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Employee Relations

Vermont company helps pay for employees’ solar panels

10/30/2009

Employees of Waterbury, Vt.-based Green Mountain Coffee Roasters are going green at home—and their employer is helping them pay for it. The specialty coffee company is the first organization to participate in the groSolar Employee Green Benefits Program, which offers group discounts on solar power systems for employees.

Use encouraging, fair—and honest—appraisals when coaching newly promoted employees

10/29/2009

Not every employee who earns a promotion will be successful at the new job. While you certainly want to do everything possible to allow the employee to thrive in the new assignment, you’ve also got to be practical. When you conduct those initial performance reviews, consider the possibility that the employee will ultimately fail. Here’s how to encourage success, but plan for potential failure:

‘Get real’ with performance reviews; make sure managers don’t fluff them up

10/27/2009

Your supervisors have probably heard the horror stories of how negative performance reviews have sparked lawsuits from disgruntled employees. That could cause some supervisors to shy away from criticism and give excessively positive reviews to even their poorest-performing workers. The better thing to do is to urge your supervisors to “get real” with reviews.

Use multimedia campaigns to nurture employee self-service

10/27/2009

Having employees handle their own pay and benefits administration is the Holy Grail of comp and benefits pros. But merely offering self-serve online resources to employees won’t automatically make them self-sufficient. Instead, initiate a long-term, multimedia strategy using techniques that encourage employees to help themselves.

Accommodating disabled employees: Updated DOL web site makes your job easier

10/27/2009

When employees say they’re having trouble completing their job duties because of their ADA-qualifying disabilities, employers are required to enter into an “interactive process” to find accommodations that allow them to perform the job’s essential functions. That’s where the newly updated, redesigned Job Accommodation Network (JAN) site can come in handy.

Beware disciplining employees for FMLA-related tardiness

10/26/2009

Employees eligible for intermittent FMLA leave are entitled to take that leave at the beginning of their scheduled shifts if they need to. While that may make them late for work, you can’t punish that tardiness, as long as the employee follows your call-in policies and the underlying reason for being late is related to intermittent FMLA leave.

What do workers want? Studies show staff/boss disconnect

10/23/2009

Sometimes it seems like supervisors and employees work in entirely different places. Several recent studies show that bosses and front-line employees have widely varying views about their organization’s priorities, morale, compensation and benefits. Here are seven key flashpoints:

Don’t use discipline system to settle old scores

10/22/2009

Do you have a progressive disciplinary system? Don’t short-circuit it!

Record infraction, punishment for every rules violation

10/21/2009

Make a note every time you take disciplinary action against an employee. You need documentation that explains why each employee was punished.

8 lessons you can learn from the fed’s top agencies

10/13/2009

Set aside any notions you might have that the federal bureaucracy is inherently dysfunctional. In fact, Uncle Sam’s best agencies have a thing or two to teach private-sector employers. Here are eight lessons employers can learn from the biennial agency-by-agency ranking of federal employers by the Partnership for Public Service and American University’s Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation.