labor lawAdivision of labor law center

HR professionals or owners are faced with my conflicting HR questions or situations everyday and how to solve the issues can vary depending on who you ask.  Many business owners or HR professionals often ponder the same question, “Is there an agency or source where I can go to get guidance or assistance on these HR issues?”.  Well now there is a solution!  www.HumanResourceBlog.com is now available for any HR professional to come and share their thoughts, questions, or issues and to openly discuss the situation or issue at hand.  Where else would you be able to go to find a community or center that has professionals sharing your same common problems and also having suggestions for you to possibly consider.  Like they say, two brains is better than one.  In this particular case, it’s two professionals better than one! 

www.HumanResourceBlog.com has a goal to build a community strictly for HR professionals all across the states to be able to post and receive answers from actual professionals in the same situation or have the knowledge to possibly guide you to answer.  State laws vary from state to state.  If your organization operates in multi-states, this is the place for you.  www.HumanResourceBlog.com does not limit the answer to any particular state or topic.  It does not have boundaries and/or limitations in the state the question is deriving from.  If you are seeking an answer to your HR question, www.HumanResourceblog.com will be the solution!

Answers are posted daily from Real HR experts that are emailed the questions instantly.  There is no automation to the postings of answers.  The website is strictly for owners, HR professionals, supervisors  and managers to post their HR related issues, questions, or concerns.  Post your questions today! The web site is not intended for employees to post employee related questions. 

Come join and lets build an HR Community together.

Hope to see you there!

US Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao is doing her part to eliminate discrimination in the workplace. Chao recently presided over the Sixth Annual Asian Pacific American Federal Career Advancement Summit in Washington D.C. Held on May 3, 2007 the event boasted a record number of attendees. The event highlighted federal job opportunities throughout Alabama and the nation for residents of Asian Pacific descent.

Every employer knows that discrimination is illegal under the Alabama discrimination laws. Yet, too few do anything to actively prevent discrimination. The recent summit included participation by the Federal Asian Pacific American Council, the Social Security Administration, the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Other summit partners included the US Depart of Justice, the US Department of Transportation, The US Treasury, The US Department of Defense, the US Department of Energy, the US Department of Agriculture and the US Department of Education.

The summit was held in cooperation with the US Office of Personnel Management. Its goal was to attract minority employees, while helping Asian Pacific Americans in the federal government build their career skills. The event included a plenary session, executive coaching by senior managers, and a number of workshops. An exhibit hall provided resources, and personal motivational testimonies provided inspiration and tips on how to progress in the workplace. The ten workshops included topics such as developing management potential, attracting effective employees and keeping top talent. For those new to the workforce, workshops included skills training in resume writing and interviewing.

The first annual summit was held in 2002 with just one federal partner and 150 attendees. This year, a record 1,300 people registered for the event, setting a new record. There were 31 exhibitors this year, many of whom were highlighting employment opportunities at their agencies. Asian Pacific Americans currently comprise 4.8% of the federal workforce.

Secretary Chao is the first Asian American woman to serve as a cabinet secretary. She leads the Department of Labor, which employs a record number of Asian Pacific Americans. Chao has served in that position longer than any other Secretary of Labor since the Eisenhower Administration. She is the second longest-serving woman in the slot. Since 1950, the average tenure of a Secretary of Labor has been about 3 years. Of the 24 U.S. Secretaries of Labor, six have been women. Five of those six have been appointed since 1987.

One of the newest federal agencies has joined one of the largest human resource professional associations.

The goal: to provide more work for Alabama workers with disabilities in the 21^st-century workplace.

The agency is ODEP, or the Office of Disability Employment Policy. The association is SHRM, or the Society of Human Resource Managers. Together their mission is to improve training, recruitment, and education of workers with disabilities, and promote dialogue on the hiring of persons with disabilities. It is the first such alliance for ODEP.

The job prospects have improved recently for disabled workers, according to ODEP. Yet they still represent a large talent base that is going unused by the labor market.

Thanks to this new partnership, Alabama workers with disabilities will find more training, outreach, technical assistance, and education in their futures. Information, access to resources, and guidance should all be enhanced by the new teamup.

“This alliance formalizes the relationship we have had with SHRM,” according to Roy Grizzard, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Disability Employment Policy, “benefiting SHRM as it serves its membership with the resources ODEP brings to the table and offering ODEP the opportunity for broader contact with human resource professionals.”

What are the two organizations involved, and what are their missions?

The federal Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) is a Labor Department policy agency. It was formed with the purpose of making certain that people with disabilities are fully involved in the 21^st century workforce. It was formed in 2001 when Elaine L. Chao, U.S. Secretary of Labor, gave the authority and responsibility for the mission to the assistant secretary for disability employment policy.

The Society of Human Resource Professionals (SHRM) was formed in 1948. With 205,000 members, 550 affiliated chapters, and membership in more than 100 countries, it is the world’s largest association of human resource managers. Its purpose is to provide key resources to its professional base.

The labor law surrounding new hires in each state is different, thanks to a law passed by the federal government a few years back. The law makes it the rule that all employers—even those just with one employee, all the way up to massive multinationals—must report each and every new hire to a specific state agency, designated by each state in the manner set out by each state. Like I said, each state’s hiring labor laws are different.

The reason behind this new law is kind of part interesting, part sensible. The first reason for the law—which all states had to have in place no later than October 1998—was to catch any workers trying to pull off unemployment fraud. The other reason for the law change was to try to track folks who owed child support.

For the employer in Alabama, though, what does the law mean? Basically, it means that you better have all of your new hire’s forms in order as soon as they start working. Employers have 20 days under the general federal statute from the start of the employee’s hiring to report information on that person, so all of those human resource hiring forms—such as the application, the reference checks, and the wage deduction forms—should be organized and stored for each new hire.

Under the Alabama law, though, employers better have even a surer grip on all of their human resource new hire forms. In Alabama, the state gives employers only seven days to get in the necessary info about new hires. If you fail to do so, you could be fined up to $25 for each violation.

All of the new hire reports in Alabama must include the employee’s name, social security number, first day of work, and address in order to meet the labor law.

The Alabama (AL) Department of Human Resources is a key aspect in the way of training and educating those that work within the state of Alabama. The Department of Labor in Alabama provides a great deal of help to those that need it including business owners that are just starting out. Nevertheless, many do not realize that we can turn to the Alabama Department of Human Resources to fill the needs that we have. In many ways, doing so can lead to the security we all strive for.

The Alabama Department of Human Resources provides a good amount of help and guidance to those that are unemployed. This is the area that provides the necessary financial aid to those within the state that need it. Currently the department reports that there is about 3.6 percent of the population in the state of Alabama that are looking for employment. While that is considerably less than the 4.8 percent national average for the month of July 2006, it still requires that there are services n place to aid those that need it. In fact there are.

For example, those that need help with training, education and apprenticeships can find programs through the Department of Labor to aid them in this need. Yet, there is much more that they do as well.

If you look at the business side of the coin, the Alabama Department of Human Resources provides a great deal of help to businesses as well. Since it governs the necessary laws within the state, it also helps them to install these laws to insure that the employee in their business is treated fairly and that he gets the safety that he needs. This is also the department that governs the workmen’s compensation within the state as well. As you can see, there are many aspects to this department that need to be realized.