former GE CEO, was next at 73, while Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico and former Democratic presidential candidates scored a 67.

Read the entire study here.

I saw a headline on Google News today that made me look again and click on the story to see if it was actually true. The title, “Boss makes girls strip for job.” Yes, you heard that right.

According to ShortNews.com via The Sun:

45-year-old travel agent Andreas Stumpel has been sentenced to eight months in jail and ordered to pay £2,630 in compensation after pleading guilty to abusing a minor.

Stumpel had been forcing teenage girls to remove an item of clothing every time they answered incorrectly during job interviews. One 17-year-old who was afraid of not getting the position ended up naked except for a G-string.

This is so bizarre and so out of the ordinary; it does not merit a lot of comment. I know the no-no’s in an interview include you can’t ask things like their age or when they graduated from high school; but never would have imagined you might have remind that interviewer not to have the candidates stripping to get the job.

Following a Supreme Court decision last year that said an employee could not sue for wage discrimination because she did not make the claim within 180 days (as the current law states), the U.S. House passed a bill effectively stripping the statute of limitations on back pay. The Senate tried to take action, but failed to get the necessary 60 votes to end a filibuster. On top of that, the president had threatened to veto the legislation.

Read more about the legislation here.

From the New York Times:

Under a measure sponsored by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, the court’s ruling that Ms. Ledbetter failed to file a timely challenge to pay practices at a Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. plant in Gadsden would effectively be overturned, though Ms. Ledbetter would not benefit directly.

“Never mind that Ms. Ledbetter didn’t know about the discrimination when it first began,” Mr. Kennedy said. “Never mind that she had no means to learn of the discrimination because Goodyear kept salary information confidential. Never mind that Goodyear’s discrimination against Ms. Ledbetter continued each and every time it gave her a smaller paycheck than it gave her male colleagues.”

It looked as though this would be dead until 2009, but Kennedy, who heads the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has brought this issue back to the fore and their will probably be a vote on it in the coming weeks.

I think, as Kennedy had admitted, the bill probably doesn’t have the 60 voted needed in the Senate. But it doesn’t mean supporters of this bill will back down anytime soon.

This bill is dangerous to HR and companies in that anyone could make a claim at anytime. This means companies will have to take the expensive step to keep records on employees for an unlimited time essentially. Add that to the fact that the managers involved may no longer be at the company and/ or memories may fade over years; and this bill is a trial lawyers dream. The litigation will be endless and hard to defend.

Regardless of what happens with this bill, HR should continue to take efforts to regularly monitor pay to make sure discriminatory cases are not going on. The best offense is a good defense, and a company can stay out of court and easily defend themselves if they stay within the law.

If you live in Pennsylvania, you are probably so sick of seeing campaign commercials that the last thing you want to do is talk about politics when you get to the office. And by and large- that is probably a good thing (in my humble opinion). In most companies, talking politics is frowned upon and solicitation (of any kind) is usually banned in most employee handbooks.

It seems most people feel that talking politics can only cause problems, lead to divisions, etc. And a poll conducted by Vault.com last October backs that assumption up. The poll of 727 employees said that 46 percent have seen colleagues go at it over politics. Additionally, 30 percent say a co-worker has tried to get them to support their candidate. Vault also has a man-on-the-street interview asking people about their dealings with office politics.

From Newsday:

Political discussions can so easily move beyond talk of the candidate and into some highly personal and potentially volatile issues related to race, abortion, gender, religion and gay marriage, says Diane M. Pfadenhauer, a lawyer, professor and human resources consultant in Northport.

”People don’t have a ‘whatever’ approach,” she says. And heightening passion can lead to polarization and disparaging remarks that colleagues could find objectionable - and in turn lead to complaints about a hostile work environment.

I agree with the sentiment behind that. From an HR perspective, it makes since to take measures to avoid any conflict. We do have a First Amendment, and need to understand that, but also have a business to run- and run as smoothly as possible. As Pfadenhauer said, it doesn’t just stop at ‘I’m supporting Hillary’ or ‘I’m supporting McCain,’ it goes on to why you should support them too, and then why the other guy (or gal) is bad, and then other emotional issues.

However, trying to ban politics at all costs can lead to a slippery slope. Where do you stop- banning campaign bumper stickers on employee’s personal automobiles in the company parking lot? What about ‘Choose Life’ car tags?

Like most issues, this isn’t black and white. I think campaign solicitations or posting material on a bulletin board should not be allowed in any cases. If you want to campaign for your candidate, volunteer to work the phone banks or go knocking door-to-door. If some employees are friends and go to dinner and want to talk politics there- that’s fine- but I would encourage employees to keep the political chatter out of the office.

A little over a week ago, I wrote of a new law in Florida that prohibits employers from banning guns in employee’s vehicles in most cases. As expected, the governor signed it- and the Chamber of Commerce immediately reacted.

Here is the statement on the Chamber’s website:

The conventional wisdom these days seems to be that the job market is so bad that any opening will result in endless resumes and applications (as someone who is recruiting RNs in rural Mississippi, I know that not to be true). However, the reason you can’t nail down those top recruits is not necessarily because they don’t like the job or pay, but because of how the internet job postings looks.

From an MRI Network study:

According to MRINetwork, one of the world’s largest search and recruitment organizations, that situation may have more to do with the posting than with the job.

“Job postings have to do more than describe responsibilities and list requirements,” says Michael Jalbert, President of MRINetwork. “Even if they don’t consciously think about it, most companies are hoping to attract the passive candidate – the person who has a job and is not actively seeking to change, the person who is already filling the position for some other company. In order to get that person’s attention, the job posting has to inspire.”

To paraphrase some of Jalbert’s advise, he says to highlight your selling points early on- before the job description or candidate requirements. The pitch that you would give at a job fair or open house should be the first thing potential candidates see. And you also need to make sure you include what sets your company apart. Chances are, you have some competitors no matter what business you are in. Talk about your history and where you are going as a company.

And last, but not least, keep it short. Those sought after passive candidates are not going to spend all day to see if you offer free medical insurance or if your company made much money last year.

You paid a lot for that Monster or CareerBuilder ad, you might as well show it off.