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

This week’s HR News Roundup from around the web: March Madness begins, how does HR react? CVS Caremark makes an impact with the news that they will require employees to disclose their weight or pay more in health insurance…

March Madness Employee Productivity Problem Is Overstated, Yet Influences Corporate Change
The first round of the 2013 NCAA Tournament begins this week in Dayton, Ohio, which means that employers are officially beginning to tremble.  They are afraid that their employees will sacrifice production in favor of watching live-streaming college basketball games, prioritizing March Madness over their day-jobs.  Some employers take it for granted; the NCAA Tournament is compelling content, and if an employee has two computer monitors, there is a hope that work will be accomplished while occasional glances are made toward the second screen.

Do You Pay Employees to Exist or to Produce?
Last week I talked about treating your employees as experts at their jobs. I’ve found this is the best way to help a work force develop personal responsibility. The next step in the process of creating value is thinking about how you compensate your people. Many companies have individual bonus plans for their management teams. If these companies also have bonus plans for the rest of their work forces, they tend to be what I call pennies-from-heaven plans. In such plans, a bonus is given when the owner decides the company has had a good year and wants to spread some of the wealth.

Survey: Low-wage workers missing out on training
WASHINGTON (AP) — As they struggle to get ahead, many low-wage workers are not taking advantage of job training or educational programs that could help them make the leap to better-paying jobs. They are often skeptical about whether such programs are even worth the trouble, a new survey shows.

Report: CVS Caremark demands workers disclose weight, health info
Employees at one of the nation’s largest drugstore chains must disclose personal health information — including their weight — or pay a $600-a-year fine, according to a published report. CVS Caremark Corp. is requiring workers to reveal the information to their company’s insurance carrier or pay an extra $50 a month for health coverage, according to the Boston Herald.

4 Things You Can Do Right Now to Help Keep Your Best Employees
The first quarter of the calendar year is the best time to consider employee retention efforts. Everyone is back from their holiday vacations, and work is in full swing. Your employees have had a little time off, and during that time your best employees have been assessing their careers, work, health/family issues and planning ahead.

Why so many job interviewers are terrible
FORTUNE — What songs best describe your work ethic? How many cows are in Canada? A penguin walks through that door right now wearing a sombrero. What does he say and why is he here? Those queries come from the Top 25 Oddball Interview Questions for 2013, as compiled by the job hunters’ website Glassdoor. Allegedly, they’re all actual conversational gambits used by corporate interviewers. You may think such questions could produce useful insights. Or you might see them as off the wall. But are your interview questions any better?

3 Ways LinkedIn Profiles Affect Professional Perception
Social media, and specifically social networks, have become an enormous part of how we live our lives these days. It’s a lot more than just a simple way to stay in touch with friends and family; the boundaries of “what matters” online and “what matters” in the real world are merging. For example, I’ve noticed this with birthday recognitions. I know many people who’d prefer to have 300 people write “happy birthday” on their Facebook walls than to receive a phone call saying the same.

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.

Sage HRMS Webcast Schedule Learn all about human resources compliance in 2013 with this month’s must-see webcasts from Sage including, Work Opportunity Tax Credit, The Benefits of Compliance to HR Organizations: Identifying and Adopting Best Practices, The Data-Driven HR Organization: How to Achieve It and How to Benefit From It and The New Rules of Employee Engagement.

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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