Losing Disability Benefits Because of Facebook/Chippendales

The Lede from The New York Times had this as a title: "Depressed Woman Appears Happy on Facebook, Trouble Ensues."  When you read through the story (first reported from CBC News), it's another lesson to employees to watch what you post on sites like Facebook:

A 29-year-old Canadian woman who says she’s too depressed to do her job claims that her employer’s insurance company stopped paying her disability benefits because she posted some photographs of herself on Facebook in which she appeared to be happy.

Nathalie Blanchard, who has been on sick leave from an IBM office in Quebec since “she was diagnosed with major depression” 18 months ago, called her employer’s insurance company, Manulife, to ask why she had stopped receiving her monthly check. Ms. Blanchard says that an insurance agent informed her that photographs she had posted on her Facebook account — showing her apparently enjoying a Chippendales show, her birthday party and a beach vacation — proved that she was not depressed

Now I can't see how this can stand (but then again I don't know the Canadian court system that well). I'm not sure an insurance agent is qualified to tell if a woman is depressed or not based on photos she posted on Facebook. And if she was enjoying Chippendales, her birthday and a beach vacation, isn't she a normal human being. Let's just say things got worse for Blanchard after this...

[Her lawyer, Tom Lavin] told The Gazette, a Montreal newspaper, that his client’s mortgage insurance was cut off because someone alerted her financial institution to the supposedly damning Facebook photos. “That forced her to sell her house because she can’t afford to pay her mortgage,” Mr. Lavin told The Gazette, “her credit has gone down the tubes and her reputation has been damaged. She’s not having a good time.”

If she wasn't depressed before...Ouch.

A Few Restaurants in Park Slope You May Not Want To Work For

From New York Magazine's always excellent Grub Street:

When Marc Murphy testified against a proposed bill mandating that restaurateurs provide paid sick leave, his director of operations made sure to point out that Landmarc treats its employees very well, thank you (among other things, they get five sick days after they’ve worked there a year). But here’s something interesting — another restaurateur who testified against the bill on Tuesday, Irene Lo Re, also happens to be the owner of one of 25 Park Slope restaurants that were busted by the state Department of Labor for underpaying workers.

Though the eateries weren’t named in yesterday’s press release from the labor department, the NY Daily News today revealed that the restaurants include Olive Vine Café, Sotto Voce, Sweet Melissa Patisserie, Baluchi's, Sette Enoteca e Cucina, and Aunt Suzie’s. And a call to Christine Quinn’s office reveals that Aunt Suzie owner Irene Lo Re spoke against paid sick leave. To make matters more interesting, Lo Re is president of the Fifth Avenue Business Improvement District and she has also been a chairperson of Community Board 6. We’ve called Lo Re to find out what, exactly, it is that she doesn't like about the bill. 

That's not good news. One usually thinks of restaurants as places where labor laws are a gray area (many New York restaurants have undocumented workers and the wages paid aren't always "fair"), but there are still consequences for violating the law even within the food services industry. Mama Mexico faced a lawsuit earlier this year and the question of paid sick leave has become a hotly debate topic. Those are just two examples but it shows that no matter what industry you are in, you need to treat your workers right.

Astronology - Giving Thanks to Our Top Performers

Astronology Volume X Issue 19   November 17, 2009 Dear Andrew, Astron Solutions provides high-quality, low-cost, innovative human resources consulting services to organizations like yours. Call us for advice, innovative program design, and user-friendly Web/PC based software.   The Astron Road Show   The Astron team will be on the road again soon.  For now, we're hard at work in the office!  We will keep you posted on our travels so that we can meet you in person!   Fact or Fiction   All turkeys gobble. Fiction! It is only the Tom Turkey that makes the "gobble" sound we associate with turkeys. Happy Thanksgiving - gobble gobble! - to you and your family from everyone at Astron Solutions!   Giving Thanks to Our Top Performers In honor of Thanksgiving, this edition of Astronology will examine how to identify, and more importantly, to thank top performers within an organization for a job well done. Considering the economic conditions that many of us are experiencing, thankfulness shown through monetary exchanges may not be feasible. No matter your budget, it is critical to acknowledge those who go above and beyond their assigned capacity. Such behavior demonstrates loyalty and dependableness...key assets for any organization!....more   Have a Question? If you have a topic you would like addressed in Astronology, or some feedback on a past article, don't hesitate to tell us!  Simply reply to this e-mail.  See your question answered, or comments addressed, in an upcoming issue of Astronology. Looking for a top-notch presenter for your human resource organization's meeting?  Both Jennifer Loftus and Michael Maciekowich present highly-rated sessions on a variety of compensation and employee retention issues.  For more information, send an e-mail to info@astronsolutions.com.   The Fine Print We hold your e-mail address in trust.  Astron Solutions promises never to share or rent your personal information.  We also promise never to send you frivolous e-mails and will allow you to leave our list, at your option, at any time. To remove yourself from this list, please follow your personalized subscriber link at the bottom of your Astronology alert e-mail. Copyright 2009, Astron Solutions, LLC ISSN Number 1549-0467 Quick Links Client List Meet the Astron Team Contact Us   World of HR Blog Bringing you Human Resource news from around the globe...compliments of Astron Solutions. More

 

Bill Belichick, Advice and Lists, and a Stress-Free Holiday Season

Let's start out on this Tuesday with The HR Capitalist who talks about the most-talked-about head coach in the NFL so far this week, Bill Belichick (picture on right from same article) who was under fire across the country for a decision to make a non-convential decision in a big spot (and to be fair, some agree with his decision). The blog defends Belichick saying that unconventional decisions like that are what you need to do to win and how Tom Brady, the New England Patriots' quarterback, backed up his head coach.

The truth is that you do have to make big decisions that leave yourself open to second-guessing if you are to be a successful leader, but when the move doesn't work out, you can't always hide behind the loyalty of your "team" as Belichick clearly has done. But then again, Belichick wouldn't have that loyalty unless he had some success.

Other articles:

About.com has some advice for creating a stress-free holiday season in the office

Some great articles from Human Resource Magazine including:

• How to become an HR contractor 

• The top 5 retention tools

• And; top 10 equal pay questions for employers

Enjoy!

Nightmare Bosses who Make Every Day Friday the 13th

Saw this picture on the New York Post website today. The Post lists Anna Wintour, Dick Cheney, George Steinbrenner, Martha Stewart, Naomi Campbell, Donald Trump, Steve Phillips, Gordon Ramsay, Scott Rudin, Marge Schott, David Letterman, Lenny Dykstra, Leona Helmsley, Dov Charney, James Dolan, Bonnie Fuller, Bob Barker, Bernie Madoff, Ronald Perelman, Sumner Redstone, Ken Lewis, Ken Lay, Al Dunlap, Faith Popcorn, Sam Zell, J. Edgar Hoover, and Paul Pressler as the worst bosses.

I think you could add the fictional bosses of Michael Scott from The Office, Bill Lumberg from Office Space, Mr. Burns from The Simpsons and Don Draper from Mad Men on there as well.

Who else would you add to the list of nightmare bosses on Friday the 13th?

Recession and the Job Market

The recession has taken its hits on the job market and we've covered a lot of it on the blog. But no one (at least in the Mainstream Media) seems to write more currently about it than the Wall Street Journal's Careers section. Here are a few recent articles:

I happen to catch a glimpse of the WSJ while in a meeting in a co-worker's office the other day and one of the titles on the front page was "Life on Severance: Comfort, Then Crisis" (picture on right from article). I think it was a very interesting article, but I wonder if the severance package that was described in the opening paragraph was one that was supposed to get people's emotions stirred up. There are people who are a few years out of college, stuck with tons of student loans, and making $35,000 a year who maybe got a month of severance. Then there is the $200,000-a-year CEO who they describe in the article who got a year's worth of pay as severance and has $100,000 in savings. I don't think many people are crying for that guy.

But the point of the article is an interesting one: there is a growing severance economy of unemployed Americans who use severance pay and savings to keep up their lifestyles. The 405 Club asks if severance pay is the new welfare? I don't think that's the case, but for many, it's providing that slowly eroding bridge until the next job offer. How much severance does you company give? Do you think it's enough or would you, if you made the decisions give more? It's an interesting dilemma for companies who then have to worry about keeping happy those who are left behind.

Two more good articles:

• From today's WSJ, word that workers returning from layoffs have struggled to recoup the earnings power as wage erosion threatens to slow the economy's recovery.
• Lastly, this article is supposedly from tomorrow's WSJ (I told you we're ahead of the curve), and says that women now hold half of all U.S. jobs because of the large hits in layoffs to male-dominated industries. This has upended roles about which spouse stays at home finding more women heading back into the workforce to support the family as a single-earner. Very interesting indeed.
  

Yankees Parade Picture, Boeing and AOL

Wanted to post a picture from the New York Yankees victory parade down the Canyon of Heroes. This is one of the many pictures I snapped that day showing Jorge Posada telling us all the Yankees are, in fact, #1. I've put some more pictures over at my sports blog, No, You're a Towel. I don't believe that any work actually got done in the financial district that day as employees hung their heads out of windows.

Unfortunately, according to MLB.com, some of those employees hanging their heads out the window got a little "overzealous" and threw private data out the window including unshredded personal financial documents that included Social Security numbers and other personal information (including whole pay stubs). The person standing next to me was actually hit with an entire blueprint from an arcitecture firm. There was also, according to The Star-Ledger, "medical records listing names, addresses, insurance information, medical diagnoses, and other private information."

That's a big oops and Human Resources should have cautioned employees about what documents to throw out. You would think with a half-ton of paper handed out that employees would have had enough to throw, but while more sensible employees threw toilet paper (and quite a bit of it), less sensible ones decided to throw out documents that could be extremely damaging for an organization.

A few other articles:

• Boeing, long-since linked to Washington state, moved their corporate offices to Chicago and now are moving some of their production of the 787 Dreamliner to South Carolina. Wired starts to explain why and some of it definitely has to do with the workers and the environment.

• Lastly, AOL is about to start another massive layoff round today and The Business Insider has a lot of details. One thing that seems like a smart move: a voluntary buyout program to ease the sting of a "mass firing". Although it achieves the same effect, it looks a lot better if people are let go on their own terms with a nice package, especially in this economy.
  

Yankees Win, thhhhhheeeeee Yankees Win (and a few HR articles)

We don't hide our baseball loyalty very well here at the Astron Solutions blog. We're (Myself, Jennifer and Mike) big Yankees fans and we're gloating today after the Yankees took home #27! They were able to overcome controversy, weak areas and past failures to finally capture the biggest prize.

Love or hate the Yankees, you have to respect how well-run their organization is, regardless of the money. They put the right people in the right situations to succeed and pushed guys when they could be pushed. They stuck behind guys like Alex Rodriguez who had trouble outside the workplace and allowed him to succeed at the workplace. It's a good model for HR to replicate.

A few HR articles for you as I get ready to head to the Canyon of Heroes tomorrow:

• The Wall Street Journal gives some advice of what to do if you dislike your assigned mentor

• Wired has an awful story about a woman losing her job because of an error in the FBI criminal database. Ouch.

• Lastly, word today from The New York Times on the House of Representatives extending the jobless benefits.
  

Astronology - What Type of Managerial Attitude Do You Have?

Astronology Volume X Issue 18   November 3, 2009 Dear Andrew, Astron Solutions provides high-quality, low-cost, innovative human resources consulting services to organizations like yours. Call us for advice, innovative program design, and user-friendly Web/PC based software.   The Astron Road Show   The Astron team will be on the road again soon.  For now, we're hard at work in the office!  We will keep you posted on our travels so that we can meet you in person!   Fact or Fiction   The King of Hearts in a deck of cards is the only king without a moustache. Yet he was fashioned after Charlemagne. Fact! During the 15th Century French card manufacturers assigned each court card after historical or mythic figures. The king of hearts is presumably fashioned after Charlemagne (who did have a moustache.). This practice discontinued by the 19th century however.   What Type of Managerial Attitude Do You Have? Many of us are familiar with the inspirational phrase, "your attitude determines your altitude." In the worlds of human resources and management, this phrase holds much truth. In this issue of Astronology, we take an in-depth look into managerial attitudes, and how they affect the overall health and functioning of an organization....more   Have a Question? If you have a topic you would like addressed in Astronology, or some feedback on a past article, don't hesitate to tell us!  Simply reply to this e-mail.  See your question answered, or comments addressed, in an upcoming issue of Astronology. Looking for a top-notch presenter for your human resource organization's meeting?  Both Jennifer Loftus and Michael Maciekowich present highly-rated sessions on a variety of compensation and employee retention issues.  For more information, send an e-mail to info@astronsolutions.com.   The Fine Print We hold your e-mail address in trust.  Astron Solutions promises never to share or rent your personal information.  We also promise never to send you frivolous e-mails and will allow you to leave our list, at your option, at any time. To remove yourself from this list, please follow your personalized subscriber link at the bottom of your Astronology alert e-mail. Copyright 2009, Astron Solutions, LLC ISSN Number 1549-0467 Quick Links Client List Meet the Astron Team Contact Us   World of HR Blog Bringing you Human Resource news from around the globe...compliments of Astron Solutions. More