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| Welcome | Welcome to the July issue of the Credential Check Examiner! Please feel free to offer your feedback. We appreciate hearing from our subscribers.
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| | Drunk Driving...Did you know? |  The penalties for drinking and driving in the U.S. are becoming more severe, but the changes in laws are rarely made public information. The standard D.U.I. charge (Driving Under the Influence), is issued to drivers who register a blood alcohol content of .08% or higher. However, penalties for lesser alcohol-related driving charges can be just as severe. In New York, Detroit, and Atlanta, for example, drivers who are pulled over with a blood alcohol content of between .05-.07% can be charged with DWAI: Driving While Ability Impaired (DWAI) . Both charges can lead to license suspension/revocation, fines of up to $5,000, and jail time. This means that even after one drink, drivers risk a possible infraction.
Drunk Driving Facts
- Traffic crashes are the #1 killer of American workers and in more then 40% of those, drunk driving is a factor.
- At a .08 BAC level, drivers are 11 times more likely to have a single-vehicle crash than drivers with no alcohol in their system.
- A driver with a blood alcohol content (BAC) of 0.10 or greater is 7 times more likely to be involved in a fatal motor vehicle crash than a sober driver, and a driver with an alcohol concentration of 0.15 or greater is about 25 times more likely.
How to avoid a D.U.I.
Tolerance for drunk driving is at an all-time low, and avoiding a D.U.I. requires planning and responsibility. Some alternatives to driving drunk are: walking to a local pub, hiring a cab, or using a designated driving service such as the Detroit-based company the Designate (www.thedesignate.com).
Resource: Department of Motor Vehicles, 2008.
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| | Talent Management and Workforce Issues Trump Technology Systems | For the first time, a Towers Perrin annual survey of human resource service delivery trends among global organizations found that talent management and workforce issues trump technology systems enhancements or upgrades as the top priority of human resource executives.
Since the survey began 11 years ago, respondents have consistently reported technology and systems implementation as their top service delivery issues. This year has brought a marked change, with respondents focused on leveraging their prior emphasis on technology investments in order to further their performance and talent management agendas. Specifically, 40% of this year’s survey respondents cited delivering talent and performance management via technology as the most important HR service delivery issue; 32% rated recruiting and staffing services/systems - another people-related activity as the top issue.
“Organizations have spent years building and enhancing their technology platforms; it’s always been the automatic reaction to keeping current with new versions, applying patches and the like,” said Thomas Keebler, leader of Towers Perrin’s global HR Function Effectiveness practice. “What we’re seeing today is an evolution and maturation of the approach to technology. Today, organizations are putting the people dimension first and viewing their existing technology platforms as the foundation for - and the means of - better enabling their people agenda to deliver on business needs and goals.”
Additionally, the survey results show planned double-digit growth in many manager self-service applications in talent management, with particularly significant growth likely in succession planning and on boarding. “This is really about using technology to deliver on a company’s business goal,” said Keebler. “Historically, talent management systems have been used almost exclusively to help companies deliver on areas such as compensation, recruitment and staffing in ‘transaction-centric’ ways. Today, we’re seeing companies really stretch their systems to help them more effectively integrate across the HR domain in order to better reflect the world as seen by employees and managers. This is signaling a real sea change in and for HR; we’re seeing the HR function use service delivery tactics to help employees be more effective and efficient across the board, thereby improving the value both employees and HR bring to the business.”
Source: HR Marketer.com
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| | Lawmaker Wants to Reimburse Commuters for Gas | A U.S. Congressman from Ohio has proposed legislation that will reimburse commuters up to 5 cents per mile for the cost of gas. U.S. Representative Steven C. LaTourette recently introduced the Commuter Relief and Fuel Efficiency Act of 2008 (H.R. 6154), aiming to help commuters pay for gas. Under the legislation, the level of reimbursement would depend on the fuel efficiency of the car. Drivers of cars whose fuel efficiency is less than 35 miles per gallon would receive the standard reimbursement of 4 cents per mile. Drivers of vehicles whose fuel efficiency is 35 miles per gallon or more would receive 5 cents per mile. The maximum reimbursement would be $375 per year. "People need help paying for gas to get to work," LaTourette said. "This bill will translate to up to $1.75 off a gallon of gas when you're driving to work. The bill rewards those with fuel efficient vehicles and discourages sprawl by rewarding those who live closer to their workplace. People have to get to work but many don't have the option of using public transportation.” The Federal Highway Administration would administer the program and distribute grants to each state based on the number of vehicle registrations. States would have the option of reimbursing drivers monthly or quarterly.
Source: hr.blr.com
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| | Camps Skipping Background Checks | For the second year in a row, at least a third of day camps whose records were inspected by the state had not completed mandatory background checks of employees, despite increased enforcement. Those camps, whose records were inspected June 26, are described in a database as being out of compliance on the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services Web site and have 30 days to run the checks. But if they don't, there's not much the department can do because there's no provision in the law for further punishing camps, department spokesman Dennis Evans said. That might change next year. "We are putting a structure into place where we can levy fines and work with the attorney general's office to collect fines," he said.
The department polled 96 of the 250 or so children's day camps, 70 more than it checked last year, and found that 42 percent hadn't conducted the background checks. Last summer, nine of 26 camps checked had not completed them. Camps are required to have the state Bureau of Criminal Identification & Investigation check the backgrounds of all employees who have lived in Ohio at least five years. If employees are unable to show they've lived in Ohio that long, the camps must have the bureau go through the FBI for national background checks.
"One of the things we've done this year is looking at what we could do to expand our sample size and also do it in a manner that we got most of it done at the beginning of the summer," Evans said. Most of the camps that did not comply with the law were missing verification of Ohio residency, he said. About 77 percent of camps that did not comply did not have proof of residency for some employees, and about 37 percent had not requested some background checks, according to data from the department. Ohio law has required the checks at day camps for several years, but the Department of Job and Family Services did not have the authority to enforce it until 2005.
Source: Columbus Dispatch
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| | Utah Shifting to 4 Day Work Week | Starting next month, it will be "TGIT" for Utah state employees. As in: "Thank God It's Thursday." In a yearlong experiment aimed at reducing the state's energy costs and commuters' gasoline expenses, Utah is about to become the first state to switch to a four-day workweek for thousands of government employees.
They will put in 10-hour days, Monday through Thursday, and have Fridays off, freeing them to golf, shop, spend time with the kids or do anything else that strikes their fancy. They will get paid the same as before. "One of the jokes is that one of the biggest benefits will be for golf courses," said Ryan Walker, 49, an information technology director.
The order issued by Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman will affect about 17,000 out of 24,000 executive-branch employees. It will not cover state police officers, prison guards or employees of the courts or Utah's public universities. Also, state-run liquor stores will stay open on Fridays. Turning off the lights, the heat and the air conditioning on Fridays in 1,000 of 3,000 government buildings will save about $3 million a year out of a state budget of $11 billion, according to the governor's spokesperson, Lisa Roskelley.
The state will also save on gasoline used by official vehicles, but authorities have not figured out how much. The Department of Environmental Quality estimated employees in six buildings alone will save themselves more than $300,000 spent on gas to commute to work. The four-day workweek could also be good for the environment. "We feel like we can reduce the CO2 or the ozone by around over 3,000 metric tons, as well as have an impact on our air pollution," said Kim Hood, executive director of the Department of Administrative Services. In addition, the governor said the new schedule could help recruit younger workers who prefer a three-day weekend.
Source: Associated Press
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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:
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