“[shortened] the timeline for elections to occur and [limited] the issues that can be litigated before an election takes place as opposed to through a post-election challenge procedure.”

However, an appeal can be made and the rules could once more return. It’s a waiting-game now.

When writing about the PEO’s affect on an organization’s HR systems, Loftus states:

“Employees are undoubtedly a company’s most valuable resource and a competent PEO will include a team of experienced, trained and PHR or SPHR certified professionals readily available to proactively assist with its clients’ needs. A solid HR solution includes a targeted approach to a company’s culture through the development and management of resources aimed to build and inspire employees. The key is flexibility and efficiency for you, the owner, while mitigating exposure and risk with government compliance and changing regulatory compliance. A qualified PEO will provide proactive HR systems and produce measurable results.”

However, not all PEOs are created equal; some deliver high-touch and customized human resource strategy and others deliver efficiencies in payroll and benefits administration. Therefore you should find a local PEO that works for your organization. You should find one that is able to customize its service deliverables to fit the needs of your organization.

At the moment, there are a number of career opportunities available at Xenium.

HR Generalist / Business Partner
The HR Business Partner/HR Generalist provides account management and HR generalist support to multiple client accounts. Responsible for management and delivery of all Xenium HR products/services, including employee relations, new hire and termination process, benefits management, complaint investigations, compliance review and best practice recommendations, training development and delivery. Xenium has proven to be the right fit for Northwest-based employers who seek personal and progressive HR solutions. Xenium promotes a productive and collaborative team environment for all employees. We offer a dynamic culture with ongoing professional development. Learn more.

HR Representative (2)
The HR Representative assists a team of HR Business Partners in the coordination of various HR products and services delivered to multiple clients, including training coordination, employee handbook and job description development, compensation surveys, and leave tracking. This person will also assist in responding to technical HR questions from clients and employees. Learn more.

Part-time Onsite Human Resources Representative (3)
Some of the responsibilities include: responding to HR questions from managers and employees, new hire and termination process, new hire orientations, benefits management, personnel file maintenance, leave tracking etc. This position provides HR services to the client, with support as needed from the Xenium HR Business Partner. Learn more.

Temporary Payroll Specialist
The specialist will be able to process payroll for medium to large sized clients with an average count of 300 checks per week, with a book of business of approximately 25 – 35 clients. The employee will continually audit for accuracy, a mixture of pay codes with corresponding workers’ compensation codes, W-4’s and compliance with IRS compliance letters, vacation, sick and PTO accruals to correctly correspond with each client’s policy. Further, the payroll specialist will exercises a great deal of attention to detail in order to accurately prepare and process payrolls and more. Learn more.

For the main Careers page, click here.

“Employees Within Range
The best scenario is that your employees fall within range. When this happens, you still have a number of choices to make, but they tend to be among good options. Ideally, in a work culture that increasingly favors pay-for-performance options, your ongoing compensation management will account for both the market value of jobs and employee performance. What else does your company want to reward with its not-limitless compensation budget?

Employees Below the Range
When your employees fall below the range, or are what we call “green circled,” you have a number of options for managing their pay. Generally, green-circle employees are a challenge to manage because they have a high budgetary impact.”

The main takeaway from the blog post should be this: create a compensation policy that is fair and consistent and apply it to all in the organization.

Read the full blog post here.

• The Importance of Handbooks in Small Business
• The Role of HR in Small Business
• What’s in an Employee File?
• Creating the Perfect Job Post

And much more!

If you have a topic you would like us to talk about or have questions you would like answered, email us.

When it comes down to the most professional aspect of the text, Hsieh discusses the central role customer service plays in the progression of his business. In delivering happiness to the customer, Hsieh finds substantial success.

Early on, Hsieh had to change and improve Zappos in order to accomplish this deliverance of happiness. Some of these changes are much more tangible, such as picking the right location and method of shipping product so the customer receives it as soon as possible. Other changes, however, are much more ethereal and revolve around what many would view as a peculiar culture found within the Zappos office.

Zappos was very progressive for its time in its development of an uncommon, over-the-top fun, friendly, and yet still incredibly productive office atmosphere. The culture is so progressive that Hsieh is often invited to speak about the nature of the Zappos office and he even encourages and permits tours of the Zappos headquarters located in Las Vegas, of all places. Hsieh writes that Zappos’s “Culture Book is available to the general public” and that it “always blows [his] mind—people are asking to read the Culture Book of someone else’s company. When’s the last time you’ve heard of anyone requesting to read [an] … employee handbook (outside of … someone in HR)?”

Similar startups emulate the design, and Delivering Happiness can act as a guide to developing an office culture which makes “work” fun and rewarding for everyone.

However, the founders and employees within young, hip startups are often not aware of a number of laws and regulations which work to protect the employee and employer. The nature of a growing, fun startup encountering the sensitive nature of human resources can be extremely thorny.

One of the more controversial bits in the book is found when Hsieh describes what originally set him and his co-workers to develop their idea of culture. He writes that “to keep our culture strong, we wanted to make sure that we only hired people who we would also enjoy hanging out with outside the office. As it turned out, many of the best ideas came about while having drinks at a local bar.” Ignoring the fact that a lot of their “best ideas came about … at a local bar,” there is something concerning about the statement that a company should only hire people they want to hang out with outside of work.

Hsieh is able to reconcile such a desire in a very thorough Culture Book. The book works to describe the nature of the company and how one should act in the office as an employee of Zappos. But this desire for making work fun that one may forget that business should still be business. A code of conduct desiring its employees to “create fun,” have “a little weirdness,” “be adventurous, creative, and open-minded,” and so on treads a fine line between what is and is not appropriate in the business place.

A recent example of an employee having too much fun can be found if one looks at the recent controversy stirred by Matt Van Horn, VP of Business Development at Path. Van Horn gave a presentation at South by Southwest Interactive festival in March entitled “Adding Value as a Non-Technical No Talent Ass-Clown.”

The title alone of the presentation really should start to send shivers down the backs of the management of HR at Path. Unfortunately, his attitude and word-choice during the presentation were far from professional and would surely violate all sorts of conventional business handbook rules. During the presentation, Van Horn noted that when he originally applied to Digg, a social news website, he sent pictures of attractive then-fellow classmates at the University of Arizona in swimsuits. He made a number of sexual and other inappropriate remarks as well.

Van Horn’s attitude is a product of the young, trendy startups. Tech startups particularly in the Valley tend to be pretty casual and risky in their office behavior, an attitude exemplified by Hsieh and his in-office and out-of-office antics. Hsieh would drink a lot with his co-workers. He would also hold massive parties in which his co-workers would attend. He writes that “several hundred people showed up for my New Year’s party. There was a line from the elevator to the entrance of the loft” in one particular incident covered in the book, the fire department was called to his penthouse apartment because of an over-ambitious fog machine at 3:00 AM.

As a business leader or representative of human resources, there should always be a line drawn somewhere so that people can have fun but also avoid inappropriate behavior. Hsieh created a fantastic culture and one that fosters success for his business, but that success has only been made possible from the positive aspects of culture which deliver happiness.

This commentary was written by Mathew Simonton of Xenium HR.

A poor job post results in missed talent. This is especially true when looking for a new employee to take over a leadership position within your company. Someone with years of experience is going to miss a poorly titled or disorganized ad. Any lack of necessary information will discourage potential applicants.

Below are some points to consider while crafting a job post:

Title

-Research those who would be interested in the position. If you are looking for someone entry-level to primarily manage your social media accounts, use words that will catch their attention. In this instance, you wouldn’t want to use “Online Marketing Specialist.” Rather, you could use “Entry-level Social Media position” as your title.

-You can be creative with your title too. Too much creativity can make the post sound ridiculous and reflects poorly on the company. This can be especially harmful if you are looking to fill a manager or executive position within the company.  For example, “Do you tweet as much as a bird?” is a title that is not only unprofessional but the potential applicant has no idea what the post will contain. “Social Media Manager – Tweet, tweet!” grabs the attention and at the same time features the job position in the title. Someone looking for a position dealing with social media will be interested in such a title and will be more likely to click it.

Content

-Job requirements should be very clear. Make sure the job duties and responsibilities are easily understood; perhaps by separating them in list-form. Describing either of these sections in paragraph-form can become daunting and the applicant may misread or skip over pieces of information which would disqualify them from the job. This not only wastes their time but it wastes that of the HR representative looking over the applications.

-Don’t overdo it on the requirements and job duties/responsibilities. Neither should have more than about 10.

-Provide a brief description of the company and its culture. This will increase the likelihood of compatibility the applicant will find once he or she is part of your business.

-Specify how you wish to be contacted and do so at the bottom of your post. Do you have an online application set up on your website? Provide a link to it. Would you like to be emailed through the Craigslist-covered email (this helps prevent spam), then indicate so at the bottom of the post.

-Look over your ad before posting. Run the final text through Microsoft Word. Use spell-check. This is especially important if you are looking for applicants with years of experience.

Formatting

-You don’t need to be a coding whiz to spice up your job posts and make them look more professional. Simple HTML tags such as <strong> can be used to make things appear much more organized and structured.

-Feature images and format your post so it’s easier for potential candidates to. Your company has a logo, so go ahead and use it at the top or bottom of your post. This is especially effective on Craigslist, which does allow the use of embedding images. Craigslist posts with images will identify themselves as such on the Craigslist search results. These posts will immediately stand out to the job-seeker among other results.

For more information on job posting, human resource consulting or employer programs, contact Xenium HR at 503-612-1555 or visit www.xeniumhr.com. It is intended as information only and is not a substitute for legal advice. Xenium HR is a professional employer organization specializing in strategic HR partnership with small and mid-sized businesses in Portland, Oregon.

Professionals will experience practical tools that can be effectively applied to actually increase emotional intelligence, a key to leadership effectiveness.

Clients of Xenium can attend for $25 and guests of Xenium may attend for $50. Registration is open online at http://applying-eq-to-survive.eventbrite.com/.

“employers do have the benefit of the agency’s suggested ‘best practices’ which include:

• Eliminating overbroad policies that exclude individuals from employment based on any criminal record;
• Tailoring policies for screening applicants to identify the requirements of the job and determine specific offenses that may demonstrate unfitness for such jobs;
• Limit inquiries to criminal records for which exclusions are job related and consistent with business necessity;
• Train managers and hiring professionals on the new tailored policies and Title VII discrimination.”

You can find the entire article here.