From Hello to Goodbye: Proactive Tips for Maintaining Positive Employee Relations - Softcover

Walters, Christine V.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1586442066 ISBN 13: 9781586442064

Verlag: SOC FOR HUMAN RESOURCE MGMT, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

Evaluating an entire employment relationship in reverse—from departure through hire—this unique manual informs and guides HR professionals and managers in establishing and developing a good rapport with employees. Highlighting the various ways in which a business relationship can end, this valuable reference provides proactive and practical tips as well as real-life examples and case studies that will aid HR professionals increase retention and help avoid litigation. Topics include managing disability and leave issues, properly classifying workers, and maintaining an inclusive workplace.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Christine V. Walters, MAS, JD, SPHR, is the owner of FiveL Company, an HR and employment law consulting company. She is on the Family and Medical Leave Act and Fair Labor Standards Act editorial advisory boards for Thompson Publishing and a member of the National Coalition to Protect Family Leave. She lives in Westminster, Maryland.

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From Hello to Goodbye

Proactive Tips for Maintaining Positive Employee Relations

By Christine V. Walters

Society For Human Resource Management

Copyright © 2011 Christine V. Walters, MAS, J.D., SPHR
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-58644-206-4

Contents

Title Page, 
Copyright Page, 
Backword, 
1 - When All Else Fails: Terminating the Employment Relationship, 
2 - Document, Document, Document!, 
3 - Coaching, Counseling, and Correcting, 
4 - Employee, Where Art Thou? Managing Disability and Leave Issues, 
5 - Maintaining an Inclusive Workplace, 
6 - What's in a Name? Properly Classifying Your Workers, 
7 - Employee Handbooks: Read 'Em and Weep?, 
8 - Welcome Onboard, 
Foreword: Practice Your Passion!, 
Appendix A, 
Endnotes, 
Index, 
Acknowledgements, 
About the Author, 
Additional SHRM-Published Books, 

CHAPTER 1

When All Else Fails: Terminating the Employment Relationship

Well, here you are at the end of the employment relationship. You have coached, counseled, and attempted to correct, yet the employee's behavior is still not meeting expectations. Thus, you have concluded that it is time to terminate the employment relationship. So what are some final steps you should take to ensure you have dotted and crossed your proverbial i's and t's? Consider the following.

Pre-Termination Checklist

Use the following five questions as a pre-termination checklist. This can help in a variety of ways — from preparing your presentation for an unemployment insurance hearing to defending your action before a federal or state agency or local human relations commission, and, perhaps more importantly, helping to ensure consistent treatment of all employees who are in similar situations.

Forewarning

Are you able to describe when and how you set your standard or expectation for this particular employee? Or is this a case where your position is, "Aw, come on, everyone knows you are supposed to ..." or "Everyone knows you are not supposed to ..." While this might hold true for lying, cheating, and stealing (although certain actions of select political, business, and other leaders might lead one to conclude that nothing can be taken for granted), it is not the case for most performance standards. Take, for example, excessive absenteeism or tardiness. I find this is a common standard that managers believe with all honesty and conviction that everyone shares and thus there is no need to define it. But, when discussing the matter with peers and colleagues, they regularly find that their expectations may not match those of their peers, including managers and supervisors in the same department, as well as across the organization. Try the following exercise with your management team, particularly those managers working in the same department. Ask them to write down on a sheet of paper their answer to the question, "How many unscheduled absences in a six-month period do you consider to be excessive?" Then go around the room and have them answer one at a time while you record the answers. You can be pretty much guaranteed that you will find differences, sometimes vast, among their answers. Now there may be very valid reasons for having different standards in different departments. For example, if I am an HR administrator in a hospital (which I was for nearly 10 years), it is likely that my attendance and punctuality standard for my HR staff would be different and possibly more lenient than the standard a director might have in a nursing unit for the direct care providers. Why? There is a valid business reason: The impact to business operations when my HR staff is late is less or at least potentially less than when a direct care provider is late or absent. So remember that what you take for granted as a reasonable expectation may not be shared by others; communicate your expectations from the beginning of the employment relationship. How? Consider developing a new employee orientation checklist list (see chapter 7). When an employee does not meet your expectation, provide objective and specific examples of desired performance (see chapter 3). And, throughout these processes, remember to document these activities (see chapter 2), because only then will you be well positioned if and when the time comes to demonstrate how and when you provided the employee with forewarning of your expectation.

What if you find managers within the same department have different expectations? Talk about the differences and why they exist. Are the rationales justified based on business need or are they subjective? For example, let's say there are three managers in the accounting department: one in accounts receivable (A/R), one in accounts payable (A/P), and one in payroll. Each supervises one to three employees. One manager believes an employee should have no more than six unscheduled absences in a six-month period; the second manager believes an employee should have no more than four unscheduled absences in a six-month period; and the third manager believes an employee should have no more than two unscheduled absences in a six-month period. The managers should focus on the impact that employee absences have on business operations, compare and contrast the impact, and understand why they have set different standards. The A/R manager may indicate that unscheduled absences have the potential to delay the collection of money from clients and customers, which reduces the company's cash-on-hand, which might impact its bond rating or leave less money available for investments and thereby reduce interest income. The A/P manager may indicate that unscheduled absences have the potential to delay payments to vendors, which may result in late fees or charges, causing unnecessary costs to the company. The payroll manager may indicate that unscheduled absences have the potential to delay the processing of payroll, which could result in fines if employees are not paid in a timely fashion, not to mention the bad employee morale that may be created. All three concerns are tied to business operations and are valid. They might not, however, justify such a broad difference in the expectation. Thus, the managers might work with human resources to determine what the company's average absence rate is and agree upon one standard that all three managers will use for the entire accounting department.

Evidence

Do you have evidence to corroborate your position that the employee has failed to meet expectations? Evidence usually comes in one of three forms.

Employee's admission. Often an employee will admit to having done something incorrectly or inappropriately. But don't stop there. "Why" can be a powerful inquiry; just knowing what an employee did may not be enough. Understanding why the employee did or failed to do something often opens doors to learning about systems, processes, training, communication, or other systems that need some fine tuning or are just not working. If that is the case, both you and the employee now have the opportunity to learn. You might establish a new training program or implement a new (or adjust an existing) policy or procedure. Sometimes, however, the employee does not admit to an error or omission despite evidence to the contrary. Thus, you will need to consider what other evidence you have to substantiate your claim.

Witnesses. You may have one or more witnesses who will report that they saw or heard or otherwise have knowledge of the alleged behavior. Having two or...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: SOC FOR HUMAN RESOURCE MGMT
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2011
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1586442066
• ISBN 13: 9781586442064
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 147
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar