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.

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!

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.

So, I happened on over the the HRPA site today to get my exam results. (Yay… I passed the NPPA and have my CHRP designation now) And, what did I see splashed right at the top of the main page?

“HRPA is pleased to announce the Senior Human Resources Professional (SHRP) designation–a new HR designation reserved for senior HR executives that have made significant impact on their organizations and the profession.”

Well, if you recall back in June, I had an entry about the recent changes to the CHRP designation process and some comments that followed. In one of my comment responses I spoke about the following:

“If you recall back in the day, I believe that the HRPAO officially used the CHRM and the CHRP to signify varying stages of completion on the certification process. Perhaps the solution would be to have more than one recognized level of certification where the CHRP is the top tier indicating proficiencies in knowledge AND experience, while there is one or two levels below (perhaps a CHRM) that might indicate technical competence, but without the experiential component.”

What a great idea. While I was a little off in the titling of each of the levels, the basic concpt is there. This, however, does not change the fact that the CHRP is going back to experiential and now there is the new gold seal approved SHRP for well season and experience true HR leaders.

Guess that begs the question then… Should there be 3 levels? CHRM for theoretical knowledge (test based and maybe without the BA requirement), CHRP for experienced mid-level HR practitioners (perhaps having the CHRM plus the re-introduced experiential process) and the SHRP for the well-respected elite of HR (which, I do think is a great way to recognize, reward and respect those who have worked hard to further themselves, their companies and the profession).

While represented by different granting bodies, I have mentioned before that the financial profession has CGA, CMA and CAs. (pretty much in that ranking from lowest to highest) Why not us?

Guess I’ll dust off that crystal ball again and see what the future holds? Or, maybe I should go out now into the world with my fancy new CHRP designation and become involved with the people who make the decisions. Do I get re-cert points for doing that?

I recently had the privilege of beginning to watch the first Godfather movie on a flight I was on. Unfortunately, the flight was much shorter than the total length of the movie, and I am going to have to pick it up again where I left off. And yes, in case you are wondering before you read on – this is the first time I have ever watch any of the Godfather movies.

Why do I bring this up in an HR blog?

The movie starts out with an individual coming to the Godfather with a request. The Godfather initially turns him away because this individual is not a “friend”. The individual has not kept in touch, has turned away past interactions, and is only now coming forward when he needs a favour.

Think about your networks, whether online in LinkedIn or otherwise offline? How often do you nurture those connections and keep ongoing “friendships” with your contacts? Sure, there are likely a few people who have contacted you purely out of professional interest, and you have accepted an invitation. But, think about in the past year how many people have come to you through electronic mediums and asked a favour of you – for you to make a referral, for you to help him/her find work, or for you to recommend sales leads or purchase a product. Now, prior to that contact, how many of those same people called just to say hi, invited you out for coffee or sent an email just to check in, in the year prior to that? Probably a bit of a disconnect there!

Point is… As old as the Godfather movie is, I believe the Don was on to something back then. I believe that he valued relationships. He understood that in friendships, you give and you get. The power of your network is only as strong as the relationships you nurture – and, if you expect to call on your networks for any reason in the future, you should build up your social bank account today.

Now, I have yet to finish the movie as well as the overall trilogy to see how it all ends, but I am looking forward to drawing further comparisons.

Btw – I’m free for coffee or lunch, so just give me a call!

Back again… However, it is interesting that I have probably had more people start to follow my blog in my absence that I think I had sign up while I was actively posting. Or, maybe I’ve just been watching it more. In any case, now that I have started at my new company and am “back in the game” again, I am hoping to get back on top of current issues and keep the posts coming.

Top of mind for me right now is the flip flop that that HRPA is doing regarding practical qualifications for the CHRP designation. It is top of mind for me because I just wrote the May 2009 NPPA then read shortly after that the HRPA, after two more NPPA sittings, will be reverting back to the experience related practical requirement. While I understand that as a provincial professional body the HRPA went to the NPPA for national standardization, I would assume over the short time that the examination was in place, that a lot of controversy was raised regarding the validity of the designation based entirely on written examinations.

While in theory, the NPPA exam is based on practical experience, it is possible to write and pass that component having only studied and never held a position in a human resources function. So, let the debate begin… I’ve been in some recent forums dedicating bandwidth to both sides of this topic and there are two leading conversations happening – first, the experienced professionals agreeing with the move back to a practical assessment of professional experience; and, second, generally more junior individuals now clamouring to write one of the next two NPPA sittings to get the certification before an experiential requirement comes back into effect.

From a designation perspective, and providing a professional standard that employers and non-HR professionals can have confidence in, I think I lean more towards an assessed experiential requirement versus the written NPPA exam. While I understand the desire for individuals entering the HR professional to get a designation behind his/her name, I don’t think that in the long run the profession is gaining any ground by so easily granting designations without experience. Would you want a surgeon that has only studied textbooks and has not done internships and residencies? Would you want an engineer to design our skyscrapers when he/she does not have practical experience? What about chartered accountants having experience, your real estate lawyer having written prior contracts or the person who wired your house having gone through an apprenticeship program? I believe that the reputation of certified HR professionals have a standard to live up to and an obligation to employers to have a certain experience base that comes along with the designation. That is not to say that HR professionals without a designation are not valuable, but rather that a minimum of required professional experience be shown to ensure certified professionals bring the level of confidence that one would have of a doctor, a CA or a lawyer.

So… As the HRPA reintroduces the practical requirement to the CHRP, and I spew my comments and opinions above, let’s start the discussion on practical versus written.

I had the privilege recently of being the guest speaker to a group of Students and Faculty at the Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning (yes, that’s a mouthfull!!!). I intentionally use the word privilege because while I am the one who gets to do the talking (and I do like to talk), I am also the one who gets the benefit of interacting with the students who are the up and comers in the industry. They are the ones who will help set and/or spot trends and the ones with the questions that will help form my future actions. And, there were lots of intelligent questions asked.

Basically, I was there to share some insight into my experience in the world of Human Resources. Not too far a stretch for me to be able to talk for an hour about my background and accomplishments. To be honest, having been on the candidate side fo a number of job interviews recently (and still looking, if you happen to be reading this and are hiring), speaking about my experience in HR was very much like walking through my resume in an interview. Except, trying to keep it a little more interesting for the age demographic at play, as well as focusing on future trends as much as past accomplishments. First mistake though, was probably showing up in the jacket and tie – but, that was rectified quickly.

The students were eager to hear about job search in current economic conditions, positive/negative HR experiences and my work with HR systems. We also focussed on a number of topics that typically do not get a lot of attention in academic cirriculum (data privacy, social media recruitment, the power of networking, etc).

While I had fun and believe the surface opportunity of spending time with the students and faculty was a success, I continue to look forward to additional opportunities to further connect with some of the students. Some of us began dialogue on ways for students to partner with employers in current climates of financial restraint to build HR experience and gain a positive reputation in the industry. Still working on this – but open to further dialogue if any additional employers or students want to get a hold of me to discuss further.

Tomorrow night (March 24th) I am off to a Halton based HR networking night and Wednesday looks like another visit to Sheridan. I’m really diggin’ the extra human contact these days…

Often Canadian budgets come and go with little to no impact on those of us in Human Resources. Well, with the current economic times having such a huge impact on jobs and the workforce (not to mention EI, pensions & savings, taxes, and the list goes on), this Conservative government that is fighting for it’s life has presented a budget that is supposed to be both economically appealing as well as poised to please opposition parties. Looks like they pulled it off (and yes, that opinion is subject to its own posting and debate) - and, in doing so, there are a number of items this time around that will affect HR policy and programs at a social, business and personal level.

Here’s some of the highlights (as it pertains to us HR folks):

1. Federally Regulated Pension Plans – The budget includes a change to the rules for solvency valuations. Currently, plans are permitted to smooth asset fluctuations over a five year period when determining cash contribution requirements, given that the smoothed asset value is not in excess of 110% or market value. The language in the budget would increase this limit and thereby reduce required cash contributions for many of the pension plan sponsors that are federally regulated. The government proposes to protect the security of benefits, however, by making the amount of any deferral of funding that results from the use of an asset value in excess of 100% subject to a deemed trust. In addition, the budget confirms the federal government’s prior commitment to temporarily grant solvency funding relief to federally regulated pension plans in respect of solvency deficiencies as at December 31, 2008. The relief would give pension plans under federal jurisdiction ten years to fund a solvency deficiency instead of the normal five years (among other conditions, employers must either obtain the consent of both members and retirees or secure the difference between the 5-year payments and the 10-year payments with a letter of credit).

The obvious impact here is to review your pension plans to understand if you can take advantage, if you need to take advantage, and most importantly, the long term effects and impacts as well as potential risks and opportunities of being able to take advantage of the new rules.

2. Personal Tax Reductions – This is a simple one. As an employer, you need to make sure that your payroll system or payroll provider has been updated with the appropriate patches to reflect the new source deduction rates related to the new deductions. If you are a smaller employer and do no use an in-house system or third party vendor for your payroll, it may be a little more challenging to receive and review and implement the reductions manually, however, it should still be done as soon as possible.

3. Employment Insurance (EI) – For two years, the period for which an individual may collect EI benefits will increase by five weeks (at the end). There will still remain the two week “deductible” at the beginning of eligibility (unless you qualify for an exemption), and, the extension will not apply to other EI benefits such as parental or maternity. This will typically be an increase from 45 to 50 weeks, but may vary depending on the appropriate jurisdiction of the claimant. In addition to these changes, others include an extension of EI benefits related to re-training, changes to expand the work sharing program, and an EI premium rate freeze at $1.73 per $100 of EI insurable earnings. Finally, there is a commitment to establish a task force to look at how it may be possible for self-employed workers to take advantage of the EI program in relation to parental and maternity benefits.

4. Labour Force Tactics – Another program to be aware of if you are an employer that may be downsizing, especially a more seasoned workforce, is additional funding (increase of $60MM) to the Targeted Initiative for Older Workers. An additional spend of $50MM is also being dedicated to a program that would recognize foreign credentials thereby improving the integration of immigrants into the workforce – how this one will work, I have yet to see the specifics, but to sounds very promising on the surface.

5. Expansion to the Wage Earner Protection Program (WEPP) – This is a program that is used by employers when their employer declares bankruptcy, and provides unpaid wages or vacation pay to be somewhat recouped for the six month period prior to the bankruptcy. Subject to maximums, the WEPP changes would allow for severance and termination pay owning to also be recouped.

6. Registered Retirement Income Funds (RRIF) – Changes here would see relief to those battered by a decrease in their retirement fund assets by a reduction of 25% in the amount of funds that RRIF holders are required to withdraw from a fund on an annual bases – thereby allowing money to stay in the funds longer and hopefully gain back some of the losses accumulated in 2008. For 2008, there is an opportunity for those who withdrew more than the adjusted minimum to re-contribute the difference and receive the appropriate offsetting deductions (this, of course, subject to deadlines and rules). OK, this one is a bit of a stretch from day to day HR life, but does have an impact on your retired, or retiring workforces, and how potential soon-to-retire employees may rethink, or re-rethink, their current situations.

Bottom line is that few, all or none of these may affect your company. If not yoru company, some or none may affect your employees. Personally, I know more people now who have been affected by layoffs, reductions, restructurings, etc than I ever have – so if the above is not relevant to your work life, it may be helpful to those in your personal life. Whatever it is, take heed of the the new (and mostly positive changes) and review them against your current programs and policies.

This is strictly a “housekeeping” post to pass along some comments, thoughts and suggestions. Please take a moment to review.

1. I encourage you to take a moment and register as a user on my blog. Nobody will see your registration but me. Please also feel free to respond to me and others with comments from time to time. I enjoy seeing who passes through here and would welcome some additional discussion on the site. To help monitor and prevent spam, I do moderate approval on all posts, so it may take a couple hours for your post to become live on the site.

2. Send me your ideas for topics, or things you would like to hear about, and I will make an effort to post relevant information in the blog.

3. I offered to pass along some information for another Canadian based blog that offers good insights. It is western based and called A Fresh Approach. If you get a moment please check it out. The Fresh Approach team is also bringing Marcus Buckingham (First, Break All the Rules, etc) to Calgary on June 15, 2009 and there is more info on the site as to how you can attend.

That’s it for now. Talk to you soon!

Geoff.

I’ve had a lot of searches for “year end thoughts” recently end up on my site and in my blog, so I thought I would add some additional consolidated thoughts into a single post.

First and foremost, it is my opinion that the end of the year is not a time to save a whole array of activities for. However, if you must, or if it is just inevitable that cyclical events tie to a calendar or financial year – then the best scenario is to plan and prepare well in advance for that activities which will take place.

What sort of (HR) activities are we talking about? Annual (final) performance reviews, development planning, salary increases, bonus payouts, stock option allocations, profit sharing, benefits re-enrolments, commission payouts and/or adjustments, salary benchmarking & market pricing, budgeting & forecasting, program reviews, strategy building, succession planning, headcount/workforce planning, recruitment plans, vacation and accruals review, and of course, filing. I’m sure there are more items specific to your business that could be applicable.

With limited hours and resources, the best plan of attack is to make your list based on the types of above activities and set up a calendar of activities that you can prioritize against. You can set your priorities based on two factors – importance and level of effort. For example, your performance reviews may have critical timing to meet the needs of the business and requires moderate effort (assuming you are not adopting a new program or overhauling an old one) – so it may be something that is high up the list. Creating a recruitment plan for the year, which could be lower priority but require a fair bit of effort to meet with clients and work through their needs – may be prioritized to happen later in your calendar – once your urgencies and quick hits are out of the way.

To your benefit, calendar year ends tend to have the luxury of holiday schedules which may or may not help you find time to accomplish deliverables. I have found that leading up to and following the holidays, my internal clients have tended to focus on their own business deliverables that they mush accomplish before the year is out. This is both good and bad for me. The bad is that for any initiatives that require their input (workforce planning, performance management, etc), time can be scarce and in demand – thus making it difficult getting participation. The good is that for all other more internal HR projects, or phases of projects between those requiring client input (salary benchmarking, strategy building, budgeting & forecasting, etc) there is usually uninterrupted time to hunker down and get those projects done quickly. You can also take the time to finalize your year end reporting and documentation. Balancing the two, and effectively working your schedule and your own holiday time around that of your clients is both the art and the science.

Finally, new years are often new starts. An opportunity to set your new benchmarks, reset your metrics/scorecards, and set new strategy for new programs and policies to benefits your employees, clients and stakeholders. Budgets reset and you can now focus on initiatives you have been waiting to get going on since June of the prior year. You now have the energy, time and resources to focus on the new. Take hold and leverage all that can be had going into a new year. Set your group, team and individual goals (aligned to business needs/strategy) as early as possible before or in the new year. You wouldn’t set off on a road trip without a road map, so don’t set into a new year without clearly defined objectives, priorities and a detailed plan for success. Document the plan, assess it against resources and reality, publish it and share it with your stakeholders (clients, executive team) – as this will give your HR team transparency, respect, trust and well as the incentive to deliver on your promises. Update it as necessary – things change, it’s inevitable and important to be realistic.

Good luck in the new year with all that you will accomplish!

When I started at my present company, I walked around one Friday night just after business hours shortly after my first week to the sounds of gunfire and echoed screams. While this would be startling in some of the places I have worked in the past, it is apparently quite normal in the software development industry.

Oh, let me qualify the above statement as well by clarifying that the screams were mere virtualizations of employees as they butchered one another over the network on a connected edition of Unreal Tournament (there was no actual carnage taking place). Yes, that’s right – it was ritual around here, for many years prior to my arrival, to order in some pizza on a Friday night after work and let loose with some online gaming. And while I had some initial reservations about the nature of the violence in the games, it was always quite amazing to see just how passionate people were about these Friday nights and how the death and destruction in the game took a back seat to the team building and socialization that emerged. Try as they might to get UT loaded on my machine and have me stay for a game, I never could bring myself to getting pulverized by 10-15 experienced gamers – you see, the last game console I owned (and finally got rid of about 2 years ago) was a Nintendo 64.

Now, even more recently, my young son of just over 3 years has shown an interest in educational games for the PC. He has access to computers at school and can navigate is way around a laptop at home. In fact, he is ambidextrous with a mouse and can out-manoeuvre and out-click me with either hand! This got me thinking more and more about looking into full gaming consoles – Xbox, Playstation and Wii.

The more I looked at consoles, the more I focused on the Wii. While it lacks top end graphics, has no hard drive and the dvd-player only loads games of of dvd’s (will not even play movies!), it seems to be the systems that is most interactive and physically involved. In fact, I read somewhere that the Wii is the system you bring out when you have your friends over and you’re all a little “tippy” (shall we say). Meaning… That it is the fun system, the one not to take seriously, the one that brings people together.

This got me thinking. Why not a Wii for the office? There are sports games that might be able to invigorate some healthy competition, with the Wii Fit you could start some yoga classes on the lunch hour, and there’s other activities like dancing or snowboarding that are activity based and get people moving. Did I mention that the Wii is also the cheapest of the 3 consoles?

While I am not trying to make this a Wii ad, through my research of a gaming console for personal use, it gave me some great ideas for an interactive system that could be brought to any office to support and enhance healthy lifestyles and inject some fun and excitement at the same time. So, if you are looking for some inexpensive ways to excite and motivate employees, look no further than gaming – an activity once thought only to numb the mind and stagnate the body.