Articles from February 2010

HR executives probably shouldn’t have to tell their workers not to bring guns to the workplace but in professional sports, you just can’t take things for granted.

On the heels of NFL star Plaxico Burress shooting himself in the leg at a nightclub and NBA star Gilbert Arenas bringing guns into the Washington Wizards’ locker room, Major League Baseball has posted new signs around spring training facilities warning them that possessing weapons is prohibited.

Long knives, explosives and of course hand guns are prohibited, the signs state.

Is “Major League Baseball’s Weapon-Free Workplace Policy” necessary in this day and age or is it just overkill by HR?

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We all know that going through a round of layoffs is never fun, but this NYT piece looks at the harmful effects those layoffs have on the affected employees.

It really makes you think twice (or at least it should) about having a cavalier attitude when it comes to the issue.

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Here’s one school district’s approach to dealing with its union.

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Check out what happened when an ESPN radio personality took some ill-advised, on-air pot shots at the fashion decisions of an ESPN television host. It may make you think twice before you share your fashion opinions about a co-worker.

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The Senate passed a Jobs Bill today that will reward employers that hire the nation’s unemployed.

Passing 70-28, this version of the Jobs Bill will give employers a $1,000 tax credit if a newly hired employee stays with the company for a year, and make them exempt from a 6.2 percent Social Security tax through the end of 2010.

It also provides an additional $20 billion for highway and mass transit projects, which should add much needed jobs.

The proposal, which costs $35 billion, still needs to pass in the House of Representatives, which passed a much more expensive ($862 billion) proposal in December.

The Democrats can certainly pass it and claim a much-needed victory.

Will it pass? Will it be good for businesses? Let us know…

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It’s been a long-held belief that a rise in the number of temporary workers hired usually precedes an economic recovery. And while it’s always good to see more Americans getting back to work (in whatever form they can manage), a troubling sign is emerging in the data, according to a new AP story:

“After the 1990-1991 recession, for instance, gains in temporary hiring starting in August 1991 led almost immediately to stepped-up permanent hiring. And after the 2001 recession, temporary hiring rose for three straight months in the summer of 2003. By September, employers were adding permanent jobs each month.”

Ahhh, those were the days, eh?

Fast-forward to this recession, however, and the full-time jobs just don’t seem to be following the temp jobs spike as they have in previous cycles:

“Employers added a net 52,000 temp jobs in January — the fourth consecutive month of gains. Over that time, total U.S. jobs shrank by 106,000. Employers have managed to boost productivity by squeezing more work out of their existing staffs.”

Is your organization focusing solely on temp workers until the recession is over? If so, what is your organization’s measuring stick to determine when that time is?

We, (and the rest of the American workforce) would love to hear from you!

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“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” as the old saying goes.

And it now looks like 39-year-old Jennifer John may have made a fool of TV retailer QVC’s pre-hire screening procedures.

According to police, John, who has been held in prison in lieu of $100,000 bail since her Feb. 4 arrest, allegedly stole more than $200,000 worth of QVC merchandise when she worked in the West Chester (Pa.)-based company’s production studio between last November and mid-January of this year.

Police say she sold the ill-gotten goodies to a local pawn shop, which in turn raised the suspicions of state and local police.

But the story gets far worse from there, at least from QVC’s point of view:

“Meanwhile, Montgomery County prosecutors are attempting to revoke John’s $2,500 bail on a June 2009 case because of her recent arrest. John is alleged to have embezzled more than $250,000 from a Lower Merion real-estate-management company where she worked as an accounts-payable clerk from 2003 into 2008, according to police.

A QVC spokesperson declined to answer questions about the case or John, including how she came to be employed by the firm while awaiting trial on the theft charges.”

Sounds like QVC’s HR department is in for a round of tough questioning about its pre-hire screening processes.

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Executive recruiters say there’s a good reason HR professionals don’t get the outrageous bonuses given to some in the finance industry.

They just don’t care that much about the money, they say, according to an article on eFinancial Careers, a UK job board that is part of Dice.

Instead, says one recruiter, HR leaders are ”driven by the relationship they have with the line manager and what’s going on in the business.”

I’m sure money would be nice, too!

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Included in an ad by an IT staffing company seeking a technical writer to focus on proposals to Chinese businesses: “An arrogant American will not work well in this role.”

The company, Viva USA of Rolling Meadows, Ill., who apparently was searching for workers on behalf of Exelon Nuclear Partners, subsequently took the ad down and apologized, according to Fox News.

It was “a mistake,” a company spokeswoman says, noting the language was approved by a “junior recruiter.”

True. It was pretty juvenile.

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Most HR leaders will understandably have a negative reaction to a column by Sathnam Sanghera in the (UK) Times Online, in which she offers a major diss to the profession:

“HR people … think they play a vital role in business and for that reason regard themselves as, if anything, underpaid. When Mercer compared the pay of HR, marketing and finance directors in 14 countries in its Global Pay Summary, a number of trade publications pointed out that HR was the lowest-paid of the three. I would say it is much more notable, given how little contribution HR makes, that Mercer found that UK human resources directors are the second-highest-paid in the world, behind the United States.”

She also notes that she doesn’t “value HR: the fuss that HR makes about itself seems to far outstrip its contribution,” saying too many HR departments “are self-serving, neurotic and navel-gazing.”

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