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HR Management

For 55% of workers, what they do is who they are

09/22/2014
More than half of working Americans say they get a sense of identity from the work they do, but education and income levels play a big part in the degree to which people feel that way.

New OSHA rules require more injury reporting

09/22/2014
If your workplace is prone to injuries, get ready to submit more paperwork to OSHA.

Florida hotel touts focus on ‘people before policies’

09/22/2014
At the Hyatt Regency Clearwater Beach Resort & Spa on Florida’s Gulf Coast, 70% of management positions are filled internally, and 18 employees were promoted into manager roles over the past year. HR execs there credit the resort’s “people before policies” philosophy.

How honest can I be when called for a reference on a subpar former employee?

09/19/2014
Q. I recently fired one of my employees, but today another company called me, stating that the former employee marked me down on a job application as an employment reference. Can I tell the prospective em­­ployer about how terrible an employee this person was?

How do we rein in our staff on social media?

09/19/2014
Q. What are the rules and laws about social media? We have employees who have generated Facebook pages with our company name. They are also posting information that we are not ready to publish—such as the opening of another store in a new city.

Can a former employee demand access to her personnel file?

09/17/2014
Q. A former employee called HR asking to review her personnel file. We already let her review her file following termination last year, and nothing has changed in the personnel file since she reviewed it. Can we just tell the former employee “No”? Or can we ask her to pay for a copy of the file for her own records? Our HR manager is going on vacation next week. Can we wait to deal with the former employee’s request until after the human resources manager gets back from vacation?

How to make your best decisions: 4 steps

09/16/2014

Employees at the highest and lowest levels of the organization chart often make the boldest decisions. Most folks in the middle cling to conventional behavior. Where does that leave you?

Must we have a smoking section onsite?

09/16/2014
Q. Our smoking area is outside our building, but the smoke seems to be drifting into the ventilation system. An employee who is super-sensitive to smells has complained. Can we move smokers to their vehicles? Do we even need to provide a place for smokers onsite?

Do you judge your employees fairly?

09/15/2014
Always run your evaluations through a battery of objective measures before you render a conclusion about an employee’s ability. Use these techniques to evaluate the actual work product.

Flying solo: 5 steps to control an HR department of one

09/15/2014
Sole HR practitioners can rely on these tips to get the job done.