PHR and SPHR Professional in Human Resources Certification: Employee Relations and Engagement (SPHR Only)

The SPHR® Exam Content From The Employee Relations And Engagement Functional Area Covered In This Guide Consists Of The Following Responsibilities And Knowledge Areas. Responsibilities:

01 Design and evaluate strategies for employee satisfaction (for example: recognition, career path) and performance management (for example: performance evaluation, corrective action, coaching)
02 Analyze and evaluate strategies to promote diversity and inclusion
03 Evaluate employee safety and security strategies (for example: emergency response plan, building access, data security/privacy)
04 Develop and evaluate labor strategies (for example: collective bargaining, grievance program, concerted activity, staying union free, strategically aligning with labor)

In Addition To The Preceding Responsibilities, An Individual Taking The SPHR® Exam Should Have Working Knowledge Of The Following Areas, Usually Derived Through Practical Experience:
- Strategies to facilitate positive employee relations
- Methods for assessing employee attitudes, opinions, and satisfaction
- Performance management strategies
- Human relations concepts and applications
- Ethical and professional standards
- Diversity and inclusion concepts and applications
- Occupational injury and illness prevention techniques
- Workplace safety and security risks and strategies
- Emergency response, business continuity, and disaster recovery strategies
- Internal investigation, monitoring, and surveillance techniques

This guide focuses on developing and monitoring strategies impacting employee satisfaction and performance, including diversity and inclusion, safety, security, and labor strategies. Treating employees with dignity and respect and building positive relationships throughout the organization is a critical function of senior HR professionals. Senior HR professionals have the responsibility to ensure working conditions that balance employer and employee needs and rights in support of the organization’s goals and objectives. This functional area is 20 percent of the SPHR® exam. While employee and labor relations may not take up as much of the daily duties at the senior levels, senior HR professionals still execute some significant responsibilities in this functional area that are vital to a company.

The topic of this guide is more the organizational climate and its relationship to how employees behave. Risk management covers a wide array of threats to the organization from internal and external sources and the necessary actions to mitigate potential outcomes. In this guide, we also review the knowledge and responsibilities required for developing, implementing/administering, and evaluating programs, procedures, and policies to provide a safe, secure working environment and to protect the organization from potential liability.

Required Knowledge
The general practice of employee relations is a vast subset of an HR professional’s responsibilities, and there is a great deal of information to understand. In much of business today, companies often seek out specialists who are entirely focused and experienced on this topic. Being a successful senior HR professional requires knowledge of labor practices, employee and employer rights, and how to foster a strong organizational climate.
Senior HR professionals should be familiar with the strategies that improve employee satisfaction, promote diversity and inclusion, and ensure safety and security that are typically found in a company and how they should be administered and developed. HR professionals will often develop or execute the procedures across several different areas that impact risk management, including organizational response, business continuity, and investigations.

Employee Relations
Employee relations (ER) is a broad area that involves the attitudes of employees, their behaviors, the relationships between employees and management, the culture and climate of the organization, and how employees are recognized. However, many companies and senior HR professionals make the mistake that ER is just the “complaint department” for HR to handle disgruntled employees or discipline those “problems” within a company, which is often a manager’s desire to fire an employee who is not behaving according to the company’s established values.
This is a limited view and presupposes that the root of the problem always begins and ends with the employee. In fact, experience teaches HR professionals that ER problems are some of the most complex challenges they handle, and the knowledge required to successfully resolve them is significant. My favorite statement about ER cases is that the best ones are the ones that don’t ever materialize. This simply means that the company has the foundation and proper training for managers to recognize early signs of concern and has the ability to take proper action that prevents an employee from entering a downward spiral to eventual separation from the organization. A senior HR professional who can develop programs and policies that promote a strong workforce is highly valuable to an organization.

Facilitating Positive Employee Relations
Senior HR professionals must be familiar with the strategies necessary to facilitate a positive environment for employee relations. These strategies can be placed in two groups. The first are those strategies and capabilities that seek to mitigate or avoid tensions and conflict prior to an event. These are all preventive in nature and involve direct communication with the employees to get a sense of the climate and where hot spots may exist. The second group involves post-conflict actions that seek to remediate problems that may be at the root cause and foster communications going forward. In both types of facilitation, HR senior professionals must understand both communication and conflict resolution theory.

Employee Attitudes, Opinions, and Satisfaction
It’s important in building positive employee relations that senior HR professionals know methods of gauging employee attitudes, opinions, and satisfaction. Engagement surveys are used to measure the satisfaction levels and attitudes of employees across the organization. Recognition programs are an important tool for the organization, and HR should be familiar with strategies to implement them. It is a good idea to get feedback from employees about what would be of value in a recognition program. There are opportunities for managers or HR to solicit input through surveys or other communication means to determine the effectiveness of these kinds of programs. It is also important that the recognition be proportionate to the act or measure that was the result of the employee actions. For example, if an employee is recognized for implementing an energy-saving conservation program that resulted in the company saving more than $10,000 a year, a $25 gift card would not be appropriate.

This table provides examples of types of recognition events and examples of rewards or recognition that might be given as a result.

TABLE: A sample rewards and recognition program

Collective Bargaining
Senior HR professionals must have extensive knowledge of the process, concepts, and strategies associated with collective bargaining. At its core, it is the successful negotiation of an employment agreement between the management of a company and the union representatives that are authorized to negotiate on behalf of the company’s employees. This collective bargaining agreement is a contract that governs the working conditions and employment settings for the employees along with the responsibilities of both management and the workers. These agreements take into account many factors, including the labor skills, overall economy, prevailing wages and benefits, and accepted practices of employers.
The agreement covers both mandatory and voluntary subjects. The voluntary subjects include areas such as retiree benefits for members of the union or processes for handling unfair labor practices. These may or may not be subject to negotiation. The National Labor Relations Act sets out which category a subject falls under, including those items that cannot be discussed under any agreement (illegal items such as requests that would violate other laws or regulations).

The mandatory subjects include the following:
- Pay and Overtime
- Terminations
- Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures
- Reductions in Force
- Promotions and Seniority
- Holidays, Vacations, Time Off
- Promotions, Demotions, Transfers
- Safety Procedures

Collective bargaining can be done by first negotiating with one company in an industry, such as an industry leader or one a union feels will create the best deal for workers, and then attempting to promulgate the agreement with other competing companies in the industry. While this was a prevalent method in the past, it is less common today because industries now have standard practices that cover most of what would be negotiated by a union and offer no competitive advantages to either side. A second option would be for a group of employers to negotiate with the union seeking to represent employees at the companies. In industries where there are multiple unions represented (such as the airline industry), the unions can coordinate their bargaining processes with the employer to maximize their negotiation power. Finally, the process can be broken up to discuss complex details in a variety of committees to reach a consensus.

A collective bargaining agreement will have several articles that discuss each mandatory area and any voluntary area that is agreed to by the union and management. Within the agreement there will be provisions for who will be members and the dues and the rights of the union to exclusively represent the interests of the employees. If they work in a right-to-work state, senior HR professionals must understand that there are additional restrictions and provisions that limit a union’s ability to collect dues or fees for the union to represent them. The largest difference is that in the right-to-work states, union shops are illegal, which means a union cannot require new employees to pay dues and become union members. While the employee’s employment is protected, they cannot attend union meetings or have a vote concerning the approval of an agreement without being union members.

Senior HR professionals must understand how contracts are administered and how various provisions are handled, such as grievance procedures and arbitration. They must understand what actions should be taken in cases of litigation or allegations of unfair labor practices, as well as how to handle inquiries by the National Labor Relations Board if management is not negotiating in good faith as part of the collective bargaining process. They must also understand the protected activities that sometimes are the by-product of negotiations or failure to reach an agreement.
This table discusses some of these items and the role of senior HR professionals.

TABLE: Activities related to collective bargaining

Performance Management Strategies
Senior HR professionals must be familiar with performance management strategies to help managers and supervisors develop their human capital talent. To maximize the organizational capabilities, senior HR professionals develop means to deliver feedback, evaluations, corrective discipline, and coaching. Informal feedback done on a frequent basis provides for the best communication and helps direct employees. When needed, corrective discipline should be meted out fairly but firmly to provide the minimal action necessary that results in a change of behavior. Coaching requires knowledge of mentoring and motivation to properly align behavior with desired results.

Human Relations Concepts and Applications
Senior HR professionals are experts at relating to people and understanding their needs at a personal level. They must leverage this knowledge and capability to ensure the optimal performance of employees as a collective group. They must be astute at recognizing elements of emotional intelligence in themselves and others. Emotional intelligence measures how well an individual perceives their own emotional state and that of others and also how the emotions of others affect them and the impact of their emotions on others.
Teaching others to be self-aware of their emotions is an important skill for senior HR professionals. They must show how emotions impact judgment and decisions and then provide strategies to enable others to manage these emotional states. Being aware that you are angry and being able to manage that anger are two different skills to consider. People with a strong emotional intelligence can predictably understand why certain emotions that they exhibit affect others in certain ways. Once someone can master these emotional intelligence concepts, they can improve and be more impactful to the organization.
The concept of organizational behavior is important because the organizational dynamic is largely based on how the group behaves and responds to leaders and conditions that exist in the company. A senior HR professional who can accurately predict how the organization will respond to decisions, policy changes, accomplishments, and setbacks is valuable to modern business models. They can help senior leaders maximize the human capital potential in the organization through their understanding of human relations and organizational behavior.

Ethical and Professional Standards
Senior HR professionals have access to a wide variety of sensitive and personal information in the conduct of their jobs. Senior HR professionals must maintain the highest ethical and professional standards. The HR Certification Institute certification process requires every applicant to adhere to a code of ethics to maintain their credential. In general, they must not use their position and privilege for their own personal benefit. They must strive to protect sensitive HR-related information about others in the organization and must avoid conflicts of interest.

Those holding the SPHR® must acknowledge the ethical and professional responsibilities in six areas:
- Professional Responsibility
- Professional Development
- Ethical Leadership
- Fairness and Justice
- Conflicts of Interest
- Use of Information

Any applicant preparing for the certification exam review the code of ethics and professional responsibility at https://www.hrci.org/docs/default-source/web-files/code-of-ethical-and-professional-responsibility(1)-pdf.pdf.

Diversity and Inclusion Concepts and Applications
Senior HR professionals should strive for a diverse and inclusive organization to draw from different thoughts and experience within an organization. They should know concepts about diversity and how those apply in their company. Diversity and inclusion are not just about the protected classes discussed here related to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. They go beyond those limits to look at differences among generations, cultures, and even learning styles.
We are at a unique point in today’s business world with as many as five generations in the workforce. This unusual dynamic plays a crucial role in the introduction of technology to a company, the values the company espouses, and the general work ethos of each generation. The younger generations are more globally connected and have access to much more information in a shorter period of time. They will be challenged by synthesizing such vast data and being able to discern the reliability of the information available. At the other end of the timeline, older generations are more traditional and will have a harder time embracing new concepts or ways of doing business. While this doesn’t seem new as there is always generational overlap, the fact that people are working longer and life spans have increased, combined with the exponential advancements in technology, has greatly affected organizations.
Senior HR professionals must also be attuned to cultural competencies and understand the impact of globalization in the marketplace. Being aware of the role that culture can play in a company will help develop diversity and inclusion programs that reach out to all cultures and respect their contributions to the company. These programs enhance an organization’s capabilities with respect to employee relations. These slight differences in all employees will impact how they each assimilate information that is learned by the organization. Senior HR professionals must know how to lead this process and ensure that no group is marginalized or not allowed to contribute to the growth and development of the organizational culture.

Strategies for a Safe and Secure Workplace
Senior HR professionals must have extensive knowledge of the variety of strategies that protect employees from occupational illness and injury. Other programs also reduce the company’s overall operational risk. While the structure and execution of these kinds of programs are very different, they are both a means of reducing risk to the organization with the goal of maintaining a strong and capable workforce.
There are several types of risks that companies are exposed to in the course of conducting business. Senior HR professionals must familiarize themselves with the variety of potential risks and how they can be mitigated to protect the organization. Properly identifying the risk to an operation is an essential skill that should be practiced. The risk is mitigated when proper procedures are established and followed, proper safety equipment is installed, and personnel are trained on incident prevention and response. In general, risks can be to the safety or security of the organization.

Occupational Injury and Illness Prevention
General safety programs seek the reduction and elimination of hazards that cause injury or illness.
This table provides some examples of creating the conditions to prevent incidents. Senior HR professionals must know how to develop these programs and evaluate their effectiveness. In some cases, senior HR professionals in conjunction with managers will create additional duties where an employee is the responsible agent for safety in a particular department or division.

TABLE: Prevention methods

In addition to individual appointments, senior HR professionals should understand how to design and manage committees with the task of promoting safety practices and general awareness of risks that employees are exposed to within the organization. They can help with policies that implement incentives that are awarded to individuals and teams that are safety focused and have solid practices that result in a reduction of preventable illnesses and injuries in a company.

Real World Situation: Explosion on Set
A licensed pyrotechnician on a movie set was working to rig explosives on cars for a scene to be filmed outside a warehouse. As the individual was carrying the charge to the place where it would be attached, it detonated, causing injury to the individual. Fortunately, the individual was following all of the established protocols for handling the explosive cord including proper distance from the body and location. While the injury sustained was severe, it was not fatal. An investigation was conducted to examine whether the individual missed a procedure or created an unsafe condition. This included other witness statements and a review of the area. It was ultimately discovered that this particular remote location was a former factory with iron filings scattered in the soil surrounding the building. These filings happened to create sufficient static charge when walking across the lot that the explosives ignited. This was unforeseen by the production crew or the very experienced technical expert. It shows that even with procedures and trained personnel, incidents can still occur. However, it also is worth noting that the severity of the occurrence was mitigated precisely because proper practices were being followed.

Workers’ Compensation
Senior HR professionals must know how the workers’ compensation program works and how premiums are determined. They must ensure that policies are created that govern procedures associated with the workers’ compensation claims of employees. They must evaluate claims and look for trends that indicate gaps in safety practices. These claims usually have a medical component for any treatment, along with any rehabilitation and a portion of wages lost. These packages can be several thousands of dollars, so each claim will have a significant impact on the resulting premium increases.

Workplace Safety
Safety protocols are intended to reduce accidents and the extremely high costs associated with workers’ compensation and other financial liability. However, these safety points work only if they are implemented and followed by the employees. Generally, safety risks are those specific risks that come from hazards that result in physical illness or injury and subsequent losses in work time, productivity, efficiency, or resources (such as money). Hazards such as those that cause slips, trips, or falls can be reduced.
This table gives some examples of hazards, the possible losses that they cause, and the prevention or risk mitigation method.

TABLE: Hazards and risk

Certain safety risks, as shown in Table 10.4, require different means to reduce the threat. The necessary measures needed to protect employees against tripping are quite different from the measures to protect against blood-borne pathogens, but the steps to identify these hazards and implement controls are the same.

Security
Senior HR professionals should be familiar with a variety of security risks, from both physical and virtual aspects. Theft is a large risk that can create loss for an organization if access controls are not present; it’s also a risk if there are situations where employees or outsiders perceive an opportunity to steal, if the consequences are low, or if there is a low chance of being caught. Without proper standards, some employees may feel entitled to take company property or feel that it’s acceptable behavior. Senior HR professionals must ensure that the company clearly defines the disciplinary outcome if a theft occurs.
In addition to general theft, corporate espionage is a specific kind of theft that involves trade secrets and insider information about a company and its activities. This is an intentional act by someone who intends harm or damage to a company by stealing proprietary information that can be used to damage an organization’s reputation, market share, or products. This person seeks for an outside entity to gain a competitive advantage over the company by using deceptive means to gain access and use the information. In a similar fashion, sabotage doesn’t seek to take information out of the organization but to take action that harms the company from within. Sabotage is a deliberate act to disable, destroy, or break equipment that is needed for operations to delay or stop production or delivery of service.
Senior HR professionals should know how to reduce physical risk, by controlling access and establishing procedures for who may perform certain tasks in the company. For example, suppose a company that uses a direct deposit system for payroll transposes an account, causing an employee to go unpaid. To correct the situation, the finance department generates a handwritten check to be issued to the employee. Without proper controls, the check could be approved for any amount. The accounting department, without knowledge of the transaction, could improperly report the payment as an error, resulting in a stop to payment. These controls ensure that the right individual is approving money movement, and if there are any changes to procedure, that they are communicated throughout the organization to individuals who need to know this information to properly fulfill their duties.

Emergency Response, Business Continuity, and Disaster Recovery Plans
Like general emergency preparedness plans, business continuity and disaster recovery plans have components that senior HR professionals must know. Specifically, they must know the ways that their organization chooses to back up and protect sensitive data. This may include using a cloud service or third-party vendor to store data off-site. By having a backup of information stored at a separate location, the company reduces the risk that may be caused if an incident happens whereby the primary storage location is destroyed (fire, tornado, flood, and so on). Senior HR professionals must take care to develop and know the parts of a disaster recovery plan, which includes items such as alternate work locations. In some situations, especially with companies that have multiple locations, it may be possible to re-establish work in another place while waiting for recovery operations to restore primary locations.

Real World Situation:  Hurricane Katrina
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the Deep South of the United States and specifically was responsible for causing a catastrophic flood of New Orleans. The United States Military Entrance Processing Command (MEPCOM) is responsible for the accession and qualification of individuals joining the U.S. Armed Forces. It has 64 military entrance processing stations (MEPSs) around the United States, including New Orleans. At the time of the disaster, the personnel needed to evacuate themselves, along with files including hard copies and vital records such as birth certificates for those candidates who were in processing to the military and headed to basic training from that region. They successfully stored and secured thousands of files and moved them to alternative locations, including Atlanta and two other MEPSs to continue operations. These alternate work sites were able to take the increased workload and displaced workers until operations in New Orleans could resume. This is a great example of preparedness and planning in a short time to respond to a disaster.

Internal Investigation, Monitoring, and Surveillance
Senior HR professionals must know both the capabilities and the limitations of techniques for monitoring employees in the workplace and surveillance. This includes internal investigations of employees suspected of violating policies or those whose behavior may pose a risk to the organization. In the modern workplace, the most readily identifiable example of this type of activity is email monitoring and website visits. The IT department has the capability to track and store data elements that are transmitted across company equipment. Senior HR professionals must understand how to notify employees that they may be subject to this kind of surveillance as a condition of having access to and using company computer systems. Senior HR professionals must ensure that managers understand that communications transmitted in the conduct of work should not be considered private or personal and therefore may be accessed as part of routine work operations. It should be clearly communicated with active acknowledgment by each individual employee that they may be monitored while working. While a company should respect the privacy of its employees, it has an affirmative responsibility to protect its IT infrastructure, and any risk imposed by employees disregarding policies is too high.

Data Security and Privacy
Data security and privacy ensures that the digital information a company collects and stores is authenticated and secure from intrusion. Modern organizations store much of their information digitally on servers located within the company or externally maintained by third-party vendors. In all cases, senior HR professionals should know common practices to reduce the risk associated with data breaches and how to report incidents if they occur. The greatest risk to a company’s data is the personnel who work for it. In most cases, the problem is not malicious actors from within but complacent employees who do not follow proper procedures and are unaware of threats to data integrity.
Data transmitted across email or the Internet can be stolen. It is important that senior HR professionals know which critical data should be encrypted. Personally identifiable information (PII), such as social security numbers, bank information, and credit card data, should be protected. Files that are stored on servers should be restricted for access to those individuals with a legitimate business interest. Shared folders, therefore, should be routinely checked to determine whether people have appropriate credentials for accessing the data contained in the files. Most files and computer systems are protected by passwords. It is an important practice in HR that passwords should not be shared to prevent unauthorized access or disclosure.
Because employee complacency or negligence poses the greatest risk to data integrity, data hackers will exploit this vulnerability. One successful technique is called social engineering. This is a construct where someone attempting to gain access uses a variety of practices that take advantage of the human nature to help or assist others. For example, someone may pose as a customer and ask questions in an attempt to get an employee to reveal sensitive information. This approach relies on good customer service standards and the employee’s desire to answer the client’s questions. Employees can be tricked into giving away passwords that can be used to gain unauthorized access to the data being protected. Senior HR professionals must be aware that training and vigilance are the best risk mitigation strategies for the organization.

Exam Tips
Review methods for assessing employee attitudes, opinions, and satisfaction. Know how to conduct and deliver results from employee engagement surveys. You should understand how to take survey information and create action plans on how to improve conditions for employees to improve their attitudes toward work and management of the organization.
Understand disaster recovery. Know the parts of a disaster recovery plan and how the HR team contributes in an organization. Review any previous incidents that may have caused a disaster recovery plan to be implemented and how the organization recovered after an incident. Review what essential information must be saved, backed up, or protected in a company and how that task is being done. How are incidents reported that could cause a disaster recovery plan to be executed, and who makes the decision?

Responsibilities
The responsibilities of senior HR professionals for employee relations and engagement can greatly impact the overall climate of the company and therefore the organizational effectiveness. Senior HR professionals must diligently execute these duties as part of their jobs. Often these responsibilities are neglected because the negative impact of neglect is not readily apparent. However, the consequences can be severe and long-lasting for inattention to this important role.
While safe practices must be part of a company’s everyday operations, senior HR professionals must understand the importance of the responsibilities they have in this area. The proper development and implementation of a workplace safety and security program is paramount. However, it’s not just about documentation and compliance; it is about developing and encouraging a culture of safety throughout the company. Effectively managing risk to prevent illness and injury will help the organization reduce loss and liability. HR professionals can demonstrate through their actions a continued commitment to the organization’s employees and their health and safety.

Engagement Strategies
Employee engagement describes the level of workers’ satisfaction with organizational policies and practices. Senior HR professionals are responsible for developing strategies that are designed to improve employee attitudes and motivate them to perform at optimal levels. Some techniques include the implementation of recognition programs, the design of career development models, and the use of performance management. To improve engagement, senior HR professionals must also examine the company’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, seeking feedback from employees, improving hiring practices, and delivering effective training that celebrates diversity in the workplace.

Strategies for Employee Satisfaction
Because each employee is different, there is no universal solution for making them happy. In fact, senior HR professionals will realize through experience that attempting to make each and every employee “happy” is ultimately a self-defeating task. Gauging employee satisfaction is not about “happiness” as much as it is about fulfillment of their desires and goals by matching skills the employee is good at with tasks that must be accomplished to meet the organizational goals. When this alignment is accomplished, the employee feels they are a valued member of the team by having tangible results that reflect their contributions and efforts. Therefore, senior HR professionals must devise a variety of strategies that match skills, recognize contributions, and better align an employee’s efforts to the goals of the company.

Recognition
A recognition program that is executed in a timely fashion and is fair and equal in its recognition for similar contributions between employees is necessary to maintain employee satisfaction. Senior HR professionals are responsible for the design and implementation of recognition programs and for training managers to know when and how to recognize employee contributions. As mentioned previously, each employee is different, so each may respond to different types of recognition. Some examples include monetary awards, noncash awards, honorary awards, and informal recognition. Motivations of individuals will help managers and HR professionals identify and meet their needs for recognition.

Career Development Models
Creating career paths and models that show potential developmental steps by which an entry-level employee can grow and advance over time is a key responsibility for senior HR professionals. Each position in the organization has job specifications and qualifications. By determining the necessary experience, education, and training, the company identifies how an employee might progress over the course of a career. The model may point to lateral moves across divisions or upward mobility based on potential. Senior HR professionals can then use these road maps in conjunction with managers to identify gaps, develop training plans, or find activities that build the necessary knowledge, skills, or abilities required for the next level.

Performance Management
To align behaviors of employees with the organizational goals, senior HR professionals develop and implement evaluations, corrective action, and coaching to identify an employee’s strengths and weaknesses and, more important, strategies and suggestions for improving performance over time. Performance management is the entire process and includes the tools, such as formal reviews, and the procedures, such as one-on-one coaching sessions to discuss expectations and outcomes related to an individual’s performance. Senior HR professionals must train managers and executives in the uses and limitations of performance management systems. There are a multitude of options available in the modern business environment, but there is no one-size-fits-all solution. However, if you view the ultimate goal of performance management as alignment of employee and organizational goals, then the required performance management is the system that most effectively accomplishes this task.

Strategies to Promote Diversity and Inclusion
In 2015, Vern Myers addressed AppNexus’s inaugural Women’s Leadership Forum with a talk titled “Diversity Is Being Invited to the Party; Inclusion Is Being Asked to Dance.” This analogy is very fitting and describes the strategies HR professionals can use to ensure that all employees are given opportunities in the organization and then to promote those opportunities to encourage participation. Among areas that senior HR professionals must focus on are hiring, employee feedback, and training.
While senior HR professionals are responsible for ensuring that hiring practices are compliant with existing equal opportunity laws, the strategies for diversity and inclusion go beyond minimum requirements and standard practices. These strategies should actively promote opportunities for talent pools that may not traditionally participate in the company’s business sector—for example, targeting traditional women’s colleges with training for careers that are historically male-centric, such as engineering. Another mechanism is using employee feedback on how to expand opportunities and increase participation. Finally, senior HR professionals work in conjunction with management to implement training that promotes awareness and counters residual biases and prejudices that may exist throughout the company.

Safety and Security Strategies
Senior HR professionals are responsible for the safety and security of the human capital of the organization. This includes emergency response plans, access controls, and data security and privacy. The goal with these programs is to protect the organization and mitigate risk. Among the more notable responsibilities of senior HR professionals is to develop and implement strategies to protect employees from the threat of workplace violence.

Protect against Loss and Liability
Senior HR professionals must help the organization protect against loss and liability. They work in conjunction with the safety personnel, legal, privacy, and information technology specialists to develop and execute emergency response plans in part to prevent but often to respond to incidents within the organization.

Prepared for a Catastrophic Crisis
The attacks of September 11, 2001, on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon killed nearly 3,000 people. A clear tragedy in American history, it has changed the face of emergency response and business continuity to prepare for the absolute worst conditions and destruction of an organization. However, there were almost the same number of lives saved by one individual, named Rick Rescorla, who was director of security for Morgan Stanley, whose headquarters were located in the World Trade Center. His actions on that day, along with preparations, planning, rehearsals, and communications, have been widely credited with saving the lives 2,687 of Morgan Stanley employees who safely evacuated the towers before they fell. We must all take the lesson that we must plan for the worst and be prepared to handle and respond to a crisis because it is impossible to prevent catastrophic events 100 percent of the time. It is not a matter of “if” but “when” it will occur.

Emergency Response
Emergency response plans are, in part, the responsibility of senior HR professionals. As new employees are hired and integrated into the organization, they must be familiarized with the plans to protect employees’ safety and the assets of the company. Senior HR professionals develop plans and keep them current. They are also responsible for coordinating and developing training on the various topics covered by these contingency plans. Senior HR professionals play an integral part in maintaining business continuity and recovery to normal operations following any catastrophic event.
 

Preventing and Responding to Workplace Violence
One of the most critical risk management tasks that senior HR professionals are responsible for is preventing and responding to workplace violence. Just within the past few years, there have been high-profile violent events, in places of business or commerce, involving employees and bystanders. The term active shooter has become the general term to indicate an armed individual with the intent to inflict mass casualties through an intentional violent act. These acts are usually short in relative duration but inflict a great deal of damage, physically and emotionally, on the victims.
Not all workplace violence events are active shooter or mass casualty situations. Consider a domestic dispute between two individuals, one of whom works for the company. There may be a threat or possibility of risk should the other party attempt to cause an incident at the place of work of the employee. At that point, the business has an important role to ensure the safety and security of their employee. This may take the form of an escort to the employee’s vehicle or verifying visitors at a reception station by checking valid identification.
This table shows some examples of workplace violence and prevention or response techniques that senior HR professionals might use.

TABLE: Workplace violence responses for HR professionals

Developing Security Plans
Senior HR professionals help the company develop security plans to protect unauthorized access to and disclosure of critical information or physical areas of the company. By doing so, they reduce the risk that the company undertakes in its operations. Security plans may include determining appropriate levels of access in information systems or in areas of the company. Senior HR professionals develop procedures and practices to maintain rosters or digital controls, issue security identification badges, and write policies governing access to vital operational information.
 

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
In theater, they say “The show must go on!” It’s no different in business. Even if there has been a successful attempt to disrupt operations by outside entities or an incident has occurred resulting in serious injury or even the death of an employee, there is an expectation that the company must continue to function and perform its mission. Not to do so threatens to impact a much larger community of workers, stakeholders, and customers. Business continuity looks at the short term to keep operations running and to quickly assess what gaps may have occurred as a result of an incident. It is worth noting that when testing business continuity plans, the greatest risks are those where a loss creates an operational gap that is difficult to overcome, expensive, or time-consuming. Disaster recovery is an internal function that restores damages to a pre-incident state if possible or rebuilds a lost capability to offer the same or greater level of service than was provided prior to a disaster.
Senior HR professionals play a key role in developing, monitoring, and testing business continuity plans. They are responsible for identifying critical HR business processes that must continue to function and essential data that should be backed up or otherwise secured in the event of an emergency. Additionally, they are responsible for coordinating with executive management to identify essential personnel in the organization who play a critical role in disaster recovery and ensure that those individuals are properly trained and aware of their duties and responsibilities. Often senior HR professionals will be responsible for providing public relations or communications departments with information that has been properly screened to protect individual privacy but otherwise may have a public interest.


Real World Situation: Ransomware Recovered
A company that I worked for was hit by ransomware, a specific type of malicious software that allows computer hackers to gain access to electronic data and seize it, preventing any legitimate users from accessing it. Usually this is done through social engineering and an employee unknowingly giving access to an unauthorized party who is then free to plant the ransomware. The data is not erased or damaged; it is simply made inaccessible. To recover the data, the company is instructed to pay money to an untraceable account, and doing so will get access back. The goal of the hackers is strictly to make money, so having control of the data is just a means to an end.
In the case of this company, the organization has a strong disaster recovery plan and maintained continually updated backups of the data at an off-site location that was not affected by the ransomware. The company IT team was able to restore the data from the backup without any significant loss (other than time) without having to pay the ransom, and additional focus was placed on training employees to be aware of social engineering attacks.
Senior HR professionals also must communicate with employees to keep them informed of changes in operations that result from an emergency situation as well as serve as a point of contact for employees attempting to communicate with the company when normal operational channels are unavailable. For example, a retail chain that has stores in a hurricane evacuation zone must be prepared when a hurricane forces an evacuation of the area. Workers for the store may be displaced and have limited ability to communicate their whereabouts to the organization. Senior HR professionals may establish contact points to assist and provide a means for employees to reach out. If there is a significant loss of power or communications, it becomes increasingly difficult to reach employees to let them know what is going on and what to do next. Senior HR professionals must think ahead and anticipate some ways that operations might be impacted in these situations.

Electronic Media
In today’s digital environment, companies must be able to assess the risk that is posed by the World Wide Web. User agreements are a means to inform employees about policies governing access to data systems and appropriate use for work and leisure purposes. Most companies allow some reasonable personal use of organizational computers and equipment. These agreements or policies specify the limitations and restrictions of their use. Senior HR professionals are instrumental in helping an organization develop effective policies and ensuring that proper training is conducted to prevent abuse of company email, social media, and appropriate website access.

Virtually every organization will have email as a means of communicating official business and personal information between employees, management, and the outside world. Companies, in some cases such as government entities, are required to maintain any official correspondence, and this includes email. Senior HR professionals are responsible for ensuring that employees understand their rights concerning email access as well as the duties of the company to maintain this information if requested. Criminals and data hackers have discovered that to gain access to company information, one of the easiest means is the use of social engineering through fake phishing emails. These are designed to get the employee to click a link or download a file in the body of the message that unwittingly helps the criminal gain unauthorized access. Because of this risk, the company must take steps to help employees recognize these tactics and encourage proactive measures to prevent loss. Senior HR professionals can assist in this process by developing policies that limit the use of official email to only those items necessary for business. Restricting personal use of company email reduces the likelihood that spam or other high-risk emails will be sent to employees.

In that same manner, HR professionals must have strong policies that define appropriate website access. Pornography, hate groups, and extremist websites that are being “surfed” by employees on company time not only pose a risk in the loss of productivity but also can create potential harassment claims against the company if proactive steps are not taken to address the risk. If the appearance is that the company has a permissive attitude to these activities, it can be held responsible for actions that stem from this conduct by employees. The acceptable use policies are maintained by HR and must be communicated to all employees so that they understand what is considered to be the appropriate activity on Internet access. It is not practical to limit web use to work-only sites because it becomes harder and harder with the growing number of sites today. However, there are effective web tools that can block sites actively as needed. Senior HR professionals are responsible for establishing training that discusses appropriate office conduct and the websites that should be used in the conduct of business for the company.

Privacy Policy
Senior HR professionals are responsible for developing and implementing internal and external privacy policies. Privacy relates to the protection and proper use of personal information that has been collected by an organization as well as the internal controls that verify that policies and procedures are being followed. To protect against unauthorized release or disclosure of information that could adversely impact an employee, senior HR professionals must ensure that they collect only the minimum amount of information that is required to achieve an intended purpose. They must also control access to the information so that only the fewest number of people who need the information have it. Finally, they must inform an individual whose information has been collected, the intended purpose for collecting it, how it will be shared, and if there is an unauthorized disclosure with the measures being used to protect or recover the information.
Identity theft is a growing threat to businesses and their employees. When personally identifiable information, such as a social security number, is stolen, it can be used for a variety of purposes. Credit cards, bank accounts, or other financial instruments can be obtained using falsified information.

In a similar manner, data files on a network should be protected and restricted for use by authorized personnel with a need for such information also. Senior HR professionals are responsible for coordinating with the information technology specialists to determine the proper level of data classification. Data classification is a process by which the organization determines the required level of safeguarding and then assesses the risk or potential severity of loss should the data be breached. Most often, the greatest risk is through human error in the misuse of passwords and other access controls that were in place to safeguard data but are subverted by employees for expediency without realizing the increase in risk. It is not just employees’ data that the company has a responsibility to safeguard. Clients and customers have an expectation that their information is also protected. Senior HR professionals are responsible for ensuring that the policies and procedures protect all personally identifiable information obtained by the organization, not just the data related to employees.

One other area that senior HR professionals are responsible for is the policies and procedures on workplace monitoring. In some organizations, there are security cameras that record activities to protect against loss. The company must clearly communicate with employees the purpose of the cameras, what data is collected, and how it can be used. For example, if the stated purpose is to protect against theft and the camera recording is used following a workplace accident to determine whether an employee was negligent, there is a possibility that the collected video could not be used legitimately for this purpose. This is especially true if disciplinary action resulted from the monitoring, as it would violate the employee’s expectation of privacy. HR professionals therefore should communicate a wide use of policy and ensure that employees are notified as to the possibility of being recorded and what the information could be used for in the broadest sense.

Effective Labor Strategies
While the organized labor movement changes over time and may not be as strong as in the past, it is a significant part of the United States workforce and therefore an important responsibility for senior HR professionals. They must understand the collective bargaining process and the associated requirements and must be able to execute the task. It may be that the employees of a company never seek to organize; however, there is a responsibility to the organization that HR be prepared to participate in the election process, contract negotiations, and administration.

Maintaining a Union-Free Organization
Senior HR professionals are responsible for proactively managing employee relations so as to keep the company union-free. It is an important distinction that this does not explicitly or implicitly mean that they are not to fully follow all the rules and regulations in the conduct of labor practices. To maintain a union-free organization, the company may develop strategies that result in a lower interest in unionization by employees. We have discussed workforce planning, human resource development, and compensation and benefits, and in the conduct of these functions the company can create a strong culture in which the employee feels valued and their needs are met. However, in addition to these functions, at a senior level HR professionals can provide guidance in the development of strategies to remain union-free.

Senior HR professionals can work with executives to develop and articulate a message that makes an argument for the company to remain union-free. By listing the reasons that both employees and the company benefit, it is possible to persuade employees from choosing the path to unionization. They must also ensure that employee relations matters are handled effectively in a timely manner. The company’s values must reflect the importance of the employees’ contributions to its success. A company that keeps its employees in high regard with respect for their work will negate many of the reasons employees seek unionization. If employees feel that they have a voice in the direction of the company and are free to bring issues to management that are resolved promptly, they may feel that the need for collective bargaining is not high.
Senior HR professionals are in a position to evaluate the morale of the employees through surveys, interviews, and discussions. They can offer insight to management as to employee needs and offer information to employees about the direction of the company or insight into executive-level decisions. They should always strive to ensure that managers treat employees fairly and listen to their concerns.


Real World Situation: Educating Employees on How a Union Is Formed
It is permissible for HR professionals to educate employees on the union process. They are free to point out facts that a union can be created with less than the majority of the employees actively wanting a union. If a union attempts to get employees to sign organizing cards, the employees should know that they are not agreeing to elections but are agreeing to pay dues and actively want representation.

If just 30 percent of the eligible employees (which could be far fewer than the total number of employees) sign cards, an election can be held. In the election, only a majority of those voting are required to certify a union. So even if a company has 1,000 employees and only 100 vote, the union requires only 51 votes to certify. If an election is held, it is just as important that employees who are not in support of organizing vote against the union instead of abstaining from voting as their choice may not be reflected otherwise.

Some employees may have a strong desire for union representation only to learn, after the certification of a union, that their positions are not covered by the collective bargaining agreement and not represented. Employees may also have misperceptions about what powers a union has with respect to keeping an employee from being terminated or in getting a salary increase. The normal conduct of business if done in compliance will continue even if the company unionizes.

The Collective Bargaining Process
A large responsibility for HR professionals is participating in the collective bargaining process. Contract negotiations are complex with many needs from both sides and can be contentious or adversarial. HR professionals should strive to approach these negotiations in an open, fair manner that respects the needs of the employees while balancing those needs against those of the company and its stakeholders. Figure 10.1 shows the formal negotiation process as would be followed under the National Labor Relations Act. HR professionals may not participate directly in the negotiations but will provide essential information to the negotiators representing management. They must work for the interests of the company.
The outcome of the negotiation will be the result of several factors, but a negotiation to be most effective should focus on the interests of the parties and where there is common ground. When discussing differences, a negotiator should not anchor to a position as to be intractable. There are some principles that should not be sacrificed if doing so would be fundamentally contrary to firmly held beliefs or values, but these should be few. If everything is a critical point of negotiating, then nothing is. As with any negotiation, ideally the win-win works best in a collaborative gain and so both parties should seek out these options.

This process is called interest-based bargaining.



FIGURE: Contract negotiation


As part of the good-faith bargaining, senior HR professionals provide the negotiators with information as to be as transparent as possible when requested by union officials. There are certain exceptions that protect privileged or proprietary information about the company’s operations or private information about employees that is protected from disclosure.

Some examples of violating these principles are as follows:
- Not bargaining in earnest
- Not making any concession or considering valid proposals by the other side
- Not negotiating in a timely manner
- Circumventing the negotiators
- Unfair labor practices
Written intentions of contract negotiations are required at least 60 days in advance of contract expiration if a side wants to renegotiate and must include provisions for a time and place to meet.

Grievance Procedures
When resolving employee relations issues, senior HR professionals must be aware of and follow proper procedures. In the instances of an employee disputing actions taken by the company for disciplinary reasons, there should be a process to handle grievances. In union settings, an employee has a right to have another individual attend interviews during investigation processes that could result in disciplinary actions being taken. These rights are formally known as the Weingarten rights, named after a legal labor case ruling by the Supreme Court. Usually there are formal steps that are part of a grievance.

This figure shows a typical grievance process.



FIGURE: Formal grievance process


In the grievance process, HR professionals have the responsibility to do the following:
- Investigate thoroughly and be prepared for any litigation or mediation that may result from a complaint.
- Work with union officials that represent the employee and determine any company obligations as the result of union agreements.
- Document all findings and maintain all notes, records, or other correspondence related to the investigation.
- Avoid making individual concessions that set a precedent or conflict with existing policy or agreements with a union.
- Settle a grievance if the company is, in fact, wrong on the merits of the case.
- Continually communicate with the executives and decision-makers of the company on the progress of the dispute, grievance, and resolution.

The other circumstance in a grievance process is with performance. Senior HR professionals must be responsible for ensuring that management has documented and truly performed the required steps in a performance improvement plan before dismissing an employee for failure to perform. This is certainly true in a union environment, as it is likely that the collective bargaining agreement will have provisions that protect employees for being terminated for performance if these measures have not been done. Senior HR professionals have the responsibility when developing performance policies to include the steps management must take to document employee performance deficiencies and corrective measures taken.

Note: In situations where a manager has a poorly performing employee, they will often seek HR’s help in “getting rid of the bad employee.” Senior HR professionals must guard against this kind of action. This is because more often than not a manager has failed to document the deficiency properly and the failure has been going on for an extended period of time, but there is now a catalyst that makes the manager want to take action. Senior HR professionals must ensure that proper procedures are followed to avoid a grievance later.

Exam Tips:
Review strategies for employee satisfaction. Be familiar with the variety of methods to improve employee satisfaction including recognition programs, career development models, and performance management. Review your company’s practices in these areas and discuss their effectiveness with the individuals responsible for their design and execution.
Review union policies or practices. This review is especially important for HR practitioners who do not have exposure or experience with unions or collective bargaining. Look at federal legislation and research decisions by the National Labor Relations Board.

Summary
The topic of employee relations and engagement examines how to effectively manage the expectations and relationships between employees and management. It creates a framework to handle and resolve conflicts that arise between members of the team and, in some cases, provides guidance on disciplinary action. The labor laws of the United States are intricate and attempt to balance the needs of the company with the rights of the workers to have a fair wage with safe and reasonable working conditions. It is vital that senior HR professionals understand the restrictions and limitations imposed by laws, including the National Labor Relations Act. The HR generalist taking the SPHR® exam may be located in a right-to-work state or in a company without organized labor representation. However, this topic is still required knowledge and remains relevant even in these circumstances. It is still possible to violate provisions discussed in here if they do not properly understand the context and requirements.

Risk is a significant part of business, and great organizations take risks to ultimately succeed in their endeavors. However, unknown, unmitigated risks are unacceptable and will undoubtedly expose the organization to a great deal of potential litigation and liability. Senior HR professionals must be able to effectively identify risks, understand how those risks can potentially disrupt the business, and offer solutions on how to reduce risk profile. They must champion safety practices and enforce standards that protect employees from illness and injury.

Tip:
Don’t overthink the questions in the exam. The test is very straightforward to practitioners of human resources. Most often, test takers try to think about a question in terms of their specific organization instead of a general principle. In those circumstances, they get the question wrong because their organizational practice may not conform to industry standards or are unknowingly not compliant.