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Category Archives: Employee Relations

How to Know When a Policy is Illogical

26 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by Rory C. Trotter Jr in Employee Relations, Talent Management

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

employee relations, Godzilla policies, hr, hr policies, human resources, workplace policies

Image Credit: <www.logic-alphabet.net

Image Credit: <www.logic-alphabet.net>

Jacque Vilet, President of Vilet International, has a great post up on Compensation Cafe recounting a famous research experiment dealing with Rhesus monkeys.

I won’t go into details (Vilet does an incredible job of that herself here), but in a few sentences:

1. Five monkeys are put into a cage with a banana hanging from the ceiling.

2. Every time a monkey attempts to get the banana, it and its peers are blasted with cold water from a hose.

3. Eventually the monkeys associate attempting to get the banana with being blasted with cold water and don’t attempt to get it anymore

4. Even once the threat of the hose is removed, future monkeys to enter the cage are (physically) discouraged from attempting to climb the cage by the original monkeys to have experienced the cold water.

5. As such, when the original monkeys are (gradually) removed from the cage, the remaining monkeys (who have never experienced the cold water) become enforcers of the “no going after the banana” policy despite having no firsthand experience on why they shouldn’t.

Vilet asks us to consider the above story when thinking about the utility of our own workplace policies. This is good advice, but the challenge here is knowing the scope of the reasoning behind why a policy was put into place to begin with. Many of the seemingly asinine policies, rules, and yardsticks put in place 1. Human Workplace CEO Liz Ryan calls them Godzilla Policies.to govern employee behaviors 1 were put in place to manage the behaviors of the small minority of employees who would cross a line in the absence of such rules. Dress codes and attendance point systems and the like exist because of the 5% of people that would wear flip flops and show up 15 minutes late to everything in their absence. And so it’s easier to hold everyone to a rigid policy than it is to manage outliers on a case by case basis.

It could be argued that in such instances a more common sense approach would be to coach managers on how to address deviant behavior (as opposed to 2. The relative rarity of great managers admittedly makes this admittedly easier said than done.treating the entire population like children). But conversely, some policies exist because the absence of them would expose an organization to significant legal liability or because of a specific business need. For example, scheduling breaks for production line workers makes sense because not having enough employees present to make sure it runs smoothly would harm the business.

Identifying which policies are in place because no one wants to do the harder (but ultimately better for employee engagement) work of managing exceptions versus the ones that are in place because their absence would cause mayhem is not an easy job.

What are you doing in your organization to identify that line?

As always, please share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Best,

Rory

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The Acid Test

19 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by Rory C. Trotter Jr in Employee Relations, Labor and Employment Law, Personal Development

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

hr, human resources

socialanxietyinstitute.org

<socialanxietyinstitute.org>

Early in my career I was part of a labor relations investigation into an argument between two bargaining unit employees that (allegedly) turned physical. The employee purported to have turned the dispute physical was a known malcontent, having had disagreements over the years with managers and employees alike which had resulted in various steps of discipline (up to and including last chance agreements and final warnings).

After investigating this particular incident, it was clear to myself and other parties involved that the employee needed to be – at the very least – suspended and referred to an employee assistance program.

…So imagine my surprise when – during a final step grievance – the employee’s bargaining unit representative declared that he was willing to take to arbitration any resolution that didn’t result in a full-restoration of earnings to the employee from the suspension.

The union representative in this case had a reputation for being both fair and conciliatory. And he’d conceded (without grievance) both suspensions and terminations of far more well-regarded (and senior) employees for lesser offenses in the recent past.

So what made this situation different, I wondered?

“I don’t believe the bargaining unit member is guilty of what they’re being accused of.” he declared.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I have a signed statement from a witness that I hold in high regard. He declares that he saw something different than you’re accusing the bargaining unit member of – namely that although the incident turned verbally abusive, it was not violent. And so because this witness signed such a statement I feel very strongly that the corrective action you’re proposing is completely out of line!”

I’d already gotten a similar statement from the witness the union rep was referring to during my investigation. But against the balance of other witness statements declaring a different set of events, I hadn’t placed very much (relative) weight in it. Why then, had the union representative?

“The integrity of this witness is beyond reproach, he said. To have this 1. This doesn’t refer to the series of parties held by American author Ken Kesey in the San Francisco Bay Area during the mid-1960s centered on the use of LSD. Instead, it refers to the figure of speech used to describe a test whose findings are beyond doubt or dispute.statement from him passes my acid test 1 for standing with a bargaining unit member.”

The “acid test”, as the bargaining unit representative described it was a personal set of three questions for which the answer had to be “no” in at least one instance before he would bring a final step grievance to arbitration:

1. Were the employer’s expectations and rules communicated clearly to the employee?

2. Did the employee clearly violate the employer’s expectations?

3. Was the corrective action taken against the employee in line with the transgression?

www.thesleuthjournal.com

<www.thesleuthjournal.com>

In the union rep’s mind, in this case the employee had a clear understanding of expectations and – if he had in fact violated them in the ways the company claimed – should be disciplined accordingly (in this case with a suspension, referral, and last chance agreement upon return to work). However – on the basis of one highly regarded witnesses statement – the union rep didn’t feel the 2nd question could be answered “yes” in this case.

…Unwilling to incur the costs to bring the case to arbitration, the company and union ultimately reached a compromise.

I didn’t share the union rep’s perception of events here, but I never forgot the notion of the “acid test” – the point at which he would take damage (or rather, 2. Arbitrations are expensive for both an employer and a union.recommend expending significant financial resources 2) to defend a bargaining unit member.

…In our professional careers, it’s important to establish our own acid tests; clearly defined standards that should guide our decision making when faced with tough choices.

Do you have professional “acid tests”? And if so, what do these tests concern? Ethical issues? Pay? Types of work assignments?

As always, please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Best,

Rory

Infographic Thursday: HR Must Embrace Social

23 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by Rory C. Trotter Jr in Employee Relations, Infographic Thursday, Labor and Employment Law, Talent Management

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

employee engagement, employment law, hr, human resources, social media

 

For the below infographic we can thank cloud based HR solutions provider SilkRoad. Follow them on Twitter here, and as always please share your thoughts in the comments section below:

Silkroad Why HR Must Embrace Social

Best,

Rory

Can Employees Handle the Truth? Does it Matter?

14 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by Rory C. Trotter Jr in Employee Relations, HR Management

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

hr, human resources

<www.baijusolanki.com

<www.baijusolanki.com>

I just read a post from compensation consultant Chuck Csizmar touching on the problem of bureaucracy within organizations. In it, Csizmar recounts a scenario that all of us have at some point experienced in our lives: While at the post office/DMV/store/work etc., we find ourselves in need of guidance on how to generate a solution to a novel problem. As opposed to sharing anything useful, however, the representative we seek assistance from instead parrots a vaguely applicable policy out of a handbook. As consumers/customers in these situations, the non-advice is both frustrating and simultaneously damaging to .1. This is a good post. Check it out at the Compensation Cafe here.our faith in the ability of the institution in question to meet our needs. 1

With that said, reading Csizmar’s post this morning made me think of the tightrope many of us in HR walk where it concerns communicating potentially sensitive information to employees. Often tasked with policy compliance, one of our most important jobs as HR Managers is to protect our companies from legal liability. Beyond that, we’re also tasked with managing employee relations and keeping the peace. Consequently, there can sometimes be a real incentive to communicate as little information as possible to inquiring employees beyond the exact policy in a handbook. After all, even if only 3% of employees are likely to exploit deviation from specific policy, that 3% can often create interpersonal and/or legal problems of a far greater proportion.

Ergo, everyone is managed to the standard of the small percentage of the workforce that need to be bound by regimented policy. Instead of treating the 97% of an employee population like the adults they are, in the pursuit of mitigating potential legal liability and interpersonal conflict those people are instead treated like children.

Case in point: Very early in my career, while interning at a company I encountered a situation where for months a contractor did outstanding work for the organization. The contractor hadn’t had any behavioral issues throughout their assignment, and had performed at a very high level. As such, the company extended a full-time job offer.

During the pre-employment process, however, a full-time employee accused the contractor of a fairly serious offense. On this basis, the offer was rescinded.

…Setting aside the fact that an investigation wasn’t done to confirm the validity of the claim (no one wanted to create a scandal internally by asking questions), management also made the decision to not communicate anything to the contractor as it concerned why the offer was withdrawn. Instead, the contractor’s assignment was unceremoniously ended: When the contractor called the site asking what had happened, they were simply told that staffing needs had changed.

Regardless of how I would have handled the situation, I understood why it was addressed the way it was: It was a contractor with less than 6 months on-site, and conducting an investigation could have created a mini-scandal. It was a raw deal for the contractor, but those were the breaks.

…Or maybe the contractor deserved better?

As always, please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Best,

Rory

Giving Good People Bad News

08 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by Rory C. Trotter Jr in Employee Relations, General Management, HR Management

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

hr, human resources

Image Credit: <www.wired.com

Image Credit: <www.wired.com>

I struggle with giving people bad news – though I would also like to emphasize that I am not afraid to give people bad news. In point of fact, as an HR guy I have lived so often in the soup of bad news delivery (in the same way that .1. I don’t know how or why I came up with that analogy (or what percentage of the people reading this it will even make sense to), but let’s just go with it.frosted flakes live in milk 1) as to occasionally call it home. With that said, so much as I have grown accustomed to delivering unsavory prognostications as a function of my profession, I still can’t shake the awful feeling I have whenever I must do so. 

See, I like people; particularly good people. And I hate giving good people bad .2. Lately I have decided that I enjoy starting sentences with conjunctions like “and”. This is technically not okay (well, actually it’s not settled), but I’m trying some new things and have begun to cast aside progressively more grammar rules in the name of writing in my (0ccasionally disjointed) voice. Is that okay? Say it’s okay.news. 2

To this point, today I have to give some bad news. It isn’t awful news, granted, but it isn’t delightful either. Namely, several of my directs have been asking for additional help for a while now. They feel we’re a team member short and have asked for a headcount increase of one. After being asked about this by the team off and on (but often enough) for the past couple of months, I finally brought the proposal to my boss only to receive a polite-but-oh-so-resounding-enough “no”. Fair enough. That’s the way it goes sometimes. 

…So everyone has to keep working a little bit harder. In this economy (improving but not yet quite pre-2008 levels) that’s to be expected.

But there is still the bad news delivery.

…I believe in authenticity and transparency. My belief in at least one of these things (and perhaps two) is at least a little naive, but I stand by them nonetheless. Ergo, I said I would follow up and meant what I said (so I did). I will also be transparent with the result of my inquires (there was a “no”). This news will not go over well, and there will be some bawling and protestations… but people will get over it.

Why am I telling you this, you ask? Because in HR we do a lot of management couching, but much of what we counsel is easier said than done. This morning, I just felt that it would be useful to point this fact out in this space.

Happy Wednesday, and as always please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Best,

Rory

Infographic Thursday: The Importance of Employee Engagement

12 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by Rory C. Trotter Jr in Employee Relations, Infographic Thursday

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

employee engagement, hr, human resources

It’s Thursday, so in keeping with weekly tradition check out this awesome infographic from NBRI:

The Importance of Employee Engagement 12 12 2013

As always, please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Best,

Rory

Video Saturday: Ted Talk HR Quick Clips: Workers Comp

16 Saturday Nov 2013

Posted by Rory C. Trotter Jr in Compensation, Employee Relations, Labor and Employment Law, Video Saturday

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

compensation, hr, human resources, worker's compensation

Image Credit: <tcooklaw.com

Image Credit: <tcooklaw.com>

As always, please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Best,

Rory

Before You Send That E-Mail…

13 Wednesday Nov 2013

Posted by Rory C. Trotter Jr in Employee Relations, General HR

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

hr, human resources

Image Credit: <allthingsnav.navigation.com

Image Credit: <allthingsnav.navigation.com>

Late yesterday evening a colleague came to me seeking guidance on an employee relations issue. After initially giving the colleague one answer on the spot,  I got back to my desk and – after deciding my first answer wasn’t quite right – provided a different answer via e-mail… only to wake up this morning and realize the e-mailed response itself was also only partially right.

I immediately set out to write an amended response… before it dawned on me that I needed to slow down. The problem with my first two responses is that when my memory of the facts was cloudy, rather than sorting through things before replying I instead gave the best answer I could at the moment.

Prior to this morning I have learned this lesson before, and I imagine that perhaps I may one day need to learn it again… but eventually it will stick: Particularly in HR, it is almost always better to be accurate than fast. 

As always, please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Best,

Rory

Employee Assistance Programs

22 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by Rory C. Trotter Jr in Employee Relations, General HR

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

hr, human resources

EAP Programs HR

In the nature versus nurture debate, I would describe myself as falling squarely on the side of nurture. I don’t say this to discount nature; to be sure, 1. It is important to understand, though, that there are many types of intelligence. I’m personally more verbally and logically intelligent. Rhythmic and spatial? Not so much.intelligence is a very real thing that is partially governed by biological factors. 1 With that said, natural intelligence is just one of many variables that impacts development: Ultimately, in most matters of cognitive complexity it is hard work and time that most governs success.

…I say all that to say that I’m acutely aware of the fact that most people just need the right push to learn and grow into more or less anything. If – as I believe – our cultural legacies shape our successes, we can alter the trajectories of people on even the most negative paths with the right changes to their environments.

Which brings me to employee assistance programs: I am a big fan of them mostly because – when done well – they give colleagues in difficult personal straits an opportunity to understand and change life circumstances that might derail any one of us if we experienced them. By giving people a chance to change their behaviors we don’t just make a difference in the employee’s work performance, but in the lives of the people that care about and are dependent on them (which has societal benefits that can indirectly affect the bottom line).

Conversely, as an HR professional my job is ultimately to support the business – not the employee population. Ideally, both of those actions are aligned – but when they are not the needs of the business take precedent.

When assisting a colleague, figuring out where to draw the line between reaching out and letting go is a blurred one: If you succeed in defining it, tell me how.

As always, please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Best,

Rory

If you have questions about something you’ve read here (or simply want to connect) you can reach me at any of the following addresses: 

SomethingDifferentHR@gmail.com OR rorytrotter86@gmail.com

@RoryCTrotterJr

http://www.linkedin.com/in/roryctrotterjr

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Does Your Company Observe All Federal Holidays?

14 Monday Oct 2013

Posted by Rory C. Trotter Jr in Employee Relations, General HR, General Management

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

hr, human resources

Image Credit: <www.history.com

Image Credit: <www.history.com>

Today is Columbus Day, so I imagine as a practical matter the number of 1. If you are in fact off today and reading this I would encourage you to immediately do something else.people reading this is down by a considerable factor. 1 To this point, having in fact spoken to several U.S. based peers about the subject I can anecdotally say that about 50% of their companies observe all 10 federal holidays.

…As a practical matter, the decision to observe a federal holiday by an employer is going to come down to its particular operational needs. From a strictly HR and general management perspective, however, the fact that most federal employees have the day off – as well as the closure of many schools, banks and post offices – makes conducting business difficult. Many employees will call off if they can’t find a babysitter for their children, and transactions with various institutions and outside vendors that recognize the holiday are also often delayed.

…Conversely, many companies that have employees work on a federal holiday 2. I’d personally rather have Christmas Eve off.due to operational needs recognize another day off instead. 2

Does you company observe all 10 federal holidays? Why or why not? How do you feel about it?

As always, please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Best,

Rory

If you have questions about something you’ve read here (or simply want to connect) you can reach me at any of the following addresses: 

SomethingDifferentHR@gmail.com OR rorytrotter86@gmail.com

@RoryCTrotterJr

http://www.linkedin.com/in/roryctrotterjr

Google+

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