Federal law calls for a Form I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verification) to be filled out before any new member of staff can start work. This form confirms that the employee has approval to work in the United States. Correct completion of I-9 forms is one of the best ways to avoid legal consequences for employing illegal personnel, particularly in this era of increased immigration enforcement.
Several federal agencies have gotten together to run the free website E-Verify, which lets employers ensure that their employees have work authorization. This Internet-based system compares data from a worker’s Form I-9 to information from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Social Security Administration records to verify whether or not that worker is eligible to be employed. The system is quick and user-friendly, and it’s the best way for companies to ensure an officially authorized labor force.
The use of E-Verify is voluntary for most employers, and limited only to determining whether a new hire is eligible for employment. Businesses with federal contracts or subcontracts that have the Federal Acquisition Regulation E-Verify clause and employers in certain states are mandated to use the system. More than 238,000 employers are enrolled in the program.
The current administration has made its priorities on enforcing immigration policies clear: it will move the spotlight from raiding businesses and arresting and deporting undocumented personnel to an approach “using all tools available” to locate and penalize employers who are not following official procedure. The administration has declared that as a consequence of its new focus on employer compliance, it will now use E-Verify as one of these “tools” to assist in its new worksite enforcement system.
The DHS’s Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement is aggressively checking that companies are totally compliant. Non-compliance can bring about fines anywhere from $110 to $11,000 per infringement, and forfeiture of the company’s assets. Using an I-9 employment eligibility authentication service can help your business in a number of ways: it decreases time and work spent confirming whether individual staff members can work or not and maintaining their files, reduces your exposure during government audits, decreases the odds of legal penalties, and avoids negative publicity.
Are you in search of a low-cost solution to help your business handle the intricate and varying requirements of Form I-9 compliance? Look no further. Jumpstart:HR delivers a solution that standardizes the procedure across your locations and helps you navigate the E-Verify system with confidence.
It’s sound business practice to make Jumpstart:HR a fundamental part of your I-9 compliance program, especially taking into consideration current stepped-up workplace enforcement by ICE and stiffer employer penalties. Jumpstart:HR is the safest and easiest way to complete error-free I-9’s and simplify your compliance process.
Question: Are you confident that your HR Department is in 100% compliance with current I-9 and E-Verify compliance?
When describing any other man, these words would stand tall. However, these words don’t do justice to the man who birthed such revolutionary products such as the Macintosh computer, iPod and the iPhone. Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an entrepreneur, inventor and co-founder of Apple. His resume includes over 330 patents as inventor or co-inventor, oversight of one of the most profitable companies in American history and claim to an indelible mark on not only business leadership theory but also modern pop culture.
While Steve Jobs was busy spearheading one of the most dynamic companies in recent history, he was also creating a culture worth emulating. In the book Rework by fellow game changers 37 Signals, they talk about how every product creates a byproduct. In creating one of the influential and recognizable brands on the face of the earth, Steve Jobs and Apple also created a compelling example of organizational culture for HR professionals and executive leadership to follow. Here, summarized in quotes from Mr. Jobs throughout the years, are some of the ways that HR can learn a thing or two from Steve Jobs.
Purpose over possession.
“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.” [Steve Jobs, May 25, 1993]
Money/profit should not be your main motivating factor.
“You know, my main reaction to this money thing is that it’s humorous, all the attention to it, because it’s hardly the most insightful or valuable thing that’s happened to me.” [Steve Jobs, Feb. 1, 1985]
Love what you do and let it be contagious.
Interviewer: We were warned about you: Before this Interview began, someone said we were “about to be snowed by the best.”
[Steve Jobs smiling] “We’re just enthusiastic about what we do.” [Steve Jobs, Feb. 1, 1985]
Talent [that get’s “it”] matters.
“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.” [Steve Jobs, Nov. 9, 1998]
Invest your way to success in spite of economic downturn.
“The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament.” [Steve Jobs, May 1999]
Embrace creative brainstorming.
“The system is that there is no system. That doesn’t mean we don’t have process. Apple is a very disciplined company, and we have great processes. But that’s not what it’s about. Process makes you more efficient.
“But innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem. It’s ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea.
“And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important. [Steve Jobs, Oct. 12, 2004]
Encourage employees to find their “sweet spot.”
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.” [Steve Jobs, Stanford commencement speech, June 2005]
What other business/HR principles have you seen Apple implement that deserve attention?
Corporate culture is an organizational mindset that is present in every facet of business operation. It is characterized by the level of communication between management and staff. The staff will typically go all-out to meet or go beyond the standard once they are told about the company’s corporate culture. This is most evident in businesses that offer workers the opportunity to share in the rewards of company success, via additional benefits or profit sharing.
Your company’s corporate culture is an intangible asset that you can use to generate a competitive strategic advantage to distinguish it from other firms and to improve performance. It has a significant function in the development of your company’s reputation. A 2004 study proved that culture works together with communication and the relationship companies have with their staff to predict how the outside world views a particular company.
A detailed corporate culture analysis usually calls for profound understanding of the core values of the company. It won’t completely explain the idiosyncrasies of individual units, groups, and workers, but it usually will reveal practices and values that are common among most employees. The overarching objective is to find out how and why things are done in a particular organization.
A company with strong culture has employees who respond to incentives because they are aligned to the values of the organization. On the other hand, the employees of a company with weak culture are usually not aligned with the values of the organization and you can only control their work and behavior through extensive procedures and red tape. Studies have shown that companies promoting strong cultures usually have clear values that give workers a reason to fall in line with the culture.
Your prospective customers’ corporate culture is also important: a lack of understanding and alignment with your clients’ culture could be a key setback to achieving the results that each party wants. You need to know whether the companies you’re doing business with will micromanage your projects, or whether they prefer free thinkers or envelope-pushing talent.
Most culture changes don’t succeed because organizations don’t turn their vision and values into daily behavior. Organizations get over-involved in the activity of training and improvement teams, but see little impact from them due to lack of focus. Your staff needs to know how the company’s vision will be attained, and this “how” is contingent on the values of the organization.
You can change your corporate culture for the better … or you can live with it. Many executives are taking a closer look at the internal mechanism of their businesses – their values, attitudes and main concerns – to see if they can fit into the new American business setting of reengineering, downsizing, acquisitions and a crowd of other pressures causing havoc on the morale of your staff.
One of the big mistakes in this fast changing environment is the theory that corporate culture is consistent and resilient. Jumpstart:HR uses very refined and specific tools that will give you quantitative and qualitative information, which will result in total understanding of your company and its resources and how to use them effectively and successfully.
“The things that make people satisfied and motivated on the job are different in kind from the things that make them dissatisfied.” – Frederick Herzberg
Contrary to logic and common ideology, what’s making your employees dissatisfied at work might not be remedied by what’s making them stay…
For far too long, employers have thought that the pendulum of satisfaction vs. dissatisfaction in the workplace is placed on a singular scale. Employers across the globe who believe that more pay, job security and work-life balance are some of the key targets to focus on when trying to make employees happy are missing the mark on what really matters. The real answer might just surprise you.
An introduction to “The Two Factor Theory.” In 1959, Psychologist Frederick Herzberg developed the two-factor theory which is more commonly referred to as Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory. Herzberg’s research lead him to postulate that there are certain aspects of work and work culture that contribute to job satisfaction and other separate factors that contribute to job dissatisfaction. Essentially, Herzberg concluded that these two categories – the things that make people enjoy work and the things that make people not enjoy work- work independent of one another. Factors that increased happiness were labeled “Motivator Factors” while factors that merely kept dissatisfaction at bay were labeled “Hygiene Factors.” Even though the research was conducted over forty years ago, it’s implications still resonate to this day and HR and executive leadership must grasp this critical concept in order to ensure employee happiness and decrease attrition rates.
Motivator Factor and Hygiene Factor explained. In order to understand Herzberg’s, one must first grasp the idea of motivation and hygiene. If you can imagine, motivator factors can be described as factors that make work more exciting, enriching and fulfilling whereas hygiene factors simply make the job tolerable. If work were analogous to a car on the showroom floor, motivator factors are what make you really attracted to the vehicle while hygiene factors are those things that should “come standard.”
Motivator factors include: achievement, recognition, the job itself, responsibility, promotion and growth.
Hygiene factors include: pay and benefits (compensation), company policy and administration, relationship with co-workers, supervision, status, job security, working conditions and personal life.
Two sides, two coins. What Herzberg really wants us to understand is that you cannot simply inspire job satisfaction by addressing things that are considered “Hygiene.” His research leads us to understand that we cannot think of satisfaction as the antithesis of dissatisfaction but rather view the two as separate, mutually exclusive entities. The presence of satisfaction as opposed to the absence of satisfaction and the presence of dissatisfaction as opposed to the absence of dissatisfaction would be a better way of understanding this concept.
Key Findings. Herzberg proposes the following findings in light of this concept:
People are made dissatisfied by a bad environment, but they are seldom made satisfied by a good environment.
The prevention of dissatisfaction is just as important as encouragement of motivator satisfaction.
Hygiene factors operate independently of motivation factors. An individual can be highly motivated in his work and be dissatisfied with his work environment.
All hygiene factors are equally important, although their frequency of occurrence differs considerably.
Hygiene improvements have short-term effects. Any improvements result in a short-term removal of, or prevention of, dissatisfaction.
Hygiene needs are cyclical in nature and come back to a starting point. This leads to the “What have you done for me lately?” syndrome.
Hygiene needs have an escalating zero point and no final answer
Why does this research matter? Simply stated, your HR and business strategy must account for these findings if you wish to retain top talent, motivate and encourage workers and to create an agreeable workplace culture. Management cannot expect that employees will be truly happy by providing raises while refraining from recognition and growth. Similarly, if leadership is less than agreeable and relationships with co-workers are tense then an increase in job responsibility will not make the employee forget his or her dissatisfaction. In fact, it just might make things worse.
If you want truly happy employees that lack dissatisfaction, Management and HR leadership must work together to distinguish the current climate of the organization. Once the climate is established, there must be a cohesive attempt to remedy hygiene deficiencies and a push to encourage motivator factors.
“Why a business needs an outside consultant is pretty basic, says Mike Meikle, CEO of the Hawthorne Group, a managment and technology consulting firm.
‘A consultant can be thought of as a tool that can implement a solution or solutions that are outside the real expertise for an in-house staff,” Meikle explains. “They can leave the client in a better place and more profitable condition.'”
While there are plenty of obvious reasons to hire an outside consultant, there are also obvious reasons not to, says Marv Doniger, of Doniger and Associates consulting firm.
“Firms that are not willing to accept an outsider’s point of view and make changes should not hire a consultant,” says Doniger. “And staffing a company’s long-term needs should be done by hiring additional help and not through the perpetual use of a consultant.”
A hiring process can be a daunting time for businesses. For whatever reason an employee vacated their position, it now lays unclaimed, and while the company efforts to fill it, money is lost. There are two options for filling an open position: hiring from within, and hiring externally. There are many factors to take into consideration before committing to one option or the other. Many of the benefits associated with hiring from within a company are tied to employee morale.
Employee Morale
Hiring internally is quicker because the candidate is already an employee with the company, and are therefore already familiar with operations and business methods. The training process will be quicker, and the transition will generally be smoother than bringing on a new employee. Hiring from within sends a message to other employees that there are real career opportunities with the company. Often, this boosts company-wide productivity, as it creates added incentive for increased productivity.
Trust
Companies like to hire from within because the candidate for the position is a known commodity; someone whom the company is already familiar with. They know the person’s strengths and weaknesses, and the candidate has already established relationships with employees in the company. The costs associated with hiring a new employee are also lower, meaning advertisements and time spent working with an unfilled position won’t accumulate, because of the speed of a quick hire.
New Outlook
Conversely, hiring a candidate externally introduces a fresh perspective to the fold. Bringing experience from outside the company can be a breath of fresh air, particularly in a struggling business. Hiring an external candidate means access to a larger, more diverse talent pool. Often times, the company only has one or two qualified candidates for an open position, hamstringing them into choosing between two under qualified candidates. Hiring externally gives a company a chance for a fresh start
While hiring a known commodity may appeal to many, it comes with its potential disadvantages as well.
‘Thinking Within the Box’ Syndrome
Hiring an existing employee for a position with more responsibilities can lead to a narrowing of ideas; more of the same. A struggling business that hires from within is less likely to receive the proverbial “shot-in-the-arm” of innovative concepts and ideas that comes with hiring someone outside of the company.
Jealousy
Even though there will be less training and need for orientation for an internal candidate, they will have to adjust to new expectations and responsibilities, just like an external candidate would. Internal politics also play a hand, as some fellow employees may not agree with the promotion, creating tension in the office, and hurting overall output.
Relying on the Unknown
When hiring an external candidate, all a company has to judge them is a resume, the interview, and perhaps some examples of work, depending on the type of position. This puts the hiring company at a disadvantage, known commodity also applying for the position.
Organizing a search for external candidate means spending money on advertising for the position, and means that the position is open for a longer period of time, draining the company of additional funds, and diminishing productivity. A person hired from the outside will take time to not only train, but to become familiar with other employees, and their respective strengths and weaknesses.
Unhappy Workers
Announcing to a group of employees that the position has been filled externally can hurt morale just as much as the news of a hiring from within can help it. Knowing that all of their hard work will lead nowhere except a paycheck hurts effectiveness, costing the company money in the long-term, as right now.
Weighing the pros and the cons for hiring internally, or externally, comes down to what the company is looking for. Is it looking for a fresh perspective for the position, or is it looking for stability, and a smooth transition? It’s an easy question to ask, but not nearly as easy to answer.
About the Guest Author:
Hilary L. Smith is a small business entrepreneur who enjoys topics involving mass communications, technology development and international relations.
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