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September 2016

Sep 09
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Can Your Employer Monitor Your Social Media, Email and Phone Use?

By Your Employee Matters

em-sept2016-3You expect privacy at work. No one wants to think that their employers can go through private emails or listen in on phone conversations. However, your employer can monitor your social media, email and phone use in several circumstances.

Screening Job Candidates

Apply for a job, and expect the potential employer to check out your social media profiles. They do this to make sure you’re not involved in illegal activities and to find out more about you, including if you’re a good fit for the company’s culture.

It is legal for a potential employer to find out more about you online, but they cannot ask for your social media passwords. They also cannot access your social media accounts to find out more about protected statuses such as your religious or political views or sexual orientation. If you suspect your rights have been violated, file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Employee Social Media Monitoring

As many as 60 percent of employers monitor their employees’ social media usage as they look for security breaches. It is illegal for employers to fire employees who complain about their workplace. However, employers can fire employees who share private or confidential information.

Follow your company’s social media use guidelines precisely. Protect proprietary and confidential information every time you’re online as you comply with your company’s social media usage guidelines.

Email and Phone Interception

Laws are fuzzy regarding email and phone interception by employers. According to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986, it is illegal to intentionally intercept oral, wire or electronic communication. The Act does include an exemption, though, for businesses to perform email and phone call monitoring.

Currently, several courts are considering the exemption. In general, it applies when employees use employer-owned computer systems and phones if the employer can prove that the monitoring has legitimate business purposes. It’s also legal if you signed the employee agreement that gives your employer consent to monitor your phone calls or emails.

If you’re concerned about phone or email monitoring at work, talk to your attorney. Bring a copy of the employee handbook or agreement. Be prepared to discern between business and personal phone calls and emails, too.

The bottom line is that your employer can monitor your social media, email and phone use within certain limits. Know your rights as you access these essential communication tools any time you’re at work. For more information, talk to your Human Resources manager or consult your employee handbook.

Sep 09
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How to Follow Up on a Job Application and Not Be Annoying

By Your Employee Matters

 

em-sept2016-4You’ve applied for a job, and now you wait. But you don’t want to wait too long and miss out on the position or appear overzealous and pester the hiring manager. These tips can help you follow up on a job application without being annoying.

Connect With the Hiring Manager

In addition to submitting your application to the appropriate email address, send your application to the hiring manager. Find his or her email address on the company’s website or by calling the company’s switchboard.

State in your email that you followed the appropriate application submission channels but are also reaching out to the hiring manager personally. You can also reiterate that you think you’re a good match for the job and look forward to talking more when the hiring manager begins scheduling interviews.

Don’t Send Paper Follow Ups

Thank-you letters used to be acceptable, but hiring managers now prefer electronic follow ups. Plus, an email is easy to forward to other departments or colleagues for whom you may be a good fit.

Nix the Packages

You might think that homemade brownies or a high-end watch will grab a recruiter’s attention. Packages are actually turn-offs, so don’t use them to follow up.

Follow Up Once

It’s okay to follow up once on a job application, but wait at least a week after you apply and only email once. Repeated contact annoys hiring managers and could land your application in the trash can. You did your part and must now wait until the company decides who they will interview.

Utilize LinkedIn

On LinkedIn, you can easily see if you know someone at the company where you applied. Contact that colleague and find out more about the company as you prepare for a potential interview.

Stay Classy

Reaching out on social media without the hiring manager’s permission or showing up uninvited at the office is creepy. Stay classy to improve your chances of landing the job.

Keep a Follow Up Calendar

If you apply for multiple jobs at one time, you could get confused about whom you’re supposed to follow up with. Start a follow up calendar that lists all the applications you send out and the hiring managers for each job. The calendar will help you follow up in a timely manner and stay organized.

Continue Your Job Search

It’s painful to realize that you may not get the job to which you applied. Give yourself permission to move on. Apply for another job as you find the best company for you.

Your next job could be one email away. Follow up the right way as you apply for a job.

Sep 09
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8 Reasons You’re Not Getting Promoted

By Your Employee Matters

em-sept2016-2You’ve been working at your job faithfully for a while and think you’re ready for a promotion. Why aren’t you getting one? These eight reasons could be the cause.

Not a Team Player
The way you interact with your co-workers can influence your future at the company. Make sure you play nice, compromise and promote peace with your co-workers, and refuse to gossip about anyone as you promote teamwork.

Low Intensity
The best employees stay focused and busy during the day. They don’t slack off, stretch out projects or goof off. Instead, they welcome the opportunity to work hard and be efficient and effective.

Don’t Ask Questions
Unless you can read minds, you will need to ask questions that clarify projects and duties. Use a notepad to track any questions you have, and reduce confusion and wasted time and resources.

Unwilling to Receive Correction
Everyone messes up sometimes. Be willing to accept correction. You can even ask for regular feedback on your job performance as you maximize your strengths, fix any weaknesses and work your way to the top.

Don’t Ask for a Promotion
Let your boss know that you want to move up in the company. Set up a meeting to discuss your career goals, and ask what you can do to advance. Many bosses appreciate employees who take initiative and are willing to work hard to achieve their goals.

Lack of Necessary Skills
You might be great at your job, but if you don’t have the skills needed to advance, you won’t get a promotion. Find out what skills you need and start learning them. If you lack technical skills, find out if your employer will pay for you to go back to school. If you need to learn diplomacy, business communication or sales techniques, talk to your boss and co-workers about how to gain these essential skills.

Shorten Your Work Day
If you regularly come in late, leave early or take long lunch breaks, your boss will see you as a slacker. You don’t have to work overtime without pay every single day to prove your worthiness, but do show your boss that you’re productive, eager to work and ready for more responsibility.

Relaxed Dress and Grooming
It’s okay to wear casual clothes if your employer allows it. However, make sure the way you dress and your grooming habits remain professional and show that you respect your job and deserve respect.
Are one or more of these eight factors preventing you from getting a promotion? Take steps today to change your behavior and achieve your career goals.

Sep 09
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What to Know About a Workplace Dress Code

By Your Employee Matters

em-sept2016-1A workplace dress code creates a standard, professional appearance for employees who interact with the public. It can also ensure safety. Whether you can wear casual clothes, must dress up or receive a uniform, here are a few things you should know about your workplace dress code.

Dress Code Laws

Several federal and state anti-discrimination laws affect the dress code employers can implement. In general, dress codes cannot discriminate anyone based on:

Religion

Certain religious apparel is allowed in the workplace, but your company may restrict what you wear. Ask your boss to accommodate your religious beliefs. In cases, especially where safety is involved, you may be unable to wear your particular religious garment. Ask your religious leader for an exemption that allows you to work without it. If you are unable to get an exemption, ask your boss for a different position. He or she is required to explore all possible options before firing you.

Race

All dress codes should be nondiscriminatory to every race. Your employer cannot ask you to shave your beard or cut dreadlocks, for example, unless there is a safety or other essential business reason for doing so.

Disability

Employers must provide reasonable accommodations for disabled employees.

Gender

Any dress code guidelines can be different for men and women. However, it cannot give one gender significant employment advantage, inhibit equal employment access between genders or deny employment to men or women. For example, if your employer allows women to wear earrings, it must allow men to wear earrings too or ban earrings.

Sexual

Ensure your dress code does not promote sexual harassment. It cannot allow men to wear revealing clothing but discourage women from doing so, and dress code memos or the section of the employee handbook cannot show pictures of specific employees violating the dress code.

Certain Restrictions

There are several specific restrictions your employer may require.
Slogans or pictures – no political or religious slogans, advertisements or nude or semi-nude pictures on clothing
Rips, tears and holes in clothing
Baggy clothing
Sweat suits, yoga pants, jeans or other casual attire
Revealing attire, including open cropped shirts, shorts and see-through material
Footwear that’s loose, has a wedge or high heel or is slippery
Socks and other hosiery
Gang attire
Jewelry
Grooming
Check your employee handbook for more details on your company’s dress code. It should include specific restrictions and requirements as well as information on how your company will handle violations. Then follow the dress code as you preserve a safe, uniform and professional atmosphere.

Sep 09
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Security Concerns When Building Your Own PC

By Cyber Security Awareness

cyber-sept2016-4Building your own PC from scratch is a lot of fun. Clicking all the pieces together like Lego bricks, and then turning it on and watching it hum to life. If you want a serious gaming rig, you’re a lot better off building a PC than you are buying one that’s ready-made. With some gaming computer brands, you’re really paying a lot of money for a mid-tier computer with high-end casing.

If you’re intimidated by the prospect of putting a powerful piece of hardware together yourself, the truth is that all the research you need to do, you can figure it out in a weekend by checking out recommended components and the minimum requirements for recently-released games.

This being said, security is a major concern when it comes to home-built PC’s. A ready-made laptop or desktop usually comes with a free copy of an operating system, as well as free anti-virus software. Building a PC from scratch means that you need to take cyber security into your own hands. Here are some of the common downfalls when it comes to custom-built PC’s and cyber security:

Pirated Software

Since a custom-built PC doesn’t come with a free copy of Windows, you might be tempted to save a little cash by torrenting an OS. The main problem you’re going to run into here: No registration means no auto-updates. This may not seem like such a big deal with all the complaints you’re reading about Windows 10, but this also means no auto-updates to your security software.

You’re On Your Own When Selecting Antivirus Software

With a ready-made PC or laptop, you don’t need to worry about it, you can use whatever antivirus software comes included. If you’re building your own, you’ll need to shop around and find one that you like. Avira, Avast and AVG all offer decent free software packages, while Kaspersky and Norton are leaders in the field if you’re willing to pay an annual subscription fee.

“Is It A Virus Or Did I Install Something Wrong?”

It can be hard to tell an infection apart from a hardware problem, and it’s easy to assume that you just “messed something up” when in fact you’ve contracted some malware, or vice versa. The more how-to videos you watch, the more double-checking you do with your diagrams, the easier it will be to know whether you’re dealing with malware, or a misplaced component.

Don’t let these concerns deter you. Building a PC from scratch is one of the most rewarding things you can do with a spare afternoon.

Sep 09
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Hacking the Large Hadron Collider?

By Cyber Security Awareness

cyber-sept2016-3Remember when they first started building the Large Hadron Collider? So many people expressed concern that the experiment would create a rift in the space time continuum, or result in a black hole that swallows up the entire planet, or create an atomic explosion large enough to blast a hemisphere off the face of the Earth or any number of far-fetched sci-fi fantasies.

And then it turned out that all the machine really does is bang atoms together really fast… and we were kind of disappointed, weren’t we?

In truth, ultra-high-energy cosmic rays actually strike the planet at a much higher energy than the LHC is capable of producing. All the LHC does is take natural phenomena (that hasn’t killed any of us yet) and put it in a controlled environment where we can measure the results.

By the time the LHC project was attacked by hackers in 2008, the world had already stopped paying attention. The facility was hacked by a group calling themselves “GST: Greek Security Team,” with the signoff “We are 2600 – dont mess with us.”

Although the hack amounted to little more than a prank, the team at CERN reported that this was nevertheless worrying, as the hackers were “one step away” from the control system for one of the machine’s detectors, a 12,500 ton magnet, and the program’s website went offline following the attack.

Of course, the real concern isn’t so much that the hackers could have used the machine as some kind of doomsday device, just that the project cost close to six billion dollars to put together, and if they had done any serious damage to it, then that could have resulted in some very costly repairs.

Built to investigate the possible existence of the Higgs boson particle, the LHC was found to produce several Higgs bosons per minute, finally confirming something that had long been just a theory. The implications for physicists was tremendous… not that the general public really cared all that much.

The LHC is currently planned to see some upgrades, including a “high luminosity” feature, though this won’t come to pass until sometime after 2022.

So if you’ve ever wondered what’s the worst that could happen if someone hacked the Large Hadron Collider, now you know: It might set the project back a few million dollars. Some doomsday device, it couldn’t even blow up a continent, let alone the entire planet.

Sep 09
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3 Gaming Exploits That Look A Lot Like Hacking

By Cyber Security Awareness

cyber-sept2016-2Something that some long-time gamers don’t even know: The original Street Fighter II combo system happened by accident. It was an exploit that experienced players could use to strike their opponent two or more times before their opponent had time to recover. It wasn’t a hack, it was just an “exploit.” The next time you think an opponent has hacked an online game in order to gain an unfair advantage against you, check this list and make sure they’re not just really, really good at bending the game to their will:

Overwatch Players Giving Each Other The Boot

Overwatch is a class-based multiplayer shooter, like Team Fortress 2. One of the character classes, Ana, the sniper, has the ability to actually kick players right out of the game. Here’s how: With multiple snipers targeting the same player with tranquilizer rounds, a team can keep another player asleep and inactive for so long that the game registers them as idle and boots them out of the game. The bug has since been patched, but you can imagine the number of players who thought they’d been hit with a DDOS attack when they got ganged up on like this.

World Of Warcraft: The Reckoning

Way back when World of Warcraft was still relatively new, a player using the Paladin class could get some incredible mileage out of the “Reckoning” ability. This would allow you to save up bonus attacks every time you were struck with a critical hit, and then unleash them all at once. A Paladin player unleashed a barrage of all 2,000 bonus attacks he’d been saving, crushing the 40-man raid boss Lord Kazzak in seconds and effectively shutting the game down for the day.

Left 4 Dead Car-Blocking

When the original Left 4 Dead was released, it was riddled with the kind of bugs and glitches that could only really be discovered by turning the game loose on the world and letting players discover them. A popular exploit in Versus mode allowed the person playing as the musclebound Tank zombie to knock cars around, blocking vital paths for the people playing as the human survivors. Nowhere was this more of a game-ender than the sewers in the No Mercy campaign, where the only exit is a tiny manhole that, if blocked with a car, creates a complete and total dead-end, allowing the respawning zombie players to feast on the humans who are unable to proceed. The glitch didn’t take long to patch, but it caused plenty of people to pull the disc out of the Xbox and snap it in two before it got fixed.

Long story short: Not every cheat is a hack. Exploits exist in everything from video games to phone apps, and that’s why we have the beta release process, because you can’t always find them without the help of user feedback.

Sep 09
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Okay But What If We ARE Living In A Hologram?

By Cyber Security Awareness

cyber-sept2016-1-1If you keep up with pop-science at all, then you’ve probably encountered the whole “string theory” hypothesis, or the notion that we’re living in a hologram or inside the database of a giant computer, like in The Matrix. It’s one of those theories that doesn’t actually make much of a difference in our daily lives if we can’t prove it. We might as well just go on with our lives as usual, right? But, that doesn’t mean it’s not a lot of fun to think about. If someone could prove that we’re all living in a game of The Sims, what would the implications be?

Crime and punishment is one area where things might change considerably. If we could prove that we were all living in a simulation, would crime really be that big a deal? Stealing a car would be about as serious a crime as cheating in a game of Overwatch. Likewise, sending someone to prison wouldn’t be that big of a deal, either.

Online video games like Titanfall punish cheaters in a fairly clever way, by sending them to play in servers populated entirely with other cheaters. If we were living in a simulation, we could just send criminals to another server where every time they steal a car, it gets stolen from them the minute they park it. We’ll play The Sims, let them have their Grand Theft Auto.

Medical science is a field hindered by the mysteries of the human body. Almost any bug or virus or damaged part in a computer system can be repaired by an experienced technician. Too often, in medical science, there’s simply no fixing something. Doctors have yet to perform a successful head transplant, but anyone with a screwdriver and a phone to read Wikihow can replace a hard drive in their computer. Imagine if you could cure cancer or repair a broken bone with a keyboard and a little javascript knowledge.

The simulation hypothesis dates back at least as far as “Maya,” an Indian concept through which one might look at life as a series of illusions that might as well be concrete and real. In any event, while movies like The Matrix might see a digital landscape as a prison, you have to admit, it would take a lot of the pressure off of our daily affairs at work and at home, wouldn’t it?

Sep 06
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Do You Need Insurance For DIY Projects?

By Construction Insurance Bulletin

con-sept2016-4If you’ve been working with your hands for any length of time, then you know that the difference between a professional job and a DIY project isn’t binary, it’s a spectrum. On one end, you’re taking your team out to build a house on a client’s property, and on the other end, you’re building a birdhouse in your garage just because it seemed like a fun way to kill an afternoon. In the middle, you’ve got storage sheds, home repairs, additional rooms, doghouses and so on. At some point along that spectrum, insuring your project becomes a necessity, either for legal or pragmatic reasons. But where exactly is that point? What kind of DIY projects do you need to get insured, and which ones can you afford to not worry about?

You have a few main concerns, here:

  1. Are you investing more than you can afford to lose?
  1. Is liability a concern?
  1. Will this affect any existing insurance policies you hold?

Take, for instance, building an additional room onto your home. This is going to have an effect on your existing homeowner’s policy, and if you don’t inform your insurer about your project, you may wind up invalidating that policy altogether.

On the other hand, spending a weekend erecting a doghouse in your backyard probably won’t affect your homeowner’s policy at all, and you’re probably not spending more than a hundred dollars on lumber and other materials. You may even be piecing it together from scrap wood left over from another project. The only concern here is liability, which might or might not be covered by your current homeowner’s policy. To play it safe you can always build a doghouse in the garage and wheel it out to the yard on a dolly to make sure you don’t wind up with barbecue guests stepping on a nail or something, but it’s generally worth checking your policy before starting any such project, just to be sure.

There are projects that may be covered by your homeowner’s policy in terms of liability, but wind up costing a little more than piecing a doghouse together out of scrap lumber. A shed, for instance, or costly home improvements. In these instances it’s down to peace of mind. Are you comfortable working without insurance, or would you like to have a safety net just in case?

If you’re bringing other people onto a project, then of course you’re probably going to want some basic liability coverage, but for more DIY projects than not, the rule of thumb is not to worry about insurance unless you feel uncomfortable without it, it’s required by law as with larger structures like guest homes, or it’s affecting a policy you already hold.

Sep 06
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Are “3D Printed” Houses Going To Put Us Out Of Work?

By Construction Insurance Bulletin

con-sept2016-33D printing is an exciting new technology, isn’t it? If you break the case for your iPhone, you can print one on-demand in just a few minutes, no more waiting for a new case to ship. If you want to create a 3D model of a new building project, you can have your architect whip one up on a computer and print it out without so much as needing to go buy a box of Lego bricks. 3D printing is truly the next frontier in manufacturing, but…

What if you work in manufacturing?

The downside to 3D printing is that a lot of jobs will become obsolete. Transportation jobs will be hit, factory jobs will be hit, what about construction?

We’ve read about 3D printed housing that can knock out 10 sturdy homes in one day. A team in China put together a 3D printed home that can withstand an 8.0 earthquake. How can a builder who uses their hands compete with that?

Well, here’s how…

    1. 3D Printers Don’t Do Drywall

      3D printed homes are utilitarian, really. They lay out the walls, the roof, but they can’t handle the finer details of the job. A 3D printed home isn’t really a “home,” it’s a concrete box. Even if we get to a point where 3D printed homes are the norm, we’re looking at decades before robots can handle every part of the job.

 

    1. 3D Printed Homes Are Currently Impractical As An Everyday Solution

      3D printers for buildings aren’t like printers for remote controls and desktop fans. The cheapest printers for homes still cost millions of dollars, and are larger than the homes they build. If someone wants to have a guest-home erected on their property, they’re far more likely to hire a construction crew than rent a robot.

 

  1. 3D Printed Homes Are Not Unique

    Right now, 3D printed homes are an effective solution for emergency housing following a disaster like Hurricane Katrina, and they’re becoming more popular in China where such a solution is needed given the large population. But right now and for the foreseeable future, all a home-printer can really do is lay out dozens of identical concrete shacks. They’re not a serious threat to the luxury home builder, they can’t build additional rooms onto existing homes, they can’t perform maintenance or remodeling work, the list of things that they can’t do is a thousand items longer than the list of things that they can do.

The worst case scenario: Within our lifetimes, house-printers may become mobile, versatile and affordable enough to lay out the framework of the home, but we’re still going to need people to get in there and do the hands-on work of drywalling, plumbing, electric wiring, cabinets, and so on.

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