December 2013

Eggnog, latkes, old friends, parties – and a lot of beveraging! HR That Works wishes you a safe and happy holiday season! As the host of your company party, you have a legal obligation to make sure that attendees get home safe. Here’s our list of tips to help you meet this responsibility:

• Make party attendance voluntary.
• Hire bartenders trained to spot and handle intoxicated revelers.
• Provide non-alcoholic beverages.
• Give each guest a limited number of drink tickets, instead of an open bar.
• Serve filling food – not just chips and pretzels – whenever alcohol is available.
• Cut off alcohol service at least an hour before the party ends.
• Stop serving intoxicated guests immediately; don’t wait until they’re ready to leave.
• Never ask an apparently impaired guest if they’re able to drive home – they aren’t.
• Provide a taxi service for guests who require or request it.
• Have a friend or family member pick up intoxicated guests.
• Arrange for discounted rooms at the event location or a nearby hotel.

Finally, have a fun party. Think like good ‘ol Mr. Fezziwig!

Accommodating Religious Needs

The holiday season is an ideal time to focus on religious accommodation in in the workplace. Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on religion. We’ve seen more of these claims in recent years, with thousands of claims filed in 2012. Unsurprising, many of these cases include allegations of discrimination based national origin (i.e. someone claims discrimination because they’re of Arab origin, as well as Muslim).

The EEOC offers this definition of “religion:”

“In most cases, whether or not a practice or a belief is religious is not an issue. However, the EEOC defines religious practices to include moral or ethical beliefs as to what’s right and wrong, which are sincerely held with the strength of traditional, religious views. The fact that no religious group espouses such beliefs, or that the religious group to which the individual professes to belong might not accept such belief, will not determine whether the belief is a religious belief of the employee or prospective employee. The phrase ‘religious practices’ includes both religious observances and practices.” Also, bear in mind that:

• It’s unlawful for an employer to fail to accommodate reasonably the religious practices of an employee or prospective employee, unless the employer demonstrates that accommodation will mean undue hardship in conducting its business.
• An employer may not ask about an employee’s religious background unless justified by business necessity.”

For more information on religious expression in the workplace, check out: 1) EEOC guidelines and FAQS on religious discrimination: 2) an EEOC memo on accommodating religious expression; and 3) religious accommodation practices at the University of Missouri ( a great education, period).

Once upon a time, HR was viewed as a boring corporate wasteland “Oh no! Sally got transferred into the HR department… her career is over. Poor Sally!” Even though companies hired, managed, and fired people all the time, management still saw HR as an administrative backwater. That view gradually changed. Books such as Good to Great helped owners and managers understand that hiring great people was essential for greatness; and that to do so required strategic initiative. They began seeing they couldn’t rely on yesterday’s performance management approaches, created in an industrial era, when working primarily with knowledge workers. Managers such as Jack Welch, Herb Kelleher, Howard Schultz, James Sinegal, and Tony Hsieh used a strategic HR approach to build great companies – GE, Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, Costco, and Zappos. The result: cutting-edge executives and managers realized that HR provided a competitive advantage.

Then the recession struck – and management neglected HR to concentrate on survival and building productivity. When the economy began recovering, valuable employees moved on to greener pastures, either working for themselves or for a company where they could feel fully engaged. Once again, businesses became desperate to reduce turnover and find good hires.

Tomorrow’s successful companies will win the talent wars by attracting and challenging the best, brightest, and most productive employees to grow and innovate for themselves and their employer. This shift in culture will have the unintended effect of reducing workers comp, employment practices, cyber-liability, and other insurance exposures – with HR helping lead the way.

Businesses will see HR as a strategic resource that’s as essential as sales, operations, and finance. That’s the new HR story.

In early 2013 Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer decided to eliminate telework, with an eye towards innovation and collaboration. “Some of the best insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people and impromptu meetings,” said EVP of People and Development Jackie Reses, adding that “speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home.” Best Buy also announced it was canceling its Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) program, largely supported by telecommuters.

Many believe that occasional telecommuting allows people to deal with one-time events and promotes a less stressful work environment – however, it comes with a price!

To learn more about the pros and cons of this issue, check our Telecommuting ThatWorks Training Program, which includes checklists, policies, forms and a training video. If you don’t have access to HR That Works send an email to don@hrthatworks.com and I’ll email you a copy of the report.

I do a lot of reading. Here are some thoughts inspired by the latest round:

1. No person who produces from the heart will go for naught. Career success requires both inner and external engineering.
2. As the scope of your life becomes bigger, less will be under your control.
3. “I will be happy….. when” is meaningless. Be happy now!
4. Comfort is an illusion if sought from the outside. Do you want to be comfortable or awesome?
5. To map your career path, ask “Where can I help the most people with the least amount of energy?”
6. When overwhelmed by information, we lose clarity of thought, which comes in the spaces between information – yet another reason to meditate.
7. Do you identify with your limitations – and let them define you?
8. Have these “limitations” blocked you from career success?
9. Personal peace is about our internal chemistry. All happiness, despair and other human experiences have a biochemical basis.
10. Every person is an energy field functioning at different levels of capability.
11. How loyal, how engaged, and awesome do you want your people to be?
12. You can’t bullshit yourself into well being.
13. Situations don’t make you – they expose you.
14. Use time off to reward employees.
15. Personality comes from the word persona, which in Greek drama meant a “mask.” Like a mask our personality is a construct – a story we tell ourselves about ourselves.
16. All creativity is an imitation of nature.
17. Conduct scavenger hunts, field trips, lunch-and -learns, suggestion meetings, crossword puzzles, jeopardy games, volunteer projects, blood donations, fun clubs, etc.
18. If people feel good, they will______________
19. Over-committed heroes end up becoming martyrs. Avoid this behavior pattern!
20. Can you be peaceful where you are or must you go someplace to feel that way?
21. HR’s focus on the negative does a disservice to human well being.
22. Work doesn’t cause stress; your reaction to it does.
23. Have a plan for where you and your business will evolve.