Strategic HR Lawyer

Almost forgot the 4 year Blogaversary of the Workers' Comp Insider.  The Blog has recently celebrated 4 years of great posts and informative commentary.  In the world of workplace blogging, it's an "oldy but a goody." Keep up the good work guys!

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Weblogs | Permalink

This blog, along with several other Long Island authored blogs was reatured in Newsday on June 10th.  Patricia Kitchen, a blogger and Newsday reporter who writes a weekly feature in Sunday Newsday on workplace issues, wrote an article on professionals who blog.  Fellow Lexblogger (that would be our blog hosting provider) and good buddy Troy Rosasco, author of the Disabled Worker Law Blog was also featured in the article.  For those of you who saw the article and sent me snide emails about the photo of me in my hammock with my lap top - thanks!  Sadly, now all of my students and clients probably think that I don't work!

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Miscellaneous , Weblogs | Permalink

Michael Fitzgibbon, author of one of my favorite blogs, Thoughts from a Management Lawyer, recently noted the observance of the fourth anniversary of his blog.  Michael writes from Canada and continually provides valuable and thought provoking commentary not just on Canadian employment law issues, but also the workplace, in general.   We, in the blogging community look forward to Michael's continued insights and perspectives.  Congratulations!

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Weblogs | Permalink

I've been remiss in not updating my blogroll (see "Diane's Blogroll on the left sidebar) in some time.  In the mean time, there have been quite a few new entrants and finds along the way.  These include:

• Employment Law Colorado  - by Peter Mullison, it is intended to serve as a resource for employers and employees to learn about and understand their rights and responsibilities related to Colorado employment law and labor law.
• The California Employee Rights Blog - by plaintif lawyers, James and Sara Peters.
• The New Jersey Employment Law Blog - by the Steinberg Law Offices - to provide a public service by informing and educating businesses and business people about the constantly evolving law that governs the employment relationship in New Jersey
• The Retirement Plan Blog - by Jerry Kalish of National Benefit Services Inc.
• Work In Progress by Time Magazine's Lisa Takeuchi Cullen.  She's providing a daily look at life on the job.

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Weblogs | Permalink

400th blog post on this site, that is!  ;>

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Miscellaneous , Weblogs | Permalink

.... and them some for Michael Fox, who is the author of Jottings by an Employer's Lawyer, the longest running blog related to employment law.  He started blogging four years ago back in the days when we were all using chisels and tablets (so, I exaggerate!).  In any event, congratulations Michael - keeps those great posts coming!

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Weblogs | Permalink

I've updated the blogroll on this site - check the link on the left sidebar called "Diane's Blogroll" under "Resources" and you'll be taken to my daily reading list of blogs.  Some new additions:

• The California Labor & Employment Law Blog - from the folks at Carlton, DiSante, and Freudenberger  - discussing employer-side California employment law
• Wagelaw - which dubs itself as "The California Wage and Hour Law Blog" - Although the focus on California, it's nice to see a blog focused solely on wage and hour issues.  Walsh & Walsh, PC, out of Irvine publish this blog and they represent both employers and employees.
• The Retirement Plan Blog by Jerry Kalish, President of National Benefit Services, Inc., a Chicago-based employee benefit consulting and administrative firm.
• What's New in Employment Law  - by the firm of Shaw Valenza, LLP another California Labor and Employment Law firm
• HR & Homeshoring - "dedicated to demonstrating how and why HR-driven homeshoring maximizes shareholder value and addressing the positive effect homeshoring will have on our economy and our society at large"
• Company Counselor - devoted to Corporate Attorneys, Corporate Lawyers, and Corporate Counsel
• Working Immigrants - about the business of immigrant work: employment, compensation, legal protections, education, mobility, and public policy by Peter Rousmaniere, a risk management professional in Vermont

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Weblogs | Permalink

Michael Specht, from the other side of the planet, and author of a great blog of his own, has been working on his site that tracks blogs in the HR space. This link will show you the top 10 list of blogs in the HR space by category. In addition, the home page will show you the latest blogs updated. If you are a prolific reader of blogs, this will serve as a great resource to make sure you are up to date on all of the blogs out there. Way to go Michael!

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Weblogs | Permalink

Uber blogger, Janell Grenier just celebrated the third anniversary of her Benefits Blog. Her blog has anything you could ever want in the field of employee benefits. Congratulations!

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Weblogs | Permalink

There have been two articles of late reviewing some of the more notable HR and employment law blogs out there. Human Resources Executive Magazine polled several bloggers about what they thought the most troublelsome issue facing HR executives is today. For their answers (including yours truly), go here (free registration required).

Tom Meghill at the American Bar Associations's Law Practice Management Section has another discussion of blogs and other resources in this area. For Tom's list go here.

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Weblogs | Permalink

After upgrading my blog to its present platform, I've gotten questions about where all that stuff is that was on the sides of my old blog. It's all still here. These areas became so large that they were better suited to subpages in this site. So you can still find my blogroll under "Diane's Blogroll" (scroll down on the left). Also, the other resources that were located on the front page of the old blog are listed by heading on the left side of this blog - with those extensive lists only a click away.

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Weblogs | Permalink

Ross Runkel has an interesting blog that I've been watching for a while.  Called Employment Law 101, it provides a nice summary of the various elements of employment law starting with sources of the law and employment at will.  He updates it every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Take a look here.

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Employment Law , Resources , Weblogs | Permalink

Ross' Employment Blog is one year old today!  In addition to wealth of information contained there, Professor Ross has several other sites with information on employment law, arbitration, and labor relations.  See them here:

• Arbitration Law Memo
• NLRB Law Memo
• Employment Law 101 (my personal favorite!)
• Ross' Employment Law Reviews (articles, books, courses)

Keep up the good work Ross!

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Weblogs | Permalink

Thanks to all who nominated and voted for this blog for the Recruiting.com Best Recruiting Law Blog for 2005 sponsored also by Jobster!  I'm glad you're finding the information provided here of value.

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Miscellaneous , Weblogs 1 Comments | Permalink

Don't forget to vote here for this blog for Best Recruiting Law Blog in the Recruiting.com 2005 Best Blog Awards - sponsored by Recruiting.com and Jobster.  Voting ends tonight at midnight.

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Miscellaneous , Weblogs | Permalink

I'm back from my trip to the Gulf area this past week with the Turnaround Management Association.  As I previously mentioned, we did a series of workshops in Baton Rouge and New Orleans for businesses in the area.  Dan Dooley, CTP of Morris-Anderson (Chicago) was our fearless leader, Anu Singh, CTP of Huron Consulting Group (Chicago) spearheaded the process of combining all of our presentations into a great program.   Also presenting were Pat O'Keefe of O'Keefe and Associates out of Detroit, Vince Liuzza from the local TMA Chapter, and yours truly.  The amazing staff of TMA headquarters in Chicago and the leadership of the local TMA chapter coordinated the activities ensuring a worthwhile event for everyone who participated.

We led the participants through the basics of the turnaround process, how to deal with bankers, lenders, the pros and cons of filing for bankruptcy protection and employee retention and other issues.   

Despite our frenetic schedule, we managed to go on a tour of devastated areas early Thursday morning.  The devastation was unbelievable.  I think its true that the media has all but forgotten as the news we see in no way portrays the reality of the situation down there.  Some amazing things we learned and saw while there:

• Around 200,000 homes were destroyed
• HALF of the area is still without power
• The homes of MOST of the people I spoke with were completely destroyed
• The population of Orleans parish is now at about 70,000 (down from about 400,000)
• The lack of employees is incredible - Many restaurants and other stores are operating with only one shift and limited hours.  Burger King is paying $10/hour and offering $500 monthly bonuses.
• The largest park in the area is now a garbage dump as a staging area for the 40 YEARS of garbage created by the disaster.
• And the list goes on....

Suffice to say, almost 4 months after Katrina hit it looks as though it happened yesterday!  Thankfully, TMA will continue its work to help businesses in the area.  For those interested in continuing TMA activities in this area you can visit the TMAssist Blog here.

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Corporate Turnaround , Employee Relations , Miscellaneous , Weblogs | Permalink

While I was down in the Gulf area, I was a tad out of touch.  Seems that this blog was nominated for "Best Recruiting Law Blog" (thank you...) in a survey sponsored by Recruiting.com.  For those of you who like what you read here, please vote for us.  We're way behind the eight-ball here with all of Typepad's recent problems and my being away.  Go vote HERE!!!!

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Miscellaneous , Weblogs | Permalink

I've updated this site a bit, adding a new search feature on the right.  Now you can search the contents of this blog.  I've also added a feature for those who are not too RSS savvy.  You can have posts sent to your email address if you are not using a news aggregator.  It will save you the step of coming back here to see the last time I've posted.

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Weblogs | Permalink

Long Island Business News featured this blog in its Law Column this week.  The article, which appears here on their website discusses the use of blogs as a marketing tool for lawyers.

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Miscellaneous , Weblogs | Permalink

As I sit here on Sunday morning reading my morning news (paper and digitally), I noticed an article in Newsday discussing workplace blogs.  Much to my dismay, none of the few blogs mentioned were from bloggers from Long Island.  Long Island, if it were a state, would be the fourth largest state in the country!  So, suffice to say, there are several excellent bloggers out there deserving mention.  For workplace blogs, here are a few:

• Regina Miller's (from waaaay out East on LI) excellent and thought provoking HR's Brand New Experience which is routinely linked to, commented on, and has a readership around the world.
• Troy Rosasco's (from Long Island based Turley Redmond and Rosasco - one of  New York's premier disability, workers' compensation and social security law firms) New York Disability Lawyer Blog
• This blog - read on 4 continents by thousands of readers, coming up on its one year anniversary.

I am curious to know if there are others out there.  If you know of any, send them my way and I'll mention them here.

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Miscellaneous , Weblogs 2 Comments | Permalink

Here are some sites that have aggregated several of the HR and/or employment law blogs into one place:

Ross Runkel, has created Work Law Blogs, which combines recent headlines and the first 200 characters of many blogs.  This way, you can go to one site to view the latest from a series of blogs.

The Human Resources Mega Blog (HRmegablog) is another blog that is "collecting the best human resources blogs on one page."

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Weblogs | Permalink

I've stumbled upon a few new blogs:

1.  This new blog - Seplerblog - is authored by Fran Sepler.  She's a MN-based consultant (for more go here) and has had some interesting posts - I found this one, "Sometimes You Need More Than Legal Advice" quite good.

2.  Former New Yorker (see... they're EVERYWHERE), Dina Beach Lynch has a blog called Mediation Mensch which is about having a mediation practice.  She has an interesting vocation.  She serves as a mediator and an ombudsperson for small and mid-sized employers.

Check these out.  They're worth the read.

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Weblogs | Permalink

Here are some interesting new weblogs that I am adding to the blogroll on the right:

1.  The Training and Development Blog  or T&D Blog for short, is edited by Eva Kaplan-Leiserson, an associate editor for the American Society for Training and Development.  I used to be very active in ASTD, before my lawyer days so I'm looking forward to her posts.

2.  The HR Marketer Blog is a blog "for companies who sell products or services to human resource (HR) executives."  Can't tell who's writing it, but it's an interesting topic.

3.  HRLori is another blog written by Lori Dorn an HR professional in California.  She's writing about "attempting to unravel the complex world of California human resources."  But, don't let her kid you, she's really from New York!

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Weblogs | Permalink

I attended the Blogging Goes Mainstream Seminar in NY last week along with Regina Miller of The Seventh Suite, my fellow New York HR blogger.   I thought I might comment on some of the workplace issues that were apparent, even though the conference was geared toward marketing. 

Robert Scoble, keynote (and author of the Scobleizer Weblog), noted that the corporate culture in which he works (Microsoft), welcomes dissent.  This culture enables him to challenge the status quo openly (and professionally) in his blog.  Obviously, there are several key points:

1. A culture of dissent supports the ability of employees to challenge the status quo, regardless of the medium.   Companies either have it or they don't.  Robert mentioned that he does not blog at work, and does it all on his own time.  If he challenges the status quo (like his recent challenge of Balmer on diversity), he is not unlike any other employee at Microsoft who can do so.
2. Regarding voicing dissent, there's something to be said about being professional.  I haven't taken a position on whether the Delta flight attendant should have been fired for her photos in her uniform, but whether the photos were on a blog, or posted on a bulletin board, it seems to me that posing for those shots probably wasn't a great career decision in the first place.  Someone who voices his dissent, slams or disparages their company in an unprofessional manner, or is just plain unprofessional on a blog or elsewhere, probably is going to find themselves in trouble some day anyway.
3. With all of the hype about blogging, a related issue to me is not blogging, per se, but the willingness of employees to speak out about things that have nothing to do with the workplace on subjects of interest to them.  The employee who has interests which may not "fit" with the stuffy corporate culture in which he works, isn't going to get fired for blogging, but rather fired for communicating those interests or beliefs - whether on a blog or otherwise.  Blogging just creates a new medium.

Also noted in the conference was the idea the extent to which consumers, or purchasers in general, search the web for intelligence prior to making decisions.  This means that in the workplace, our employees are likely surveying the web for information and intelligence on how to do their jobs, information about customers, vendors, the industry and the like.  Traditional research methods are likely being replaced by the web.  I'm reminded of this as I tell my students that a Google search is not academic research.  But, for many practical uses, it has become a viable way to collect a vast amount of information on a subject.

Regina noted the obvious - that there were probably only 2 HR people in the room of hundred (that would be she and I!).  OK, so I know the conference was directed at marketing, but if I was in corporate HR, I'd want to see the impact of blogs on the workplace and how blogs change the way we market our products as a company.  For HR, they should be interested in how we market to our constituents, the community and potential recruits.  Seems like there should have been more HR folks there.  Unfortunately, most HR folks will be waiting until some big stuffy law firm (that has never blogged) has distilled blogging down into some corporate policy discussion before getting engaged in the topic - pretty disappointing!

On a more interesting note, I did meet a few people there interested in using blogging as an internal medium for knowledge management and for team/departmental communication - rather than the traditional external communication which is the focus of most blogs.  They discussed using the blog as a forum to share information and as a way to keep people engaged.  Very interesting.

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Weblogs | Permalink

There is a blogging conference in NY next week.  It was mentioned here in Larry Bodine's Professional Marketing Blog.  The registration page is here.  I'm thinking of going. If any others on the right coast are planning to be there, drop me a comment and we can connect.

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Weblogs 1 Comments | Permalink

There's a new HR Blog on the map that I've been following for a few weeks now.  It's called HR's brand new experience and its being edited by Regina Miller, CEO of The Seventh Suite.  Based upon her bio, it looks like Regina has some very interesting experience which will add to the fray very nicely.  Her favorite part of HR:

"Strategy alignment, strategy deployment, internal branding and communication, management development, mergers and acquisitions, passion/values work, performance management and compensation, experiential design of any kind, including space and office layout as part of the brand experience."

This a lot of good stuff about HR and it's nice to see someone focusing on it.  Oh, and she's a New Yorker too.  I like that.

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Weblogs 1 Comments | Permalink

Many thanks to Bnet.com for naming this blog the "Blog of the Week" last week in their Monday Human Resources Roundup Newsletter.  :) !

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Weblogs 1 Comments | Permalink

I just updated the Blogroll on the right and added another list - HR and Employment Law news.  It's amazing how much good stuff is out there.  My goal here has always been to provide information to readers on the subjects of human resources and employment law.  Unfortunately, however, it is amazing how much other stuff is out there that doesn't have an RSS or XML feed.  I almost feel as though signing up for an email newsletter is going back to the dark ages!  In any event, I'll focus my energy on information that shouldn't be a pain to get to and for which I don't have to reveal my personal information to subscribe to and so should you!  With all of the available resources out there, why do people feel as though they need to hoard information and not share it?

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Weblogs 1 Comments | Permalink

J. Kevin Morton, a disability law specialist and author of the Disability Law Blog recently started a new blog focusing on Long Term Disability benefits - the LTD Benefits Blog.  Kevin is a NC attorney specializing in disability and social security benefits law.  I've been following his Disability Law Blog for some time now and I have no doubt the LTD Benefits Blog will be just as good.  I've added them to the blogroll on the right.  You'll find it worthwhile reading.

Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer In Weblogs | Permalink