Ever feel like Wile E. Coyote, with an anvil just inches from your forehead?
Well, of course you do, you work in Human Resources!
In case you haven't felt that way recently, SHRM has highlighted three recent, trending employee practices that warrant detailed compensation administration and policy guidelines. You may have already stepped out of the way of the anvil on these, but just in case, read on.
In the same way smartphones have changed our culture and our lifestyle, they have changed the employment relationship. As SHRM reports, it is becoming common for employees to record " . . . work conversations without employers' knowledge or permission in preparation for discrimination, sexual harassment and whistle-blower lawsuits." Picture your weakest manager, and just imagine how damaging a recorded performance conversation could be.
Note, employees are recording from the very beginning of a performance improvement process, at the urging of attorneys who also coach them on the words to evoke from their manager that will best position them in a suit.
Regulatory protection for your company is iffy at best, too. Most states permit one-party consent for recordings -- that is only one party of the conversation needs to consent, the recorder. Only a small handful of states require all-parties consent, and while the list includes the usual suspects like California and Massachusetts, the rest of the states on the list might surprise you.
So why not just prohibit the recording of manager/employee conversations in your company? The legal cases have been limited and have worked in the employee's favor so far. Recognize that the National Labor Relations Act has influence in this area of employer/employee relations, as well as the SEC for cases that qualify as whistleblowing.
Your attorney will offer you an opinion on how to handle the policy issues, but here are a few compensation administration ideas that might also help you manage this trend.
Ask the employee if they are recording the conversation. Why not head things off at the pass? Your action needs to be based on legal advice, as it both depends on your location and also how your attorney would represent your company in litigation, so don't just institute this step without a legal discussion.
In addition to manager FAQs about how to handle various compensation discussions (e.g. request for an increase or promotion, concern about unequal pay, etc.), develop discussion guides that managers can have at their fingertips to take the discussions step-by-step down the right road.
For example, develop a discussion guide for managers to use at each step of the performance improvement process. In addition to listing the wording for the questions to be asked and the coaching to be provided, list the things that should not be said or asked.
Require managers or department heads to brief HR on all performance issues before the employee talk occurs. If you are going to do this, make sure to be available to managers who have to act quickly. Also recognize that you will need to discipline managers who do not follow the policy.
As attorneys like to point out, "once the bell is rung, it's hard to unring it" -- another words, if a recording comes into existence it is going to be difficult to eliminate it from the proceedings. So take this new trend seriously and ask for a briefing from your attorney.
SHRM has also recently written about two other growing practices that can occur when an employee gets a better offer in this hot job market. "Ghosting" employment offers, where employees disappear during the selection or hiring process, with no returned calls or email explanation, and "job abandonment" where employees just stop showing up for work. If you haven't encountered either, it doesn't mean you won't. Take a look at the articles and sketch out how you would handle things to keep compensation practices legal and clear cut.
Margaret O'Hanlon, CCP brings deep expertise to discussions on employee pay, performance management, career development and communications at the Café. Her firm, re:Think Consulting, provides market pay information and designs base salary structures, incentive plans, career paths and their implementation plans. Earlier, she was a Principal at Willis Towers Watson. Margaret is a Board member of the Bay Area Compensation Association (BACA). She coauthored the popular eBook, Everything You Do (in Compensation) Is Communications, a toolkit that all practitioners can find at https://gumroad.com/l/everythingiscommunication.
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