IN THIS ISSUE:

1. Feature Story: A New Performance Appraisal Attitude: Stop Judging And Start Motivating

2. Cathie's Corner: There Are Pros And Cons To Being An Exempt Employee, All Legitimate

3. Can An Often-Injured Employee Be Fired?

4. HR Soapbox: Workplace Greetings: Touchy-Feely Makes Me Uneasy

When you think employee training, you probably think discrimination and harassment prevention. One of Britain's largest budget hotel chains thinks handling late-night nudity. Due to a surge in naked sleepwalking, the chain has had to retrain its staff on how to handle such situations. One tip from its "sleepwalkers guide": Have a towel handy at the front desk in case a customer's dignity needs preserving.

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1. FEATURE STORY:
A NEW PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL ATTITUDE:
STOP JUDGING AND START MOTIVATING

More than one cartoon has depicted a manager giving an employee a performance review as a larger-than-life judge, jury, and executioner. It's this idea that they have to pass judgment on employees that causes managers to dread the performance appraisal process.

Managers can overcome their trepidation by thinking of performance evaluations not as a means to judge performance, but rather as a way to "maximize motivation potential," said Rebecca Mazin, co-founder and Managing Partner of Recruit Right, a Human Resources consulting firm (Larchmont, NY), in a recent AHI web conference titled How To Conduct Motivating & Legally-Sound Performance Appraisals.

Entering a formal evaluation with a motivation mindset, whether you're looking to inspire a poor performer to shape up or a solid performer to take it to the next level, is just the start. To transform that goal into performance reality, Mazin instructed managers to...

...Know the employee's performance. Observe them working, review past evaluations, and solicit the observations of others. Mazin cautioned against allowing one overly negative or positive incident to color the entire perception of the employee's performance.

...Define numerical ratings. Employees must understand what level of performance warrants which numerical rating. Start by defining what's expected of employees; this would be the middle of the scale rating, e.g., a "3" on a 5-point scale. Then go up and down from there.

...Identify accomplishments achieved. Be specific. Don't just say the employee "improved," for example. Spell out what the employee did right.

...Identify goals missed. "Don't whitewash the evaluation," said Mazin. If circumstances beyond the employee's control, such as budget cuts or weather emergencies, hindered performance, add a note citing these factors.

...Let employees assess their own performance. Mazin advocated giving employees a blank copy of the performance review form prior to the session itself and asking them to complete it and return it before the scheduled session.

"In my experience, employees are harder on themselves than you are," she stated. That bodes well for managers who fear an employee will see anything less than a stellar rating as demotivating.

...Think of the formal review as a conversation. "A good performance appraisal is not a lecture. It is a conversation," stressed Mazin. To facilitate a dialogue with the employee, she suggested not having the completed review in sight at the start of the evaluation. Instead, first ask: How do you think you're performing? What aspects of your job do you really enjoy? Which aspects frustrate you? And so on. "Listen for not just words, but also the employee's tone of voice.

"Whatever you do, don't allow excuses to explain away performance shortcomings," said Mazin. "You're in control of the conversation, not the employee."

...Look to the future. It's imperative that the employee leaves the review session with a game plan for the coming weeks and months. Mazin noted the importance of setting dates by when goals should be achieved, as well as dates on which you'll follow-up to track progress.

For in-depth advice on how to conduct motivating performance appraisals, check out AHI's Complete Performance Appraisal Kit.

2. CATHIE'S CORNER:
THERE ARE PROS AND CONS TO BEING AN EXEMPT EMPLOYEE, ALL LEGITIMATE

Recently I've noticed that there seems to be a lot of confusion about exempt status under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), also commonly known as being "salaried." Exempt employees seem to believe that the law allows them to come and go as they please and that they cannot be held to a set schedule. On the other side of the coin, I've heard a number of complaints from exempt employees that they are being required to work unreasonable hours because they don't have to be paid overtime.

Well, we all know the rules, or hopefully we do. Exempt employees must qualify under one of the exemptions approved by the Department of Labor; an employee who is correctly classified as exempt is paid not on the basis of the number of hours they work, but on the basis of the value of the job to the company.

This doesn't mean that the employee is right and that they can come in and leave whenever they feel like it, of course. In fact, the most recent termination I've conducted of an exempt employee was a director who frequently claimed he was going to "work from home" but then wouldn't be available at his home phone — or even his cell phone — when someone on his team needed him. We had a policy of "core hours" where all employees, exempt or non-exempt, were required to be in the office unless they were out on company business. Working from home was permissible for exempt employees under the policy as long as the employee was available by phone. Since he wasn't available by phone on several occasions, we finally made the decision to kick him to the curb.

On the other side of the coin, far be it for me to tell another company what hours they should require their employees to work. Some exempt positions simply require extended hours and there's no getting around it. An employee who isn't willing to work over 40 hours a week shouldn't take a position that requires it.

But what are considered unreasonable hours? In my opinion, that's too position- and situation-specific to call. What's unreasonable for a project manager might not be unreasonable for a criminal attorney. What's unreasonable for an IT director might not be unreasonable for an emergency room physician.

I am also not making any judgments about the other complaint — that exempt employees are required to work extra hours because they don't need to be paid overtime. Depending on the project, the employee base, and yes, the budget, this might be appropriate.

But it might not. Remember, while the laws have changed regarding an exempt employee performing non-exempt tasks, if the employee is doing enough non-exempt work, it could invalidate the exemption. Additionally, most employees these days are concerned with having a work-life balance; if they are asked to do too many tasks outside their job description, they may add to any retention issues you already have by looking elsewhere.

If the additional tasks are within the job description, fine, that's appropriate. If they're not, please consider if it's the best way to handle the situation. We are human resources; the humans under our professional care are our resources. Let's use them to the best advantage and not exploit them!

Catherine Bannon is an HR consultant in Marshfield, MA (catherine.bannon@gmail.com). Bannon worked for 10 years in HR management before starting her consulting practice.

CAN AN OFTEN-INJURED EMPLOYEE BE FIRED?

Employees who repeatedly injure themselves on the job may seem like good candidates for the chopping block — it's for their own safety, after all. Besides, you should be able to do what you need to do to keep Workers' Compensation costs down, too. The reality, though, is that you may be guilty of...View the full story on our website.

Check out the HR Soapbox, "Workplace Greetings: Touchy-Feely Makes Me Uneasy," in which an editor ponders how best to greet co-workers in both professional and social settings.