Is your Company Culture Desirable to Top Talent?

Often times when recruiting top talent, to no avail, it may be that your company has lost its “shine”.  When I refer to “shine”, I’m speaking to what attracts top talent to an organization. Perhaps it is time to perform an analysis of your company’s culture. After all, are you looking for new talent because your company has one or more open positions (due to losing employees) or is your company growing? If you are recruiting talent due to growth that is Excellent! You want to be appealing and desirable to top talent.

Again, if you are recruiting due to growth, you as a growing company want to be sure to retain the top talent you currently possess, as well as, hire more top talent. Remember your talent is in charge of executing your company’s deliverables to satisfied, happy clients.  You also want to take into to consideration you may be losing top talent due to inadequacies in your company’s “culture” or “environment”. Organizational culture is defined as the behavior of humans who are part of an organization and the meanings that the people react to their actions. Company culture is the values and practices shared by the members of the group and therefore, is the shared values and practices of the company’s employees. Is your company culture toxic?

Toxic Company Culture

Toxic employees do not recognize a duty to the organization for which they work or their co-workers in terms of ethics or professional conduct toward others. A toxic workplace can result from increased workplace stress, potential layoffs, workplace bullying. If your company has a toxic workplace, be assured your employees are exhibiting toxic behavior internally and externally. It will most certainly remove top talent from your organization and keep top talent from joining your organization.  

Assessing Company Culture

In assessing your company culture, you must look around and take notice of your employees’ actions. What are your employees doing or saying? You as a company owner when assessing your culture, must listen to your employees, your suppliers and your customers. Pay attention and take notice to what is being written about your company in print and online. These are tools for you to assess your Company’s culture.  Finally, when receiving the messages, feedback, etc. take immediate action to rectify and improve your company’s culture. Do NOT ignore! Toxic workplace environments do NOT go away on their own.

Appealing to Top Talent

Be Flexible with Recruiters. When recruiting top talent, be sure to be flexible with top recruiters and allow them to do their job. No need for a hawk eye overseeing their every move. You must have confidence in your recruiters you are working with to acquire top talent. If you do not have confidence in your recruiter(s), get a recruiter(s) that you have confidence in.

Allow employees to be a part of the process.  Allow your employees that will be working directly with the new hire to be a part of the interviewing and decision-making process. This assures your employees they have a voice and they are valuable to your organization and not simply just a job. Employees feel appreciated and respected when they know their opinion is valued.

Be sure your company exhibits a place of enjoyment and fun. This is simpler than you think. Remember, your employees spend more time with you “at work” other than at home with family. You do not want unhappy employees coming to work full of stress and unhappiness. Paul Spiegelman, founder and CEO of Beryl Co, has built a unique, people-centric culture. Eight Tips to Building Corporate Culture http://www.inc.com/ss/8-tips-for-building-corporate-culture#3. A great company to go to every morning is critical to retaining and acquiring top talent. Because the article says “corporate” does not mean these techniques or just for Corporate. A great company culture is critical to small and large corporations.

Other questions you should ask when assessing your company’s culture are: (1) Is your company customer-focused? (2) Is your company employee-focused (3) Does your company value emotional intelligence? (4) Does your company have a vision and is this vision shared with and by each and every employee in your organization? (5) How important is technology and innovation in your organization? (6) Are your company’s values easily exhibited and transcend throughout your organization?

Is Your Company Culture Desirable to Top Talent? Click here for a free cultural assessment checklist.

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April D. Halliburton, Founder/President

Office: (313) 573-6677

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Email: all4hrbiz@gmail.com

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Workforce Planning is Essential to Company Growth!!

Workforce planning is critical to Growing a workforce and having satisfied customers/clients. You must have the correct amount staff to prepare and serve a great product and/or service.  Planning calculates the correct number of business and appropriate skill sets to meet company goals. Workforce planning is a continuous process that must be monitored and evaluated to be prepared for change.

Workforce planning coincides with the business and final plans a fundamental took I realizing the goals of an organization. Workforce planning is a process that exposes talent deficiencies and needs, identifies recruiting issues, important aspect of proper workforce planning is that the information gleaned can be used to allot resources, i.e., time and money.

Workforce planning is an essential variable to executing a HR Model and growing an organization. There are four phases of workforce planning:  conduct an organizational overview; determine the current workforce profile; determine the future workforce profile; and conduct a gap analysis.

1. Conduct an organizational overview—Example:  The company is launching a new product within six months. This step is the starting point that determines the organization’s current position and forecasts where the company needs to be in the future. 
2. Determine the current workforce profile— Example: The company currently employees 250 salesforce employees. This step provides the baseline demographics that are needed to determine the organization’s current position. 
3. Determine the future workforce profile—Example: The organization needs 300 salesforce employees to operate at the existing level and to staff the new product launch. Combine the organizational overview and the current workforce profile; then look ahead to where you need to be in future.
4. Conduct a gap analysis—Example: The Company is short 50 salesforce employees. 
5. Subtracting the current workforce number from the future workforce total and you will determine the shortfall or gap in number of employees. (Note: For other positions, you may need to determine any skills gap —Example: if you anticipate you will need 20 employees with a certain type of expertise on particular machinery or with a particular computer program, and you currently have ten, you can determine you will need to add ten employees with that particular expertise.)

Example:  Action Plan—Fill 50 new sales positions.

Now that you have determined the gap in where you are and where you need to be, you prepared to plot your course of action.

Workforce planning defines job roles and responsibilities; identifies staffing levels; increases efficiency in human resources; and improves resource allocation. All of which are essential to achieving improving company growth. After all, a company cannot grow if unprepared. The steps involved in executing a workforce plan are:

Ø  Document the results of your gap analysis and highlight the workforce issues that will impact on your organization’s ability to achieve its goals.

Ø  Assess the risk of not resolving the identified workforce issues.

Ø  Develop initiatives aimed at improving attraction and retention  

Ø  Establish an action plan with timeframes.

Ø  Establish how and when you will evaluate the effectiveness of your initiatives.

The bottom line is preparation is the key to growing a successful workforce and achieving organizational growth. One of the main goals in human resources, HR professionals must increase and sustain its workforce.  This includes identifying the skills and education in employees that can be utilized to grow the employees within the organization.  

Click here to receive a free Workforce Planning Profile.  Also, look for All-4-HR & Business Solutions’ upcoming webinar “Preparing for Workforce Growth: Workforce Planning.”

All-4-HR & Business Solutions is Committed to Growing Small Business’ HR.

See You Soon!

April D. Halliburton, President

Email: all4hrbiz@gmail.com

Website: http://www.all4hr.net

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What Employers Should Know About Medical Marijuana Usage in the Workplace

As labor/employment laws and other laws continue to change, along with adding laws, HR professionals have to be ready for these changes guess what – before they even take place. Sixteen states and D.C. have medical marijuana laws in place: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.  Despite these laws being in place on a state level, medical marijuana is illegal on the federal level.

Medical marijuana laws are designed to provide an alternative therapeutic option to people with chronic or debilitating conditions, such as cancer, HIV/AIDS, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, major depression, or severe back pain. Employees suffering from these conditions are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act and provided appropriate accommodations not involving medical marijuana use, such as providing leave to seek treatment.

While medical marijuana is utilized in the workplace, the employer also has to be conscious of Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), by providing a safe work place for all its employees. Studies have shown that marijuana-using employees are more prone to accidents, injuries, and absenteeism. If an employee is in a safety-sensitive position, marijuana use is likely not a reasonable option. When an employer is notified by an employee that he/she has obtained a medical marijuana recommendation, (generally, not called a “prescription” as the drug is FDA-approved), the employer should consider if the employer should otherwise be considered disabled under the ADA (American’s Disability Act) and further explore if there is reasonable accommodation other than marijuana use is available.  If an employee must be licensed in accordance with federal law to perform duties such as commercial driving, marijuana use is not an option at all.

Only a handful of cases have resulted in decisions to provide guidance to employers regarding their potential liability in these situations. Almost all cases have supported employers who have attempted to keep medical marijuana out of the workplace.

Court Ruling

One such case is a 2011 Washington Supreme Court case held that the Washington Medical Use of Marijuana Act does not create a private cause of action for discharge of an employee who uses medical marijuana, either expressly or impliedly. Further, the Court found the act did not create a clear public policy to support a wrongful discharge in violation of a public policy claim and further noted “Nothing in this chapter required any accommodation of any on-site medical use of marijuana in any place of employment… “.  Roe v. TeleTech Customer Care Mgmt. (Colo.) LLC, 2011 Wash. LEXIS 393, No. 83768-6 (Wash. June 9, 2011)

Some state have written protections for medical marijuana users directly in their statutes:

Example:  Arizona statue states that “Unless failure to do so would cause an employer to lose a monetary or licensing related benefit under federal law or regulations, an employer may not discriminate against a person in hiring, termination or imposing any term or condition of employment or otherwise penalize a person based upon either: (1) the person's status as a cardholder [or] (2) a registered qualifying patient's positive test for marijuana components or metabolites, unless the patient used, possessed or was impaired by marijuana on the premises of the place of employment or during the hours of employment." Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 36-2813 (2011).

Because the issue of medical marijuana in the workplace is still in its infancy, employers and those who advise them should keep their eyes on court and legislative developments in their respective states. Employers, for now, appear to have plenty of defenses for maintaining the status quo in their drug testing programs or drug-free workplace policies.

Check us out on Wednesday to see what All-4-HR & Business Solutions is Blogging.

Now How Can We Help You….?

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http://www.all4hr.net

Office: (313) 573-6677

What Entrepreneurs Need to Know about SMB Benefits?

Benefits are one of the greatest challenges facing human resource (HR) Professionals. Benefit regulations are an ever-changing industry concern. HR professionals should stay well-informed of government and state regulation changes and be sure to keep employees up-to-date through newsletter communication, workshops and briefings. HR Professionals should review packages offered by other companies in the industry. While reviewing other competitive packages is informative, be aware in this day, there is no one size fits all answers regarding benefits or HR for that matter. If considering making changes to your companies’ benefits package, be thorough and consider all variables before making changes.

As you know in March 2010, the federal government passed health care insurance reform, which included the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) signed into law on March 23. The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 signed into law on March 30. These bills, together, are referred to as the Affordable Care Act (ACA).  

As an employer, it is effective to adopt the approach of keeping healthcare cost under control in a number of ways. This approach includes increasing the share of premiums that employees pay, increasing deductibles and co-pays, and implement various managed care strategies. 

Periodically review your current plan and establish whether the plan your company has in place is the best choice for your employees. Indemnity and managed care plans are:

·       Indemnity Plan

·       HMOs (Health Maintenance Organizations)

·       PPO (Preferred Provider Organization)

·       POS (Point-of-Service Plans)

·       Consumer Directed Plans

SBA has a great new small business healthcare assessment tool located at http://www.sba.gov/healthcare. Excellent Tool!

Click here to receive any of the below small business healthcare insurance Checklists to assess your current health care position. Healthcare Checklist Request.

Email or call me with any HR or Business related questions. All4hrbiz@gmail.com  

Stay tuned for HR Lunch Café coming very soon. Name a Topic You would like us to research! All4hrbiz.gmail.com

April D. Halliburton, President

All-4-HR & Business Solutions, LLC

Team-Building is Essential to SMB Organizational Growth

Team building is very important when creating a great culture and begins from within the organization. In fact, it is impossible to do so without team-building. I read an article on LinkedIn last week that really caught my attention. The article read “People are not a Company’s Great Asset”.  We are in an era where you know what I am going to say, People are a company’s greatest asset.  As least that is definitely one of the chief premises at All-4-HR & Business Solutions and many, many other organizations – large and small. 

What is even more important is that a Company believes in its employees.  Organizations show employees they believe in them by training and allowing them to grow within the organization. Organization must invest time and yes, funds in training employees and building organizational culture, which often increases longevity.  Often times, it is not a lot of money, that is required in small businesses to build and strengthen teams.  Team-building does not have drawbacks!  Team-building is a win-win situation for all. Face it, failing to work as a team will lower productivity substantially, which will lead to lower customer satisfaction and fewer profits.

Managers should always keep employees happy. The competitive environment wherein attention is directed to pleasing clients easily lead employees to feel unappreciated.  Employee happiness will lead to increased productivity, lower turnover rates and increased employee morale. In turn, this alleviates unnecessary stress of vetting and recruiting new employees – a Win-Win Situation for All !!!

See what All-4-HR & Business Solutions is Blogging about tomorrow!!!

April D. Halliburton, President

Does Your Discipline Policy Give Several Chances for an Employee to Improve His or Her Performance?

Does Your Discipline Policy Give Several Chances for an

Employee to Improve His or Her Performance?

The reason I started a virtual human resource management and consulting company was for the exact reason asked in the above title.  After working in the legal field for over 20 years, I was downsized from a large law firm. I had no idea I was so easily dispensable. Anyway at the same point in my life, one of the most important people in my life was facing health challenges that were surfacing so quickly, our heads were spinning.  It’s amazing how quickly life can change!  Did I mention the word AMAZING!

In a surprising turn of event, I found myself virtual transcribing unemployment hearing tapes. Who knew right? While quite comical at times, this brought me to my niche – my passion for helping small- medium-sized enterprise (SME) owners. It was during this virtual transcriptionist role, I was amazed – yes amazed at the procedures or lack thereof SME owners conducted or did not conduct that had substantial and sometimes even detrimental to their companies.

The TRUTH is human resources is NOT easy and everybody and anybody cannot do HR. One of the most common problems I heard over and over and over and over…, was the progressive discipline policy or LACK thereof that was in place or NOT, at any given time. When there is NO Progressive discipline policy executed and implemented, there will be consequences.

That is where All-4-HR actually began! All-4-HR & Business Solutions provides, implements and execute policies to avoid uncomfortable, unfavorable decisions that could have and would have been avoided by simply following progressive discipline policies, AND all other human resource policies. Document, Document, Documents and then…  Document some More!

In executing your progressive discipline policy, be sure to be consistent. Do not simply include the policy in the employee handbook and do not utilize it! You must exercise consistency. Remember the purpose of the any and all policies is to protect the employer, as well as the employee.  Make sure your policies are followed to the letter.

For a sample progressive discipline policy, click here 

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Managing SME HR in-the-Cloud!