MOVED TO NEW LOCATION!

ALL FUTURE POSTS TO THIS BLAWG WILL BE TO:

www.employmentblawg.com

Go there to see our all-new look and features, and bookmark this new url.

If you use a newsreader and our Feedburner feed, you should not have to make any changes.

UPDATE: Having some difficulties with the Feedburner feed. Will announce when it's up and running again.

UPDATE 2: Feedburner is back up and running.

Continued . . .

Employment Branding And Google: Nice Example of Video and Webpages

Google has done a nice job of developing recruitment materials that are available over the web. These materials include a nice video, a list of reasons to go to work for Google, and other such things. Google provides a great example of employment branding; I don't think it will work for all companies, but it is nevertheless, a good example worth looking at.

Included in their list of reasons to work for Google:

Life is beautiful;

Work and play are not mutually exclusive;

Good company everywhere you look.

For the video describing what it is like to work at Google, go here.

Continued . . .

Even more Laughs! And This One Is Actually Funny!

First, however, I must acknowledge recruiting.com, where I found this joke.

Second, I must tell you that I modified it slightly, for a variety of reasons. I hope you like it; I think it's really funny. No, it is NOT an attorney joke...don't worry, George, I'll get to those one of these days..........

Here it goes....

Once upon a time, in a nice little forest, there lived an orphaned bunny and an orphaned snake.

By a surprising coincidence, both were blind from birth. One day, the bunny was hopping through the forest, and the snake was slithering through the forest, when the bunny tripped over the snake and fell down.

This, of course, knocked the snake about quite a bit. "Oh, my," Said
the bunny, "I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I've been blind since birth,
so, I can't see where I'm going. In fact, since I'm also an orphan, I don't
even know what I am."

It's quite ok," replied the snake. "Actually, my story is as yours.
I am blind from birth and an orphan. I tell you what, maybe I could slither all
over you, and work out what you are so at least you'll have that going for you."



"Oh, that would be wonderful" replied the bunny. So the snake slithered all
over the bunny, and said, "Well, you're covered with soft fur, you have
really long ears, your nose twitches, and you have a soft cottony tail. I'd say that
you must be a bunny rabbit."

"Oh, thank you, thank you," cried the bunny, in obvious excitement. The bunny
suggested to the snake, "Maybe I could feel you all over with my paw, and
help you the same way that you've helped me."

So the bunny felt the snake all over, and remarked, "Well, you're smooth and
slippery, and you have a forked tongue, and no backbone. I'd say
you must be a management consultant."

Continued . . .

Monster.com is on Board the Katrina Jobs Train

In an earlier post, I suggested that Monster.com consider free job listings for employers desiring to hire Katrina evacuees, indicating I was e-mailing Monster to suggest this.

Today I received the following response:

Good afternoon,

On behalf of Monster, I wish to express my sincerest thanks for your inquiry regarding Monster's planned efforts for hurricane relief.

We at Monster are deeply saddened by these tragic events and welcome your ideas to help ease the suffering for the people affected. We understand the challenge for these survivors is only the beginning; they now need to rebuild their lives by finding new homes and new jobs.

Monster's core promise is to advance people's lives, and we have efforts underway to support those survivors and communities hardest hit. We are working on a nationwide initiative to help people who lost their jobs as a result of this tragedy. You can view the current website by visiting http://hurricanerelief.monster.com/

Our hope is that our effort will fulfill a critical need during these trying times.

Sincerely,

James McNamee
Complaint Management Specialist
james.mcnamee@monster.com

Check it out. Do whatever you can.

Continued . . .

Need a Little Laugh? I Do....So Read "Who's Kidding?"

Reaching the end of a job interview, the Human Resources Person asked a young Engineer fresh out of college, "And what starting salary were you looking for?"

The Engineer said, "In the neighborhood of $125,000 a year, depending on the benefits package."

The interviewer said, "Well, what would you say to a package of 5 weeks vacation, 14 paid holidays, full medical and dental, a company matching retirement fund for 50% of your salary, and a company car leased every 2 years-say, a red Corvette?"



The Engineer sat up straight and said, "Wow! Are you kidding?"

And the interviewer replied, "Yeah, but you started it"

I found this joke here.

Continued . . .

HR/Employment Blogosphere Update for September 13, 2005

This Blawg is speeding down the road to our exciting makeover.

(Yes, I once drove a classic Mustang -- a Rangoon Red '65 fastback with red interior and 289 4-barrel, and hope to one day drive it again. That's why I like this photo.)

Meanwhile, I'm feeling like I abandoned my regular update readers by skipping two Mondays.

So here, better late than never, is a quick update from around the blogosphere (no table of contents or headings today, just running through blogs in alphabetical order, as far as I get before bedtime):

Donald at All Deliberate Speed reports on an Eighth Circuit case restating one reason it's tough to prove discrimination: the proper inquiry is not whether the employer was factually correct in its assessment of the plaintiff's misconduct or poor job performance, but whether it honestly believed the facts were as stated.

Janell at BenefitsBlog has a sobering look at the conditions of the courts and lawyers in Louisiana in the wake of Katrina. Surely there are more unfortunate people than most of the lawyers, but the justice system implications described are very problematic.

Speaking of sobering Katrina posts, with which the blogosphere is of course loaded, Confined Space has: "To Be A New Orleans Police Officer."

And The Employment Law Bulletin has a good "rant" on federal response to Katrina (one of millions, no doubt, but this one even ends with a (sick) joke!) (mostly quoting Keith Olbermann).

Chuck Krugel continues his series of family photos of people at work, interesting to me because of my love for both photography and labor history. Now we see his "great grandmother, Minnie Levinson, at her and her husband Abraham Levinson's grocery store . . . under the L tracks" in Chicago, and his pharmacist Dad in a drugstore circa 1960.

Chuck also provides an update on post-AFL-CIO split union organizing strategies. See my (slightly unrealistic and smartass) comment there.

Drama, Conflict, Despair & Victory at Work writes on a Ninth Circuit case on non-sexual sex-based harassment (offensive conduct may be unlawful "if there is sufficient circumstantial evidence of qualitative and quantitative differences in the harassment suffered by female and male employees," even if the conduct is not facially sex-specific).

Not new law, but maybe news to some.

Ross' Employment Blog also discusses this case, and lays the applicable law out crystal clear.

The flip side is also true, but cases on this point are hard to find: conduct may be sexual in nature (e.g., dirty jokes, discussions of sexual exploits), but if not singling out one gender, race, etc., it is not unlawful.

Jottings by an Employer's Lawyer covers President Bush's emergency suspension of the Davis-Bacon Act for certain counties in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida, the somewhat misguided and misinformed backlash thereto, and a bit of explanation about this Act.

(It is ironic that the word Bacon is part of the name of this union-suckup-porkbarrel act that wastes billions of taxpayer dollars paying "prevailing wages" that are anything but).

Labor & Employment Law Blog has a crucial, if non-sexy, tidbit: "In response to the recent increases in the cost of gasoline, on September 9, 2005, the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") increased the optional standard mileage rates . . . for the last four months of 2005 to 48.5 cents per mile."

Thoughts from a Management Lawyer links to an article on providing the desired flexibility older workers are looking for.

OK, I got through the alphabet on employment law blogs, but not the rest of the HR/Employment blogs on my blogroll.

I really want to enhance this weekly update feature, and provide this community a better central spot for showcasing the week's best posts (without eating up my time every weekend).

I have a (brilliant) idea for doing this, while building community and linkage for all these bloggers. I hope to implement this idea by year's end, under the domain name "www.workworldweek." Stay tuned.

(mustang photo by aqui-ali via flickr)

Continued . . .

Getting Ready to Interview? Check www.interviewat.com

Wouldn't you love to have a preview of what kinds of interview questions and selection processes a company you are about to interview at has?

Now, you can find out that kind of information, and so far, it is free!


Just go to www.interviewat.com and find information about what to expect at the interview. My quick look through this website indicated that the focus is on technical interviews, but there may be lots of other information as well.

One applicant even listed specific questions on a written test that he took.

I wonder whether any legal liability could arise from the kind of information that is listed there, as I have heard of companies that required applicants to sign an agreement that they would not reveal the contents of the tests they took to anyone.

Need a good lawyer? You may wish to contact George!

Continued . . .

Blog This Story: Queen of the Sky Sues Delta For Firing

Remember the Queen of the Sky? George had several postings dealing with her blog (here and here). She was a flight attendant who was ultimately fired by Delta for blogging. You may recall that on her blog, she included some pictures of herself that some might have called "racy." You can visit her website, queenofsky.journalspace.com, here.

What she is doing now is


suing Delta, of course, for Title VII violations (sex discrimination) and for a violation of the Railway Labor Act.

I searched for a copy of the lawsuit she filed, but was not successful in locating it.

Continued . . .

Flattery Will Get You Everywhere....Including the Courtroom

For Mae West fans, you may know that the quote "Flattery will get you everywhere" is attributed to her!

Now you can read about how flattery can even get a company into court. In this case, a manager was making complimentary statements about how young an older employee looked. You probably know what happened next: a termation. In this case, the company argued that


the employee was fired for job-related reasons. Turns out that the employee's performance exceeded other employees. On appeal, the court upheld the decision.

Implication is that even complimentary statements about an employee's protected class (e.g., age) can hurt the company. Next time your department holds an "over 50" party, be very careful about what you say!

Read the entire story on flattery and age discrimination here at AHI Publications

Continued . . .

Good news, bad news about this blog (mostly good)

The good news is that we are welcoming aboard a third contributor, Catherine Collingwood.

Catherine was one of our first readers, back when we were lucky to see 200 pageviews a week (now we're 300+ a DAY).

She is a longtime blogger, operating CathColl.net, which she describes as "a general-purpose personal web site." It is not, however, a personal-life blog (except for the occasional cat story or pic), but contains well-written, plain-English thoughts and comments on a wide range of news items and issues, including HR and employee benefits.

Catherine is a benefits specialist for a professional employer organization (PEO) in Raleigh, North Carolina. She also spent nine years in human resources with various agencies of the State of North Carolina, beginning as a personnel assistant and ending as a compensation and benefits specialist.

We hope she will provide some useful additional content on PEOs and HR outsourcing, non-technical benefits issues, and general HR topics, all from her HR insider's perspective, which Michael and I -- as lawyer and professor -- lack.

In addition to contributing, Catherine will serve as the site administrator for George’s Employment Blawg. Which brings us to more good news -- and the bad news.

Catherine has been preparing a redesign of this Blawg, which will run using Wordpress rather than Blogger. She calls it "Version 2.0 of George’s Employment Blawg" and promises "many changes to enhance the reader experience."

The bad news is that this will require a brief transitional hiatus in a few days, just as we are seeing phenomenal readership growth. So please have patience if you don't see too many new posts this week, and return soon for further instructions about the new site.

Continued . . .