Hagel and Company Human Resources Blog - California, Idaho, Washington State HR News

When people work in a small office together nearly every day, it’s inevitable that conflicts will arise. Sometimes, they make it impossible for employees to work together productively—in which case, you may need to come in to diffuse the situation. If you’re asked to mediate a dispute between employees, here are a few ideas for how to cool off the situation.

1. Speak with the conflicting parties in a private conference room. You want them to feel safe to discuss their feelings with one another and with you.
2. Guide the discussion, but don’t take sides. Keep your contributions to the discussion focused on the issue at hand, and don’t offer your own opinion on matters.
3. Focus on resolving the conflict. Ask each party what actions they would like the other party to take in order to make things right. Don’t allow them to insult or place blame on one another, or the session will turn into a fighting match instead of a constructive meeting.
4. Write down a list of steps that must be taken. Ask each party to commit to improving the relationship, and schedule another meeting several weeks later for a progress review.

Employees not getting along can be uncomfortable for everyone. Hopefully using these steps you can diffuse the situation quickly and get your office back to normal.

If you’re responsible for hiring employees for your company, you may want to implement policies to verify that they’re telling the truth about everything on their resumés. But how can you safeguard your company without snooping too heavily into people’s personal affairs, and potentially violating laws?

Here are a few tips on how to handle a background check:

1. Don’t run a background check until you’ve made a conditional job offer. It’s expensive, time-consuming, and intrusive to run a background check on an applicant who may not even accept the job. Wait until the applicant has accepted your job offer, but make it conditional on positive results of a background check.
2. Make sure to comply with all state and federal regulations. There are several regulations in place to protect individuals from privacy violations in background checks. Brush up on the rules before you begin the process – see the guidelines here (your state may have additional laws – consult with a lawyer for specific details).
3. Don’t discriminate. Your department can make a policy of subjecting candidates for a specific position to a background check, but it’s not legally acceptable to single out a specific candidate. Create a policy that makes it clear when applicants will be subject to further investigation, so all candidates will understand the selection criteria.

Recruiters sometimes miss the trees when they are looking into the forest. In order to be the best at their profession, recruiters know they need an inventory of the skills for each position within the company. In addition, exceptional recruiters place significant importance on defining exactly which experiences and what personality types will be the best fit for their organization.

The trick is finding the people who have this unique set of attributes, skills and abilities on their resume. Most often, recruiters look outside the company, overlooking an opportunity for recruiting from a very cost effective source…right within their own business.

Organizations hire and work to keep good people—employees who have already proven their value to the company and their managers. Managers work double time to keep platinum performers happy, and they know the resume these employees are creating. But does HR?

HR needs to know the skills and abilities of internal talent

Tasked with organizational oversight, building the right team, filling openings with the best talent, and keeping those platinum performers happy is a monumental task. On a daily basis, the recruiters and HR professionals aren’t always aware of the skills and abilities internal employees are building and developing. It may be because the organization is so big, because the quiet ones often get overlooked, or because a manager is trying to keep his ‘best kept secret’ out of the mainstream. Whatever the reason, it’s critical that HR and especially recruiters know the skills and abilities of internal talent. Not only do your premium performers want to be recognized, they want to be challenged with new opportunities. When those opportunities arise, it’s up to HR to maximize on the company’s investment and give internal folks the opportunity to excel.

But who has time to read every employee’s personnel file to check up on their performance evaluations, recognitions, rewards, training and certifications? Fortunately, this time-intensive task is no longer necessary. Technology, once again, has an effective solution: succession planning software. A study published by the Aberdeen Group in 2006 stated that 87% of Best in Class companies are implementing succession planning programs and 60% of those companies are using technology.

Technology has an effective solution

Succession planning enables businesses to retain skilled talent, reduces vulnerability to talent shortages, generates larger pools of promotable employees for all key areas, and improves the link between performance management and employee development. Utilizing this technology, businesses can leverage performance management to deliver better business results.

Instead of just planning to replace someone, succession software can help you address not only your current needs but direct your attention to future needs as well. Some models actually create a vision of the skills and competencies required to support strategic plans for as many as 5 years out. HR can use this information to align their recruiting and succession planning efforts more closely with the overall strategic goals of the company.

Changing strategies to track market conditions is a must in today’s business world. A responsive Human Resources function will be prepared to quickly respond with staffing and human capital management systems that are flexible in a dynamic economic environment. Succession planning software is an effective tool, designed to empower businesses with time-saving tools by producing information critical to success just-in-time, with accuracy and definitive information. 

Halogen Software can help your company discover the hidden talent.

Chances are, there are a few office romances going on at your company: a recent survey from Glamour Magazine and Lawyers.com found that 41% of employees between 25 and 40 had dated a co-worker.

So do you need a workplace policy to make sure the romance doesn’t interfere with the workplace atmosphere?

Probably not: Only 13% of companies surveyed by the Society for Human Resource Management claimed to have a formal policy in place relating to workplace romances. In most cases, HR managers seem to take a positive approach to workplace romance, stating that it often increases productivity and leads to marriage. They also regard a formal policy as being too intrusive towards employees’ personal lives.

Still, there are a couple of steps you can take to ensure that workplace romances don’t cause problems around the office. First, provide training to managers and other supervisory staff on how to address sensitive issues like PDAs. Additionally, publicize your company’s sexual harassment policy to ensure that employees are not being made uncomfortable by unwanted advances. By putting appropriate measures in place, you can help ensure that workplace romances don’t cause distractions around the office—but be careful not to get too involved in employees’ personal situations.

It’s easy to calculate the correct payroll taxes with Sage Abra SQL HRMS Payroll — thanks to quarterly tax updates available for download right from SupportPlus Online. To help you, we’ve provided instructions, download links, and other important information below.

Download your quarterly tax update
in these easy steps

1. Visit the SupportPlus logon page
2. Enter your User Name and Password (or register for a new member login).
3. Select the link labeled as Product & Documentation.
4. Select the link labeled Sage Abra HRMS SQL Payroll
5. Using the dropdown option for Get Product Update, select the appropriate version.
6. Using Site 1 or Site 2, download and save the update to the appropriate location.
7. Follow the instructions in the Release Notes.

Tips for a successful tax update

Downloading and installing your quarterly tax update is quick and easy. Here are a few suggestions to help you with the process:

	Check your software version. The Q3 2011 tax update is version-specific and is available for Sage Abra SQL HRMS versions 10.0, and 10.1
	Tax Update v8.5. Q2 2011 quarterly update was the last one for Sage Abra HRMS version 8.5. If any SQL payroll customer is currently on version 8.5, please call support for assistance to migrate to a currently supported version.
	Tax Update v10.0 and 10.1. To install the Q3 2011 update on Sage Abra HRMS Version 10.0 or 10.1, the installer will require Administrator rights. This is also true when updating the Client Workstations. This is due to the update relying on several legacy technologies, such as COM and C++, which require Administrator rights to install.
	Set aside enough time for the download. Downloading usually takes just a few minutes. Customers with a dial-up Internet connection may need to set aside about 30 minutes for the file transfer process.
	Let us know if you need help. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you need technical help with downloading the Q3 tax update.

Questions?

Email: abratechsupport@sage.com

Phone: 800-829-0170
Live Chat is available from SupportPlus Online. While not intended for the complex issues or balancing questions, Live Chat is great when you need help from a customer support representative on locating and applying the tax updates, locating pertinent documentation and locating our helpful videos!

To view the original email from Sage, visit the following web address: http://app.sbs.sagespecialized.com/e/es.aspx?s=2022&e=1803&elq=11e90cba3f314c9ba9858ac88102329c

Goal setting is the foundation for business success. Developing Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results-Oriented and Time-Sensitive (SMART) milestones helps the company achieve its mission and vision for the future. Effective business leaders also understand that the difference between success and mediocrity is how well employees understand how their work, what they do and how they do it, directly impacts their company’s success. When employees don’t see how their actions tie in to the end result, they don’t recognize that their performance is important and valued. Aligning employees with the company’s goals and strategies to reach those goals is a powerful tool in building operational success.

Goal setting begins at the executive or board level, putting focus on what needs to be accomplished over a defined timeframe. Goals at this level are broader in scope, setting the direction for the company with timeframes for achievement, and clearly defined outcomes. These goals paint the pictures for what the business will look like, 1 year, 2 years or even 5 years from now.

Goal setting enables more effective execution of strategy by allowing management to align resources to the appropriate projects. Managers can focus their employees in key directions, reducing the opportunities duplication and misdirection. From the strategy level, goals cascade through the business units, departments and teams to provide vision and focus on daily activities with the eye always on the overall business strategies.

Goal management can also help with a true pay-for-performance compensation system. By communicating the company goals to the employees and subsequently linking their goals and performance expectations to the overall goals, employees become a strategic link in the business outcomes. This establishes a measurable, understandable link between performance and pay. As you look down into the organization, the employees’ work is less linked to strategy and more about improved performance in their individual tasks. This requires a performance plan that is more focused on individual tasks and less on strategy. Mid- level managers will have a mix of goals, some based on strategy while the rest are based on the performance of their teams and themselves as individuals. The higher up the ladder, the more the focus of goals will be on strategy, especially at the executive level.

But managers often cite developing objectives and performing evaluations as their most disliked tasks. The process is cumbersome, time consuming. Systems require ongoing attention to ensure they keep aligned with changes in indicators and strategies. Scoring and weighting measures can also be cumbersome to use and may require sophisticated mathematical calculations. So, how do you keep managers on track with goal setting requirements in a successful pay-for-performance system?

Technology! Today’s HR technology systems provide user-friendly solutions to time intensive problems. Electronic appraisal systems allow businesses to incorporate company goals at multiple levels, tracking milestones, adding, deleting or modifying goals during review periods. Calculations and weighting measures are handled by a key stroke. Ease of access permits managers, directors and even executives to have “line of sight” access to performance of individuals, teams, departments or business units in achievement of goals. Automated reminders keep everyone on track and graphical indicators can provide tools for reporting status in strategy meetings.

By implementing a technology based, goal management, performance appraisal system, businesses employ a powerful tool driving success. Through a company-wide goal management system, businesses can provide validity to the links in their reward system and employee performance. Employees will be incorporated to the overall success of their employer and the entire business will have a consistent vision of the future.

Do you ever wonder why it is that with all the advances in technology, many businesses still have difficulty controlling time and attendance issues? There are many causes for overtime overruns including such issues as employee absence, family medical leave absences, staffing limitations, and turnover. But the real cost of overtime can be less obvious. Long hours of work for prolonged periods can be a significant factor in overtime costs.

When employees are put on scheduled overtime there can be a resulting reduction in worker productivity. A study of the construction industry as far back as 1981 demonstrated that regularly scheduled overtime could result in a delay in the construction completion date beyond what could have been realized with the same crew working a 40 hour week (Construction Dimensions, July 1981). This can be a real money loser in a cost plus contract. And it’s not just work slow-downs that affect deadlines.

Employees working long hours for protracted periods of time are at much greater risk for injury and illness. Being on the job in a fatigued state can result in unnecessary on-the-job accidents. The longer the overtime continues, the more likely the rate of incidents will increase. This has an immediate negative impact on your labor and insurance costs. Replacement staffing or utilizing temporary labor makes a direct hit to the bottom line. If employees are moved from one department to another to fill in the gaps, the secondary impact on the “loaning” department may also impact labor costs.

A time and attendance program could help. Every company has different needs, so businesses want a product that is flexible enough to meet their organizations’ particular needs. Whatever the payroll requirements, a system capable of flexibility for meeting rules related to breaks, meals, rounding, time-off, managing holidays, and work week designation provides the best solution. Businesses will want a centralized management system that is accessible by line managers, payroll, HR and finance. Tracking individual employee hours can allow managers to identify potential hazardous or risky situations. Being able to track exceptions, review employee hours in real time, and calculate costs, all at individual workstations, can be an added cost-savings advantage.

Empower Software has a powerful, scalable calculation engine capable of handling complex pay policies, union contract arrangements, exceptions, and benefits management. Empower offers employee self-service for timely input of hours, review of PTO balances, and leave requests. Managers can access data from their desktop, sorting employee information to include important data on overtime and calculating associated costs. The revolutionary calculation engine allows for unlimited work rules. So no matter the size or complexity of your pay rules, Empower can handle your needs.

Are you afraid most of the employees at your workplace spend more time reading status updates on Facebook than they do actually working? Slacking off at work can cost your company a lot of money – and, as a human resources representative, it’s your job to come up with policies that will keep the business running smoothly.

Here are a few ideas for jump-starting worker productivity:

1. Implement a system that assigns workers milestones with specific deadlines. By creating a company-wide calendar system, workers will remain focused on the task at hand—and, by making the milestone calendar accessible to all employees, you can use peer pressure as a good incentive to keep workers from falling behind.
2. Introduce an employee reward initiative. Each week or month, provide a small gift and public recognition to a worker who goes above and beyond her assigned duties. The gift doesn’t need to be large – consider something like a $10 Starbucks gift card. The combination of the gift and public acclaim will encourage employees to try their best so that they’ll be selected for the award.
3. Let workers take breaks. Many workplaces strictly monitor how employees spend their time on the job, and ban them from playing games or sending non-work related emails. However, when employees are unhappy, their productivity is bound to suffer. Your best tactic is to allow workers to take breaks and participate in activities that they enjoy several times throughout the day. As long as they’re completing tasks by their assigned deadlines, there’s no need to take away privileges.

Confucius says, “The essence of knowledge is, having it, to use it.”

Writing an effective performance evaluation is about taking the knowledge you have developed about an employee over the last review period and putting into effective words. Words designed to help, to encourage, and to motivate the employee to produce valuable results.

The best performance evaluations are easy to write because the manager is an effective record keeper. With every opportunity the manager records achievements, successes, performance to goals, and work that went above and beyond. When the time comes to record the information in total, it’s readily available in a comprehensive file.

What about mishaps, screw-ups, or disciplinary actions? Performance evaluations should never be used as a disciplinary tool. Your company should have a disciplinary policy and procedure for use when an employee needs to improve performance. The performance evaluation is not that venue. Deal with problems as they occur, keep records per company policy, and unless it’s a major violation or the behavior continues, these incidents should not be brought up again during an annual evaluation. Giving positive feedback about performance improvements is definitely appropriate, however.

Performance evaluations should be straight forward, responsive, easily understood, specific, and encouraging.  Let’s look at each of these words or phrases individually:

Straight forward – the performance evaluation should look to the future with an eye on how past performance predicts future behavior. For example, if you have a major project coming up, discuss how the employee’s performance on a recent project or newly acquired specialized skills will be considered as you assemble the next project team. Let employees know that “best” performance is recognized and rewarded with new and interesting opportunities.

Responsive – the performance evaluation should reflect what the employee has done right and how you feel about it. Mark Twain is quoted as saying, “I can go for 2 months on 1 compliment.” Employees need to be validated and appreciated; telling an employee how you feel about their performance will have a positive impact on their performance.

Easily understood – performance evaluations should be clear and concise while avoiding flowery phrases or jargon that sound great but say nothing. The number of words is meaningless, but the quality of the content is priceless.

Specific – performance evaluations should address specific events, behaviors, accomplishments, and recognitions. Describe how these impacted the workplace and how you, as a manager, view the employee’s contributions.

Encouraging – without purpose and a sense of contributing, employees lack motivation and easily become disgruntled. Use positive words when you evaluate an employee. Finally, be sure to tell each employee how his or her contributions relate to the success of the team, department or company.

Evaluations should be fair, legally defensible and accurately record the employee’s performance. One trick to avoiding problems with documenting on the performance evaluation is to write in the third person, for example ‘Leo completed this project, on time’ instead of ‘you completed this project on time’. Avoid using the first person when writing. Writing what Leo does is more accurate that writing what “I” think about what Leo does.

Finally, you may want to consider software that helps you automate the performance evaluation process. Software can help ensure that:

• Evaluations are completed on time and not forgotten
• Managers across the company use similar methods to evaluate employees
• Your organization keeps good documentation from a legal perspective

Halogen software can help you meet your performance evaluation needs by providing tools for helping managers create a meaningful, effective evaluation in any format. Automated reminders prompt all the involved parties to action during the evaluation process. Evaluations can be accessed by multiple sources simultaneously, so multi-raters and peer reviews can be processed with ease. Content and authoring aides are available to assist the evaluator with language for writing an objective specific evaluation. Halogen offers a faster simpler way to deliver professional, effective performance evaluations!

The better your employees get along with one another, the better they’ll work together and the more efficient your company will be. With so many people of different ages and backgrounds working in the same environment, it may be difficult to get them all to see eye to eye. To create a more cohesive unit, focus on building a culture of teamwork. Here are a few ways to make that happen:

• Create intra-office teams to solve workplace issues. Build committees to discuss and solve problems relating to issues like absenteeism or how to communicate with telecommuting employees.
• Organize after-work events. You might consider offering a company-sponsored happy hour once a month, or holding a weekend potluck lunch every quarter.
• Take part in team fundraising events, like a charity walkathon or bowling match.
• Try out teambuilding games and exercises. Employees may feel a bit silly participating in these games, but they’ll create common bonds and help them learn to solve problems together. Find some great teambuilding activity ideas here.

Those should get you started! Tell us in the comments what types of teambuilding activities and events you do with your employees!