They Don’t Just Hire and Fire
HR Managers Guide Businesses on Rules, Policies, Compensation

 by Heidi Henken

 

They’re part manager, part counselor, part recruiter, part trainer and part legal compliance expert, plus benefits and compensation jugglers. Managing human resources for today’s business is a complex, sometimes daunting job, but somebody has to do it.

Maybe in the beginning a human resource manager’s job used to be just simply hiring and firing employees, but not these days. Now, with increasing numbers of issues employers and employees face in the workplace, the role of human resources director is “getting broader and broader,” according to Kara Turner, owner of Turner HR Services, a human-resource consulting firm based in Lynden.

Issues cover everything from finding affordable, cost-effective health care, implementing the new state ergonomics rule, dealing with sexual harassment and violence in the workplace and writing policies and procedures, Turner says.

Not that finding and hiring good employees isn’t a major part of the job. And once a business does find good employees, it’s keeping those employees happy, so they’ll stay. That’s a biggie for many local businesses, according to Turner and two Bellingham colleagues in the field, Louise Boone and Jack McCallum. Boone is corporate human resources and safety manager for Smith Gardens. McCallum is human resources manager for Current Industries.

Boone is also president of the Mt. Baker Chapter of the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM). Turner is president-elect — a vice-president equivalent position — of SHRM and McCallum is the chapter’s vice president of communications and public relations. SHRM’s chapter treasurer is Diane Shelton, vice president of human resources for Peoples Bank.

Even in a local market where there are lots of people looking for work, McCallum notes that in her sector it’s been difficult to find strong applicants who have the right qualifications for jobs they have open. Current Industries is an electrical manufacturing subcontractor.

“We (advertise) and we get inundated with applications,” says McCallum. While some of those applicants have skills that may resemble the job’s qualifications, others have no applicable skills.

“Finding qualified applicants, even in today’s market, is hard, across the board,” she notes. Either “applicants aren’t the level we had requested in our advertisements” or they “come in and seem to think they’re going to get a whole lot of money for the limited skills that they have,” McCallum states.

“Employers aren’t able to pay the wages that were once possible,” she adds, “because the economy has not turned around here in Whatcom County.”

Smith Gardens is a horticultural business with its headquarters in Bellingham and branches in Marysville, Aurora, Ore., and Watsonville, Calif. The company has somewhat different needs for workers because so much of its employment is seasonal, according to Boone. She agrees with McCallum that even with a lot of applicants, it has been hard to find good people to fill the positions they have open. Companywide, its workforce swells from a core employee group of approximately 160 most of the year, up to around 650 employees during its busy season, March through June.

Value-added employment is important for Smith Gardens’ employee group. They have “a high skill set they can take anywhere,” notes Boone, so “if you can’t give them some value for being in your organization, they move on.” One of her challenges, she says, is helping the principals of her company, who have to focus on “the bottom line” and the economic survival of the business in today’s economy, understand what is needed in today’s market to find and keep good employees.

The employees, she says, “have to feel they’re making a difference where they are. People who are highly skilled — that you really want — they have even more choices.” So, Boone remarks, the employer has to have “something that you can hold out to them to motivate them to stay with their organization.”

This can be difficult, she explains, with seasonal employees, most of whom start at minimum wage, and in jobs that require very hard, physical work involving a lot of lifting. Many employees leave because they feel the work is too hard, she says, adding, “I think a lot of the HR role is just to find different ways to motivate the employees.”

If keeping up with federal and state regulations for a Washington-based business is complex, it becomes even more so when a company has workers in other locations. Smith Gardens employs workers in five different states — Washington, Oregon and California, where their facilities are, and in Idaho and Nevada as well — so another major challenge for Boone is making sure the company complies with regulations in different states.

The agriculture industry has varied rules for overtime, Boone notes, and states have different overtime regulations, with multiple categories within them. When those mesh together with the federal rules, “I often wish I had a law degree,” she says, adding that she spends considerable time talking with attorneys in those states to make sure the company is doing what it should, where it should.

 

Local resource

Fortunately for human resources managers, there’s SHRM, which offers extensive resources to its members. Along with monthly local luncheons featuring speakers on current HR topics, SHRM has a Web site, www.shrm.org, which is “full of current information,” says Shelton. The information ranges from guidance in rewriting Family Medical Leave Act policy to forums where human resource managers can pose questions to other colleagues in the field.

Examples of questions she can ask colleagues at similar banking businesses across the country might be “how to deal with someone who just can’t abide by a dress standard,” or “how to deal with someone who is tardy to work, but does good work when they’re there,” Shelton explains.

The Mt. Baker SHRM chapter has 109 members, some of whom are full-time human resource managers, and other for whom HR is part of a larger job description. It’s open to “anyone who has anything to do with human resource management in their company,” says Shelton. There is also a student chapter of SHRM at Western Washington University which the Mt. Baker chapter mentors.

As the field of human resources has expanded in scope, certification in the field has become more desirable. SHRM offers a Professional in Human Resources (PHR) certification that requires passing a difficult exam. Regionally, the test is given twice a year in Seattle.

While there are no specific college or SHRM course requirements that must be completed for test eligibility, some chapters may have study group-type classes. Others may prep for the exam by attending classes like the ones taught at Bellingham Technical College (BTC) by two local SHRM members.

Although a PHR hasn’t yet become an industrywide job requirement, more and more employers are seeking it in human resource candidates, SHRM members note, adding that they’re seeing it listed increasingly often in human resource job advertisements.

 

Management tips

So, what are some HR tips the professionals give? In terms of the job interview, stick to business. “Make sure when you’re hiring that you ask job-related questions,” says Turner, one of the SHRM members who teaches at BTC. Avoid questions of a discriminatory nature and “give a realistic picture of what the job is like, so that you don’t mislead people into thinking it’s a different job than what they thought it was,” she explains. Also, make sure to “clearly communicate what the expectations of a position are, and what the pay would be,” Turner adds.

One of the most common mistakes by employers in hiring is made by those who “don’t take the time to do a full interview,” she remarks. Employers who are “in a hurry to hire” end up without a good job match, which results in job turnover.

In terms of job references, a good guideline is to withhold “extraneous, personal information,” Turner says. For references, previous and prospective employers should get a signed release from the employee that releases both from liability in asking for or giving information, she notes.

With employee management, Turner asks herself a question: “Does the discipline fit the violation of policy?” She tells employers, “Ask yourself: Is there a policy and, if there is, does the employee know about it and, if they do know about it, then at what level is the discipline appropriate?”

With respect to termination, Boone says it’s important to talk with employees about the problems and try to solve them first, document those efforts and follow up within a reasonable time frame. “A lot of time you’ll find the employee will stay,” when the employer goes through this process, she notes. Boone says she uses a process that involves counseling an employee three times before any termination action is taken.

Performance reviews are also helpful in warding off termination problems, McCallum says. “The way the Fair Labor Standards Act is set up, the first thing outside counsel looks for is a performance review.” Annual reviews should evaluate a person’s performance and “have goals attached,” which can be used as a tool for employee development. Performance reviews are “necessary,” McCallum says, “and, if they’re done appropriately, they can be extremely successful.”