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Metoo this’s tony martignetti non-profit radio i’m your aptly named host tony martignetti welcome to the show. Last week, we talked about honesty about your organization’s mistakes and failures we had new york times, stephanie strong with us in the studio, and we also talked about keeping your non-profit and you’re bored, safe and out of trouble. Remember, that was with ken cerini and jean takagi no threatening letters from the attorney general in your state or from the irs that was last week. This week were focused on your people techniques to attract and retain your most precious resource, which is the people who work for you, the people who help you to help those who your organization is supporting and improving the lives of your people. Your most critical resource, your non-profits future depends on having the best people working for you. My guest this week is karen bradunas, human resources consultant. Karen will join us after the break and about midway through i’ll have some thoughts about charitable gift annuities. I want you to be careful about those they could be an outstanding gift for your non-profit but there are some things to be aware of, and i’ll talk about those around the middle of the show. Joining me after this break, we’ll be karen bradunas will be back in ninety seconds. You can wait that long. Please stay with us. You didn’t think that shooting getting thinking, you’re listening to the talking alternate network, get in. Cubine are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Buy-in i’m tony martignetti, the aptly named host of the tony martignetti show. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. You’re non-profit is ignored because you’re smaller medium size, but you still need expertise and help with technology fund-raising compliance, finance and accounting will look at all of these areas on the tony martignetti show. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on talking alternative dot com fridays. One, too hyre talking. Welcome back, i’m tony martignetti i’m joined now by karen bradunas karen is a human resource is consultant, and her stated guiding philosophy is to bring large company expertise and best practices to smaller organizations. That sounds a lot like big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. So where? Simpatico on that? Prior to consulting, karen held officer positions at travelers insurance and deutsche bank, so she brings big for-profit experience to non-profits karen has an impressive acronym after her name one i don’t see too often s p h r spohr is senior professional in human resource is, and i’m very glad that karen’s practice brings her to the studio today. Karen, welcome. Hi, tony, how are you? I’m well, thanks very much for coming. A few weeks ago, i blogged on something that i called the elusive perfect fit employee. I was concerned about anecdotes that i hear from people who are in the job search and applying for jobs and are told that they’re very well qualified, but they’re told we’re going to hold out for the perfect fit. We’re looking for that perfect fit, employees, and you commented on my block and why don’t we start there. What do you think about that illusive perfect fit? Employees? This is a hot topic right now. Among a lot of hr professionals. Our concerns are what is a perfect employee in that term in general, is it what fits you organization today? Is it what fits your organization in five years? Do you even know where you’ll be in five years? Is a perfect employee, someone who’s flexible. So the word perfect and job specs right now, it’s a conundrum because when we have conversations with hiring managers, oftentimes they don’t know and oftentimes a job description is being written based on a failure of a predecessor or an employee who leaves and say, i like this person, but i really want to add this other piece to the job. So i have concerned that it’s not really strategic when people say i want a perfect employee. So i think this is challenging right now. A number of hr people are sort of scratching their heads. I’ve talked to a number of recruiters across sectors and all they’re saying, well, we’re not really sure. So what they’re doing is they’re translating what they hear from the employee into words they understand, which may or may not be the right fit. I use an example, a new organization that wants a cfo that does web design, which everyone so scratches your head. Maybe the client really means they need a cfo who understands the technology and presence of web two point. Oh, that’s a lot different than a cfo that does web design, and i think that that’s one of the challenges right now. You mentioned the job description a couple of times, and you’ve alluded to it sounds like that’s critical to the to the to the first part of the hiring process, which is identifying your needs basically right, the job description. Besides being necessary as a compliance issue, which is a big deal, and employers, i really need to look at it because this is going to be a heavily regulated and looked at field on area. Sorry of h r it is a guide map for anyone doing a search of a way of weeding out resumes. On average, a recruiter spends less than a minute on a resume that’s. Why job seekers are always worried about buzz words and trying to read. Job descriptions in job postings, which are two different things, a job posting summarizes what you’re looking for a job description, talks about usually summarizes a job, talks about specifics of the job and also skills needed and minimum requirements to do the job. And maybe we’ll get to the job posting shortly. That job description is that supposed to be just an internal document? Or is that also shared often or should it be shared? I mean, let’s talk best practices? What that be shared with potential potential employees? There are a few schools of thought on this from a risk reduction standpoint. Usually i show two prospective employees this is the job description. Are you able to do this job? Do you need any kind of accommodation to do this job? It’s helpful for them to see it? I think every employees should see their job description on the part as part of the hiring process. Yeah, i don’t see a problem with that because if if you’re looking for someone and you’re investing employees, invest a lot of time in recruiting there’s a huge amount of time, and if you really want the best person and you’ve taken all this time to write a job description. What? Why not share it? Why not talk about why not have the the prospective employees say i haven’t done this, but i’ve done this this and this that really would help your organization and have a chance to really talk to what your needs are and that’s going to be after the employees get screen or the potential employee gets screened because we’ve right, we’ve looked at the resume now where we have just a few people coming in, and at that stage, your recommendation is share. The job description was at that screening process. Yeah, that’s challenging, yeah, everyone i’ve talked to tio it’s frustrating right now in this market for every job posting out there, you get hundreds of resumes and i’m talking about hundreds in a week or in a few days, and so often times people are screening based on things like, okay, which school did they goto? I’m looking for this specific buzz where, because the client said it four times in our conversation, i i sometimes get asked by my clients to do searches, even though i don’t sell myself as a recruiter and i actually research candidates through linked in and other tools, and invite them to apply because i’m looking for specialized behaviours, projects, successes and that way i don’t have to weed through all the people that really are not appropriate. And that’s, pretty standard practice to for employers is, too go beyond the resume and cover letter writing to do some research online. It isn’t a standard, as one might hope. Okay, well, maybe. Well, why don’t we pick that up after this break? I’m tony martignetti tony martignetti non-profit radio, and my guest is karen bradunas human resource is consultant will be back after this break. Stay with us. You’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. I really need to take better care of myself. If only i had someone to help me with my lifestyle. I feel like giving up. Is this you mind over matter, health and fitness can help. 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Durney welcome back on tony martignetti i’m joined by karen bradunas human resource is consultant karen. Before the break, we were talking about online research, researching candidates beyond their cover letter and resume. You think it’s not as widespread as it should be, i think it’s a generational split, i think generation x and y really do use web to point l as tools off attracting candidates as well as researching the backgrounds of candidates. I think baby boomers are a little reluctant to do so. I they’re at their peril. You think you think think they limit who they can their pool of candidates? I also think the approach to social media and privacy is very different for a baby boomer versus generation x and y and this is a hot issue legally let’s talk about it, what’s what’s up there. Well, i am pretty consistently talking to clients about what shared openly on the web and the implications to the organization on, and i find that for for most baby boomers there, they tend to be more conservative and again, i’m really generalizing and generation x and why the common is so what geever and it’s a quagmire and it’s yet to really be resolved, i have some employment attorneys that air saying, you know, we really need to be careful how we craft this because it’s not going away it’s goingto only grow in the future, but in terms of a tool and a viable tool to reach audiences. But do you really want to know how some of your employees spend their free time and what some of their alternative interests are? If it’s not aligned with the organization’s mission, you mentioned something earlier that i want to follow up on, and that was that you will occasionally invite candidates. You will go beyond the submissions that you get, i oftentimes we’ll start a search by not posting it. I will actually go on to and i use linked in a lot because i find that that to be a pretty professional tool that i can find out a lot about an applicant, i will go on lengthen, do some searches and ask people to join my network or tom about thie position, and then they can apply. And do you see others doing that you’re you’re doing that as a consultant. Do you see clients doing? That, on their own. Not again. I have smaller clients, so that’s our audience and one of the challenges they face is they have one person who wears five or six hats trying to recruit, you know, handle all of the hr handled a number of things. So when they have an immediate need for someone, they may not be having the time to do the research, andi, oftentimes they’ll ask me to help with that. I think they would benefit from it. I think that a number of people maybe can use some guidelines of of some shortcuts of how to do that that i’ve learned the hard way, but oftentimes i see the actual business line. Is we using corporate world or the individual hiring manager saying i found someone, i want you to meet them and let them through hr and which is ok, but i think hr lacks the supporting nature that they probably should have by by bringing in the candidates to the hiring manager. I’m tony martignetti my guest is karen bradunas human resource is consultant. Karen, would you share maybe one of those wanted to those shortcuts that you just mentioned? Sure, i i do sorts unlinked. In and i do google strings. There is an incredible recruiter whose classes are often free on the web. His name is shelly stuck role and i’m giving him a free plug. Can you spell his last name from s t e c k e r e l okay, andi, i think the organization he’s with his are baida r b i t a they also published things that help on he’s, viewed in the hr community as an incredible resource. He gives seminars on sure webinars and i think actually has done some sherm conferences. Sherm is the site of three mean society for human resource is management. It is lobbying bodies also. Ah, great resource for anyone who is has the hr function. They will do research for you if you need it. So it’s it’s a good organization you belong to. But shelly has some great ways of doing strings searches and using the internet for getting passive candidates as well as active candidates for a lot of not-for-profits it doesn’t make sense economically to join all the job boards it’s expensive to have their resume databases it’s also time consuming to develop your own resume database. Often for not-for-profits air looking for very specialized knowledge that may or may not be in the typical databases. So, um, doing searches and even business search is on specific documents. Published articles are great ways to get candidates excellent ideas. Thank you, let’s. Sort of follow the hiring chronology. Let’s, talk a little bit about interviewing, okay? Ah, i’ll just open it broadly. What? What ideas do you have? Based on what you’re seeing people doing about interviewing? I’m seeing more of a trend in this market of doing phone screenings first before in person interviews. I this was a number of months ago. The hiring turnaround has become longer. Typically for a secretary. You could turn that wreck around in about a week. Recruiting now, it’s about a month and this phone screening is at a practice you like, um, iphone screen. But again, i oftentimes will interview applicants in, like pennsylvania and it’s, just cheaper to do that. I do an hour phone interview. I don’t know anyone else. I approach recruiting, sort of like a retained in contingency approach, so i will have an hour’s worth of questions to ask someone and i will talk about how to handle this situation what? You know, what do you most proud of? Give me examples. So i’m doing a behavioral interview as well as going through the resume and getting, you know, data. So for small and midsize organization, they can really spend save a lot of time, i think, by doing the phone screening interview, even if it is a local candidate close. Yeah, i think so. And you don’t have to worry about scheduling and people traveling in and all of that, i do think it’s really critical what you ask in an interview, i’m really surprised when i go through files of of of interviews, it took place some of the questions that get asked because i think that the organization can really vet candidates much better had they asked a few more questions in the interview process, so okay, let’s, move past the phone screening interview, which you highly recommend to the live face-to-face what tips do you have there? Well, when in a live interview i’m looking for, you know, do they make eye contact? How do they answer my questions? Is there anything that looks to be that they’re uncomfortable with? And then i want to probe that further, so i’m doing a lot of body language at that point, i want to see how they interact with other people. I have done both group interviews and individual interviews. I’ve worked a lot with technical organizations, and although i’m not a night person, i’ve been fairly accurate a calling problems with employees out in the interview like you have a problem with this one he’s going to be late all the time, and you never problem with this one, they’re going to want to really be pushed in their career if you’re not prepared to do that, don’t hyre and have you been vindicated means there have been hires and then within six months or so, yes, you were, but i warned them and again, i think the challenge for me is an h r professional when i see this and i and i’ve learned over time to say i want to go on record as saying this, i then have to let go because it is the hiring managers role to take what they want as an employee because it’s their business, the ultimate decision is altum absolutely the interview what? About the dreaded group interview that from from the employees or from the interviewees perspective is the dreaded why might there be a need for for, ah, panel interview? Or is that a bad practice? I don’t think it’s a bad practice, i think it’s a bad practice if you’re having someone do in, you know, projects on their own and not going to be in a panel environment after hyre them, i think you want to replicate the environment that the person is going to be working in, and if you want to test how they interact with different work styles, i know some some employers say, you know, this person can get a little wild in an interview, so i’m going to be there to temper their questions or, you know, to make sure they’re okay with a candidate, but i think that you want to replicate his best, you can the environment to coming into it’s like training. People talk a lot about training classes and how they did really well in the training class, but they couldn’t bring it back to the workplace we’ll, of course, because the training class with this was a sterile environment. That there were rules there, the rules may be different in the work environment, but and it’s okay, toe evaluate the employee, how they might perform, even though you know that it’s already a pressure environment there feeling pressure because the interview situation so, yeah, i think that that’s really critical if you have someone that’s going to be giving proposals to senior senior people in donors, if you don’t test how they do well under pressure, i think you’re doing your organization into service and you may lose dollars dahna dollars because of that. So there’s an implicit value to doing this aside from evaluating the substance of their of their answers in their conversation that you’re seeing how they perform under pressure in front of a panel of things two or three people or maybe more people, right? Because that’s going to be part of their job responsibilities let’s get past the interview, you’ve made the hyre and i know there’s there’s a lot of law around the hiring, but i’m goingto i’m goingto skip that and i’d really like to spend a little time on training. You’ve got a brand new employee, it’s let’s say, it’s day. One what do we do in that first day? And maybe the first couple of weeks, i think most employers i talked to struggle with some better than others. How to onboard that’s, thie hr speak for onboarding employees, we have george in jail here onboard defined onboarding the employees, i’m bored not like waterboarding the important okay, but it can feel like that. But yes, lorts onboarding onboarding is really bringing an employee in and making them part of the culture so it can be all things from the paperwork to meeting other employees to feeling they know where they to go, to get what they need to get the job done to understanding what their role is in the organization. It’s really assimilation on, and i think that organisations typically could afford to spend a lot more time developing an orientation on boarding process. And i imagine there’s a lot of documentation that goes with this should be a written documents, right? What kinds of documentations, but even beyond that? Because you’re giving an employee of the legal requirement documents, you know, that setting up for payroll, giving an employee manual, all of that stuff, but there’s also you know, here’s, my team, this is what we dio let’s talk to this other team because we interact with him, let’s, meet with them let’s, you know, figure out how things work within the organization that people process it’s really difficult for organizations to get meaning time for new employees because everybody’s worried about getting there, job done and you hire people you don’t typically hyre five people on the same day. So it’s a really scheduling issue as well, but it is time well spent. Absolutely. It should be a sounds like it should be a priority that supervisors say this is important onboarding welcoming our new employee, you need to find the time for it. What? What if? What if we don’t? What are the implications of putting somebody in day one saying there’s, the there’s, the ladies room, here’s, your phone and computer let’s hit the ground running? Well, this this is typical of startups and i’ve done a lot of work with started i think you run the risk of a culture developing based on the the diversity of the group. If you have a set culture you want to maintain, which is our organization. Does this we value our people? This is what we respect. This is what we promote. This is what we reward. Then you have the basis for an orientation program. If you can’t articulate that, you’re gonna have trouble recruiting retaining a motivating. And i think that those air really but it’s, not the job description that gets you good people, it’s you knowing what your organization is and what you need for foreign employees based on what you don’t want for unemployed base and with a with a proper orientation, then it sounds like you’re point is everybody starts from the same base and you’re not subject to, as you said, the diversity of your employee pool. But everybody starts with same face of knowledge, base of knowledge and understanding of the organisation. It creates a transparency because you’re giving the same message to everyone. Let’s say that there’s one person in the organization that has the history, the organization if they happen to meet you and tell you that you now have insider knowledge that i might not have even though i started before you there is going that’s going to create attention there that doesn’t need to. Be there simply because i wasn’t there. It didn’t speak to this individual you mentioned motivating we have just a couple of minutes before the break. Let’s move to the next step. I think of sort of motivating and retaining your valued employees what? Just in the minute and half we have left before the break and give us little tease of ideas. Sure, i think a lot of people employees looked too benefits in salary to motivate, and i think that there are some other things that they should be looking at, especially in this marketplace name just a couple. Well, there’s um, some low cost, no cost rewards of training managers better that would help retain and motivate staff better management training. Absolutely people will feel that there they belong. They belong there. Value is recognized absolutely all the all the important things that go into teo hiring decision that you don’t want to lose a good value that you’ve hired by not motivating and retaining. Absolutely. And after this break, we’re going to talk more about motivating and retaining. I’m tony martignetti tony martignetti non-profit radio my guest is karen bradunas and she’ll be with us, please. Stay with us after this break. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. I’m tony martignetti, the aptly named host of the tony martignetti show. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. You’re non-profit is ignored because you’re smaller medium size. But you still need expertise and help with technology fund-raising compliance, finance and accounting will look at all of these areas on the tony martignetti show. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on talking alternative dot com fridays one, too. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Welcome back on tony martignetti before we continue our conversation with karen, i’d like teo talk a little bit about charitable gift annuities. This is sort of come to my onto my radar screen because some recent phone calls that i’ve gotten organizations interested in a charitable gift annuity program. Now this is a type of, ah planned gift where the donor who creates one earns income for life from their charitable gift annuity and at their death. What remains in the gift is a gift of cash to your organization in the midst of our recession, there are more and more donors interested in lifetime income, and this income, by the way, is fixed, guaranteed by all the assets of your organization, not just by what’s in their individual gift, but by all the assets of your organization. So in the midst of a recession, that’s appealing to a good number of donors and there are calls that i’ve been getting about starting a charitable gift annuity program, there are some things you should be aware of. Um, if you’re in new york state, if you’re a new york state charity, for instance, there is a hefty amount of money that you have to put into ah mandatory reserve fund it’s one hundred thousand dollars that reserve fund is required by the new york state insurance of department of new york state department of insurance. That department regulates charitable gift annuity programs in the state of new york and it’s, not too uncommon across the states. So really, regardless of where your non-profit is, there’s a lot of regulation, i say in seminars, obey pretty thick web of regulation around charitable gift annuities. You need to know what the requirements are in your state before you can inaugurate a charitable gift annuity program. It’s not like a lot of other planned gift that you can just start offering like charitable bequests. We’d like to have your bequest in in your will for our organization that you could do any time. Charitable gift annuities, very heavily regulated, and in a lot of states, you need to have prior approval, usually by an insurance department before you start offering these gif ts, you also want your board to be well acquainted with the potential of charitable gift annuities because there is a great long term potential, but also the potential risk. I mentioned that the payments are backed by all the assets of your organisation. That means that if the reserve fund where the gift money’s go should be badly managed or depleted, your organization is really still on the hook to make the annuity payments for your donor’s lifetime. And you have multiple donors in your gift annuity program. That’s payments for many donors lifetimes it’s a contract so you’re bored needs to understand that it’s going to be at risk if there should be mismanagement of the monies that are given into a charitable gift annuity program. The organization’s money is going to be potentially at risk to make these life time payments. That said, charitable gift annuities can be a really valuable gift not on ly for the money that they bring in the long term, but also the relationships that they build for your organization. You’ve got donors now if they enter your gift annuity program to make this type of a gift, who are counting on you most likely to support their and supplement their retirement there, other income during retirement and for the rest of their life that’s a pretty serious responsibility, but it brings the donor so close to your organization because now they’re counting on you for their for their income are part of their income for the rest of their life. That’s a serious obligation that you’ve taken on, and a serious commitment that the donor has made to you. They you know, they love you a lot. They trust you a lot if they’re going to make that kind of a commitment to you. And now you’ve got someone that close to you and you can perhaps encourage them to make gift in other ways. You certainly want to keep inviting them to events and keep them close to your organisation. But you’ve got really a friend for life if this all goes well, so there are advantages to charitable gift annuities, long term financial advantages, relationship building, financial relationship, building advantages. But there are also risks and obligations that you’re bored and your ceo need to be acquainted with before you delve into a charitable gift annuity program. My guest is karen bradunas human resources consultant. Karen what do we give people an idea? How first? How can they reach you if they’d like toe talk to you? How can people get in contact with you. Sure, i have a website, which is km bradunas dot com. Which people can can go to and send me an email? I also can be reached by phone to one, two, three, oh, four, nine, one, four, six and typically get back to people within forty eight hours. Very thoughtful of you to offer your telephone number. Thank you and karen’s. Last name is spelled b r, a, d, u and a s karen before the break, and before i waxed on about charitable gift annuities, we’re talking about motivating employees to help retain them. What what other ideas do you have? I’d like to step back a little bit and talk about exit interviews. We’re going to go from the end of why employees leave yeah, okay, because there are lessons to learn, i guess lessons to learn and we’ll talk about i talk a lot ah lot about this with clients because i think that this is a great tool that employers are missing out on it’s free and you get valuable data. Typically, i’ve given a lot of exit interviews in my twenty plus years in hr of usually, the first thing an employee will say is i’m getting better money and then i’ll talk fifteen minutes, twenty minutes and invariably by a half a knauer i hear that they never had a review, they never had a review on time their manager never talked to them. Those are all low no cost things an employee may leave because of money, but five or ten percent difference in pay if they’re able to meet expenses, doesn’t typically have someone looking elsewhere unless they’re unhappy where they are. He’s employees spend a lot of time recruiting and onboarding people it’s sad when they lose someone simply because of manager doesn’t take time to check in with an employee, how they’re doing, and this goes back to the management training that you mentioned before the break. How can we help managers be better? It’s, it’s, really top down, start with the ceo. I talk a lot to ceos, and i hear the comment well, i don’t really like managing, or i don’t like, really doing reviews, and i talk about these air ceos saying, i don’t like managing. Typically, they they, like a lot of ceo, is like to be strategic, but they need teo. Give some guidance, and if they can’t, give guidance to at least hyre someone where staff can go to to get that. I talk a lot about critical incident files with people because it’s a little daunting teo to review a year in one of the challenges when you only do yearly reviews is you remember the last three months, so what’s a critical incident file critical incident file is let’s say we could build a tv show around, i think there’s an c s critical cf cf show, for instance, a manager comes to you and says your employees did a great job on this project. You know, i just want to let you know it really went off. Well, you write that down positive, it’s positive, you save it in a file an employee keeps coming in late, you’re getting emails or you’re keeping those two that that was in this file and you’re talking to the employees as this happens, by the way, so and so gave you a compliment. It takes less than a minute to do that and the motivation for an employee to get that instant feedback buys you an awful lot, so there should be a critical incident file for every employee, right and and that’s used. When you do you review, you don’t have to think about what happened this past year, you open the file and it’s there, and we’ll get more than just the last three months writing a review. What else? Management, you know, may maybe mid level managers training them. Two motivate employees. What else can we do? I’d like to differentiate between supervising and managing because there are people that view them as the same. Managing really requires someone to understand communication styles. Other staff. It helped it’s important for them to understand the interests of their staff in what motivates them. Some people are motivated by money. Some people are motivated by your organization’s mission. Some people are motivated by public recognition. You know, i had an organization that they really were into. Cakes for employees, teo acknowledge birthdays and that with a home baked cakes or were they store bought? Okay, well, so all right, you know, but i know a number of organization that’s really important for you. And for me, that was like, well, what do you mean? But that was part of their culture. And although there’s indications that they would benefit from allowing staff to run with projects of their own choosing, they have a creative staff, and if you have a creative staff, why not create a budget that says we’re going to hold a contest? You’re going to come up with your pet project and let’s, hold a contest and let somebody run with a project. So there’s there’s some creative ways of doing things, and when you start to look at how you’re spending money in recognition and it doesn’t really serve the demographics of your organization, i think you can come up with low cost, no cost rewards, creative ways of managing employees without spending a lot of money? Absolutely. How about the ah, the very important performance review you’ve given us a great idea had a coalesce all the activities for the year through the critical incident file. What else about performance reviews? Are you learning in exit interviews that that these reviews are falling short two areas one they’re not given and to their surprises, performance reviews should not be a surprise they should summarize the year that means if you have an employee that’s having difficulty getting to work on time or performing up to standards, you need to be meaning with them at helping them. Succeed because every time that happens, there’s an entry that goes into the critical incident five and there’s a conversation also, well, one of the challenges for those who don’t keep critical incident files and have conversations is the review becomes a surprise. So this is the first time the employees hears about it a lot. A number of organizations also have a napro tch to performance management, which is, you know, the first time i’ll tell you about it. The second time i’ll write you up in the third time, it will be a final warning, and they often don’t talk about performance improvement. That sounds pretty ominous. Sounds like that sounds like a one way one way track out of the out of the organization. So as soon as your manager comes to talk to you think, ok, this is one of three i’m going to get in the last one’s gonna be i’m out of here. It really needs to be where the manager owns the apart in the process of an employee success. Oftentimes i have conversations with managers that, you know, managing an employee doesn’t mean you just get more money and you get to tell someone what to dio you’re responsible for their success and failure to you share in that and so it it revolves around hey, this is what i need to change and it’s challenging sometimes to train managers at what specifics behaviors they want to see changed because it’s not a belief system, you have control over its behaviors, you know, the time frame for that change and what tools and training maybe needed to have that change occur. And is that something that an employee’s should sign a document that that they’ve been sort of counseled in improvement? Yes, they actually get a copy of this document and they’re actually with this document hr is involved in monitoring that meetings are happening regularly. Yeah, it’s it’s a working document and this probably has legal implications, too, if if the if the performance doesn’t improve, which we’re going to talk about after the break but this is all sort of building that file. Yes. Also the non the not doing of things also has a legal compliance, which we should talk about the organization not not doing things that it ought to be doing. Absolutely okay in the performance review. Is this one of those instances where there need to be more than one person giving the review? Well? Well, actually, we want to use your phrase, which was performance improvement when these performance improvement meetings should there does. There need to be more than one person counseling the employees, typically, performance improvement plans. It’s at the beginning stages of hey, this isn’t really working out. We’ve talked a little bit about it, let’s, figure out a way to make we need a road map. If someone’s trained in hr and delivering this kind of thing, no, if they’re not, then i highly recommend that someone a professional be there. Oh, not just that there be two people, but that one being hr professional, we’re gonna take a break on. My guest is karen bradunas. She’ll certainly join us after the break. I hope you will, too, tony martignetti non-profit radio. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Oh! I really need to take better care of myself. If only i had someone to help me with my lifestyle. I feel like giving up. Is this you mind over matter, health and fitness can help. If you’re expecting an epiphany, chances are it’s not happening. Mind over matter, health and fitness could help you get back on track or start a new life and fitness. Join Joshua margolis, fitness expert at 2 one two, eight sixty five nine to nine xero. Or visit w w w died mind over matter in y si dot com. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call us ed to one, two, nine, six, four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one, two, nine, six, four, three five zero two. We make people happy. Print. Talking dot com. No. My guest is karen bradunas and we’re talking about your most important resource, your people. Karen. Before the break, we alluded to the legal implications of some of the performance review and performance improvement let’s go into that little further what what are some of these implications? Well, one of the challenges i find for a lot of employers is they don’t want to, or i have difficulty addressing concerns with an employee, and it gets it progresses over time to a point where they say this employee really isn’t fit for the organization anymore, and so to avoid having a difficult conversation, they they don’t do any reviews, they don’t have any any documented conversations, and there are really specific things you need to document in formats to document, and i really encourage anyone who is going through this process to really talk to a professional about it. Oftentimes managers want to handle it on their own. They really should work with someone in hr about what the wording is on a document what’s being spoken about in the conversation on you want to maintain respect for the employees, et cetera and and often times it’s very emotional, so the challenge is no review has given no conversations or documented, and then you want to terminate the employees or even better, the first year the employee was there, you gave them an excellent review and then no review since and now you want to terminate the employees? Yeah, i have had a number of conversations with employees about this and how to manage this, and it really is it’s stressful for them because they end up spending more time in the end of trying to transition and employees out. Had they done reviews regulating had conversations regularly, the process would have either turned around or because we want to be talking about employees improvement. Things could have gotten much better, absolutely, and and it’s unfair to the organization and to the employees and and i can’t stress enough how much this leaks out into the staff and affects all staff motivation because if they see an underperforming employees or disgruntled employees and nothing being done about it, it impacts your entire organization and wouldn’t the fellow employees rather see and a fellow employee improve, then be terminated? Absolutely talk about motivating, right, right, and they start inferring from your behavior toward that employee, how you’re going to treat them, and this is a huge issue that employers need to be aware of. Well, if you didn’t do this for jane, what do you going to do to me? How you going to tell me i’m not doing my job? Well, so it creates this fear that impacts, you know, motivation and productivity in an organization. So yeah, and it becomes really management by fear, even though the manager or the ceo may not he or she may not very well be a tyrant at all, but it’s still creating a culture of fear in the organization undercurrent. And then, you know, i i like to look for things like, well, what’s, absenteeism and what’s you know what, what people are out when and oftentimes in organizations that don’t address issues, often times you’ll see when a critical incident is happening someone’s leaving in and you don’t have a replacement and they need to have their were covered or there’s a project due. People are on vacation that are responsible for that, and i’m like, well, what’s going on here so there’s a lack of ownership and i don’t think it’s, because someone doesn’t want to own it, it’s, that they may be afraid of the failure in the implications of that all sort of leading back to good management practices, right? Absolutely and delivering i think an employee will respect you if you deliver the truth, even the hard truth, even the hard truth, because it’s much easier to hear it and talk about what said than to try and figure out what you’re thinking and the implications for not having these hard discussions. As we’ve said, you’re right, it’s huge, it’s, huge dahna then if you’re not talking to an employee, is it because i’m an older worker? Is it because i’m my race is different than most people in this organization? Is it because i know this person and you don’t like that person? All of this may or may not be true, but it’s unnecessary worry if you’re just having the straight conversation of this is the behavior that i need from you or this isn’t working out let’s figure it out what’s the source of some of the laws that we’ve been alluding to around around hr, we’re not the people unnecessarily going to read. The code, but we talk about hr laws. Where are these? Where do we find them? Well, for benefits, there’s, a risa department of labor has a number of laws. Jorgen jail, employment, retirement income, security act, or, for some of those in benefits. Is everything rotten invented since adam insider tips. Now you have insider hr tips. You would not have heard that it’s been around since nineteen seventy four, but it governs. A lot of it created the pbgc pension benefit guaranty corp. It creates a lot of the structure around how qualified plans are handled. There’s department of labor, there’s federal law there’s different laws depending on the size of your organization. What about state laws to state laws? Absolutely. So, really the hr professional needs to know federal law and state law, state law governing the organism where the organization is incorporated, i guess you know and located. So for instance, if you’re incorporated in new york, but you have a california office, you still have to follow california law. Yeah, which is it’s very important because you can be significant differences, karen, in just a minute or so that we have left, i’d like to end positively let’s talk about however you khun some up for us motivating, retaining, hiring, keeping the good people it’s because, that’s, what hr really wants to do? Right? I think it’s really an employer, knowing what they need on to the extent they can project for the future, what type of person they need in the skillsets to really recruit for that and be committed to making that happen through, you know, mentoring employees and then working out performance improvement plans when necessary and when the employees succeeds to remove them from the plan and have you know a great working organization i love focusing on the positive. The performance improvement planning performance improvement review. My guest has been karen bradunas karen’s, a human resources consultant. Her last name is bell b r a d, u and a s and you could reach her at karen at k m bradunas dot com that’s your email. I want to thank karen very much for joining us in the studio today. Karen. Thank you. Thank you. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. We have a facebook page, facebook, dot com slash tony martignetti non-profit radio you could go over there and, like us, the creative producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is claire meyerhoff, line producer and owner of talking alternative broadcasting. Sam liebowitz. Our social media is by regina walton, doesn’t outstanding job on our facebook page and everywhere throughout the web. You’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio on talking alternative broadcasting talking alternative dot com. Join us next friday at one p m eastern e-giving ding, ding, ding ding you’re listening to the talking alternate network to get you thinking. E-giving cubine. 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Schnoll hyre i really need to take better care of myself. If only i had someone to help me with my lifestyle. I feel like giving up. Is this you mind over matter, health and fitness can help. If you’re expecting an epiphany, chances are it’s not happening. Mind over matter, health and fitness could help you get back on track or start a new life and fitness. Join Joshua margolis, fitness expert at 2 one two eight six five nine two nine. Zero or visit w w w died. Mind over matter. Y si dot com. I’m tony martignetti, the aptly named host of the tony martignetti show. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. You’re non-profit is ignored because you’re smaller medium size. But you still need expertise and help with technology fund-raising compliance, finance and accounting will look at all of these areas on the tony martignetti show. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on talking alternative dot com fridays one, too. Told you.