Providing Flexible Work Arrangements to Your Employees

Four Steps to Ensure Your Flex-Time Program Works

More and more companies are offering as employees are asking for flexible work arrangements and hours. This trend has increased dramatically throughout the Great Recession. Now, 77 percent of companies say they permit and/or encourage flextime, up from 66 percent in 2005, according to the 2012 National Study of Employers by the Society for Human Resource Management and the nonprofit Families and Work Institute.

Almost 67 percent of those surveyed said they permit employees to work from home on occasion, bringing a 34 percent increase in the past seven years. The practice of overtime has shifted as well. Employers surveyed, 44 percent, said they now give employees a choice as to whether they work overtime hours or not. This has led to it becoming more acceptable for employees to turn down overtimes.

With the new flexible work arrangements come some potential pitfalls that employers must be aware of and avoid. Below are four things to keep in mind as an employer looking at flexible work schedules:

1. Follow the Established Rules. Our current wage-payment laws were put into effect years ago and were not designed with the new flex-time in mind. Be proactive and avoid unintentionally violations.
2. Update Your Recordkeeping Process. In order to have a successful and compliant flex-time program, you will most likely need to update your current time tracking system. Make sure that your tracking system can provide you with precise and accurate time stamps. When establishing the new system, make sure that all of your supervisors and employees are properly trained. Then you will have to discipline any who violate the new rules.
3. Overtime and Misclassifications. It is vitally important to keep track of all overtime hours worked, even for those employees who are on a flex-time schedule. The vast majority of litigation regarding flex-time is due to the employers classifying their employees in the wrong category of exempt or non-exempt. The basic rule to follow is all employees are to be presumed as non-exempt from overtime pay provisions of the FLSA, unless you can prove that a specific exemption applies directly to them.
4. Test the Program First. Before jumping in with a new flex-time program, give it a dry test run first. Inform all employees about the test run and remind them if the program is not a success, you will return to the old way. After your test run, analyze what worked, what didn’t, employee and supervisor feedback, pros and cons, etc., then make any needed adjustments.

Flex-time is proving to be a well-appreciated benefit to employees trying to strike the balance of work and everyday-life. For more information on how to set up a quality flexible work program at your company, call 770.248.0401.

Bring a Dog to Work Day

Want your office to go to the dogs the way some industry titans like Google and Amazon have?  It is estimated that roughly 1.4 million dog owners bring about 2.3 million of their pets to work with them daily. Pet-friendly work environments are becoming increasingly more popular and proving to have a significant impact on companies’ bottom lines.

There are many rewards for a company to become dog-friendly.

- WARM FUZZIES:

o Improved Quality of Life for Employees

o Increases Overall Office Morale

o Produces Team Bonding

o Relieves Stress

o Greater Employee Happiness and Satisfaction

- Employees who bring their dogs to work typically work longer hours, since they don’t have to worry about getting home to their pets.

- Productivity and Efficiency are greatly increased among employees who bring their dogs into the office with them.

- Workplace distinction that will separate you from your competition.

Moving towards a dog-friendly workplace may not be embraced by all employees. Some people do not like dogs, may have an allergy and/or are afraid of animals. It will be your responsibility as the employer to accommodate these people, too. This could be as simple as having a “dog-free” area of the office to installing a top of the line filtration system to diminish the effects dander and pet hair.

If you are going to create a dog-friendly workplace, there are a few things to keep in mind.

- Some industries may be prevented from having dogs by state law and/or local regulations.

- Make sure that your building will allow dogs inside.

- Obtain proper insurance to protect your company in case of injuries or damages.

- Create workplace rules regarding dogs, put them in writing as part of your Employee Handbook.

- Will you require proof of recently vaccinations? Free of fleas? Pet training?

- Will you permit all dogs in the office or those under a certain weight?

- Will the dogs be allowed in every part of the office?

- Where and how will dogs be kept if an employee needs to leave the office during the day?

- How will you deal with an aggressive dog?

- Create rules regarding cleaning up after the dogs.

If you are interested in becoming a dog-friendly workplace environment, start with a trial run. Invite your employees to bring their dogs on a certain day every week for a set period of time. See how it goes and affects your company. For more information, please contact Lowden & Associates, Inc. at 770-248-0401.

OSHA Annual Summary Posting by February 1, 2013

ATTENTION: OSHA expanded their scope and increased the amount of citations concerning the standards of recordkeeping. Employers who maintain the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s 300 Logs for workplace injuries and illnesses must post their 2012 annual summary by February 1, 2013. Forms can be found on the OSHA website.

All logs must be certified by an approved company executive who is considered to be:

1)      Company Owner

2)      An Officer of the corporation

3)      The highest-ranking company official working at the establishment

4)      The immediate supervisor of the highest-ranking company official working at the establishment.

The annual summary report requires that employers include a calculation of the annual average number of employees covered by the Log. Also required are the total hours worked by all covered employees. The requirement allows employers to compare the frequency of a significant occupational injury and illness at their workplace compared to other companies.

OSHA Logs must be posted for three consecutive months from February 1^st to April 30^th, even at companies that have no recordable injuries or illnesses. Employers have the responsibility to ensure that the posted annual summary is not altered, defaced or obscured at all during the entire posting period.

In 2013, OSHA will stay with a focus on recordkeeping in its National Emphasis Program (NEP) and enforcement focus. Employers should take time to carefully review the forms for technical errors and review all other materials to confirm all recordable incidents have been included properly.

For more information, contact Lowden & Associates, Inc. at 770-248-0401.

Court Strikes Down NLRB Due to Unconstitutional Appointees

The short-term fate of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is in real jeopardy as of Friday, January 25, 2013. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a major blow against the NLRB in Noel Canning v. NLRB.

Led by Chief Judge David Santelle, the opinion was decided on purely constitutional grounds. They ruled that President Barack Obama’s three ‘recess appointments’ of NLRB Board Members in January of 2012 were not constitutionally permitted. The court ruled that the appointments were made when the Senate was not in recess and for “vacancies that did not ‘happen during the Recess of the Senate’ as required by Article II of the Constitution.” In the decision, the court cited the decision from the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2010 case New Process Steel v. NLRB, that without a proper quorum “the order under review is void ab initio (from the beginning).”

This case will most likely end up in the U.S. Supreme Court and if they side with the Court of Appeals, the judicial ruling could void every decision the NLRB has made since the last proper quorum. As of now, things look rather desolate for this government agency.

Board Chairman Mark Pearce (a non-affected appointee) released a defiant statement after the court’s decision vowing the board would “continue to perform our statutory duties and issue decisions.” If the ruling stands, this would put the NLRB in an even greater hole, creating even more cases that a future board will have to re-decide.

Lowden & Associates will stay on the developments of the NLRB’s fate and keep you posted. Stay tuned.

Five Steps to Cool Down Political Dustups in the Workplace

November 6, 2012 or Election Day is just over a month away and with that comes an increase in the workplace talk of politics. As everybody knows, politics can always generate strong emotions from people. This seems especially true this year as the partisan banter and divide is at an all time high.

Political Speech in the workplace can present difficult challenges for employers that can create an unproductive and divided workforce with lower morale. Also, strong political debates can offend clients whom disagree and take offense.

The question then becomes how can you tame down a politically charged conversation in the workplace without violating a person’s First Amendment rights?

Private employers have an easier time regulating political speech during working hours than their public counterparts. This is because free speech in the workplace is different than free speech outside. There are several laws that help break down the differences and where the limitations lie, such as the First Amendment, National Labor Relations Act, Election Laws, State and Municipal Laws, Civil Rights Act, etc.

So, what is an employer to do to protect themselves from the pitfalls of workplace political comments? There are five steps you can start implementing today.

1) Education is key to a lot of things, political speech is no exception. Start with retraining all of your employees on the basic and relevant policies on anti-harassment, anti-discrimination, equal employment opportunity, etc.

2) Encourage accountability. Have employees help be your eyes and ears by reporting anything they feel is politically harassing or violating, so you can take steps to cool down political tensions.

3) Add to your corporate code of conduct. Let employees know they need to be respectful of their fellow co-workers political opinions and values; therefore failure to do so could merit disciplinary action against them.

4) Cover political apparel in your dress code. Political buttons, stickers and/or other campaign paraphernalia can spark a heated debate, so consider putting a clause addressing this in your dress code.

5) Do not push your views. Feel free to encourage your employees to partake in their civic duty to vote but be careful not to cross the line in convincing them to vote or financially support a particular candidate and/or cause. The persuasion could be viewed as a coercive activity by some and run in violation of federal and state election laws.

Workplace political dustups can be cooled down by being aware and following the five aforementioned steps. For more information on how to reduce political distractions in your office, contact Todd Weyandt at todd@laihr.com. 

Incivility Rising…Don’t Allow It To Affect Your Bottom Line

Do you look forward to going to work everyday because it is an engaging and friendly atmosphere? Or are you like the 86% of employees surveyed in a Jeannie Trudel study that said they had experienced some form of incivility in the workplace within the past year.

Unfortunately, incivility in the workplace is a more common problem than most people realize, and it is rising. This growing epidemic is not contained in just one particular industry or even just from a supervisor. The uptick in workplace incivility could be attributable to the pressures employees are dealing with under a still lagging economy.

Employees have more stress on them to be productive while working longer and harder, in most cases. Employers must be cognoscente of this issue to avoid it escalating into more aggressive or even violent behavior. Workplace incivility can have a major impact on the company from organizational commitment, job performance, turnover and retention.

The truth is very few employees will actually report workplace incivility to their respective HR personnel and/or managers. So it is up to the employer to keep a look out for signs of this behavior.

First, every company needs to make sure they have a specific and strategic plan in place to ensure civility is a part of the corporate culture. It all starts with the type of employees that you hire. Make sure you are screening for personality and/or conflict management styles.

Then, bring your team together for training on cooperation, role modeling and leadership. When teams are seasoned on these traits, they are often more willing to work in collaboration and are less likely to use uncivil behavior.

Incivility is a rising problem in corporate America with some disastrous side effects, but with just a few corrective steps you can stem the tide at your company. For more information, contact Todd Weyandt at todd@laihr.com. 

Are You Violating the NLRA with Your Social Media Policy and Don't Even Know It?

Most employers are unaware of the movement from the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) against employers’ social media policies. Over the past couple years, the NLRB has become increasing active in the social media policy debate and has made several rulings against overly broad corporate social media policies. They are now monitoring not only the substance of the policy but the actions employers are taking. Employers are deemed in violation of the NLRA (National Labor Relations Act) if they prohibit an employee’s ‘concerted activity’ or discipline an employee for this.

The big question facing employers is what constitutes ‘concerted activities’? The NLRB has determined ‘concerted activities’ involve active, online conversations among multiple employees regarding work conditions. Also, the NLRB has struck down many anti-blogging and disruptive behavior employment policies for being overly broad prohibitions of protected activity.

The cases in which the NLRB sided with the employees have some common components. The first being they all involved employees who criticized very specific employment practices and/or work conditions. Secondly, these employees conducted conversations online, after work hours, on personal equipment, with personal accounts and off work property. Thirdly, and what appears to be most important to the NLRB, is all the cases involved multiple employees in the online discussions.

Though the NLRB has not released a guide for employers to use when drafting and enforcing their social media policies or disciplining employees, there are some precautions every employer can and should be taking.

1) Create a Specific Social Media Policy

2) Address Unique Practices and Concerns of Your Individual Business

3) Avoid Writing Catch-All Policies

4) Be Aware of Your Employees’ Social Media Presence

5) Fully Investigate Every Situation Before Disciplining Employees

6) Review Your Policies Periodically

For more information on this topic, sign up for Lowden & Associates’ FREE Social Media Policy Webinar on June 27, 2012 at 2pm. Register here.