What Direction are We Headed In

A friend recently loaned us a copy of the four seasons of the show 4400. In one of the episodes a teacher is charged with child abuse because she inspired her students to utilize their talents. Right after watching the episode we downloaded two reports --Preparing the Workers Today for the Jobs of Tomorrow and The Ill-Prepared U.S. Workforce. We also watch as a segment of the population argues against the President talking to school children about making a difference in their world. The two reports mentioned above says that many employers are reporting a segment of the workforce is neither trained for tomorrow's jobs nor or they prepared for the jobs of today. When we look at the available training opportunities we need to really look at just what we are teaching our business leaders of tomorrow. Dr. Richard Florida, in his book Flight of the Creative Class, suggests that many of the world's talent are forsaking the U.S. job market because they can find better opportunities elsewhere. If they are not williong to come here, some may suggest that we have the talent locally to fill those positions. However, if they are not prepared for the demands of those jobs, what are we telling our customers? What are we telling the global marketplace? How do we expect to compete against the changing world? For those of you who believe we are doing fine just as we are (and I know there are some out there who think that way) I would suggest that you look at the You Tube presentation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpEnFwiqdx8

New Years Wishes

To all of our Jewish  clients, we wish you and your a happy Rosh Hashanah as we begin the Jewish High Holy Days

Employer May Be Liable for Hiring Done by Independent Contractor

2nd Circuit - Employer May Be Liable for Hiring Done by Independent Contractor 09/16/2009

by Maria Greco Danaher, Ogletree Deakins (Pittsburgh) The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) makes it unlawful to discriminate against an individual over the age of 40, and specifically includes a prohibition against failing to hiring someone based on his or her age.  The 2d U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently pointed out the expansive nature of that prohibition by holding that an employer may be held liable for discrimination by third parties - including an independent contractor who is authorized by the employer to make hiring decisions on its behalf.  Halpert v. Manhattan Apartments, Inc., 2d Cir., No. 07-4074-cv, September 10, 2009.  In October 2001, Michael Halpert interviewed for a position to show rental apartments for Manhattan Apartments, Inc. (MAI).  The interview was conducted by Robert Brooks, an independent contractor/broker who allegedly told Halpert that Halpert was “too old” to work in the prospective position, and asked why the placement center had not sent a younger applicant.  Halpert was born on September 19, 1957.  In response to a lawsuit filed by Halpert, MAI filed a motion for summary judgment which was granted by the district court.  The district court found that MAI as not an “employer” under the definition of the ADEA, and dismissed the case against MAI.  That decision was reversed by the Second Circuit, which remanded the case for trial.  The Second Circuit based the reversal on the fact that the ADEA’s prohibitions against discrimination apply to the hiring process, whether a company uses its own employees to interview applicants, or asks an independent contractor to fill that role.  If a company gives someone authority to interview applicants and make hiring decisions on behalf of the company, the company may be held liable if that contractor discriminates against an applicant because of the applicant’s age. MAI’s potential liability under the ADEA turns on whether Brooks was hiring Halpert to work for him as a fellow independent broker, or was making the hiring decision for MAI as its agent.  The Court pointed out that MAI sponsored a training program for individuals hired to show the apartments, that the successful applicants would earn commissions from MAI, that the interview took place at MAI’s offices, and that the placement person who sent Halpert to the interview testified that she believed that he was being interviewed for a position with MAI.  The Court held that there were disputed issues of material fact that precluded dismissal of the action. The controversy in this case was not whether MAI was liable for discrimination against an independent contractor (an action typically not protected against under the ADEA), but whether MAI can be held liable for age discrimination by an independent contractor when that person works as an agent for MAI.  The Court found that the answer to this question is an unequivocal Yes.  Based on a posting on the Employment Law Information Network

From Our Client Family

National Corporate Housing is seeking an Account Executive in our Herndon, VA office. Please forward this on if you know of anyone that might be a good fit for this position. For more information contact:

Misty Gregarek
Human Resource Director,  PHR, CRP
tel: 303-863-7002   
email: mgregarek@nationalcorporatehousing.com
web: www.nationalcorporatehousing.com

10 Best U.S. Cities to Earn a Living

ABC News has released their list of the best places to earn a living in today's employment market. The cities are:
Dallas, Tx
Houston, TX
Minneapolis, MN
Austin, TX
Washington, DC
St Louis, MO
Seattle, WA
Atlanta, GA
Kansas City, MO/KS
Denver, CO

If this is correct, may lead to an influx of new transferees for your businesses. The full story can be found at

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/best-us-cities-earn-living/Story?id=8520018&page=1

Be careful of what you wish for

In today's edition of the Employment Law Network email magazine, there are a number of articles that discuss the broadening of the anti-discrimination laws in the US due to recent legal decisions. We have all heard the saying it is not who you know, but who knows you when we are talking to those individuals who are looking for new work opportunities. It seems from these recent decisions, that it has now carried over to the employee base as a whole. For example consider the cases below from the Jackson and Lewis Law Firm:

1. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, in a case involving the allegations of a Caucasian assistant basketball coach who had claimed he was discharged because he married an African-American woman. The Court held, “[w]here an employee is subjected to adverse action because an employer disapproves of interracial association, the employee suffers discrimination because of the employee’s own race.”
2. In a Sixth Circuit decision, three Caucasian women sued their employer, alleging they were discriminated against based upon their friendship with, and advocacy for, African-American co-workers. Examples of the allegedly racially discriminatory incidents included: overhearing co-workers using racial slurs and telling racist jokes, being told “missed you ladies at the [Ku Klux] Klan meeting last night”, viewing racial graffiti in various places in the plant, being “snubbed” because of the employee’s association with African-American employees, receiving less desirable work assignments, and not being considered for promotions.
3. the Seventh Circuit overruled the District Court’s grant of summary judgment in favor the employer, holding that “an employee, fired because her spouse has a disability that is costly to the employer (i.e., he is covered by the company’s health plan) is within the intended scope of the ‘associational discrimination’ section of the ADA.” A jury was allowed to consider the plaintiff’s claim because she had established that direct evidence of “associational discrimination” may have motivated the employer’s decision to fire her.
What does this mean to you? It means that you need to add to your consideration all factors involved in a reduction in force to be sure that you clearly state your case and are not walking that thin line between business necessity and discrimination.

Violation of Free Speech or Citizenry Protection

Because of new guidelines on advertising and blogging under review by the Federal Trade Commission, some HR blogger practices are coming under scrutiny, including questions about reporting standards and the disclosure of conflicts of interest, reports Workforce Management.
Here is the question-- are they violating our right to free speech or are they trying to reduce the number of blog entries which have either misleading information or do not disclose the bandwagon they are on?

IMPORTANT NOTIFICATION

Effective today, September 9, 2009, federal contractors and subcontractors are required to begin using E-Verify for all employees both current and future.

Mobility Article

In the October 2009 issue of Mobility Magazine, the official journal of the Relocation Industry, there will appear an article entitled In Plain Sight written by Daniel Bloom, discussing six sigma and how it can improve the relocation industry. Let us know your thoughts.

Tip for the marketplace

Monster has said their August numbers showed the best month for job openings in four years . SHRM, the HR trade association, announced today that their survey of hiring officials are foreseeing a very strong September for new hiring. So here is a tip to gain competitive advantage on the market.
Step 1: If you have not already done so, open a free account on Twitter ( you can follow us at Dbainc)

Step 2: Download Tweetdeck (http://www.tweetdeck.com)

Step 3: When you have the tweetdeck fully synced with your facebook and twitter accounts, locate the search icon in the tool bar. In the search field, enter the following terms (I would recommend one at a time): Human Resource, Relocation, and any other associated terms that you choose.

Step 4: Keep tweetdeck open inthe background on your computer. Everytime a Tweet is posted regarding your search terms, it shows up in Tweetdeck. You can find jobs, other vendors and news.

Try it and enjoy.

Relocation announcement

Special Devices Inc., a California-based company that makes air bag igniters and other pyrotechnic devices, is consolidating its North American auto business in Mesa and relocating 250 positions here in the process.

Ricci Case Was Not the End of the Run

When the Sontomayor confirmation hearings were recently held much to do was made of her decision in the New Haven Firefighters case. Many projected that the use of tests in hiring was going to be greatly impaired. Now this morning the Law Firm of Ford and Harrison reports that A recent announcement by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) that Gerber Products Company will pay $900,000 to settle findings of hiring discrimination against 1,912 rejected minority and female applicants may be a reflection of the increased aggressiveness that has been promised by the agency. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis stated that the settlement "should put all federal contractors on notice that the Labor Department is serious about eliminating systemic discrimination." The hiring disparity was discovered during a scheduled compliance evaluation conducted by the OFCCP. According to agency investigators, the disparity was caused in part by inconsistent selection procedures used for entry-level positions. Additionally, the agency found that the company used pre-employment tests that negatively impacted minority applicants and determined that there was insufficient evidence of validity to support Gerber's use of the test. Under the terms of the conciliation agreement, Gerber will pay 1,912 minority and female applicants $900,000 in back pay and interest and will also provide 61 entry-level positions, 11 of whom have already been hired.
It indicated to employers that OFCCP is serious about routing out these types of situations. Review your hiring procedures and make sure that no one is being given the short end of the process.

Are we really lost in the candle?

I happened on the TED community website and found a presentation by Dan Pink, who is a business connection who presented some very strong arguments for changing the way we relate with our employee base. For as long as I can remember, it has been the contention that the way to improve the engagement of our employees was to increase the rewards we provide them. Dan suggests that social scientists know what corporate world fails to see. Look at the video which can be found at http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

A new look at business

I am in the middle of reading the book The Uniform Improvement Cycle, in which the author says that among the areas of waste within an organization is the area of creativity. This comes from the tendency to make the assumption that management only knows what is best for an operation. The along comes a Fortune 100 executive who suggests we are missing the boat. Companies must get creative if they hope to survive the current economic downturn and be positioned to compete in the new, global economy that will emerge, says former Fortune 500 business executive Kathy Robison.
Creativity leads to finding ways to improve the way we operate and it leads to full engagement of our employees. Do you respect the views of the line workers who are in the trenches or are you ready to see a decline in the level of corporate spontaneity?

Whose right?

If we listen to some of the pundits the only way for us to get out of this economic crisis is to get government out of business and lower taxes. Stimulus won't work. Then we see the results of the Robert Half Career Builder survey in which they state that the economy has posed many challenges for businesses - including the need to make sure they are prepared for the upturn. According to a new survey, managers are planning to hire a combination of workers to support both long- and short-term initiatives. Fifty-three percent of employers expect to hire full-time employees over the next 12 months while 40 percent will hire contract, temporary or project professionals and 39 percent will add part-time employees. Then Deloitte adds their input that followed the Robert Half survey:
New research from Deloitte issued today shows that although most major companies surveyed believe that the U.S. economy will start improving in early 2010, many of those same companies will lag behind the general economy when the rebound occurs. The reason: Too much focus on short-term, tactical actions and little attention to structural changes and strategic investments that are needed to support growth in the new business environment.

Approximately 55 percent of companies surveyed feel the U.S. economy will start showing signs of recovery in the first or second quarter of 2010; though 25 percent think relief won't come until the third quarter or beyond. But, when the upturn does commence, Deloitte believes many companies will struggle to deal with the new economy, which will likely be a completely different playing field from what companies have seen in previous recoveries.

Sign of the Times?

According to Stars and Stripes European Edition ,The Marine Corps eliminated cost-of-living pay for new local hires this month, and other military employers may do the same after the Department of Defense dropped the requirement. All DOD agencies, including the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, may now decide whether to pay post allowance to U.S. workers hired abroad since May 6, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness said in May. The Marine Corps stopped paying the benefit to new hires on Aug. 10. Officials with AAFES, the Army and the Air Force said Friday that decisions were not yet made on the post allowance pay. U.S. citizens hired in Europe and the Pacific could lose out on thousands of dollars in annual salary if post allowance is abandoned — money co-workers recruited from the United States will continue to receive. It is an abrupt reversal by the DOD, which last year ordered the military to pay all locally hired, full-time workers the allowance — plus tens of millions of dollars in back pay — which had been withheld by some services for about a decade.
The question is whether this trend may carry over to the US corporations dealing with both expats and domestic employees. COLA's in this economy may be open to providing employee's with funds that might not be necessary.

Merger Announcement

Residential real estate firm Weir Manuel Realtors has teamed up with foreclosure specialist David Trott to acquire Coldwell Banker Schweitzer Real Estate Inc. The new firm, to be called Coldwell Banker Weir Manuel, represents a major consolidation in the residential real estate brokerage community for Metro Detroit.

Just When We Thought We Had a Handle on it

My wife and I were talking the other day about the nature of the "neighborhood" that we live in has changed. It is not the community we moved into 28 years ago. People have moved in and then moved out and we have maintained very few contacts with any of them. There are 76 homes in the subdivision and I am not sure I could tell you everyone who lives here. In addition we just completed, with the assistance of Lynne Lancaster of Bridgeworks, just finished the preparation of a seminar entitled "Chaos int he Workplace-Multigenerational interactions in the workplace." In preparing the material for the seminar we looked at each of the four generational groups and what they wanted and liked. The once I thought we had it finished, along comes a new book called ReloVille which claims there is a group that I did not consider. This group is referred in the new book as the Relos. They are middle management employees earning around $150,000 who get moved by a company every three to five years who leave behind no real roots. The book is written by Peter Kilbourn of the New York Times. He contends that to enhance their careers the employee is willing to put up with this life with no real place to call home. The subject is discussed in the latest issue of HR Magazine from the SHRM. Do you agree with this assessment of a sub-culture in the four groups?

Relocation Announcement

Koalaty provides electrical stimulation products used for pain management, rehabilitation and physical therapy and also distributes electrodes, orthopedic pillows, braces, batteries and topical analgesics. Moving from Tampa to Austin, TX due to a merger and acquisition completion.

Relocation Annlouncements

First Data moving corporate headquarters from Denver to Atlanta and creating 1000 jobs over next three years.