Another Day in the HR Field

The following are a couple employment related changes all business owners and human resources professionals in Illinois should be aware of. DOCUMENTATION RECOMMENDED Employees of any Illinois employer now have a much longer time frame to bring a complaint or case against their employer.  This is due to a change to the Illinois Human Rights Act the Governor signed on August 24, 2018.  Specifically it was Senate Bill 20 Public Act 100-1066.  So basically, if an employee feels they have been unfairly treated by their employer or any representative o their employer, such as their supervisor, they now have 300 days to bring that complaint to the EEOC or an attorney.  This just reinforces age old HR related advice to: DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT.  It's hard to remember what we had for lunch yesterday, let alone the who, what, when, where, how , and why of an employee situation that happened well over a year ago by the time you are notified that an employee took their full 300

Since 2011, I have incorporated a social learning aspect to my HRM and Strategic HRM course.  The graduate students get to chose while the undergraduates are assigned a specific podcast to listen to each week.  Over the years, I have incorporated blog readings, podcasts, and HR related assessments.  While some have come and gone, I've decide this year to go full podcast as I think students get a chance to actually hear from various practitioners in the field.  Adding an auditory aspect to the learning helps enhance the overall learning experience especially when our online students already have to do a lot of reading! So here is this years winning list in no particular order: HR Over Coffee Talent Culture Let's Fix Work Workology HR Happy Hour HR Break Room Impact Makers HR Works Nine to Thrive HR

In summarizing the potential for risk in the human resources and personnel practices of organizations visited over the past few years, the highest risk of audits, investigations, grievances and the resulting potential for penalties, fines and legal concerns come from six primary sources.   The main reason for concerns are because certain federal and state agencies are making it a priority to investigate: Misclassification of employees as exempt, Illinois led the nation in active investigations 3,635 involving 19,765 misclassifications, 245.6 million in unreported taxable wages, 5.1 million in unemployment tax unreported, 270,570 employees impacted. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently announced that 84,254 workplace discrimination charges were filed with the federal agency nationwide during fiscal year (FY) 2017, and secured $398 million for victims in the private sector and state and local government workplaces through voluntary resolutions and litiga

This morning I had a chance to talk with Brian Pierce from WMAY as a member of Local First Springfield. We talked about ice cream, management coaching, hiring and retaining employees and more.  Have a listen! Listen to "Rogers HR Consulting - 6/15/18" on Spreaker.

Yes, social learning platforms are in my classrooms (face-to-face, blended, and online) and have been part of my teaching methodology since 2011 or so.  I personally got online around 2008 not too long after social media started getting popular among the business community.  My first blog was actually on my original website (although clunky) because I remember writing a blog post about my very first Facebook post featuring my kids.  Of course, it took me a couple years to master all the start ups and I think twitter became a favorite in 2009 or 2010.  I remember, many of my SHRM friends showed me how to use twitter at conferences.  Twitter which is where I have my strongest following currently with just under 20k unique followers (no purchased lists - wouldn't even think of doing that).  In those early days, it seems like the Human Resource community was among the first to adopt the technology even though many of their employers were still strongly forbidding the use of any type of

The morning after a day in Jamaica starts off with a bang in Julie Pugh's session covering Harassment in the Headlines most recently refenced by hashtags #MeToo and #TimesUp.  Her session was titled Have Your Life Jacket Handy: The HR Professional's Role in Addressing Pre-Lawsuit Procedures. Whew! That's a mouthful! However, being prepared is a big deal and deserves our attention, understanding, and consideration to avoid a mouthful of curse words (quietly of course) when you get handed your first EEOC complaint or lawsuit.  Believe me, they are not fun to deal with! I have personally had my share of harassment (especially sexual) complaints during my tenure in HR.  So far this year, I have delivered a couple of programs as well as conducted a couple of investigation and it's only February! The stories I could tell would make you wonder what type of work is actually being done in the workplace.  Matter of fact, I shared one of them in the session that helped Julie

It's Showtime at sea for attendees of the 1st Annual #HRCruise heading to Haiti and Jamaica.  After a great opening session by Greg Hawks, the first session of the week began with Brad and Suzanna Cooper with US Corporate Wellness .  They have walked attendees through a well thought out, detailed and thoughtful presentation about what corporate wellness should look like.  In my experience wellness programs have been very narrowed.  For example, when I first started my career, there was a $100 prize for the employee who lost the greatest percentage of weight.  I was only 23 at the time without a great deal of other influences buying for my time.  It was a cinch.  I won! I went out and bout a brand new suit to wear to work with my winnings.  I was excited, proud and focused.  I had willpower. However, the wellness program was only focused on one thing, weight loss. A strategically planned program will consider so much more like smoking, stress, spirit, mental, physical, exercise,

The following was originally posted on the WomenofHR site on 7/14/15. I am reposting here because I will be referring to it in upcoming presentation where I have done some additional research around this topic of Bereavement Leave. My mission is to change the minds of management around the world to improve their culture so that employees feel more comfortable taking the time off they need to "do the work" as you will see in my story below as well as "grieve" which is not a simple 3-5 day process! More to come on this topic in upcoming posts. Thank you in advance for reading and sharing! Bereavement Leave Fail from Women of HR When you’re managing employees and they have a death in the family of someone who has been sick for a while and they have made you aware of the situation, what do you do? Worse yet, what do you do when an employee calls you on their way out of town to tell you that their brother was killed the night before by a hit and run driver? Th