Roundup: This Week’s Popular HR News from Around the Web

This week’s HR News Roundup from around the web: How employers in Washington State saved over $66 million, big data is the new HR trend, how Twitter is influencing hiring and more…

 Sage Abra Suite Product Update
Sage Abra Suite Product Update dated April 8, 2013 is now available on the Sage Customer Portal. This update only applies to Sage Abra Suite versions 9.0x and 9.1x with Payroll. Customers who do not have the payroll module are not required to apply this update.

Washington businesses earned $66 million in WOTC tax credits
The state of Washington reports that employers in that state have received a record $66 million in work opportunity tax credits (WOTC) for the 2011 tax season. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit rewards employers who hire traditionally hard-to-place job seekers, including military veterans, the disabled, ex-inmates, food-stamp recipients and individuals who receive Supplemental Security Income. The tax credit can range from $2,400 to $9,600 for each eligible new hire.

Is Big Data the New Trend for HR?
Amid the many changes occurring in the HR industry, experts believe managers should focus on the volume of stored data to help with hiring needs and performance management.

Warning: Smoking Is Hazardous to Your Employment
Companies aren’t just singling out overweight employees. Staffers who smoke are under fire too. In small but growing numbers, employers in recent years have been refusing to hire smokers, arguing that coaxing tobacco users to quit with free cessation programs or cash incentives hasn’t worked. Some medical experts back the bans, saying the end result of reducing smoking is worth it.

Sage April Webcast Schedule
Learn all about human resources compliance in 2013 with this month’s must-see webcasts from Sage: Sage Time & Attendance Collect, Analyze, and Take Control of Employee Labor, The Benefits of Compliance to HR Organizations: Identifying and Adopting Best Practices, iRecruit Recruiting and Applicant Tracking, The Work Opportunity Tax Credit.

Your Least Engaged Employees Might Be Your Top Performers
This conclusion comes from new research by the consulting firm, Leadership IQ. The study “matched engagement survey and performance appraisal data for 207 organizations.” According to CEO Mark Murphy, “We had long suspected that high performers might not be as engaged as has traditionally been assumed. But seeing that, in 42% of cases, high performers were even less engaged than low performers was a bit of a shock.”

McDonald’s Tackles Repair of ‘Broken’ Service
McDonald’s Corp. (MCD), battling back from recent earnings disappointments, is putting unusual emphasis on a longtime challenge: getting its far-flung workforce to provide service with a smile. The fast-food giant, whose restaurant sales in the U.S. began to slip last year, is pushing franchisees to improve staffing and service amid mounting complaints about rude employees.

The New Résumé: It’s 140 Characters
Twitter is becoming the new job board. It is also becoming the new résumé. Fed up with traditional recruiting sites and floods of irrelevant résumés, some recruiters are turning to the social network to post jobs, hunt for candidates and research applicants. Job seekers, in turn, are trying to summarize their CVs in 140 characters or six-second videos.

iRecruit and Work Opportunity Tax Credits (WOTC)
Learn why there has never been a better time to take advantage of the Work Opportunity Tax Credits – WOTC, with our WOTC expert Brian Kelly.

iRecruit Webinar Dates  2013
Announcing the iRecruit webinar presentation schedule for February 2013. Learn how to take control of your applicant tracking process, and manage your applicants in a centralized, secure, cloud-based database. We have weekly webinar demos scheduled on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 2pm Eastern Time (US). Or contact us at 1-800-517-9099 to schedule a webinar at your convenience.

About CMS

CMS is a Sage HRMS Business Partner, providing Sage HRMS software solutions to the North East and beyond. CMS has been providing Sage HRMS (Human Resource Management Systems), Recruiting, Payroll, Benefits Enrollment, Training, Time and Attendance, Employee Self Service, and Work Opportunity Tax Credits solutions since 1997. Call CMS Today For a Free Assessment of Your HR & Payroll Software Needs at 1-800-517-9099

Looking for more? Check out last week’s Roundup: This Week’s Top HR Stories From Around The Web, or follow @cmsbrian on Twitter for regular updates.

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