HAPPY ACT

I recently ran across a news tidbit about a bill called the Humanity and Pets Partnered Through the Years (HAPPY) Act. H.R. 3501 would amend the Internal Revenue Code to allow an individual to deduct up to $3,500 for “qualified pet care expenses.”

A “qualified pet” is defined as “a legally owned, domesticated, live animal.” It does not include animals used for research or owned or utilized in conjunction with a trade or business.

And “qualified pet care expenses” are defined as “amounts paid in connection with providing care (including veterinary care) for a qualified pet other than any expense in connection with the acquisition of the qualified pet.”

Needless to say, the Humane Society of the United States is in favor of this and so are the folks at PetWellBeing.com and CatChannel.com while the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council (PIJAC) issued an alert Aug. 5 supporting the proposal.

“Providing pet owners the opportunity to deduct pet care expenses is an important step toward ensuring that pet owners provide adequate veterinary and other necessary pet care,” PIJAC stated in the alert. “It encourages responsible pet ownership and will hopefully reduce the abandonment of pets by people struggling as a result of the economic downturn.”

Wage and Hour compliance

Legal compliance is essential at any time. However, it becomes even more critical in today’s litigious environment for organizations to minimize risks by taking steps, such as the following:

1. Develop an understanding of how the FLSA and applicable state laws impact your organization. This federal law’s primary focus is on regulating overtime, recordkeeping and posting requirements, minimum wages and child labor. The Department of Labor, the agency charged with enforcement, has information available on its Web site, http://www.wagehour.dol.gov/.

2. Avoid assumptions that employees are exempt from overtime and minimum wage provisions based on criteria such as job titles or whether they are paid on a salaried rather than hourly basis. Instead, take responsibility for analyzing relevant facts prior to making exemptions. For example, when considering potential white-collar exemptions, examine information related to salary and duties to determine whether employees meet standards for executive, professional, computer, outside sales, or administrative designations.

3. Generally pay overtime at a rate not less than 1 1/2 times a non-exempt employee’s “regular” rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of the standard 40-hour workweek. Regular pay normally includes all remuneration (e.g. on-call pay, shift and weekend differentials, non-discretionary bonuses), unless specifically excluded by the Act.

4. Compensate non-exempt employees for any work performed in excess of a 40-hour workweek, even if overtime has not been authorized by the employer. There is a common misperception that employees do not have to be paid for overtime if the employer’s policies require the employee to obtain authorization prior to working any overtime. While employees must be paid for those hours worked, employers are not prevented from applying discipline for such policy violations.

5. Pay attention to activities that may be compensable for non-exempt employees, including attendance at training programs and meetings, waiting and on-call time, rest and meal periods, travel and clothes changing time. Review the Act and related information to determine whether compensation is required.

6. Maintain and preserve required records for non-exempt and exempt employees in an accurate and consistent manner. Examine organizational recordkeeping procedures periodically to ensure FLSA compliance.

7. Establish a compliance plan that includes implementing appropriate policies and procedures, researching issues and documenting decisions reached, and conducting periodic reviews of organizational practices. Throughout the process, seek legal or human resource expertise, as needed, to provide assistance in interpreting this complex Act.

How to Recession Proof Your Workforce

If you’re interested in keeping employee motivation, morale, and engagement high despite the impending downturn in our economy, it’s important for you to “Recession Proof” your workforce. By Recession Proof, I mean do the things that help employees remain motivated, determined, and inspired during difficult times.

1.If Employees Are Overwhelmed, They’re Not Engaged
2.Employee Engagement is Most Important—And Most Challenging to Achieve—In Difficult Times
3.Give Employees As Much Control As Possible Over Their Work

4.Help your employees build self-efficacy and feel the “thrill of victory.”

5.Keep the dream alive and celebrate your wins

6.Communicate, communicate, communicate

7.Strengthen relationships

8.Remove Unnecessary Sources of Stress

If You Recession Proof Your Workforce…
You’ll have a group of employees who are able to:
· Respond to challenges with a “can do” attitude.
· Remain upbeat and determined, despite the difficulties you face.
· Focus their attention on making a difference, rather than on complaining about
things they can do nothing about.
· Handle greater challenge, pressure, and demands without becoming stressed.
Recommended Readings:
· To identify, and communicate to decision makers, the true cost of workplace
stress, go to: http://humannatureatwork.com/Workplace-Stress-1.htm

· To identify and removes unnecessary sources of workplace stress, go to:
http://humannatureatwork.com/Workplace_Stress_ManagingStress.html

· To communicate to key decision-makers why its important to have a workforce
that’s effective at managing stress in the workplace (i.e. having a resilient
workforce), go to: http://humannatureatwork.com/resilientworkforce.htm

HR Policy Association's recommendations they put forth to the President

Healthcare reform is on everyone’s minds these days. The HR Policy Association recently sent a letter to President Obama offering there recommendations on healthcare reform. The HR Policy Association is a representation of large U.S. employers.
“Our members very much want health care reform, but they are concerned that the proposals as presently written could create a strong disincentive for expanding employment opportunities in the United States," said Jeffrey C. McGuiness, CEO of the HR Policy Association, in a statement.
Here are the recommendations they put forth to the President:
• Preserve ERISA pre-emption. Congress should preserve full Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) pre-emption, which the group says has been an effective policy allowing multistate employers to develop and administer benefit plans under uniform rules. This includes continuing to prohibit legal action against ERISA plans in state courts.
• Avoid new federal benefit mandates. The federal government should not impose specific benefit mandates on employers that would undermine their ability to manage their health plans, pursue innovative approaches to control costs, improve quality and offer benefits that meet the needs of their employee populations and companies. Congress should avoid imposing expensive minimum benefit requirements on employers that force them to offer generous benefit plans with costs that neither employers nor beneficiaries can afford.
• Preserve incentives for healthy behaviors, prevention and wellness. Continue to permit benefit designs that drive healthy behavior and create strong personal and financial incentives for adopting healthy behaviors, such as allowing meaningful premium discounts for beneficiaries who enroll in health risk assessments and other programs to improve their health.
• Preserve the ability of employers to promote wise consumer decision-making. Employers should be allowed to continue to design affordable, consumer-directed health care plans for their employees that encourage them to be smart consumers about the relative cost and effectiveness of varying treatments and providers. This includes preserving tax-advantaged health financing vehicles such as flexible spending accounts, health savings accounts, and health reimbursement arrangements.
• Preserve flexibility and innovation in benefit design. Provisions restricting the use of sustainable plan design (such as co-insurance, co-payments, updates to fixed-dollar features) could drive cost escalation in existing or “grandfathered” employer-sponsored health care plans.
• Avoid "maintenance of effort" provisions. So-called "maintenance of effort" provisions that inhibit a company’s ability to adjust to changing financial and market conditions should be avoided. An example is the prohibition against post-retirement reductions in retiree health benefits.
• Ensure that large employers can maintain sustainable risk pools. Policies to expand coverage through new health insurance exchanges should be done in a way that does not lead to significant adverse selection for large employer plans, which would drive up the cost of employer coverage significantly. Permitting people with access to comprehensive employer-based insurance to opt out of that coverage and enter an exchange should be avoided or restricted.
Included among a list of general health care reform recommendations are:
• Promote malpractice reform. Reform tort laws to create a reasonable safe harbor that limits malpractice claims against providers who follow approved medical protocol in delivering care. This will help to reduce costs linked to the practice of defensive medicine and create incentives for providers to report errors, disclose quality data and follow best-practice guidelines in the delivery of care.
• Create a pathway for approval of generic biologic drugs. Establish a regulatory pathway to allow the Food and Drug Administration to approve generic forms of brand name biologic drugs.

Did you know that an estimated two-thirds of employee hiring decisions may be mistakes? This article will provide you with information that can help you improve your hiring process so that you can cut costs and maximize productivity in your organization. Whether you're an owner, an executive or a manager, the following information will be beneficial to you.
Make the most of your existing hiring process and find the right talent. Improving your existing hiring process with pre-hire assessments.
From your experience you know you have hired some excellent employees and some who failed. Now take a moment and think back. Did you use the same employee screening method to hire both? Typically we find that employers do employ the same methods for each position. This suggests that your existing employee selection process may produce inconsistent hiring results.
Pre-hire assessments provide the easiest and most effective way to eliminate uncertainties in the hiring process. Pre-hire assessments are invaluable tools for increasing consistency and improving the success of your existing hiring process. Organizations who utilize poor hiring practices in their hiring process continually lose money due to increased turnover, decreased productivity, and in extreme cases, negligent hiring lawsuits. These hiring decisions become costly mistakes because they are made with inadequate information about the candidate.
Take a moment and ask yourself these quick questions: - Would you like to know in advance if a candidate has issues with substance abuse or employee theft? - Would you like the ability to predict whether or not they have the work ethic and reliability required to be successful in their position? - Would you like to know if the candidate is going to be a good fit for the job and your company? - Would you like to hire more top performers?
If your answer is yes to any one of these questions, pre-hire assessments can help.
Pre-hire assessments are a natural extension to your existing hiring process. They can be seamlessly integrated into most applicant tracking systems. And, with pre-hire assessments, you will be able to identify and hire candidates who are reliable, ethical and hardworking by checking criminal records, education credentials and other background information. Knowing this information about candidates before they are hired is absolutely essential, because businesses large and small can be held liable for accidents and crimes committed by its employees.
To protect your company and minimize risk, you can use a pre-hire survey to ensure you minimize the risk of making a bad hire.
A pre-hire survey is a scientifically designed assessment tool that evaluates job applicants' attitudes for integrity, substance abuse, reliability, and work ethic. This can empower you with a structured system to objectively obtain better information, identify the best candidates, and conduct better interviews.
Pre-hire surveys address the 21st century challenges that are increasingly eroding companies' productivity and profitability: - Unauthorized use of the Internet - Using company email for personal use - Disclosing private and restricted computer data - Theft of office supplies and other company property - Clocking in or out for other employees - Revealing confidential information and/or trade secrets to outsiders - Shoplifing, also know as inventory shrinkage - Carelessness - Unexcused absences - Tardiness - Drug use - Sub-par job performance - Fraud - Job-hopping
They are also fast and easy to use and promote positive behaviors in your company including: - An honest day's work for a full day's pay - Promptness - Conscientious use of company time and resources - Confidentiality of proprietary data and other information - Dependability - Employee loyalty - Increased productivity
Pre-hire employment assessments will also help your organization develop a strategic hiring process that will minimize the costs associated with hiring and recruiting employees.

Character counts: How to create your own crystal ball for effective hiring

Many human resource professionals wish for a crystal ball to foretell the fate of a prospective employee. Without the ability to gaze into the future, they ask themselves “does this candidate have the essential proficiencies - the right combination of education, skills and experience?” If the answer is yes, the candidate must be a perfect fit.

Stopping there, however, leaves out an important part of the equation: the character of the candidate. “Character is what a team does when no one is looking,” explains Joseph Krivickas, a technology industry President and COO for FAST. And character is what often leads to the end of employment. As the HR saying goes, we hire for skills, but fire for character.

So how do you avoid hiring someone whose character is not consistent with the position, the values of the team or your company? Consider adding some character-based questions to the interview process. You’ll not only prevent potentially costly hiring mistakes, but you will be more likely to hire someone with whom you and your team enjoy working.

Before you begin interviewing job applicants, list specific actions you require from the employee in the position and think of fundamental character traits of the perfect candidate. Then, create questions and scenarios to see if the candidate has the required traits and practices the desired actions.

Here are some effective suggestions for interviewing for character traits:
· At your last job, how did you fill down time?
· Which situations kept you from coming to work on time at your last job? How often did that occur?
· Describe a recent problem you had with one of your manager’s decisions. How did you handle it?
· Priorities often change suddenly throughout the day. If you are asked to quickly do another task, how does that affect your mood?
· What do you think is an acceptable number of days to be absent in a calendar year?
· How do you handle situations that could cause you to be tardy or absent?
· What are some examples of stealing from your employer?
· How have you responded in the past when you found another employee stealing?
· How have you responded in the past when your substitute or coworker called in sick and you had to take over their responsibilities as well as your own?
· Think about the last time your manager critiqued your work. How did you respond?
· Give me an example of a time you did something without being asked. Can you give me another example?
· Tell me about your most frustrating experience as a ____________(job title). How did you handle the situation?
· Two hours before you are scheduled to arrive at work, you learn weather is going to be bad and traffic will be worse. How do you respond?
· It’s lunchtime and a customer or co-worker needs five minutes of your time. What do you do?
· If you had a problem and no supervisor was available at the time, how would you handle it?
· It is 10 minutes before you are to leave. You like to complete each day with a routine you have set up to help you prepare for the next day. Your manager asks you to complete one last task, a task that a coworker should complete, but your manager has never trained the coworker to complete. How would you handle this situation?

HR professionals have been entrusted with the responsibility of hiring the best person for the position. Not only does the person need the skills and background, but he/she also needs the right character to be truly successful in the position. So until we are given that “crystal ball” to guide us on our selections, consider adding a few of the questions above to help make the best selection.

Three Concerns When Inquiring About Applicants' Past Criminal Convictions

One extremely useful facet of using employment applications in hiring is the ability of the employer to directly ask an applicant if he or she has a criminal history that would show up if a thorough background check was conducted. Yet, to their detriment, many employers use language that is either too narrow, too broad, or too ambiguous to successfully accomplish this - each of these mistakes can lead to legal quagmires or bad hires continuing to slip through the cracks and potentially endanger businesses. To make this reality perfectly clear, let us go over each of these scenarios in greater detail:

Too Narrow
An example of a question that is too narrow is to only ask about felonies. Many standard employment applications only ask if an applicant was convicted of a felony. That allows the application form to be used in all states. However, misdemeanors can be very serious. Under California law, for example, most employers would want to know if an applicant had a conviction for offenses such as fighting with a police officer, illegal possession of weapons, spousal abuse or child abuse, commercial burglary, assault and many other offenses. Yet in California and other states, these can all be misdemeanors. Many serious offenses are plea-bargained down to misdemeanor offenses as well. Without the proper language, an applicant can honestly answer that he or she has not been convicted of a felony even though there may be serious misdemeanor convictions an employer needs to know about. A best practice would be to utilize an application form that asks about past criminal conduct in the broadest language allowed by law in your state

Too Broad
On the other hand, some employers ask questions that are so broad that it improperly covers matters that are protected. An example may be, "Have you ever committed a crime?" Or "Have You Ever Been Convicted of Any Crime?" There are a number of limitations under state and federal law concerning what an employer may legally ask about or "discover" concerning an applicant's or employee's criminal record. In fact, it can be a misdemeanor in California for an employer to knowingly violate some of these rules. Furthermore, if an applicant is placed in a position where he is forced to reveal information about himself that he is legally entitled not to disclose, an employer can actually be sued in some states for "defamation by compelled self-publication." In other words, if forced to say something defamatory about himself, an applicant may be able to file a lawsuit against the employer for defamation.

Too Ambiguous
The third mistake is to ask an applicant, "Have you ever been convicted of a felony or serious misdemeanor?" or "Have you ever been convicted of a crime of violence?" or a similar question that calls for an opinion. The problem occurs when an applicant is called upon to make a judgment about his own offense. To determine if a crime can be labeled as "serious" can call for a very complex legal and factual determination on which lawyers and even judges could disagree. At times an applicant may be simply confused by court proceedings and may not understand the results or what they mean. By asking a question that is ambiguous and leaves waffle room, an applicant can argue that in his or her mind the offense was not serious and a "no" answer was truthful. That is why a question cannot contain any ambiguity.

Mistakes Managers Commonly Make in an Uncertain Economy

Companies trying to survive in times of flux tend to make similar mistakes, regardless of the type of business or industry.

These mistakes fall into four broad categories:

Morale/retention,

Productivity,

Innovation/risk taking and

Business development.

Here’s how to avoid some of the most common management pitfalls as you navigate the economy’s rocky road.

Morale/Retention
1.Staff reduction by a dozen cuts.

2.Closing off communication channels.

3.Eliminating incentives.

Productivity
1.Reducing professional development and training.

2.Making their jobs harder.

3.Postponing recruitment.

Innovation/Risk Taking
1.Stifling critical thinking.

2.Waiting for a turnaround.

Business Development
1.Sacrificing quality.

2.Losing sight of the customer.

3.Cutting the wrong things.

No Raises (or Worse) for Nearly 40% of Employees in 2009

Over 1 in 3 (39 percent) U.S. employees reports that, due to economic downturn, they either have not received a raise or that their compensation actually has decreased in 2009, according to a new poll.



The ComPsych Corporation poll asked employees “Has the economic downturn impacted your work? If so, in which area have you experienced the greatest impact?” The most frequent response—cited by 39 percent of employees—was that they’d either not received a raise or that their compensation had decreased this year. Another 20 percent replied that the economic downturn had created more stress and/or conflict among coworkers. Meanwhile, 11 percent indicated that they were doing more work due to layoffs in their organization, while another 10 percent said they were working more hours and unable to take as much vacation as usual. Only 1 in 5 respondents (20 percent) said that the economic downturn had not impacted their work.



“We continue to see increased call volume from employees who need help managing their finances in this challenging environment,” said Dr. Richard A. Chaifetz, Chairman and CEO of ComPsych, a provider of employee assistance programs.


“Our customers, realizing the need for supporting and educating employees with financial information, have been promoting the EAP-Employee Assistance Program as a place to turn for help as well as scheduling personal finance seminars for their workforce.”

The Perks of Self-Service HRIS

An effective HRIS provides information on just about anything the company needs to track and analyze about employees, former employees, and applicants.

Considering that up to 80 percent of an HR department’s time is spent on administration and paperwork, it’s no wonder an increasing number of vendors are making self-service an integral part of their HRIS offerings. By granting employees direct online access to their own HR information via an intranet or portal, the burden on HR is reduced, thereby cutting costs and improving employee morale.

Here are just a few of self-service’s perks:

• Satisfy employees: Boost employee morale by empowering workers with instant access to information ranging from benefits plans to training opportunities.


• Maintain accurate data: When employees are encouraged to update their own personnel information, the result is not only a reduction in data-entry errors but more relevant and up-to-date information.


• Recruit easily: Eager to fill a new position? Let candidates come to you by providing employees with online access to job opportunities. In turn, HR managers can easily search for suitable candidates rather than sift through stacks of resumes.


• Reduce inquiries: Put an end to time-consuming employee inquiries and let your HR staff get back to business. Thanks to self-service, an employee can find that missing pay stub or retrieve details on the latest benefit plan with the click of a mouse. Some self-service tools even allow users to communicate directly with a benefits administrator regarding benefit elections and confirmation.


• Cut costs: Offer self-service and save money. Forrester Research reports that a self-service approach can slash the cost of a customer interaction from as much as $35 on the phone to 75 cents online — a potential savings of 98 percent on just one transaction.


• Aid HR managers: Employees aren’t the only ones who stand to benefit from self-service. Provide HR managers with instant access to the information they need in order to perform budget and staffing tasks efficiently.


• Change priorities: By empowering employees, self-service relieves HR professionals of administrative overhead and frees them to focus on strategic initiatives such as recruitment.
  

Will Obama make paid sick days mandatory?

Earlier this month, the House of Representatives held a hearing on a bill that would make offering paid sick leave mandatory for employers.

If passed, the Healthy Families Act (HFA) would require any company with 15 or more employees to offer full-time workers seven paid sick days a year. Part-time employees would get a prorated amount based on how much they work.

Like the FMLA, the HFA would let employees take time to care for themselves or a family member. The leave would be legally protected — meaning employees could sue if they feel they’ve been retaliated against for using it.

The HFA is less strict than the FMLA, however. “Family member” includes any blood relative and anyone whose relationship with the employee is “the equivalent of a family relationship.” Any physical or mental illness, injury, or medical condition could result in a protected absence.

What about current paid leave policies?
The bill says employers won’t need to change anything if they already give employees sick leave that’s at least equivalent to what’s required by HFA. But employers would be prohibited from eliminating leave they already offer in an attempt to offset the mandatory sick days.
That means companies won’t be able to reduce vacation time to offset the costs of additional sick time. And some experts interpet the provision to mean companies offering a general PTO bank would need to add seven sick days in addition to what’s already available.

What to expect
Attorney Mike Aitken, speaking at a recent Society for Human Resources Management conference in Washington, D.C., said he expects Congress to take a vote on the bill this spring.
The HFA was introduced in the Senate a few years ago and failed to move. But that was before President Obama — a vocal supporter of the bill — and an increased Congressional Democrat majority arrived in Washington.

So far, no states have made sick leave mandatory — measures have failed in California, Ohio, New Jersey and Washington. Three cities — San Francisco, Milwaukee and Washington, D.C. — have passed mandatory sick leave laws.

H.R. 3010, the Arbitration Fairness Act

Before the House Education and Labor’s Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee, the issue of mandatory pre-dispute arbitration clauses in employment contracts was front and center during its hearing on “Protecting American Employees from Workplace Discrimination.”

Jamie Leigh Jones, a former Halliburton contractor working in Iraq who had previously revealed that she was drugged and gang-raped by fellow Halliburton employees, testified about how she is fighting to obtain access to the justice system because she unknowingly signed an arbitration clause as part of her 18-page employment contract.

When asked by Congressman Tierney if she was aware at that time that she could be signing away her rights by agreeing to arbitration, Jones responded, “At age 20, I had no idea what arbitration was…,” and further explained in her testimony that, “I had no idea what an arbitration was other than a tiny paragraph included in the lengthy document that mandated that I could not get justice from the civil court system.”

Ms. Jones asked the Committee in her testimony: “How can this Country not protect us contractors, who have left our families to help our country in an effort to build democracy overseas, when we are victimized criminally?”

To date, no criminal prosecutions have occurred in her case. When she turned to the civil courts for justice, she found that her employment contract contained an arbitration clause, which if upheld, could result in preventing her from seeking justice through the civil court system.
Congresswoman Sanchez pointed out that H.R. 3010, the Arbitration Fairness Act, would prevent the use of pre-dispute binding mandatory arbitration clauses in certain employment agreements, as well as in consumer and franchise agreements. This legislation will ensure that the decision to arbitrate is truly voluntary and that the rights and remedies provided for by our judicial system are not unknowingly waived.

H.R. 3010 currently has a bipartisan group of 70 cosponsors, and has been referred to the House Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, chaired by Congresswoman Sanchez.

As the world's largest trial bar, the American Association for Justice (formerly known as the Association of Trial Lawyers of America) works to make sure people have a fair chance to receive justice through the legal system when they are injured by the negligence or misconduct of others—even when it means taking on the most powerful corporations