Summer 2011 Newsletter

Do you remember your first job?  Not the first professional job, but the very first job you ever had?  Well, I do.  It was the mid 70's and my brother and I were hired by our parents to clean the offices of their business.  It was a small company and we were only expected to clean it one day a week.  For the two hours of work, we were paid a combined $10. 

Minimum wage was around $2 then, so sharing $10 for two hours work was a pretty good gig.  Of course, you also need to realize that it was the mid 70's and well everyone smoked.  Yes, we had to clean those nasty ash trays, which was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen (until I had children), but the money was good.  Good until we realized that the cleaning crew my parents used were paid a lot more than $10 a cleaning.

What did we do?  My brother and I decided to hold a cleaning strike for equal wages.  What did our parents do?  They fired us.  They said that the cleaning crew did a much better job than my brother and I and they actually were coming in after us anyway so that the office could get a real cleaning.

Funny isn't it?  As managers, many of us have had employees whose perceptions of their work are different than management's perception of their work.  Of course, our role as managers is to make sure those perception gaps are communicated in an effective and productive manner before the employees threaten to strike. 

How can you do that?  By contacting The HR Team of course!


OFCCP Issues New Directive on the Functional Affirmative Action Plan (FAAP) by Debra Milstein Gardner


On June 14, 2011, the Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contracts Compliance Programs ("OFCCP") issued a new directive updating the application and approval procedures for Functional Affirmative Action Program ("FAAP") agreements. The new directive rescinds the previous administrative notice on FAAPs issued on March 21, 2002.

What are FAAPs?

Executive Order 11246 allows federal supply and service contractors to develop Affirmative Action Plans ("AAPs") based on business function or business unit instead of AAPs based on establishments/locations. In order to develop AAPs based on function or business unit, a government contractor must enter into an agreement with OFCCP. In the absence of an approved agreement, contractors must maintain a separate AAP for each physical location of an establishment with 50 or more employees. For some contractors it may be appropriate to have a combination of functional and establishment AAPs.

What Has Changed from the Previous Functional AA Program?

FAAP agreements are for 3 years instead of 5 years. FAAP agreements must be approved by the OFCCP Director even if the approval process takes longer than 120 days. Agreements no longer renew automatically. Failure to submit annual updates to OFCCP about minor or major organizational changes could lead to a compliance evaluation.

For more information about the Functional Affirmative Action Program, refer to the OFCCP FAQS.

Debra Milstein Gardner is President of Workplace Dynamics. She can be reached at 410-581-4970. 


I-9 and E-Verify Updates


U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) launched I-9 Central, a new online resource center dedicated to the most frequently accessed form on USCIS.gov: Form I-9, Employee Eligibility Verification.

I-9 Central includes sections about employer and employee rights and responsibilities, step-by-step instructions for completing the form, updated Handbook for Employers, and information on acceptable documents for establishing identity and employment authorization. I-9 Central also includes a discussion of common mistakes to avoid when completing the form, guidance on how to correct errors, and answers to employers' recent questions about the Form I-9 process.

By law, U.S. employers must verify the identity and employment authorization for every worker they hire after Nov. 6, 1986, regardless of the employee's immigration status. To comply with the law, employers must complete Form I-9.

In addition, federal contractors are required to use E-Verify. E-Verify is an electronic program through which employers verify the employment eligibility of their employees after hire.  The program was authorized by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA).  In short, employers submit information taken from a new hire's Form I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verification Form) through E-Verify to the Social Security Administration and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to determine whether the information matches government records and whether the new hire is authorized to work in the United States.   

Over the past month, a number of enhancements have been made to the E-verify website and a Supplemental Employer's Guide has been released.


More Jobs for College Grads

Men and women who graduated in 2011 are experiencing the best job market since the 2008 financial crisis. The National Association of Colleges and Employers says the employment gains are being driven by improvements in finance, energy and technology.

At Stanford University's career development center, online job postings for full-time positions increased by 36 percent at the end of 2010 from a year earlier. Google, Apple, Facebook and many startups are hiring.



7 Reasons Why Managers Don't Delegate

It was famed business authority Peter Drucker who once challenged CEOs to think about what they should be doing and what they should not be doing.

Whether you are a CEO, manager, or someone with one or two people working for you in a department, it's an important matter to think about.

Strategic planner Ole Carlson says failure to delegate involves one or more of these causes:

  • You may think you are the only one suited to do the task. 
  • You enjoy doing it or feel it is more expedient to do it personally, though it could be done by someone else. 
  • Doing it yourself is an avoidance strategy. It keeps you from starting other projects. 
  • It's a matter of being a control freak who must be involved in everything. You must learn to trust someone else. 
  • You think you are too busy to teach someone how to do it, but future time savings are the reward if you do.
  • The task has become habitual. Find a better way to start your day. Tackle the first item on your to-do list. 
  • You want to delegate the task but don't think you have a competent person to handle it.

Carlson, author of several business management books, including his most recent title, Aspire: 3 Powerful Strategies for Creating More of What You Want Now, says keeping a time log for a couple of weeks can be enlightening. It will allow you to see what percentage of your time is spent on doing what is actually your job, rather than doing what someone else could do.




  
 

 

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