OK, first and foremost, I loooove the Sirius Coffee House Channel (channel 30). For quite some time now, it has been the soundtrack to my work day. That was just a tangent – cause some good songs have been playing today.

More and more over the past couple of months, I have been hearing colleagues (either verbally or by e-mail) talk about and question the use of “social media” for recruitment. To their credit, most of the discussions focus on:

1. Does it work, and does anyone have any success stories?

2. What is the quality of candidates?

3. What sites do companies use to target candidates?

4. What are the legal implications of sourcing from these sites?

Interestingly, in many of the conversations, I have heard these people refer to targetting job seekers on these social medial sites. Ummmm…. “Job seekers”? Isn’t that the point of these sites, to find those elusive passive candidates – the high potential future employees who you cannot find anywhere else. If you want job seekers, well then go to the job boards.

So, in my mind, that is the first hurdle to get over – thinking about the whole process differently. For starters, are you targetting “social media” (yes, for now, lets just stick with the over-used term that it waaaaay to broad) because it can be a legitimate source for your company, or because it is the trendy thing to do? For example, I work for a mining company – the bulk of my hires are, well, miners. While I don’t want to stereotype, I have to say that there are not too many miners on Twitter. It’s just a fact. However, are there some likely on Facebook or LinkedIn? Yes. Should I invest my time there and make those primary, or even secondary, sources of candidates – in my case… not likely.

OK, so let’s say your demographic is on social media. How are you getting to them?

Another pet peeve of mine – recruiters who join groups or discussion forums and troll them posting inappropriate comments, off topic discussions, or even blasting out job postings! I don’t believe there are many more things that alienate group moderators or members than this type of behaviour.

What is the right solution? Well, there are far greater experts out there than me who can point you in the right direction. However, here are a few starters:

1. Know your target hire – Not only the skill sets, but the motivations, the likely demographic, desired personality, etc. Planning your ideal hire before you start out will help you pinpoint the places you are likely to find the right person.

2. Know your culture – Ensure your position/department/location/company are suitable to the demographic you are hiring. In my opinion – this is one of the biggest hurdles companies face today. Look at your internet use policies for example. Does your company block Facebook from everyone except the recruiters who have a special exception to use it for recruitment. OK, now think about this… Your recruiter is going to use Facebook, to find a new employee who you value because of their affiliations and use of tools like Facebook, then from day one, you are going to cut them off from the tool you sourced them from?!?!? Makes no sense to me! Think beyond just recruitment – think about your retention as well!!!

3. Leverage your brand – Find out what your marketing department is doing with social media. I could spend 5 more pages talking about recruitment brands. However, in a nutshell (and in my opinion) you cannot CREATE an employment brand. There is no such thing as a recruitment brand. To me, your recruitment/employment brands are an extension or subset of your company/product brand and your culture. You are what your employees and customers say on the street – and, is that not what social media is all about in the first place? Come on… you have too much work to do already, so why re-invent the wheel. Walk down the hall and talk to those brand managers in marketing or advertising – find out what media tools they are using, where they get their focus groups from, what discussion boards or blogs they are monitoring for product awareness. Then, go there and look for your brand ambassadors – who, by the way, might make great employees in their respective fields!

Well I could go on and on, I hope I am getting the point across. It’s easy to jump into social media recruitment with the setup of an account. However, doing it effectively takes careful planning and a targeted approach. Finding the right information on candidates for which to base a hiring decision is not going to come from a Facebook profile. The prohibitive cost and oftern low ROI of traditional job ads (newspapers, magazines, job boards) often makes us think twice about how we source on those mediums. Why not think twice about how you source in a world of social media – to take a targetted approach before you saturate your brand and tarnish your reputation in all those discussion forums.

So, it’s been a while. For a period I was posting at least once a week – but, it seems the more content I have to post, the busier I get. When I have free time, I never have anything good to write about. Well, let’s get back to it, and see how things go.

This is not going to be a controversial post. It’s simply going to be one of those hmmmmm posts.

I always enjoying being put into new situations, fixing problems and helping others. I thrive on adversity and stare problems into submission. I love to learn and delve into new areas of HR I have never experienced before – and believe me, I never used to think HR was so broad and diverse – but over a decade later, I am still learning and doing new things every single seek! Who’dve known?

The mining industry is definitely one that brings many new opportunities to HR professionals. I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined I would be running a hotel! Yes, that’s right a hotel. (Caveat – while I don’t ACTUALLY run it, I have be integral in the operation of the company motel from acquision through to opening and setting up reservations – the site HR manager essentially has taken on responsibility of ensuring the motel operation runs efficiently).

Let me back up… We operate mines in northern Ontario. While we are not a true mining camp, we operate in areas that have scarce housing and rental apartments. In a region that is already severely tapped out for talent and extremely competitive, it is even more challenging to attract people into the area when there is no housing available! So when a local 11 room motel came on the market, myself and the site HR Manager saw an opportunity!

From developing the business case and creating an expense sheet to formulating an ROI proposal, navigating the legal paperwork, hiring cleaning staff, implementing an online reservation system to decorating, installing locks and drafting rental agreements – the HR team has been at the forefront of making the employee residence project come to life. We have even gone as far as to ensure tax compliance and setup payroll deductions as an option for payment of rent.

What is my point? Sometimes you have to get creative. Sometimes you need to step out of your comfort zone. And, sometimes you have to do things that you never fathomed would fall into an HR function.

The other part of this opportunity is that we were able to take advantage of a home attached to the property and convert it into a corporate house for out of town corporate employees temporarily visiting the area. The house just “opened for business” and it has been a hit. It is more comfortable than a hotel room – we can prepare healthier meals in the kitchen than we get eating out – it is closer to the mine than any other motel – we can spend additional time with other members of the team. The other benefit – we save a bundle on travel expenses – a direct financial savings for the company!

So HR, rise to the occasion, get out there and identify ways that you can add value to the bussines, have an impact, and be a financial asset not an overhead liability! Odds are, like me, you’ll learn a lot in the process.

I had the pleasure of attending and speaking at the Federated Press 3rd Annual Workforce Planning conference this past week in Toronto. The course leader was Pierre Lebel of Epiphane and other speakers of note included Peter Louch of Vemo Inc and some last minute additions like Al Doran of Phenix Management International Inc and Robert Carlyle of Aon Consulting.

The topic I presented on was Leveraging Trend Analyses in Workforce Forecasting – basically, leveraging your history to intelligently predict the future workforce needs at your company. In a nutshell, I focus on the importance of conducting workforce planning by reflecting on its potential inverse impact… “the biggest risk is doing nothing”.

Suffice to say, the conference was great, and the attendees walked away with a lot of hands on practical knowledge from leading experts in the field of workforce planning, measurement and evaluation.

Some key take aways for me included the idea that workforce planning is neither a science nor an art, but rather an exercise where science in fact becomes art – and that is where instinct and calculated risk take over. The challenge as an HR practitioner then lies in the ability to sell the artful outcomes to stakeholders and leadership as the required future workforce strategy to become or remain competitive. Or, as some might say, if you are “at the table” as a Human Resources leader – the challenge lies in bring value to the organization, actually speaking up “at the table” and being a true partner to the strategic planning process from a workforce perspective.

I guess one last tidbit of insight I can share from an analysis perspective, or when looking at metrics in general is to “begin with the end in mind” (Covey). You obviously will not have all the answers when you set down a path, but you need to start out with both a hypothesis to validate and an idea of what you are trying to measure – what will you do with the results? If the results are X versus Y, will that drive a different business strategy… or, will your strategy remain unchanged whether metrics or analyses reveal that your workforce is doing X or Y… or, even Z. Be prepared to take action on your results, or you might just want to re-evaluate your inputs and focus on outcomes you will in fact be able to control.

Well, it’s done.  The 2010 HRPA annual conference & tradeshow. This is my fist full conference attendance in probably 8 years, and while I dropped in and out past years, I cannot say as any of the quality of sessions I saw in those years could cumulatively top what I saw this year.

First and foremost, Doug Keeley of Mark of a Leader, as the MC, did an awesome job being the glue for the event. Not only did he MC, but he brought interesting stories, motivated everyone, and got a few laughs along the way too. Doug is a very talented guy. Other keynotes included Jeff Tobe, Ali Velshi, Nick Bontis and a few others – all were very impressive.

From a session standpoint, I found myself mostly in compensation and legal sessions – the practical side of me took over. And, while I heard great things about other session on perfecting your powerpoint, or being creative, or understanding generation Y – I was not disappointed with any of the session presenters.

Finally, the trade show floor – while I was not in search of many services at this point this year – was very inclusive and brough some quality services to the show. The sponsors did a great job in presenting the keynotes and providing access to them for autographs or follow up after their presentations.

All in all a great show, and I hope the HRPA can keep it up for 2011 now that they have set the bar!

Session notes are online on the HRPA conference site until middle of February, so if you have not got yours yet, make sure you do.

For years now I have followed various trends affecting the “supply” of labour to the working world. From trends in style/preferences/expectations, to concepts like helicopter parenting, to labour/skills shortages and demographic trending. Well, I guess in this day and age, with everything else the government seems to be sticking it’s nose deeper and deeper into, I would say we are beginning to see more and more “helicopter governing”.

I recently read an article about the public school system in Manitoba, and how the governemnt is “strongly discouraging” teachers from reducing grades on assignments that are handed in late. The argument is that the quality of a late assignment still holds the same quality, and the student is being penalized on that quality – thereby not allowing the assignment to be assessed fairly against its peers and national standardized benchmarks. It goes on further to say that for assignments not handed in at all, a zero is not a fair representation because a zero should represent the quality of the assignment and given that it was not even assessed, a zero is not a fair representation. (the article also touches on the concept of not failing students or holding them back a grade – but that is a topic for an entirely different day)

I don’t know about you, but here in the real world, I can tell you that if I have a project deliverable at work and I decide not to do the project at all, my boss is not going to be all that lenient. If I deliver it a month or so late, depending on the project, I can tell you that it will have significant impact on any number of other parts of the business. AND, if I continually choose not to do my  work projects, I can likely expect not to be employed much longer. I trust that I do not need to draw the parallels here between school assignments and projects, and failing a grade and getting fired.

People. Wake up. If we are not setting the bar at a young age and building a foundation of work ethics for life when our students are in those impressionable years – then we are not setting them up for success later in life. Yes, there are arguments against failing students like stalling their social development if they are held back to repeat a grade with a younger peer group, but then, why do we still offer split classes if this is so wrong. Here’s the article from the Leader-Post if you are interested in reading more:

WINNIPEG — Manitoba’s NDP government strongly discourages teachers from deducting marks from students who are late in submitting assignments.

A letter from former education minister Peter Bjornson sent on June 22, 2009 to Tory MLA Blaine Pedersen says students shouldn’t be deducted marks for missing deadlines. The Tories released the letter Thursday.

Bjornson said that if a teacher deducts 10 or 20 per cent because a student turns work in late, then that mark is not “an accurate indicator of what the student has learned or achieved.”

He said that while it is important to learn personal responsibility and good work habits, the lateness of assignments should be reported separately.

Bjornson told Pedersen that provincial marking guidelines and a desire for uniform approaches to marking dictate that “. . . marks should reflect the student’s achievement and should not be distorted as a result of work habits, attitudes or behaviours.

“If a required assignment is missing, a zero is not an accurate indicator of what the student has learned or achieved; the teacher simply has no evidence on which to make any judgment about that learning outcome,” wrote Bjornson.

The letter will further fuel public debate over the so-called no-fail policy in Manitoba education — it does not exist in writing as provincial policy, but many teachers and parents believe that it is practised widely across Manitoba.

Several teachers who have contacted the Winnipeg Free Press have said, under condition their names not be used, that their division requires them to find ways to pass kids, including by not deducting marks for late or missing assignments.

One teacher said there is pressure to accept assignments even after the semester has ended, and apply the mark to the previous semester’s grade.

Tory Leader Hugh McFadyen has demanded that students be promoted based on academic achievement.

A Manitoba Teachers’ Society poll showed that 76 per cent of 800 adults surveyed oppose having a no-fail system. MTS will receive a teachers’ task force report on workload issues — including a committee study on no-fail — in late May at its annual convention.

Veteran Seven Oaks School Division superintendent Brian O’Leary said Thursday that he agrees with the government — don’t dock kids for late marks, he said.

A student could do very well on a provincial math or English exam worth 30 per cent of the year, but potentially get a failing grade for late work in class, O’Leary said.

O’Leary said the education system’s focus should be on keeping kids together with their social peer group, and helping those students who are having learning difficulties. “The focus should be off a (no-fail) policy, which doesn’t even exist,” he said.

Holding kids back “almost invariably leads to dropping out,” he said, urging schools to do “everything we can to keep kids together.”

So, on December 9th this year Bill 168, An Act to amend the Occupational Health and Safety Act with respect to violence and harassment in the workplace and other matters, passed Royal Assent. While there are numerous places you can get your hands directly on the most recent copy of the Bill with its many stages of changes, and while there are many places you can get your hands on a summary of the Bill – I thought I would just cover off on some highlights and share some thoughts and opinions.

The Bill, essentially, looks to attempt to make workplaces safer through a number of measures aimed at reducing violence in the workplace. It basically is to take the foundations of already existing harassment & discrimination legislation and workplace policies to a new level by incorporating new legislation and thereby having employers create new policies from an Occupational Health and Safety perspective.

This then introduces remedies to workers such as the right to refuse work where he/she feels the work is unsafe as a result of working in proximity of an individual who may be prone to violence or have displayed a violent past. Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?

Is there room here for abuse of the right to refuse work? Probably. But, that’s just the start. The legislation lays out precautions employers must take, including the requirement to create workplace violence policies, procedures for dealing with behaviour issues as as well as investigations. It requires the posting of said policies in conspicuous places and a much higher level of diligence in monitoring the workplace for behaviour issues.

Oh, and let’s not forget the employer’s obligation to disclose information about the violent past of a worker to other workers who may have to work with or near the “violent worker”. How much should be disclosed? Good question. While the act does have specific language on this – it basically says that enough information, including personal information, should be disclosed to make the other workers aware of the risk, but not to disclose too much personal information. With 6 months to go until the Act becomes law in June of 2010, I can already hear the personal defamation lawyers salivating and licking their chops. Maybe a good time to start inserting clauses in offer letters to gain consent for disclosure of certain personal information to other employees as a condition of employment. (seriously)

While I am not against Bill 168 and its changes, I do find it very progressive and that it introduces a lot of legal grey areas that must be addressed very quickly and very thoroughly.

I am beginning to think that 2009 has been the “Year of Legislation” for HR professionals. Between Bill 139 with amendments to the ESA, Bill 168 as described above, and pending changes to the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act – I am starting to feel more and more like a lawyer of sorts.

OK – One last honourable mention here as far as end of year legal updates goes. About 3 weeks ago, the RCMP removed the right for police departments to access the national criminal database on behalf of 3rd party vendors acting for employers to obtain criminal background checks (apparently in line with standing directives that they had been lenient on in the past, from what I understand). After much backlash, the RCMP apparently did not do a full 180 degree turn on the matter, but maybe a 30 degree  redirect. They decided to allow the checks to be done, but only for police departments to disclose a “clear” or “not clear” on the reports released to the 3rd party vendors, and hence, employers.

So, a couple of issues here. First and foremost – how are employers expected to meet obligations under Bill 168 in relation to investigation and disclosure of risks of violence by employees when access to Criminal Records has been fundamentally blocked. In trying to prevent discriminatory practices, I believe that these actions have made matters worse. While one employer may have hired someone with a theft charge but not a bad driving record, another employer may not care about the theft charge so long as the driving record is clear for a position which requires use of a company vehicle. While I am oversimplifying for demonstrative purposes here – I’m sure you get the point. Now the employers will only get “unclear” and both may decide not to hire, as they do not know the full extent of the history.

An alternate solution may be to have candidates provide their own check. Ummmm, maybe not. Employers were able to obtain them in typically 3 – 5 days. The average individual has to wait about 3 – 6 weeks, pay about $30 – and then, there is not guarantee to an employer that having passed through the hands of the applicant, that the document has not been altered in any way.

These changes are not only affecting employers, but will have a negative impact on not-for-profit and volunteer organizations and their ability to effectively sreen individuals who will be working with “at risk” groups.

We’re just going to have to wait this one out. However, if you have been affected by this, I am curious to hear from you and how you have mitigated your hiring risks through other solutions. Please either comment or write me directly, as this matter is not getting anywhere near the amount of attention it should be.

While I currently am not a staffing agency, am not employed as a contractor to a staffing agency, and do not use temporary help (not at present anyways), I am compelled to post this quick update just in case you have not been paying attention.

Back on May 6 of 2009, Bill 139 passed royal assent in the legislative Assembly of Ontario. You may recall my December 2008 post speaking about the composition of Bill 139 to Amend the Ontario Employment Standards Act as it pertains to the treatment of temporary workers employed by agencies, among other things. Well, as planned, it is now 6 months later and the Bill is officially in force. Are you ready?

The impacts, or rather additional questions about the interpretation of the legislation is outlined quite well in an ERE article on the subject from a couple of months ago.

Some of the biggest “issues” with the legislation deal with how agency workers on assignments are notified of terminating assignments and their rights upon the termination of those assignments. If nothing else, it stands to create much more administration for agencies managing the temporary employees, and likely the addition of costs passed along to clients. Oh, and I bet there is going to be much future discussion on what constitutes an employee versus a temporary employee vs a contractor (age old battle here of what passes the muster of the 4 indicators as set out by the government to differentiate an independent contractor from a contract employee).

Here is a copy of Bill 139 – An Act to Amend the Employment Standards Act, 2000

Here is a copy of Regulation 398/09 – Terms and Conditions of Employment In Defined Industries : Temporary Help Agency Industry

It is interesting to note, and probably worth doing reading on Bill 212 (in second reading and not yet law) regarding mass terminations, and will affect the application (in a positive way) of the impacts of Bill 139 with the Regulation 398/09 amendments. The employment aspects of Bill 212 can be found in Schedule 20.

Happy reading and planning!

So, this is an interesting court decision with an article from the National Post. What floors me is not so much the case itself or the decision – but the first three comments that were posted by readers with I’m sure many to follow by the time you read this in my blog. While I understand the plight of the employer, I also get the human aspect of what the employee is facing and am absoluetly on board with the human rights aspects of this case. Read the article:

Ontario salon fined $35,000 for firing pregnant employee

Posted: October 30, 2009, 11:42 AM by Gillian Grace

A Mississauga salon that canned a pregnant employee 15 minutes into her first shift has been ordered by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario to cough up $35,000 and start an “accommodation of pregnant employees program” (step No. 1: don’t fire them).

Jessica Maciel was four months pregnant when she interviewed for a position at Nino D’Arena salon. Whether or not a prospective new hire is about to start shopping in the maternity section is, according to the Ontario Human Rights Code, none of her boss’s business. So Maciel kept mum about her status, fearing — apparently rightfully so — that she wouldn’t get the job.

As Canwest News Service reports, “Jessica Maciel, 20, will receive $15,000 as compensation for injury to her dignity and feelings and $20,000 in lost wages and maternity benefits from the owner of two related hair salons, the tribunal ruled this week, finding Maciel’s pregnancy was ‘likely the only factor’ in her firing.”

Maciel’s lawyer Kate Sellar had this to say, “This story is typical and it shouldn’t be,” … “It’s illegal to fire workers because they are pregnant. Our centre receives 40 calls a week from women who are in a similar situation.” Most of the calls come from women who are fired when their employer learns they are pregnant. Others are from women terminated while on maternity leave or returning back to work.”

Here’s the first 3 comments:

by Fred_001

Oct 30 2009
1:10 PM

Listen, sweetheart, this is a business – actually, my private business, my personal private property, that I built with my own two hands – who I invite into it to work is just much my private affair as who you invite into your personal home.

It’s NOT a community services program for mothers-to-be to rack up the hours they need to go on maternity UI in a few months.  It costs me money, time, and disruption to advertise, interview, hire, train and evaluate new staff.  You’re gonna use me for a few months to get your UI hours, spend the last couple of those bellyaching about your sore back and you’re late again because of morning sickness and on and on…then throw my investment in you out the window, put me through all that again to hire a temporary replacement for you, expecting me to juggle business and temps in order to keep this job open for you – then you’ll wait until the last minute of your preggers leave to inform me that you’re never coming back, wasting my investment in you and leaving me in the lurch after all that……

Why don’t you just live with the life choice you made, and leave me to hire a full-time permanent employee that won’t ruin me.  Oh, I know why, ’cause we live in a communist state…

by crocodile dundee

Oct 30 2009
2:06 PM

Just another reason to disband this outrageous HRC and fire the nitwits that are employed by it.

So, a woman does not have to inform the employer she is pregnant when interviewing yet on the first day of employment can tell the same employer she is pregnant and wants her maternity benefits. Nice gig. Of course, the beanbrains at the HRC, never having to actually run a business, think small businesses are just flush with cash and can afford to spend money hiring two people.

And where do they get off telling the business to start up a program for accomodation of pregnant employees? Tell them to shove it!!

Waiting to hear from all the HRC supporters who say that their decisions are not costly.

by rossbcan

Oct 30 2009
2:54 PM

Whether or not the law states “you don’t have to disclose info to potential employers such as being preggers”, a crime is being committed. It is called fraud of non disclosure and places the employer in a moral hazard (trap) position, where the negative consequences of hiring choice cannot be determined.

An employment contract was entered into without full material disclosure so both parties (employer / employee) can determine whether it is in their MUTUAL interests to form an agreement (contract) for mutual self-interest. Not to mention destruction of trust, required for working together.

This “law” should be thrown out, as illegal.

But, it won’t and unemployed females will realize that repeating this farce, spilling the preggers beans at the opportune time and getting fired (and getting a lawyer to extort a settlement on this precedent) or, getting all the entitlement perks at employers expense is a good gig.

Employers will wise up and, for unprovable reasons, fail to hire females who may be at risk of becoming pregnant, on the employers dime. Up goes female unemployment (and whining).

This of course, will be cast as an outrageous social injustice and, we will have female “affirmative action”.

In fact, is this not the meaning of Iggy’s “female empowerment” agenda?

Luckily, all of this is crumbling, We will soon have no economic resources to subsidize unproductive entitlements, at others expense.

If you make a choice (such as having children), the consequences and costs are FULLY yours. Choose carefully.

There you have it. I could comment on this at so many different levels, but for me it really comes down to ethics and fairness. There are so many other ways the salon could have dealt with the “issue” and they chose what is probably the least ethical and compassioate one. And, obviously did not consult an attorney, or even consult the internet for Employment Standards information prior to taking action. Let this be a lesson to you all to have some compassion for your fellow humans, or at the very least, be legislatively compliant.

OK, enough said. Unleash your wrath on me.

Well, it’s been a while, but I thought I should at least write something before an entire whole month lapses. Between deliverables at the day job, providing volunteer HR support for a non-for-profit and a new baby, time has not exactly been of the essence when it comes to blogging. So, this one is going to be short and sweet – I plan to be back full force in the near future with lots of fun HR blogging. Or, at least a few quick check ins here and there for a while.

I came across this article, and while it has absolutely nothing to do with HR (or Canada for that matter), it was nevertheless extremely interesting and worth a repost. I’ll comment on why I think it is relevant after the article from the BBC NEWS :

The High Court has given permission for an injunction to be served via social-networking site Twitter.

The order is to be served against an unknown Twitter user who anonymously posts to the site using the same name as a right-wing political blogger.

The order demands the anonymous Twitter user reveal their identity and stop posing as Donal Blaney, who blogs at a site called Blaney’s Blarney.

The order says the Twitter user is breaching the copyright of Mr Blaney.

He told BBC News that the content being posted to Twitter in his name was “mildly objectionable”.

Mr Blaney turned to Twitter to serve the injunction rather than go through the potentially lengthy process of contacting Twitter headquarters in California and asking it to deal with the matter.

UK law states that an injunction does not have to be served in person and can be delivered by several different means including fax or e-mail.

Danvers Baillieu, a solicitor specialising in technology, said it was possible for anyone to approach the court about any method of serving an injunction if the traditional methods are unavailable.

“The rules already allow for electronic service of some documents, so that they can be sent by e-mail, and it should also be possible to use social networks,” he said.

Mr Blaney decided to use Twitter after a recent case in Australia where Facebook was used to serve a court order.

The blogger, who is also a lawyer and owns the firm serving the order, said that he thought that it was the first time Twitter had been used to deliver a court order.

The injunction – known as the Blaney’s Blarney Order – is due to be served at 1930 BST and will include a link to the text of the full court order.

OK – so… Using Twitter to serve a court injunction… Genius! I am curoius how many companies have made it as far as delivering a job offer via Twitter or Facebook? (either just the basics, or including a link to a secure full offer) I know…. Not very likely, but it got me thinking. It seems far fetched right now, but it may be the way to go in the future – especially if that’s where your employees are coming from!

So I had one of those moments this morning where I felt like maybe I was living under a rock or something for the past couple of months. Maybe it has something to do with summer, or with the new job – but I do try to keep up on news as it happens, and I do stay on top of HR trends and highlights. Perhaps it’s just an artifact of being located in Canada.

Apparently, on June 28th of this year, Jack Welch (you know, the former GE CEO guy – the one responsible for catapulting GE growth and profits during his tenure) spoke at an SHRM conference in the United States. Following that address, he basically set off a firestorm of controversy over comments as described below:

Mr. Welch has some blunt words for women climbing the corporate ladder: you may have to choose between taking time off to raise children and reaching the corner office.

“There’s no such thing as work-life balance,” Mr. Welch told the Society for Human Resource Management’s annual conference in New Orleans on June 28. “There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.”

Mr. Welch, a thrice-married father of four, said those who take time off for family could be passed over for promotions if “you’re not there in the clutch.”

“We’d love to have more women moving up faster,” Mr. Welch said. “But they’ve got to make the tough choices and know the consequences of each one.”

Taking time off for family “can offer a nice life,” Mr. Welch said, “but the chances of going to the top on that path” are smaller. “That doesn’t mean you can’t have a nice career,” he added.

Not sure why this did not trickle up to my neck of the woods, but here I am, now two months later, hearing about it on the radio and seeing it in the media.

The reason I find those to be somewhat profound and newsworthy, is not so much because of the comments themselves, but perhaps more because he is actually addressing the issue – he’s not afraid to speak about it and get people talking. While we offer 12 months of job protection (and an abysmal amount of EI compensation overt that period) to women having children in Canada, rarely does anyone ever talk about the impacts that might be made on a woman’s career.

Let’s not stop there however. Let’s not necessarily make this about women. I believe the fundamental difference we Canadians face over that of our southern parents, is the fact that probably more men take a portion of the 12 months of leave as paternity leave – and, likely would face the same “consequences” noted above by Mr. Welch.

So, as I see it, the real issue at play is one of family vs work. And, as I have preferred to start looking at it through a different lens provided by D-CODE, the concept of Work-Life Blend (as you’ll have read about in my prior blog entries).

The take away from this? An opportunity to set yourself ahead as an employer and focus on programs or policies that allow employees, whether male or female, to continue developing, stay in touch and remain at the forefront of his/her occupation while on maternity/paternity leave, or while managing a demanding job portfolio. Or, if not a formalized program, at least the cultural commitment and support to empower workers to be able to make decisions that benefit both themselves and the company. Because, at the end of the day, a worker who is not happy at home, is not likely to be happy in the workplace either.

Well, it’s close to the end of summer and I have nothing profound to write this week. However, I did feel the need to do an entry to the blog, as it’s been 2 weeks since my last entry. (When I think that statement out loud – it sounds like I’m doing confession. But, I’m not Catholic, so, I’m not…)

In any case, summer is often quiet from a business perspective. People take vacations and sales or approval cycles, or whatever, just seem to take longer. Even activities organized by professional associations and training/development opportunities seem to dwindle. For those of us left around the office, it’s a great time to get projects done.

Interestingly, I have been working recently on some compensation planning, and I thought I would just make some comments and observations on general economic activity. If I am not mistaken, recent numbers for the most recently tracked period indicate that the rate of inflation is down to -0.9% from the prior month of -0.3%. There are still depressing reports talking about job losses. However, in reality, down here on earth where we live day to day in the trenches, it seems to be a different story…

Every day I hear about people finding new work or changing jobs. Stores, malls and movie theatres are still full of people. Union employees (Toronto Inside/Outside Workers, Driver Test Examiners, etc) are willing to go to the picket lines without pay to fight for increases they feel are justified in this so called “down economy” or shall I say, recession. (Although, by definition, I believe we are at the tail end, or officially out of the recession). And, the salary surveys and data I have recently been reviewing – don’t paint such a bland picture either. While it’s not all sunshine and roses, survey data does not reflect the devastation that mainstream media would lead us to believe.

So, here I am, end of August. Big projects on the go (for more on what projects, you’ll just have to wait). Driving organizational change and ramping up as business begins to return to “normal” for the September back to school / back to work rush. And, all is good!

While interviewing and hiring is very serious business, there are many funny situations which arise. It is important for many reasons to be well prepared – to ensure that you are legally compliant, to asses the best candidate match for the job, to reduce hiring costs, etc. In preparing, most interviewers will review the job specs, read the candidate’s resume, prepare interview questions, arrange for a room and time, have resources available to take notes, etc. Some newer interviewers may also practice their skills or techniques with colleagues or HR.

There are possibly two scenarios where one may not be prepared.

The first can be trained and will grow with experience. This is an area I have commonly been asked by hiring managers and interviews about how to hone. It is the ability to probe and ask the “right”questions to make an assessment of a candidate. To have the ability to know how well the questions are being answered, how truthfully, and how completely. While there are many techniques out tricks out there to practice with, it is usually a matter of finding the right questions, preparing some possible follow up questions or probes ahead of time in anticipation, and continuing down a questioning path until you are satisfied with the response. think about the “5 Why” approach to soliciting information or root/cause analysis and apply it loosely to interviewing.

While I wanted to bring up the above as food for thought, I really wanted to focus today on an area that gets little attention and can be difficult to prepare for. And that would be dealing with situations arising that are inappropriate, unethical or just plain silly. We’ve all had interviewers where we know within the first couple of minutes that things would not work out, but what do you do when you experience blatent racism? Harassment? Vulgar language? Sexual inuendos? And the list goes on.

While I cannot tell you how to handle each and every scenario that may arise, if you are in a position where you will be interviewing, you should think through some possible scenarios and pre-determine how you would respond? In which scenarios would you continue the interview? Which ones would you end it? And, which ones would you find yourself calling security? If other candidates happened to be present in an interview or in a waiting room to experience inappropriate behaviour, how would you handle your response to those other candidates from a PR perspective?

While it is rare for issues to come up, it is the few that you want to be prepared for. In some cases, how might you keep yourself from laughing out loud at a candidate during an interview? Go HERE for for some light hearted humour in a CNN article about “43 weird things said during job interviews”. There are some pretty brazen candidate statements quoted and referenced.

After I wrote my last entry with my own little whimsical (but only half-heartedly.. the other half was dead serious) disclaimer, I also had a commentor with a discclaimer. My e-mail signature has a disclaimer. My fax covers have disclaimers, and every offer letter, NDA, policy booklet and so on have disclaimers.

My point?

While I initially got into HR for other reasons, I find myself getting entrenched more and more in legal matters. Some days I feel more like a lawyer than an HR professional. I need to know the Labour Relations Act, the Occupational Health & Safety Act, the Employment Standards Act (often in several difference provinces), the Canada Labout Code, the Quebec Civil code, pension legislation & requirements, and the list goes on.

What other professions (aside from law) require such a vast knowledge base of such a large and diverse set of legal standards? Well, not many anyways.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy every moment of it. Heck, I even thought for a short period of time about becoming a lawyer – but for various reasons, did not pursue that field as an area of expertise. Now, here I set, part strategist, part business professional, amateur accountant and semi-practising legal wrangler.

Kids, if you want to excel in your HR career and run with the big dogs, start reading up on your case law and snuggling up with those Acts & Statutes at night.

As many of you who follow my blog will know, I watch the site stats and will often write about topics that appear in the search terms – especially where particular searches land people on blog entries which may not entirely cover the topic searched. While I don’t believe that the processing of declining or refusing an offer of employment is all that exciting, I am surprised at the number of searches that have landed on my site since I wrote an entry comparing the Godfather movies to aspects of networking. Specifically, the searches picked up on some of the terms related to “making an offer you cannot refuse”.

While I believe the searches are focusing on people looking to advise on formally turning a company down, I believe the opposite may be true as well – small companies looking to ensure that all the T’s are crossed when an offer is refused, or perceived to have been refused.

Well, in my time I cannot say I have seen it all, but I have seen a lot. I have always been amazed when candidates go through a recruiting process to be presented with an offer, only to not show up on the first day of work. Quite frankly, the simple act of a formal letter of decline (or even a courtesy phone call) would go a long way in not buring any bridges for the future. I would be likely to re-consider for hire someone who declined an offer in advance, or accepted and later declined formally, rather that what is essentially job abandonment.

What to do? From an employee or candidate perspective, when you receive that offer to consider but decide to accept another or even a counter offer from your current employer, a simple phone call to the recruiter to explain the situation would be nice. However, to go one step further, since the potential employer took the time to make you a legal formal letter of offer, it would be ideal for you to reciprocate with a formal letter declining the offer. Simply create a letterhead, use the current date, reference the date of the offer and a few brief pertinent offer points (position, company name, etc) and indicate in the letter that at that you you respectfully decline the offer as presented, that it is your final decision, that you harbour no prejudice towards the company, and that you would like the opportunity to be considered in the future should circumstances change.

You can perhaps expect the company, whether you contacted them verbally or by written letter, to want to know why you are declining, and perhaps even sweeten the original offer (especially if they deemed you a top or had to find candidate) – but assuming that your final decision is made, and you communicate that effectively and respectfully, you likely will not have burned that bridge for future consideration with that company.

From an employer perspective, there are a number of things you can do to make sure first off, that your offers are accepted, and secondly, that you don’t create future legal problems for yourself. (Note, these are simply my ramblings and are not to be construed as legal advice – go find yourself a lawyer for legal advice)

Working towards ultimate acceptance – as a recruiter or prospective employer you should be probing your candidates all the way through a recruitment process to understand their “hot buttons”. What is important? Salary, flexible hours, vacation time, awesome manager, corporate culture, office location, flexible benefits, conferences/seminars, training & development, an office vs a cube, interesting projects, etc? Pay attention to subtle cues dropped regarding interests or aspects of prior employment that the candidate is very passionate about. Try to accommodate as many wants as possible in writing in that first offer you make – if it is cultural or training type items that are important, make sure you speak to the candidate while presenting the offer and the “sales pitch”. And yes, in many cases, attracting potential employees to your company often parallels that of product/service sales. You need to be aware that the candidate is assessing you, your company and the behaviours of you and your interviewers all through the recruitment process. Treat your candidates how you would like to be treated if you were on their side. Now, I could go on for hours talking about tips for improving recruitment processes and the candidate experience, but we’ll save that for another day. The take away here… Know what your prospective employee is looking for so that you can structure an offer of employment that will not be refused.

One quick final note on the legal stuff – especially for all you smaller employers out there. Create an offer letter template and have a lawyer review it. You need to make sure that you adequately cover off on several key points in an offer, and in a way that will not turn off your prospective employees. Make sure that you put an expiry date in the offer. (What if the employee never accepted within a week or two and you moved on to another candidate, only to have the first person come back after 3 weeks and accept?) While you might be able to make the case for a reasonable amount of time passing – you likely don’t want to get into a situation where you formally have to revoke one offer of employment or the other.

That’s all I have to say for now. Just scratched the surface – I know. Hopefully all offers are mutually accepted, but I know that is not reality. So, employers and candidates… Respect each other and treat every relationship as though you may be doing business together again in the future. Who knows – you may not have a future employment relationship, but rather a future commercial product/sales/service based partnership.

Predictive Attrition – Sounds like something out of the Tom Cruise Movie Minority Report. In fact, it is a term, as used in a recent Canadian Business article that better describes a new methodology at Google for measuring the likelihood of retaining an employee. The article goes on to say that Google is doing what it does best, using data to drive management decisions (one of its 10 Golden Rules), while critics say that just doing something because it can be done does not always make business sense.

So the quandary is, can data points and “unintrusive intelligence” replace the act of simply asking an employee “are you happy?” or conducting the traditional more in-depth employee opinion survey.

While I am someone who loves data and would welcome the opportunity to test drive Googles “predictive attrition” algorithm, which is likely to pull data from the HRMS systems, e-mail, surfing habits, performance data, PBX records, etc – I question what I might possibly be able to do with the data? In many cases, I’m sure approaching an employee at risk with a retention conversation may raise some privacy concerns, perhaps using the data at an aggregate level to design retention programs may be a viable option.

Or, perhaps as employees begin to know that a company is using “predictive attrition” methods, could it become a self fulfilling prophecy – that is to say, that employees may not want to work in an environment of employer snooping.

Either way, technology is here to stay, and I look forward in the future to experimenting within the boundaries of the law and what is acceptable to employees.