By now you’ve probably heard about the small Wisconsin based company that held a “chipping party” for its employees. No dips were involved, but just under half of the company’s 85 employees did line up to have a microchip about the size of a grain of rice implanted into their hand.
Typically, when the term FMLA comes up, most people (that is, anyone NOT employed in the field of Human Resources) immediately think of maternity leave. While FMLA obviously does kick in for maternity leave, according to ERC’s research, when it comes to administering FMLA, pregnancy/maternity leave is really the least of HR’s worries. Instead, for most HR practitioners, the challenge lies in the administration of FMLA for serious health conditions and/or other circumstances outside of pregnancy and child birth.
Employee satisfaction and employee engagement are two different concepts of measuring your workforce. However, they are often misunderstood and used interchangeably which can affect your methods and results of improving the levels of both satisfaction and engagement.
Everyone knows that there’s no such thing as a perpetually problem-free enterprise of any sort. When problems occur, there are multiple reasons they don’t get addressed or handled. A central reason is that most organizations don’t employ a structured problem solving model, so when faced with a problem, they “wing it” rather than address it in a systematic way.
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) defines performance management as “the systematic process by which an agency involves its employees, as individuals and members of a group, in improving organization effectiveness in the accomplishment of agency mission and goals.” In short, performance management is simply the way an organization defines, monitors, and rewards the performance of employees and their contributions to the organization.
There are many situations in which an employer would like an employee to be relieved of their duties but the situations do not necessarily present a well-documented, policy-violated, fireable offense. These situations, if acted upon incorrectly, could make the organization vulnerable to a lawsuit. This is probably a situation that many HR professionals would like to avoid at any and all costs.
The idea of a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) can be a daunting one for both the employee being put on the plan as well as for the individual (in the majority of cases, the immediate supervisor) being asked to design and implement the plan. Often used as the last step in a progressive disciplinary process, for the employee, a PIP can feel like it’s just a long winded way to get rid of them.
According to the 2017-2018 ERC Policies and Benefits Survey Report, about 65% of employers are providing organization sponsored activities, the most common of which are holiday parties and annual picnics.
