human-resource-guide

Recently I come across the following scale in a national research report to grade each state’s education performance within numerous areas. Do you see anything questionable about this scale?

Grading Curve: A (93-100), A- (90-92), B+ (87-89), B (83-86), B- (80-82), C+ (77-79), C (73-76), C- (70-72), D+ (67-69), D (63-66), D- (60-62), F (0-59)

If you aren’t scratching your head yet, please allow me ask another question. If you are an employer, a human resource or a quality control manager what expectations do you have toward the performance of your employees? In other words, do you expect your employees to know 50%, 60%, 75%, 80%, 90% or 100% of their job skills or job description? At what level of knowledge and years on the job, would you consider that employee’s performance to be sub-standard and would not entitle her or him to a promotion or a raise and might be within the area of specific discipline strategies from suspension to termination?

Now you might be thinking what is this lady talking about. Common sense dictates that every employee should know at least 75% or 3 out of every 4 requirements of their job and within a certain time frame progress to 100%. Errors are costly in business and employees’ errors are extremely expensive as they have a cascade affect within the organization.

Even though the above scale is for a national research report on education in America, this scale is present in many classrooms throughout this country. What has happened is that the low expectations within the classroom have migrated up and now are affecting research organizations that consider 60% as passing. F is failing and everything above F is passing. From a simple performance perspective, if we don’t fail, we have success because success has been defined at 60%.

These low expectations have contributed to the low results that have been documented through such research as the National Assessment of Educational Progress where for example reading scores collectively for 17 year olds over the course of 33 years have not changed.

The high standards of 40 plus years ago where anything less than 75% was failing are non-existent in the majority (that being over 50%) American schools. NOTE: As a former school board trustee, I continually fought to raise the bar to 75% as passing, but that outraged teachers, parents and students who argued such standards would prevent the students from playing sports. For playing sports was no longer a privilege, but a right.

Many young people experience 12 years of conditioning where doing less than your personal best is OK. And guess what? You even get rewarded by a promotion to the next grade. How cool is that? Now, these same young people go into the workforce with a belief that it is OK to just get by as long as you don’t fail. During my 20 years in management, I saw this on a regular basis with many of our new hires.

If we, as business owners, truly desire to improve the performance of today’s employees, we need to raise the standards within both the schools and the organizations that report on the schools’ and states’ performance. Until we stop this cycle of mediocrity, we will continue to receive employees who expect the world without working hard at acceptable levels of performance. And these employees will continue to view 60% as success.

Leanne helps individuals, small businesses and large organizations to double performance in real time. Click here to learn the Secret of Success and sign up for a free monthly newsletter. Please feel free to contact Leanne at 219.759.5601. If you truly don’t believe doubling your results is possible, read some case studies where individuals and businesses took the risk and experienced unheard of results.

One quick question, if you could secure one new client or breakthrough that one roadbloack, what would that mean to you? Then, take a risk and give a call at 219.759.5601 to experience incredible results.

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It’s difficult for small businesses to compete directly with large companies for top-notch talent. So why try to take them head on? There is more than one way to win the recruiting game. Follow these tips and you will soon have the big guys asking you for advice on how to successfully recruit talent in this ever-changing economy.

Develop Your Niche

Many successful small businesses have figured out that the way to compete with large companies is to develop a niche. The same holds true when it comes to hiring talent.

Your company must have at least one thing that the bigger companies don’t have. Identify this distinction and use it to compete. For example, are your employees empowered to make decisions without going through three layers of management? Do you give employees a day off during the week to attend college classes so they can obtain their degrees? Make sure everyone knows what differentiates you from the rest of the pack.

Consider the Culture

Sure, the big guys have the money to throw at people, but you’d be surprised at how many people would turn down the money for the opportunity to work in a smaller, more personal environment that is both stimulating and fun.

A big advantage of working in a small company is that you don’t have to go down four layers to speak directly with your staff. Take advantage of this situation. Ask your employees for feedback on the work environment, and wherever possible make changes to improve the environment. Word will get out quickly that your company is one for which people want to work. Before long, you will have people knocking on your door.

Market Yourself

You buy a product because you like the way it’s packaged. More times than not, it’s all in the marketing. The same holds true in recruiting. People form opinions early on when looking at companies. Make sure they are forming the right opinion about yours.

Take a look at the way your jobs and company are packaged. Start with your Web site. If you were cruising the Web and you happened to come across your site, would you stop to take another look?

Most Web sites are plain vanilla. In order to get noticed, you need to stand out. Try the following:

Tags: hr, human resources, recruiting, Recruitment, Small business, talent acquisitionhr, human resources, recruiting, Recruitment, Small business, talent acquisition

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On April 20, 2006 The Department of Homeland Security announced its Comprehensive Immigration Enforcement Strategy for the Nation’s Interior. The second goal of this initiative is to build strong worksite enforcement and compliance programs to deter illegal employment in the United States.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has undergone a strategic shift from imposing administrative sanctions and fines to seeking out and punishing knowing and reckless employers of illegal aliens by bringing criminal charges against the employers and the administrators completing employment eligibility forms.

In the past employers had little fear of being arrested and the administrative fines were nominal and considered a cost of doing business. In 2003 there were only 124 fines issued. Last year, in a single ICE worksite enforcement investigation, a settlement and forfeiture of $15 million was negotiated. Just last week an investigation which began over a year ago resulted in the arrest of 1,187 people on administrative immigration charges, and seven criminal complaints were brought against managers or former managers for alleged criminal violations in connection with the hiring of illegal, undocumented aliens. The charges in the criminal complaints allege harboring aliens for illegal advantage, and, in two instances, document fraud. The Administration’s Fiscal Year 2007 budget requests an additional 171 agents and $41.7 million in new funds to enhance worksite enforcement efforts.

You may ask yourself, what does that have to do with my business? I don’t hire illegal aliens. Most employers do not knowingly hire illegal aliens and will be in compliance with the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) and don’t need to worry about criminal charges like money laundering or harboring an alien for illegal advantage. However, if you are in the hospitality, construction, landscaping or agriculture business you may be targeted for a worksite enforcement inspection. Charges of recklessness have been brought for employers who are careless or lax in their employment practices. Missing or incomplete I-9 forms can result in fines between $600 and $800 per form and missing forms can result in an additional fine of about $1500 per form(can be as high as $10,000) for knowingly employing an ineligible person. (ICE assumes that persons without forms are illegal.)

All employers should perform regular audits of their I-9 forms and regularly review the practices of those responsible for hiring and completing paperwork for new employees. Employers are not expected to be document experts, but an individual presenting a social security card with the number 000-00-0000 should be suspect. As an employer, you may not use photocopies of identity or employment eligibility documents, with the exception of a certified photocopy of a birth certificate. You can make a copy of the documentation provided and retain with the completed I-9. This can be helpful later as you complete your audit, in the event you completed information incorrectly on the I-9. Be aware, if you retain copies for one individual, you must do it for all employees.

You are not permitted to tell an employee which documents to provide for employment eligibility verification. A good practice is to include a copy of the “List of Acceptable Documents” with your offer letter. Instruct the employee that they must provide either one document from List A or one document from List B PLUS one document from List C on the first day of employment. An employee must prove eligibility for work within three business days of hire or risk termination. If an employee has lost one of their documents, you can accept a receipt for a replacement document, (lost, stolen or destroyed), within the first three business days. An employee then has up to 90 days from the first date of employment to produce the actual documents. Set up a tickler file for 30, 60 and 90 day follow-ups with the employee.

Make sure that you have completed the Employer Review and Verification section of the I-9 form within three days of the first day of employment. Your signature and date must be within three days of the employees start date or you could be subject to an administrative fine. Fines vary from $100 to $1,100 per paperwork violation. It is best if you complete all hiring paperwork on the same day as the employee. It will save time, money and questions later.

After completing I-9 forms you must store them in a location which will allow you to produce them within three days of an official request for production of the documents for inspection. If you have a significant number of employees or multiple sites you may want to consider storing I-9s in a central location alphabetically. You are not required to do this and you may, if you choose to, store them in the employee’s personnel file. This makes it more difficult to conduct an internal self-audit of I-9s or pull documents quickly, but is permissible.

I-9s must be retained for at least three years from the date of hire or one year after termination, whichever is later. You may discard outdated I-9 forms. If there is a question, refer to an expert such as an employment law or Immigration attorney. If you re-hire an employee within three years of the date the form was first completed, you can complete Block B and the signature block on Section 3 of the original form.

If you have decided to conduct an audit of your company’s I-9 forms here are a few suggestions:

1. Generate a list of all employees hired since November 6, 1986. The list should contain the employees name, social security number, date of hire, and termination date. Identify the former employees whose termination date is outside the required retention period. Those I-9 forms can be discarded. Have a separate person check your math before discarding any I-9s.

2. Verify that you have an I-9 for every person on your list.

3. On each I-9 check for missing signatures, unchecked status boxes, information recorded in the wrong space, missing or incorrect dates.

4. Make the necessary corrections or require the employee to produce the missing information.

Conducting an audit of your I-9 files and making required corrections will go along way towards demonstrating good faith compliance with the IRCA and may reduce the risk of severe penalties.

Margaret Catalfamo is a small business consultant who provides practical, comprehensive advice and support in the areas of Human Resources, Business Start-Up, and Strategic Planning. For help conducting an I-9 compliance audit contact her at: Resource_Alternatives@comcast.net or visit http://www.ResourceAlternativesConsulting.com.

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