HRLori

Adding yet another perk to its employees, Google is now providing the services of TaskRabbit which employs “runners” to perform tasks such as cleaning, cooking and general errands for its employees, at least according to Valleywag.

From the TaskRabbit site, users can:

1 – Post a Task! When you post a Task, you’ll describe it, indicate when it needs to be done & set the price you are willing to pay.

2 – Like magic, you’ll hear from a Runner who wants to help. They will bid on your job with a price they believe is appropriate.

3 – Your Runner does your task! If your runner pays for anything while doing your task (like groceries they pick up for you), you can reimburse them through our site.

4 – Once your task is complete & pay your Runner online, and then rate & review them to indicate your level of satisfaction.

It’s actually a fabulous idea. Everyone needs someone else to do things for them.

All of these things: free meals, on-campus dry cleaning, dental, childcare, massage, $1000 holiday bonuses and guaranteed 10% increases and now someone to take out the trash are all wonderful employee perks, no doubt. But it also seems that Google doesn’t want its employees to have to leave the premises. Ever. It’s an iron fist encased in a velvet glove. On the surface it all seems so wonderful, but underneath is hard, cold business. Every employer wants to make sure that they can get the full return on investment (ROI) from employees and employees, but sometimes Google goes a little too far over the line.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t particularly love picking up the dry cleaning or mopping the floor (and would love to give employees 10% raises across the board). But I don’t necessarily want my whole world handed to me by my employer either in order to keep me from going home at night.

My kitties would miss me too much.

From (where else?) The Oatmeal.

Coming perilously close to breaking Ohio law, a McDonald’s franchise in Canton thought it appropriate to include with paychecks a memo that strongly hinted at the fact that raises and benefits wouldn’t continue if employees didn’t vote for certain (Republican) candidates.

Note that the letter states, “if the right people are elected we will be able to continue with raises and benefits at or above our present levels. If others are elected we will not.” In other words, vote Republican and you’ll get your raises. Vote Democrat and you won’t.

From ThinkProgress:

Not to mention that Kasich, Portman, and Renacci all oppose the health care reform law, a law that ensures employees like those at McDonald’s can afford health coverage and provides companies like McDonald’s with “significant flexibility to maintain coverage for workers.” And should these three adopt the Republican view of the minimum wage, the only happy face at the this McDonald’s will be the employer’s.

Perhaps realizing the error of his ways, the Franchise owner, Paul Siegfried of Siegfried Industries, apologized for distributing the memo. He did not, however, apologize for the content of the memo.

“As an independent business owner, my employees are a top priority for me. I work hard to create a positive restaurant environment for everyone. I greatly value my employees and the contributions they make to my business, each and every day.

Without a doubt it’s my employees’ right and his or her choice, if they decide to vote, and if so, for whom. I strive to comply with all laws, including state and federal election laws.

Distributing this communication was an error of judgment on my part. Please know, it was never my intention to offend anyone. For those that I have offended, I sincerely apologize.”

This less than adequate apology may not assuage the situation, as Adam Serwer from The American Prospect, notes:

Siegfried’s problems may be bigger than Ohio, however. Gerald Hebert, a former Acting Chief of the Voting Section of the Justice Department now with the Campaign Legal Center, said that it’s possible Siegfried’s actions may violate federal law.

Perhaps Mr. Siegfried should have heeded the wisdom of Burger King when they said, “Have it Your Way“, because we’re certainly not lovin’ it.

UPDATE: It looks like there could be more workplace voting issues ahead. Sharon Angle has filed charges with the US Justice Department accusing Harry Reid’s campaign with voter intimidation:

The complaint is based on an article, which appeared Tuesday morning in National Review, that alleged Reid’s campaign worked with sympathetic executives to put pressure on union casino employees to vote.

Supervisors were instructed to track down employees who hadn’t voted and find out why, according to e-mails obtained by reporter and conservative blogger Elizabeth Crum.

Of course, Reid’s campaign denies any such violations.

Reid’s campaign said the e-mails show no malfeasance, pointing out that Crum told Fox News she didn’t think “anything either illegal or unethical was done here.”

“This ‘report’ by a right-wing blogger who’s literally been embedded within the Angle campaign has no credibility on its face,” said Reid campaign spokesman Kelly Steele. “That being said, given Sen. Reid’s work to strengthen the state’s top industry, it should come as no surprise that casino employees support his reelection.”

I’m sure there’s more to come. Meanwhile, you can take a look at the email thread and judge for yourself.

This is one of those lemons to lemonade stories.

This week, Digg terminated 37% of their workforce. Now Joe Stump, Digg’s former Lead Architect, is helping the RIF’d staff find employment.

There are a number of other examples of the community reaching out to these employees as well.

Humanity combined with the reach of technology.

I’m impressed.

So much has been written about Juan Williams and NPR, ad nauseum, but in coming across this post on Mediaite, I couldn’t help but wonder about the apology made by NPR’s CEO, Vivian Schiller, to NPR’s program partners.

Dear Program Colleagues,

I want to apologize for not doing a better job of handling the termination of our relationship with news analyst Juan Williams. While we stand firmly behind that decision, I regret that we did not take the time to prepare our program partners and provide you with the tools to cope with the fallout from this episode. I know you all felt the reverberations and are on the front lines every day responding to your listeners and talking to the public

This was a decision of principle, made to protect NPR’s integrity and values as a news organization. Juan Williams’ comments on Fox News last Monday were the latest in a series of deeply troubling incidents over several years. In each of those instances, he was contacted and the incident was discussed with him. He was explicitly and repeatedly asked to respect NPR’s standards and to avoid expressing strong personal opinions on controversial subjects in public settings, as that is inconsistent with his role as an NPR news analyst. After this latest incident, we felt compelled to act. I acknowledge that reasonable people can disagree about timing: whether NPR should have ended its relationship with Juan Williams earlier, on the occasion of other incidents; or whether this final episode warranted immediate termination of his contract.

In any event, the process that followed the decision was unfortunate – including not meeting with Juan Williams in person – and I take full responsibility for that. We have already begun a thorough review of all aspects of our performance in this instance, a process that will continue in the coming days and weeks. We will also review and re-articulate our written ethics guidelines to make them as clear and relevant as possible for our acquired show partners, our staff, Member stations and the public.

The news and media world is changing swiftly and radically; traditional standards and practices are under siege. This requires us to redouble our attention to how we interpret and live up to our values and standards. We are confident that NPR’s integrity and dedication to the highest values in journalism and our commitment to serving as a national forum for the respectful discussion of diverse ideas will continue to earn the support of a growing audience.

I stand by my decision to end NPR’s relationship with Juan Williams, but deeply regret the way I handled and explained it. You have my pledge that the NPR team and I will reflect on all aspects of our actions, and strive to improve them in the future.

What troubles me (other than the politics of the situation), is the national airing of an employee’s poor performance.

An employee’s record is not a public record but rather a confidential agreement between employee and employer. By announcing that Mr. Williams should have been terminated earlier, Ms. Schiller broke that agreement and has now set an unintentional precedent for all NPR employees: “Say something stupid on air and we’ll make sure everyone knows about your performance.”

While I don’t think Ms. Schiller is a Communist (not that it would bother me if she were), nor do I necessarily think that NPR was wrong in terminating Mr. Williams, I do think that she could have handled the situation in a more professional manner.

Overheard today: a TSA agent yelling across the room to another “I don’t trust anyone as far as I can throw a dead person body”. He said this in front of a number of passengers waiting on line to go through the security checkpoint.

Overheard on another day: a manager at a retail store reaming out an employee for being late for her shift in front of customers.

Overheard yet another day: an employee bitching to another employee about how bad his job is and that he’d just like to go home and smoke up.

See anything wrong with any of the above?

While the workplace has become more casual than it has been in the past, some things are just not appropriate. As a consumer, I don’t want to hear employees’ problems aired in front of me. It’s not of my business and frankly, it makes me question if I ever want to return to that place of business (excluding the TSA – no choice there).

Outbursts like these need to be brought to the attention of managers and managers need to deal with it appropriately. If it’s the manager who is acting inappropriately, then it needs to go up the chain until the issue is resolved. It’s not fair to subject customers to how much someone hates their job, how poorly an employee is performing or even how much disdain employees have for humankind.

And I’m not afraid to let management know about such gaffes:

Then again, I’m always there to give a well-deserved compliment for outstanding service.

It’s easy to understand that, in a poor economy, why employees are frustrated. Lack of finances, job freezes, etc. can leave any employee feeling helpless, but that is no excuse for poor customer service. And managers need to mitigate the “lucky you have a job” mentality and set the example for what customer service should be.

Otherwise, they’ll be hearing from someone like me.

Making the Most of Unemployment by Todd Levin and Jennifer Daniel is a wonderfully honest look at a day in the life of the unemployed.

And it SO applies (particularly the “watch cats sleep” part).

A larger version can be found at Funny or Die.

[via Laughing Squid]

It seems the staff of BuzzFeed got collectively drunk at work today. And broadcasted the event over U-Stream.

Ummm…I suppose I should caution about getting drunk at work, the risk of sexual harassment and injury, but a part of me really, really loves this.

(Yes, the HR hat does actually come off sometimes.)

Thanks Scott for sending this my way.

This article was sent to me today.

I must say, it was a very pleasant surprise to find out that Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, not only values HR, but believes that HR is essential to building a company.

Q. What is your advice to an entrepreneur who asks you: “I’m just starting a company. How do I create a culture?”

A. I would say that everything matters — everything. You are imprinting decisions, values and memories onto an organization. In a sense, you’re building a house, and you can’t add stories onto a house until you have built the kind of foundation that will support them. I think many start-ups make mistakes because they are focusing on things that are farther ahead, and they haven’t done the work that has built the foundation to support it.

People ask me what’s the most important function when you’re starting an organization or setting up the kind of culture and values that are going to endure.

The discipline I believe so strongly in is H.R., and it’s the last discipline that gets funded. Marketing, manufacturing — all these things are important. But more often than not, the head of H.R. does not have a seat at the table. Big mistake.

Say what you want about Starbucks, but it’s very nice to know that the CEO of such a successful company holds HR in such high esteem. Knowing this, I would work for Mr. Schultz without a second thought.

Big thanks to George Kelly for sending this my way!

It looks like Michael Steele, the head of the Republican National Committee isn’t clear as to what the Federal Minimum Wage actually pays.

To be fair, minimum wage can be a little confusing, especially since every state has their own minimum wage standards. Additionally, some cities/counties have Living Wage Ordinances. It can be difficult to keep track of which standard is right for the organization.

However, one would think that Mr. Steele, being the top Republican, would have known the answer ($7.25 per hour), especially since at least one of his party wants to abolish it.

“We aren’t going there to play ball, we’re going to make sure things get done,” Miller said in wide-ranging interview with Politico’s Mike Allen and me over lunch at the Capitol Hill restaurant, We The Pizza. Miller wants to roll back the power and size of the federal government to a degree not seen for 70 years or more.

We asked him, for example, if there should be a federally mandated minimum wage, something that has existed since Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938.

“That is clearly up to the states,” Miller said. “The state of Alaska has a minimum wage which is higher than the federal level because our state leaders have made that determination. The minimum level again should be the state’s decision.”

So there should not be a federal minimum wage?

“There should not be,” Miller answered. “That is not within the scope of the powers that are given to the federal government.”

Well, I hope after the interview, Mr. Steele jfGi‘d it. I’m sure he’s going to need this information sooner or later.

[via msnbc.com]