HRCI approves Ultimate Improvement Cycle: A Six Sigma Approach to Human Capital Management CE Credits for 2011

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The Ultimate Improvement Cycle: A Six Sigma Approach to Human Capital Management 

Welcome to the First Day of the Rest of Your Career

Gain Access to the Partnership Table through the Language of Business

Are you functioning as more than an administrative vehicle?  Unfortunately, for many of you the answer is no!  The corporate world is changing with a blink of an eye. You can either be part of that change or remain in the HR silo which is looked upon as an impediment to the progress of most organizations.

Fortunately, there is a better way.  Our 14-hour workshop, The Ultimate Improvement Cycle: A Six Sigma Approach to Human Capital Management, will help you identify those strategies to enable you to become part of the change effort within your organization.

The Ultimate Improvement Cycle is your direct route to:

► Understanding the language of business                         

► Identifying sources of non-value added

    activities within your HR process

► Identifying techniques for eliminating 

    non-value added activities

► Increasing your bottom line

► Ensuring that your processes are

    repeatable each and every time

► Choosing appropriate tools to solve

     problems

► Real Life examples of the six sigma

     methodology in action

The workshop materials include a take away workbook and a 30 day free trial to QI Macros, an Excel based cross platform program which contains the six sigma tool box.

Sponsored by the Daniel Bloom & Associates, Inc and the

HCC Center for Continuing Education

Registration Fee: $499.00

                                                     

Session 1: February 21 and 23, 2011          HCC Collaborative Studio 8:30 to 4:00

Session 2: March 21 and 23, 2011  HCC Davis Island                    8:30 to 4:00

 

HRCI has awarded the course 13 strategic continuing Education Credits. Space is limited to 25 participants.

To register for the workshop visit:

http://www.tampatraining.com/training-courses/course-details.cfm?ID=1123

WORKSHOP LEADER:

Daniel T. Bloom SPHR, SSBB, SCRP is a human resource professional with over 30 years’ experience within the industry and the CEO of Daniel Bloom & Associates, Inc. He has assisted both small and Fortune 100 corporations with their human capital issues. He is one of the few HR professionals in the country to be jointly certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources and as a Six Sigma Black Belt.

For More information Contact:

Daniel Bloom at dan@dbaiconsulting.com or Bill Melendez at 813-259-6508

 Can’t make it to Tampa – Contact us about bringing the course to your location.

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What do You Believe?

On this day that we celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims to our shores eons ago, it is worthy of our time to stop and look at what is good in our lives. Despite the trails and tribulations that we have all gone through in these hard economic times, there is still plenty to be thankful for -- family, friends and the fact that we are still here. Take the time today to let those who are around you and who you care for, that we are thankful for their presence.

This is the start of the holiday season and Daniel Bloom & Associates, Inc. wishes you the very best holiday season as we ring out 2010. May 2011 see an increase in those things we are thankful for.

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What are we telling our employees?

I was driving down the road on my way to drop off a donation to our local domestic violence shelter when I passed a sign on a medical clinic. The sign in very bold letters stated walkins welcome for express psychiatric care. As i continued on my way I began to think about what that kind of message would send to our human capital assets. We continually hear references to the fact that in order to achieve anything we need to avoid HR. This is true of recruiters as well as hiring managers.

So lets consider this in more detail. Is HR an asset to the organization, or are we providing the employee base with express HR care? Is the name of the game to see how fast we can solve an employee's issues and move on to the next one? Or is our goal to learn what the employee really wants and if so do we take the time to obtain the whole story?

HR professionals contunually lament that they are not part of the decision process, but when we consider our function as a silo within the organization and forget that we play a critical role in the success of the efforts of our business, we act like the express psychiatric care.

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Who am I? The role of human capital in a global workplace

I recently was approached by a professor at one of the local universities with an invitation to come speak to her leadership classes. She asked me to demonstrate for mostly financial background MBA students what the soft side of human resources, i.e., management,

As I began to prepare my presentation for the classes I chose to follow the human capital resources through each of the ages we have traversed since the 1770's. When we were primarily on the farm, we learned how to work in cross functional collaborative teams. It was part of the fabric of our lives that we looked to help the individual be successful in owning and operating the farm. It was a period when we saw the rise of the "Quaker Business Model" which believed that the role of the organization was to do what ever was necessary to see that the best came out in every individual. Diane Cadbury in her book The Chocolate Wars talked about how her family helped out the employees by encouraging them to continue their education, provided the first health insurance plans and other similar efforts to enhance the life they lived.

When we moved to the industrial age, the individual changed their relationship with the organization reverting to a mere number. The key was that they could now support their family by working within a big city. This philosophy has now extended to the way many organizations look at employees today. The economy tanks and instead of trying to see how to reinvent the processes we utilize, the strategy is to see how many human capital resources we can cut to bring costs inline with a subjective target. Never mind that those human capital resources represent the knowledge base of the organization. Never mind that few organizations take into consideration that cutting staff does not reduce the workload, in fact it escalates the load on the remaining staff.

By the beginning of the 21st century we have changed our paths so that the benefit from the organization is what we dream not what we produce or make. This change in focus also changes the role that human capital resources play within our organizations. One of the problems we see is that every day there is another story about organizations that are trying to enforce non-competition clauses on departing human capital resources. The difficulty is that our human capital are not number any longer, They are corporate assets that are free to wander as they choose. we in essence lease their services with the understanding that if we do not meet their needs they are gone to somewhere that will respect their value to our organizations.

This new paradigm calls for new strategies to utilize the human capital resources. This means we have to gain a better understanding of the importance of the role they play in the future of your workplace. These strategies can be divided into categories of expectations:

• The human capital must be engaged in their work environment on the basis that they want.
• The workplace must be designed around a system that provides the routes for the employee to enhance their learning of skills that will improve they way they deliver what is in their minds.
• What ever processes we put in place must have as its goal the manifestation that the efforts put forth by the human capital resources are appreciated by the organization, not just taken for granted.
• The organization needs to ensure that any conditions that lead to a hostile workplace are eliminated. This means free from harassment on the part of management, fellow employees and outside vendors.
• The organization needs to ensure that an employee can come to work and feel that will not be exposed to actions by others that can be classified as violent in nature. It also includes the organizational efforts to ensure that no one brings illicit drugs into the workplace.
• The human capital assets expect that they will be respected for who they are and what they contribute to the organization not having their growth stymied because of biases on the part of the organization as to what they can achieve.
• Finally it is absolutely that the top management efforts represent total buy in to the new paradigm, not just giving it lip service.

As a human resource professional within your organization, it is your task to see that the organization moves toward this new direction. Human capital resources are vital to the successes of our businesses. You make the decision as to whether your organization maintains the status quo or heads in the direction of the new paradigm.

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Enhancements to I-9 verifications

J.J. Keller in their HRClicks Newsletter reports that the I-9 program's capabilities expanded to include U.S. passport photo matching — enabling E-Verify to automatically check the validity and authenticity of all U.S. passports and passport cards presented for employment verification checks, as announced by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

The identity of new employees who present a U.S. passport or passport card to E-Verify employers can now be verified by comparing the data to state department records. Approximately 10 percent of all E-Verify queries currently provide a U.S. passport to establish both identity and employment authorization in order to prove employment eligibility.

E-Verify has provided photo matching capabilities to employers throughout the nation to verify the identity of new employees when they presented employment authorization documents or permanent resident cards as proof of identity and work authorization for the Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, since 2007.

DHS, in partnership with the Social Security Administration, operates the E-Verify web-based system which is now used by more than 230,000 employers at more than 800,000 worksites.

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Ford & Harrison issues Legal Alert regarding Health Care Grandfathered Plans

Legal Alert: Changes to Grandfathered Plan Rules Announced
 
11/16/2010
Daniel Sulton

 

 

The triple threat of federal agencies (Department of Labor, Department of Treasury, and Department of Health and Human Services) first published guidance in the form of interim final regulations on "grandfathered" health plans under the health care reform law (the "Affordable Care Act") on June 17, 2010. Since then the agencies have issued Frequently Asked Questions on September 20, 2010, October 8, 2010, October 12, 2010 and October 28, 2010, each containing responses to questions regarding the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, including clarifications on rules related to grandfathered plans. On November 15, 2010, the agencies released an amendment to the interim final regulations providing some relief to fully insured group health plans.

Amendment

In response to comments received on the interim final regulations, the agencies determined that an amendment is necessary to the grandfathered plan rules. Under the interim final regulations, a fully insured group health plan would lose its grandfathered status if it changed issuers or policies after March 23, 2010 regardless of whether or not the benefits or terms under the policy had actually changed in any significant way. The amendment to the interim final regulations removes this restriction and allows a group health plan or employer to enter into a new policy, certificate or contract of insurance without the plan losing its grandfathered status if certain conditions are met. This amendment, like the interim final regulations, applies separately to each benefit package under the health plan. However, it does not apply to individual policies.

In order for a fully insured group health plan to maintain its grandfathered status after a change in insurer or policy, the plan must not make any other changes that would result in a loss of grandfathered status under the interim final regulations (e.g. any increase in a percentage cost-sharing requirement such as coinsurance, etc. Please see our Legal Alert, Anticipated Health Care Reform Grandfathered Plan Regulations Released," dated June 23, 2010, available on our web site at http://www.fordharrison.com/shownews.aspx?Show=6300, for a complete list of changes that will result in a loss of grandfathered status.) Additionally, the group health plan must provide any new insurance company with documentation of the prior health plan coverage sufficient to determine if any change in the new policy, certificate or contract of insurance is being made that would result in a loss of grandfathered status.

Effective Date

The amendment applies to group health insurance changes which become effective on or after November 15, 2010. Therefore, any change of insurer or policy that became effective prior to November 15, 2010 will not be subject to the amendment and would result in a loss of grandfathered status.

Employers' Bottom Line

This amendment is a welcome change for employers with a fully insured group health plan or with any fully insured benefit options under its health plan. It allows flexibility to change insurance carriers or insurance policies without the loss of grandfathered status as long as such changes do not result in one of the six prohibited changes under the interim final regulations for grandfathered health plans. Employers with fully insured plans who avoided making certain insurance policy changes (other than the 6 prohibited changes for grandfathered plans) that would reduce cost but result in a new policy being issued, may want to revisit those decisions in light of this amendment. Unfortunately, this amendment may have come too late, as a practical matter, for calendar year plans to make any changes for the 2011 plan year.

If you have any questions regarding this Alert, please contact the author, Daniel Sulton, dsulton@fordharrison.com, any member of Ford & Harrison's Employee Benefits Practice Group, or the Ford & Harrison attorney with whom you usually work. You may also visit the health care reform section of the Ford & Harrison website, http://www.fordharrison.com/HealthcareReform.aspx, for more helpful resource§s and tools on health care reform.

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New Twist in Social Media

Many of the pundits of Social Media in the workplace have had differing views on what has to be in a social media policy. They have also questioned the ownership of the relationships developed on the social media venue. In a case out of Connecticut, an employee placed disparing comments about her boss and the company on Facebook, The organization in turn fired her. The National Labor Relations Board has entered into the fray and stated that she was dismissed illegally because what she said was covered by the right to free speech.

What does your social media policy say in this regard? Are you ensuring that both sides of the equation's rights are being protected? NLRB says that what she said was no different than talking around the water cooler. Is that not what social media is all about?

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Do we really know what the answer is?

I was driving around doing errands over the weekend, when suddenly in front of me was a car with a bumper sticker that resonanted with the current economic environment and workplace environment we live in. The bumper sticker was in this case black and white but the statement was short and to the point.

It stated " Don't Believe What You Think."

Reading the bumper sticker made me take a moment and consider question as to how often do we in human resources (or the business environment for that matter) find ourselves facing a problem and because we think we know the answer, we jump to a solution. Do we provide a correct solution in these cases?

The six sigma methodology teaches us to ask the "5 Whys" when confronted with a problem. The premise is that the first answer we receive when we question what we think is usually not the real answer we are looking for. To get to the root cause of the problem takes questioning it five times. So if this is true, when we belive what we think is the solution to a problem are we solving the problem correctly?

If you like we would be open to examples on both sides of the question.

 

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Relocation Announcement

Alvarion is moving its north American headquarters from the Silicon Valley to Montgomery County, MD by 2013.

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Cut Hours or Reduce Staff - Is that all there is?

In his daily post for TLNT, Larry Haun suggested that the question before many organizations in time of economic hardship is whether you cut hours or reduce staff? Larry Haun, who is the community director for ERE.net makes some very good points. The difficulty here is that the response is based on an employee being just another number on the expense sheet.

We would suggest that if you take an alternative view of the role of the employee to be that of a non-owned capital asset that is one of the reasons you are still functioning as an organization then there is a third alternative. If we take a page from GE and change the view of the HR process to be one of continuous process improvement we can offer a third alternative. By removing the process steps that are non-value added (they are not requested by our customers) and ensuring that our processes are repeatable every time we conduct them, then the alternative is we can raise revenues by removing the non-value added steps.

James Womack in his book Lean Thinking suggests that unless the organization is close to bankruptcy, then lean or lean six sigma efforts should not call for layoffs. They should actually enhance the worklevels of the employees due to the opening of opportunity in other departments and through the introduction of new products and services.

Are you stuck in the silo of employees as an expense or have you realized they are a valuable asset and maximizing your human capital?

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HRCI approves Ultimate Improvement Cycle: A Six Sigma Approach to Human Capital Management CE Credits

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In conjunction with Daniel Bloom & Associates, Inc.. the Corporate Training Centers at Hillsborough Community College will be offering the first of its kind in the United States a 14-hour training program for HR professionals on how to apply the six-sigma methodology to your hr processes. The course will contain both technical and real life experiences with the various tools and how they apply to HR.

HRCI has approved this course for 13 strategic business recertification hours.

The course is scheduled to be presented November 18 and 23 and again March 21 and 23. The instructor will be Daniel Bloom SPHR, SSBB the CEO of Daniel Bloom & Associates, Inc and one of the few individuals in the country to be certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources and a Six Sigma Black Belt.

For more information contact Bill Melendez at HCC at 813-259-6508

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Is the glass half empty or half full?

Every generation has been confronted with this question and with the question which came first the chicken or the egg. If we listen to the political pundits going into tomorrow's elections we can see the same picture developing. 

The tea party candidates are telling us how really bad things are. How all the strategies created to combat one of the worse recessions in this country were all bad. But is that really true? Consider the headlines out of the paper recently.

• The TARP funds were the sign that our priorities were out of place. And yet a local CPA appeared on the local FOX news station and pointed out that many of the banks that have already paid back their loans have done so with a premium coming back. AIG announced today that it already has 37 billion dollars ready to come back to the US Treasury.
• Manufacturing output exceeded the projections of most economists for the last reporting month.
• Many of the corporations that have laid off employees are beginning to recall them back including GM and Delta Airlines.
• Corporations are in the process of returning some customer service positions back to the US because economically it made more sense.This includes Radio Shack, AT&T and others. I was in attendance at a conference recently where the  speaker indicated that he was working with an India based Information Systems firm which was opening a call center in Wisconsin because it was cheaper to run it here.

How does this apply to human capital? I hear the same kind of rhetoric coming from the business community. Have you ever practiced the philosophy that there is no sense in training our employees because they would just leave? Have you ever told your hiring resources not to provide you with the names of candidates because they are in transition due to circumstances that are beyond their control? Have your ever expressed the belief that if a candidate was let go and did not find employment quickly they are worthless?

We as human capital managers have the ability to look at the glass as being half full or half empty. Look at the available talent for who they are not what you envision them to be. You maybe surprised based on the changed attitude. Many of the in transition executives have taken this time to increase their levels of education but you are excluding this because you believe the glass is half empty.

So as you enter the voting booth tomorrow (we hope you all will one way or another) and as you go forward in your managerial efforts consider whether the glass is really as empty as you think it is. Pundits have been wrong in the past. Be sure you are not a victim to the wrong attitude.

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USERRA Rights might start earlier then you expected

From Wolters Kluwer Employment Blog

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Army reserve member’s USERRA claims against Wyeth partially reinstated

Finding an army reserve member raised sufficient evidence that his performance improvement plan was improperly extended due to his military leave, the First Circuit reversed in part a district court’s dismissal of his USERRA claims against his employer, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals (Vega-Colon v Wyeth Pharm, 1stCir, October 28, 2010, Thompson, OR). The direct court properly granted summary judgment to the pharmaceutical company on the reserve member’s numerous other USERRA discrimination and retaliation claims, however, the appeals court ruled.

Background. The reserve member, a package equipment supervisor who worked for Wyeth in Puerto Rico, alternated between active and inactive status during his employment with the company. The first assertedly actionable incident was a poor performance evaluation, allegedly his first. Shortly thereafter, he was denied a reliability engineer position that he applied for, and he filed a discrimination complaint with the DOL’s Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS). VETS initially found no merit to his claim and denied the complaint, but it was later reinstated when the employee presented additional evidence. At any rate, the employee eventually voluntarily withdrew his VETS complaint.

After his negative performance evaluation, the employee had requested that Wyeth conduct a formal investigation. At a meeting to discuss the investigation, the employer alleged that the employee made a threatening comment, suggesting to the facility’s site director that he “made it easy for one to understand why massacres like the one at Virginia Tech take place.” After this comment — which the employee denied — his access to the plant was restricted, although he continued to receive his salary and benefits. At some point, he returned from military leave with his access to the plant restored. Next, he was placed on a performance improvement plan (PIP) pursuant to a Wyeth policy in which all employees who receive low performance evaluations are placed on a PIP. He timely completed the objectives established under the PIP within the required 90 days, yet he was informed nonetheless that the PIP would be extended for other reasons until he returned from military service. His reserve unit was mobilized that month.

The employee filed suit, alleging several claims of discrimination and retaliation based on his military service under USERRA and Puerto Rico law. He claimed the discriminatory and retaliatory actions taken by Wyeth were the result of his decision to return to active duty. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Wyeth on all claims, and the employee appealed.

USERRA coverage. Wyeth argued that because he did not return to active duty until February 2007, the employee was not protected under USERRA until this date. However, the appeals court held the employee “applied to perform” active duty service, for purposes of USERRA, once he informed his supervisors. “While informing a supervisor of one's intent to return to service is not strictly speaking an application for service; it is only logical that USERRA coverage would be triggered at the point in time in which an employer has information about an employee on which it could base discriminatory treatment,” the appeals court wrote. “To deny an employee who has expressed such a definite intention the protection of USERRA until his literal application for service is signed and delivered would be contrary to the stated purposes of USERRA. This conclusion is further supported by the principle that USERRA should be broadly construed in favor of military service members as its purpose is to protect such members.”

Because his April 2006 application for the reliability engineer position was the earliest action related to his claims, any alleged improper conduct by Wyeth necessarily took place after USERRA was triggered, the court reasoned.

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