Many organizations have orientations meant to orient newly hired employees. On Boarding is taking it the next level.

Sure, you want to orient newly hired employees by providing them with insights into the company’s mission, vision and values. Sure, you want to give new hires an introduction to the organization’s history and give them more detail about the “ins and outs” of their department. Of course, they need to be enrolled in the benefits plans and get set up for payroll. All of that is orientation. What is On Boarding, then?

You might have noticed in the paragraph above that most of the activities involve giving insights and information. On Boarding is more about getting insights and information from the new hire. The new hire has very valuable information to share that management needs to get. On Boarding takes at least six meetings in the first 90 days of hire to accomplish. There should be regular meetings, one-on-one meetings, with the new hire. The new hire’s immediate supervisor and also the new hire’s boss’ boss need to be a part of On Boarding.

What questions need to be asked? When any semi-finalist or finalist candidate is being interviewed, the final stages of the interview involve the candidates being “sold” on coming to work with the particular organization. They are told what is will be like working at the organization. Both the immediate supervisor and the supervisor’s supervisor need to find out if there is a variance between what they told the finalist candidate what it would be like to work “here” and what the new hire actually is finding it’s like working “here.” That variance is critically important to know and understand.

Why ask, and why ask in the first 90 days? The new hire’s answer gives tremendous insight. Bosses need to know if and what the variances are between what they think it’s like to work at the company and what the actual employees think it’s like working there. Both levels need to know that so they can make adjustments in their “sales pitch” to new employees and/or make adjustments in the internal operation (as needed or appropriate). Why ask early in the new hire’s tenure? The new hire is objective, has “fresh eyes” on the organization and probably will give an honest answer because he/she is not invested in the “old ways” of the organization and has not been indoctrinated into withholding information.

Additionally, the boss’ boss will be asking the immediate supervisor for an evaluation of the new hire’s performance. If improvements are needed, having it come from both levels of management will reinforce the urgency for the new hire to see the wisdom and make the changes. If the higher level of management hears from the immediate supervisor that the new hire is doing well, that can be passed on to the new hire. Praise is always good.

On Boarding is about communicating up and down. It is about finding out what is good, as well as what needs improvement and then dialoging about it all. New people should not be “thrown in to sink or swim.” Recruiting and hiring are too expensive for this. On Boarding is the effort made to make sure the new hire is connected to management, assimilating to the organization and the new work, as well as providing upper management with insights into the effectiveness of mid-management.

The new law allows for whistleblowers to receive as much as 30 percent of penalties collected if they total at least $1 million? Wow.

Lawyers are lining up and will no doubt broadcast polished ad campaigns encouraging employees to blow the whistle if they suspect violations. The Dodd-Frank law may be headed for repeal if the Republicans get the White House, but for now, put your flak jackets on business leaders!

What does this provision mean for business people? Do things right and right away.

Obviously, you need to become familiar with the law and be in compliance. When and if your employees raise a problem, you should establish an environment where they feel comfortable and obliged to come to you first. Work with them; do not marginalize them or dismiss their concerns. The only reason they would have to go outside—become a whistleblower—is if they cannot trust or communicate with you. Be aware—even if you do these things, you could still be in for an unpleasant ride.

I have a client that had an employee who “turned the company in” to OSHA for a safety concern. The company endured the examination and was exonerated. The next year this same employee “turned the company in” to the Department of Labor on a Prevailing Wage beef. Again, the company endured an examination of the allegation and was exonerated. This employee figured he had whistleblower protection status and continued to poison the relationship between the employees and management. He didn’t. I extricated him, but obviously it was a very delicate situation.

Getting back to this provision in the new law, there is a “jackpot” mentality in our culture. This means that many people see the lottery and the opportunity to sue somebody (with money) is the way to wealth accumulation. This law plays right into this mentality. The plaintiff’s lawyers are gearing up.

Her story is being presented on the national media. Her former employer is being vilified, while she is being honored as the “Mother of the Year.”  The media has reported that she has contacted an attorney and that a wrongful discharge lawsuit is being considered. The legal environment is, as usual, murky. This company has less than 50 employees and, therefore, not held accountable to comply with the Family Medical Leave Act. They have exceeded the number of people to be accountable to the Americans with Disabilities Act.  Whether or not she has a legal case, it’s too soon to tell. Whether or not the company has created a problem is quite apparent. So the question remains— what should an employer do with a sympathetic plaintiff?

Some people do seem to walk around with a dark rain cloud hovering immediately over their heads. These people rarely make the best employees.  We have all seen people who just can’t seem to catch a break in this life, and we have known people like this in the workplace. They tend to pull on our “heartstrings,” and often we marvel at their ability to cope and tolerate the misfortune that seems to follow them endlessly.  Most of us would like to help if we could.

There is another dimension that factors into the case or situation like this: the dimension is that the government hates it when employers take action against employees because of health related matters. The state’s Human Rights Commissions and the Department of Labor can always be counted upon to weigh in on the side of the employee in any of these matters. In most cases, the truth is that the situation is not the fault of the employer, and it may not even be the fault of the employee. In some cases, lifestyle choices can be at the heart of the problem. People choose to smoke or drink or make other high-risk choices that tend to have a deleterious effect on employability. In other instances, life- style plays no role in the malady. People don’t choose to get kidney stones, brain tumors or Parkinson’s disease. Things like that just happen, and employees have to deal with them as do employers.

In this economy, it is obvious that employees need to be delivering a hundred percent of the time, and there is little tolerance for circumstances that have a detrimental effect on productivity. Employers want to have peak performance and productivity at work, and they need to create an environment that fosters it. Clearly, there must be some allowance made for temporary setbacks for employees because we want to live in a just and fair place. Let’s remember that our values are on display with every decision that we make. This employee demonstrated her values by donating a kidney to her ill son. The employer could have addressed both matters: the need for productivity and the need to support an employee. They did not really have to choose one or the other—they could have chosen both. They did choose, obviously badly, and now they’re paying for it on the national PR stage.

If this company had been my client, I would’ve never recommended that they terminate this employee. I would’ve recommended that they celebrated this employee’s decision. They could have turned this situation into one of altruism, instead of a lawsuit.

One occasion involved a female employee who was attending her son’s baseball game one summer evening. She was in the stands, enjoying a few too many beers, and became very vocal, profane and obnoxious. The situation degenerated to the point where the police were called. Her behavior reflected very poorly on herself and (as far as her boss perceived it) reflected badly on her employer as well.

The other situation was far different. The employee was a young female under the age of 20. The situation was that she invited her young male supervisor, age 23, to come to her home (she lived with her parents but they were away at the time) on a weekend day. The allegation was that this young supervisor groped and attempted to strip the young female employee. The female was successful in fending off the attempted assault. After the young man left, the young girl proceeded to inform her friends about the alleged incident and word got back to the owner of the company where both employees worked. Eventually, the parents were also informed of the alleged incident.

In both instances, nothing happened at work. The HR directors advised the owners that since nothing happened at work, nothing needed to be done at work. I was called in and vehemently disagreed. I advised the owners that they needed to get ahead of the situation and deal with it directly. There are public relations issues, there are employee morale issues, there are values issues and, perhaps in the second incident, even legal issues to consider.

In the first incident, there is a policy in the personnel manual that indicates that employees must comport themselves professionally, honorably, and ethically at all times. There are expectations articulated in the job descriptions requiring professionalism both on and off the job. The expectation goes on to remind the employees that their behavior off the job reflects on their employer and, for that reason, the expectation for professionalism at all times. The employee’s profane and obnoxious behavior certainly failed to meet the expectations for professionalism. This incident, coupled with several instances of on the job unprofessionalism, presented the opportunity to justify termination of a marginal employee.

In the second incident, I saw the opportunity for a huge PR nightmare for the employer. Imagine the police entering the workplace, confronting the supervisor and “perp walking” him off of the premises. The internal productivity and probable morale hit could also be devastating to the employer. I recommended conducting a standard sexual harassment allegation investigation to which the employer approved. By getting in front of the situation and conducting a thorough/ timely investigation, the employer would have been exonerated of any wrongdoing and seen as a positive influence on the situation.

Incidences that involve employees that occur outside of the employment situation cannot help but have a negative impact on the employer organization. I recommend policies that insist on high moral standing and professionalism at all times. I recommend taking positive and proactive action whenever employees are involved.

States have enacted anti-bullying rules in the schools, and the Department of Labor and the state Human Rights Commissions have long been interested in eliminating bullying from the workplace.

In the business setting, bullying directed at employees by employers has been a staple at the table for years. Bullying directed at employees by other employees, often ignored as office drama by employers, also exists in abundance. The government, the courts and the media are all focused on these bullying issues.

The government and the court’s position is that employers cannot do too much to protect employees. They can do too little (they can underreact) and that will get them in trouble. But they can’t do too much to protect employees while they are on the job. The expectation is that employers will take a comprehensive approach to providing a completely safe environment for their employees. If the employers cannot or will not do this, they face the wrath and ire of federal and state governments.

If sexuality is involved, it’s called sexual harassment. If sexuality is not involved, it’s just called harassment, but can be equally serious on several levels. The existence of bullying in the workplace could clearly be labeled a hostile work environment. If it is perpetrated from management to employee, it could even be labeled Disparate Impact, which is the belief that an employee is subject to greater on the job scrutiny than other employees. In any event, harassment will usually attract the attention of the government, and it’s not the attention management ever wants or needs.

So, how do you prevent it in your workplace?

The solution starts with a policy forbidding bullying behavior. Reminders, both ongoing and intermittent, follow up the policy. This is followed by mandatory training for all existing and future employees and is capped off by management’s zero tolerance response if it does happen in the workplace.

Part of the response is values based. A values statement could include: It is not a part of the values of this organization to allow anyone to bully our employees. If it is discovered to exist, it will be dealt with quickly and definitively. Our values are that employees are to be treated with dignity, courtesy and respect. At our company, we will hold all employees at all levels accountable to treat all other employees thusly.

If allegations of violations are found to exist, management should investigate or cause an investigation to occur in a thorough and timely manner. If the allegations are substantiated, then harsh penalties, including written warnings or even terminations, should occur. If the company does not handle the matter internally, it should expect the matter to be handled externally. And, if these external forces find that the company underreacted or otherwise allowed the harassment to occur, the company can expect fines and right to sue letters issued. Trust me, at that point it is not pretty.

That is startling! In a healthy economy, there is always some churning of the workforce, but more than 60 percent of all employees report enough dissatisfaction with their current employer that they plan to leave at the first chance to do so. That is really remarkable.

The implication is that only the best will be hired away, so every effort must be made now to retain these employees—before the opportunity to leave presenting itself.

The Gallagher report also states that employers know that there is no place for their employees to go, given the weak economy, so they don’t worry about defections to other employers. Abuse of one type or another seems to be rampant. Because of layoffs, those retained employees get the privilege of working their current job, plus some of the workload of those laid off. Everyone understands the axiom of “doing more with less.” That has been the new normal for 15 plus years—employees understand the need for production increase. But interpersonal competence—dealing effectively with the human aspect of this equation—will allow employers to gain much more.

In a previous blog, I commented that by sharing management’s most valuable commodity, its time and attention, a connection can be made. That connection can be turned into a bond between employer and employee. When that bond is made, engagement occurs and turnover diminishes.

If employers continue to treat employees as mere functionaries, they will see larger numbers of disengaged and apathetic employees. The good ones will be recruited away and only the mediocre will be left. The economy is bound to recover, and the pace of hiring will improve. Unfortunately for those currently unemployed, the first jobs out of the improved economy will go to the currently employed—the best of them. Some of those folks work for you, and they are seriously considering leaving your employment.

Don’t let that happen. How? Connect with your employees. Communicate with them. Listen to them. Act on some of their suggestions. They are good at reading you. Don’t make a shallow attempt at this. Open up to their questions. By evolving to an inclusive and interpersonally competent organization, the numbers of engaged employees will grow, and they will be inclined to stay too.

In the past few months, I have been hired by clients to extricate three employees who had served time in prison. Two were drug offenders and one was a violent offender. In only one instance did the employer know that he was hiring a prison inmate. The other two employees slipped in through temp agencies that failed to perform adequate background checks. That’s another blog subject.

The profile of the offender from each of these three cases was the same: at first they were ideal employees, focused on their work, highly cooperative and appreciative of their second chance. Then, they started to prey on their fellow employees, and soon became serious problems.

While in jail, there is little or nothing to occupy one’s mind. What usually happens is they find something to stimulate themselves—usually it amounts to preying on their fellow inmates. When they get into the workplace, they are initially appreciative of their opportunity to assimilate back into society—thus they are good employees for a while. Eventually, since their work rarely occupies their minds or full attention, they fall back into previous patterns, like preying on their coworkers.

In one of the cases (one of the drug offenders), the employee worked in an electrical component assembly job. He was a good employee. The owner knew of his prison history, but believed in second chances and hired him. The employee did well and even convinced the employer to help pay for tuition in an electrical engineering program. The guy was also smart. Unfortunately, old patterns soon emerged and this employee began to bully the office manager. She was a frail person emotionally and an easy target. He pushed her buttons and pulled her levers weekly, but intermittently so that it was not obvious to others. She never knew if he was going to pound on her or be nice to her. That was part of the game.

I was called because of allegations by the office manager of abuse and a hostile work environment. I was asked to assess and examine the allegations. The owner wondered if it was just office drama.

Other employees were aware of the situation. When I interviewed them, one told me that he advised this employee to “leave Betty (not real name) alone!” The response was, “I can’t, it is just too much fun!” It was far more than office drama; it was abuse and the employer had been under-reacting to for eight or ten months. Betty was an emotional mess and certainly had a case with the state Human Rights Commission against her employer for “failure to protect.”

In one of the other cases, the ex-con was a former violent offender. He was a registered welder who was referred to the employer through their temp agency. He also was a good employee for almost a year. Then on a Thursday, there was a blow up involving this employee and three co-workers. This employee, on Friday and Saturday, left the most vile, vicious and threatening voice mail messages on the answering machines of these three employees.

The bottom line is the workplace is a place of work. Anything that takes employees off line should be avoided. My advice to employers is you shouldn’t hire an employee that is going to be a distraction from that goal. If you want to operate a ministry, that’s a good thing, but if you want a happy and productive work place, don’t mix the two.

In a recent USA Today survey, only about 31 percent of employees reported that their boss listened to them. This is a significant problem on several levels.

From the employer’s vantage point, employees know most, even all of the problems associated with their work and workflow. If they are not encouraged or inclined to communicate with supervisors, then supervisors will miss that information.

In previous blogs, I have quoted the Gallagher statistic that only about 25 percent of employees are engaged, and the rest are disengaged (working against management) and apathetic. By management being accessible and sharing its most valuable commodity—time and attention—more people can be encouraged to join the engaged group. The engaged group is the extension of management as they are the ambassadors, the role models, the ones that can be counted upon to consistently produce at the highest levels. Managers and owners, take a minute to imagine this: without spending a penny more on payroll, imagine what it would be like to have 60 percent to 80 percent of your employees engaged and none disengaged. The potential is staggering.

From the employee’s vantage point, they need to feel informed and a part of the organization. By specifically seeing the connection between what they do and the bottom line, their contribution becomes real. This is the technical part of the foundation for becoming and staying engaged. The other side is the interpersonal part; they need to feel an interpersonal connection to the owner and managers. They need to feel appreciated.

There is a “Cohen axiom” that is applicable here: healthy employees need to have their say, unhealthy employees have to have their way. Mentally healthy employees need to have a say in what happens around them. If they are denied the ability to have some kind of legitimate say in what happens in their work’s orbit, they will become apathetic. The logic behind this attitude is “Nobody seems to care what I have to say, so why should I care about what they (management) are saying?” When one sees employees demanding their way, one is seeing abnormal and unrealistic expectations. This is an unhealthy personality and needs to be addressed very carefully.

“It’s that time again folks! Summer is here, we are having a great month and it’s time to do a little team building exercise. By team building exercise I, of course, mean go to a bar and drink together.”

This may be an extreme example, but people still do this. And regardless of degree, there are some things to consider. I am not a prude or a wet blanket, but there are numerous liabilities and land mines built into this situation. Some of the liabilities are external legal ones and some are internal morale and values-based issues. Let’s explore.

If the event or activity is company planned and sponsored, then anything that happens at, or as a result of, the event or activity is “on the company.” If someone gets inebriated and then drives home and hurts someone, then it is a legal liability for the company. The possibilities for those types of situations may be remote, but the reality is they do happen.

More likely, the problems will be more interpersonal. People “under the influence” behave differently then when they are sober. Some are happy drunks. Some get mean when they drink. Some lose their inhibitions. Some think they are God’s gift to the other gender. Most just make fools of themselves.

I had one situation where an attendee pulled a starter pistol (the type of gun used to start a track or swimming event) and pointed it at his coworkers as a joke. He pulled the trigger and created a loud BANKG!—loads of fun. Another client had a drunken employee grope another employee at one of these functions. Employees propositioning other employees is typical, too. What values are on display here? What values are on display in the days afterward when senior management has to deal with the aftermath? The context changes from party setting to work setting pretty quickly. There is more here than just embarrassment.

Recommendations: If there is going to be a corporate sponsored event or activity, have it be dry or only the soft stuff. If there is going to be hard stuff, have it on a one or two drink limit. Have the event start early and end early. If people want to stay around after the event officially ends and then drink, make it clear that’s on their own. Set expectations for professionalism. The owner or senior persons need to set the example.

The employer expects the employee to be orderly, disciplined and professional. That is exactly what the employer needs to convey to candidates and, once hired, to all employees. While we are all human, the organization needs to display itself in the best way possible. The documents required are the following:

• Personnel Requisition Request—the document with which the hiring offer obtains formal approval (from the President or hiring authority) to begin the process of recruiting, selecting and then hiring the new person.

• Employment Application—the document the candidates use to provide the information needed for the employer to screen candidates. It is very important that employers require them to fill out applications, rather than just work from resumes. Resumes come in every conceivable format. The employer needs to be sure the information is available and in the format the employer is comfortable with using.

• Nondisclosure/Confidentiality Document—the document the employer uses to obtain the new hire’s formal consent to hold the employer’s information confidential. This becomes very valuable down the road if concerns are raised.

• Sexual Harassment Prevention Statement—the document the employer uses to obtain the new hire’s formal agreement that he/ she will not engage in conduct that is sexually harassing. The employee acknowledges that he/she has read the policy, understands it and agrees to abide by it.

• Hire Letter—the formal letter acknowledging that the employer is hiring the candidate. It should contain the employee’s title, his/her starting wage, whom he/she reports to, the starting date, when the benefit package kicks in, what is contained in the benefit package, what the employee’s classification is (exempt or non-exempt), a statement that employment is “at will” and a welcome statement.

When the employee reports to work his/her first day should be fully planned so it is clear to the new hire that the employer is ready for him/her. The “on boarding” process should be smooth, the orientation planned and implemented smoothly.

Remember, the new hire will spend the first 30 to 60 days determining what the employer organization’s values are and determining if he /she can identify with those values. If the answer is yes, the new hire will spend the next 30 to 60 days figuring out who is honest and trustworthy and who is not. The next 30 to 60 days will be spent establishing coalitions and relationships with those deemed trustworthy and figuring out how to avoid the others. All of this is a bit of a distraction for the new employee, but it is what is happening.

The employer should be meeting with the new hire to learn about the variances between what the new hire was told to expect (during the hiring process) about the company and what the new hire actually found once hired. This is extremely valuable information.

The Gallagher Organization has published information that says that only 25 percent of the workforce in the typical organization is engaged (working in concert with management) 15 percent is disengaged (working against management) and 60 percent are apathetic. Whom do you think is “pulling” on the new hires? It is usually the disengaged working to spoil or corrupt the new hires into becoming part of the disengaged.

Don’t let that happen.