It seems like every month there’s a new story of a company being hacked. Earlier this year it was Anthem / Blue Cross Blue Shield and last year it was Target (who recently settled for $10mm) and Home Depot. The most recent incident was a couple weeks ago when the US Government’s Office of Personnel Management was hacked.

This one hit home for me. Many years ago, I passed all the necessary tests to be a Foreign Service Officer. This included a thorough background check, which includes where I’ve lived, where I’ve traveled, any drugs I’ve ever taken, and extensive personal information of my friends and family. It’s all now in the hands of the Chinese government and whoever else they sell/give it to. Oops.

Think this problem is going away? Not a chance.

Now, although it’s up to IT/IS departments to keep information safe, there is something HR can do to help their employees prevent identity theft.

Have them place a security freeze on their credit report.

Pace Salsa seemed to have had a pretty epic social media failure over the weekend, which the Huffington Post covers pretty well. The twitter conversation contains a ton of intrigue, including:

• Robots
• Salsa blackmail
• Fake Twitter accounts
• Employees trying to get others fired

Pretty great, huh? Too bad it was totally fake! But for training purposes, let’s pretend it was real. The obvious lesson is not to automate your Twitter account. Twitter is simply another communication channel and you wouldn’t automate your responses to support emails, would you? Didn’t think so.

Josh, a new dad, is suing his employer, Time Warner, for discrimination because they won’t give him the same 10 weeks paid leave that they give new moms and new adoptive parents (dads included). His claim is discrimination. If these other classes of people get that benefit, why not him?

What’s the Law Say?

The Family Medical Leave Act requires an employer to allow 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a new child. If both parents work at the same company, those 12 weeks can be split any way the parents choose (but they’re still capped at 12 weeks). Employers may also require employees to exhaust paid leave options first before unpaid leave kicks in. Employees can elect to do this anyway if they so desire.

There is no law that says employers must provide paid leave to employees. That makes this case purely about discrimination. Or is it?

Since we launched Blissbook, we’ve done a lot of talking with customers about the content that goes into one. We classify this information into three categories: culture, onboarding / general information, and case-specific. Although no Blissbook is the same, they will all contain one or more of these types of information.

Culture

Bubble Hockey ≠ Culture

Defining company culture is hard. Is it chemistry? Fun things people like to do together? How employees or customers are treated? It could be all of those things, but we agree with Rand Fishkin in that company culture can be boiled down to the following:

• What you believe in and why your company exists (your mission and guiding principles).
• Who you collectively are deep down inside (your core values).
• Whether or not you respect these things (how you hire, reward and release people).

These are not shallow questions and they require deep thought. There should also be collaboration with all employees within a company so that everyone is bought in and the culture reflects everyone’s belief of what the company is, not just leadership’s view of it.

The Affordable Care Act’s Health Insurance Marketplace opened nationally today (well, it was supposed to), much to the chagrin of many men & women in Congress. No matter how you feel about health care reform, I think we can all agree that this engaging video breaks it down into simple enough terms that even our representatives in Congress would understand. Well… maybe. Watch it and judge for yourself!

Patrick Lencioni writes “fables” to illustrate business principles. For someone who loves nothing more than losing themselves in a good novel, the plot of The Three Signs of a Miserable Job may seem a little stilted. But we’re not reading a novel here, we’re looking for guidance in our careers, so let’s look past that. In truth the use of the fable mechanism creates a context that helps us relate Lencioni’s teachings to our own experiences.

The gist of the book is this: there are three key elements of satisfaction in any job, and as a manager you have the power and the responsibility to change them all for the better.

Anonymity

People are more than just their jobs. When a manager recognizes that and connects with employees on a personal level, it’s the first step in building a team rather than a staff.

Irrelevance

Everyone wants to have an impact, but in many jobs it’s hard to see exactly what that impact is. A manager is responsible for showing each employee why their work is important and how they make a difference in people’s lives.

Immeasurement

Most people want to do a good job, but in order to do so there needs to be some sort of measurement of what exactly a “e;good job”e; is. By defining objective criteria over which the employee actually has control, the manager provides a framework for success.

The book is written from the lens of how a leader can improve staff morale, but I think there are some important lessons for regular old employees too. For me, the book helped to articulate what I was never able to about what I found dissatisfying in my work. There were a few “exactly!!” moments, and a few “well, duh” moments, and I came away with a sense of what I might be able to improve in my current position and some specifics to look for when considering future positions.

My one complaint: nobody needs to learn how to make a job miserable – the book is really about what makes a job truly rewarding. Why can’t we just say that?

We wrote a guest article on Zen Payroll’s blog about the new Employee Handbooks that companies are putting out these days, how they differ from the handbooks of old, and when companies should think about getting either one of them.

Here’s how the article starts…

Traditionally, employee handbooks have been snooze-inducing legal documents crafted or at least reviewed by a lawyer with the goal of protecting an employer from lawsuits and fines. But the definition of an employee handbook is expanding. Recently, companies have begun using employee handbooks in a different way: to define and publish their company culture for employees and recruits alike. These culture handbooks set the tone for interactions throughout a company and paint a picture of what new employees can expect upon joining. So when do handbooks matter to you, and which kind should you have? Depending on your company’s size, you may have one, both, or none.

Check out the full article on Zen Payroll’s blog.

Photo credit: This is Zappo’s 2011 Culture Book.