January 2011 Newsletter

Is it Time to Hire a New Employee?

If you are thinking about hiring a new employee, now is the right time. Although the decision can be a tough one, with about 10% of the U.S. workforce unemployed, there is a large pool of potential hires. If you or your staff members are currently unable to finish the work of the business on time, then consider hiring a new employee.

Before making the decision to staff up, consider the following:
1. Is the workload too much for my present employees?
2. Can I afford the extra help?
3. Have overtime costs increased within the last few months?
4. Will a new employee improve my bottom line?

The burden of hiring a new employee can be cumbersome with the time it takes to place job ads, interview applicants, or conduct background checks.  Consider using a staffing company to relieve this burden. Four Point HR has added a division called Four Point HR Staffing that provides short and long term staffing and employer solutions to companies in the information technology (IT), industrial, legal, healthcare/long-term care, and marine sectors. Understanding that our clients operate in a world of deadlines, multiple demands and the reality of needing help on short notice, Four Point Staffing works quickly and efficiently to deliver the talent that our clients require.

In partnership with Four Point HR, Four Point Staffing can be a single source for payroll, benefit, workers’ compensation insurance and human resource outsourcing. We can combine these solutions into our bundled staffing to save our clients money on their overall staffing and human resource expenditure.

OSHA Record Keeping Compliance

OSHA’s record-keeping requirements are explained in 29 CFR 1904 and 1910.20. The agency uses records of injuries and illnesses to determine the effectiveness of existing safety and health standards. These records include an injury report for every incident requiring medical treatment (excluding first aid). All recordable injuries and illnesses must be entered on an OSHA No. 300 log within six work days of being reported by the employee. The business is also required to keep supplemental records of recordable cases on either an OSHA No. 301 log or similar documents such as a First Report of Injury and completed Accident Investigation forms.

A summary of all injuries and illnesses reported in a calendar year must be posted the following year, on OSHA form 300A, from February 1 through April 30.
Example: Calendar year 2010 must be posted from February 1, 2010 through April 30, 2010.

The OSHA 300A form should be posted on a facility bulletin board. All injury and illnesses reports must be maintained and retained a minimum of 5 years. Four Point HR recommends the records should be retained for the life of the company plus 30 years.  Other records, such as employee exposures to toxic materials or medical surveillance, must be kept for length of employment plus 30 years.

Four Point HR will be supplying our clients with a copy of their 2010 OSHA 300 and 300A logs in January.

Policies and Procedures that Work for Your Company

Every company, regardless of size, needs to have a policy and procedure manual in the work place. A workplace policy should clarify and reinforce your companies’ operating standards that are in place to meet your company’s goals. The procedures are the specifics or direct actions to take in achieving those goals. For example, “Before processing an order you must verify the customer’s name and address.”

Some things to keep in mind when drafting your Policy and Procedure Manual:

  • Communicate with your staff to get an understanding of what is needed in your company’s workplace.
  • Define the key terms in your policies and procedures so your employees understand what is acceptable and unacceptable.
  • Make sure to have a code of conduct explaining the importance of respecting customers and fellow co-workers.
  • Explain why the policies and procedures are needed in your work place.
  • Emphasize your company’s commitment to providing a quality business environment.
  • Don’t copy another company’s policies and procedures. Your company has a unique culture and unique operations
  • Establish a process to handle grievances in the workplace.
  • Clarify your anti-discrimination and harassment policies.

Be sure to check your policy and procedure manual annually to make sure it’s current and up to date. Having a relevant and useful policies and procedures manual helps your company create a workplace that is free of misunderstandings or disgruntled employees.

Ring in the New Year with a Business Budget

Along with your 2011 resolutions to exercise more and eat healthier, why not resolve to have a more financially secure year by creating a business budget? Without a budget, a business runs the risk of spending more money than it is making or, conversely, not spending enough money to grow.

Why Create a Business Budget?
Business budgeting is an indispensable tool that can help ensure your business success. The biggest benefit of business budgeting is reducing the number of business surprises that will come your way, especially unpleasant ones like not having enough money to pay a vendor or make payroll. With a business budget, owners can anticipate problems before they happen and devise strategies and plans to solve problems long before they occur. Plus, lenders and investors are going to require a budget before they agree to partner with your company.

Budget Realty Check
A budget must be based on figures that can be supported by reasonable expectations. Those expectations are based on a combination of prior financial performance and anticipated business growth or retraction.

To gather the information you’ll need, start by consulting with other people in your organization. Your accountant should be able to provide baseline figures from prior financial periods while sales managers and other key staff can provide a reality check about anticipated sales and expenses.

Specify a Timeframe
Budgets are prepared for a specific time period in the life of your business. They are often based on an organization’s fiscal year, but you may also want to budget on a monthly, quarterly, or semi-annual basis. Most financial software programs make this easy by offering a variety of formatting options for the same budget.

Estimate Income and Expenses
In its simplest form, your budget will be an estimated plan of your income and expenses for the specified timeframe. Income includes any payments you receive from sales, accounts receivable, interest, dividends, or virtually any other source.

Expenses, on the other hand, represent funds that leave your business to pay for raw materials, payroll, administration, real estate costs, or utilities. No matter how carefully you plan, you will undoubtedly encounter some unexpected costs along the way, so create an expense line for unbudgeted expenses.

Monitor and Manage Your Budget
With figures for income and expense, owners can work out how much money they are making. Look at your costs and work out ways to reduce them, and anticipate any cash flow problems.

Review Your Budget Regularly
To use your budgets effectively, you will need to review and revise them frequently. Using up-to-date budgets enables you to be flexible and also lets you manage your cash flow and identify what needs to be achieved in the next budgeting period.
Stick to your budget, but review and revise to support management decisions and goals throughout the year.

Reduce Turnover By Clearly Defining Employee Expectations

Once you begin an employment relationship, clearly define your expectations to the employee.  Assuming you have chosen someone that seeks be a positive asset to your business, you need to communicate to the new employee his or her role in the success of your organization.  Define the numbers that define excellent performance and the behaviors that embody quality of character.  Don’t leave any detail to chance.  Go out of your way to spend quality time with your new hires so that they understand exactly what is expected. How does your company integrate new employees into your firm?

How To Design An Effective Performance Management System

How many times have you heard a manager or business owner say, “Our people are our greatest asset?” In many organizations, the employees are treated this way. For every company that walks the walk, there is a company that only talks the talk. In these companies, what the manager should really say is, “I am the most important person in this company and my people know that I think so.”

The employer/employee relationship takes on many forms. We interact daily in the workplace and often in social settings outside of the office. Through the frequency of our interaction we come to feel that we know our employees and that they know us as well.

Consider how much time you spend with your direct reports in open communication regarding their work life in a setting where they have my uninterrupted time. My guess is that most managers spend little time providing for such time with their employees and overestimate the quality time that they spend with their direct reports. We are going to examine the importance of creating time for open communication in today’s business climate and how it can be used to change or further a company culture based upon results.

Structure, communication and accountability are vital to the success of any organization. Structure provides your staff with a basic understanding of what to do and how to do it in an organized fashion. Accountability ensures that responsibilities are met on time with quality results. Communication allows for the various parts of your company to work together seamlessly to meet your customer or client needs.

An effective performance management system will employ a simple structure that both the manager and direct reports honor as a commitment to be kept and meetings should be missed only in extreme situations. Most performance management practices center around a year-end review that affects prior bonus and future pay. The employee often feels like they are judged solely on the last 90 days of their performance. The manager struggles to provide an objective assessment as he or she finds it very difficult to look at the entire year objectively as the recent past is front and center.

Let’s start by rethinking the whole process. We want to focus less on having a cursory meeting where we cram an entire year of an employees’ work into a one-hour meeting. We want to focus more on establishing an effective mentoring process where open and honest feedback flows between both the manager and employee on a regular basis. Individual monthly meetings with each direct report should be the corner stone of this process. Employees should prepare for the meeting by providing a description of their last 30 days. This document should be provided in advance of the meeting and include their failures, successes, and plans for the next 30 days. The manager should be prepared to review the document, be mentally present in the meeting, accept no phone calls or interruptions, and be prepared to help with their failures, coach through their plans and celebrate their successes. If you notice a problem, discuss it. Don’t leave anything unturned.

The next step in the process is a quarterly meeting. This meeting is best conducted over a couple of sessions and is a part of a formal review process. Your direct report should prepare for this meeting by answering a few questions in writing. You want to find out what the person feels he or she did well over the last 90 days and where improvement could occur. You want to find out what the person is particularly proud of with regard to his or her performance. In addition, you want to know if and how the employee is struggling. You should have the employee submit this prior to the meeting so that you can review and thoughtfully prepare your responses.

The second step of this quarterly meeting occurs as you tell the employee, verbally and in writing, what you have found to be the positive and negative points of their performance. Provide specific treatment to what improvements you would like to see in the negative performance and let the person know how serious the situation is as it relates to their job security. The goal here is open communication of your expectations with no surprises. The employee should respond to your assessment in writing with a short but simple improvement plan.

We work closely with our clients to help them improve their performance management processes. As with most business processes, follow through is critical. Do not adjourn any monthly meeting or quarterly review without scheduling the next one. Our clients derive value from this process through their commitment to their employees and cancel meetings only in the event of a critical conflicting appointment.