MISTAKES ORGANIZATIONS MAKE

IMPORTANCE OF EMPLOYER-EMPLOYEE RELATIONSHIP

Twenty Dumb Things Organizations Do to Mess Up Their Relationship With People
Use These Employee Relations Tips to Avoid the 20 Mistakes Organizations Make
By Susan M. Heathfield, About.com Guide April 13, 2011

Even the best organizations periodically make mistakes in dealing with people. They mess up their opportunity to create effective, successful, positive employee relations.
They treat people like children and then ask why people fail so frequently to live up to their expectations. Managers apply different rules to different employees and wonder why workplace negativity is so high. People work hard and infrequently receive positive feedback.
At the same time, many organizations invest untold energy in actions that ensure employees are unhappy. They ensure ineffective employee relations results. For example, one of the most important current trends in organizations is increasing employee involvement and input. Organizations must find ways to utilize all of the strengths of the people they employ. Or, people will leave to find work in an organization that does.
According to former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, the number of people in the labor force ages 25 to 34 is projected to decline by 2.7 million in the next seven years. To meet this challenge, work places need to recruit new populations and non-traditional employees. And, workplaces urgently need to retain valued employees.
The book, High Five, by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles talks about building powerfully effective teams. The book emphasizes that "the essence of a team," according to Dr. Blanchard, is "the genuine understanding that none of us is as smart as all of us."
Teams allow people to achieve things far beyond each member's individual ability. But teamwork also requires powerful motivation for people to put the good of the group ahead of their own self interest. Fortunately, the millennial generation grew up working in a team work environment. Valuing and appreciating teams, your youngest workers will lead the way.
Pull these workplace trends together and it is no wonder that the Dilbert cartoon is perennially popular. Consider that Scott Adams, the strip's creator, will never run out of material because, despite what organizations want or say they want for effective employee relations - they often fail to:
• retain valued employees,
• develop empowered people working together to serve the best interests of the organization, and
• create an environment in which every employee contributes all of their talents and skills to the success of organizational goals.
The next time you are confronted with any of the following proposed actions, ask yourself this question. Is the action likely to create the result, for powerfully motivating employee relations, that you want to create?
Twenty Dumb Mistakes Employers Make
Here are the twenty dumb mistakes organizations make to mess up their relationships with the people they employ.
• Add another level of hierarchy because people aren't doing what you want them to do. (More watchers get results!)

• Appraise the performance of individuals and provide bonuses for the performance of individuals and complain that you cannot get your staff working as a team.
• Add inspectors and multiple audits because you don’t trust people’s work to meet standards.
• Fail to create standards and give people clear expectations so they know what they are supposed to do, and wonder why they fail.
• Create hierarchical, permission steps and other roadblocks that teach people quickly that their ideas are subject to veto and wonder why no one has any suggestions for improvement. (Make people beg for money!)
• Ask people for their opinions, ideas, and continuous improvement suggestions, and fail to implement their suggestions or empower them to do so. Better? Don’t even provide feedback about whether the idea was considered or why it was rejected.
• Make a decision and then ask people for their input as if their feedback mattered.
• Find a few people breaking rules and company policies and chide everybody at company meetings rather than dealing directly with the rule breakers. Better? Make everyone wonder "who" the bad guy is. Best? Make up another policy to punish every employee.
• Make up new rules for everyone to follow as a means to address the failings of a few.
• Provide recognition in expected patterns so that what started as a great idea quickly becomes entitlement. (For example, buy Friday lunch when production goals are met. Wait until people start asking you for the money if they cannot attend the lunch. And, find employees meeting only the production goal that will merit the prize - and not one bit more. )
• Treat people as if they are untrustworthy - watch them, track them, admonish them for every slight failing - because a few people are untrustworthy.
• Fail to address behavior and actions of people that are inconsistent with stated and published organizational expectations and policies. (Better yet, let non-conformance go on until you are out of patience; then ambush the next offender, no matter how significant, with a disciplinary action.)
• When managers complain that they cannot get to all of their reviews because they have too many reporting staff members, and performance development planning takes too much time, eliminate PDPs. Better? Require supervisors to do them less frequently than quarterly. Or, hire more supervisors to do reviews. (Fail to recognize that an hour per quarter per person invested in employee development is the manager's most important job.)
• Create policies for every contingency, thus allowing very little management latitude in addressing individual employee needs.
• Conversely, have so few policies, that employees feel as if they reside in a free-for-all environment of favoritism and unfair treatment.
• Make every task a priority. People will soon believe there are no priorities. More importantly, they will never feel as if they have accomplished a complete task or goal.
• Schedule daily emergencies that prove to be false. This will ensure employees don't know what to do, or are, minimally, jaded about responding when you have a true customer emergency.
• Ask employees to change the way they are doing something without providing a picture of what you are attempting to accomplish with the change. Label them "resisters" and send them to change management training when they don't immediately hop on the train.
• Expect that people learn by doing everything perfectly the first time rather than recognizing that learning occurs most frequently in failure.
• Letting a person fail when you had information, that he did not, which he might have used to make a different decision.
You can avoid these employee relations nightmares. These ingredients add up to a recipe for disaster if you want to be the employer of choice in the next decade. Effective employee relations will always result in a win - for both the employees and for you

JOB IS JOB-NEW OPPORTUNITIES

Job Alert - Paralegal‏
6:53 AM

BramptonJobForce.ca Job Alert BramptonJobForce.ca Job Alertalert@email4-beyond.com

BramptonJobForce.ca Job Alert for November 21, 2010

** FYI....BRAMPTON IS A CITY IN ONTARIO, CANADA. I LIVE HERE.

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JOB INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

KEEPING YOU UP TO SPEED

The Job Interview Questions to Help You Select the Best
Illegal Job Interview Questions
by Susan Heathfield, About.com Guide


Disclaimer
The information in this article is from this website and a variety of online resources. The information provided, while authoritative, is not guaranteed for accuracy and legality. While I have made every effort to provide accurate, legal, and complete information, I cannot guarantee it is correct. Please seek legal assistance, or assistance from State, Federal, or International governmental resources, to make certain your legal interpretation and decisions are correct. This information is for guidance, ideas, and assistance only.





The job interview is a powerful factor in the employee selection process. You can use behavioral-based job interview questions to help you select superior candidates. Ask interview questions that help you identify whether the candidate has the behaviors, skills, and experience needed for the job you are filling.
Ask legal interview questions that illuminate the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses to determine job fit. Avoid illegal interview questions and interview practices that could make your company the target of a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) lawsuit.
Illegal Job Interview Questions
Illegal interview questions include any interview questions that are related to a candidate’s:
• Age
• Race, ethnicity, or color
• Gender or sex
• Country of national origin or birth place
• Religion
• Disability
• Marital or family status or pregnancy
Especially in the course of a comfortable interview during which participants are relaxed, don’t let the interview turn into a chat session. Seemingly innocuous interview questions such as the following are illegal.
Sample Illegal Job Interview Questions
• What arrangements are you able to make for child care while you work?

• How old are your children?

• When did you graduate from high school?

• Are you a U.S. citizen?

• What does your wife do for a living?

• Where did you live while you were growing up?

• Will you need personal time for particular religious holidays?

• Are you comfortable working for a female boss?

• There is a large disparity between your age and that of the position’s coworkers. Is this a problem for you?

• How long do you plan to work until you retire?

• Have you experienced any serious illnesses in the past year?
During an interview, you must take care to keep your interview questions focused on the behaviors, skills, and experience needed to perform the job. If you find your discussion straying off course or eliciting information you don’t want about potential job discrimination topics, bring the discussion quickly back on topic by asking another job-related interview question.
If a candidate offers information, such as, “I will need a flexible schedule because I have four children in elementary school,” you can answer the question. Do not, however, pursue that topic further. Another candidate informed me recently that his favorite spare time activity is reading the Bible. I asked him to tell me about why he left his most recent job.
Another candidate leaned closer across the table and said, “The reason I am leaving my current job is that I just had a baby two weeks ago and I need a regular schedule for my child care provider.” Another candidate told me he was a native Polish speaker and that he spent his childhood in an area of the city called Pole Town.
Running late at the interview, a female candidate informed the plant manager she had to run because she was late for football practice. His response, "Oh, you play football?" makes me chuckle every time I think about it. (It was her son's practice.) Again, do not pursue the discussion and you may not use such information to make your hiring decision. (As an aside, each of these individuals was hired for the position which is why I am comfortable sharing the examples.)
Interested in legal behavioral based interview questions? I also provide guidance about what you are looking for in your candidate's responses. Read more…
___________________________________________________________________

FAILURE AND SUCCESS

JIM ROHN is an important voice for Human Resource Development.
SUCCESS MAGAZINE ARTICLE [ What Achievers Read ]
(From my net-work Desk – September 14, 2010)

• WELL-BEING


The Formula For Failure And Success


Jim Rohn March 27, 2008
Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. We do not fail overnight. Failure is the inevitable result of an accumulation of poor thinking and poor choices. To put it more simply, failure is nothing more than a few errors in judgment repeated every day. Now why would someone make an error in judgment and then be so foolish as to repeat it every day?
The answer is because he or she does not think that it matters.
On their own, our daily acts do not seem that important. A minor oversight, a poor decision, or a wasted hour generally doesn't result in an instant and measurable impact. More often than not, we escape from any immediate consequences of our deeds.
If we have not bothered to read a single book in the past ninety days, this lack of discipline does not seem to have any immediate impact on our lives. And since nothing drastic happened to us after the first ninety days, we repeat this error in judgment for another ninety days, and on and on it goes. Why? Because it doesn't seem to matter. And herein lies the great danger. Far worse than not reading the books is not even realizing that it matters!
Those who eat too many of the wrong foods are contributing to a future health problem, but the joy of the moment overshadows the consequence of the future. It does not seem to matter. Those who smoke too much or drink too much go on making these poor choices year after year after year... because it doesn't seem to matter. But the pain and regret of these errors in judgment have only been delayed for a future time. Consequences are seldom instant; instead, they accumulate until the inevitable day of reckoning finally arrives and the price must be paid for our poor choices - choices that didn't seem to matter.
Failure's most dangerous attribute is its subtlety. In the short term those little errors don't seem to make any difference. We do not seem to be failing. In fact, sometimes these accumulated errors in judgment occur throughout a period of great joy and prosperity in our lives. Since nothing terrible happens to us, since there are no instant consequences to capture our attention, we simply drift from one day to the next, repeating the errors, thinking the wrong thoughts, listening to the wrong voices and making the wrong choices. The sky did not fall in on us yesterday; therefore the act was probably harmless. Since it seemed to have no measurable consequence, it is probably safe to repeat.
But we must become better educated than that!
If at the end of the day when we made our first error in judgment the sky had fallen in on us, we undoubtedly would have taken immediate steps to ensure that the act would never be repeated again. Like the child who places his hand on a hot burner despite his parents' warnings, we would have had an instantaneous experience accompanying our error in judgment.
Unfortunately, failure does not shout out its warnings as our parents once did. This is why it is imperative to refine our philosophy in order to be able to make better choices. With a powerful, personal philosophy guiding our every step, we become more aware of our errors in judgment and more aware that each error really does matter.
Now here is the great news. Just like the formula for failure, the formula for success is easy to follow: It's a few simple disciplines practiced every day.
Now here is an interesting question worth pondering: How can we change the errors in the formula for failure into the disciplines required in the formula for success? The answer is by making the future an important part of our current philosophy.
Both success and failure involve future consequences, namely the inevitable rewards or unavoidable regrets resulting from past activities. If this is true, why don't more people take time to ponder the future? The answer is simple: They are so caught up in the current moment that it doesn't seem to matter. The problems and the rewards of today are so absorbing to some human beings that they never pause long enough to think about tomorrow.
But what if we did develop a new discipline to take just a few minutes every day to look a little further down the road? We would then be able to foresee the impending consequences of our current conduct. Armed with that valuable information, we would be able to take the necessary action to change our errors into new success-oriented disciplines. In other words, by disciplining ourselves to see the future in advance, we would be able to change our thinking, amend our errors and develop new habits to replace the old.
One of the exciting things about the formula for success - a few simple disciplines practiced every day - is that the results are almost immediate. As we voluntarily change daily errors into daily disciplines, we experience positive results in a very short period of time. When we change our diet, our health improves noticeably in just a few weeks. When we start exercising, we feel a new vitality almost immediately. When we begin reading, we experience a growing awareness and a new level of self-confidence. Whatever new discipline we begin to practice daily will produce exciting results that will drive us to become even better at developing new disciplines.
The real magic of new disciplines is that they will cause us to amend our thinking. If we were to start today to read the books, keep a journal, attend the classes, listen more and observe more, then today would be the first day of a new life leading to a better future. If we were to start today to try harder, and in every way make a conscious and consistent effort to change subtle and deadly errors into constructive and rewarding disciplines, we would never again settle for a life of existence – not once we have tasted the fruits of a life of substance!

A CASE OF HUMAN RIGHTS

CAN GROSS MISCONDUCT PLAY SCRABBLE WITH YOUR HUMAN RIGHTS ?


By CBC News, cbc.ca, Updated: August 4, 2010 1:31 PM
Abdullah Khadr released after court ruling

Abdullah Khadr, accused by the U.S. government of procuring weapons on behalf of al-Qaeda, is a free man after an Ontario court ordered his release Wednesday from a Toronto detention centre.

Khadr, the elder brother of Omar Khadr, the only Canadian held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was originally detained by Pakistani authorities before his arrest by RCMP at the request of U.S. officials upon his return to Canada in 2005.

U.S. authorities paid a $500,000 US bounty to Pakistani police to hold him for 14 months before he was returned to Toronto.

He has been detained without bail since Dec. 23, 2005, while the courts dealt with the U.S. request to extradite him.

On Wednesday, Superior Court Judge Christopher Speyer granted a stay of proceedings in his case — effectively shelving it, meaning the extradition request was denied. Khadr, 29, was then released from custody.

Speaking to reporters on the courthouse steps, Khadr was relieved by the ruling. "I think this is going to be a new beginning for me in life," he said. "What can I say? I want to start new now. I don't want to think about it anymore."

Speyer cited the fact Khadr was denied prompt access to Canadian consular officials when initially detained in Pakistan. He said he granted the stay because of "gross misconduct" by governments in the case, and he hoped the ruling would act as a deterrent to other countries acting similarly.

Ottawa will have a chance to appeal the decision, and must do so within 30 days.

Khadr's lawyer, Dennis Edney, said he welcomed the ruling. "This government has been totally unreasonable," he said. "[The judge] reviewed the facts and did what he's supposed to do."

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, speaking to reporters in Montreal, said the government would look at the decision before deciding what to do.

"We have a look at all cases and we deal with them very carefully. I never comment publicly before we look at them," he said.

Khadr's lawyers say the case against their client relies on statements he made to officials in Pakistan and repeated when he arrived in Toronto in December 2005. His lawyers say those statements were made under duress, while he was tortured and compelled to say what authorities wanted to hear.

EMPLOYMENT-EQUITY

HUMAN RIGHTS VS HUMAN RESOURCE

From the Desk of South Asia Mail, Wednesday, July 28, 2010





Tories take aim at employment equity





Joe Friesen

The Conservative government is taking aim at an employment-equity policy that favours applicants from historically disadvantaged groups, saying no Canadian should be barred from applying for a job based on race.

Stockwell Day, president of the Treasury Board, ordered a review Thursday into a government job-application process that restricts some jobs to one or more of the four groups targeted by Canada’s employment-equity policy: aboriginal people, visible minorities, women and people with disabilities.

The move came in response to the story of a Caucasian woman who tried to apply for an administrative assistant’s job in the federal ministry of Citizenship and Immigration, only to find the competition was restricted to aboriginals and members of a visible minority. Such a practice is permitted under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and is intended to help government meet diversity hiring targets.

Jason Kenney, the minister of Citizenship and Immigration, said he was shocked by the woman’s story and consulted with Mr. Day, who has oversight of the public service. Hiring should be decided on merit, not ethnicity, Mr. Kenney said.

“We can continue to achieve greater diversity in the public sector without prohibiting people from applying for jobs on the grounds of their race or ethnicity,” Mr. Kenney said. “It’s a very simple principle and I think it’s something the vast majority of Canadians would appreciate.”

The review raised concerns with the Opposition, who accused the Conservatives of abandoning vulnerable groups for the sake of motivating their political base.

The woman who applied for the job is Sara Landriault, an Ottawa-area blogger and mother.

“The question was my race and gender, I answered white and the application as a whole stopped and said I did not meet the criteria for this position,” Ms. Landriault said in an e-mail Thursday. “I do not wish to take anyone’s job, my only wish was to be allowed to apply based on my qualifications. No government should have the right to ask you your race or gender to see if you are qualified for a job. That is discrimination.”

NDP MP Pat Martin said he supports extraordinary measures to get the federal government closer to its employment-equity targets.

“We shouldn’t apologize for doing that. Sometimes the pendulum has to swing the other way before it finds balance in the middle,” Mr. Martin said. “I think Stockwell Day and Jason Kenney are pandering to their neo-conservative base. They’re using an anomalous incident to attack the whole notion of employment equity and affirmative action.”

Liberal MP Marcel Proulx also attacked the Conservative position.

“If they do what they’re trying to do then there won’t be any protections for aboriginals and visible minorities,” he said. He accused the Conservatives of using this controversy to try to divert attention from the resignation of the head of Statistics Canada over the census. The Liberals said the two controversies, taken together, suggest the Conservatives don’t want to see the country as it really is.

Mr. Kenney scoffed at that notion.

“Excluding Canadian citizens from applying for employment in their government is profoundly illiberal. What we’re articulating here is an essentially liberal value of equality of opportunity and equality under the law. If the Liberals were true to their liberal values they would see that,” Mr. Kenney said. “I don’t have any problem with employers taking into account the objective of diversity in the hiring process. If someone merits the job we don’t object to that being a consideration.”

Myer Siemiatycki, who teaches politics at Ryerson University, said the policy review raises alarm bells.

“It’s an announcement that has echoes of the politics of the census decision. It’s about optics, it’s about sending a signal to the traditional base of the Conservative Party about the kind of harder line social conservative positions that the Conservative party has tended to say they’ve left behind but seem to be returning to,” he said.

“The reality is that this Act is in place for a reason. There is a dramatic under-representation of these groups to whom it applies in the public service. ... This Act is intended to remove barriers and level the playing field.”(The Globe and Mail)

EMPLOYEE RESIGNATION

Susan Heathfield's information about the employee who has resigned from his company may put some light for employees and employers on this delicate issue.
Maybe you'll get some ideas...



How to Handle an Employee Resignation
Dealing With an Employee Resignation Depends ...
By Susan M. Heathfield, About.com Guide

Face it. Sooner or later, even the best employer has employees resign. They think they've found a better opportunity or their spouse has accepted a job out-of-state. The reasons are endless for an employee resignation. But, each employee resignation poses the employer with a series of questions. How do you announce the employee's resignation? Who needs to know what about the employee's resignation? When do you tell your employees about the employee's resignation? Here are answers to the questions you may have about employee resignation.
An employee has just resigned. The norm is that the employee tells you verbally that he or she is resigning from your company. Immediately ask the resigning employee for a resignation letter in writing with their final date of employment stated. This protects you from unemployment claims and other charges of impropriety.
Dealing With Employee Resignation
An employee resignation always causes some disruption in the workflow, however, if the employee resigning is valued and you decide to let him or her work their final two weeks, they can do a lot to make the transition successful. This assumes that you have assessed that the individual will remain a positive contributor until their final day.
They can wrap up loose ends, provide details about ongoing projects, and email friends and coworkers about their leaving. Make sure you assign employees to pick up the work of the departing employee. They will have a head start if they can confer with the person leaving to understand the challenges and details of their job. Additionally, if the employee resigning has customer contact responsibilities, they can provide an introduction to the person who will be picking up their responsibilities.
You might ask administrative employees, and others who have jobs with clear and documentable responsibilities, to create a procedure manual prior to their departure. But, hopefully, you already have these procedures documented and in place.
Notification to Coworkers and Customers About an Employee Resignation
To notify other employees about an employee's resignation, start by telling the employee's own department about the employee�s resignation. Perhaps call a quick meeting and inform the other employees that the employee's last day is in two weeks. Tell them that you will appreciate their help to pick up any loose ends and inform them to whom the various responsibilities have been assigned.
Your other employees will also want to know the timeline for replacement of the departing employee. Generally, good employees are quite willing to perform extra work or work longer hours to fill in, but they appreciate knowing the time frame during which this will be expected.
With a trusted, valued employee who will be working out their two week's notice, send out an email to notify the other employees immediately of the employee's resignation. You might say something such as: Mary is leaving us to pursue new opportunities at x company. Her last day at our company is: date. Please join me in wishing Mary tremendous success in her future endeavors. We will hold a say good-bye party at Tom's Tavern on Mary's last day. Please join us to wish Mary success in her new employment and to say good-bye.
Of course, before you send this information out, check with Mary to see if she is comfortable with all of the above. She may even have a personal email address that she wants to share so people can stay in touch.
Many of your employees probably knew that Mary was looking and they also know why. Employees like closure when a valued colleague leaves so your graciousness is not only appreciated, it sends a powerful message to the employees who remain. Of course, you will hold an exit interview during which you will become clear about why the employee is leaving.
I am not a believer in making counter offers or in enticing Mary to stay. In her mind, she has already moved on.
How to Notify Employees When the Employee Resignation Is Welcome
The scenario changes if the employee resigning is not valued or you don't trust the person to carry out their responsibilities successfully during their two week's notice. In these cases, tell the employee that you will pay him or her for their time, but their services are no longer required. Follow the additional guidelines in this employment ending check list. And, ask yourself why you continued to employ this individual under any circumstances to avoid repeating your mistake in the future. Firing an employee can be ethical, legal, moral, and appropriate.
To announce the employee's resignation, send out an immediate email to all employees stating that Mary has left the company to pursue new opportunities effective on today's date. You might add that you wish her success in her new opportunities. Communicate also, where any of her responsibilities have been reassigned. You may want to add some details about how and when you plan to seek a replacement due to the employee resignation.