Quality through Accountability
Human Resources
Fall 2015
Agenda
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Professionalism
Inter-departmental relationships
Work schedules
Attendance
FMLA
Disciplinary processes
Rowan’s Four Pillars
Setting the tone of quality through
Professionalism
• Think of the MOST professional person you
have ever worked with. What words or
actions would you use to describe that
individual?
• How did working with this person make you
feel?
• How did working with this person affect
productivity?
Characteristics of a Professional
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Competence
Reliability
Appearance
Demeanor
Communication
Accountability/Responsibility
Respect
Customer Service
What is the impact of unprofessional behavior?
Why does it matter?
• Impacts:
– An individual’s personal career
success
– success of organization
– relationships with coworkers
– working environment
Examples: Standards of
professionalism
• Take responsibility for your actions and mistakes
– Being able to admit fault builds trust
• Know your role and be clear on your responsibilities
• Don’t overcommit
• Act with honesty and integrity
• Know your strengths and limits/boundaries (and be ok with
admitting them)
• Stay away from office gossip
• Remove yourself from the personal business of others
• Keep ethics and confidentiality in mind
• Be aware of any negativity or drama you produce
How do you handle this situation?
• Debra has worked in the HR department for
the last 8 years. Recently the department
changed the process regarding how
completed new hire forms are collected from
new employees. She does not like the change
and has not taken the time to appropriately
learn the new process.
• When new hires call to get assistance with
their forms she provides them with the old
process and refers them to call someone else
in the department.
Quality through inter-departmental
relationships
• How often is your department’s outcome
dependent on the work of another
department?
How can we improve
interdepartmental relationships?
• We must understand what is preventing or
making it more difficult for us to do it in the
first place.
– Is it the fact of being physically separated from
one another?
– Maybe it’s conflicting views or work approaches
that’s leading some to feel more frustrated than
cooperative?
Make interdepartmental
communication easier
• Establish a procedure, a step-by-step
guideline that one can easily follow.
• Schedule quick monthly meetings with those
employees involved
• Celebrate accomplishments so that people
see the progress and feel more optimistic
• Find out what communication methods are
the preferred whether it be by phone, email,
or in-person.
Discuss the disadvantages of not having
effective interdepartmental
communication
• Sometimes, employees don’t recognize the
repercussions of not communicating and
underestimate the impact it might have on
the overall picture of a project.
• Enlighten them on how a lack of
communication here, or a fail to follow-up
there, can cause delays, accidents, customer
dissatisfaction
Ask your employees how they would
improve interdepartmental
communication
• Remember engagement?
Remember that with different departments
come different strengths
• Stop looking at another department and assuming
that their way of functioning, which is different from
yours, is the wrong way of functioning.
• There may be a difference in the way they think,
approach a situation, even in how they learn.
• Improving interdepartmental communication means
understanding other department’s day-to-day
realities, putting yourself in their shoes.
Think in terms of what others need,
not always what you need
• employees should ask not what information
other departments can provide to them, but
what information they can provide to other
departments.
Revisit the common goal
• Departments may vary in personalities,
strengths and ways of functioning, but if you
try to highlight what goals they have in
common, it can boost morale and improve
interdepartmental communication.
• This way, it’s not always about one work
method versus the other, but about the
greater good; the purpose of it all.
Inter-departmental scenario
• You are the manager of the administrative services
department. In order to move project X forward, it
is required that the leadership department signs off
to show approval.
• The form was sent to the leadership department one
week ago. The employee who is responsible to send
it back to your department is known to be untimely
with his response. Your office manager calls this
employee who tells her “I’ll get to it when I can”.
• How do you handle this situation?
Quality through Work Schedules
& Policies
Hours of Work
• Employees are expected to work the hours
agreed upon by the supervisor, in order to
cover the needs of the department, aka
operational effectiveness
• Examples:
– 8 am -4pm
– 8:30am-4:30 pm
– 9 am – 5 pm
Lunch Hour & Breaks
• If you require that employees work through
lunch, then yes, you can let them leave earlyhowever this should be the exception not the
norm.
• Breaks- they should take their breaks, cannot
use them to leave early unless you approve it
Attendance
• Glassboro and Camden
– When you notice that employees are getting close
to using 15 days of sick time, OR there is a
pattern in attendance, contact Labor Relations
Henry Oh 256-4320
– Letters of Counseling for Attendance
– Make sure you treat all employees fairly- look at
the whole department
SOM- Attendance
– For unionized employees, controlled by collective
bargaining agreements
– For most unions, currently these employees are
under the Attendance Control Policy (ACP)
– In any 12 month period, grace period for the first
5 unscheduled absences
– Once you exceed 5, you receive a formal letter of
counseling with further unscheduled absences
leading to disciplines per a formula
– Best practice- review timesheets every pay period,
as fairly and evenly as possible
– Contact Henry Oh is required for counseling and
discipline for attendance
Lunch Hour Scenario
• You are a new supervisor in a department.
One of your employees, Dan, who works
from 8:30-4:30, tells you that he has always
worked through his lunch hour and leaves at
3:30.
• Is this acceptable?
Family Medical Leave Act
• FMLA allows eligible employees of covered
employers to take job-protected, unpaid
leave, or to substitute appropriate earned or
accrued paid leave, for up to a total of 12
workweeks in a 12-month period for
qualifying FMLA reasons, or up to 26
workweeks in a single 12-month period for
military caregiver leave.
Who is Eligible for FMLA?
Only eligible employees are entitled to take FMLA
leave. An eligible employee is one who:
• Works for a covered employer;
• Has worked for the employer for at least 12
months;
• Has at least 1,250 hours of service for the
employer during the 12 month period immediately
preceding the leave*; and
• Works at a location where the employer has at
least 50 employees within 75 miles.
What benefits are eligible employees
entitled to?
• Twelve workweeks of leave (can be intermittent)
in a 12-month period for:
– the birth of a child and to care for the newborn child
within one year of birth;
– the placement with the employee of a child for
adoption or foster care and to care for the newly
placed child within one year of placement;
– to care for the employee’s spouse, child, or parent
who has a serious health condition;
– a serious health condition that makes the employee
unable to perform the essential functions of his or her
job;
FMLA Benefits, continued
• Situations arising out of the fact that the
employee’s spouse, son, daughter, or parent
is a covered military member on “covered
active duty;” or
• Twenty-six workweeks of leave during a
single 12-month period to care for a covered
service member with a serious injury or
illness if the eligible employee is the service
member’s spouse, son, daughter, parent, or
next of kin (military caregiver leave).
Critical Note about FMLA leave!
• PLEASE notify Human Resources as soon as
you have been notified that an employee is
going out on a leave.
• Also note that time should be recorded on
timesheets or Web Time Entry as FMLA.
Consult HR for more information.
Rowan’s process for FMLA
• Prior to going out on leave:
– The employee contacts Human Resources
– Employees are instructed to complete the request
for leave form
– The request for leave form goes to the
department for signature
• OR…
– If there was an emergency, the supervisor notifies
HR that the employee had an emergency then HR
contacts the employee
SOM- FMLA practices
• Same FMLA rules apply- protected leave up
to 12 weeks however:
– If the doctor extends the leave request with a
valid note, SOM will approve the leave up to 6
months of time
– Past practice- consistency
– However, the employee should note that after
FMLA leave is over, employees who are on unpaid
leave (have exhausted sick time)must pay the full
cost for benefits
Certification forms
• All medical certification forms are completed
by the treating physician.
• NOTE- the certification forms should be sent
from the employee DIRECTLY to HR. The
supervisor should have no involvement in
these forms.
Medical documentation
• Supervisors are copied on an email from HR
stating that the employee has been approved
for FMLA beginning x date.
• When the employee is cleared to return to
work by the Dr., HR then notifies the
supervisor letting he/she know when the
employee will return
Recommendation to employee
• HR will tell the employee to contact the
supervisor prior to their return so that they
can be put back into the work schedule.
What supervisors can and can’t say
related to FMLA
• If the employee calls- let them talk- don’t
ask questions regarding return date.
• Supervisors cannot call an employee directly
to ask for their return date- contact HR if
you have a question re: return date
• If the employee calls to say they are not
returning on the expected date, supervisors
can ask “do you have an estimated return
date and please contact HR to update your
status”
FMLA- best practices
• Once the supervisor is contacted by HR
regarding an employee’s dates of leave, if the
employee is still in the office, sit down with
the employee and ask what type of work
related open issues you should be aware of
to cover in their absence
FMLA scenario
• Jane is calling out often on Mondays and is
close to using all sick time. It is now
October. You meet with Henry Oh to begin a
letter of counseling for attendance.
• Prior to meeting with Jane to discuss the
letter of counseling, Jane submits a doctor’s
note that approves intermittent leave under
FMLA.
• What do you do?
Abuse of FMLA
• If you suspect that an employee is abusing
FMLA, contact Human Resources
• But be careful!
Quality through Disciplinary
Guidelines
Disciplinary guidelines for all employees
• Best practices relating to employee discipline and
feedback are applicable to employees of all types.
– Forms and specific processes may vary.
• Ground rules are the same:
– Supervisors set expectations; employees perform
assigned work and failure to perform such work may
result in feedback.
– Good supervisors will set the tone for the entire
department.
Note on Weingarten Rights
• Please keep in mind that upon request,
represented employees are entitled to have
present a union representative for any
meeting likely to lead to discipline or in any
other meeting or interview with management
wherein the employee reasonably believes
that discipline may result.
• It is therefore important to notify employees
of the reasons for planned meetings.
Disciplinary guidelines for represented employees (non
AFT)
– First step: Verbal discussion – provide employee with
notice of issue professionally and informally.
– Next: Written notice- e.g., email, noting the issue,
that there was a discussion, and a timeline to
complete task or change behavior
– Next: Letter of counseling- versions for attendance
and/or performance related behavior will be available
for guidance
• Contact Henry Oh in Labor Relations for guidance
Disciplinary Guidelines- AFT professionals
within probationary period
• Consider best practices of providing employee
with notice and an opportunity to correct
– However, take into consideration that probation is
truly the time to determine the appropriateness of
the fit of this employee.
– Have an informal conversation relating to the
concern.
– Document the concern in written correspondence
(email confirmation or memo to employee).
– If concern is not remedied, move to formal
discipline.
Disciplinary Guidelines- AFT professionals
within probationary period (continued)
– Formal discipline:
• Supervisor calls meeting with employee and
notifies employee of purpose of the meeting.
(Offers employee opportunity to bring union
representative, Bob Zazzali will also attend)
• Notify the union of the concern
• Following the meeting, a formal memo (after
review by HR) should go to the file, the union &
Bob Zazzali.
• If conduct persists, consult Bob Zazzali for
additional disciplinary guidance.
AFT Multi/Year Contracts
• Discharge rights limited by multiyear
contracts. Burden shifts to management
beyond probationary service.
• However, performance expectations are still
applicable.
– As such, please use same process for discipline
for Multi-Year contracts as outlined for
probationary employees.
SOM
• Generally, employee should first be warned in an informal verbal
discussion about the concern.
• Written notice- if the concern persists following the verbal
conversation, draft a notice relating to the concern and send it to
the employee.
• Staff counseling notice-if the issue does not remedy itself, and
additional action is necessary, a staff counseling notice will follow.
Draft a notice relating to the concern and send it to Henry Oh in
Labor Relations.
• If the issue continues, contact labor relations (Henry Oh 256-4320)
for formal disciplinary guidance.
SOM (continued)
• Once labor relations has been contacted, note that the
discipline process is guided by the union contracts.
• The disciplinary processed is determined by labor
relations and through consultation with the supervisor
involved.
• Note: the performance issue should not only be
documented through letters of counseling, disciplinary
actions, but also it needs to be consistently recorded in
the performance review document.
What is documentation?
• Documentation has many purposes in employee
management.
– Evaluation: regular review of performance. Ideally
involves objective evaluation of goal achievement and
periodic conversations.
– Performance Improvement Plan (PIP). Document
aimed at correcting concerns with overall performance
of duties.
– Written feedback: aimed at correcting problem
behaviors. Includes written counseling, warnings,
disciplinary actions. The more timely the better!
A note about formal documentation
• Beware of Email as your ONLY documentation.
– Problems include:
• Correspondence about an employee by other
employees or supervisors
• Correspondence to employees without clear
acknowledgment of receipt by employee or
correspondence that does not show the intention of
author (may show that issue has continued despite
informal feedback but true written feedback should
follow)
• Beware of Meeting notes/agendas
– Unacknowledged notes of conversations with employee
What Should You Document?
• Meetings relating to performance expectations
and outcomes
• All counseling and disciplinary meetings
– Check yourself for unconscious bias and consider
your listener. (how will those words be received by
the employee)
Good documentation
1. Timely (contemporaneous to events)
2. Time/Date
3. Employee Name
4. Employee Title
5. Name and title of the Author
6. Reason for meeting
7. Issue or conflict
8. Supervisor expectations
9. Employee expectations
10. Meeting outcomes
11. Discuss follow up (next meeting time etc…)
Let’s put it all together…
• John and Jill work in your department. They
have the same job title. John works very
hard, is incredibly conscientious, and always
completes his tasks on or ahead of schedule.
Jill has a poor attendance record, is often late
or requires reminders to get her work done.
Often she has a bad attitude when working
with others.
• What should you do to recognize both John
and Jill?
Agenda
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Professionalism
Inter-departmental relationships
Work schedules
Attendance
FMLA
Disciplinary processes