Articles by Rebecca Regan on ArticleSnatch.com

The Single Most Important Tool You Need to Practice Sound HR Management

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 23:36:18 -0400

When I began my consulting practice, I had no idea just how many organizations operate without the most critical tool necessary to practice sound HR management; the lowly, neglected and often unused job description. Wrongly considered unimportant by many and non-essential by some, a well-written job description is truly the cornerstone in building your HR and compensation infrastructure. Let's take a few minutes to review why they're so important in managing HR and how they should be used every day in HR departments. 1). Impacts Your Ability to Recruit Quality Candidates While Minimizing Discriminatory Hiring Complaints. When you have a quality job description that truly reflects the knowledge, skills, abilities and minimum qualifications of the job, you're able to develop job related questions that help you and your managers effectively recruit for open jobs. You'll use the job description to develop job advertisements, postings, and interview questions for use when recruiting. Through using the job description as a recruiting tool, your managers will learn to ask applicants objective job-related questions versus subjective questions that are illegal or irrelevant (and can get your company in trouble!). 2). ADA and Worker's Compensation Accommodation. **End Summary** Topics: hr]]> human resources]]> job descriptions]]> managing employees]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Becky is passionate about designing Human Resources programs and compensation plans that build organizations. Her approach? Support individual HR professionals with consulting and continuing education, delivered online at => http://www.ReganHR.com , via information products through the teleseminar format, plus coaching and mentorship programs. She can be reached at Becky@ReganHR.com .

Using Your Own Road to Success To Create Value

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400

You probably don't think you have much in common with The Beatles. But here's how you might.... Have you ever considered what sequence of opportunities in your life enabled you to become who you are? What combination of events enabled you to become an expert in your chosen field? It's probably a combination of your intelligence, inherent abilities, cultural background, and unique opportunities presented to you along the way. In his newest book, "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell, the author explores the paths that highly successful people took to determine what enabled them to succeed when others did not. His books identify socially accepted beliefs that we know to be true through our own life experience, then find real life examples or repeated patterns that support and explain why this is so. And he entertainingly tells intriguing stories about people to prove his points. He explores birth order, IQ, demographics, culture and family backgrounds as predeterminers of success. One of his premises is that given you possess the intellectual capability, the "10,000 Hour Rule" applies, which asserts that everyone has to work at least 10,000 hours in their area of expertise before they are considered "subject matter experts. **End Summary** Topics: entrepreneur]]> Malcom Gladwell]]> Outliers]]> HR]]> Human Resources]]> Consultant]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Becky Regan is the founder and President of Regan HR, Inc. , a human resources consulting firm specializing in compensation consulting for California employers and purveyor of online HR products. A former Corporate Human Resources Director (10,000+ employees) with more than 25 years of HR work experience in many industries, her team works with private, public and non-profit clients.

Now's the Time to Resuscitate Merit Pay Practices & Budgets for the Second Half of 2009!

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400

With the first half of this year ending soon, and in consideration of a difficult economy and new administration in Washington, D.C., now's the time to dust off and resuscitate your merit pay budget projections and practices for the second half of this year. Your first reaction just might be to ask, "What merit pay budget?" You'll be surprised to learn just how many U.S. organizations have recently re-instituted their 2009 merit pay budgets in anticipation of an improved economy for the second half of this year. Let's briefly revisit where we've been to appreciate where we are now. My '09 merit pay budget projections that I made last October were based upon input from multiple expert compensation sources. The following bullets were copied from a presentation I gave then to the California Employers Association: - The average salary budget increase for all organizations in 2009 is 3.9%. - This projected increase is consistently reported by SHRM, World at Work, & ERI. - Applies to all employee categories, regions and industries. What a huge difference eight months has made! **End Summary** Topics: human resources]]> compensation]]> hr]]> merit pay]]> recession]]> employees]]> pay]]> salary]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Becky is passionate about designing Human Resources programs and compensation plans that build organizations. Her approach? Support individual HR professionals with consulting and continuing education, delivered online at => http://www.ReganHR.com , via information products through the teleseminar format, plus coaching and mentorship programs. She can be reached at Becky@ReganHR.com .

Is "Pay for Performance" Destined to Become Obsolete in the Financial Sector?

Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00:00 -0400

How would you like to have your compensation package determined by the Federal Government, even though your private sector employer did not receive any bailout government funds? According to the WSJ's "U.S. Eyes Bank Pay Overhaul," that's precisely the direction the government is headed in to expand governance and gain more control over the financial sector. The Fed is now evaluating rules that would restrict banks' ability to pay employees in a way that would threaten the "safety and soundness" of the bank. Examples include paying loan officers for the volume of business they do, not the quality. This move is the latest in a sequence of overt actions by the government demonstrating anti-capitalist and free-market sentiments. As the bailout began, it made sense that the Fed's regulators would directly influence and control pay packages for those executives who acted with greed, forfeited their fiduciary responsibilities, and sabotaged their company's very viability. OK for GM and AIG too, since they were under the same bailout scenario. But this is different. Mr. Geitner has instructed his staff to begin discussions with the Fed, FDIC, the SEC and others about implementing controls addressing compensation practices. **End Summary** Topics: pay and performance]]> employee]]> employees]]> compensation]]> salary]]> The Fed]]> Fed]]> bailout]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Becky is passionate about designing Human Resources programs and compensation plans that build organizations. Her approach? Support individual HR professionals with consulting and continuing education, delivered online at => http://www.ReganHR.com , via information products through the teleseminar format, plus coaching and mentorship programs. She can be reached at Becky@ReganHR.com .

Three Top Tips for Hiring Smart When Supply Exceeds Demand

Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Hiring smart is exponentially more difficult when supply greatly exceeds demand, a contemporary reality created from the recent mass layoffs due to this recession. With so many people job hunting for fewer job openings, now your recruiting efforts are taking much more time than was required in a stable employment environment. So many resumes...so little time! How can you possibly evaluate all of those resumes to find the best candidate for your open job? Of course you want to be sensitive and customer focused in responding to applicants who truly desire to work for your company....but realistically, there are only so many hours in any given day! And you simply can't take months to fill an open job with a hiring manager who's calling you for daily status updates on the open job search! Here are my top three recommendations for hiring smart in this economic environment: 1). Let technology be your friend. In the May 11, 2009 edition of the Wall Street Journal, the article "Resume Overload" revealed free and low cost new software solutions that help recruiters better manage the "swarm of applicants." These systems work particularly well for less complex, non-exempt jobs. **End Summary** Topics: hr]]> human resources]]> hiring]]> employees]]> recruiting]]> managers]]> management]]> staffing]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Becky Regan is the founder and President of Regan HR, Inc. , a human resources consulting firm specializing in compensation consulting for California employers and purveyor of online HR products. A former Corporate Human Resources Director (10,000+ employees) with more than 25 years of HR work experience in many industries, her team works with private, public and non-profit clients.

New Hay Group Report Reveals Recession's Impact on Employers Worldwide

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0400

The Hay Group recently released results from their March '09 "Reward in a downturn" survey that highlights key tactical and strategic changes global employers have taken in response to the deep recession. Some key observations reported in these results resonate with what we know to be true through our daily experiences at work or from the recession's direct impact on our own family and friends. Merit Budgets Severely Reduced As you may recall from only a few short months ago (though it seems much longer given the depth and length of this recession), 2009 merit projections averaged just below 4%. Fast forward to March, '09 where the reported overall projected salary increase has been downgraded to 2.8%. Further compounding the issue of too few dollars to make merit increases meaningful, the report identified the revised merit budget for high performers at just 3.0%. This slim differential of .2% between "all employee" and "high performers" follows the conventional wisdom that the dollars simply aren't there to make any meaningful difference in rewarding the two groups based on their performance. **End Summary** Topics: merit budgets]]> compensation]]> employees]]> recession]]> employers]]> salary]]> benefits]]> layoffs]]> pay freeze]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Becky is passionate about designing Human Resources programs and compensation plans that build organizations. Her approach? Support individual HR professionals with consulting and continuing education, delivered online at => http://www.ReganHR.com , via information products through the teleseminar format, plus coaching and mentorship programs. She can be reached at Becky@ReganHR.com .

Do You "Work to Live" or "Live to Work?"

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0400

"Would you keep your job even if you won the lottery?" CIGNA released results from a contracted study* in February, 2009 addressing these questions to produce some unexpected participant responses. The purpose of the study was to understand views of disability insurance plans. However, broader questions related to "why people work" with results broken out by age and sex unveiled some revealing conventional employee beliefs. The questions' responses were broken down into two clusters: the "work to live" and the "live to work" groups. 65% of the respondents said that they "live to work," while only 35% answered they "work to live." The survey then drilled down within each subset to learn some unanticipated, widespread employee beliefs. In the "live to work" cluster, 71% of women replied that they "live to work" versus 59% of men. 23% of women said that they would keep their job even if they won the lottery, compared to 20% of men with the same response. **End Summary** Topics: employment]]> work]]> life]]> lottery]]> career satisfaction]]> job satisfaction]]> employee]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Becky is passionate about designing Human Resources programs and compensation plans that build organizations. Her approach? Support individual HR professionals with consulting and continuing education, delivered online at => http://www.ReganHR.com , via information products through the teleseminar format, plus coaching and mentorship programs. She can be reached at Becky@ReganHR.com .

New 2008 Turnover Stats by Industry Just Released: How Did Your Company Compare?

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Flashback to January of 2008. It began well, but dramatically disintegrated over time to end in a dismal financial state that has affected each of us in some way. Certainly it made managing HR much more challenging than it is under normal business scenarios. We know that millions of jobs were eliminated as the year progressed, with the fallout of significant job losses spilling over into 2009. As the economy deteriorated, job security became of paramount importance to employees. Towards the end of the year, employees became much more reluctant to seek other employment and had diminished opportunity to do so in view of fewer job openings. Employers found themselves in the diametrically opposed position of laying off employees while still hiring for specialized jobs. Even so, naturally there was still employee turnover in all industries. How did your company compare to the average 2008 turnover statistics for your industry? Compdata, a company that provides high quality salary surveys (and whose surveys I frequently use in conducting market pricing studies for my clients) recently released their findings for 2008 turnover by industry. Read the tables listed below, provided courtesy of Compata Surveys. **End Summary** Topics: recession]]> turnover rate]]> layoffs]]> employment]]> economy]]> employers]]> employees]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Becky is passionate about designing Human Resources programs and compensation plans that build organizations. Her approach? Support individual HR professionals with consulting and continuing education, delivered online at => http://www.ReganHR.com , via information products through the teleseminar format, plus coaching and mentorship programs. She can be reached at Becky@ReganHR.com .

Top 10 Job Search and Resume Building Tips Guaranteed to Help Land Your Next Job

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0500

As a HR expert, job-seekers ask me for advice for job search strategies and resume writing tips that will give them an edge over other applicants negotiating the toughest job market within the last 40 years. From hiring thousands of employees over my 25 year career through screening 10,000+ resumes received from applicants for those jobs, patterns emerge from winning applicants. Here's a list of tips guaranteed to help you land your next job. Top 10 Job Search and Resume Building Tips: 1. Decide what job you want. Focus on what industry, size of company, number of employees, management style, etc. that you want in your next job. Reflect upon your career history to a time and place where you were the most satisfied with your work and use it to build a profile of your next job. Visualize it; think about how it will feel once you're there in your new office. Write down where it is, who you're working for, what kind of a work environment it is, and see yourself physically there. Revisit your profile often as you continue through your job search to maintain your focus and realize your goals for your next job. 2. **End Summary** Topics: employement]]> laid off]]> resume]]> job]]> jobs]]> hiring]]> job search]]> unemployed]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Becky is passionate about designing Human Resources programs and compensation plans that build organizations. Her approach? Support individual HR professionals with consulting and continuing education, delivered online at => http://www.ReganHR.com , via information products through the teleseminar format, plus coaching and mentorship programs. She can be reached at Becky@ReganHR.com .

What About Recognizing and Rewarding the Little Guy?

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0500

"Okay, time out. Something doesn't feel right." This is the first line in a full-page article run by Wells Fargo Bank last week in major newspapers. They placed the ad to announce that they'd succumbed to political correctness and acquiesced to public pressure, canceling all major employee recognition and rewards events for the rest of the year. What a shame! Because Wells took money from the Federal Government's U.S. Capital Purchase Program, they're mandated to follow the government's executive compensation requirements. The company's stock value has significantly decreased over the past year, particularly since they acquired Wachovia. The new Federal regulations will only result in creative recommendations from executive compensation consultants to ramp up the base salary or preferred stock holdings of these executives in order to attract and retain key talent in these jobs. But what about the little guy? Wells Fargo Bank has a tradition of holding annual events to recognize their high-achieving employees in front of their peers. They pay for these events out of their profits; not taxpayer money. They budget for these events every year. Their employees count on it as a part of their total rewards package; **End Summary** Topics: human resources]]> compensation]]> reward employees]]> employee benefits]]> hr]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Becky is passionate about designing Human Resources programs and compensation plans that build organizations. Her approach? Support individual HR professionals with consulting and continuing education, delivered online at => http://www.ReganHR.com , via information products through the teleseminar format, plus coaching and mentorship programs. She can be reached at Becky@ReganHR.com.