Yesterday’s Advisor began our list of the seven deadly sins of managers; today, we present Envy, Greed, and Sloth.
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[Go here for sins 1 to 4 and a bonus sin]
Sin 5. Envy
Envy makes managers do things that aren’t appropriate for the company. For example:
- Empire building. Trying to add more positions that aren’t important for the company to achieve its goals.
- Copycatting. The other department head has a French-speaking assistant; I want a French-speaking assistant. Or, the other department head just reorganized, I’d better reorganize too.
Sin 6. Greed
One way managers and supervisors show the sin of greed is in their quest for information about peoples’ lives. This starts in the interview with questions about:
- Child care
- Family plans
- Church
- Health
- Age
- And any number of other non-job-related questions
These questions are often asked innocently, but they all can cause problems if there’s a lawsuit. The court will assume that you asked the question because you wanted to use the answer in making your hiring decision.
Say you ask a woman about her plans for a family or need for child care, and then hire a man who wasn’t asked the questions. The woman sues, and the court wants to know, why did you ask that question?
And then there’s the over-eager prying into employees’ health issues. As they say, “You can’t unring the bell.” If you later want to take action against the employee, there will be a certain amount of protection around him or her. You may be accused of discrimination on the basis of a disability.
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Sin 7. Sloth
We don’t know any HR pros who aren’t busy, and we’d be reluctant to accuse any of sloth. But we do know many who have put basic upkeep chores on the back burner. From hiring to firing, HR’s never easy, and in a small department, it’s just that much tougher.
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- Overview of compliance responsibilities through a really useful, 2-page chart of 23 separate laws that HR needs to comply with. These range from the well-known Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and new healthcare reform legislation, to lesser-known but equally critical rules, such as Executive Order 11246. Also included are examples of federal and state posting requirements. (Proper postings are among the first things a visiting inspector looks for—especially now that the minimum wage has been repeatedly changing.)
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- Prewritten forms, policies, and checklists. These are enormous work savers! Managing an HR Department of One has 46 such forms, from job applications and background check sheets to performance appraisals and leave requests, in both paper and PDF format.
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