The people have spoken. And, as you might have guessed, the worst HR moment in The Office occurred when Michael handed out the Kama Sutra to all employees during a staff meeting.
On a related note, I’m encouraged to hear that the writers guild and the studios have reached a tentative agreement. With any luck, we’ll have a new episode soon. Keep your fingers crossed.
Continuing in the spirit of the awards season, my next category is “Most Ineffective HR Moment.” And the nominees are:
You know the drill. Let me know who you think should win the award, and I’ll post it early next week.
I don’t usually pass along pop-culture links, but this one was too good to be true. On Tuesday of this week, TMZ reported that Steve Carell was selected for jury duty in an employment-related dispute in California! Well, at least he had some experience with litigation earlier this season….
The Academy has voted and the winner is…….Oscar. Stay tuned. We have more awards to come.
The Golden Globes were canceled, and it isn’t looking so good for the Oscars. So, in the spirit of the awards season, I have decided to give out a few awards of my own. And I’d like to invite all of you to be the Academy. My first category is “Best Plaintiff in an Employment-Based Lawsuit,” which honors the Dunder Mifflin employee who has been most egregiously wronged by the Company. And the nominees are:
Kevin: Kevin is nominated for his experience in having to admit that he has anal fissures in a room of his coworkers during Season Two’s “Health Care.”
Oscar: Oscar is nominated for having been mocked and ridiculed for his sexual orientation and then, upon his return from stress leave, having a “welcome back” party with a theme based solely on his Mexican-American heritage.
Kelly: Kelly is nominated for having her heritage mocked by Michael during diversity training and again in a meeting called to specifically discuss her religious beliefs. Kelly’s claim will be especially strong in light of Michael’s decision to mock the diversity training program and sign his acknowledgment of the training with the pseudonym “Daffy Duck.”
Phyllis: Phyllis is nominated for having been groped and forced to listen to sexually inappropriate comments by Michael and his cohort, Bob Packer, in Season Two’s “Sexual Harassment.” Phyllis’ performance as a plaintiff especially is bolstered by Michael’s announcement that he is afraid of getting a “boner” while forcibly hugging her.
I look forward to hearing from you as the members of the Academy. I’ll be selecting the winner soon – so check back mid-next week.
Well, David Letterman reached an agreement with the writers, and they are coming back to work. For him. No such luck for those of us who are anxiously awaiting the return of our favorite show. Nevertheless, the labor dispute is continuing to teach us valuable lessons. Like why companies should avoid this mess in the first place.
Here is a newsflash for you: Happy employees don’t unionize. Employees unionize because they perceive that their employers are not treating them fairly. While “fair” doesn’t mean that an employer has to roll over to all employee demands, it does mean that they should listen to them. Open communication between management and employees is vital not only to the company’s bottom line but also to remaining union-free.
My critics (and there appear to be a lot of them) will say easier said than done. Point well taken. So here are some tips for management on how they might better improve communication with their employees:
Have regular meetings with small groups of employees to discuss working conditions;
Encourage supervisors to build personal relationships with the people working for them;
Implement and maintain an “open door” policy for employees to raise concerns without the fear of retaliation.
Those are my suggestions. Take them for what they are worth.
No post today. Call it a sympathy strike (yes, I know that sympathy strikes are illegal – take it up with the NLRB). Well, better yet, call it a holiday hiatus as the truth is that I’m blowing off my responsibilities this morning and heading for the mall to finish up my Christmas shopping. In the meantime, check out my friend John Phillips’ blog entry about a sexually harassed mall Santa.
I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and a safe new year.
It is not that I don’t support the writers of the Office. I do. But I also think their situation is different than most other industries in the private sector. When I look at the issue of unionization from a more global perspective, I firmly believe that most employees and companies are better off without a union. Not to say that there aren’t some workplaces out there were a union isn’t the right choice. It is just that those instances are few and far between.
Some have commented that employees need unions to obtain better pay. This is a fallacy which is easily dispelled. A union cannot guarantee better pay: it can simply try to negotiate for it (much like employees can do without a union – and without paying union dues). And when the union and the company do negotiate there are three possibilities: (1) wages and benefits go up; (2) wages and benefits go down; and (3) wages and benefits could stay the same.
A union also cannot guarantee jobs or benefits. Jobs are protected only as long as a company continues to operate profitably. Unreasonable union demands, if granted, could make the company uncompetitive or unprofitable and this could hurt both employees and the company. If the union calls a strike to enforce its demands, it means lost revenue to the Company and lost wages to employees. As Jerry said a few weeks ago, strikers are not paid. And, in most states, they can’t get unemployment. Worse, if a worker does decide to cross the picket line in order to earn money to support her family, the union may fine her.
Employees absolutely deserve respect and dignity. I just don’t think that the best way to get it for most employees is to vote in a union. Respect and dignity can only be achieved by employees and management working together toward a common goal of making their business as efficient and productive as it possibly can be to remain competitive.
The strike continues and it doesn’t look like it is going to end any time soon. Indeed, one blog reported yesterday that negotiations are actually going backwards! To make matters worse, it looks like several actors are honoring the picket line. I think we might be going without our beloved “Office” for several more weeks. I’m not sure that I can take it.
Some big names, such as Carson Daly, crossed the picket line and went back to work this week. Other big names have begun personally paying their staff’s salaries during the strike. But the reality is that many staffers have lost – and will continue to lose - their paychecks. I’m not talking about the fat cats who can afford to do so. I’m talking about those folks who work for them. At Christmas time. I can’t think of a better lesson for why companies should work hard to remain union-free. And I think its time that we started giving some tips on how they can do so. I’ve asked some experts in the area to chime in and give us some real-life guidance. So stay tuned.
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