by Evil HR Lady on January 24, 2019
by Evil HR Lady on January 23, 2019
Stress at work isn’t limited to aggressive deadlines or closing important deals. In fact, work stress can start even before employees show up on the first day, during the relocation process.
According to one report, two of the most stress-inducing life events are moving and starting a new job. When you hire someone who needs to relocate, their stress levels are already high—and if you don’t ameliorate that with a good relocation package, you’ll add financial stress to the overflowing pot. With so much for a relocating hire to consider, it’s almost a guarantee that your employee won’t begin their new job on the right foot if you don’t offer to help.
To keep reading, click here: The Hidden Costs of Employee Relocation (and Why Employers Should Care)
by Evil HR Lady on January 22, 2019
Keyshawn Anderson was doing a good deed. Dropped off by his foster dad to shovel Grandma’s walk, he was doing what numerous kids have done for as long as anyone can remember: help out grandma when it snows.
But, in Normandy, Missouri, the police showed up and warned Anderson because he didn’t have a permit.
To shovel snow.
For his grandmother.
Let that sink in. I’m all in favor of licensing for things that can cause other people harm. I’m glad that my doctor has degrees and has passed licensing exams. But, to shovel snow?
We’ve reached peak ridiculousness.
Now, according to the local news station there was a perfectly good reason for this:
To keep reading, click here: Missouri: You Need a Permit to Shovel Grandma’s Snow
by Evil HR Lady on January 21, 2019
Managing employee attendance is easy enough when you have responsible people that only take time off when needed. And you want to encourage people to call in sick when they are unwell so that no one else catches whatever bug is going around.
You need a rock-solid absenteeism policy, and here is what to put in it.
Sufficient Paid Time Off
Wait! Aren’t we trying to maximize the time people are at work? Not exactly. What we want to do is instill responsibility in our workforce and minimize managing employee absenteeism. If you don’t allow your employees to take time off for vacation, they aren’t going to skip their sister’s wedding; they are simply going to call in sick.
To keep reading, click here: Managing Employee Absenteeism the Best Way
by Evil HR Lady on January 20, 2019
Working as a celebrity’s 24/7 assistant is expected to have its crazy moments, and when Lianna Shakhnazaryan (also known as Lianna Azarian) took the job working for Mariah Carey, she got a salary that reflected the amount of work involved, starting out at $250,000 and raised to $328,500. Now, a lot of us might think we could put up with just about anything for that type of salary.
On the other side of things, when Carey and her manager, Stella Bulochnikov (also known as Stella Stolper), hired an assistant at this great salary, they probably expected that Shakhnazaryan would take care of just about anything, be trustworthy, and put up with whatever came her way.
Boy, were both of them wrong. The two women are now suing each other and it promises to get juicy and get into the details of really exciting employment law. Carey is suing her former assistant, saying she threatened to release videos of her if Carey didn’t pay up $8 million.
To keep reading, click here: Mariah Carey Lawsuit: Blackmail, Sexual Battery, Pee, and a $328,500 Salary
by Evil HR Lady on January 18, 2019
I believe in equal pay for equal work, which is why I’m totally okay with Citigroup’s announcement that, after careful study, the median pay for women is 71 percent of the median pay for men. (Minorities earn 93 percent of what white men earn.)
If that sounds bizarre to you, you need to think back to sixth-grade math where you learned the term “median.” The median is simply the middle number. So if you have 11 people, and you line them up by pay, whatever person number 6 earns is the median pay of that group. It can give you some idea of how things work, but it’s not really the most helpful of numbers. This is especially true when you are looking at salary differences.
Citigroup, for instance, has call centers. I’m pretty darn sure the people I call (full disclosure: I have a Citibank credit card) when I need to change my address earn a lot less than the Senior VP of Finance at Citigroup HQ. And that’s okay.
To keep reading, click here: Citigroup Pays Women 71 Percent of What Men Earn, and I’m Totally Okay with that
by Evil HR Lady on January 17, 2019
Marie Jean Pierre worked as a dishwasher at Conrad Miami Hotel. She requested Sundays off and from 2009 to 2015, the company had no problem accommodating her request, which was for religious reasons. However, sometime in 2015 her manager began demanding that she work on Sundays.
Pierre sued and won, to the tune of $21 million. Now, she won’t see very much of that due to caps on punitive damages and lawyers fees. Most likely she’ll walk away with $500,000, which is still not small change.
What went wrong here? How did Conrad Miami (owned by Virginia-based Park Hotels & Resorts, formerly known as Hilton Worldwide) screw up so much that the jury not only found them guilty of violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but threw in millions in punitive damages? Well, I don’t know for sure what went down, but I can tell you some of their mistakes and what you can do to avoid this problem.
To keep reading, click here: Hilton’s $21 Million Reason to Honor a Dishwasher’s Religious Schedule Request
by Evil HR Lady on January 16, 2019
Performance review tips would seem to be something to give a new manager, but they can also be of benefit to an entry-level employee. If one of your colleagues hasn’t had a formal review before, you’ll want to help set their expectations. Otherwise, new employees may feel nervous and the discussion might not be as productive as it could be.
If you’re looking to help prepare an entry-level employee for their first review at your organization, here are a few things to consider.
The Components of a Performance Review
While each company’s process is different, there are generally three parts to an annual performance review. Making this clear before the meeting takes place can let the new employees know what to expect.
To keep reading, click here: Preparing entry level employees for their first review.
by Evil HR Lady on January 15, 2019
Two stories.
First, a couple of years ago, I went to my daughter’s high school to give a presentation on careers. I put up a slide that listed about 20 of my friends, their college majors, and their careers today. As all these friends were in their 40s, it had been a bit of time since college. Only the accountant as still working in her field of study. So, I told these high school students that what they majored in wasn’t critical and the teacher about had a heart attack. He kept interrupting me and saying, “No! What they study determines their future job!”
Second, a few weeks ago, I was in Turkey. We visited a carpet shop and began speaking with the salesman who had excellent English. He told us that he had lived in the United States for 20 years and returned to Turkey recently. How did he end up in the US, we asked. He went for graduate school–he and his wife were enrolled in a Ph.D. program in political science, but he had dropped out when he realized it was not for him. We laughed. My husband and I met in a political science Ph.D. program and had both dropped out when we realized it was not for us. So, we had three political science dropouts. I’m an HR person, my husband is a statistician in pharmaceuticals, and this man sold carpets. Our careers couldn’t be more different, even though we all studied the same subject in school.
There is a huge disconnect between what schools teach and what reality looks like. A teacher is a job that generally requires a specific degree and certification, so teachers tend to think that is what all jobs require. And, of course, there are plenty of careers that have similar requirements. If you want to be a lawyer, you need to go to law school. But, what you study as an undergrad doesn’t really matter all that much.
To keep reading, click here: Your 6th Grader Doesn’t Need to Know Her Future Career
by Evil HR Lady on January 14, 2019
