Click Here to Register

Transition Board Meeting

As is our tradition, a Transition Board Meeting will be held on Monday, December 16 at 6:00 p.m. at the Washington Dulles Marriott Suites, the location of our monthly meetings. Attendees include the outgoing 2002 Board as well as the new 2003 Board members. The purpose of the meeting is to transfer responsibilities and to begin planning our priorities for 2003. The meal will be buffet and include all meal preferences. If you are an incoming or outgoing Board member, be sure to contact Sharon Hymanson (sharonh@invan.com) by Thursday, December 12 to let her know whether or not you will be attending.

2003 Hotel Selection

Following extensive discussions and analysis of proposals from competing hotels by Sharon Hymanson, the Board has elected to remain at the Washington Dulles Marriott Suites hotel next year for our monthly meetings. Many thanks to all who responded to our questionnaire. The data you provided was extremely helpful and was the basis of discussions held recently with management of the Dulles Marriott Suites concerning perceived deficiencies and ways in which they can improve food and service to our members. Our thanks to Sharon for her hard work and persistence.

2003 Invoices

If you are a current member, you will be receiving your 2003 Dulles SHRM invoice shortly. The renewal fee remains $25 for the year. If you joined the chapter after October 1 of this year, you do not owe another membership fee until January 2004. However, we ask that you complete the demographic information on the renewal application and return it to us for our statistical analysis.

Accommodations For Unemployed Members

It has been brought to the attention of the Board that some members are having difficulty in affording the monthly dinners and annual membership fees while unemployed. To accommodate financial constraints that members may be experiencing during this economic downturn, the Board made the following decisions:

• While the Board is unable to permit members and guests to attend the monthly dinner meal if they are unable to pay, a decision was made to permit members and guests to attend the monthly meetings for the general announcements, introductions, and speaker portion of the program (beginning about 6:45). The process is to register and let Sharon Hymanson know that you will be attending the speaker portion so she can arrange to have a seat for you.
• With regard to 2003 membership fees ($25 annually) that are due on January 1, our decision is to respond to requests for delayed payment on a case-by-case basis as requested are received from any Board member.

Chapter Discussion Group: December Meeting Cancelled

Board Meeting Minutes

The minutes from the Board meetings are available on our web site - please take a few minutes to review them in full. Click Here to View.

HR Career Development SIG: “HR Specialist Versus HR Generalist - Pros and Cons”

Date: Wednesday, December 4, 7:30 a.m. (ending no later than 9:00 a.m.)
Place: Silver Diner, Reston

“Are you an HR Specialist trying to break into the generalist arena?”
“Are you an HR Generalist concerned about a lack of specialist experience?”
“Are you unsure as to which HR direction to pursue: Specialist versus generalist?”

Join us at the December 4th HR Career Development SIG meeting when we’ll discuss these probing questions with HR specialist and generalist professionals. We want to help you focus on your individual career to determine where you are professionally, where do you go from here, and how to get you there!

We welcome Barbara Mitchell of The Millennium Group and Robin Spivak of XO Communications who will share their career choices and experiences with us.

There is no charge to attend SIG meetings. And you need not have attended prior meetings. Please contact co-chair Bernadette Gebhardt, Human Resources Manager at Martin’s Herend Imports, Inc., with any questions or to RSVP (bkgebhardt@earthlink.net or 703-723-1854).

2003 State Conference To Be Held at the Fairview Park Marriott, October 15-17, 2003
Programs Committee Representative Needed

The 2003 Virginia State Conference will be held at the Fairview Park Marriott from October 15-17. We will need numerous volunteers from our chapter to help out during the conference. If you would like to volunteer, please contact Cornelia (gamlem@erols.com). More news will be available in the upcoming months.

Mark Your Calendars

Upcoming SHRM Conferences and Seminars

• 2003 VA SHRM State Conference, October 15-17, 2003 at the Fairview Park Marriott.

Upcoming 2002 Meeting Topics

• December 4 - Holiday Party with everyone!

More Coming in 2003:

• January 15, 2003 - “Legislative Update” with Jason Branciforte, Littler Mendelson
• February 19, 2003 - “Critical Issues Under FLSA” with Caryn Pass, Krupin O’Brien
• March 19, 2003 - “Everything You Need to Know About Policies and Guidelines for Hiring and Terminating Foreign Workers” with Liz Stern and Joyce Oliner, Shaw Pittman
• April 16, 2003 - “Special Presentation by Susan R. Meisinger, President, SHRM” with Leesburg SHRM Chapter
• May 21, 2003 - To Be Announced
• June 18, 2003 - “Panel Discussion on Benefits - Costs and Latest Trends” with Dave Downer and our panel of experts
• July, 2003 - NO MEETING
• August 20, 2003 - To Be Announced
• September 17, 2003 - “From Expatriation to Repatriation” with Christine Smith, Wolf Group
• October 15, 2003 - To Be Announced
• November 19, 2003 - “Background and Drug Screening” with Vicki Tilton, Edge Information Management
• December 3, 2003 - Annual Holiday Party
• December 10, 2003 - Transition Board Meeting

You, or your company, could be accused of asking improper questions or making discriminatory statements or comments that reflect bias. It is also possible to make assurances or promises during interviews that can be interpreted as binding contracts. Recognizing these potential danger areas is the best way to avoid saying the wrong thing during interviews.

To minimize the risk of discrimination lawsuits, it’s important for interviewers to be familiar with topics that aren’t permissible for questioning. For example, you shouldn’t ask a female applicant detailed questions about her husband, children and family plans. Such questions can be used as proof of sex discrimination if a male applicant is selected for the position, or if the female is hired and later terminated. Older applicants shouldn’t be asked about their ability to take instructions from younger supervisors.

It is also important to avoid making statements during the interview process that could be alleged to create a contract of employment. When describing the job avoid using terms like “permanent”, “career job opportunity,” or “long term”.

Interviewers should also avoid making excessive assurances about job security. Avoid statements that employment will continue as long as the employee does a good job. For example, suppose that an applicant is told that “if you do a good job, there’s no reason why you can’t work here for the rest of your career.” The applicant accepts the job and six months later is laid off due to personnel cutbacks. This could lead to a breach of contract claim where the employee asserts that he or she can’t be terminated unless it’s proven that he or she didn’t do a “good job”. Courts have on occasion held that such promises made during interviews created contracts of employment.

Most companies have at least two people responsible for interviewing and hiring applicants. It’s critical to have procedures to ensure consistency. Develop interviewing forms containing objective criteria to serve as checklists. They ensure consistency between interviewers, as well as create documentation to support the decision if a discrimination charge is filed later by an unsuccessful applicant.

Learn to assess job candidates on their merits. When developing evaluation criteria, breakdown broad, subjective impressions to more objective factors.

Obviously, you must prepare for the interview by reviewing the application, resume, test results, and other materials submitted by the candidate. Try and put the candidate at ease and ask questions that can’t be answered with a “yes” or “no” response. These open-ended questions allow applicants to tell all about their skills, knowledge and abilities. Some examples are: “Why are you leaving your current employer?” “Do you prefer routine, consistent work or fast-paced tasks that change daily?” “And why?”

Here are three potential dangers when interviewing.

• Asking improper questions
• Making discriminatory statements
• Making binding contract statements

The following are examples of questions that should be avoided in interviews because they may be alleged to show illegal bias.

• Are you a U.S. citizen? (adversely impacts national origin)
• Do you have a visual, speech, or hearing disability?
• Are you planning to have a family? When?
• Have you ever filed a workers’ compensation claim?
• How many days of work did you miss last year due to illness?
• What off-the-job activities do you participate in?
• Would you have a problem working with a female partner?
• Where did you grow up?
• Do you have children? How old are they?
• What year did you graduate from high school? (reveals age)

As you can see, these rather simple and seemingly non-threatening questions can easily violate one of the aforementioned dangers when conducting interviews.

Companies that use “best practices” in interviewing and that are extremely effective in consistently hiring top performers use customized or standard behavioral-based interview guides to remain consistent in their line of questioning. These companies not only train their recruiters, but they train their executives, department managers, and hiring managers on legal and effective interview questions and techniques to utilize during the interview.

These same “risk wise” companies will conduct a job analysis audit for every position within their companies to establish the types of behavioral and situational questions necessary for their interviewing process. A job analysis audit is a process whereby a company compiles objective data of what is required to be successful in a given position. This process is conducted via interviews, surveys, and testing (both hard skills and soft skills testing). This process allows the company to objectively identify the competencies, behaviors, thinking and decision making styles, as well as the technical skills that are common among their top performers and required for the position in question. This process establishes a hiring “benchmark” or interviewing “guide” to follow. The resulting list of critical competencies is what interviewers will use to evaluate candidates. This benchmark, custom to each position, leads the company to define the core line of behavioral interview questions that will uncover these critical competencies, behaviors, and thinking styles, as they directly relate to the job requirements.

Some of the most effective pre-employment behavioral assessments in the market will provide the necessary behavioral interview questions to pose to candidates. This is due to the assessment's objective evaluation of each candidate’s competencies.

Here are a few examples of legally-defensible behavioral interview questions that will assist in uncovering core competencies in an interview:

• What has been a particularly demanding goal for you to achieve? (This question taps into the candidate’s achievement orientation and requires them to explain the obstacle and their thought process and actions to overcoming the obstacle.)
• Can you think of a situation in which an innovative course of action was needed? What did you do in this situation? (This allows you to uncover whether the candidate can develop innovative solutions to work-related problems, and identify potential opportunities and ways to capitalize on them.)
• What are the typical customer interactions you have in your present position? Can you think of a recent example of one of these? (This question focuses on the candidate’s customer service orientation.)
• Have you ever been in a situation where you have had to take on new tasks or roles? Describe this situation and what you did? (This question allows you to probe into the candidate’s degree of flexibility.)
• In your present position, what standards have you set for doing a good job? How did you determine them? (This question allows you to uncover if the candidate has high work standards.)

Conducting a job analysis audit to objectively identify the core competencies required for a given job, and then customizing a list of behavioral-based interview questions like the ones mentioned above to identify those competencies, can significantly reduce your exposure to employment practices claims and increase your potential for hiring top performers.

By instituting guidelines such as these and making sure that your organization's managers follow them, you will have gone far in reducing your risk of a lawsuit from an employee or job applicant.

That’s all for this month unless you have any ideas or suggestions? This is your chapter - let us know what’s on your mind!

Nancy Streeter
President
Dulles SHRM
E-mail