Notes from — October 24, 2008
Human Resources Council Meeting
October 24th, 2008
Attendees:
Tish Fernandez and Candace Marsh from GCUA
Jeanette Emory, Joanna Kimmanee and Janie Camp from Robins FCU
Karen Pennington from Associated CU
Jeff Smith from CU of GA
Paula Kitchens and Lisa Battle from Augusta Metro FCU
As with other HR Council meetings, we opened with a brief review of the previous meeting. This meeting was at the new offices of Augusta Metro Federal CU.
In the roundtable discussion, topics varied as usual, and were as follows:
Payroll Processors: one CU is looking to switch payroll processors and currently working on RFP’s.
Compease and IPerformease: great product for CU’s. Compease works great in helping with job descriptions and keeping them updated while IPerformease is a product to assist with the performance appraisal plans. IPerformease allows managers to keep track of employee performances. It is also a tool to help determine the amount of salary increases.
Appraisals: one CU is struggling to get all the managers on the same page and remain consistent during the review process. They are currently using a quarterly paper evaluation process and asked what other CU’s are doing. Most are not completing quarterly and a handful is using IPerformease.
Exempt Employees: How do we log the hours for exempt employees? Once CU is having an issue with one manager in particular who will come and go as they please since they are exempt and they don’t have to log their hours per sec. Some noted that even though the managers were exempt, they were still required to clock in/out or have documentation of the hours they are working. This way, they could show when the manager was on duty.
First day orientations: a couple of CU’s have been making an “experience” on new employees first day at the CU. They’re not only taking them to lunch but they are doing something fun as well, making a half day out of it (ex. miniature golf). This has been going over well with the new employees as they are welcomed by management in a different fashion than just lunch.
Flex schedules: Two CU’s are trying flexible schedule arrangements. For one CU, it started within the HR Department. They each work a four day work week and two of them cut their hours back to save money as well. It has been discussed that if someone takes advantage of the opportunity then they will no longer be able to continue the flex scheduling.
The other CU has started with mainly with member service department. Working four / ten hour days. This has allowed the CU to extend their hours of operation and they have seen a good amount of call volume during those times, even without advertising the new hours.
They have established a policy explaining the rules and regulations of the flexible scheduling. If attendance issues begin, they will not be able to continue on the plan.
Holidays: How many paid holidays does each CU have? This varied among each CU in attendance some have nine, while others have 10- 11 ½ days.
Company Credit Cards: most have a company credit card where the CU receives the bill and pays with the proper backup. Another uses a card where the employees are responsible for the bill and payment of the expenses after being reimbursed through payroll.
Rounding Hours: Two CU’s use a rounding system for hourly employees. Examples would be if the employee clocked in at 8:11, the clock in time would be rounded up to 8:15 or if the employee clocks in at 8:06, the clock in time would be rounded down to 8:00. This way it works both ways for the employees. The managers can still see the actual time clocked in but the rounding takes place for paying those hours. One CU has just seen a problem with a few employees who have managed to beat the rounding system and get more hours. It was recommended to change the increments of the amount rounded, ex: if its 15 change to 5.
E Verify: New from the Department of Homeland Security, not used for pre-employment, can be used online. This will need to be done within 3 days of first day to verify eligibility to work in the US. This was new to some, so we will probably discuss this again next time.
Optical Scanning: a lot of CU’s are trying to go paperless and some have mentioned using Symitar. A product where the data is housed on its own server so no one else, not even IT can access the information without rights to do so.
Interviewing: who conducts the interviews for branches? For most, HR handles the first rounds and the manager conducts the second rounds. Also, does anyone conduct group interviews? Some CU’s did use this method.
Fraud Department: one CU has started a new department to handle the fraud and security issues. All agreed that there is a growth within the arena of fraud, whether that be new account or credit card fraud so everyone is looking into this more and more. |
