Minnesota Workers With Disabilities

May 17th, 2007 Posted by Amelia

The Labor Department is joining hands with a 205,000 member strong human resource managers’ association to open up job opportunities for the disabled.

Minnesota workers with disabilities will benefit from the alliance. The policy agency within the Labor Department is the Office of Disability Employment Policy, or ODEP. The private group is the Society of Human Resource Managers, or SHRM.

Opportunities for the disabled may have increased in the past few years, but society is still not getting the full benefit of disabled workers’ talents, says ODEP. The new alliance will push recruiting and hiring of this relatively untapped talent through the help of research and education. The teamup will specifically look not only at education but also at training, technical assistance, communication and outreach. The partnership is the first of its kind for ODEP.

A wide range of resources is being brought together through the teamwork between the Labor Department and the human resources managers. SHRM, founded in 1948, has more than 550 chapters, and counts members in more than 100 countries around the world. With its 205,000 members, it is the largest human resource professionals’ association in the world. ODEP is relatively new, dating back to 2001. Under Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao, authority was delegated and responsibility assigned to the assistant secretary for disability employment policy. It remains part of the U.S. Department of Labor.

The two forces, SHRM and ODEP, have worked together before, but informally. This makes it official.

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

The partnership is also expected to open up a national discussion about employing disabled workers, among them Minnesota workers with disabilities.

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Human Resource New Hire Reporting in Minnesota

December 14th, 2006 Posted by Mark

Human resource directors in Minnesota, employers of small companies—be prepared to report your new hires. Anyone who has been in the business of managing and hiring people probably is used to having to deal with the Minnesota state labor law that requires all employers to report information on all of your new hires.

But when it comes to new employers, or people new to the human resource function of a company, perhaps they do not know what they are in for. And I am not saying that what you are in for is a boat load of trouble. On the contrary, the Minnesota state labor laws on new hire reporting, as are most states, are pretty flexible on how you have report. The only thing that isn’t flexible is that you do have to report.

So how can new employers get over the so called hump and be prepared for all of their new hire requirements. First, the key to being prepared is to be organized. The first thing perhaps you need to do is set up an employee file system, so you can keep track of your forms that your give and have signed by all new employees.

These can include the compensation summary form, the direct deposit form, the employment application of course, the referral form, the substance testing consent form, the receipt of employee handbook, and basically any other form that you would give to an employee on their first day or two of hiring.

All of these forms will have the required information that you need to report to the state for the new hire labor law. You need the info ready to go, because you have 20 days from the employee’s first day of work to report the new hire info to the state of Minnesota.

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