Does E-Learning Actually Promote Employee Learning and Development?

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Catherine Palmiere

On Wednesday, March 7, my Manhattan College students will be discussing the topic of E-learning, an important issue in the world of training and HR management. Specifically, we’ll be asking the following questions: How effective is E-learning? And how much do virtual learning platforms actually accelerate the training process and increase employee productivity?

e-learning, employee learning and developmentMeasuring the Value of E-Learning

This topic has far-reaching implications for the future of staffing and HR. We live in an increasingly digital age, one in which new online resources are appearing every day. But an age of marvels can also be an age of illusions and failed experiments. Just because a new platform is promoted as “technology” doesn’t mean it actually simplifies our lives, increases productivity, or makes the training process more effective.

In our class, we’ll focus the discussion on specific e-learning platforms like Moodle and Blackboard. These and other popular new digital resources are being embraced by HR departments in an effort to make the training process more streamlined, mobile, and affordable. Proponents of these platforms even suggest that e-learning is more effective that traditional learning, and may help employees gain a greater volume of information, retain it for a longer period, and apply it in the workplace in a way that raises general productivity. Are these claims legitimate? Or are they overly ambitious? Will these products help companies thrive? Or are they all flash and no substance?

A Discussion of E-learning: What Are the Stakes?

E-learning may benefit the corporate bottom line and it may not, but what are the stakes of the discussion? What do companies stand to gain or lose by investing in digital learning platforms? The answer will depend on three basic factors:

  1. The cost of the platform and the sacrifices made in pursuit of a new learning model
  2. A company’s philosophical approach to the training process
  3. The insights provided by neurological studies showing how our brains grasp and retain information.

To predict the future of E-learning, these three factors can be measured against the claims and capabilities of new training products.

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Are Social Networking Sites Good Recruitment Sources?

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Catherine Palmiere

My course at Manhattan College is proving to be a wonderful source of opinions, discussion and new ideas related to current topics in the HR field. During our most passionate debates, I find that I learn as much from my students as I hope they’re learning from me. Our most recent class session focused on social media and its potential value as a recruitment source. Since at this point, there aren’t many existing legal statutes controlling the use of Facebook and Twitter in the search for talent, the possibilities are wide open and the subject is the source of some controversy.

Can Facebook help employers find exceptional recruits? Or will social media prove to be a false lead? Is it wise, profitable, and ethical for recruiters to move in this direction, or do the drawbacks outweigh the benefits? Here’s what different sides have to contribute to the debate.

social networking as recruitment sourcessocial networking as recruitment sources

Online Social Networking: a Recruiter’s Dream Come True

The benefits of the online social network lie in its vast width. For recruiters, there’s nothing more valuable than a wide net, especially if the net is controllable and offers useful filters. If your company has a business profile page and an open position, and you aren’t using one to staff the other, you’re missing a golden opportunity.

Recruiters can also investigate the profile pages of potential applicants to find obvious red flags. This can be a quick and inexpensive way to narrow the candidate pool. And accusations of privacy violation are somewhat moot, since candidates are always free to control their own privacy settings and limit who sees what.

Social Media: Recruiters Beware

Wide-eyed recruiters who are enchanted by the magic of “technology” would be wise to slow down and take a breath. It’s true, we live in a miraculous age of unprecedented connection, but core HR tasks are still best approached with measured attention to the needs of the company, the requirements of a position, and the quirks of human nature. It’s unwise to abandon “old-fashioned” applications and interviews in exchange for a quick series of Facebook page scans, or to assume that social media can reveal information about an applicant that would otherwise remain hidden. At the same time, rejecting candidates on the basis of social media alone can allow valuable talent to slip away.

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Should Employees be Allowed to Wear Symbols of Faith in the Workplace?

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Catherine Palmiere

The modern American workplace thrives on diversity, and experienced employers recognize this diversity as a strength. Our differences help us overcome boundaries and teach us how to work together to achieve shared goals. But difference can lead to conflict, and employers are sometimes at an impasse when one worker’s freedom of religious expression seems to undermine productivity or infringe on the rights of another.

I’m often approached with the following question from confused employers and HR professionals: Should employees be allowed to openly express their faith in the workplace? Specifically, should they be allowed to wear faith-based clothing, images or jewelry?

workplace, symbols of faith, religious expression

Religious Expression and Symbols of Faith

According to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, employers may not discriminate against individuals on account of their religion. This applies to hiring, firing, terms of employment, and the obligation to accommodate religious practices in the workplace as long as they don’t cause undue hardship for the employer. Accommodations may include providing a place to pray, allowing a day off occasionally for religious reasons, or allowing employees to wear religious garb.

If you would rather not accommodate an employee’s right to wear religious clothing, you will need to prove that doing so would cause undue hardship for your business. This is a two-step process. You’ll need to prove that

1) You made a good faith effort to help the employee accommodate her religious obligations, and

2) her obligations incurred an actual, significant monetary or administrative expense.

If an employee would like to take action against an employer for a Title VII violation, she’ll need to prove the following three things: 1) that she has a bona fide religious obligation to wear the symbol or clothing, 2) the employer knew about her obligations, and 3) she was subject to some adverse action, like punishment or firing, for wearing the symbol or clothing.

Legal vs. Social Obligations

Short of going to court, there are plenty of ways to peacefully resolve a workplace conflict over religious garb. If an employee is offended by another employee’s religious attire, use your diplomacy skills and meet with each of them privately to discuss the issue. Help the two sides find common ground on their own. Only if this method fails should you resort to formal disciplinary or legal action.

Class Discussion

In my HR management class at Manhattan College, this topic inspired a lively and productive debate—Possibly one of our best discussions ever!

Five of my students present argued that symbols of faith should be permitted in the workplace, since the practice is unlikely to harm and may actually increase productivity. One student argued (and I was inclined to agree) that symbols of faith should be discouraged in the workplace. Otherwise a precedent may be set that can open the door to other forms of permissive, productivity-undermining behavior.

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Is the Americans With Disabilities Act Being Abused in the U.S. Workplace?

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Catherine Palmiere

The Americans With Disabilities Act, or ADA, is a set of Federal laws designed to protect disabled Americans from discrimination or restricted access to opportunity. In addition to the ADA, each state has a similar set of laws that serve the same purpose– that of providing the disabled with equal access to public services, stores, businesses, and the ability to work without impediment.

american disabilities act

In 2009 the ADA was amended to ADAA to broaden the definition of disability. A disability that interfered with “major life activities” was redefined to include an exhaustive list of activities such as walking, standing, lifting, eating, bending, reading, writing, and sleeping, among several others, including critical functions of the body.

Abuse of the ADA

Unfortunately, no law is perfect, and while the ADA provides vital protections for the disables, some of the finer points of the law expose employers and business owners to the possibility of illegitimate lawsuits and difficult dilemmas. Two of the most common challenges to employers result from workplace access issues and legal protections for employees with mental health problems.

Access Concerns

In accordance with Federal and most state laws, disabled employees must be provided with all the resources they need to complete their jobs. All employees deserve reasonable accommodations, including wheelchair ramps and other structural requirements. This means employers and public businesses are subject to lawsuits when these requirements are not met, and this occasionally leads to abuse of the system. To protect your company from frivolous legal action or expensive settlements, take all reasonable steps to ensure that your workplace adequately accommodates the needs of disabled employees. But know your rights, and investigate the law. Understand what protections are available to companies who find themselves facing ADA abuses.

Mental Health Concerns

Employers often turn to me with questions about preventing workplace violence, since many efforts toward violence prevention appear to discriminate against those with mental illness and run counter to the protections of the ADA.

HR professionals need to establish protocols to deal with aggression, threats, and antisocial behavior in the workplace, and these protocols cannot violate the Federal rights of the ill or disabled. This places employers in a challenging position. But there are ways to sidestep these issues, including careful, effective screening during the hiring process. Employers should also have zero-tolerance violence policies clearly in place, and should make counseling, stress management and employee assistance programs available to all staff members.

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Is Affirmative Action Still Necessary?

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Catherine Palmiere

The Supreme Court alone has the power to make final decisions that either further the goals of Affirmative Action or bring the program to an end. But in the meantime, my colleagues and clients often discuss how a diverse culture in an organization helps the growth of the organization.  Diverse populations help business to reach diverse customers, as people feel more comfortable working with those they feel they can relate to. In the staffing and HR industry, we explore these issues frequently, and while open communication furthers our dialogue and helps us understand the complexities of racial equality, none of our conversations have led to a clear yes or no answer to this important question.

affirmative action

In my recent course at ManhattanCollege(www.manhattan.edu), my students had a heated discussion in which about half of the participants opposed affirmative action and the other half felt strongly that it was still needed.

On one side, critics of Affirmative Action claim that with an African American president in the White House and representatives of every ethnicity and gender holding many of the highest offices in the land, Affirmative Action has surely achieved its intended purpose and should now be dismantled. Once the playing field is officially even, any further quotas or artificial assistance constitute simple—and ironic– racial or gender-based favoritism. According to this logic, once all groups have equal access to success, then favoring one group is exactly the same as favoring another.

But this argument only succeeds when entrenched obstacles to equality have been universally and unquestionably removed, and racism and sexism are proven to have no further influence in the workplace. So far, this simply has not been the case. Racial and gender-based bias remains a pervasive, and often unconscious, aspect of workplace life. Until boardrooms are staffed by faces that reflect population demographics, it will be clear that our education system and hiring practices are still burdened by skewed assumptions, flawed selection protocols, and imbalanced access to opportunity.

As students, teachers, managers, employees, and citizens, it’s our goal to find out where in the system these obstacles lie, and then root them out. Once we’ve successfully accomplished this, Affirmative Action will no longer have a place in our culture. But we still have a long way to go.

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