News & Events

By Dawn Taylor, Director of Business Development

Happy summer everyone! I recently had a conversation with a colleague about how much her boss monitors their staff’s computers, phone calls and so on. As the conversation went on, the question was raised as to how much monitoring should happen and do employees have any privacy at work.

Employers want to be sure their employees are doing a good job, but employees don’t want their every moved logged. That’s the essential conflict of workplace monitoring. New technologies make it possible for employers to monitor many aspects of their employees’ jobs, especially on the telephones, computer terminals, and when employees are using the internet. Such monitoring is virtually unregulated. Therefore, unless organization policy dictates specific guidelines, your employer may listen, watch, and read most of your workplace communications.

A 2007 survey by the American Management Association and the e-Policy Institute found that two-thirds of employers monitor their employees’ web site visits. And 65 percent use software to block connections to web sites deemed off limits for employees. This is a 27 percent increase since 2001. Of the 43 percent of employers that monitor e-mail, nearly three-fourths use technology to automatically monitor e-mail. And 28% of employers have fired workers for e-mail misuse.

Close to half of employers track content, keystrokes and time spent at the keyboard. And 12 percent monitor blogs to see what is being written about the organization. Another ten percent monitor social networking sites.

This monitoring also extends to work phones. In a June 2010 decision, City of Ontario v. Quon, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the search of a police officer’s personal messages on a government-owned pager, saying it did not violate his constitutional rights. The warrantless search was not an unreasonable violation of the officer’s 4th Amendment rights because it was motivated by legitimate work-related purposes.

So for those of you who love to search the net to find the funny stories to share with your colleagues, or e-mail around pictures of the worst prom dresses; beware your boss is probably seeing it too!

By Patty Hampton, CSP, Managing Director, Staffing Services/Executive Search Consultant

Summer is finally here and the humidity has been a beast these last few days. Summer is also a time when many organizations are instituting a more relaxed dress code.

I am a serious fan of the summer dress code but we all need to be conscious about the types of clothing that is acceptable versus unacceptable. As a former HR Director, I’ve had my fair share of sending people home for dressing inappropriately.

Remember the daisy dukes days? Yeah, I had a few folks walk into the workplace sporting those and several people looking like they were ready for the beach, a beer and some Banana Boat sunscreen lotion. People will make up their own rules if they don’t have any guidance. As HR practitioners we need to give them that guidance. When communicating your summer dress code policy try to include examples of what NOT to wear. I often hear employees saying, they don’t know what to wear because HR has not spelled it out. Well, gosh darn it spell it out!

Let employees know that tanks tops, tees, and t-shirts that show off tattoos is probably not a good look. The trendy jeans with the holes in the knees and on the butt pockets, strapless sun dresses and flip flops also make it appear as if one is ready for a stroll on a boardwalk rather than a meeting in the boardroom. And, let’s not forget the offensive and obscene images on so many of the casual shirts these days. My husband’s organization actually forbids staff to wear any shirts that have a designer label! By communicating these simple guidelines, you might just have less headaches and policing to do too.

We all know that the summer dress for corporate America is nothing new. Many organizations have instituted policies with great success but yet each year we have to “dust” it off and remind people that corporate casual doesn’t mean you can let it all hang out!

Some of my best memories of corporate casual came in the form of benefits to staff. I witnessed increased employee performance because of ice cream socials as well as a boost in morale, and just a wonderful buzz that filtered throughout the hallways. I absolutely love summer casual dress and I’m sure your employees love it too. But, let’s not forget to remind folks that a tank top or a midriff top that shows a fuzzy navel with a cute diamond piercing on it doesn’t need to be exposed in the workplace and more than most folks want to know. Save it for the beach people; save it for the beach!

By Patty Hampton, CSP, Managing Director, Staffing Services/Executive Search Consultant

Are you guilty of focusing too much on a name, address, or the demographics of a resume? Have you Googled, Facebooked, or used LinkedIn to check out a potential candidate?

We all are probably guilty of doing it and these days we can find just about anything if we look hard enough on any search engine or social media networking website. However, do you validate what you uncover? Are you guilty of putting candidate resumes in a “no” or “maybe” pile? What about your hiring managers? Do you have solid reasons why they reject a candidate just on the resume alone? Do you know if they are using social media sites to weed out potentially good candidates?

In my past experience, I have had the “right” candidate for the “right” position, or so I thought, until a client decided to explore the deep-end of the social media networking pool. Not only did the client focus on the name of the candidate, but they also Facebooked the candidate and some search committee members had Googled and used other social media networking sites to make unsavory judgments and decisions about the candidate. This process not only left me with my mouth wide open, but forced me to push back and declare war on hiring managers rejecting candidates that meet and exceed the requirements of a position. While the intentions might be totally innocent at first, the action behind intentions is what bothers me the most.

This unsettling trend has spiraled out of control. Although LinkedIn is a professional networking site, pictures and information updates that a user posts can be used subjectively in a recruiting process. Facebooking and Googling a prospective employee are a slippery slope at best.

About a year ago, CareerBuilder did a survey of more than 2600 hiring managers and human resources professionals and found that out of those who conduct online searches/background checks of job candidates, 29 percent use Facebook and 26 percent use LinkedIn. As social media networking continues to grow in size, it has also become a part of some organizational cultures. Not only do the majority of our employees probably have a Facebook account, but I’m sure if you look hard enough, you can also come to several conclusions just on the pictures and postings alone.

The CareerBuilder survey also found that 35 percent of employers found content on social networking sites that caused them not to hire the candidate. Candidates posted anything from provocative pictures, to using drugs, to showcasing poor communications skills and discriminatory comments.

I have a Facebook profile and I use it with extreme caution, but I also know how to use the privacy settings that allow only people in my network and friends that are approved by me to access my full profile. It is very unfortunate that candidates are not mindful that employers use social media sites as a part of their recruiting strategy. Many candidates do not use the privacy settings feature to their advantage. With this in mind, I’m still an advocate for validating what you uncover.

The “right” candidate that my client decided not to hire turned out to be another organization’s most valued employee. The other client also Facebooked the candidate, but they validated their intentions through a competency and behavior-based interview process.

We cannot deny that social media sites have become a part of our organizational culture and have made their way into some of our vetting processes. They can be great resources if used apporpriately as part of a large program. Not only do I have a Facebook profile, but I also use LinkedIn, Twitter and other sites to network and find top talent. As a search consultant, I network 80 percent of the time and validation is also a huge part of my process. If you’re going to use these social media sites as part of your recruitment strategy than don’t be surprised at what you might find, but for God’s sake validate! Most of all use extreme caution before you reject a potentially good hire.

By Dawn Taylor, Director of Business Development

In large to midsize organizations, human resource departments perform many integral functions. Yet in small organizations, human resources are more often non-existent. In small organizations HR tasks are often passed to administrative or finance staff that aren’t trained in the facets of human resources. This business decision often results in inefficiencies, low morale, high turnover and unlawful operations.

Human resource investment, whether internal or external, can save thousands of dollars in the long run. Without professional guidance, organizations can easily make costly mistakes. Below are a few examples of how poor employment practices can cost your organization:

Not versed in Employment Law

One legal misstep can cause an entire organization to crumble. Did you know organizations with just a few employees are subject to a host of labor laws? As your organization grows, the more labor laws your organization could become subjected to. Ignorance isn’t a defense and can cost an organization a lot of money, so it’s essential to bring in a professional that knows the laws.

Failure to Understand Employment-at-Will

Employment-at-will doesn’t necessarily mean “fire-at-will.” What would you do if the EEOC called to advise you that an ex-employee filed a wrongful termination complaint? Organizations must have a termination process and record performance feedback showing an employee was given opportunities to improve.

Poor Documentation and Recordkeeping Practices

Accurate documentation is critical. Both incomplete and over documentation can become liabilities in instances like discrimination suits or when protesting an unemployment claim. Often times too much paperwork is more of a liability than not enough paperwork. HR professionals have knowledge of just how much paper to keep, protecting both the organization’s rights and the employee’s.

Using Another Organization’s Employee Handbook

You might be very surprised at how much I hear this one. A manager gets a handbook from a friend and ‘customizes it’ for their own organization. Remember one shoe does not fit all when it comes to handbooks. A handbook is not just a set of rules. It is the constitution of an organization; its culture on paper. Each must be tailored to a particular set of values and procedures. Borrowed handbooks may not be current, relevant, or depict the appropriate employment rights.

The consideration of building and in-house human resources team or hiring an outside consultant should not just be a thought, but should be implemented. Employees are the most important component of any organization and can help it grow and prosper as well as fail. Conversely, employees are an organization’s greatest liability. The investment in effective human resource practices and professional advice is a crucial piece in the healthy growth and development of the organization and the employees who keep the wheels turning.

By Lisette Peralta, PHR, Coordinator of Human Resources Services, Collaborative Support Programs of NJ Inc. (CSPNJ); a guest blogger of Nonprofit Staffing Solutions

I find myself continuously coaching staff on how to maintain a healthy work-life balance. This may manifest itself in many ways: from a simple email reminder encouraging staff to take their excess vacation hours before their anniversary date or simply re-introducing and re-educating staff on long forgotten benefits available to them (i.e. discounted tickets to shows or theme parks, etc.). My goal is to provide staff with as many tools as possible to promote a healthy life balance on and off the job.

As a wellness and recovery oriented organization, Collaborative Support Programs of NJ, Inc. (CSPNJ) promotes wellness as part of the work environment. Activities range from training on wellness and recovery techniques to brown bag lunches on stress management; from on-site free credit counseling services to on-site life coaching. Overall, staff is provided with tools that focus on improving or maintaining a healthy balance in all the dimensions of wellness that may also cross over into their work life. A holistic approach, wellness looks at eight areas of a person’s life to promote balance: the emotional, financial, spiritual, environmental, intellectual, social, occupational-leisure and physical. (Adapted from Words of Wellness)

Small and large organizations alike can promote a healthy work-life balance and reap the benefits of a healthy and happy staff. Implementing a few of these programs can increase productivity and may reduce stressors that cause staff to be physically present, but emotionally and mentally absent.

• Team building trips or activities are a great way of strengthening or improving staff relationships. Plan a charity bike tour or walk-a-thon where the proceeds go to a cause that the agency supports. For more information visit www.active.com.
• Providing life coaching services may encourage staff to set goals to live a successful and satisfied life. Check your local listings for life coaching services in your area.
• Have a local or national credit counseling agency present information on their services. Most of these credit counseling agencies will provide this service at no cost to the agency. An alternative is to provide staff with this resource via an email or post on the intranet. For example, NovaDebt is a national credit counseling agency that provides free on-site trainings. For more info go to www.novadebt.org.
• Provide on or off site free income tax preparation services. The IRS has a free income tax preparation program known as Voluntary Income Tax Assistance or V.I.T.A. This service can be available to most employees who meet the income guidelines. There are also volunteer opportunities for staff who want to be trained and certified on income tax preparation. Training is available in the classroom or on-line. For more info go to www.irs.gov.

In order for any organization to get the very best from its staff, it must recognize that everyone has a life outside of their job. Personal and professional lives have a true symbiotic relationship. Smart organizations nurture this relationship so that staff can be successful at work thereby making the organization successful as well.

By Patty Hampton, CSP, Managing Director, Staffing Services/Executive Search Consultant

As an executive search consultant, I’ve had the privilege of working with small to large nonprofits and I can’t tell you how many times I have heard small nonprofits state that they have limited budgets and resources. Is it possible that small thinking is yielding mediocre results or a less than aggressive approach to recruiting top talent?

Large nonprofits tend to think big and invest in building a high performing and talented workforce. According to the 2010 national Nonprofit Employment Trends Survey, large nonprofits have the capacity to “effectively recruit and retain staff.” Large nonprofits also tend to use a more aggressive approach that yields the highest return for top talent. I learned early in life that when you think small that is exactly what you will get in return. So, I think big for ALL clients that I serve when implementing a recruitment strategy for a senior or executive level search.

I am currently engaged in two executive searches, one for a small nonprofit and one for a medium-sized nonprofit. Although neither nonprofit has the resources or the budget to compete like a large nonprofit, I have certainly been impressed by their storybook mentality of “The Little Engine That Could.” I have also witnessed how passion, commitment, and belief in a mission can attract the right candidates.

In reviewing the 2010 survey data, I also noticed that small to large nonprofits are just a few percentage differences away when it comes to relying on current staff to support new programs or initiatives. This is encouraging to me because it also means that with regards to recruiting strategies, no matter how big or small the budget, organizations are still relying on current talent to accomplish the work that needs to be done for its constituents and funders. And, second, no matter what size the nonprofit, they appear to have similar goals to retain talent.

The survey also proves my theory of where look for top talent. For more than seven years Nonprofit Staffing Solutions has searched for top talent with a simple philosophy: network 80 percent of the time and spend 20 percent on resume job boards. The 2010 Employment Trends Survey shows that 53 percent of the respondents use LinkedIn and 34 percent use Facebook as advertising strategies. Social media has grown exponentially over the last few years and more and more executive search consultants include social networking as a resource to not only advertise, but to network and identify passive job seekers as well. To find your most experienced candidates or subject matter experts, you have to network to find the talent an organization needs and sometimes you also have to look outside the nonprofit sector. The survey proves this. I also have no doubt that social media networking as a recruitment strategy will continue to grow over the next few years. Could it be that old saying of “it’s who you know” still exists?

Overall, in reviewing the data with respect to recruitment strategies and budgets, the one common denominator that small, medium and large nonprofits have is attracting and retaining top talent. Although I believe the survey reveals this is a common goal, what I also found is that the data also uncovers more challenging issues of employee burnout, decrease in employee satisfaction, and how to move staff from growing weary or reverting back to the old way of doing business. This, as the survey points out, will have broader implications for the nonprofit sector.

By Patty Hampton, CSP, managing director, staffing services/executive search consultant

If you believe your office is immune to office gossip, think again. If you believe your office will ever get rid of gossip-mongering, think again. Right now there is probably a story or two simmering throughout your workplace.

Although I detest all office gossip, I believe it’s the negative nasty rumors type that filter throughout the workplace that I hate the most. Office gossip begins like a pot of water on a stove; it simmers just before the rapid boil. I’ve seen gossip ruin team spirits and it can be so vicious that it runs like a freight train straight to constituents and board members. Stopping this type of gossip requires swift action from HR and other executive leaders in your organization.

I understand all too well, that stopping office gossip before it starts can be challenging. As an HR professional, I recall spending several hours trying to find the root cause of a specific issue. Not only did I find the employee who started the gossip, but I also validated why the story began in the first place by having conversations with several individuals. In my experience, I have found that gossip can also begin when one employee who has complained in the past, becomes bored with their current work assignments or is having personal issues. Oh, how misery loves company. I’m big on validating situations. My best advice is to approach and talk confidentially with the alleged gossip-monger.

I’ve also worked in an organization where some office gossip can be good. One week before good news was going to be announced in a town hall meeting by the CEO, someone on the management team shared specific details with a colleague, then that colleague shared with another and said, “Don’t tell anyone.” We all know once this phrase is used, you can forget about it! The rumor will permeate throughout your organization inside a few hours. Good office gossip can also lead to improvements and if the communication doesn’t get screwed up while the news is spreading, management will sometimes use the same source to start spreading other news as well.

One of the best ways that I’ve learned to stop any type of office gossip before it begins is to do “management by walking around”. I call it MBWA. During my weekly meeting with my former CEO, he used to ask me if I had my “pulse” on the rumor mill. He despised office gossip just as much as I and we worked as a team to squash some unhealthy behaviors and water cooler chit-chat. I recall one of our meetings where the rumor mill was about him and how employees didn’t feel valued and didn’t feel that they saw him enough. After explaining to him what MBWA was about, he quickly agreed and each month MBWA showed up on his calendar and he loved it!

I have learned that in the absence of truth people will make up stories. We will never be able to put a muzzle on office gossip completely, but we can certainly tell employees that they too have a responsibility to help stop damaging gossip from spreading. By no means, does this mean that good gossip is always good either. However, it’s the good gossip that management skillfully leaks out to the reliable sources that we want people chatting about. This is the gossip that we can control and this is the gossip that we want to spread as fact not fiction.

By Dawn Taylor, director, business development

I carpooled with a neighbor of mine last week which was a unique experience for me. I’m usually alone to express my disdain for the ridiculous traffic and the even more ridiculous people that create the traffic.

Since I had a colleague in the car with me, I had to keep my ugly opinions to myself and talk about the niceties of working in the unique and robust Washington, DC, area. When we hit a traffic jam on the interstate, my once very quiet and nice colleague turned into a nail-biting, panic stricken crazy-woman, yelling out the window like she had lost her mind.

She kept saying, “one minute will cost me, one minute will cost me!” After getting her calm I asked her what in the world she was talking about. Her response floored me.
She stated that in her organization, if you are one minute late you are docked one half hour. She went on to say that if she is going to be one minute late she does not go to work immediately. She waits out her thirty minutes by checking her personal e-mails or updating her Facebook page.

This really got my wheels turning. Why would an organization put this kind of policy in place? It seems that in an effort to get employees to work on time a company policy is backfiring. The company’s tardiness rule is contributing to the stress and lack of focus of an employee who is already stressed over something that cannot always be controlled, i.e. traffic.

Now one would argue that the early bird gets the worm. If we get up just thirty minutes earlier, then no one would ever be late, but we cannot always factor in things like daycare, metro rail drama and broken-down buses. In the Washington, DC, metro area we can sit in traffic for two hours.

I think a better solution is to trust your employee. I would rather have a safe, productive, and ready to work employee instead of a crazed maniac that would rather update their Facebook page than get to work a few minutes late. This particular policy punishes employees for something that cannot be helped, shy of being teleported to work every day.

The best policy is to give your employees the benefit of the doubt. Getting to work can be a full time job all on its own.

By Patty Hampton, CSP, managing director, staffing services/executive search consultant

According to government and media news reports several Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) employees were busy surfing pornography on organization issued computers while the economy was tanking. Although this news may be old news for many of us, the Isley Brothers song Between the Sheets kept playing in my head as I was writing this week’s blog. This issue also had me thinking about how outdated some of our policies might be with respect to workplace, sexual and unlawful harassment.

Now might be a good time to revisit your policies around workplace and sexual harassment and use of organization property. We should never forget that we employ humans from all walks of life and we are certainly not “in between the sheets” and all up in their personal business when they are not in our organizations. We all need to have a zero tolerance attitude and our policies need to reflect the same.

We all know pornography in the workplace can have a “Pandora’s Box Effect” on HR and lead to some surprising and challenging legal complications for our organizations. However, if you know the story of Pandora’s Box, you also know it contained hope.

With that said, I am hopeful that we all share the same deep rooted values when it comes to ensuring the health and safety of our workplace and its employees. As HR practitioners, we need to consistently build a workplace culture that includes education about unacceptable behaviors. Don’t just write about it, but talk about it in your on-boarding or new hire orientation. In addition, if you don’t have an employee code of conduct or employee etiquette fact sheet, publish one that has specific language about the organization’s zero tolerance for pornography in the workplace. Here are a few more tips that came to mind:

Be sure your policy is broad enough that it also includes guidelines about social media sites, electronic communications systems, computers, fax, telephones, voicemail, e-mail, Internet access, copiers, cellular phones, pagers, and similar devices.

Make sure employees know the policy details concerning access to and disclosure of electronic mail messages created, sent or received.

Partner with your IT professionals to make sure you understand what they are capable to doing to block access to specific Internet sites and the filtering systems that you currently have in place.

Communicate appropriate business use of property and services. And, most importantly, revisit your policies to make sure it clearly states that “failure to comply with any portion of the policy may result in disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.”

When the story broke about the SEC porn-surfing employees, I was not surprised, but annoyed. To be honest, we should all be annoyed and seriously concerned when we uncover porn-surfing employees in our workplace. However, I believe we need to be equally concerned about any employee who has time to surf porn web sites when they should be working! I mean c’mon, news reports mentioned that one SEC accountant admitted to investigators that he spent five hours a day looking at sexually explicit videos and web sites.

Porn-surfers have no place in our workplace, but trust me they do exist. How you investigate these situations when they come up requires swift but thorough examination. Depending on what you uncover, offending employees need to be disciplined or terminated. Then again, if your office has a zero tolerance policy, I say escort their butt to the door!

By Dawn Taylor, director of business services

We all like to believe that our qualifications determine whether we are invited for a job interview and that our performance dictates whether our employers think well of us. Obviously, employers are better off if they hire the most qualified applicants. And of course, the missions of organizations are furthered when managers rate employees according to how well they perform their jobs. Research strongly suggests, however, that implicit bias affects whether people are invited to interview for jobs, regardless of their qualifications, as well as how their performance is assessed.

A 2004 study by Marianne Bertrand and Sedhill Mullainathan showed that implicit biases of employers play a significant role in who gets an interview. According to the study, these biases are often triggered by the name on the resume. By sending out resumes with identical qualifications, half of which had names commonly associated with African Americans (i.e. Lakisha and Jamal) and half which had names associated with whites (i.e. Emily and Greg) in response to job interviews in Chicago and Boston, a 50 percent gap in call-back rates was discovered between white and black named resumes. Whites were invited for one interview for every ten resumes sent; while blacks had to send 15 resumes for a single interview.

The study indicated that whites were called back on average 9.65 percent of the time, while African Americans were called back at a rate of 6.45 percent. The fact that hiring discrimination persists is one reason many would argue that affirmative action programs are still necessary. They serve to create an incentive for employers to overcome their implicit biases and to take a second look at candidates of color.

What measures are you taking to ensure your hiring practices are not racially biased? How are you educating your senior staff and your managers on this issue? For those of you who have taken measures in your organization to reduce or eliminate racial profiling with regards to names, well done! For those of you who have not, look at your processes to ensure you are getting the best qualified candidate regardless of his or her name.