I’ve written a lot over the years about best practices to prevent lawsuits by employees.
The fact remains, though, that no matter how good a company’s HR practices are, and no matter how proactive a company is with its legal compliance, a certain percentage of terminations and other employment decisions will turn into lawsuits. It’s the simple the cost of doing business.
The following are five things a company should be actively thinking about when it receives the inevitable lawsuit:
Relevant documents should be identified and preserved. Employment lawsuits are not as document intensive and some other disputes in which businesses are involved. Nonetheless, the documents are crucial. They provide a roadmap to the justification for the termination or other employment action, and the reasonableness of the employer’s actions. Key documents (personnel files, handbooks, other policies, investigative reports, emails, and other communications) should be gathered and set aside. Also, a litigation hold should be put in place to ensure that no relevant documents are accidentally destroyed.
Under Ohio’s discrimination law, managers and supervisors can be personally liable for their own individual acts of discrimination. Often, they are sued in their individual capacity along with the company. Potential conflicts of interest among any individual defendants and the company must be evaluated very early in the case to ensure that conflicts of interest do no exist. If they do, one attorney cannot represent all defendants. If conflicts are not identified until well into the case, the lawyer may have to withdraw, which could irreparably damage the defense.
Fight the urge to take it personally. When an ex-employee claims discrimination, companies can lose sight of the fact that lawsuits are part of doing business. Employer often shift into attack mode because they are accused of being bigots. There is a huge difference between aggressively defending a case and attacking for the sake of attacking. The former is smart strategy; the latter often leads to greater costs by losing focus. It also risks taking action that could be viewed as retaliatoryand bring further claims. Extra care must be taken when the plaintiff is current employee, as opposed to an ex-employee.
If your company has Employment Practices Liability Insurance, timely file a claim with the insurer. If you have purchased a rider that permits you to select counsel, make sure you enforce that right. If you have not purchased that protection, consider having a candid conversation with the insurance company about the counsel they will choose for you.
Hire experienced employment counsel to defend the claim. Employment law is highly specialized. Retaining counsel that knows that ins and outs of this area of law is the best way to keep costs down as much as possible, while at the same time doing everything possible to aggressively defend the company.
What key steps have I missed? Is there anything your company does when it’s sued that you think others should also be doing? Share you thoughts in the comments below.
Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.
Executive teams under duress inevitably retreat behind walls of spreadsheets and for good reasons. Whether the stress arises from changing market pressures, acquisitions, divestitures, an IPO or any other cause, CEOs and their surrounding teams know that attention to top and bottom lines is crucial. Truth in transformation lies in numbers. However, thriving through transformation requires people — the right people.
And that requires prioritizing human resource management throughout the change.
I stepped in as Symantec’s chief human resources officer four years ago, just as the company was edging toward the decision to spin off its $7 billion storage group, Veritas.
With over 25 years of human resources leadership experience at Frito-Lay, Disney, Sun Microsystems, Cisco and others, I learned how successful enterprises leverage human resources to facilitate their transformation objectives through people. In order for a company to attract, motivate, deploy and capitalize on its talent, I would like to share a plan based on six core concepts that I have seen pay massive dividends during transformation.
1. Be relentlessly transparent. Businesses inevitably form silos, cliques and agendas. However, the more insulation develops between groups, the less any individual or group can gain an accurate sense of reality in the organization. I recall being in one executive meeting where everyone showed up with scorecards showing nothing but green statuses on their work streams. “If you’ve got this much green, I don’t believe it,” I thought. We need to have more yellows and reds to be real with ourselves. It’s not about truth so much as transparency. We have these interdependencies. We rely on each other. If I think you’re green that means I can go ahead and do my thing — until it’s too late, and then we risk all failing together. Successful corporate transformation requires alignment with every stakeholder, and that alignment can’t happen with people wearing rose-colored glasses.
Pulling those glasses off may entail fierce discussions and overcoming confusion. It may mean asking for help and accepting, without judgment, that people are imperfect. Part of HR’s job is to mediate that process in ways that empower everyone to leave them free to move forward on an aligned path.
2. Look both vertically and horizontally. Everyone has a vertical path, that set of problems and responsibilities that dominates your day and the strategy behind your role. Fewer people also scan horizontally. When you see and understand others’ work streams, you start to find points where their paths intersect with yours and those around you. Those intersections can yield major impact, both positive and negative, and the sooner you can see those patterns, the better you will be able to leverage or avoid those impacts. Because of its broad scope, HR should be better than most at this horizontal scanning and pattern recognition.
3. Use relationships to see both realities. Every corporate culture has its own paradoxes, its own forms of doublethink. How should someone new to HR leadership, or a leader in a new HR role, survive in the absence of experience? By embracing both realities. First, you need to rely on the formal leaders for alignment. They will tell you how things get done. Then, you need to find the informal leaders, the influencers and top performers who know how things “really” get done. Learn both routes and follow both.
Will formal and informal leaders tell you everything you need to know on Day One? Not at all. You must forge positive relationships with both groups and gain trust so that they want to tell you everything you’ll need. You must be an excellent listener. Those relationships will sustain you when things don’t go as planned. People will know your intentions were good, offer forgiveness, and help to orient you in a better direction.
4. Shape the energy. Every meeting I am in, I get clear about the energy in the room. That may sound really amorphous, but it’s real. People come in closed. They’re outcome-focused, not present in the conversation. I try to shift that energy, because if people aren’t listening and open to the discussion, then we’re going to see failure. Human resources professionals need to emphasize the human element of HR. The energy dynamics in the room as well as those outside of it shape the corporate culture and its operations. Consider: Is your company’s culture one in which the things said in the meeting room is the same things that get shared outside it? Are commitments made in the room but then not carried out beyond it? The answers define whether a business is functional or dysfunctional. HR executives have the power to shape the energy if they can recognize it and respond appropriately.
5. Don’t just be your hat. Do not fall into the trap of thinking HR leadership is your top role. You are a business leader first. Too often, people define what they do by the functional hat they wear. If you wear the HR hat and act within the traditional functional perspective of that HR role, you may have solid priorities, but you won’t have perspective. A business leader understands how the business operates, right down to its nuances. If people observe you not understanding these nuances, you will lose your ability to influence. They won’t trust your advice, because they’ll feel you don’t understand the whole picture.
6. Take the vitals, then use them. Times of transition are rife with ambiguity. Roles can change on a dime, and new plans often overlap with old, potentially breeding confusion. Clarity and effectiveness in such periods depends on constant inquiry, listening, and conversation. In this vein, if you will, HR executives need to be like doctors and take the pulse of employees at regular intervals in order to determine health. These are vital statistics — vital to the company’s well-being and growth.
Very often, employees have better insights than executives. In a transformation, regular pulsing is critical.
When you combine these six skills, you’re in a position to create clarity in a company that might otherwise get stuck in the fog of transition. A human resources executive with these skills is perfectly placed to help transform the top and bottom lines, open new markets, and lead the business in a wave of innovation.
Amy Cappellanti-Wolf is the chief human resources officer for Mountain View, California-based Symantec. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.
The Society for Human Resource Management has never struck me as a powerhouse on Capitol Hill.
Oh yes, SHRM members have testified before Congress in the past. One exchange has stuck with me. It was a testy discussion in 2009 between then-SHRM COO China Gorman and former Rep. Lynn Woolsey. The California Democrat twice referred to SHRM as “shoorum” during testimony on the Healthy Families Act, which would have required companies to offer paid sick days. When Gorman corrected Woolsey, the congresswoman declared, “that doesn’t say anything to me” after Gorman gave her the proper pronunciation.
That moment wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement of SHRM’s clout as a legislative influencer. I’m sure they’ve had successes but largely they’ve been in the background of conversation, not out front.
That’s changing, and it was in full evidence at the just-concluded 2018 SHRM conference in Chicago. New SHRM CEO Johnny C. Taylor Jr. clearly defined the 300,000-member organization’s goals: workplace harassment; second-chance legislation for those incarcerated for crimes; pay and gender equity; and immigration reform. He explicitly noted SHRM will push for workplace immigration issues, not humanitarian reforms. “We need to figure out what our lane is,” Taylor said on immigration during his Monday afternoon press conference. “Separation of families is not our space. It’s about the workforce — smart, sensible immigration.”
As Taylor and SHRM’s staff ponder what lane to take, he made it clear that they will not shy away from the encounter.
“We’ve spoken out on different positions,” Taylor said. “Before we were less vocal and steered away from controversial topics. That position is changing now. We will speak out on some of that.”
SHRM CEO Johnny C. Taylor Jr.
Taylor later added: “I’m not afraid of taking positions. Be a force for social good. We stepped into the DACA conversation. You can sit on the outside or step in and engage.”
Well, a funny thing happened Wednesday as the conference wound down. An email dropped into my inbox with the subject line, “Society for Human Resource Management Under Fire for their Flawed Paid Family Leave Legislation.”
The sub-head read: “Over 50 HR leaders call SHRM’s policy ‘out of step’ with top U.S. employers on paid family leave.” So, just as Taylor wants to step out into a much brighter advocacy spotlight, his organization is criticized as out of step for its support of Workflex in the 21st Century Act.
The group critical of SHRM, known as Paid Leave for the United States, or PL+US, wants SHRM to drop its support of the Workflex Act and instead get behind Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s FAMILY Act.
Said Alice Vichaita, head of global benefits at Pinterest, in the June 20 press release: “I’m proud to join my HR colleagues in calling on SHRM to re-evaluate its support of the Workflex in the 21st Century Act. This policy isn’t good for working families or a working business. It’s time we put working families first.”
Added Annie Sartor, PL+US’ workplace program director, “Their advocacy highlights just how out of touch they are with their membership and industry trends.”
My Workforce colleague Andie Burjek wrote about the Workflex Act during the conference, and it’s unfortunate that PL+US waited until the waning moments of the final day to publicly address their opposition. We would have gladly spoken to their representatives during SHRM18.
This also is different than past groups critical of SHRM. The one, of course, that most readily comes to mind is the SHRM Members for Transparency, which called for reform within the organization versus addressing external HR policy stances.
PL+US is making a play to sway HR policy discussions from outside the 70-year-old organization. I find that to be a very healthy and productive conversation.
Because if Johnny Taylor is a man of his word — and the jury is still out on that one for me after his obfuscation about an alleged meeting with HR Certification Institute leaders that never took place — and truly wants to elevate the HR profession then he will be the type of leader willing to listen to factions within the organization’s membership.
“The HR profession involves risk,” he said. “You have to know and accept certain obligations. That’s where we have to get.”
I think that goes for SHRM as well. The association has often been isolated and insulated against outside influences and opinions. That’s certainly within their right.
And for what it’s worth, I recognize that SHRM largely advocates for employer-friendly legislation, and the bill pushed by PL+US feels much more employee-centric. Still, this is a golden opportunity at the outset of Taylor’s run as SHRM CEO to be the inclusive leader willing to hear out his HR constituency.
Yes, it involves risk. But that’s part of Taylor’s ethical obligation as he pushes to “tool up the profession” and speak out on issues that past administrations may have seen as too controversial.
Earlier this spring when I met with new CEO Johnny C. Taylor Jr. at SHRM’s offices near Washington, D.C., I asked him what his inaugural speech to conference attendees would look like.
“It’s like coming to a church revival on Sunday,” he said. And sure enough, on the opening day of the Society for Human Resource Management’s 70th annual conference and expo, Taylor did not overhype the atmosphere. Taylor’s 30-minute talk with 15,000-plus SHRM attendees in the cavernous McCormick Place hall (Taylor is pegging overall attendance at 20,000 this year – by far a record) had a bit of revival meeting sermon laced with plenty of motivation.
Taylor also recollected when he took his SHRM certification test. “You know how they tell you to skip the question when you don’t know the answer? I realized on number six that I had passed on the first five.”
SHRM CEO Johnny C. Taylor Jr.’s opening speech at Day One of the #SHRM18 conference.
Ultimately Taylor passed his SHRM test.
But there was a bigger test to pass on Day One of the conference. Like a new pastor addressing his congregation for the first time, he had to prove himself to SHRM’s assembled members.
Judging by at least five rounds of applause and audience members within my earshot enthusiastically agreeing with him, Taylor set himself apart from past SHRM leaders with his inaugural speech.
There was the expected mantras like “set audacious goals for ourselves” and his admittedly grammatically incorrect “only us can save us.”
He also selected the tale of Benaiah from the Bible’s Book of 2 Samuel, who chased a lion into a pit, then jumped in with the beast. And he asked his assembled HR masses, “What’s your lion?”
It was a decidedly interesting turn from past SHRM leaders’ opening day speeches. As I recall they never lasted more than 15 minutes, and they were largely warming up the crowd for the opening keynoter. While it was not immediate past CEO Hank Jackson style, it’s safe to say no preceding CEO ever stirred the crowd the way Taylor did on Sunday.
There’s an old adage in show biz that you never want the opening act to steal the show from the headliner.
Jeb Bush’s talk was enlightening and engaging, but it’s Taylor’s speech that’s still likely ringing in SHRM attendees ears. I was expecting a typical “fireside chat” speech from Bush, where Taylor or someone else conducts an interview. To Bush’s credit he gave a solid, thoughtful 45-minute talk on talent management, education and immigration and how it ties into talent acquisition.
“Immigration is a catalyst for sustained growth,” Bush noted. “Stop using it as a political wedge on both sides.”
And though it was only Day One, immigration seemed to be a topic on the minds of many during this year’s conference.
Rick Bell is Workforce’s editorial director. Comment below or email editors@Workforce.com.
A Chicago police officer rides his bike along the Lakefront Trail. Photo by Andrew Kennedy Lewis
SHRM attendees unfamiliar with Chicago may feel cautious about coming to the Windy City because of the constant crime reports on the news. News flash: There’s crime in Chicago. It’s a big city.
While it’s always good to be cautious, by and large the area around McCormick Place and the South Loop are generally safe to be in every day. In case you’re still concerned, we’ve listed some safety tips provided by the Chicago Police Department and CPD Sgt. Rocco Alioto, much of which is common sense but nonetheless worth repeating:
Always be aware of your surroundings and travel in well-lit, populated streets.
Travel with other people.
Know where you’re going, what route you’re taking and let your group know this information.
Communicate your estimated arrival time to others in your group or to people expecting you.
Don’t walk with your phone of other valuables in your hand.
Try not to leave personal items like bags and backpacks unattended.
Hide valuables or secure them in a hotel room safe (“For example, do not leave a purse or other item visible in a car,” said Alioto).
Use the ATMs inside the bank instead of on the street.
If something is lost or stolen, immediately call the police.
As a warning, there are a number of homeless individuals on the streets and sometimes on the “L” trains and buses. Alioto recommends, “When approached by a panhandler and you do not have or want to give anything, let them know you are not interested and continue on your way,” he said. “I simply say, ‘No thank you’ and most of the time the response has been ‘Have a good day’ or ‘Bless you.’ ”
The officer had nothing to say about crime or anything specific to look out for near the McCormick Place. “[I] hope that the visitors enjoy all that the city has to offer in the summer,” said Alioto.
If anything seems unsafe or suspicious, avoid the situation and immediately call 911.
Each month Workforce looks at important stats in the human resources sector. Here’s the topic we’re keeping an eye on this month: the people who work in the HR department. What is the gender, age and ethnicity make up of the profession? What is the average pay of an HR manager? For more Workforce “By the Numbers” videos, check out our YouTube channel.
Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.
Did you update your LinkedIn headline? Great. With that out of the way, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get down to business.
No surprise here, but being a manager is hard work. It doesn’t come naturally to many people, but the good news is with the right foundation you’ll be on your way to becoming a great leader.
While every week will present new challenges, the first week will be a deep dive into the trials of managing your employees as well as meeting the expectations of executives above you. With so much on your plate and you brimming with excitement and trepidation, here’s a seven-day rundown to help keep you focused as you begin your managerial journey.
Now, before you go into full TED Talk mode at your debut team meeting, take time to pause, breathe and assess the situation facing you. You’ll be onboarding for part of the day, but take time to mentally audit the tools and resources you have available and the ones you do not.
If you work at a large company, you likely have experienced and dependable human resources professionals there to guide you as you begin your managerial duties. But if you’re at a smaller company or a startup, it’s probably you against the world.
Some important questions to consider as you get through Day One:
• What does your company’s HR team look like?
• Who are the key people to get to know?
• What are the key processes you should be familiar with when it comes to management training and team development?
• When are performance reviews?
• What’s the process as a manager?
• How are bonuses paid out?
• What is the manager’s role in that process?
• What is the process for when an employee is failing to meet their objectives?
Once you assess and get a full grasp for what your department is like, you’ll be able to have a deeper understanding of your team and know how to communicate with them more effectively.
Whether you were promoted up from within a team or are starting a brand-new job as a team lead, you’ll want to get acquainted with their personalities as well as their dynamics with each other, early on.
Don’t wait to schedule one-on-ones with all team members to get a sense of their overall engagement and job satisfaction. Set the tone early by transparently and candidly getting to know them as individuals: What motivates them, what frustrates them and where do they see their career going in the future.
The best piece of advice for the early conversations: Clearly communicate to your team members that you’ve got their back from the outset. Establish a foundation of transparency and trust early on that will carry through your relationship. Here are some things to explore during these get-to-know-you meetings:
• Career journey: How did you get to this job?
• What is your favorite thing about your job now?
• What do you wish there were more of?
• How do you feel about senior leadership?
• How do you feel about the team’s overall dynamics?
• How do you feel about the office environment?
Tiffany Pham, CEO and founder of Mogul.
• What are your personal career goals and how can I help create a plan to get there?
And here’s a meeting tip from a pro: Tiffany Pham, CEO and founder of Mogul, says she prefers to schedule one-on-ones with her team members outside of the office. “I never eat alone,” she told me. “By getting your team members out of the cube and into a more relaxed setting, you’ll learn more about them and how their work and their lives intersect.”
So find alternative ways of connecting and getting to know your team and start setting up time in your schedule to make it happen. Set up a quick lunch, coffee or even walk around the office, as they can all be healthy ways to connect with your team.
You can read blogs and advice books until you’re blue in the face, but know this: The single best way to become a better leader is to watch a great leader in action. Whether your company is 10 people or 10,000 people, strong leaders will stand out. Identify a leader who matches with your own leadership style or personality and invite them to coffee to propose a mentorship relationship to them.
When setting up these meetings, avoid vague phrasing such as “I’d like to pick your brain.” Explain exactly what you hope to benefit from the relationship, and set expectations for the mentor so they know exactly what to expect.
For example, perhaps you schedule a standing 20-minute coffee break, where you stroll out of the office and tackle one question or topic at a time. This makes the ask much more manageable for your mentor and also gives you a framework for guiding actionable conversations. Some topics to address with your management mentor:
• What do you wish you knew when you first became a manager that you know now?
• What is your advice for giving tough feedback?
• How should I celebrate wins within my team?
• What’s the best way to motivate the range of personality types on my team?
• How can I better collect feedback on my management style from the team?
• How can I lead by example when it comes to work/life balance?
Since you’re new to managing a team, you might think delegation is simply a matter of forwarding emails or assigning tasks that you might not want to do with others on your team. If you’ve had a bad manager at any point in your career, no doubt you’ve been on the other side of this equation.
Effective management is as much about scaling your talents across your direct report or team as it is about developing that person in their own role. Effective delegation involves pairing the right individual with the right tasks, and creating a framework for which types of tasks you delegate to whom.
One of the most important pieces of delegation involves providing context — that is, clearly communicating to your team what the objective of the task is and why it’s important to the team or company mission. Here are some additional best practices to consider pre- and post-project:
Project communication. How you communicate the tasks you delegate will set the tone for the project ahead. Phrases like “I would like you to own this project end to end” and “Handle this ASAP” will have drastically different effects on your team.
Providing support and micromanaging are two very different things. Offer help or step in as needed, but create timelines that allow your team to learn and do with some breathing room for bumps along the way.
Give feedback. After a task has been checked off or a project wrapped, give praise for the positive and offer up ways to improve if critical feedback is needed. Always close the loop on the conversation.
You made it to Friday. Congratulations! There’s still work to do as a newbie manager.
Within the first week of being a manager, you’ll notice that the hours seem to slip by quicker than they used to. At many companies, managers operate as player-coaches, tasked with their own responsibilities while also being in charge of the performance and ongoing development of their teams.
With more on your plate, efficiency will become exceedingly important to maintaining a healthy work/life balance.
A 10-second Google search will yield hundreds, if not thousands, of time management tips. As a manager, it’s on you to develop processes that work for you and your unique work habits. Here are some hacks to test out in your first weeks:
Know your “top three”: Each morning, write down the top three priorities you want to advance on that day. Set clear and realistic milestones and hold yourself accountable.
Block your calendar: Instead of creating to-do lists, block windows in your calendar to complete specific tasks or projects within a given window.
Stop multitasking: Interruptions are the enemy of efficiency. Establish discreet windows for checking email and hold “office hours” so your team knows when you’re available for questions (and when you need to focus your attention elsewhere).
Prioritize and say no. Savvy managers know how to rank the projects that are most important to the team and company objectives. They also know when to say “no,” or push things off to a later date.
OK, so technically Day Six is Monday.
But it’s a continuation of your first-week indoctrination in your new role.
Giving and receiving feedback is one of the easiest ways to create stronger relationships with your teams, yet too few managers have feedback systems in place.
The real-time nature of work means that communication has become instantaneous and ongoing, and yet most companies still rely on annual reviews or infrequent employee engagement surveys.
By the time managers receive the data, it’s no longer timely and probably not actionable. Whether you rely on technology to collect and give team feedback or not, the most important step to take is to formalize feedback loops early.
Continue setting the tone in your first week by reinforcing that you welcome open and transparent communication. Clearly communicate to teams how and when they can provide feedback to their manager.
A common pain point for new managers is the pressure of having other individuals dependent on you for success. While your team is ultimately supporting the priorities you set as the team leader, your support of them is perhaps even more important.
You might be familiar with the term “servant leadership” coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1970. Within this philosophy, managers focus on team development as their top priority, tirelessly working to “serve” their teams in this capacity.
Servant leadership requires a tangible presence of the manager in the lives of their team members, one that emphasizes support and guidance as opposed to micromanagement. Here are some quick ways to exert yourself as a servant leader:
Be an active listener. Give your team members a platform for providing feedback and make that feedback actionable.
Demonstrate empathy. Make it a point to gauge how your team members are feeling not just at work, but in their lives more holistically.
Work on your self-awareness. Understanding your own strengths and weaknesses will allow you to serve your team better.
Do You Want to Be a Better Manager?
It obviously takes longer than a week of self-reflection to be considered a great manager. It’s a long process that will require you to get to know your employees, your company, and most importantly you’ll have to make sure to know your own strengths and weaknesses.
If you want to be a great manager, it’s important to be curious and keep a growth mindset. You’ll always have to learn and do a little more to understand the needs of your employees.
As a manager, you’ll have to know what to do in order to push your employees to be successful individuals who will shine at your company and beyond.
David Mendlewicz is the CEO of Butterfly.ai, an AI-driven software that harnesses employee feedback to create a customized learning experience for managers. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.
“Give me a head with hair, long beautiful hair Shining, gleaming, steaming, flaxen, waxen Give me down to there hair, shoulder length or longer Here, baby, there, momma, everywhere, daddy, daddy Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair Flow it, show it, long as God can grow it, my hair”
– “Hair”
My recent post about the beauty of baldness got me thinking about hair and employment law.
Or, more to the point, can an employer run afoul of discrimination laws by making an employment decision based on one’s hair style?
The answer is likely no.
Not that employees haven’t tried.
For example, Ewing v. United Parcel Service challenged UPS’s Personal Appearance Guidelines. With respect to hair color those guidelines stated: “Hairstyles and hair color should be worn in a businesslike manner.” Shenitta Ewing, African American, claimed discriminatory enforcement of the policy to prohibit her from coming to work with fuchsia-colored hair. The court disagreed, citing at least four examples of Caucasian employees fired or discipline because of their “extreme” hair colors.
Or consider Viscecchia v. Alrose Allegria LLC, which concerned a hotel’s “hair policy,” which required that hair “be clean, trimmed, well brushed, and neat at all times, prohibited “extreme styles,” and further prohibited the hair of its male employees from landing below the shirt collar. After repeated warnings, the hotel fired Richard Viscecchia for refusing to trim his long hair. He claimed sex discrimination, based on a policy that required men, but not women, to maintain short hair. The court disagreed, holding that gender-differentiated hair length standards do not violate Title VII, and “employers can prescribe different grooming standards for male and female employees.”
Or EEOC v. Catastrophe Management Solutions, which concerned an employer’s blanket prohibition against dreadlocks, and an African-American applicant’s rejected claim that such a policy intentionally discriminates on the basis of race.
One potential exception that could make hair discrimination unlawful is where an employee’s hair style is related to a sincerely held religious belief. In that case, an employer should consider possible reasonable accommodations to avoid a claim of religious discrimination.
Otherwise, to sum up this potentially hairy issue, as long as you are not intentionally targeting one protected group over another, you are free to regulate hair in the workplace.
Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.
Let’s face it, one of the most challenging and stressful things that a business owner faces when it comes to managing their workforce is taking on a payroll, time labor, benefits and HR system migration/implementation.
Workforce management implementations, if done correctly and by someone who is qualified, will streamline human capital processes, but if done incorrectly and by someone who is not qualified, can make an employer’s life a living hell.
Most small to midsize companies experience the latter because they do not have the experienced staff/team, with a broad project management skill set to handle these complex migrations. They also do not have clean, organized data readily at hand.
Here are four tips to help you identify the data, policies, and processes needed to ensure a smooth transition to your new system.
Establish your team, roles, timeline and budget. Identify your internal and/or external resources that are going to be called upon to help with the implementation. Don’t go at it alone. Ideally, your team consists of a project manager, one who takes accountability for the project and who is comfortable in all aspects of payroll, time labor, benefits and HRIS. Your payroll team leader needs to be well-versed in your current payroll system and will be responsible for providing clean, accurate employer and employee payroll data, as well as the company’s chart of accounts (you may have to leverage your external bookkeeper and/or CPA).
Next, your time labor team member is someone who possesses a technical skill-set and is often your resident IT employee, who understands systems, schedules, operational workflows and who is able to test the data integrity. This is most likely the person who you already rely on to manage the time sheets, job costing and labor distribution excel file.
Finally, your HR team member handling the human resource role is usually the hardest role to fill, especially if you are a small to midsize company that generally cannot afford a full-time HR generalist. If you are fortunate to find a skilled HR generalist, they should be familiar with the entire employee life cycle from recruiting, hiring and onboarding to performance reviews, benefits administration and compliance.
As for your implementation timeline, plan on at least 1 to 1 1/2 weeks per module. Most providers will tell you no less than six weeks and as long as 12 weeks. When you take into account training and as for the implementation fee, budget at least $35 to $50 per employee. Some companies will negotiate in competitive situations and/or allow you to roll the fee into your per payroll or monthly cost. The cleaner your data and the more talented/experienced your team, the better. When you are negotiating the implementation fee, if you are doing all the heavy lifting and bringing clean information to the table then that will save you significant time and money, especially with the setup fee.
Scrub your payroll data. Since the most important module is payroll, you want to make sure there aren’t any delays in paying your employees and the key here is to make sure you are entering clean data — information that has been pulled out of the current payroll system and has been scrubbed for accuracy. Just because your prior payroll company handled your implementation does not mean all of your employees were originally loaded with the correct withholding, earnings and deduction codes. PaycheckCity.com provides a great calculator to audit your employee’s pay and ensure that you have them set up correctly
Time labor management policies and processes. Capturing and accruing employees’ work hours, paid time off, sick days and vacations is one of the biggest time wasters for small to midsize companies, especially if done manually. We see many companies who try to manage time through Excel, paper timesheets and/or time clocks that are not integrated with payroll. The complexity of your company and nature of your business will determine the type of time labor system that can handle your individual situation. This is why having organized documentation of your time entry methods, employee schedules, job costing, labor distribution, supervisory roles/approvals, accrual and PTO policy, an employee handbook, lunchbreak policies and locations/job sites are just some of the crucial data needed to ensure a smooth time labor implementation.
Building out your human capital management module. This should be last in line and will require data, policies and processes to be created as you build and customize your system. Most organizations use this as a time to clean up, overhaul and/or create such things as their organizational chart, HR organizational reports and job descriptions as well as recruiting, hiring and performances practices. If you have this documentation already, you are way ahead of the game.
An important area to focus on is the process(es) of recruiting, hiring and onboarding the new employee. The sooner you can capture the employee’s information, within your workforce management platform (without entering it yourself) during the recruiting or hiring process, the more efficient the onboarding process will be for the employee and the cleaner the data will be.
Most importantly, you should remove as much paper from the process as possible. The system can then perform for you and get the data over to who needs it — payroll, benefits administration, the insurance carrier/broker, workers’ compensation and the 401(k) TPA/recordkeeper/adviser.
Paul Aemisegeo is the founder and CEO of PayrollMart. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.
Last week, the Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division resumed its practice of publishing Opinion Letters.
One of the first it published answers an interesting question about the intersection of the FLSA and the FMLA.
Must an employer pay an employee for FMLA-approved breaks taken during the work day?
I’ve taken some journalistic license and paraphrased the questions. The answers, however, are verbatim from the DOL Opinion Letter FLSA2018-19 [pdf]
Q: We have an employee who is on an approved intermittent FMLA leave for back issues. When he experiences a flare-up during the day, his FMLA papers permit him to take an unscheduled break. These breaks typically never last more than 15 minutes, and the employee is able to return to work. Yet, they are occurring eight times per day, resulting in only six hours of work during an eight-hour work day. I know that under the FLSA, breaks of 20 minutes or less must be paid. Yet, FMLA leave is unpaid? What do I do? Which law trumps, FLSA or FMLA? Must I pay this employee for his unscheduled medical breaks during the work day?
A: “The specific FMLA-protected breaks described in your letter, however, differ significantly from ordinary rest breaks commonly provided to employees. As you note in your letter, the 15-minute breaks at issue here ‘are required eight times per day and solely due to the needs of the employee’s serious health condition as required under the FMLA.’ Because the FMLA-protected breaks described in your letter are given to accommodate the employee’s serious health condition, the breaks predominantly benefit the employee and are noncompensable.”
Q: Got it. We don’t have to pay this employee for his FMLA-related breaks. Since he’s already taking two hours of breaks during the work day, I assume we do not have to permit him to take the two paid 15-minute breaks we provide all of our other employees. Right?
A: Wrong. “Employees who take FMLA-protected breaks must receive as many compensable rest breaks as their coworkers receive. For example, if an employer generally allows all of its employees to take two paid 15-minute rest breaks during an 8-hour shift, an employee needing 15-minute rest breaks every hour due to a serious health condition should likewise receive compensation for two 15-minute rest breaks during his or her 8-hour shift.”
Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.
acquisitions, divestitures, an IPO or any other cause, CEOs and their surrounding teams know that attention to top and bottom lines is crucial. Truth in transformation lies in numbers. However, thriving through transformation requires people — the right people.
