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Pivotal's HR Blog
Pet Perks: How important are they? Data indicates it is very important in competitive employment market
“Pet perks” is usually considered a “niche” benefit. In today’s highly competitive market, where critical positions go unfilled for weeks or months, it may be the difference between “best candidate” and none. The classic example, from a company with huge recruiting needs, is Amazon. At the Seattle campus, there are …
What are job seekers looking for? Work culture dominates trends: important insights for recruiters
Traditionally, recruiters, HR Managers, and employers have held to the notions that job seekers are most strongly weighing salary and benefits when choosing between jobs in a competitive market. Data on GoogleTrends and internet search information helps broaden our understanding of what sought-after employees truly care about — giving you …
19% of Ontario employers plan to increase hiring in third quarter 2019, as high as 38% in one sector: survey
Based on “hiring intentions” of employers, a new survey of 1900 employers indicated that nineteen percent of employers plan to increase staffing levels, and seventy-seven percent plan to leave staffing unchanged (in other words, no reductions.) This is in line with economic forecasting and bodes well for the job market. …
Payroll managing supplementary pay practices: attracting and retaining top talent with differentials, bonuses and spot “irregular” pay
A mix of supplemental bonusing and differentials can be crucial to retaining or attracting talent to your company, but it is easy to run afoul of fairness and equity rules, Canada Pension Plan and Employment Insurance rules, and other legislation — not to mention any “collective agreements” in your workplace. …
“Dying for a paycheque?” — good HR Managmement can breathe new life into your team
With power personalities such as Elon Musk advocating 100-hour weeks — and many real-life examples of 100-hour work weeks, notably amongst software developers — HR managers have to be careful not to literally “work their teams to death.” Chances are, if you are a manager, you are one of the …
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What’s an HR Manager to do with the “excessively absent” employee; and what about the law?
Of all the HR management tasks, perhaps the most complicated issue in the workplace is absenteeism, especially the unavoidable — and difficult-to-plan and manage — medical leave. While many absentee team-members may have challenging scenarios and legitimate reasons for absence, this does put a significant burden on the remaining workers …
Ontario’s payroll nightmare: compliance with confusing statutory holiday pay rules — without stress
Judging by the volume of calls to the Canadian Payroll Association, calculating pay for statutory holidays remains a mystery to many payroll managers or teams. According to the association, the calls are usually “how do I calculate,” or often just to “double check.” [1] Considering there are ten statutory holidays …
How to take hire top talent in a tight job market: 3 corporate tips and how to hire the “passive” candidates
Although most of the jobs added appear to be in the construction industry, the Canadian economy broke records, adding 106,500 jobs in April 2019, according to Statscan. This trend is expected to continue, as long as interest rates remain stable. This contributed to an unemployment rate of 5.7 percent, the …
A higher “sense of urgency” needed as increased CPP costs impact payroll budgeting
CPP costs began its inexorable — and unavoidable — rise in January, 2019 — but many Payroll and HR Managers have not given the increases a high sense of urgency. Those that do, will champion important changes to human resources management — becoming the future superheroes of budgets. Although the …
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Severance pay rules legal precedent: only Ontario payroll factors into the $2.5 million payroll threshold for severance
The Hawkes Decision sets some clarifying precedent for severance payments for Ontario payrolls, with a clear differentiation between companies with payrolls of more or less than $2.5 million — regardless of global payroll of the company. The important takeaway from the December 2018 decision, according to legal consultants at BLG, …
Triage Productivity Method: the 4-day week — proof “Triage Productivity” rescues 20% of your time; plus, 3 essential methods
Part 1 of a 3-part “Triage Productivity” series Triage Productivity (TM) is designed around prioritizing workflow as if your life depended on it — modelled somewhat after Triage field hospitals. (We’re being colourful to make a point. Bear with us.) In Triage, particularly in field hospitals or war zones, the …
Payroll and benefits managers should budget for drug and health benefit costs to rise nearly 12 percent in 2019
Drug benefits are projected to rise, on average by 11.57 percent on renewal in 2019, with healthcare benefits also rising 11.55 percent (according to Accompass data.) Dental benefits are forecast to increase 5.62 percent. “With good advisors, you’re going to find the rates will typically be lower for a lot …
Seven Digital Detox methods that can increase office productivity; human office workers now have an average attention span of 8 seconds, less than a goldfish
Since the advent of smart phones, the human attention span in the workplace has dropped to eight seconds — now shorter than that of a goldfish (at nine seconds) — according to a Microsoft Corp study of 2,000 participants. The main cause of the drop in attention — and resulting …
The most in-demand engineering jobs in Canada and U.S. 2019: salary trends, and the positions, certifications and skills needed
Engineering will always be in demand in the “job market” — with the U.S. market projecting an increase of 139,300 engineering jobs, especially over the next ten years, jumping to 1.82 million jobs from the current 1.68 million. Canada and the U.S. closely mirror proportionately. In Canada, the top 8 …
“Pivotal” moments: brace yourself for 31 unexpected paradigm shifts in the job market from these external non-economic factors
We could call them “pivotal” moments, or paradigm shifts in the job market. Past technologies such as automation, robotics, green technologies, cloud computing and smartphone radically reshaped the job market. The next big non-economic “game-changer” influencers in the job market will be more diverse. (For the purposes of this feature, …
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Practice the ‘puppy theory’
The HR Fishbowl wrote an interesting piece titled, “Annual Reviews…Who Needs Them?” It explores the perspective shared by Carol Bartz in a New York Times article regarding annual performance reviews and her general dislike for them. I have the puppy theory. When the puppy pees on the carpet, you say …
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