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| Welcome | Welcome to the October 2007 edition of the Credential Check Examiner! This month we look at the virtues of harassment training, the subject of body art in the workplace, and the science of human resources.
As always, please feel free to reply with your comments and suggestions!
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| Blackwater Accidents Raise Legal Questions Regarding Private Security
|  Blackwater USA, the private security firm who has been under contract by the US State Department to provide security for diplomats, has been under intense scrutiny for its role in the shootings of 14 Iraqi citizens in a firefight last month. The particulars of the incident are not clear: the Iraqi government contends that Blackwater guards opened fire on Iraqi citizens in a main square in Bagdad, while Blackwater insists that its guards were provoked. Regardless, the issue of using private security for military purposes or operations becomes a significant one. Specifically, what laws would a private contactor fall under for committing a crime against a foreign national, even if that contractor was working for the US government in wartime?
The incident occurred when after months of criticism of the State Department’s security practices in Iraq as a whole, and of Blackwater’s role in those practices. Blackwater agents have been involved in 56 shooting incidents in Iraq in 2007 alone. U.S. lawmakers have been seeking clarification of the somewhat nebulous jurisdiction and authority under which Blackwater and other State Department private security firms work, especially with regard to criminal conduct. On Thursday, October 4, 2007, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would place all private government contractors in Iraq under U.S. criminal statutes. The Senate will take up the bill in the coming weeks.
Blackwater has approximately 1,000 employees in Iraq currently, and operates under a $1.2 billion contract with the State Department.
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| Recent Study Provides More Support for Organizations to Provide Harassment Training to their Employees
| A recent study conducted by American University’s Kogod School of Business revealed that employees who received harassment training were no more likely to file a lawsuit than those who did not receive harassment training. The study was conducted using graduate students who were employed, but had never received any training on harassment. The participants were originally given a questionnaire that asked for their response to various workplace scenarios involving harassing behaviors. Half of the participants were then given harassment training, while the control group was not. Subsequently, the entire population of the study was given an identical questionnaire to the one previously completed. Caren M. Goldberg, the professor who designed the study, reported that there was no difference in the questionnaire results as to how many individuals would consult with legal counsel. Furthermore, she revealed that in general, the information gathered suggested the reason the individuals in the study stated they would escalate their complaints to the judicial system were motivated by their own personal experiences, not the degree of training they received regarding employees’ rights in the workplace.
This encouraging study lends more support for organizations to justify training their employees on harassment in the workplace. While there are many other resources available to employees, such as the media and the internet, where employees can learn about their legal rights, it may be more beneficial for the organization to train the employees internally. In 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that organizations can use the training they provide to their employees as an affirmative defense to harassment claims by demonstrating that the organization tried to communicate knowledge and resources to its employees to prevent harmful situations. Additionally, providing internal training for employees gives organizations the opportunity to emphasize the particular policies they have in place and give employees the chance to ask questions, as well as demonstrate that the organization cares about their well being.
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| | Governmental Agencies: Anonymous Hotlines and Open Records | Since the Sarbanes Oxley legislation of 2002, thousands of public companies have implemented anonymous hotlines to uncover allegations of employee misconduct, especially fraudulent, financial, and accounting in nature. Although it may not be a requirement, many private organizations as well as colleges, universities, and governmental agencies have also implemented these hotlines as best practices to identify potential misconduct within their organization or institution. Most governmental agencies and institutions are subject to different laws than their business counterparts, one of which is the open records or “sunshine” laws. Open or ‘public’ records provide the ability for anyone to request public documents from a government agency or municipality. This law was established in 1966 via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to not only hold the government accountable, but to make the government activity transparent to the public. Each state has essentially adopted its own version of open records laws. For instance, Colorado has enacted the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA). CORA applies to virtually all levels and types of government agencies within Colorado and ‘public records’ include books, papers, maps, photographs, tape recordings and electronic mail, among other written materials. One may ask, “are reports filed through governmental anonymous hotlines subject to open records?” The simple answer is “yes”. The custodian handling the request may hold back a report if the allegation is still under investigation or if there is particular information in the report protected or allowed to remain confidential, such as personnel records. While each state may have more exemptions or restrictions built into their open records laws, in most circumstances, hotline reports would be subject to a public records request. This holds true regardless of the method of submission of a whistleblower or other report of misconduct – hotlines, suggestion boxes, email, mail, or voice messages would all be subject to open records laws in the same way. The benefit of putting a hotline in place, however, tends to far outweigh the need to hand over these records if a request actually occurs. For instance, a tip leading to an investigation uncovering a $20-30k fraud or kickback scheme by an employee would far outweigh the costs to implement such a hotline. Moreover, if employees know a hotline is in place, the hotline itself can often serve as a deterrent to workplace misconduct in the first place. Recently, several newspapers, under the auspices of the open records laws, have requested access to hotline reports to ‘test’ the validity and usefulness of the hotlines. To their credit, the papers have acted responsibly and have not published specifics on any particular report but rather overall statistics showing the amount of reports received. As confidential reporting of workplace misconduct becomes more entrenched in today’s work environment, it is likely we will see these open records laws modified to strike a better balance between protection of the reporting party and the report content and the public’s right to know about government expenditures for reporting systems. top
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| | Body Art and Tattoos: Is Your Policy Adequate? | The Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology recently published a study that revealed about half of all people in their 20s have a tattoo or body piercing (other than earrings). Combining this statistic with the reality that employees in their 20s are the future leaders of the American workforce, employers should be paying increased attention to their dress code policies, as minor and straightforward as such policies may seem. Employers may fear that strictly defining what is considered acceptable grooming and appearance in the workplace may expose them to legal liability. The reality is, however, that, provided your policy does not discriminate against the members of any protected class (such as women or members of particular religious groups), your exposure is limited. In fact, most body piercings and tattoos are not considered to be constitutionally protected free speech, nor are they generally protected under federal discrimination laws. If you can articulate a legitimate business purpose, your policy can restrict the size and placement of visible tattoos; your policy can require employees to cover offensive tattoos; and your policy can direct employees to remove visible body piercings. Personnel Policy Service, Inc. recommends that your dress code policy contain the following elements: - Articulate business-related reasons for the basis of your policy. It is perfectly acceptable to base your policy on the organization’s need to maintain a positive public image.
- Require your employees to be well-groomed while representing the company. Don’t be afraid to specify what is and is not considered acceptable.
- Create employee awareness of your policy. You cannot expect employees to comply with a policy that is not readily accessible or available to them. Be sure to communicate your dress code policy, just as you would your policy against drug use, workplace violence, or theft.
- Your policy should be applied to all employees equally.
- Be sure to make reasonable accommodations for circumstances that require it. For example, some religious practices or disabilities may require you to allow tattoos or facial hair that may otherwise violate your policy.
- Enforce discipline for violations consistently.
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| Quote of the Month: "Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. "
-Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)
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| | Cool Site: FileMyReceipt | This website offers online hosting for your receipts and related documentation. They are quick to point out the sorts of scenarios that have happened to all of us, whether it is losing a receipt, having a receipt age such that it is unreadable, or needing warranty information while traveling. FileMyReceipt also points out the possibility (and unfortunate irony) of having your home burn down and needing this sort of documentation to assist in your insurance claims. Simply scan your receipts and upload the image files to FileMyReceipt, and you will have constant access to your documents. top
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| | Human Resources as a Science, not an Art | John Sullivan at Workforce Management put together an interesting article comparing the work HR departments must occasionally do to that of crime scene investigators. After a disastrous high "kills" business the HR team needs to take a serious look at the suspects, determine the "cause of death" and punish the guilty. Sounds like a silly metaphor, but there are some very valid points to consider as mentioned here: "Too many practitioners view HR as an art and not a science. They make assumptions, but rarely implement protocols to test their validity. As a result, numerous HR organizations are constantly putting out organizational fires that could have been predicted and prevented. There are lots of reasons why HR is in this bind, but the overriding reason is that HR people traditionally are not trained in financial analysis—the very tool they need to ascertain why something failed. And they find it difficult to get help from finance, because HR typically doesn't speak finance's language. It's like a beat cop who doesn't grasp the basics of forensic science trying to talk shop with Gil Grissom, CSI's lead investigator. Where to start: Crime scene investigators have learned that ascertaining how—and even why—a victim was murdered must be a methodical, dispassionate process. Organizations that want to understand why things went wrong need to assemble a failure-analysis team and develop a process or a template to use when examining such breakdowns. With a process in place, HR professionals need to acknowledge a harsh truth: Nearly every failure in an organization can be tracked back to workforce issues. For example: Post-mortems routinely reveal that organizations make bad hires at least a third of the time. Employees who are let go and top performers who quit must also be counted as failures. Add to that list those top candidates who reject offers, poor union relations and performance management efforts that fail to produce results, and it is clear that most HR organizations are awash in failure. Getting to the root: Painful though it may be, you must prioritize your failures based on their frequency of occurrence and financial impact. Then apply the three-step root-cause analysis process: - Define the failure. (In detail, how does the outcome vary from the goal?)
- Measure the failure. (How far off were you? Do such failures happen all the time?)
- Uncover cause-and-effect relationships. (How do successful projects differ from unsuccessful ones?)
Over time, or through pilot projects, you can determine if a variance consistently leads to failure or to success. Advanced failure-analysis groups can then go on to identify precursors to a variance. By discovering those patterns, companies can prevent failures in the future."
Yes, it's not quite the same, but the approach is valid. A serious, objective, and yes, scientific approach to analyzing the effects of bad hires can help trace the problem back to its source and ultimately a solution. There is no point in treating the symptoms when the root of the problem remains in tact. That is, unless you feel like wasting your money even more. If one in three really is the average for making a bad hires, there's a good chance your business needs to take the time to analyze the situation. The long-term benefits greatly outweigh the immediate loss of time and resources you'll have to devote.
Here’s hoping all of your hires are “A” players!
Todd Palmer, President, Diversified Industrial Staffing
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| | Contact Information | If you are interested in obtaining additional information about these articles or the services offered by Credential Check Corporation, please contact one of the following individuals:
Thank you! We'll see you next month!
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