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Setting the Stage for Performance Management Success
To be effective at managing performance with employees, excellence in leadership is required. Here, we have crafted some important insights that every manager should know before...
Communication Tools for Performance Review Conversations
Creating Communication Success: Reserve Judgment and Actively Listen To ensure that you are operating in the best interest of your employee and your company, it’s important to...
Employee Reviews – Plan & Prepare for Performance Review Conversations
Creating Success in Employee Review Communication Taking the time to adequately prepare for performance conversations is critical in showing your employees you are willing to...
Employee Reviews – Establishing Employee Accountability in Performance Management Conversations
As HR and business leaders, you are sure to know that culture is created from the top down. Accountable employees begin with accountable leaders. How then can you best hold...
Student Loan Repayment Benefits – What’s In It For You?
Frequently, I see glossy ads in HR magazines about student loan repayment services and wonder if this Student Loan Repayment Benefit is truly a benefit or the equivalent of pet...
HSA vs. FSA – What Are The Differences?
1ver the years, Congress has tried addressing rising healthcare costs using the tax code and bombarding you, dear reader, with terminology and rules that might sound familiar,...
The Self-Employed 401K
One of the advantages of running your own business is being able to manage the money coming in and the expenses going out. But, unless your company has big capital expenses such...
New Hiring Practices – What’s Working, What’s Not
Top Hiring Trends in 2022 One of my clients asked me "What’s happening in employment land? What’s new with hiring? What is one major pain point that all employers are feeling?"...
The Cost of Unethical Behavior in the Workplace
The real cost of workplace misconduct and how to avoid it Workplace and life challenges - from the outside in. Most employers don’t know the true costs of lost productivity and...
External Helpline and Hotline Programs- A new standard for ethics and compliance
Legal compliance for workplace management has become increasingly difficult as new laws continue to favor employee rights. The risk of failure to comply with ever-changing laws...
The Cost of Workplace Misconduct and How to Avoid It
Workplace and life challenges - from the outside in Most employers don’t know the true costs of lost productivity and revenue due to misconduct. Issues that arise in your...
What Equal Pay For Equal Work Really Means
Pay Equity Translated for the Common Employer Equal Pay Laws are often overlooked and ignored by good people, who think they’re treating employees fairly. The reality of employer...
How You Respond to COVID-19 Will Define Your Employer Brand
What's at Stake without A Covid Response Plan? More than ever, how you treat your employees during a time of challenge as disruptive as COVID will follow you and impact employer...
Communications During COVID-19
A Covid Response Plan for Everyone Back in March of 2019 when the fear and uncertainty over COVID was spiking sharply, Coinbase was one of the first companies to design and make...
Foster Trust With Remote Teams – Team Building Toolkit
COVID-19 has forced a revolution in how people work. To maintain the safety and well-being of employees, organizations have adopted a remote work culture. To help you on your...
Build the Workforce You Need After COVID
During COVID there are absolutely disruptions and hardship, but also incredible opportunities to reset and think differently. Instead of instinctively looking to fill key roles,...
What the New Oregon Paid Family Medical Leave Means to You
On August 9, 2019, the Paid Family & Medical Leave (PMFL) insurance program was created to provide partially or fully compensated time away from work for employees who...
What OregonSaves Means for Every Employer
On May 15, 2020, the State of Oregon will require all private-sector employers with one (1) or more employees (based in Oregon) to participate in the OregonSaves program. Open to...
You Should Network Close to Home
Originally published by the author on January 30th, 2019 on: www.laidoffbetteroff.com You can drive all over, or you can stay close to home……. So you’re either out of work or...
What is the Purpose of a Performance Improvement Plan?
There are proper channels which an employer must go through to lawfully and tactfully let an employee go, and a Performance Improvement Plan is an essential part of this process.
Do You Have a Process for Rehired Employees?
Paperwork can be tedious, especially if you have to do it twice. But how important is the full rehire packet and are there any shortcuts we can take to save some time?
Use It or Lose It! Can You Force Someone to Take Vacation Time?
Each company has their own reasoning behind wanting their workers to use up their Paid Time Off, (PTO) but can they actually force you to take your vacation time?
Oregon Businesses – Don’t Get Clucked Over the Equal Pay Act
Each time a new labor law is passed or rule approved, there’s typically some ominous warning from the Department of Labor about the dramatic $10k fines as a consequences of inaction or not remaining current. Could that really happen?
The Office Where Hope Went to Die
Office drama is something we’ve all dealt with in some form or another – but this situation was off the charts. We could have thrown up our hands and chalked it up to people behaving childish (they were), but the impacts were all too real and something had to change.
HR Risk is like Missile Command for HR and Oregon Employers
As neighbors with their own ballot initiative systems, OR and WA tend to inspire each other for progressive employment law street cred – and both States have been busy. Like Missile Command, there’s a whole lotta incoming, that will take additional effort on your part to manage.
HR Resource Management – Cutting Labor Costs & Hiring Right
While I don’t expect most of you to find $5,000 hidden in wasted meetings, most organizations with some exploration can find better ways to apply the precious resource of their employees and leadership. While meeting regularly isn’t bad or inherently wrong, going through the motions like you always have, is a hard habit to break – but one that should be broken regularly.
When Your Ideal Candidate Has a Criminal Background
If you’re a business that hires employees, at some point you’ll be faced with the knowledge that a candidate has a criminal background. Many times, the candidate will self-disclose their offenses, explain their bad choices, and how they’ve been on a good path for a period of time. So what can you do when faced with this information?
Can I Classify a Worker Like an Administrative Assistant as an Independent Contractor?
Is it possible to classify an administrative assistant as an independent contractor so you can hire them for a 90-day try-out period? This might sound like a good idea, but the short answer is no, you cannot.
What Should I Do if an Employee Refuses to Sign the Handbook?
Because your employee handbook outlines your company’s guidelines and policies, it’s important that your employees sign off on having received their handbook. It demonstrates that not only did they receive it, but they are also responsible for knowing its contents. What happens when one of your employees refuses to sign the handbook though?
HR and Handling Infectious Diseases
Many people will try to come into work even if they’re sick, so long as they can still walk and talk. But this can put other employees at risk for catching that bug. For employees who may already be vulnerable to illnesses (such as being immunocompromised) this can even be dangerous. How do you handle situations like this?
Appropriate Workplace Display
Work environments can be as diverse as the people working in them. Often times, employees wish to decorate their workstations with personal items to make their spaces feel comfortable while they perform their tasks. What sort of policies can your company put in effect to regulate appropriate workplace displays?
Do We Have to Pay an Employee Who Drove to a Canceled Meeting?
While wage and hour law requires that employees are paid for all time that they are ‘suffered or permitted’ to work, the question here is whether his attempt to go to a cancelled meeting would count.
What Happens When an Employee’s FMLA Time Has Run Out?
Even if an employee has exhausted their FMLA leave for the year, their condition may fall under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA defines a disabled employee as one who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities including working.
Can I Ban Cellphones and Recordings at Work?
Completely banning cell phones is not something you can legally do. It is, however, possible to create policies that encompass the appropriate time and place for cellphone use.
A Guide to Drug Testing and Drug-Free Workplaces in the Era of “Legal” Marijuana
With medical and recreational marijuana use becoming legal in more states nationwide, it can be tricky to figure out what kind of drug-testing policy your business should have. There are many variables involved and in this article, we’ll give you a general overview of the necessary considerations so you can determine what policy is right for your organization.
The Deputy, the Undertaker and the IT Guy
I’m introducing them to you to highlight a key theme that we see here repeatedly at Vantage Point: amazing people, with specific professional backgrounds, looking for a change.
The challenge is that for most Recruiting firms, these folks are defined by those career paths, and they can’t see the “amazing” standing in front of them. We don’t see the world that way, and think that any small business looking for quality people, would rest easy knowing these three are on the job.
Why Training Your Employees is Good for Retention
Employees who feel valued, appreciated and invested in are more likely to have overall improved performance and will put their new skills to immediate use, which will help solidify their knowledge.
What is the Interactive Process?
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires employers to reasonably accommodate the disabilities of their employees and to engage in an interactive process when a request for accommodation is made.
What Defines a Workweek?
Most people define a work week as the hours of operation of a business, often starting at 8am on Monday and ending on 5pm Friday. There is a bit more to it than that, and it’s necessary to ensure compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by establishing an actual workweek.
Sex Discrimination Includes Sexual Orientation
On April 4 2017, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals became the first appeals court to rule that sex includes sexual orientation. The Court’s ruling creates law in Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin.
Managing Pregnant Employees – Keeping the Basics in Mind
Wendy becomes pregnant after four months on the job and asks her employer if she can have light duty and temporary leave. The employer terminates Wendy’s employment instead of accommodating her requests.
Exempt Employees – Know Their Rights!
Question: I have an exempt employee who only worked one day this week, but claims he needs to be paid for the whole week. Is that right?
Privacy Violations Are Nothing To Celebrate
There’s no law against it, but some employees may feel that announcing their birthday violates their privacy.
Cost Of Living Increases And Bottom Line Impacts
Employers use the consumer price index (CPI) to calculate cost of living increases. Most cities have their own CPI, which measures how prices change regarding the cost for goods and services such as housing, food, and medical care.
Know Your Labor Laws
Every state has different laws and there are many gray areas. Don’t leave these matters to chance or overpay in legal fees when you can access your own HR library. Here’s an example of Oregon Labor Laws.
When Recruiting is Treated as an After-thought
While you start the process of retaining talent again, and you say to yourself: “Is there anyone out there that knows what they’re doing and wants to work?”, “Do I have to do this again?”, “I don’t have time for this.”, Vantage Point Business Solutions offers a much better solution!
Fair Labor Standards Act Overtime Rule
While the new Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), overtime rule was put on hold, keeping the minimum salary requirement for White Collar Employees at $455 per week, several states have their own requirements.
How You Drug Test – Zero Tolerance or Neutral Impairment Standards?
With the rollout of legalized marijuana in Oregon and other States, many employment practices that we’ve had in place for decades need to be reexamined with this new reality in mind.
Recreational Marijuana and Workplace Standards – How to Begin Sorting It Out
In late 2015, Oregon legalized the recreational purchase of marijuana, generating no small amount of confusion with employers about what this means for their workplace.
The Minimum Wage Is Increasing Dramatically
Absent a change in the law, this is going to happen and as business owners we need to anticipate how this mandated increase will affect our costs, pricing, customers and workers.
The HR Wisdom of Inigo Montoya
What I found surprised me – regardless of where in the organization the employee resided, there was an over-reliance on code words that never really communicated anything.
While You’ve Been Building a Business, a Few Things Have Changed
As a small business owner you have no shortage of distractions in your day – and most of us rely on our past experiences and knowledge to quickly respond to a situation and move on. This would all be fine, except on the matter of human resources issues – that have steadily changed with the times over the last 10-15 years – through a steady flow of legislation, court cases and administrative law rulings.
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A tailored HR audit is a strategic tool that goes far beyond basic compliance checks to reveal how well your people practices support your business goals. By focusing on the specific needs of your organization, it highlights both strengths and areas for improvement. These compliance checks create a clear path to greater efficiency, reduced risk, and a more consistent and equitable employee experience.
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Greater detail in many policies, staffing, and company focus improvements have all been a result of working with VPBS.
Tom, in particular, has provided a wealth of information and has helped us think through all areas of hiring and HR scenarios. He has become a trusted friend and an invaluable resource.
HR Employee Handbook
A tailored employee handbook is more than just a document—it’s a strategic tool that protects your business, aligns your team, and builds a confident and informed workplace.
Clearly outline your company’s values, policies, procedures, and culture in one central, up-to-date resource. You'll reduce confusion, set the right expectations, and reinforce a culture of trust. It’s your go-to guide for consistency, compliance, and clarity—day in and day out.