Laurie Ruettimann
Laurie Ruettimann is a punk rock, Human Resources professional with extensive Fortune 500 experience. She writes about business trends, employment, Corporate America, and permanently opting-out of the rat race. She also believes you should spay & neuter your pets.
Employees, Disability, and Medical Leave
These situations are never straightforward. I don’t miss HR.
Hi, Laurie. How’s this for junk … I work for a large company. In May, I went on medical leave with a ruptured Achilles. As of June 1, I exhaust my TDI & am now on unpaid medical leave thru at least Aug 15, but it may extend.
In June, the company announces they are closing my unit on Sept 3. The six current jobs in my unit are to become five jobs in another department. Like musical chairs. We are all told to reapply. I get an interview and I go in with a doctor’s note. The jobs as described do not match what is online in the description. I don’t get hired.
My boss packs my desk, throws it downstairs for me to pick up. I tell the HR person that I’m not quitting. I’m told they expect me back Aug 15 and to keep applying for jobs in the company. I’m not qualified for anything that’s open.
I get the sense that my company wants me to quit. They said that should I chose to separate employment prior to Sept 3, they will pay me my full wages — but I’m on leave w/o pay. Quitting kills my chances of getting unemployment insurance. I think they are trying to avoid laying me off, especially because I have ADA certification & am on medical leave. I think that opens door for lawsuit… And yeah, I do need my health insurance, especially now.
Have you ever dealt with a situation this messed up before?? Any ideas??
G. L. Hoffman is Out in the Real World Where There Are Jobs
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A couple of weeks back, Susan Joyce of Job-Hunt.org mentioned a twitter fight she had with someone from Irving, CA.
She was frustrated because some guy argued, “There are no jobs in Irving. None!”
Nothing that Susan could say could convince him that yes, there are jobs in Irving.
Every day, HR people, career coaches, resume writers and even bloggers hear all sorts of hard luck stories from job seekers. I asked Laurie if I could look at data from LinkUp and answer the question, “Are there jobs out there?”
New Hire Orientation Programs Suck
Have you heard of the welcome wagon? It’s an informal neighborhood welcoming committee that greets you when you move into your new home.Ken and I bought a home in 1999 and a few neighbors stopped by the house, dropped off a plate of cookies, and delivered a pamphlet with the names of our neighbors and their children, personal phone numbers, and information about local pizza and Chinese delivery.
I suggested, “You can put this on the internet.”
I was thinking GeoCities or a simple email distribution list.
“That’s not very safe,” my neighbor said.
That’s when I learned that the welcome wagon is a stupid concept. Get out of my house. I’m too busy unpacking my stuff and getting acclimated to hear about the best local dentist and the neighbor down the block with too many cats.
Mentors: Who Needs ‘Em?
I don’t know anything about mentoring but I always seem to have an answer for everything.
I read your blog daily; thanks for the laughs and the insight. I work in HR and am tasked with a mentor program overhaul. I have some opinions on this topic, but would love to hear your thoughts. Do they work? Should HR be involved? If so, to what extent? Is it as Michael Scott-like as it sounds? Do mentors want to be mentors? And, do mentees want to be mentored? A lot of what I’m reading about mentor programs are professional and career relationships. What about mentor/mentee relationship that is just there to help an employee get acclimated into the organization? Thanks in advance for anything you’d like to share!
Formal mentor programs might work. I dunno. Lots of people who run them say they are successful — but what else would they say?
Benjamin McCall and Employee Appreciation
I recently read an article on Inc.com about Tony Hsieh entitled WHY I SOLD ZAPPOS. In the article, Tony mentions the board thinking that employee happiness is nice for PR but his “social experiments” weren’t as important as moving the business forward or profits. Think about that as you read this article…
In the current economy, employee appreciation and celebration is not often seen. Some would argue that this appreciation is equally unappreciated by the workforce. An easy argument to make when many supervisors and employers have a hard time justifying celebrations much less extra perks to recognize people in this economy.
These days we forget the little and even big-fun surprises that can be done — not in the form of pay, a pat on the back, or a short review/evaluation in the secrecy of the managers office.
Below is a video of an experience one public transport operator had. His Danish employer, Arriva, arranged a surprise birthday celebration. This guy is only a bus driver but received a king’s celebration.
Ten Tips for Mastering Your Interview with Human Resources
- Never badmouth anything or anyone. This applies to your former employer, coworkers, or Osama bin Laden. We’re trying to screen out whiners and troublemakers. I don’t care if your last supervisor was a tyrant. Be kind and magnanimous about everything and everyone.
- Make sure your appearance is in order. We’ve covered this. Fair or not, you are judged based you based on how you look. Check your fly and make sure your eyebrows are smooth.
- Don’t smoke on the day of the interview. We can smell it. We don’t like it. There is an unconscious bias against smokers, and let’s face it, you have a reputation for being lazy. Smokers are more expensive to insure, too. Why would we want you on the payroll? Help me help you. Don’t smoke.
Changes to Flexible Spending Accounts
An FSA allows an employee to set aside a portion of his or her earnings to pay for qualified expenses as established in the cafeteria plan, most commonly for medical expenses but often for dependent care or other expenses. Money deducted from an employee’s pay into an FSA is not subject to payroll taxes, resulting in a substantial payroll tax savings.
Recruiting Animal: Reliable Info About Gen Y
I just read an article in O Magazine. The topic, Gen Y. The title, Your Kids Are Different and It’s Okay.
The author? Let’s call him Dave.
Dave says that Gen Y is different in 4 ways.
- They think that they’re entitled to the good life.
- They want a good work-life balance.
- They’re “much more collaborative”.
- They’re “much more technologically savvy”.
Let’s focus on number 4. What’s Dave’s proof? An anecdote. (That means story).
Rick Shanley: Dating is Like Sports Free Agency
Dating is like sports free agency.
Like athletes, we are players who possess unique talents and characteristics that determine our place in the dating game. There are stars. There are washed-up veterans. There are mediocre contributors who drift from team to team, forever mired in a cycle of short-term contracts that ultimately lead to the socio-romantic equivalent of broken retirement (i.e. cat lady).
Kris Dunn Wants You to Bend it Like Beckham/Apple on Intellectual Property Issues – And Fire Everyone Who Breaches…
Intellectual Property. Your company has it. Some more than others, but still – you have intellectual property (otherwise known as “IP” in the biz). Which begs the question – “what do you do when an employee breaches your IP?”.
Still with me? Good. Let’s make the topic sexier than the white paper you were expecting with that lead. If you’re Apple (and a lot of you out there are fanboys/fangirls of the big A), the reaction to an breach of intellectual property is pretty simple. It’s a four-part play as follows:
1. Find an IP breach involving an employee.
2. Fire the employee in question quickly and without regard to messy situational details. Zero tolerance, baby.
3. Parade the firing around like the Romans used to do when a leader of nation they were at war with was killed – head on pike (which is to say you would make sure all were aware in your company).
Tim Sackett: New Hire Orientation and Pre Flight Safety Instructions
I was traveling recently when this hit me. Our lovely, overly flamboyant, flight attendant — by the way, I love it when the flight attendants are overly flamboyant, it somehow makes me feel safer and more fabulous…but that’s for a later post — was going through his pre-flight routine, similar to this (here), but more corporate.
Click here to view the embedded video.
I wasn’t paying attention, knowing where my life vest was and how to put on my mask first before assisting the overly sweaty guy next to me. I started feeling bad for not paying closer attention, not because I wanted to, but because I felt for this person doing their job and the average effort they were putting into it. I mean when that guy at Chipotle is doing his job average of putting my burrito together I sure as hell am paying attention to him!
H Aria Asks, “Why Do You Work in HR?”
I took a career assessment in high school, and it told me that I was supposed to become a teacher, writer, minister, attorney, or G-man. (The assessment clearly hadn’t been updated since the 1960’s, and I had to ask my parents what a G-man was.)
The only one of those that appealed to me was writer. Who wouldn’t want to become a world-famous novelist, right? Being a G-(wo)man sounded really cool at first, but then I realized I’d probably have to deal with dead bodies and get shot at and stuff. No thanks.
The Recession, Disabilities, and Unemployment
My good friends Gerry Crispin, Mark Mahler, and Dave Mendoza are committed to getting people back to work in a thoughtful and more efficient way. This means getting everyone back to work — including those members of our society with disabilities.
I think one of the most overlooked tragedies in the recession is the difficulty that disabled people face in securing meaningful employment. Hiring managers often make decisions based on instinct and personal prejudices — whether intentional or not — and the unemployment rate among disabled Americans has remained steady and high at 13.2%.
Hiring Veterans in America
I saw Brian Stann from Hire Heroes USA on CSPAN, this weekend. If you’ve never heard of the organization, here’s more information.
HHUSA’s mission is to provide career placement assistance to all of our returning service men and women. The HHUSA program focuses on providing transition assistance to Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom veterans, specializing in the career placement of those injured or with any level of disability. HHUSA serves veterans from all branches of the military: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, National Guard, Reservists and Coast Guard.
Brian spoke eloquently about the economy, unemployment, and the underemployment of America’s veterans. Then several of those veterans called into the program and expressed frustration with their job searches. These men and women are up against what civilians are facing on a daily basis: a stagnant economy, a lack of meaningful work in America, and a broken hiring process that impacts all job seekers.
.Jobs Domains and The Impact on You
Friends, Romans, Countrymen — this is important.
You know how hard it is to navigate around a career website, right? At some point in the future, more companies and recruiting firms (globally) may be able to do something new. They will be able to buy a domain and create a website that uses their names + .jobs so you can find their open positions.
I know. Bold. Crazy. Simple. Some companies are already using the new nomenclature to make their lives easier.
- http://esteelauder.jobs
- http://talbots.jobs
- http://loreal.jobs
