Just My E-pinion
By Stephen D. Bruce, Ph.D.
Editor, HR Daily Advisor
When egregious violations occur unchallenged, an HRDA editor asks, “Where was HR?” And he gives 6 practical tips to help you make sure you’re there when you are needed.
In 20 years of editing Daily Advisor’s sister publication, the HR Manager’s Legal Reporter, I’ve come across some pretty wild stories of management in action:
Take, for instance, the recent case of the managers who publicly spanked employees as a “motivation” device. Or how about the company that voted off one employee each month, TV “’Survivor’-style”, as a way of improving the quality of the workforce? Or, more mundanely, how about burgeoning class action cases where no overtime was paid for years?
And all that’s to say nothing of the flagrant harassment and discrimination cases that surface with great regularity.
When I write about these stories, whatever their lurid particulars, the same question always comes to mind: Where was HR? How could responsible HR managers not know about these situations, and how could they stand by without taking action?
Let’s face it, HR managers, your job description may not say it, but you’re the company watchdog. Who else is going to do it? Marketing? Finance? IT? Please!
Here’s how to set yourself up for your watchdog role:
1. Perform regular audits. Commit to regular evaluations of your HR stats. You’ll spot, for example, imbalances in the treatment of protected classes, misclassification of “exempt” workers, and insidious harassment claims in the making. It’s a golden opportunity to step in before the lawyers call and the government knocks.
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2. Keep complaint channels open. Encourage employees to use your complaint channels. You want to hear complaints and accusations early so you can act before the lawsuits are filed.
Create several channels for complaints and check regularly to be sure that phone numbers and email addresses are up to date. Make sure all employees—including non-English speakers—have easy options for communicating concerns in ways that don’t have to pass through their supervisors.
3. Investigate and respond. When you do get complaints, take them seriously. Investigate and report back to the person who made the complaint. Employees who complain and then hear nothing are likely to seek an outsider’s advice.
4. Require HR involvement in actions with lawsuit potential. Set your policies and train your managers: they must check with HR in certain situations. For example:
*When an employee requests leave.
*When an employee complains about working conditions, safety, pay, illegal activity, etc.
*When one employee’s activity could be offending others.
*When there’s teasing of an ethnic, racial, or sexual nature.
Get involved early, and you can head problems off at the pass.
5. Keep an ear to the ground. Be visible and available. Do the following:
— Get out and about. Be seen on the shop floor and in the call center bullpen. Talk to people. Look around.
—Talk and listen. Find out what employees are thinking about, proud of, worried about.
—Conduct surveys. Surveys often point out situations that need attention. Even when surveys don’t produce actionable results, they show employees that the organization cares about employee opinion.
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—Perform exit interviews. You can find out a lot in an exit interview. Employees are often more willing to share problems when they are leaving.
—Install a suggestion box. It sounds quaint, but you may get some great suggestions and maybe some surprising complaints.
6. Don’t delay action. When you uncover inappropriate behavior, don’t think, “That behavior will probably stop if I just wait.” Hint: It won’t. You think you’re giving things a chance to fix themselves, but in court you’ll appear to have condoned inappropriate behavior by not taking action.
Rather Not Be the Watchdog?
Sorry, you can’t give up the watchdog role, but you can make it a lot easier. Go back to HR basics to eliminate inappropriate behaviors:
*Establish workable, meaningful HR policies and systems, especially for hiring, appraisal, discipline, and termination.
*Train, train, train your managers and supervisors.
Do you agree that the company watchdog role is properly in HR’s court? Use the Share Your Comments button to answer, or email me at SBruce@blr.com.
Yes, the buck should start and stop with HR when it comes to being the company watchdog. Too many times people seem to fear reporting activities because of repercussions, not realizing that whistleblower statutes shield them from retaliation.
This checklist is an excellent start and recommendation. If HR cannot perform these regular audits, because of resource constraints, then the audit and training functions could be outsourced to a consultant who, on a regular basis, will do the assessments. Based on their findings, company or department trainings can then be done to make certain employees (including managers) are knowledgeable and conversant in regard to compliance.
What is troubling, however, is when such fundamental issues simply go over the heads of some employees. These are things that should be common sense knowledge such as confidentiality, conflict of interest, denigration of the competitor, interference with business opportunity. If they aren’t getting those basics, it troubles me on how to even broach the subjects.