2012 Manny Award Winners

Congratulations to the 2012 winners of the Manny Awards. The Manny Awards, hosted by Inside Business magazine, honor manufacturing excellence in Northeast Ohio. ERC members receiving honors this year are: Freeman Manufacturing & Supply Company, GrafTech, Olympic Steel, Inc. and PartsSource, Inc. For the past 15 years, the Manny Awards have been committed to recognizing the manufacturing industry's greatest accomplishments, and in so doing, honoring local companies for their innovation and best practices. This year's awards will take place on Thursday, May 17, from 6-9 p.m. at Windows on the River in Cleveland, OH. The awards will celebrate the 2012 winners who reflect the manufacturing strength and future of Northeast Ohio as well as feature keynote speaker Dr. Chad Moutray, Chief Economist, National Association of Manufacturers. For additional details on the 2012 Manny Awards recipients and to register to attend the event, please visit http://ibmag.com/mannyawards/mannyawardsrsvp.aspx.

EEOC Issues New Guidance and Rules

The following guidance and rules have been issued by the EEOC in the last month and could have a significant impact on how employers make employment decisions. EEOC Final Rule on Disparate Impact and Reasonable Factors other than Age Under the ADEA (effective April 30, 2012) EEOC Enforcement Guidance: Criminal Arrest and Conviction Records

Bandwidth Battles: Streaming Content Takes a Hit

As the mid-afternoon lull sets in, you decide to check in with a few folks. When you poke your head in and say hello, you get no response. With their headphones in and Pandora buried beneath a cascade of windows on their desktop, you can see that this employee is clearly focused on the task at hand. You move on to the next cube over- headphones again. Oh well, you can stop by again tomorrow, besides there’s a new Pandora station you’ve been meaning to try. But what if Pandora wasn’t an option anymore? What about YouTube, ESPN.com, or any other site containing streaming audio or video? Employees all across the country are finding out as more and more employers are unable to keep up these bandwidth hogs. USA Today recently cited Proctor & Gamble as yet another prominent example of an organization forced to make the decision to block certain sites with streaming content. For P&G employees, Pandora and Netflix are now a thing of the past, but interestingly, both YouTube and Facebook remain accessible. Their decision to block some but not all streaming content sites reflects yet another challenge that organizations are facing related to streaming content. Even as they ban some sites, organizations must balance their need to preserve network bandwidth, while still retaining access to sites that employees utilize for job related activities, such as marketing or professional networking. So where does your workplace fall on this continuum from total restriction to total access of streaming content? Has the ongoing struggle for sufficient bandwidth forced your organization to block streaming content? Is bandwidth capacity the issue or is the ban more closely related to questions about employee productivity or other factors? Click to weigh in on our quick poll and then look for the results in an upcoming issue of Quick Hits.

I Want a Refund!

By Pat Perry Though I am not due a traditional tax refund, I wish there was a Tax Form requesting a return of some of the taxes we paid the past year. News of the GSA and Secret Service corruption and scandals are reminders that a (good) portion of our tax money continues to be mishandled. From a business perspective, the Government is broke, overstaffed, lacks accountability and is run by people who do not get along with each other (across the aisle), many of whom don't have much experience running a business. And this has been going on for decades. It’s not a Democrat or Republican issue – it’s a business model issue. If the government were a publicly-traded company their stock would be worthless. Seems silly to continue to pour up to 35% of our hard-earned wages into the kind of business the Federal Government ironically routinely ridicules, bails out and condemns in the private sector. There has been discussion of tax reform for decades too. Perhaps any sort of tax reform could also coincide with government reform. At some point, government waste and excess needs to get addressed and reduced. Otherwise our tax dollars will continue to feed the “monster” that is harming the country for us and eventually our children.

ERC Partners with Turning Technologies

ERC has partnered with Turning Technologies (www.turningtechnologies.com), based in Youngstown with a national presence, to offer its members discounted pricing on purchases and rentals of their interactive response sytems. ERC members will receive 15% off purchases and $100 of rentals. Turning Technologies provides response systems to organizations to create engaging, interactive environments that support learning initiatives. Response systems allow speakers to ask questions during presentations with polling software and receive instant participant feedback with handheld response devices. This is an exciting product that we’re able to offer our members at a significant discount. Whether you’re in an office or industrial environment, the ability to gather data instantly strengthens any meeting or event.Pat Perry, President of ERC Click for more information on Turning Technologies.

ERC Endorses CareWorks as Preferred MCO

ERC is proud to endorse CareWorks as the preferred workers’ compensation Managed Care Organization (MCO) for members. “CareWorks’ customer service philosophy, effective return to work strategies and quality medical management efforts can provide significant benefits to employers. CareWorks can also deliver substantial medical savings through provider network discounts. These discounts can help employers reduce claim costs and help control future premiums,” comments Pat Perry, President of ERC. To register for a free event from CareWorks about what your MCO should do for your business, click here.

New Free Services Offered to ERC Members

ERC is excited to offer two new, free services to ERC Members! These new services are direct results from feedback provided by ERC Members. netwERC Groups Our new netwERC Groups are exclusive networking events for ERC Members that provide an opportunity to meet other HR practitioners in your area, network, and share ideas. These events were first held throughout the month of March with many ERC Members as hosts. We thank the ERC Members who joined us for making these events so successful, and invite all ERC Members to join us again in June for the next round of netwERC Groups. We hope to see you there! Global HR Resources Due to our members’ growth of international operations and questions about how to manage employees outside the U.S., another new service that ERC is proud to provide to our members is the addition of several new global HR resources available through our HR Help Desk. ERC members can now receive guidance on HR policies and practices in other countries, international compensation data and employment law, and managing global employees or assignments. We thank our members for providing suggestions and feedback in helping to shape ERC membership. If you would like additional information on these services or additional resources available through ERC Membership, please contact the ERC Membership Team at membership@ercnet.org or 440/684-9700.

Unnatural Phenomenon

By Pat Perry Last week’s Mega Millions jackpot of $640 million put a smile on my face. No, I didn't win, but I did find it humorous. I have always been amazed how the number of people playing the lottery increases when the jackpot gets larger. Individuals who seldom or never play go out and wait in the long lines hoping that they might be the one person in 186 million people to win! I assume that this week’s jackpot of $20 million will not bring the same “lotto fever” that last week’s gold mine promised. Maybe some people think that $20 million is just not enough money to get by these days.

ERC Awarded 2012 Wellness@Work Award

ERC is very proud to announce that we received a 2012 Wellness@Work Award. This is the third consecutive year that ERC has won an award; winning 2nd place in the Small Business Division. The Wellness@Work Awards honor area businesses for their workplace wellness initiatives. “We’re honored to receive a Wellness@Work Award for the third consecutive year,” said Pat Perry, President of ERC. “It is important to us to lead by example, as we sponsor the ERC Health program throughout the State of Ohio. Wellness has truly become a part of our culture here. We see it through participation in events like staff health days, cardiovascular screening sessions and afternoon workout classes. We are proud of the commitment we’ve made to improve our employees’ health and work-life balance.” ERC would also like to congratulate our members who also won the award this year: Lake Health, Oswald Companies, ShurTech Brands LLC and Vita-Mix Corporation.