Archives

The Global Currency of Digital Passports in the Workforce

An issue I’ve returned to again and again is the skills shortage. According to ManpowerGroup, 69% of U.S. employers are struggling to fill vacancies, particularly in skilled trades, IT, sales, and marketing. At the same time, we’ve seen workers in low-skill jobs displaced at distressingly high rates in the recent wave of COVID layoffs. Many […]

criminal record

Illinois Bias Law Now Covers Criminal Convictions

Illinois employers now have yet another law to navigate. The state human rights statute now bans discrimination based on a candidate’s or employee’s criminal conviction unless the employer can show a “substantial relationship” exists between the conviction and the job or that the employment would involve an “unreasonable risk” to property or safety. Conviction Records […]

Monster Career Expert Vicki Salemi Assesses the Recruiting Landscape

Note: Vicki was an HR Works Podcast 5-Minute Friday guest. Listen to that here. As an HR professional, you undoubtedly know that the landscape of recruiting has undergone massive upheaval, not just since the beginning of the pandemic but also in the last few months. Getting your footing can be a challenge right now, but […]

Lessons Learned Sessions Post-Pandemic

As many companies transition away from widespread remote work, many leaders within these organizations are looking for ways to provide some closure to the past year plus of disruption or facilitate a transition to a new normal. A great way they can do this is by holding a “lessons learned” session with their teams and […]

Rethinking Disability Hiring Practices in the Economic Aftermath of COVID-19

The latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows there are currently 8.1 million job openings. After record-high unemployment rates, that number should be a positive indicator of recovery, but it could create problems for employers if those jobs remain unfilled. HR professionals have pulled out all the stops to attract talent, yet […]

FMLA

Q&A: Determining Whether Elective Surgeries Are Covered Under FMLA

Q: An employee is having an elective surgery that won’t require an overnight hospital stay, but she will be off work for two weeks to recover and will possibly have some restrictions afterward. Will her surgery and time off be covered under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)? A: Under the FMLA, an eligible […]

company culture

Your Actions Lead Your People to Customer Obsession

Slowly emerging from the pandemic, many leaders of teams and organizations are relieved to have survived the dark uncertainty of the last year. They should rightly pat themselves on the back if they maintained their teams’ confidence; our surveys in six countries show that in general, about half of workers had confidence in their direct […]

union

7th Circuit Holds Winery Violated NLRA Over ‘Cellar Lives Matter’ Slogan

The 7th Circuit recently upheld a decision from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in a case involving Woodbridge Winery. The ruling cemented employees’ right to display a pro-union message on their clothing, despite the employer’s actions to remove the messaging from the workplace. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) protects an employee’s right to […]

German Hiring Practices Can Teach Us a Lot

Note: Jessie was an HR Works Podcast 5-Minute Friday guest. Listen to that here. I was recently speaking with Jessie Lajoie, People Operations Lead at Doodle, an international organization. Lajoie is stationed in Berlin, Germany, where employment laws differ greatly than in the United States and have a strong focus on protecting the employee. It […]