On March 29, 2010, from 11:00—1:30 pm, I’ll be part of a panel presentation, along with the accounting firm Porte Brown, concerning fraud prevention in trades and construction.  This presentation is for the Federation of Women Contractors, http://www.fwcchicago.com/.  Obviously, my role will concern human resources and labor and employment law issues. The location is 8430 W. Bryn Mawr, 10^th Floor, Chicago (right off of the Kennedy at Cumberland).  Although the seminar is geared for FWC members, guests are welcome to attend for $35 including lunch.

On March 31, 2010, 8:30 AM—10 AM, I’ll be part of another panel discussion.  This one concerns recruiting, hiring and harnessing the right talent for business growth.  Topics will include recruiting for growth, evaluating employee performance, employee retention and leveraging employment agreements and contracts.  This is sponsored by The Executives Profit, www.theexecutivesprofit.com and American Chartered Bank, http://www.americanchartered.com/.  This will be held at 120 N. LaSalle Street, 11^th Floor Conference Room, Chicago.  It costs $20 to attend and includes continental breakfast.  You can register via Andrea at 847-317-9296 or go to www.theexecutivesprofit.com/calendar/index.asp?id=140.

On April 27, 2010, starting at 6PM (and ending around 8PM), I’ll be presenting for the Lake/McHenry Counties Chapter of the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC), http://nawic368.org/, on HR and Employment Law with a focus on their industry.  This will be at the Cubby Bear North, on Milwaukee Avenue in Lincolnshire.

The book is good and practical, and at less than 200 pages it’s a quick read.  The key element to Don’s approach is to craft a meaningful job description.  Hiring the best is a direct result of the analytical process that goes into the creation of a good job description and sticking to that job description in the hiring and assessment process.  Don also provides hundreds of great real world examples of interviewing questions, criteria and hiring tips.

One of the best things about Don’s book is that it’s common sense oriented and immediately applicable to running a business.  Once you understand the purpose and how to create a decent job description, everything else (e.g., interviewing, hiring criteria, selection, rejection, assessment) is logically based on that job description.

Although I may somewhat differ with Don regarding the job description’s necessity, this difference in approach doesn’t mean that I believe that job descriptions are useless or that any of his other tips are unnecessary.  Instead, my two keys to effective workplace relations is to adhere to the “Golden Rule” (i.e., treat employees well), and pay them on time and accurately (don’t mess with employees’ money).  Both approaches aren’t necessarily inconsistent with one another.  My approach may be more suitable to entrepreneurs, or those who like to go by their gut, and don’t want to deal with employment related issues in any sort of analytical way.  Because Don’s approach is so analytical, some may shy away from that level of analysis because of the fear of bureaucracy and red tape that sometimes inherent with HR practices.

Then again, whereas my approach is based solely on my own observations and opinions, and not on empirical or legal research, and Don’s approach is more grounded in legal and empirical research, from a preventive and proactive human resources perspective, Don’s approach makes more sense, and should help to greatly reduce a business’ employment related expenses and increase profits.

In summary, Avvo asks attorneys to “claim” their attorney profile by completing a profile much like that on LinkedIn or Facebook.  However, unlike any other online networking site, which permits you to cancel your membership and erase your information, Avvo doesn’t permit this.  Once an attorney “claims” their profile, they’re stuck; it can’t be “unclaimed.”

Yesterday, I received two emails from an attorney in another state who wishes to remain anonymous (without substantially editing, I combined the two emails into one:

Mr. Krugel,

I’m an attorney in Timbuktu. After claiming my AVVO profile, I immediately realized that this company is running a scam.  I did some internet searches and came up with your website.  After an attorney gave me an endorsement, I rated a mere 6.4 by some arbitrary computer algorithm. I than realized that attorneys with 10/10’s basically circle-jerk each other with endorsements to get those high ratings. I don’t know enough attorney’s who have claimed their profile to have them endorse me, and I can’t in good conscious subject other unknowing lawyers to claim their profile and endure computer generated defamation. Have you figured out any way to unclaim a profile and/or get rid of their arbitrary rankings? I’m trying to figure out how to get rid of this artificially low rating without being unethical.

Eventually I can foresee other lawyers bringing a new lawsuit on different grounds against the company.   Their 1-10 ranking system seems arbitrary, and goes beyond mere opinion because a computer is assigning the number.   AVVO isn’t going into the legal community and asking other lawyers and judges about individual attorneys.  They give you a low rating and then it’s up to you to “recruit” people onto AVVO to endorse you. The whole thing seems wrong.

The “scam” aspect referred to is new to me, but it appears that they’re correct.  Furthermore, Avvo’s system is biased against solo and small firm attorneys because completing a profile on Avvo, including obtaining testimonials, takes many hours.  If you don’t put the hours into this endeavor, your attorney score (rating) remains low.  Solos and small firms don’t have the overhead to handle this.  Larger firms can have their administrative staff, clerks, paralegals, etc., do this work for them.

Also, we have to solicit the testimonials, but based on my understanding of AVVO’s system, the people providing these testimonials have to create some sort of an account and provide AVVO with personal information.  This was one of my motivations for creating my own “Client Testimonials” page.

My main beef with Avvo though is the fact that they won’t let me and other attorneys “unclaim” our profiles.  Personally, I could care less that they have me listed on their site, I just don’t want it indicated that I “claimed” my profile, when in fact, I disavow it and Avvo’s system.

There’s nothing like face-to-face contact and on-site experience to help me better understand a client’s concerns and needs.  Moreover, most business owners and operators (maybe even all owners and operators) love to showoff their business.

It was during my tenure in labor and employee relations for the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) that I started visiting worksites as part of my job.  I noticed that many CPS principals and administrators would complain about how many of the central office employees made decisions directly impacting their schools without any regard for them.  In other words, they complained about the same thing many employees complain about, top down management with little effort to understand their jobs or obtain their buy in concerning workplace initiatives.

Plus, when dealing with multiple union and employee grievances, or employee conduct issues, from a single school or location, it was unproductive to drag the parties to my office for hours of grievance hearings, meetings and travel when I could just as easily take the hearings and meetings to the schools, save everyone a lot of time and money, and learn much more about the issues at hand.

I carried this practice over to other salaried jobs that I held and found my colleagues equally appreciative and welcome.  Later, when I started my own law practice, I decided that I would continue holding as many meetings as possible at the client’s site to make it easier on them and improve my understanding of their concerns.

This doesn’t work for all clients and situations though.  In order to facilitate openness and directness during negotiations or other proceedings, sometimes the parties must meet off-site or at a neutral location.

Topics to be covered include:

• The importance of human resources and good management
• When to use employment agreements
• What is and is not appropriate to ask job candidates
• Employee screening and risk assessment
• Unemployment compensation
• Federal & state laws likely to be encountered by businesses
• Sample documentation for employee records