Did you know there are five generations in today's modern workforce? Now, if we could just get everyone to all work together! Let's take a quick review of each generation and their traits before we delve into the common problems we see our clients face...

With the rising cost of healthcare, employers have never been more aware of the connection between employee health and the company bottom line. A recent study showed that 75% of healthcare costs in the US stem from chronic illnesses like heart disease and obesity that can be addressed through wellness initiatives.

Yikes!!! Your job posting hasn't been receiving the response rate as you hoped and your hiring manager is pressuring you for candidates. So, as a Recruiter you know it’s time for an alternative means to the traditional “post and pray” method, sourcing for resumes. Sourcing is the process of searching for resumes using an online job board such as Monster, Indeed, and/or Career Builder. You may also utilize various association sites, social media sites, and niche job boards. Of course, you want to be sure the job board you select is one that will get you, viable candidates. When sourcing for resumes, try a few of the following methods. They may just help you find the ideal candidate!

A client recently came to me to as her HR Consultant to let me know that she was going to be having twins through surrogacy and wanted to discuss the short term disability benefits that she would receive as a result of having a child. As a human resources professional, I provided her with a straight forward response – you will not receive short term disability insurance if you are not physically having the baby yourself, as short term disability benefits are a result of a medical condition, childbirth for example, that prohibits you from physically doing your job. After talking through this with her further, we moved on to discuss the differences between the company’s medical leave policy that specifically referenced childbirth (this particular organization does not offer FMLA) and parental leave policy, which offered four fewer weeks of leave than the medical leave policy. This particular employee’s frustrations were around one single question: Why am I offered less leave for the adoption of a child than if I had given birth – I still have an infant to take care of? I realized through conversations with my colleagues that parents who adopt children often have this same frustration and do not understand why they are not offered the same leave benefits as employees who give birth to a child. We are seeing more and more organizations developing leave benefits for employees that take adoption into consideration; while this does not necessarily provide equal benefits to adopting parents, it does provide them with significant benefits that were not previously provided to them. Below is a comparison of leave benefits that may be available to a new parent who is either adopting or giving birth to a child.

As a Practice Leader here at Helios I have an opportunity to work with many government contractors grappling with the record-keeping requirements of maintaining their Affirmative Action Plans. Commonly referred to as an AAP, it's a program that outlines the equal employment opportunities and advancement, specifically for businesses with federal contracts or funding. As a government contractor, whether you are a prime or a subcontractor, your company must demonstrate the application of good faith efforts to increase the pool of qualified minority, female, veteran and disabled candidates when recruiting for open positions. The AAP plan is subject to scrutiny by the Office of Federal Contracting Compliance Programs (OFCCP) if your organization is selected for a compliance audit.

If you are in any way connected to technology, you are most likely using, or at least are aware of the options that come with using mobile phone applications in your everyday life. These applications have come to simply be known as “apps”. There’s an app for just about any and everything you can think of! Did you know there are great apps available to those of us in the HR world as well? Let's take a look at some the various apps that serve the purpose of providing information, networking and educating HR professionals on best practices and policies.