EEOC Clears up Gender Discrimination Rules
According to a recent ruling by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), transgendered individuals have the right to sue for gender discrimination. The ruling clears up the somewhat fuzzy position of the federal government toward such cases. An email quote from EEOC spokeswomen Christine Nazer said that the new ruling is "the EEOC's position, and we will apply it in all our...
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Study Points to Lack of Knowledge about Disability Insurance
A recent Consumer Federation of America and Unum survey has shed light on just what employees think about disability insurance and the disparity between their understanding and real-life statistics. Of the nearly 1,200 employees surveyed, relatively few understood the reasons for work missed due to disability, most underestimated the frequency of missed work, and the vast majority knew very...
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How Many Characters Do You Need to Communicate with Gen Y?
Young professionals use communication and technology for efficiency... often at the expense of accuracy. It's important to work with new hires to integrate them into your workspace by sharing what communication styles are appropriate for your office and also what communication styles they prefer. Here are a few ways you can communicate better with young professionals in your...
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Talent Management: How Can Recruiters Get in the Game?
In its simplest form, talent management involves the attraction, motivation, development and retention of top talent within an organization. Corporate recruiters pay a pivotal role in the talent management process, particularly in the areas of talent attraction, but once the employee comes on board the corporate recruiter's responsibility for the development of the new recruit becomes a little...
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Video: The Missing Piece of Hiring [Infographic]
Technology is changing the way we live our lives. It's changed the way we network with co-workers, chat with friends, collaborate on projects, and even the way we document our most precious memories. (Anyone looking at countless pictures of a friend's new baby on an iPhone can attest to that.) So why not let technology change the way we think about resumes? With video technology becoming...
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Yours, Mine, and Ours: At What Point Did My Social Media Privacy Become Your Business?
Ever hear the advice, "You should never mix business with pleasure"? Is social media for business, or pleasure? If managed responsibly, both. But, if it is abused, mixing the two can result in a breach of privacy and a lawsuit. Companies are increasingly using social media profiles as a way to reach consumers, businesses, and potential job candidates. A 2011 study of social media...
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Chasing the Career Cheese? Make It Swiss.
Think you've got holes in your resume and skill set? If so, you can learn something from cheese--specifically, Swiss cheese. The "rat race" runs on bait. Everybody knows that. But what is less obvious is that the mice and rats are themselves dangling bait -- bait with holes in it. The rat race—fierce competition to get and keep jobs, customers, sales or market share—dangles profits,...
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Delegating Online Recruitment Tasks: A Client Centered Approach
As a recruiting manager, the way that you divide up and delegate your recruitment tasks will depend on many factors, such the size and location of your team, availability of technologies, capabilities of your staff, and the particular characteristics of your corporate client base. Client Centric Approach Before thinking about work breakdown structures, a client centric (whether internal...
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Wellness Program Keeps Healthcare Costs Down
Last year, the Chrysler Group avoided increases in healthcare costs for most of its 13,000-strong salaried U.S. workforce, even after the company experienced a 9 percent jump in costs in 2010. The best part is that Chrysler's control tactics are no secret and are fairly simple to implement by other organizations. The three broad tactics used by the company include offering free flu shots to...
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Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Changes Rules Regarding Background Checks
The EEOC has found blanket hiring policies, which automatically reject candidates who have a previous criminal record, illegal due to the disproportionate impact the policies have on minority populations. The new guidelines released by the EEOC addressing background checks comes as a direct reaction to a settlement between the Commission and Pepsi Co. where the company agreed to a $3.13 million...
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Inova Payroll Seeks to Create Partnerships with Local Accountants
Inova Payroll's new Business Alliance Program offers the opportunity for local banks, CPAs, and benefit consultants to participate in a client-sharing program where partners can earn a 10 percent recurring revenue on each referred client at every payroll. Partners may also choose to use Inova Payroll as a payroll service provider in lieu of revenue share. For organizations wishing to leave the...
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Concern over New Criminal Background Check Guidelines
The new guidelines recently issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has raised concerns for employers everywhere who feel the new "recommendations" are a slap on the wrist for attempting to maintain a safe environment for employees and customers. The EEOC has recently voted to strongly advise employers to not inquire about criminal conviction on employment applications. While...
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New LinkedIn Today Format
LinkedIn's popular "morning newsletter" for business professionals called LinkedIn Today seems to have received a big makeover (at least for some users.) The new format adds large graphics and a smooth, iPad style design. The overall feel is clean and visually striking. LinkedIn Today has proven wildly popular, as the custom article aggregation service picks news for you in areas of your...
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Recent Recession to Depress Wage Growth for Years
According to The Conference Board's new Executive Action Report, the extended buyer's market in jobs brought about by the recession has led to the weakest wage and compensation growth since the 1960s. Between 2008 and 2010, wages continued to trend downward with pressure felt more strongly for men, recent college grads, new hires, and unskilled workers. Gad Levanon, Director of...
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New Management Tool Helps Measure Efficiency of Corporate Strategy Implementation
The Strategy Implementation Maturity Survey (SIMS), created by a league of strategy execution experts known as the Strategy Implementation Maturity Consortium (SIMC), aids businesses in assessing their strategy implementation maturity level so that they may improve that implementation and apply best practices depending on their current maturity level. The survey tool is a response to the 70...
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Survey Reveals Most Important Factors in Attracting and Retaining Employees
The recently released Towers Watson Retirement Attitudes Survey has identified the top 10 most important factors that attract and help retain employees in multiple age groups. The survey divided up over 9,200 U.S employees into age categories including those under 40, those between 40 and 49, and those 50 and older. The survey found that for the youngest workers, the 10 most important factors...
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Trickle Down Economics in Effect as New Healthcare Fee Kicks In
Health insurers are set to receive a new fee mandated by the controversial healthcare reform law, the cost of which is probably destined to trickle down to employers and employees. The fee, added to help fund the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), will be imposed upon both issuers and sponsors of self-funded health plans. According to the PCORI, the fee was created to,...
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How Much Job Search Advice Should You Give?
As the old adage goes, 'Time is Money'; it's not original but it is certainly an effective and simple doctrine to live by within business – particularly in the recruiting agency environment. Money and cash flow is especially crucial in employment agency environments because not only are their revenues more back loaded than other agency environments – meaning there are usually no interim...
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Eclipsing The Ask
It's been some time since social recruiting was the new thing, at least in the circle of conferences, unconferences, prezis, slideshares, webinars and blogs that I tend to inhabit (since you're reading this, you may too, inhabit this world). However, as you and I both know, the recruiters who embrace social recruiters are not necessarily in the majority, no matter how much infographics and...
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How to Evaluate Job Boards
We all know that social media is set to dominate and transform the landscape of corporate recruitment forever. However, the CareerXroads Source of Hire Study 2011 has shown that, perhaps just for the moment, the traditional job board is still in the driving seat when it comes to recruitment, being six times more influential a recruitment channel than social media. In fact, job boards are...
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Why your Career Site is not as Important as you Think
Spend any time in marketing, as recently as 2010 and you would have had one goal in mind: drive traffic back to the website. Even as social channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, Quora and YouTube made marketing an ever increasing web, still the ultimate goal was to get the candidate or client back to the site so you could... sell them on how awesome you are. But that is changing and it's been...
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In 2012, Top Salespeople are the Toughest Talent to Attract
Sales jobs website SalesGravy.com has revealed the results of its recent 2012 Sales Hiring Trends Report, and the data does not look promising for employers looking to hire salespeople this year. Despite the still high national unemployment rate, the number of sales professionals seeking jobs has continued to drop leading to the real threat of a talent shortage within the field. And most...
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Administrative and Commercial Jobs on the Rise
Staffing and talent search specialist Express Employment Professionals reports that hiring trends during Q2 of 2012 will be greatest in commercial and light industrial jobs and administrative and clerical staff, with 32 percent and 28 percent of survey participants expecting to hire in these fields, respectively. Administrative jobs will experience the greatest growth over Q1 2012 rising by 8...
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U.S. Court of Appeals Strikes Down National Labor Relations Board Poster Rule
The U.S. Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C. has ordered an injunction blocking a new National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rule that was originally scheduled to go into effect on April 30. The new rule would require employers to place posters informing employees of their rights to unionize. The appeal originated with a group of business lobby groups who claim that the NLRB has stepped beyond...
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Kronos Incorporated Announces Enhanced Analytics to Aid in Workforce Management
Workforce management solutions provider Kronos Incorporated has announced the availability of its Kronos Workforce Analytics solution that gives employers easy access to workforce data in order to organize information, manage costs, and increase productivity. The solution offers real-time insights into operational issues such as costs of labor and workforce requirements so that problems can be...
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Moneyball and the Blind Leading the Blind
It's telling that Wall Street Journal ran an article about Moneyball and HR at around the same time the movie hit dollar theaters, because most of the folks that read it felt that it was fairly close to worthless. In the hopes of catching the big data tidal wave, many HR practitioners are using the buzz word without really grasping the meaning of the trend or what it means for our industry. Data...
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Eliminate Capitalism–Really? (A Question for Michael Moore)
"Capitalism is an evil; and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people. And that 'something' is called 'democracy'."—Michael Moore, "Capitalism: A Love Story" I love Michael Moore's stinging, sardonic critiques and always have, ever since his "Roger and Me" debuted in 1989, but have to confess to...
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New Opportunities, Old Workforce: How the Silver Tsunami is Turning the Tide of Retail Hiring
According to a 2010 survey from the National Retail Federation, more than 14 percent of the total retail workforce in the U.S. comprised workers aged 55 or older, and the Urban Institute found that retailers employed the most workers aged 65 and older out of any employment sector in the nation. Bringing older workers to the retail industry isn't a new phenomenon. Back in 2004, Home Depot set...
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How Not to Format Your CV
With US unemployment rates running at an alarming 9% and many of America's major cities seeing up to 9 job applicants per post, getting an interview, let alone finding a job is becoming a challenging task in itself. Still, many job candidates are failing in the starting blocks and not even giving themselves a proper chance in the race to get a job. This is because a lot of job applicants are...
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Companies Unprepared for Retirement Talent Loss
The results of a recent survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and AARP should give pause to employers turning a blind eye to the potential skills shortage arising within the next several years as Boomers cease putting off retirement and leave the workforce. The survey found that 72 percent of human resource professionals describe the talent loss brought about by the...
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Women Are Saying Goodbye
Like the VonTrapp children, many women are saying "so long, farewell, Auf wiedersehen" to the workforce and it's confounding experts. Never have women been more educated, closer to closing the wage gap and less likely to choose to end their career when starting a family. So what is the issue? As blogger Polly Pearson queries, are these ladies the canaries in our modern informational age coal...
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New SaaS Solution for Time and Labor Management Released
Workplace management and time tracking software provider Asure Software has announced the release of AsureForce, the company's new workplace management solution. The cloud-based platform features several improvements over prior releases including enhanced scheduling functionality and the combination of rules and reports with the user-friendly interface providing for increased...
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HR Outsourcing Trends
Since the advent of the recent economic recession, a record number of companies have chosen to turn to third-party HR management firms as a way to shrink expenses and be more efficient. According to a Society of Human Resource Management poll, over one-quarter of companies report that the primary reason for outsourcing their HR department is to save money. These outside businesses save...
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How the FLSA Applies to Illegal Aliens
A recent lawsuit in New York City has brought to the fore the issue of illegal aliens and how the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) affects their rights as workers. The company, Cindy's Total Care, Inc. nail salon responded to an employment lawsuit brought by the DOL by arguing that the employees it skimped on overtime were illegals and so were not covered under the FLSA. The DOL presented...
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7 New Applicant Tracking System Features
With 52% of US employers still struggling to hire staff, the talent war is showing no signs of abate. CEOs are looking for ways to beat the competition in the race to sign top talent. Naturally, they will be expecting their HR teams to be putting forward proposals that will help the business to compete more effectively in the talent war. New HR and talent technology is one such potential...
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One HR System to Rule them All
End to end. Streamlined. Integrated. These are the words you see listed on the side of the box when shopping for HR technology solutions. In fact, one cannot even call them simply HR Technology anymore as there are thousands of handy acronyms to use like: TMS- Talent Management Systems, TAT- Talent Acquisition Technology, SRS- Social Recruiting Systems and many, many more. 2012 (and...
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Recruiter Resume Tips
Recruiters spend a large part of their careers advising job-seekers on how to develop the best resumes, but who do the recruiters go to when they are changing jobs and need to optimize their own resumes? It's hard to be objective about your own resume. The truth is that recruiters are no different than other job seekers, and will sometimes need to consult resume advice sites or maybe even pay...
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Healthcare Study Points to Extreme Cost Disparities
A recent study by health plan comparison tools provider Change Healthcare has revealed that some providers are charging much more than others for the same common procedures. In fact, depending on the plan and needs of the participant, costs could be up to 755 percent higher for the same treatment, in the same area. This news gives compelling evidence for employees to shop carefully when looking...
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Survey: The Effectiveness of Retirement Plans Never Gets Measured
While virtually all companies say that they want to help employees properly prepare for retirement, a new Wells Fargo survey shows that only 11 percent compare their employees' retirement income with expected needs; 51 percent don't provide retirement income estimates at all. Just half of all participating companies reported to having not measured the individual progress. Contrary to this...
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New Federal Requirements Issued to Prevent Genetic Discrimination
Anyone up for a screening of Gattaca? A new rule just recently put into effect by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says that all employers with at least 15 employees must retain records related to the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) in a way reminiscent of that required for employment records under the Americans with Disability Act (ADA). However, in addition to the...
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DOL Gives States Re-employment Strategy Advice
The U.S. Department of Labor has offered guidance for state demonstration projects in order to find effective strategies to connect the unemployed with jobs. This guidance is a key first step in the first true overhaul of the Unemployment Insurance systems in many years. The overhaul has been made possible by the newly passed Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012. Due to the...
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Sourcing: Separate but Equal
Sourcing has always been an important part of the talent acquisition function. Often the conduit for talent coming into the organization, it's been lumped into business intelligence, sometimes part of the marketing research function but more often than not, lumped into recruiting. Never has that been more apt than now, when sourcing processes formerly reserved for "black belt sourcers" were made...
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The Productivity Costs of Sleep Deprived Workers
Most people experience periods of insomnia when your mind simply won't shut off when you need it to. Sometimes individuals choose to lose sleep in order to catch up on neglected personal or professional duties. But while the symptoms of sleep deprivation can be troubling on their own, they can also lead to disasters on the road and in the workplace. In fact, some studies have produced a...
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Upswing in Marketing Spending Points to Rising Business Confidence
The most recent IPA Bellwether survey shows a continued increase in business confidence as marketing budgets were revised up for the third consecutive quarter in Q1 2012. The jump in spending came in response to new product launches, optimism about the economy, and higher ROI rates. Of the companies responding to the survey, 22 percent reported an upward revision to marketing budgets...
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Wage-and-Hour Lawsuits Continue to Rise
With a renewed federal emphasis on enforcing wage-and-hour laws and the growing intolerance of workers towards longer hours without a pay hike has lead to some disturbing statistics on employment litigation. For example, wage-and-hour lawsuits that have risen to the federal level increased by 15 percent between 2010 and 2011. In 2011, over 7,000 suits of this type, including a large number of...
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Survey: Affordable Care Act Expected to Reduce Health Care Revenue
Benefits management leader HighRoads, in a partnership with HR management consulting firm Sullivan, Cotter and Associates (SullivanCotter), has released its inaugural survey addressing employee benefits practices and trends in hospitals and health systems. The survey found that 55 percent of hospitals and health systems expect a revenue drop due to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) while just 12...
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Employment Law: Four Ways to Keep Up to Date
Employment law sits right at the heart of the HR profession. When hiring, rewarding, disciplining and firing staff, careful attention must be paid to the relevant labor regulations. Failure to follow these regulations can lead to disgruntled employees, governmental fines and expensive law suits. HR and recruiting professionals must have a comprehensive and up to date understanding of employment...
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A Samoan Holi(un)day with Pay
It's great to get paid for days off, but it's even better to be paid for days that don't exist. If you are a Samoan (not American Samoan, just Samoan) who was scheduled to work on December 30, 2011, you woke up on December 31, 2011 with a government promise of full pay for December 30th, without having worked or lived a minute of it—but not because it was a holiday, sick day or some other...
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