May 012008
Posted in Business Management, Charles Krugel, Employment Law, Human Resources, Law, Legal, Policies, Practices, Presentations, Seminar, Separation, Unemployment Compensation • Tags: discharge, employee discipline, Employment Law, Human Resources, progressive discipline, training, training handout
Earlier this year, I gave a 2 hour training session for a Chicago-based nonprofit. The training concerned progressive discipline and discharge. As typical with most of my training sessions, Q & A and role playing were emphasized. The session was conducted for middle and senior managers with supervisory responsibilities. The training also included a handout which I’ve posted on this site as a PDF. You can access the 10 page handout here/link. In order to maintain confidentiality, I removed the business’ name and all identifying references to the business.
Below is a sample of the handout:
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Apr 212008
Posted in Blogging Tools • Tags: content, plugins, Sphere
In my continuing effort to increase my site’s usefulness as a resource and research tool, I just added the Sphere plugin. The Sphere icon is at the bottom of each post. This is allows readers to click on the link at the end of all posts to see related content from other websites. This is similar to the Snapshot widget but seems less obtrusive. Feel free to let me know your thoughts about this. Thanks, Chuck.
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Apr 132008
Posted in Business Management, Charles Krugel, Chicago, Human Resources, Interview, Labor and Employment Law, Me in the Media, Media, Radio • Tags: Chicago, Interview, Labor and Employment Law, Media, Radio
This Saturday, 4/19/08, at 10 AM, I’ll be interviewed for my 2nd time on Chicago’s WKKC 89.3 FM’s talk radio show Consumer Eye. WKKC is Kennedy-King College’s radio station. This is a live interview and will be conducted by the show’s creator Derek McNeal.
The subject of the interview will of course be labor and employment law and human resources and how they impact small to medium sized businesses–startups, existing, entrepreneurs, et.
My first Consumer Eye interview with Derek was on his June 7, 2007, show. That interview was also live and lasted for approximately 40 minutes. That interview wasn’t recorded. This Saturday’s interview will be recorded and available for listening to on this site in the near future.
Thanks to Derek and Stephen Anderson of Foreign Exchange Services in Chicago for asking me on for another interview.
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Apr 022008
Posted in Business Management, Employment Law, Human Resources, Labor and Employment Law, Policies, Practices, Small Business
This post continues the discussion that began with my prior post.
After deciding whether to have employment policies and which policies to have, a business should determine what form these policies should take. Such forms may include an electronic document, a written memo, a multi-page document, a bound manual, or a combination of these. Alternatively, a business might choose to put nothing in writing.
Essentially, the decision comes down to company size and complexity and purposes of the policies. The larger and more complex a company is, the greater the need for written employment policies addressing a large number and range of issues; i.e., a larger document. The smaller and less complex a business is means that it will probably have fewer issues to address, and it might not even have to put all of its in policies writing.
However, even a small company in a highly regulated or complex industry, like nanotechnology, pharmaceuticals or energy, will probably have to address a greater number of employment issues via written policies; e.g., safety, hygiene, record retention and destruction, and regulatory agency reporting. In short, the complexity of a company and its industry is just as good of an indicator of what form employment policies should take as is the number of employees in that business.
What the policies are intended to address is another important indicator of which policies to implement and put in writing. That is, purpose is a good predictor of what policies are needed and their form. For example, if a 20-year old business has never addressed workplace violence issues, then it probably doesn’t need to address this issue via written policies. Or, at most, it might not need to exhaustively address this issue in writing. However, a two-year old business that is undergoing rapid growth, and is hiring from a population that’s at-risk to violence, might need to be more proactive and address workplace violence at the outset. In this workplace violence example, company size and industry complexity are less of an indicator of policy needs and form than the intended purpose of the policy. In short, a company shouldn’t seek to address issues it hasn’t encountered, unless it could reasonably expect to encounter these issues in the near future, or it’s required by law or regulation to address them.
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Mar 102008
Posted in Business Development, Business Management, Employment Law, Human Resources, Labor and Employment Law, Policies, Practices • Tags: employee handbooks, employment policies, employment practices, manuals
Among my clients and many other businesses the question often arises: Do we need written employment policies or employee handbooks or manuals? The following is what I usually advise and why.
In general, there is no statute which mandates that business have such policies or manuals. But, relative to public sector contracts, most government agencies require that a business have such policies for affirmative action purposes. Additionally, many employment practices liability insurance carriers require, or very strongly urge, policy holders to institute employment policies. So, practically speaking most businesses that wish to engage in government work, or receive grants or some type of outside funding, or carry employment practices liability insurance, must have policies or manuals.
In other words, government agencies, many outside funders and insurance companies want to see a business’ human capital related documents as much as that business’ financial records. Other than those reasons to have written policies, it’s not an absolute necessity for a business to have documented employment policies.
Businesses that wish to engage in structured planning and development, or that have grown to point where ad hoc policies and procedures are too inefficient and inconsistent, however, should create documented policies or handbooks to avoid operational chaos and protect themselves from 3rd parties like employee side attorneys or regulatory (government) agencies.
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