First Comment

By now most of us have heard the story of Steven Slater, a 38-year-old flight attendant who got fed up with an annoying passenger, cursed out the whole flight, and made a grand exit by grabbing some beers and sliding down the emergency chute. But given a week to think about the consequences of such an action (and the debate goes from "he's an idiot" to "he's a hero"), let's take a look at some lessons Human Resources can take away from this:

Be First Class in Your Response

"No news is bad news," is sometimes the moniker of advertising,  but this type of news can't be good news if you're in Human Resources of JetBlue. But as HR Hero blogged earlier this week, Jet Blue responded in the best way possible in their blog post "Sometimes the news is about us." While most of us would a) not have the sense of humor to write a blog title like that, b) want to go on the defensive and start shoving accusations at Slater, and/or c) focus on the bad, JetBlue did none of that. They took the high road and acknowledged the great crewmembers they do have. And they referenced one of my favorite movies, Office Space, in the process. Bravo, Jet Blue!

Make Sure This Is Not Something People Feel Is OK

While it's OK to joke around about a story that has become funny news, it's important to let your other employees know this behavior is not tolerated and this is not the way to handle being disgruntled. Vault looks at it from the worker's side (and references a famous Half Baked quitting scene--which was in itself a parody on the Jerry Maguire quitting scene) and says things like "never quit out of anger", "don't burn bridges", and "give ample notice". This is something that your employees should take as regular behavior and not the way Slater (or Scarface or Jerry) quit their jobs.

Manage Your Employees' Workplace Stress

Barbara Safani wrote this post for AOL Jobs probably without Slater in mind, but the timing couldn't have been more prefect. The article is titled "Work Stress: What Are Companies Doing About It?" and should be a legitamite concern in the wake of Slater's seemingly stress-induced outburst (or maybe it was to land a reality TV show as TheWrap reports). This part is especially timely: "Managing stress in the workplace is a business issue, not fluff," says Rania Sedhom, principal at Buck Consulting. She notes, "Companies that make the investment to reduce stress in the workplace can improve employee loyalty and retention."

Those are three pieces of advice to give in the wake of the Slater incident. Many are hailing Slater as "a working class hero", but your company does not need Slaters of their own. Make sure that employees know the rules, that they are not stressed enough to quit like that, and that if something bad happens, that you are first class in your response. I'm sure the JetBlue employees who remain are happy to know that they are still appreciated.

The Tampa Bay Rays baseball team has hit a rough patch. Although they held on to first place in the toughest division in baseball throughout the first few months of the season, they've been no-hit twice and lost their grip on the division. This past week their centerfielder, B.J. Upton lollygagged his way to the ball. For a team struggling to score runs, this was not the effort you want to see. Upton has been benched before for not hustling and this seemed to be another case of him just giving up on a play. When he got back to the dugout, 24-year-old Evan Longoria approached him about his behavior and the two went face-to-face and had to be separated by teammates. I wrote on a sports blog I post on regularly about this incident and about how it brings back memories to one sports writer of a young Derek Jeter, who had, at 24, called out one of his veteran teammates for showing up another teammate. This is seen as a great leadership skill in an organization--self-policing.

I bring this up because while this type of approach may work in baseball, it most likely has no place in an organization. If a co-worker is not pulling his weight or is trying to show up another co-worker, it should not be left to self-policing. Although a good measure of "that is not right" should come from everyone involved and whistleblowing is encouraged at times, the problem itself should be handled by upper-management and Human Resources. Employees can become embarrassed on confrontational when they are publicly called out. Instead, a manager should be doing the discipline--and doing it in a private environment. Publicly calling out a co-worker for a mistake or leaving an office to be self-policed may work in baseball but it is not a good way to handle an office. 

I wrote earlier this week about changing the performance review scale, but the Wall Street Journal via Yahoo! Finance has an even better idea: eliminate performance reviews completely (H/T Sarah). The article's opening is a great call to arms:

It's time to finally put the performance review out of its misery.

This corporate sham is one of the most insidious, most damaging, and yet most ubiquitous of corporate activities. Everybody does it, and almost everyone who's evaluated hates it. It's a pretentious, bogus practice that produces absolutely nothing that any thinking executive should call a corporate plus.

And yet few people do anything to kill it. Well, it's time they did.

Just because everyone hates it, though, doesn't mean it should go. The ability to evaluate employees keeps everyone honest--including the reviewer, the reviewed, Human Resources, and upper management. Everyone hates it because it isn't fun to judge other people but like Valentine's Day reminds us once a year to say "I love you" when we should be doing it every day, performance reviews reminds us once a year that we should be giving constructive criticism, even though we should be doing that all the time as well. The key is to do it in a way that achieves a maximum comfort level for everyone involved and gets to a positive result.

My company sent around an e-mail today that let us know our benefits administrator inadverently sent out personal benefits enrollment information (including Social Security numbers) to the Human Resources department of another client.

Now that the damage has been done, what can the company do to make it right? The benefits administrator is sending a letter home to all of us explaining the mistake and also offering one free year of credit monitoring. But is that enough?

One co-worker who had learned about this type of situation in her past job said that this was insufficient: "Thieves sit on the information for a while due to the fact they know people will be monitoring and then start using when they think the coast is clear--usually after one year."

Now "luckily" this information was only sent to a another Human Resources department and the e-mails were supposedly all deleted without being read. But what if this was accidentally (or purposefully) sent to people who were not as honest? Not only is the associates' information at risk, but their families who are enrolled in the benefits are at risk as well.

This just goes to the heart of the issue: make sure that all safeguards are in place to assure that your employees' personal information never gets into the wrong hands. And if it does somehow get into someone else's hands, you need to make sure there are measures in place to correct the situation.

Do you think that our benefits administrator has done enough in this situation? What do you think they could do more (another year of monitoring, etc.)? What measures does your company have in place for this type of situation?

It has happened before at ESPN. Harold Reynolds and other on-air personalities had been fired for inappropriate relationships with subordinates. It has happened with other staffers as well. Yesterday, it reached a boiling point after former New York Mets General Manager and ESPN personality, Steve Phillips, took a leave of absence after a bizarre story involving a relationship with a 22-year-old production assistant, detailed in yesterday's New York Post.

According to sports blog Awful Announcing, in 2007, ESPN hired a new Senior Vice President, Human Resources, in part to help with the rash of sexual harassment complaints. It didn't seem to help. And the problem is, as Deadspin reports, that everyone seems to know and care except for the higher-ups at ESPN.

Deadspin relayed a story about another male on-air personality that has been rumored to take place in the same inappropriate activities. Deadspin also tells the story of an ESPN staffer who may have been promoted for the wrong reasons.

So why does this happen? Yet another Deadspin expose told of the culture that existed at ESPN and described it very much as a Human Resource nightmare. This is a culture that existed for a long time and was reinforced by the executives who were taking part as well.

As a New York Magazine poll last week showed after the David Letterman scandal, people have very differing opinions of what is OK to do in the office. A positive culture has to come from the top down. When executives and other people in power are taking part in inappropriate relationships and human resources is unable to curtail the behavior, chaos, like what seems to be occurring at ESPN happens and opens up the company to a litany of lawsuits. Let's hope your company does not look like this.

A lot was written last week about the David Letterman situation and how Human Resources should handle this. Let's look at a few examples:

-Careersolvers asks if we're all that different than Letterman and gives, in the spirit of the man, a top 10 list of reasons why people get involved with co-workers.

-The Boston Globe Job Doc has a Q&A on "An Awkward Invitation" and whether you should go to HR for quick decisions.

-Hot HR Tips... says let this be a wake-up call for all Human Resources professionals

-Lastly, a Letterman insider writes about the incident for The New York Times and the atmosphere does not seem to be a good one. The situation should have been handled by Huamn Resources way before it ever got to the point it did. The article hits it right on the head: this situation was fair to no one.

Also, we have a new look here at the Astron Solutions World of HR blog. Let us know what you think. Send an e-mail to katzandrews@gmail.com to let me know.

Great post from The New York Times Freakonomics Blog (and a true, but funny ending as well):
One of the jobs on the list as Steven Levitt points out? Human resources recruiter! So there may be money in your job, yet.

Other great Freakonomics posts for HR to read:

• Italian workers who were able to trade overtime
• A look at what has happened to wages in the past 3,000 years.
• Levitt tries to determine the economic value of popularity
• If you give your employees a raise, will they start watching TV in the bathroom?
• Levitt reviews Michael Lewis' NFL book Blind Side and salaries in the NFL
  

Enjoy!

If you don't watch AMC's hit show Mad Men, you should start immediately. It's a fabulous show about a fictional 1960s Madison Avenue advertising agency named Sterling Cooper and the trials of tribulations of the agency and the main character, Don Draper.

One of the things that's great about the show is how they keep everything authentic for the time. That means that people drink, smoke, and take part in a lot of other activities that make Human Resource professionals cringe today, including excluding all minorities (and Jews), gender discrimination, and sexual harassment. But how much of what takes place in Sterling Cooper would not be allowed to go on today? Halogen Life did a great look at that and determined that while the drinking and the smoking may fly in certain states and certain companies, the sexual harassment and discrimination would not (H/T Jay for the article). Here are their conclusions:

• Smoking - A smoke-filled Madison Avenue boardroom couldn’t legally exist today as New York, along with 22 other states, has laws banning smoking in the workplace, but unless the federal government or your city steps in, you’re free to light up in your office in over half of the states.

• Drinking - For white-collar workers, there’s nothing legally wrong with knocking a few back in the office, per se. Federal law only deals with alcohol consumption in the workplace if it would threaten the health and safety of other employees or the public — like if the employee must drive or operate machinery. Obviously providing drinks to those under 21 can land you in hot water, but unless you happen to live in a particularly “dry” community where the sale and possession of alcohol is regulated, you’re probably in the clear. Office worker bees who don’t have those concerns are free to imbibe, so long as the boss approves.

• Discrimination - Up until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, employment discrimination was only prohibited by state and federal governments. Private businesses were free to hire and fire on any criteria they chose. Though actual change was slow coming, the passage of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibited businesses with over 15 employees from discriminating based upon race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

• Sexual Harassment/Gender Discrimination - While women were covered in the discrimination provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Equal Employment Opportunity Committee didn’t explicitly forbid sexual harassment as discrimination until 1980. Today, in the era of mandatory sensitivity trainings, Sterling Cooper would be hit with lawsuits faster than you can cry “sexual harassment.”

• Their conclusion? - It’s unfortunately fathomable that the kind of womanizing and discrimination rampant at Sterling Cooper could still occur today, but if you’re looking to inject a little bit of a Mad Men-esque feel to your work day, be safe and stick with the scotch. And maybe a smoke — outside.

Our conclusion? Show Mad Men at work...during training sessions of what NOT to do in the workplace. There are many more aspects of the show that would garner the attention of Human Resources such as women not being promoted past secretary status (save a token promotion for Peggy). Although romanticized on the show, some aspects of Sterling Cooper are best left in the 1960s, especially if your company wants to avoid fines and lawsuits.

-We start out on this Wednesday with Human Resource Executive Online with some advice on how to understand Human Resources value

-Next is Market Mixup which says that instead of cutting jobs, think about cutting salaries

-Lastly, the Zanesville Times Recorder says that now that you have figured out the FMLA regulation, there may be more changes coming down the pipeline

We are back with another Two For Tuesday with advice for the old and the young:

-This Atlanta Business Chronicle article talks about a Watson Wyatt survey which says that older workers are worrying even more about retirement. This makes sense with 401(k)s low in value, pensions being cut or greatly diminished, and other investments (stock portfolio, home value, etc.) very low in value. Sadly, many can't retire at this point due to this.

-Next from the Charlotte Observer, advice to students and Human Resources that summer is a great time for students to make their mark. I loved all my internships and they were a great way for me to get some really good experience. But I understood it is what you make of it and did my best to make it the most valuable summer it could be.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution starts us off with an article about whether you should dress business casual for an interview: click here

A Human Resource Management Solutions article following up on a HR World article for our next entry on five quick hiring tips: click here

The Houston Business Daily has next for us a Human Resources Guide to employment issues resulting from Hurricane Ike: click here

The Gazette of Colorado Springs says that everyone, especially the employer, benefits by handling layoffs fairly and honestly: click here

Lastly, the Orlando Business Journal cites a study that says that most workers are puzzled about their benefits: click here

We start off on this Wednesday smack in the middle of the convention cycle and with an article from Human Resource Executive Online saying to brace yourselves for whoever is elected president: click here

Human Resource Executive Online also wants to talk about where HR stands today and who Human Resources Executives want as president and why: click here

Next, the Business Ledger tells HR professionals how sloppy Human Resources adds to employers' benefit costs: click here

Human Resource Management Solutions by People Wise then asks when does a small business need an Employee Handbook: click here

The Courier Post Online follows up by saying that you should take time to think if job is lost: click here

The Hartford Courant ends our post with an article that tells us that sometimes, following your heart works: click here

If you're thinking of banning social networking from your company, you may be making a very costly mistake according to employee evolution: click here

If you're thinking of skipping those MBA recruiting sessions, you should read this Wall Street Journal article about more and more people who are doing just that: click here

If you're getting ready to retire, you should read this Journal article about planning your exit strategy: click here

If you're worried about whether you need to have a required lunch break, read this Q&A from the Human Resource blog: click here

If you're wondering the best way to leveraging talent into your company's competitive advantage, read this book review from the HR Practitioner: click here

If you're trying to figure out what the role of Human Resources should be in employer branding, read this PUREcommunications article: click here

And if you're looking for an HR job, who are we to ignore social networking after we talked about it's importance, so here's a LiveJournal entry on a website for HR jobs: click here

You know when an interviewee calls up and asks why they haven't gotten a call back? Well maybe it's tell them that your Human Resource staff just can't keep up...and you wouldn't be alone according to the Kansas City Star: click here

The Ventura County Star talks about a bias bill that is being opposed by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM): click here

Red Orbit says that wired staffs are a good thing...despite some other opinions: click here

The Wall Street Journal follows up with this article about companies' efforts to extend researchers' productivity: click here

Lastly, the Start4all Human Resources weblog has six "A-HA's" in building a successful Human Resources career: click here

Greetings from Richmond, VA...

Livemint.com (from the Wall Street Journal) tells us what Facebook has to do with Human Resources: click here

HR Marketer Blog has some information on how Google rocks and the rolling of HR professionals and suppliers into one community: click here

Lastly, this Human Resources blog says that no matter what media is out there, Human Resources is about the people: click here

We got some great articles today from the Wall Street Journal as we again go from Wall Street to Main Street

First, an article about a new type of downsizing occurring, further obscuring the precarious job hunt--either by the combination of junior and senior positions in a job description and giving it a junior pay or by hiring new senior level employees but also giving them the work that was once done by their subordinates: click here

This is a tricky tightrope for Human Resources to walk...you don't want to be seen as "tricking" someone (as the article seems to suggest).

Next, the Relocation Blues from the Journal's "90 Days" column tells you how to cope with forced relocation (or, as HR, a nice way you can provide suggestions and work along your employees when this occurs for them): click here

Also from the Journal's Career Journal column "Pay Grade", tackling sustainability-related projects: click here

Lastly, from the Johns Hopkins University Gazette, rethinking the future of HR: click here

Seriously...and you thought the weather was bad in New York...: click here

Courtesy of the Boston Globe's Monster.com Hiring Hub HR Center HR Blog...

Riding the train this morning I happened to peek at a fellow passenger's Wall Street Journal and spied upon some great articles...

First, a front page article on layoffs...if you hear rumors they may be coming, here's some advice on what to do: click here

And with this advice, some thoughts should emerge for HR professionals on how to handle those types of situations. One of my friends worked for a large fashion company that had been rumored to be on the brink of bankruptcy. One of the actions taken by the company's management--that shocked him and others--was to fire one employee whose only misstep was talking about the rumors going around about the company. They said he was a poison to the company and got rid of him. A few days later, the company filed for bankruptcy and a lot more employees went. But if the company had not filed, that sole decision would have been viewed as a warning (whether right or wrong) to other employees who would think about discussing the rumors among themselves at work...

The Career Journal then gives some advice for those pushed to part-time work--make the most of it: click here

Next, a topic we've talked about in the past on this blog, workplace bullying takes center stage again as they reference a recent United States court case: click here

Lastly, an interesting article about summer jobs--selling knives--positioned with a great title: click here


Enjoy!

Somebody's got a case of the Mondays!

Here's a list of seven employee complaints for this Monday:

1) Your employer is watching over you...even as you work at home (an article about telecommuting surveillance from the Wall Street Journal's Career Journal): click here

2) Your former employer is delighting in your layoff (well this Workforce Management article says that if they do, they're going to hell -- Management hell): click here

3) Your former employer is suing you (this may turn out really, really poorly according to the Laconic Law Blog): click here

4) My employer is making me copy on both sides of the paper among other money-saving operations (Fistful of Talent talks about Budweiser's integration into InBev...a good article also about combining cultures in company's and HR's responsibility in that): click here

5) The superstar employee on my team is getting $20-$25 million in severance (while this is probably not your company, this article is an interesting view on the Brett Favre situation in Green Bay from the HR Capitalist and how they blow the term "Golden Parachute" totally out of the water): click here

6) My young co-workers are hopping from job to job and making more money than me (Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 has an article confirming job hopping among Gen Y/The Millenials): click here

7) I just have lots of complaints (well About.com's Human Resources blog compiled a list of the top ten employee complaints): click here