RedWolf Payroll

Someone once told me a great tip for interviewing that has worked well for me in several businesses that I have been a part of. I only wish I had heard it sooner. I would have saved myself a lot of bad hires.

Whenever possible, follow the candidate out to their car. Try to peak inside. Usually the condition of the car reflects condition of how they work. If their car is cluttered with McDonald’s wrappers and piles of trash in the floor board, they will likely be sloppy on the job as well. They will dress sloppier than everyone else, their work will be sloppier and contain more errors and there general attitude is likely to be more negative.

After I first heard this advice, I started reflecting upon the individuals that I have had work for me in the past. The best employees have always kept their vehicles clean and spotless. The worst – always messy and out of sorts.

As a leader and a manager, you may serve many different roles within  your organization.  One of the most critical roles that you must fill to your employees is the providing of feedback.  What are they doing right?  What areas can they or the team improve? 

Make sure that you provide this feedback in a timely manner.  Provide it in a manner so that you can create a dialogue with the employee, if necessary.  Always be an active listener in order to determine if your feedback is understood.  You do not always want to be giving orders, but rather persuading the employee to see things your way.   Your relationships with your employees are developed one conversation at a time. 

Always try to provide at least 80% positive feedback to employees.  Positive feedback will strengthen morale and will help make your team more proactive in their job performance in the future. 

 When you are providing negative comments, always try to begin and end on a positive note.   For example, “Jim, great job taking care of Mrs. Noodleman this morning.  That was a big help.    I’ve noticed that there is quite a large amount of stuff piling up in the stock room.  What can we do to reduce the amount of clutter back there?  Oh yeah, before I go, I wanted to thank you for straightening up all of the displays up front.  They look fanstastic.”

Here is an interesting video from Malcolm Gladwell on hiring the right person. It is rather long, but worth viewing.  If you are unfamiliar with Malcolm Gladwell, he is the best selling author of The Tipping Point
, Blink, and Outliers.

There are many advantages to conducting exit interviews when an employee is terminated – either voluntarily or involuntarily. The two main reasons people conduct exit interviews is to receive feedback from the departing employee and to notify the employee of administrative procedures from that point forward. Of course, no departing employee is required to grant you an exit interview; however, most of them will.

Exit interviews should be conducted in private – preferably a closed office or conference room. No unnecessary employees should be present or able to listen in to the exit interview.
The best person to conduct exit interviews will vary but should usually be an individual at least a level above this individuals boss (i.e. their bosses’ boss) or someone from Human Resources if you have a dedicated Human Resources department in your company. In the event that a termination is involuntary (i.e. the employee is being fired), it is best to have two individuals present to conduct the exit interview. If possible, you may wish to exclude the terminated employee’s boss from the exit interview. Employees may be more likely to open up about issues that may be occurring within the Company if they feel that they will not have to engage in a confrontation with their former boss.

As mentioned above, there are several key administrative procedures that you will need to cover during the exit interview. You need to may sure that the employee is aware of benefit continuation requirements such as COBRA benefits, retirement plan rights or obligations, and conversion privileges related to health, life, disability, dental or other insurance benefits that are currently maintained by the employer. You should also confirm the employees contact information to ensure that you can contact them via mail for such items as paychecks or W-2’s.
You should also have the employee sign an acknowledgement that these items were discussed with them in the exit interview. In the event that they refuse to sign the acknowledgement, send them a follow up letter restating the items that were discussed in the exit interview – remembering to save a copy for their employee file. The exit interviewer should make notes as to what was discussed during the exit interview, including notes as to why the individual is leaving (if voluntary). These notes should be maintained in the personnel file.

In Exit Interviews Part II, we will review some commons questions that you should ask employees during the exit interview. Then, in Exit Interviews Part III, we will discuss what you, the employer, should do after the exit interview.

I just read an interesting article in USA Today about bringing babies to work. This is a new but growing trend among employers who are trying to attract talented employees and offer a good work/life balance. According to the Parenting in the Workplace Institute, over 80 companies accross the nation now allow babies in the workplace. According to the Society of Human Resource management, the number of companies who allow children in the work place on an occassional basis jumped to 29% last year, up from 22% in 2006. The article points out many pro’s and con’s, but I can see the largest con for me. I wouldn’t get any work done. Of course, that is just me personally. Apparantly, many of these companies are able to pull it off!

I was reading Seth Godin’s blog today on “The new standard for meetings and conferences” and it reminded me of my dislike for unproductive meetings. We have all been to a meeting at some point and got up at the end wishing we could tell the meeting organizer, “Thanks for wasting my time!” Meetings can eat up valuable time and resources in an organization if not properly managed. The worst time eater are out of town meetings that accomplish very little.

I used to work for a telecommunications Company and upon merging with another Company, they were flying employees from both Corporate headquarters back and forth, back and forth, and back and forth again. Everyone was complaining of the complete uselessness of the time spent traveling – because most were expected to complete their work regardless of the “lost” time. Typically, employees would fly down on Tuesday evening, meet with people Wednesday and Thursday and fly back Thursday afternoon. They would only be in meetings about 5 hours on Wednesday and 2 to 3 hours on Thursday. The rest of the time was spent traveling or having a “business lunch.”

All of this was costing the Company tons of money. Not just the travel and meal cost, but the inordinate amount of lost productivity. And with employee morale already skiddish with the impending merger, all of these additional job pressures did not help retention.

As Seth points out, the standards for great meetings and conferences have changed. If you are going to consume someone’s time, make sure you are well organized and accomplish something of substance during the meeting time. As far as travel is concerned, the cost of quality video conferencing equipment will quickly be dwarfed by the cost of flying all over the place. Many meetings can accomplish just as must via video or teleconference as they do in person.

The funny thing about my story above is that I was working for a telecommunications Company, yet they still insisted flying people all over the country for meaningless meetings that could have easily been done through teleconferencing – at virtually no cost to the Company.

Our offices have been using a dual monitor setup for a number of years now. While I do not need any extensive research to tell me I am vastly increasing our productivity (I can see it myself everyday), there are several studies that are coming out that are promoting the advantages of dual monitors.

 In a recent study from the University of Utah, people using two 20-inch monitors were 44% faster than those that used a single 18-inch monitor. For the many businesses who are strapped with the need for additional personnel, they must ask – do I really need employees or do I need the proper equipment for the employees I have.

Microsoft Researchers conducted user studies at determining the effectiveness of adding a second monitor to your workstation. Their findings report that dual monitors increased productivity anywhere fro 9% to 50% depending upon the person performing the tasks and the type of task.

The bottom line is that if you are even able to squeeze a mere 10% more productivity out of an employee, your cost savings can be extraordinary. For more information on the Microsoft study click here.

I have been to numerous tax and accounting conferences and in the technology portion, dual monitors is always the strongest point of emphasis that is made. There are always the usual doubters – people that have been doing things the same way for 40 years and refuse to change anything. There are two additional things that are always consistent in these discussions. The first thing is that there is never anyone in the room who has gone to dual monitors that will not rave about them. Secondly, there is not a single dual monitor user in the room that will EVER let you take their dual monitors away from them – me included. I hope to have three monitors before long!

Did this guy call in sick to work to go to a baseball game?

Do your employees really have jury duty? Did they really come down with Swamp Fever and need to miss a week of work? The normal procedure is to make them provide a doctors not or provide a jury duty notice. This may not be so easy now that an Oklahoma company has begun issuing excused absence notes that appear real.

For a mere $19.95, the Excused Absence Network will issue you up to 5 sick notes from Doctors, Dentists, Emergency Rooms, Jury Duty, Funerals, or Medical Evaluations. While their website states that the notes are for “entertainment purposes only,” how many people are actually using these notes to entertain their supervisors or friends?

MSNBC reported that a New Jersey woman was arrested after supplying one of these notes in order to provide explanation for why she missed traffic court. Unfortunately, court officials called the chiropractor who was listed on the note, and surprisingly, he had never heard of the woman.

A CCH nationwide survey found an absenteeism rate of about 2.3 percent in 2007. That’s down from 2.5 percent in 2006, the highest rate since 2.7 percent in 1999.

In my opinion, this practice is pretty unethical and could be considered fraud if your Company is paying you for your day off. Company founder, John Liddell was quoted as saying, “Millions of Americans work dead-end jobs, and sometimes they just need a day off. People are going to lie anyway. ”

My response to John Liddell and those “millions” of people in dead end jobs, do something to improve your situation and get a better job. The answer is not to lie, cheat and steal. You will never get out of your current situation doing that. The answer is to work on improving yourself and your abilities and move on to a better job with greater opportunities.

Employers should regularly give meaningful feedback to employees regarding their work performance.  Most companies perform a formal evaluation at least annually, and many do it twice annually.  Employers who do periodic reviews typically enjoy many benefits for their efforts, including: 

• Evaluations provide a basis for which to promote, discipline and terminate employees based on job performance.

• If done regularly and routinely, they can be used as strong evidence if a legal claim arises due to adverse action taken by the employer – such as employee termination.

• They will help employees know what to expect of them.  This is particularly useful with new employees.  Some employers provide first year employees with additional periodic evaluations shortly after they are hired.

• Evaluation sessions can be used to coach employees who may be having trouble in certain areas – thus increasing their job performance.

• Evaluation sessions should be used to recognize and reward all employees for the things they are doing right.  They should be conducted in such as way as to motivate exceptional employees to do even better.

In order to evaluate an employee properly, you should have several items in place well before an evaluation occurs.  First, employees need written job descriptions that detail out their duties and responsibilities.  Second, clear standards should be set at to what performance levels are expected.   Finally, there should be some sort of goal setting system in place to help motivate employees toward improvement of their performance.

 If done properly, the evaluation will focus on the achievement of the certain pre-set goals and your conclusions as to whether or not the employee met these goals.  Remember that goals do not have to be related to job performance such as sales, but may also be related to company policies.  For instance, if an employee is having trouble coming to work on time, a particular goal that you may setup could be an improvement of this violation.  In all cases, employees should receive praise and recognition for improvements made. 

This is likely one of the most important meetings you will have with your employees.  Make sure that enough time is schedules to discuss any issues thoroughly.  Just because you do not foresee any issues does not mean that the employee does not have a handful of issues to talk about that you may not even be aware of.   Always let your employee know what they did well.  This is a task that should not just be done during a once a year evaluation, but continually on a daily basis, if possible.  Always remember that positive motivation will go a lot further in increasing employee performance than will negative motivation.

Payroll touches each and every employee of an organization who receives a regular wage or other compensation. Some employees may be paid a salary while others are based on the number of hours worked.  Many of these different payment methods are calculated by a payroll specialist and the appropriate paychecks are issued. Organizations often use objective measuring tools such as timecards or timesheets completed by supervisors to determine the total amount of payroll due each pay period.  All in all, there are a vast amount of records that can pile up related to employees.Many payroll records are based on objective criteria such as timecards and federal tax forms.  For many small business owners, this mountain of records can be a daunting task to keep organized.  This is a major reason that many business owners choose to hire outside accountants to perform all of the calculations; store all of the year-to-date records and issue paychecks in a timely fashion. Employers simply need to update their payroll firm with changes in employee pay rates or deductions.In payroll personal file is essential that information is easily accessible and accurate when it is needed. Business owners and managers will eventually encounter the need to produce documentation about employee performance and work history. When outside people ask the company to provide verification of certain employment information, make it a practice to confirm only the information your employees have authorized you to release.The following items constitute a list of what items should be retained related to your employees. Keep in mind that this list is not all inclusive, and may vary based on your company or industry.

1.  Offer and hiring records (including employment contracts and/or agreements)
2. Employment applications (include supporting documentation such as resume, transcripts, interviewer notes, recommendation letters and/or reference checks.
3.  Job Descriptions
4.  Receipt for Employee Handbook (if applicable)
5.  Testing and/or Training Records (if applicable)
6.  Performance Evaluations
7.  Awards or disciplinary actions
8.  Personal data (name, address, birth date, sex, etc.)
9.  Payroll records
10.  Employee pay and benefit plans records
11.  Records and logs of occupational injuries
12.  Employee terminations and exit interview notes
13.  Promotions, demotions, and transfers
14.  INS Form I9
15.  Tax Withholding Forms (W-4, W-5, and any required state forms)

The following records are considered confidential, and should be kept separate from the regular personnel file when others may access the information inappropriately. 

1. Supervisor’s administrative file
2. Medical records and medical history of employees regarding ADA, FMLA, Rehabilitation, or work-related injury and/or illness claims and reports, and referrals concerning employees’ participation in Employee Assistance Programs
3. Medical records and medical history of family members of employees
4. Assessments functional capacity
5. Fitness for duty examination results
6. Discrimination claims and/or reports, including investigative materials.