discussion 7

HSA530 Week 6 Lecture 2: Health Services Human Resource Management – Documentation

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Narration

Slide 1

Intro

Welcome to Health Services Human Resource Management.
In this lesson, we will discuss documentation.
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Slide 2

Topics

The following topics will be discussed in this lesson.
Paper remains important;
Legal implications of employment documentation;
Human resources and personnel files;
The department manager’s responsibilities;
Department manager’s employee files; and
Do the paperwork.

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Slide 3

Paper Remains Important

We will begin this lesson with discussing paper remains important.
Many documents are intended for simple record-keeping. Indexes and other records ensure that particular documents are available for reference of other ordinary business purposes if needed. However, in recent decades, an increasing amount of documentation has been created and maintained largely as protection against legal challenges. Documentation can be troublesome for a department manager in two ways. The first is when it is not available and appears never to have existed. The other is when documents do exist but are weak, inaccurate, or incomplete.
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Slide 4

Legal Implications of Employment Documentation

Employment documentation is always important when responding to charges of discrimination. If requested documentation cannot be produced, the worst is often assumed. Some records are retained on the basis of common sense. There may be legitimate needs to retrieve the information they contain at some time in the future. Other records are retained because of external or legal requirements. All federal laws that address aspects of employment include requirements for record retention. In most organizations, retaining records is a continuing responsibility of HR.
The threshold for retaining most employment documentation is six years. This is the statutory limit for filing most employment related charges arising from violations of the Civil Rights Act. Many organizations simply assume that all personnel files must be permanently retained. Employees come and go, in the process generating files that become inactive. Employees that remain for many years often generate thick files over the course of their employment. The net result is that HR has a considerable records retention challenge.
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Human Resources and Personnel Files

A department manager may expect to hear from HR when documentation is not forthcoming. Performance appraisals and disciplinary actions are most likely to require additional input or actions. Depending on organizational policy, licensure information may be an HR responsibility. Department managers may have the responsibility to ensure that care- givers renew their licenses in a timely fashion and submit copies for their personnel files. Organizations occasionally maintain a separate central license repository. Regarding disciplinary actions, organizational personnel policies may include guidelines governing disciplinary actions. Written warnings in employee files are often considered to expire after a period of time if subsequent related infractions do not occur. To comply with such a policy, HR must monitor written warnings and invalidate them as needed. Human resources staff may not purposively review all personnel files to remove expired warnings. However, when expired warnings are encountered, they should be removed and placed in a separate file. The objective of a warning is to correct behavior.
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Slide 6

The Department Manager’s Responsibility

Every organization should have an employee handbook, and all department managers and supervisors should be familiar with its contents. Two reasons support this suggestion. The first is for personal knowledge and use, because managers are employees as well as supervisors. The second is to answer employee questions. Managers must be able to handle general questions about the handbook’s contents and must know how and where to secure clarification of any of the book’s contents.
An organization’s personnel policy and procedure manual is ordinarily issued by HR. Most policies are prepared by HR directly or by using input from other organizational units and distributed by HR. In most organizations, every department has a copy of the manual. Larger departments may have multiple copies.
Sometimes department managers directly receive requests for information about particular employees, requests from outsiders who have—usually deliberately—bypassed human resources or other channels such as administration. Requests for employee information from outside of the organization should not be honored.
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Slide 7

Department Manager’s Employee Files

Regardless of the amount of information contained, supervisors should always maintain a separate file folder for each employee. This avoids any charge of favoritism or discrimination by denying any employees the opportunity to claim that files were kept selectively or that some employees were watched while others were allowed to go their own way. A few items can be retained for every employee.
First-line managers are busy people, and they often tend to skimp on informal documentation. Negative comments seem to get written up more often than positive comments; these are supposedly “important” in that they may lead eventually to larger problems or necessary counseling or disciplinary action. Positive comments often do not get entered for employees who do something commendable. However, positives can be just as important as negatives—even more important to the employees themselves—to capture in a manager’s anecdotal note file.
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Slide 8

Do the Paperwork

Many problems occur after the fact because of documentation that is missing or incomplete. Instances of incomplete documentation are common in every organization. These include forms that are not completely filled out, papers that are not signed, and information that is illegible or incomplete. An ongoing and recurring problem is documents that lack dates. Enter a date on any paper before adding any words. This simple act can prevent many problems associated with documentation.
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CYU

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Summary

Paper records are essential. The human resources (HR) department has an important role concerning employee personnel files. Department managers and supervisors share in documentation responsibilities. Relevant documents include personnel files, job descriptions, employee handbooks, and policy and procedure manuals. Departmental files are important but temporary. Human resources has the job of maintaining long-term files. Paperwork is necessary and should be completed in a timely fashion. Without proper and complete records, an important matter, issue, or event is considered never to have occurred.
While this chapter emphasizes several forms of documentation, medical records are excluded. Two general classes of employment documents are included. The first of these encompasses formal documentation that results primarily from adhering to laws or regulatory requirements. This includes the majority of items found in an employee’s personnel file. The second class is informal documentation. These papers are not required by law or regulations but are deemed to be helpful when running an organization. Examples include internal reports, statistics, meeting minutes, anecdotal notes, and personal reminders.
This completes the lesson.

“Documentation and Employee Terminations”  Please respond to the following:

· From the case study “Relax, It’s Only a Little Paperwork”, propose an HR strategy that would help ensure managers know what type of information they should document and what information they should avoid putting in an employee file. Justify your recommendations.

· From this week’s assigned reading, choose one (1) type of employee termination and discuss the legal ramifications that may occur if termination procedures (voluntary or involuntary) are not followed properly.

HSA530 Week 7 Lecture 1: Health Services Human Resource Management – Terminating Employees

Slide #

Topics

Narration

Slide 1

Intro

Welcome to Health Services Human Resource Management.
In this lesson, we will discuss terminating employees.
Next slide.

Slide 2

Topics

The following topics will be discussed in this lesson.
Involuntary termination;
Individual terminations;
Reductions in force;
Layoffs;
Related dimensions of termination; and
The survivors of reduction.
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Slide 3

Involuntary Terminations

Involuntary terminations include discharges for cause, such as violations of policies or work rules and dismissal for reasons of performance. These latter terminations include layoffs and reductions in the work force. Questions occasionally arise in relation to supposedly voluntary terminations, such as resignations and retirements. With these exceptions, voluntary terminations are not included.
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Slide 4

Individual Termination

Managers must ensure that their organization closely followed its own policies, and that the organization can demonstrate that the discharged employee was given every reasonable opportunity to correct the offending behavior. This question is often pertinent.
The supervisor or HR must ensure that organizational policies have been followed. Adherence to the progressive disciplinary policy is critical. It is essential to ensure that all required documentation is complete and in place. The most critical dimension of termination for cause is ensuring that management and HR observe all necessary policies and processes.
An individual is not at fault in a dismissal. This is an essential difference between dismissal and discharge. Dismissal relates to performance. Because no rule is broken or policy is violated, dismissal for inability to meet the standards of the job or for failure to pass the probationary period is treated as a layoff. The distinction becomes important when dismissed employees apply for unemployment compensation. A discharged employee is ineligible for unemployment compensation. A dismissed employee is eligible for unemployment compensation.
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Personal Relationships

There are legitimate concerns about the appearance of favoritism and an increased likelihood of sexual harassment claims and employee unrest when romantic relationships exist between management and non-management employees. Such relationships may create conflicts between an employee’s right to privacy and the organization’s legal responsibility to prevent sexual harassment. An organization is particularly vulnerable when a member of management is involved. Courts have held organizations liable for sexual harassment by a manager even if senior managers did not know about a relationship. As many organizations have discovered, relationships that begin as consensual can go sour and lead to charges of sexual harassment.
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Slide 6

Sexual Harassment

Sexual harassment consists of unwelcome sexual advances, demands or requests for sexual favors, or other conduct of a sexual nature. It is harassment if acceptance of or submission to such conduct is either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of employment, if acceptance or rejection of such conduct is used as a basis for making employment-related decisions, or if the conduct can be viewed as unreasonably interfering with work performance or creating an offensive or intimidating work environment. The latter condition is often referred to as a hostile environment. Sexual harassment can be as direct and blatant as offensive touching or making direct sexual propositions.
The concept of constructive discharge becomes an issue when a former employee registers a legal complaint alleging that the organization, as represented by one of its managers, made life so difficult and unbearable that the individual had to resign.
All organizations should have policies that prohibit sexual harassment and also specifically prohibit retaliation against anyone complaining of such harassment. Department managers have the responsibility to know the sexual harassment and anti-retaliation policy in sufficient detail. They must be able to train employees about the contents of the policy and the procedures for reporting sexual harassment.
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Slide 7

Reductions in Force

Healthcare organizations entered into reengineering a few years after it peaked in manufacturing. Reengineering is the systematic redesign of a business’s core processes, starting with desired outcomes and establishing the most efficient possible processes to achieve those outcomes. Reengineering is often referred to by other names including downsizing, rightsizing, reorganizing, repositioning, revitalizing, and modernizing, although reengineering is in fact a considerably more complex undertaking than these other named processes.
Mergers, acquisitions, and other forms of affiliation have become common in contemporary health care. Because these recombinations usually are made in response to financial pressures, they usually mean the loss of jobs.
When organizations explore the possibility of merger or affiliation, little information is likely to be available. Successful supervisors maintain a dialogue with their employees. They keep lines of communication open concerns and keep them informed. They listen to their concerns and provide the best information that is available. Honesty is an absolute requirement for maintaining personal credibility.
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Slide 8

Layoffs

A department manager is usually involved in determining which employees leave and which ones stay. Personal preferences must be subordinate to established organizational guidelines. All organizational guidelines are established with the guidance of legal counsel. Selection for layoff is most often accomplished by seniority, although this is not an absolute requirement unless a contract governs selection for layoff. Seniority may not be the sole factor. For example, assessment mechanisms may consider a combination of factors that may include performance as reflected by appraisals, attendance, conduct as reflected by disciplinary actions, and seniority.
Once a layoff plan has been created, personnel from administration and HR and legal counsel must assess the proposal to ensure that it is not biased. Charges of discrimination are likely if patterns based on age, gender, or race emerge among those slated for layoff. Prolonged layoffs take time for employees to recover.
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Slide 9

Related Dimensions of Termination

Any termination, regardless of the reasons behind it, should be accomplished in private and in a place where the conversation is not visible or audible to other employees. Terminations should be accomplished near the end of the workday so that an individual who has just been let go can leave the premises without being forced to give an explanation or answer employee questions about what has happened.
An unemployment hearing can consume several hours when travel and waiting time are included. A conscientious HR manager will be mindful of the impact on managers and will contest only those claims that honestly appear to be unwarranted.
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Slide 10

The Survivors of Reduction

Inevitably, some survivors of a reduction react by looking for new employment. In this way, critically needed staff may be lost due to the insecurity of the environment.
Human resources and management at all levels can provide valuable support to the survivors of a reduction in force by stressing training and education as people attempt to adjust to new or altered roles. Specifically, this is an appropriate time to provide training in time management, coping with change or managing stress. Any action that promotes a sense of business as usual or allays fear among workers has value.
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Slide 11

CYU

Slide 12

Summary

We have reached the end of this lesson. Let’s take a look at what we’ve covered.
First, we covered involuntary and individual termination. Terminations of employment are inevitable. These include positive terminations such as retirements and resignations as well as negative experiences such as firings and layoffs. Involuntary termination involves the end of employment at the request of management. There are two types of such terminations. Dismissals occur either when individuals fail to meet the standards of their job or as part of a layoff. Discharges occur when employees are released for reasons of conduct or behavior usually involving violations of policies or work rules.
We also discussed reduction in force. Allowing a person to resign instead of being fired has great potential for creating future organizational problems. Persons who are involuntarily terminated may be eligible for unemployment compensation benefits. Human resources provides essential services whenever an employee leaves an organization. Survivors of any reduction in force have special needs. Ignoring these has the potential to cause great losses in employee morale and productivity.
Layoffs was the next topic of discussion. Layoffs are traumatic occurrences that sever some personnel from their employment and adversely affect the morale and motivation of survivors. Properly handled, layoffs require the guidance of human resources (HR) and the active participation of supervisors at all levels of management.
Finally, we discussed related dimensions of termination and the survivors of reduction. One who is dismissed for reasons related to performance or laid off for lack of work or economic reasons is considered eligible for unemployment. However, regardless of the reason behind any particular termination, any discharged employee is free to apply for unemployment. It costs only the time to complete an application. Before, during, and immediately after a reduction in force, people who have been laid off receive a great deal of attention. Those who have been terminated receive so much attention that individuals who remain often feel forgotten. They often think of themselves as survivors rather than as regular employees.
This completes the lesson.