Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Human Resources

We know HR. Read our Human Resources blog archives for stories and best practices from our work with real clients and personal experiences in the world of HR.

  • What does Culture have to do with a Job Fair?

    What does Culture have to do with a Job Fair?

    A friend of mine once shared with me a story of leaving a job to pursue one that seemed like a great opportunity. Soon after taking the new job, she discovered the culture was a nightmare. The company owner had terrible temper and was not necessarily following appropriate guidelines for the business they were in. Needless to say, it was not a culture fit for her and she moved on to find another job. When determining your next career move, culture should definitely be a considering factor.

    In the next few weeks, we will be talking about culture on The Point Blog. What do job fairs and culture have in common? More than you realize. Although it may be cliché to say it, but when you have an opportunity to interview or interact with a potential employer, you are sizing them up, just as they are you. Job fairs are one opportunity to determine culture fit.

    Here are a few do’s and don’ts to help prepare you for your next job fair (including factoring in culture fit):

    Do:

    • Research the company (including mission, values, products & services, available jobs and hiring managers). Check out company websites and hiring manager LinkedIn profiles to help you get started.
    • Bring copies of your resume.
    • Dress for success (and take a bath!)
    • Prepare an elevator pitch – Don’t have one? Check out Networking During the Holidays to help you develop one.
    • Ask questions – remember you’re not only there to find a job but to also determine culture fit.

    Don’t:

    • Bring your mom – unless she is applying too, leave parental units at home.
    • Forget to follow-up – that includes applying for the job you are interested in online and/or sending a thank you note when applicable.

    Read more of our culture related blogs here (& stay tuned for more blogs about culture!)

  • What to do if ICE knocks on your door…

    What to do if ICE knocks on your door…

    Immigration is a hot topic whether you have an opinion on it or not.  And most people do.

    This isn’t a post to comment on to build or not build a wall, but to deal with the reality that immigration scrutiny is on the rise for businesses.  Are you prepared as a business leader for what that means?

    One reality is that it is harder to get and keep visas for those who are not U.S. citizens.  One proposed change being discussed to H1-B Visas is to limit them to only positions that have a minimum salary of $130,000 a year.  

    And while this is scary, especially for companies that rely on foreign labor to meet their business objectives, another scary reality is that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) audits are on the rise.   

    According to ice.gov:

    In fiscal year 2018, HSI opened 6,848 worksite investigations compared to 1,691 in FY17; initiated 5,981 I-9 audits compared to 1,360; and made 779 criminal and 1,525 administrative worksite-related arrests compared to 139 and 172, respectively; all of these categories surged by 300 to 750 percent over the previous fiscal year.

    In addition, fines for audit violations have gone up.  You can see the fee schedule here.

    So what should you do to have things in order in case ICE shows up at your workplace for an audit?

    1. Know that you will have three days (see caveat below) to produce all I-9s for all employees and all terminated employees back three years.  In addition, you’ll be required to provide payroll records.  Keeping an accurate I-9 file and purging this file regularly when the record retention period ends is important.
    2. Make sure your contractors are actually contractors per the IRS standards.  Use this checklist here.  If they aren’t, and ICE views them as such, you could be required to provide an I-9 for them.
    3. Know who the key record keepers are for this information and make sure they understand the audit process and what will be required of them if ICE shows up.

    So if ICE shows up, what should you do?

    1. ICE will ask you to sign a three-day waiver, requesting you produce the documents requested within three days.  Do NOT sign it.  This can be negotiated.
    2. Call your attorney.  This is not something where a do it yourself approach is recommended.
    3. Keep ICE being on site as confidential as possible.
    4. Realize that if there are findings/violations, handling these can take years.  It isn’t a quick process.
    5. Know that once you get a response about findings, you can negotiate with ICE on the fines. Call your attorney about this.

    In this new age of immigration hyper-focus, it is not an issue of ICE isolating certain industries that are suspected of having a high population of non-authorized workers.  The scrutiny is across industries.

    Are you ready for an ICE audit if you are subject to one?

  • Employee Health Clinics: A Creative Solution to Climbing Costs

    Employee Health Clinics: A Creative Solution to Climbing Costs

    Healthcare costs have risen an average of five to seven percent each year for the last five years. With costs steadily increasing, employers are starting to look for creative solutions to combat this steady climb in costs. One solution many employers have adopted is Employee Health Clinics.

    What is an employee health clinic?

    It is when an employer or group of employers work with local health care providers to create a health clinic specifically for use by their employees and dependents. The employer usually pays a monthly fee per employee, often between about $50 to $100. Some employers opt to charge employees a small copay for visits between about $5 and $15; much less than they would pay through their health insurance provider to see a doctor. In addition, the employer usually pays or splits the cost of lab work and prescription fees with the employee and those services are obtained by the health clinic at wholesale rates.

    How can an employee benefit from an employer health clinic?

    As noted above, visits to the employee health clinic are often at no cost or low cost to the employee and their dependents, including lab work and prescriptions. Clinics are usually set up onsite at the employer or in a nearby location. This helps to minimize the time away from work needed to seek medical care, thus encouraging employees to seek care when needed. Many employer health clinics also provide wellness care and have staff on-call after hours.

    How can an employer benefit from establishing a health clinic?

    By creating the convenience of an onsite or nearby health clinic, employees are more likely to seek medical treatment because they don’t need to take time off to do so. Clinics are often open before and after work hours and/or have staff on-call after hours. For an employer, this helps reduce absenteeism and increase productivity. Preventative care offered by the clinics can help to further reduce these problems for an employer, as well as also help to reduce the number of major health care claims to their primary insurance provider. This allows employers to cut their overall healthcare costs by reducing the annual premiums paid to the insurance company.

    Employer health clinics can also help to manage minor worker’s compensation injuries and illnesses, working closely with the employer to get employees back to work faster and determine light duty assignments available when needed. This helps to reduce an employer’s overall worker’s compensation claims.

    Many health clinics also provide wellness education including biometric testing, flu shots, and wellness seminars.

    Employer health clinics are usually staffed with nurse practitioners or physician assistants, which helps to control the costs incurred to run the clinic. Some clinics have a full-time or part-time physician on staff or on-call as needed.

  • Have an Employee Bored as a Gourd? Not an ideal employment state!

    Have an Employee Bored as a Gourd? Not an ideal employment state!

    What’s one thing that is extremely detrimental to both employers and employees? Boredom at work!
    I once worked with an adult client wanting to make a career change.  She was an extremely talented individual, and in talking with her about her then current employer she says she felt like she was just a “warm body”.  One of the main reasons she wanted a change was because she was bored as a gourd at work!  She worked for a government contractor (a waste of taxpayer money as she sat there bored) and none of her talents and skills were being utilized in that role.
    Also consider a quote from a book, Tribes by Seth Godin:
    “Consider the receptionist at a publishing company I visited a week later. There she was, doing nothing. Sitting at a desk, minding her own business, bored out of her skull. She acknowledged that the front office is very slow and that she just sits there, reading romance novels and waiting. And she’s been doing it for two years.” 
    Two thoughts come to mind on boredom at work:
    1. What a waste of money! As a leader, why would you pay people to be bored?
    2. What a waste of talent!  This may even be more of a shame.  Leaders should be making more leaders, and leadership isn’t cultivated through boredom.

    What if you are an employee and bored?

    Two courses of action exist:

    1.  Change your work environment. You may want to check out these two posts to discover if there is a better fit for you in the workplace:
    2.  Proactively ask for challenging or varied tasks.  Does your boss seem overloaded and stressed, but you are reading your romance novel?  Simply ask him/her if there is something you can help with.   If they don’t volunteer anything (why they aren’t volunteering, is again, a topic for another day) pay attention to what they are spending time on and see if you can help them without being asked.  Prove your worth and your talents by proactively getting things done without being asked to do so.

  • Is Your Training Program Legendary or Lackluster?

    Is Your Training Program Legendary or Lackluster?

    “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin

    As I discussed in my recent post Five Elements of a Great Onboarding Experience, having a great new hire orientation can be critical to making a great first impression and getting a new hire successfully onboard with your organization. While many companies have worked hard to create that great first impression, they fall short on the long-term impression they give employees by failing to create a continuous training program.

    I’m currently working with a client to help them set goals for the coming year. In meeting with their leadership and other employees, one theme stands out to me- they lack training opportunities. They conduct annual reviews and set goals with employees, but fall short when it comes to providing training to help those employees meet their goals.

    So how can an organization successfully design a training program?

    First, conduct an analysis of each job to determine what skills are needed for that role. Create a competency matrix that details each role and the skills needed for entry-level, intermediate level, and expert level mastery of that role. Then compare roles and see where skillsets overlap. This will help you to determine what training will have the greatest impact on your staff and yield the greatest return on your investment. It may also help you define career paths within your organization.

    Second, create a formal training program based on the competency matrix. Once you determine what training will give you the biggest ROI, you need to start designing that training. You may need to use internal and external resources. When designing the training, determine what method of training will be most successful. For example, the client I’m working with commented on training that had been provided previously where employees were required to sit through hours of classroom training but were never given hands-on experience with what they learned, so the training was not effective. Also, consider how you can measure the effectiveness of the training once complete.

    Third, use the competency matrix to define career paths and create a succession plan. Look at the roles in your organization, the skills needed for each role, and determine what makes sense for a path of promotion. Then assess the employees currently in those roles for possible promotions when they come available. If you have an employee you think would be great to move up, have a conversation with them to gauge their interest. Some employees do not want to move up into management roles, and that’s ok. But it’s best to know that at the beginning instead of spending time training and prepping someone to move up only to have them turn it down when an offer is made, or worse, have them feel obligated to take the position and then not be happy or successful in the new role. Once you have a succession plan designed, you can start working with those employees that would be good candidates for promotion and help them start obtaining the skill set needed to move into that next role.

    While it’s important to create a continuous training plan for your organization, it’s also important for leaders to understand that training doesn’t have to come in the form of a formal program. Some of the most important skills I’ve learned in my career have been through impromptu training opportunities. As you’re completing a task, ask yourself “is there someone that could benefit from learning what I’m doing or understanding what I’m working on?” If so, ask them if they have five or ten minutes to shadow you in your task.

    I encourage you to ask yourself “What have I taught someone this week?”