The HR Team February 2008 Newsletter

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HR Team Staff News

Welcome Beverly Jackson and Rhonda Clark

Beverly Jackson joined The HR Team in January. She has over 20 years of human resources experience. Beverly holds a BS in Human Resources Management from Bellevue University and is a certified Professional in Human Resources (PHR). She is also a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the Chesapeake Human Resources Association (CHRA) and the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans (IFEBP).

Rhonda Clark joined the end of last year as our office manager. Rhonda has worked in marketing and administrative positions for Joe Corbi's, Caruso Homes, Impact Office Products and more.

Congratulations Christina Bashian and Dani Schuman!

Christina Bashian has been promoted to HR specialist. Christina originally started with the firm 2 years ago while she was completing her master's degree. Since then, Christina has been instrumental in many of our compensation and survey projects and has played a key support role for much of our senior staff.

Dani Schuman has successfully passed the certification exam and is now a Certified Senior Professional in Human Resources ("SPHR") as granted by the Human Resource Certification Institute.

Changes to FMLA

On January 28th the President signed into law H.R. 4986, the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2008 (NDAA). Among other things, section 585 of the NDAA amends the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) to permit a "spouse, son, daughter, parent, or next of kin" to take up to 26 workweeks of leave to care for a "member of the Armed Forces, including a member of the National Guard or Reserves, who is undergoing medical treatment, recuperation, or therapy, is otherwise in outpatient status, or is otherwise on the temporary disability retired list, for a serious injury or illness." Additional information and a copy of Title I of the FMLA, as amended, are available on the Department of Labor's website.

Doing Better Performance Reviews

How do you approach performance reviews in a way that will benefit employees and improve their work and compliance?

Books such as "Perfect Phrases for Performance Reviews" provide an array of canned comments you can use. Problem is, they may not help you make a person-to-person connection. Co-author Robert Bacal, quoted in The Wall Street Journal, says the popularity of such books shows that managers are "deceiving themselves into thinking what they are doing is an objective process."

If you have to write the review, you are also saying something about yourself. Written comments actually can be incriminating for the manager. Poor performance of staffers seems to show that the manager may have failed to manage someone as effectively as others. Some managers inflate the grades of their staffers in an attempt to make themselves look better.

Telling the truth about performance also leads to further responsibility. If an employee is not doing the job, you then have to figure out how to make the situation better. If people are already doing a good job, you have to figure out how to reward them.

One manager quoted in the Journal says his least-favorite criticism is calling a worker a "non-team player." It is frequently used to demoralize overachievers who deserved promotions but didn't get them.

Rather than review staffers' work annually, it can be more effective to provide feedback with staff throughout the year. However, some organizations and managers are often reluctant to change review policies, for fear of more work or perceived risk from less formal conversations.

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