HR Soapbox: It's Not Gambling When I Play

March 16, 2006

Volume 5, Number 23

In This Issue...IT’S NOT GAMBLING WHEN I PLAY

AHI has developed a unique sexual harassment prevention program that will empower you to conduct your own highly-effective training sessions that will reduce your potential legal liability.

PREVENTING SEXUAL HARASSMENT
Webinar

Wednesday, April 5, 2006
1:00 - 3:00 PM Eastern Time

The program consists of two parts and costs only $225 (versus spending $2,500 for a consultant to come in and train you and your managers).

Part #1: Live Preventing Sexual Harassment Webinar Led By AHI's Professional Trainer

Our professional trainer, Elle Peji, will conduct our Preventing Sexual Harassment training course live, via the Internet, and give you training pointers based on her vast experience.

Part #2: AHI's Preventing Sexual Harassment Training Kit

When you register, you will also be sent a copy of AHI's Preventing Sexual Harassment Training Kit. The kit includes a printed copy of the leader's guide along with a CD that contains all of the materials you need to conduct your own training sessions. The kit consists of the same course materials that our trainer will be using during the webinar.

We will send you the kit prior to the webinar so that you can follow along and take notes in your own leader's guide as our professional trainer leads you through the course.

Visit our website today for more information or to register.
Or, if you prefer, you can call a customer service representative toll–free at 800–879–2441.

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It’s Not Gambling When I Play

It’s like a rite of passage. Every year, when the NCAA college basketball tourney time comes around, the question of March Madness pools brings a bevy of surveys and opinion columns on their plusses and minusses. (I’ve always wondered why the plural of plus looks okay with an “ses” attached, while the plural of minus looks like it’s from another planet when the same happens.) But I digress. Let’s talk office pools.

Let me make it quite clear from the get-go that such pools in our office could never be considered gambling. Because to be a “gamble” there would have to be a chance to win or lose. All you have to do in our office pools is bet against me and there’s no gamble involved. But I digress again.

Respond to this HR Soapbox Actually, digression is a good point to make with such pools. Most everyone works, and most also live, in an action-packed and often stressful environment. Take AHI’s collegial team (as Henny Youngman would say, PLEASE!). Only kidding gang. (See how digressions break up the tension?) We have deadlines to meet, publications to crank out, websites to refresh, and even Soapbox articles to write. My personal contention is that an office pool or two (in case the IRS or FBI is reading, this is strictly a hypothetical example) can build bridges and mend fences.

It gives pool participants a chance to establish closer personal ties, opens lines of communication among departments, creates shared experiences (like, if you pick the same teams as I do, the shared experience is losing), and other morale-enhancing behaviors.

So when I read surveys like SHRM’s, which says that 30% of workplaces have NCAA pools, I laugh. Bet (there’s that word again) it’s closer to 70%. And a consulting firm in Chicago reported that 10 minutes of “tournament trash talk” costs employers across the country $1.4 million. (Now how can you possibly calculate that? Suppose Bill Gates talked about Gonzaga’s chances in the tournament for 10 minutes. You don’t think that entire $1.4 mil would be used up by him alone?)

But I digress again. Seriously, we keep all our (hypothetical) pools here low-key and low-cost. We try to make them as simple as possible, so it’s a fairly level playing field. And it works. People gather to see results posted on the door...and laugh at losers like me who think they know a lot and then get beaten by their own mother...who at age 84 suffers from Alzheimer’s but still enjoys playing the NFL season pool. And I’ll leave you with this one parting thought.

Guess who won that NFL pool this year?

Stay legal, have fun, and bet with your heart, not with your head.

Brian L.P. Zevnik
Editor-in-Chief

READERS GET ON THE SOAPBOX

Here's what readers had to say in response to last month's issue on:
WORKPLACE RULES THAT MAKE YOU GLAD
YOU DON'T WORK FOR THESE COMPANIES

The GM instituted a “tobacco-free workplace policy” effective January 1, removing all outside smoking areas. The policy is supposed to include all forms of tobacco use, including smokeless tobacco. It also bans smoking in company vehicles.

This was just a dig at our office manager who doesn’t mesh with the GM. It’s rather obvious, considering that the people who regularly smoke on-premises are the office manager and about half of her all-female staff. The male smokers are out in the trade during the day. Hence, the female office smokers are the only ones truly affected by the policy. Oh, and the guys in the warehouse (including one manager) are still “chewing” during their shifts and tease us girls as we stand on the sidewalk to have our smokes! I also know that the salesmen who smoke have not stopped smoking in their company trucks, and the warehousemen who work the night shift sit on their forklifts and smoke like they’ve always done!

I just love politics!
Recently we all received a memo from the facilities management people, prohibiting everyone from hanging anything on their office/cubicle walls...or else. We looked around, saw that EVERYONE is out of compliance, and decided that if they wanted to they could fire 100% of the workforce for that. As a result, no one has taken anything down from their walls, and no one to my knowledge has ever attempted to enforce that silly rule. :-)

Note: Responses may have been edited for clarity and length.

Review past issues of HR Soapbox here.

TOP 5 RESOURCES FOR HUMAN RESOURCES PROFESSIONALS

1.
HR Professionals' Toolkit

This CD-ROM gives you quick yet comprehensive solutions to the toughest HR questions and problems you field every day on topics like: performance appraisals, sexual harassment, discipline, conducting legal background checks, legal pay practices, complying with the Family and Medical Leave Act, overcoming workplace negativity...and more. No matter what urgent problem suddenly lands on your desk, you'll never be blindsided when you have this valuable resource at your fingertips.

2.
Performance Appraisals: The Ongoing Legal Nightmare

Shows you the latest methods for conducting employee reviews safely, including what you can — and can’t — say during a performance review, what safeguards you need to deter legal action, how to skirt the most common pitfalls surrounding the appraisal process, and how the courts view comments made on company appraisal records.

3.
The Complete Policy Handbook

Shows you how to safeguard against the damage that loopholes in your employee handbook can cause. You'll get a CD-ROM containing a complete set of ready-to-print policies for a foolproof manual of your own...policies that have stood up to courtroom challenges...with language that has worked in defending other employers.

4.
Employer's Guide To Record-Keeping Requirements

Covers all the records, files, and documents demands made on employers by state and federal laws and agencies; as well as what you must post on company property to stay on the right side of employment laws.

5.
Employee Problem Solver

Gives you a solid mix of practical advice seasoned with legal experience for attacking the problem, not the personality, in difficult situations that you and your managers face every day. Each general problem area is designed to offer immediate practical steps for preventing, attacking, and solving tough personnel problems.