Employers can’t pick which documents employees choose for Form I-9 verification. To prevent unlawful discrimination, let *workers* choose appropriate List A OR List B + List C docs. No more, no less. #GMIS19#SHRM@SHRM#immigration#everifypic.twitter.com/tM7MJwkeEF
When a small business owner offers employment to a candidate, it can be one of the best feelings in the world for both sides. But what happens if somewhere along the process, mistakes are made that can eventually come back to harm the business? Even worse, what happens if the same mistakes get repeated over time – resulting in catastrophic financial losses and disruption of the business? You might not think it’s possible in your organization but no company is immune to legal trouble when it comes to onboarding new hires. On November 4, 2019, Alberto Ruisanchez, chief, U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division’s Immigrant and Employee Rights Section (IER) gave several helpful tips to stay out of trouble when making your next new hire. In his presentation, entitled “Avoiding Unlawful Immigration-Related Employment Discrimination,” Mr. Ruisanchez mentioned three key areas where employers find themselves in trouble with the law:
Hiring
Firing
Recruitment or Referral for a Fee
While each of these areas are critically important to pay attention to, I’ve found that most small businesses make mistakes with onboarding the most. Most specifically, there are mistakes made when proving the employee has the right to work in the United States. Here are a few tips to keep your business above board and your new hires happily employed for the long haul!
Be cautious of making hiring preferences based on citizenship status. According to Ruisanchez, many employers are unable to make hiring preferences for American citizens. What does this mean? If you have an open position at your company and non-American citizens apply, you cannot reject them on the basis of their citizenship status. For example, If Joe’s Plumbing and HVAC has an opening for a Senior Manager role, any eligible applicant cannot be dismissed simply because they are not American. If the US Department of Justice or Equal Employment Opportunity Commission discovers a practice of excluding qualified applicants from progressing in your hiring process, you may be subject to fines and back pay for all affected individuals.
Now, as with many things relating to the law, there are exceptions. Federal Contractors who participate in contracts that have citizenship-based hiring requirements, workers who are unauthorized to work in America, workers who require employer sponsorship, and, of course, wherever allowable by law.
In order to reduce the odds of trigger an inquiry by the USDOJ and EEOC, I recommend the following tips to stay on the right side of the law:
For roles that are open to citizens and non-citizens alike, do not ask for citizenship status the application. Only ask if the applicant is eligible to work in the United States.
Keep a record of all applicants and save paperwork + digital applications for the appropriate amount of time required by law.
Understand employee rights with completing Form I-9, and try not to be too “helpful.” When completing Form I-9, a new hire document that all employees must complete, it’s important to give each new hire a choice of which documents they use to complete the form. There are two main requirements for the Form I-9. List A documents show proof of identity and work eligibility while List B documents and List C documents combine to show proof of identity and work eligibility. You have to let the employee pick From my experience, small business owners and administrative staff might think they are being helpful by telling new applicants which I-9 documents to bring but that’s actually no-no. Here’s what I recommend instead:
Provide your new hire with the full list of List A, List B, and List C documentation. Here is the official USCIS list.
Give the employee an ample amount of time and notice to secure the documents that they know will cover both proof of identity and eligibilty to work. As the employer, you should check both to ensure neither documents have expired.
When it comes time to recertify an employee, follow the same course of action. Prescribing which documents to use may seem helpful but it can actually be discriminatory if you only accept certain documents.
For more helpful tips and a recap of the events from the 2019 SHRM Global Mobility and Immigration Summit, check out #GMIS19 on Twitter!
In this HR video podcast, Jumpstart:HR Founder Joey Price is joined by Cecile Alper-Leroux. She is the VP of Human Capital Management (HCM) Innovation at Ultimate Software, a company that provides HCM solutions in order to help organizations improve the employee experience and grow their business.
Cecil has over 20 years of experience in both national and global market and she is an internationally sought-out speaker, thought leader, and visionary on HCM trends, hot topics, and global strategies. She joined Ultimate Software in 2010 and she’s been focusing on fostering a culture of innovation at Ultimate ever since.
In this video, we will be going over the results of their latest research on the benefits of remote workers.
Our topics include:
What is the current state of remote work?
The results of Ulitmate Software’s latest study on the effects of remote work.
What are some of the key benefits that should encourage employers to add remote work to their business model?
How will having an increased number of remote workers affect managerial roles?
How is remote work helping women in the workplace?
The technological trends that are helping bridge the gap between the office and the remote workforce.
All that and a whole lot more! Stay tuned for another action-packed episode of the Business, Life, and Coffee Podcast!
In this internet era, finding job listings is pretty straightforward. However, it is arguably harder than ever to stand out in a crowd of experienced applicants. However, if you have excellent skills and you know how to draw attention to them on your resume, your chances of being noticed by a recruiter are pretty good. Also, if you are an employer looking for talent, wouldn’t you like to know what skills are in demand today and needed for tomorrow?
After analyzing various reports and profiles, I have identified the top five skills that helped get candidates hired last year. Take a look:
Cloud and Distributed Computing
With the rise of cloud computing-based applications like Adobe Creative Cloud, Google Cloud, and Google Drive, the need for skilled and capable professionals is increasing. Companies are eager to spend more money on employees with cloud computing skills because of the high demand for remote software storage. As a result of high demand, professionals with these skills can easily command high salaries. In 2018, the average salary packages offered to Platform Engineer and Cloud Architect was about $107,185/year and $142,141/year.
Data analyzing, data organization, and business analyzing are among the few areas that need analytical reasoning skills. As companies collect data more than ever before, they are starving for professionals who can make smart decisions based on it.
Whether you are preparing business analysis or working on increasing engagement with data analytics, the capability to comprehend and present numerical data proves to be in high demand. Know that, in 2018, salary packages offered to Data Analysts and Business Analysts were about $65,000 and $70,000 per year.
The age of artificial intelligence is here to stay. Therefore, this high-demand skill comes as no surprise. From generating personalized ads to tracking digital footprints to develop self-driving cars, AI is becoming a part of our daily.
Artificial Intelligence is expected to offer 2.3M opportunities by the year 2020. Just search on Indeed; vacancies in the field of artificial intelligence have doubled over the last three years and are expected to rise in the upcoming years. AI is the future, and employers seem to have caught on to this trend.
Even though advances in technology have shifted the focus away from human interaction, people management remains number four on the top skills list! Technology is appreciated, but so are people, and the results of a combined effort you drive as a team are valued much higher compared to results-driven by one individual.
In the business, building successful relationships with employees and management is essential. Therefore, companies who want to build great workplace culture and improve the employee experience hunt for people with great people management skills. The people who are masters in this area are best suited for leadership positions in any organization.
With the increase in competition in the business field, the need for marketing skills is also increasing. Companies make every effort to stand out amongst competitors, and so must employees on an individual basis. As a result, the demand for people with excellent sales and marketing skills is growing.
When it comes to the salaries of the marketer, it usually varies with the capabilities and results produced. Where some marketers got vast salaries, others got even double of them. However, with the ability to earn commission and bonuses, the salary growth possibilities in this field are limitless.
While these may be the top five workforce skills in the US job market today, one constant thing is change. If your company requires updated job descriptions or general HR consulting support, contact us right away.
To stay on top of Jumpstart:HR, LLC’s view of all things Human Resources, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter today.
It can be expensive to fail at hiring a new employee in a small business or startup. In this video, Joey Price, of Jumpstart:HR, LLC gives you everything you need to know about low quality of hire and how to improve candidate experience and your employee onboarding results.
“I’m so burned out but how can I take a vacation without falling behind at work?”
Phone calls. Texts. Emails. Slack Messages. 24/7. The alerts never stop!
It has become entirely too easy to connect with work and extremely difficult to retreat for even a day or two of relaxation. The result of this twisted relationship with technology and work is less joy and more burnout. Wouldn’t you agree? I remember a time when I worried constantly about leaving my company for a few days to travel to Italy – for fear of the whole thing imploding and having to rebuild like the ruins in Rome! If you struggle with wanting to take a vacation from work but feel guilty about doing so – you’re not alone. A recent survey found that 54% of Americans fail to use all of their vacation days each year. In addition to that, big cities like DC, SF, and LA lead the way in this “vacation-less” lifestyle. No wonder we’re all stressed out!
Now is the time to seriously consider taking that vacation. Whether to improve mental health, connect with your family and friends on a deeper level, or to regain purpose and creativity at work, these are the reasons why you should say “Yes!” to PTO and not even think twice about it:
Vacations are good for your mental [and physical] health.
If I told you that perfect attendance at work might be a cause of that flu that knocked you out last month, would you believe me? Or – what about those 10 pounds you can’t seem to shake off in order to reach your goal weight? For better or for worse, constant work creates stress in our lives and the impact of that stress can be felt deeply on the molecular level. Here’s what Psychology Today says about the dangers of work-induced stress:
When you’re stressed out and tired, you are more likely to become ill, your arteries take a beating, and you’re more likely to have an accident. Your sleep will suffer, you won’t digest your food as well, and even the genetic material in the cells of your body may start to become altered in a bad way. Mentally, not only do you become more irritable, depressed, and anxious, but your memory will become worse and you’ll make poorer decisions. You’ll also be less fun to be with, causing you to become more isolated, lonely, and depressed.
Combat stress and build up your defenses by making vacation travel an integral part of your life!
Have You Heard Our Award-Winning
Professional Development Podcast?
Vacations help you build deeper connections with the people who matter most to you.
Have you ever found yourself saying “gosh, I wish I spent more time with [Insert Employee Name] in Accounting more often!”? Probably not. But have you ever kicked yourself in the butt for not spending enough time with your spouse, your kids, or your friends who all get lost as we race to climb the ladder of workplace success? Probably! Vacation is a powerful way to connect with people you care about while building memories that can last a lifetime.
Don’t believe this is incredibly important? Here’s an exercise for you:
Step 1: Think about – and write down – your favorite memory from your last staff meeting.
Step 2: Think about – and write down – your favorite memory from a vacation you took as a child.
Step 3: Pause and think about which memory made you smile more… My guess is that it was the latter and not the former. And that warm feeling of joy that you got from your vaction memory? That’s actively elevating your mood and putting you in a better headspace!
When you retire, or change jobs, or sell your company (if you’re an entrepreneur) – you’re going to want to have people around you that enjoy being in your company. Don’t be that guy or girl who works so much that no one close to you really knows the real you!
Vacations help you “think outside the box” when it comes to creative approaches to tackling workplace issues.
Now, this might seem a bit counterproductive for me to encourage you to take a vacation if you want to become better at work – but it’s true. In a recent NBC News article, NYC-based Psychologist Dr. Kathryn Smerling says:
“By taking time off, you’ll find a renewed sense of purpose, more energy to carry out tasks and in general, an overall sense of happiness.”
The long and short of it all is that taking the time to step away from work just might be the very thing you need to help you step up at work! Who knows? You might meet someone in your field at the pool bar and chat about best practices. You could finally get the time to read that great self-help book you’ve been meaning to tackle but never found the time. Or, the quality of your time away might give you the time you needed to reflect on your life purpose and give you the push you need to really get into the driver’s seat of life!
Vacation is an incredibly powerful tool for both relaxation and career. It settles your spirit which helps combat work-induced stress and it gives you the time and space to build new memories with the people you love.
Take that vacation and fight work-related burnout as if your life depends on it because the reality is that it does.
Listen to the latest episode of our weekly Small Business HR podcast.
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