Jan

Record Retention: Discarding Documents

By: Forte Human Resources

How Long Do We Need to Keep All This Stuff?

Below is a information to guide you in your year-end cleaning as relates to proper discard of documents.

How do we get rid of it?

Please be careful when disposing of documents. Imagine the outcry if you simply put in the dumpster documents listing employees’ social security numbers, addresses, or private medical information. Many states have laws requiring organizations to carefully maintain security and confidentiality when disposing of files – generally requiring that you render the information unreadable or undecipherable.

Office shredders are appropriate for daily use but not very efficient for large volumes or documents. A better solution is to utilize a document management company.

Whether you are still working on your end of the year file purges or are anticipating office spring cleaning, we hope you will refer to these guidelines. If you need further assistance on this or any other Human Resource issue, call on Forté Human Resources.

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Jan

Record Retention: Investigations and Electronic Documents

By: Forte Human Resources

How Long Do We Need to Keep All This Stuff?

Below is information to guide you in your year-end cleaning as relates to investigations and electronic documents. Remember that many federal and state laws include provisions related to record retention.

Documents Related to Enforcement Actions: If your company is being investigated for some reason, you should retain everything until the action is completely finalized. For example, if you are audited for alleged wage and hour violations, you must not discard wage information related to the time period being audited. If you are responding to an EEOC complaint, you must retain all the documentation related to that complaint and employee.

What about electronic documents?
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) were recently revised to address issues of discovery as they relate to electronically stored information. (Basically, the FRCP are the court rules and procedures attorneys follow when conducting civil suits.) The FRCP always included rules related to the retention and discovery of documents relevant to litigation. However, because so many documents are now stored electronically, the rules needed to be updated.

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(325 words, estimated 1:18 mins reading time)

Jan

Record Retention: How Long Do We Need to Keep All This Stuff?

By: Forte Human Resources

How Long Do We Need to Keep All This Stuff?

Every year at this time, our phones ring with questions such as “How long do I have to keep these personnel files?” Or “Do we really need to hang on to these time cards?

How about some guidelines?

Below is a short list to guide you in your year-end cleaning. Remember that many federal and state laws include provisions related to record retention. While the following does not anticipate every piece of paper, these general, and usually generous, guidelines anticipate the most common record retention questions.

Employee Compensation: Your payroll department should keep payroll records (including records of wages, hours, collective bargaining agreements, employment contracts, date of payment, amount of payment, record of straight and overtime earnings etc.) for three years. The actual time cards can be discarded after two years.

Leave of Absence Records:FMLA wants you to retain records related to leaves of absence for three years. This includes basic payroll data, FMLA leave dates, and copies of leave notices.

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(314 words, estimated 1:15 mins reading time)

Dec

Incentives for Hiring a Vet

By: Forte Human Resources

There are incentives to hire a vet.

The government has also provided a carrot to those employers who hire veterans. Under the Work Opportunity Tax Credit program (WOTC) an employer may receive a significant tax credit when hiring certain veterans. The tax credit can be worth up to $2400 if you hire a veteran who has been out of work for at least one month and up to $5600 if he or she has been unemployed for more than six months. The credit can be worth up to $9600 if you hire a veteran with a service-related disability. Be sure and understand the particulars of these programs before trying to take advantage of them.

So, don’t be shy. Veterans deserve our support. A little effort on our part will go a long way toward helping them successfully reenter the civilian workforce.

Forte Human Resources can help with your recruiting needs as part of our total HR solution.

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(189 words, estimated 45 secs reading time)

Dec

Recruiting Veterans

By: Forte Human Resources

Reaching veterans is actually fairly easy.

There are many job sites where you can post your jobs. Here are a couple of job board sites targeting veterans that we at Forte Human Resources have used:

www.hirepatriots.com

www.recruitmilitary.com

Of course, you can reach out to your local military base directly. Contact (800) 226-0841 to find an ACAP contact near you.

Again, a little creativity and resourcefulness on the part of the hiring manager and recruiter will bring excellent results.

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Dec

Translating Military Experience to Civilian Jobs

By: Forte Human Resources

How do you translate military experience to civilian jobs?

The best answer is a little creativity and research on the part of the hiring manager and/or recruiter. For example, if you see “Quartermaster” on an Army veteran’s resume, you should know that this person was responsible for logistics support of soldiers and operations. This person was probably responsible for providing support for thousands of soldiers and equipment around the world! If he could do that, he could probably handle your warehouse in Denver! If you are a civilian employer, translate “Quartermaster” or “Supply” to jobs like Warehouse Manager. (By the way, Quartermaster has a different definition if the person was in the Navy.)

Simply do an internet search for “military job titles” to find lots of handy sites that will help you translate military job titles to the more common civilian job titles.

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Dec

Hire a Vet

By: Forte Human Resources

Hire a Vet

Hundreds of thousands of Military Veterans will be soon be reentering the civilian workforce. It’s time for the private sector, companies both big and small, to step up and provide this group with employment opportunities. Military veterans are well disciplined, trained, dedicated and hard working. They deserve our support.

However, hiring military veterans can pose some challenges for employers. For example, how do you translate military experience to the civilian job market? How do you reach out to the veteran workforce? What about the special needs veteran – those with injuries or disabilities? All good questions and ones that sometimes cause employers to unfortunately shy away from actively recruiting and hiring veterans.

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Nov

Be a Charming Manager

By: Forte Human Resources

Show Your Charm
Think of the managers and leaders who have made an impact on your life. The most successful managers are confident, visionary, and have something to offer beyond the day’s work. Managers are change leaders and are most effective when they show a charismatic side of themselves that spurs people toward action. Research shows that with just a few simple and trainable adjustments, anyone can significantly boost their “Charisma Quotient” quickly, simply, and powerfully.

Announce Their Importance – Disengaged employees need to hear that you need them.

Increase Your Animation – Practice a more engaging vocal tone and better body language.

Tap Their Emotions – Showing passion for your work is a great way to help them generate passion in theirs.

Brainstorm Often – Foster interest by discussing unconventional solutions to achieving goals.

Stay Positive – Always keep your employees’ confidential information private.

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(170 words, estimated 41 secs reading time)

Nov

Be a Trusting Manager

By: Forte Human Resources

Build Rock Solid Trust
Your employees’ trust doesn’t simply “come with the job”. If you are to gain the buy-in that is the yardstick of your managerial abilities and successes, you need to hold the trust that they have for you with care. Abused just once, this trust can be impossible to get back. Research on gaining employee trust shows that the highest focus should be on:

Telling the Truth – Nothing crumbles the foundations of trust like lying. Be true to your word.

Equitable Treatment – Don’t play favorites. Keep everyone in the same loop.

Don’t Keep Secrets – Many times trust is lost based on what employees aren’t told.

Show Emotion – Remind employees that you are human too. Express feeling when appropriate.

Be Predictable – Whether they like it or not, they’ll trust you when they know what to expect.

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(168 words, estimated 40 secs reading time)

Nov

Be a Productive Manager

By: Forte Human Resources

Focus on Productivity
You walk through the office checking on your employees. Some seem extremely busy; some seem overly relaxed. Some seem to be bogged down and stuck under a dark cloud, and some seem perfectly content. Outwardly you are drawing conclusions on who is being productive and who isn’t, and most times you’re judging the happiest, most contented employees to be the most productive.

But don’t be fooled by appearances. Satisfied employees don’t necessarily equate to productive employees. Oftentimes managers are asked to “boost morale” in an effort to increase productivity – but that is putting the cart before the horse. Focus should be on increasing productivity which has a much better track record of showing itself to be a precursor of increasing morale. Take steps to ensure that your own efforts are focused on employee production, not employee satisfaction – done properly this will leave you with increases across both spectrums.

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(168 words, estimated 40 secs reading time)