Women in the Workplace

The past few months, two somewhat conflicting reports about women (and their looks) in the workplace have come out.

In August, Reuters reported that attractive women were being overlooked for certain jobs. The study by the University of Colorado Denver Business School published in the Journal of Social Psychology concluded "Attractive women faced discrimination when they applied for jobs where appearance was not seen as important. These positions included job titles like manager of research and development, director of finance, mechanical engineer and construction supervisor."

Then, earlier this month, the New York Post reported that skinnier women earn significantly more than those who are of average weight or classified as obese. The study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology found that "being 30 pounds below the average American female weight of 164 pounds can result in roughly $10,719 more in annual salary -- above the average woman's pay of $40,000. Being 30 pounds overweight can mean making $9,873 less than average." I think that this may be more of a case of skinnier people being more energetic, healthier, and confident than the case of discrimination, but it is interesting indeed.

Lastly, the EU parliament voted in favor of a number of measures to strengthen maternity protection in Europe including a 20-week full maternity pay for new mothers according to HR Magazine. The proposal also contains "rules employers will be banned from dismissing pregnant workers until six months after the end of their maternity leave."

Saturday in the Park

Not exactly in the park, but it is a beautiful Saturday to be there and if you want some great links while you're lounging in the sun.

From ben's blog, some advice about the right way to lay off an employee. The steps? Get your head right, don't delay, be clear in your own mind about why you are laying people off, train your managers, be visible and be present. "After seeing their friends laid off, employees were no longer willing to make the requisite sacrifices needed to build a company. He said that although it was possible to survive an isolated layoff, it was hugely unlikely that a company would experience great success."

From ESPN New York, an interesting conflict between the New York Jets and a female reporter. The interesting part of this story has been the response from other female journalists who have been less than supportive of Ines Sainz, the woman who filed the complaint of discrimination and harassment.

Interview Tips has 20 ways to nail an interview with some hilarious videos of people who didn't come close to doing so (H/T Wendy). Number 16 may be the worst.

There are job reports out there, but finally there is The Hidden Job Report.

And lastly, some advice about what a company blog should look like from The New York Enterprise Report (H/T Jennifer)

Valentine's Day in The Office and in "The Office"

I'm just catching up on my DVR from last week after a fun trip down to New Orleans and one of the shows that I recently watched was "The Office" from last Thursday. It had a Valentine's Day theme which reminded me a lot of the Astronology from last week titled "Valentine's Day: Friend or Foe of the Workplace". Andy Bernard, a guy in Dunder Mifflin, likes Erin, a girl, but he doesn't want to make it that obvious by just giving her a Valentine's Day card and gives one to everyone in the office. Except he doesn't actually read the cards and confusion (and hilarity) ensues when some of his cards are a bit too "loving". In the fictional Dunder Mifflin, no one ever seems to get in trouble for violating Codes of Conduct, but in your real-life office, this could become a real problem:

While we look to the positive side of the holiday, there is always the concern about sexual harassment claims. The romantic nature of the holiday may encourage some employees to express their feelings for co-workers. Each year Vault.com runs an eye-opening study on office romance. Vault.com should be releasing the 2010 results shortly. Barbara Safani of Career Solvers also recently blogged on the prevalence of workplace romances and why people get involved with co-workers. While we can’t control everyone’s actions, as HR professionals, we need to ensure our employees know our organization’s policies regarding sexual harassment and hostile work environment to prevent legal claims.

I think the key is to revert to elementary school politics to prevent problems from occurring. As Astronology suggests, after what we all went through in 2009, Valentine's Day just gives workplaces another "excuse" to bring a "small injection of fun" into the office--but it needs to be fully inclusive of everyone. Games, candy, and even cheap gift cards all seem to work. Since it's Mardi Gras time, bringing in a King Cake for your group is a fun, sweet way to celebrate. The tradition is that whoever finds the tiny plastic baby has to buy the next King Cake. This allows some fun competition between office members and allows everyone to participate in a cheap fun way.

The Astronology concludes with some great advice: "Whatever options you implement, utilize this opportunity to reach out to your employees and let them know how much they mean to your organization!"

Photograph courtesy of NBC, Byron Cohen via Poptimal.

ESPN an HR Nightmare

It has happened before at ESPN. Harold Reynolds and other on-air personalities had been fired for inappropriate relationships with subordinates. It has happened with other staffers as well. Yesterday, it reached a boiling point after former New York Mets General Manager and ESPN personality, Steve Phillips, took a leave of absence after a bizarre story involving a relationship with a 22-year-old production assistant, detailed in yesterday's New York Post.

According to sports blog Awful Announcing, in 2007, ESPN hired a new Senior Vice President, Human Resources, in part to help with the rash of sexual harassment complaints. It didn't seem to help. And the problem is, as Deadspin reports, that everyone seems to know and care except for the higher-ups at ESPN.

Deadspin relayed a story about another male on-air personality that has been rumored to take place in the same inappropriate activities. Deadspin also tells the story of an ESPN staffer who may have been promoted for the wrong reasons.

So why does this happen? Yet another Deadspin expose told of the culture that existed at ESPN and described it very much as a Human Resource nightmare. This is a culture that existed for a long time and was reinforced by the executives who were taking part as well.

As a New York Magazine poll last week showed after the David Letterman scandal, people have very differing opinions of what is OK to do in the office. A positive culture has to come from the top down. When executives and other people in power are taking part in inappropriate relationships and human resources is unable to curtail the behavior, chaos, like what seems to be occurring at ESPN happens and opens up the company to a litany of lawsuits. Let's hope your company does not look like this.

Letterman and a New Look

A lot was written last week about the David Letterman situation and how Human Resources should handle this. Let's look at a few examples:

-Careersolvers asks if we're all that different than Letterman and gives, in the spirit of the man, a top 10 list of reasons why people get involved with co-workers.

-The Boston Globe Job Doc has a Q&A on "An Awkward Invitation" and whether you should go to HR for quick decisions.

-Hot HR Tips... says let this be a wake-up call for all Human Resources professionals

-Lastly, a Letterman insider writes about the incident for The New York Times and the atmosphere does not seem to be a good one. The situation should have been handled by Huamn Resources way before it ever got to the point it did. The article hits it right on the head: this situation was fair to no one.

Also, we have a new look here at the Astron Solutions World of HR blog. Let us know what you think. Send an e-mail to katzandrews@gmail.com to let me know.

The HR Impact of Sterling Cooper in 2009

If you don't watch AMC's hit show Mad Men, you should start immediately. It's a fabulous show about a fictional 1960s Madison Avenue advertising agency named Sterling Cooper and the trials of tribulations of the agency and the main character, Don Draper.

One of the things that's great about the show is how they keep everything authentic for the time. That means that people drink, smoke, and take part in a lot of other activities that make Human Resource professionals cringe today, including excluding all minorities (and Jews), gender discrimination, and sexual harassment. But how much of what takes place in Sterling Cooper would not be allowed to go on today? Halogen Life did a great look at that and determined that while the drinking and the smoking may fly in certain states and certain companies, the sexual harassment and discrimination would not (H/T Jay for the article). Here are their conclusions:

• Smoking - A smoke-filled Madison Avenue boardroom couldn’t legally exist today as New York, along with 22 other states, has laws banning smoking in the workplace, but unless the federal government or your city steps in, you’re free to light up in your office in over half of the states.

• Drinking - For white-collar workers, there’s nothing legally wrong with knocking a few back in the office, per se. Federal law only deals with alcohol consumption in the workplace if it would threaten the health and safety of other employees or the public — like if the employee must drive or operate machinery. Obviously providing drinks to those under 21 can land you in hot water, but unless you happen to live in a particularly “dry” community where the sale and possession of alcohol is regulated, you’re probably in the clear. Office worker bees who don’t have those concerns are free to imbibe, so long as the boss approves.

• Discrimination - Up until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, employment discrimination was only prohibited by state and federal governments. Private businesses were free to hire and fire on any criteria they chose. Though actual change was slow coming, the passage of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibited businesses with over 15 employees from discriminating based upon race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

• Sexual Harassment/Gender Discrimination - While women were covered in the discrimination provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Equal Employment Opportunity Committee didn’t explicitly forbid sexual harassment as discrimination until 1980. Today, in the era of mandatory sensitivity trainings, Sterling Cooper would be hit with lawsuits faster than you can cry “sexual harassment.”

• Their conclusion? - It’s unfortunately fathomable that the kind of womanizing and discrimination rampant at Sterling Cooper could still occur today, but if you’re looking to inject a little bit of a Mad Men-esque feel to your work day, be safe and stick with the scotch. And maybe a smoke — outside.

Our conclusion? Show Mad Men at work...during training sessions of what NOT to do in the workplace. There are many more aspects of the show that would garner the attention of Human Resources such as women not being promoted past secretary status (save a token promotion for Peggy). Although romanticized on the show, some aspects of Sterling Cooper are best left in the 1960s, especially if your company wants to avoid fines and lawsuits.

Isiah Wins Again By Losing

Isiah Thomas lives in a fantasy world. If the former NBA star-turned NBA coach-turned NBA executive was governed by normal workplace rules, he'd probably be brought out back and shot. He's made one the NBA's most important franchises a laughing stock both on the court and off of it, lost his organization millions of dollars, and even more in bad publicity he incurred through a lovely sexual harassment lawsuit. He was bad at a GM, so they made him coach...now he's fired from both...and what's he doing now?

He's been reassigned to the team as an advisor, according to ESPN (click here), but has been banned from contacting the players...lest he try to meddle some more...

So he screws up the team as GM, gets to take on the team as coach and GM...doesn't do any better there...and gets a 3 year contract extension...then he really, really does poorly...and the team fires him...but keeps him on as an advisor....

Are you kidding me? What is he going to advise on? How to lose money? How to get sued? How to lose basketball games? How not to manage a cap? How to acquire bad players? How to not coach?

The Daily News tries to explain with a great headline reading "Isiah Thomas is not fired, just banned": click here

But Deadspin, always a good source of honest reporting and a laugh, said it perfectly in their heading "Isiah Is Smarter Than All Of Us: Isiah Thomas Pretty Much Got a Promotion": click here

The best part of the article being: "that makes Isiah a tremendously well-paid secretary (and coffee boy for Jim Dolan). Isiah is making $18 million to stay away from his employers. The man was a genius all along!"

If you are in HR...look at the history of this man and the Knicks and teach it to your colleagues as a cautionary tale

Dissecting the Current News

Sometimes it's best to just dig into the current events and find out how it applies to Human Resources...so we'll get right to that..

First, the economy. A topic that should be the hot-button of the presidential race, especially if this downturn (read: recession) in the market continues, took another turn with today's job numbers, as reported by Bloomberg: click here

This is going to have a ripple effect on the entire economy. As people continue to foreclose on homes and pay higher prices for gas, one thing they certainly cannot afford is to be out of work. This will lead a lot more people to switch out of industries such as housing which are in a lull right now and cause even more competition in other fields. This, combined with a class of '08 graduation will create even more turmoil in the economy. So while we may not be predicting the next Great Depression...let's just say: hold on to your seats.

This next story from the New York Times has HIPAA violations written all over it: click here

HR Professionals should definitely check in with their health insurance plans to make sure that their employee's information is not leaking out to the world or they will have to start lining up at the courthouse for lawsuits

Lastly, in a story that doesn't seem to go away, sexual harassment in the workplace is not necessarily confined to just the traditional workplace. As People Magazine reports, this Rob Lowe story isn't going to end anytime soon with accusations and counter-accusations and claims of abuse and extortion: click here

The lesson to be learned here for HR is that even if you don't have a traditional workspace, there may still be sexual harassment issues and a proactive approach is always the best way...