The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) finally revised the I-9 employment verification form and the Handbook for Employers.

It is required that all employers complete an I-9 form for all employees within the first three days of employment. The new I-9 reduces the number of documents an employee may present to prove employment eligibility in the United States.

Five List A documents, which prove both identity and employment eligibility, were eliminated and can no longer be accepted by employers:

• Certificate of U.S. Citizenship (Form N-560 or N-570);
• Certificate of Naturalization (Form N-550 or N-570);
• Alien Registration Receipt Card (Form I-151);
• Unexpired Reentry Permit (Form I-327); and
• Unexpired Refugee Travel Document (Form I-571).

Form I-766, the Employment Authorization Document, was added to List A.

A major change is in the instructions for Section 1 that the employee is required to fill out. The worker is no longer required to provide their Social Security number unless the employer participates in the USCIS Electronic Employment Eligibility Verification Program (E-Verify).

All previous versions of the I-9 form and Handbook for Employers are no longer valid and should not be used.

Employers must use the amended Form I-9, dated June 5, 2007, for all individuals hired on or after November 7, 2007. However, USCIS recognizes that employers should be afforded a period of time to transition to the amended Form I-9. The Department of Homeland Security will publish a Notice in the Federal Register announcing that it will not seek penalties against an employer for using a previous version of the Form I-9 during a 30-day transition period that begins on date of publication of the Notice.

After the transition period, employers who fail to use Form I-9 (Rev. 06/05/07)N may be subject to all applicable penalties. Employers do not need to complete new forms for existing employees, but must use the new forms for new hires or if an employee is required to re-verify employment eligibility.

The new I-9 form and the revised Handbook for Employers are available online at www.uscis.gov. Purchasers of Your Employee Handbook have already been sent the updated form and manual; future purchasers will receive it in their download package.

Many visitors to YourEmployeeHandbook.com are preparing to hire their company’s first “real”, that is, non-family, employee. Hiring your first employee can be overwhelming. You may not know where to begin or what ou must cover in order to avoid potential legal and financial liabilities.

We’ve listed a few of the most critical steps are listed below, however, when hiring for the first time, review your state’s employment regulations with your business advisor and tax specialist to avoid employment pitfalls.

When hiring, first obtain an employer identification number from the IRS. Download the EIN form from the IRS website at www.irs.gov.

With employees, you will have to pay state unemployment compensation taxes. These payments go to your state’s unemployment compensation fund, which provides short-term relief to workers who lose their jobs. Each state has a different way of handling unemployment compensation reporting. The Employer’s Poster Kit included in Your Employee Handbook includes a comprehensive 50-state listing of contact information for state unemployment offices.

You’ill need to withhold a portion of each employee’s income and deposit it with the IRS, as well as making Social Security and Medicare tax payments. The IRS has a special site for employers at www.irs.gov/businesses. Download IRS Publication 15, Employer’s Tax Guide, which is a very helpful guide.

You must also comply with the requirements of the Occupational Safety and Health Act or OSHA to ensure a workplace free of hazards, train workers on safety regulations, notify government administrators about serious workplace accidents, and keep detailed safety records. Rules vary depending on the type of industry. Go to OSHA’s website for specific information on your industry at www.osha.gov. Once you’ve researched OSHA’s requirements, you can use the basic Safety Program included with Your Employee Handbook to document your safety efforts.

Many federal and state government agencies require you to post notices providing information on worker rights for your employees. For information on the posters you are required to post, visit the Department of Labor website at www.dol.gov or refer to the Employer’s Poster Kit included with Your Employee Handbook.

For each employee you hire, create a file in which to keep job-related documents, such as job applications, employment offers, IRS Form W-4, performance evaluations, and sign-up forms for employee benefits. Medical records should be kept in a separate, confidential file, in a locked cabinet. You also need to keep I-9 Forms, which document an employee’s immigration status, in separate files and save the documents for at least one year after the employee has separated from your company. These forms, and many other HR forms, are available in the Companion Forms publication, included with Your Employee Handbook.

It is also is an excellent idea to provide a copy of Your Employee Handbook to each new (and existing) employee. Make it clear that employment with your company is “at-will”, and provide the new hire with a copy of the Handbook Acknowledgement Form to sign, and return to be held in their file.

These are a few of the critical first steps employers need to take when hiring employees. Following these steps will help reduce or eliminate problems with employee discipline, terminations and lawsuits in the future.

Soft skills are at least as important for success in today’s workplace as technical skills. In almost any industry, your employees will most likely work in teams. Certain types of skills and emotional intelligence can be crucial to success on the job in many of these situations. Assessing these soft skills can be difficult. Nick Roy offers some simple questions to use when you are conducting interviews.

Questions to reveal creativity/creative thinking/problem solving:

  When was the last time you “broke the rules” and thought outside the box), and how did you do it?
  What have you done that was innovative?
  What was the wildest idea you had in the past year? What did you do about it?

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The protected categories of sexual orientation, citizenship status and military status were added to the Department’s equal employment opportunity clause. Title 44, Chapter X, Part 750, Appendix A, as amended effective Nov. 20, 2006. 14-20,126.750.

Maine has revised its Workers’ Compensation, required for all employers, to include revised phone numbers and web addresses. The Video Display Terminal Law Posters, required for all employers whose employees spend more than four hours per day on a VDT, include updated phone numbers and web addresses, minor formatting to the English version, added wording and a new revision date to the Spanish version (recommended for employers of Spanish speaking employees). Phone numbers, web addresses, and revision dates were also updated to the Regulation In Employment Poster, required for all employers, and the Child Labor Laws Poster, required for all employers of minors under 18. The contact web address has also been revised on the state’s Whisteblowers’ Protection Act Notice, required for all employers to post.

You can download these posters free of charge directly from the Maine Department of Labor web site, or individually by clicking on the poster names above.

If you purchased Your Employee Handbook a while ago — say, more than a year — take a moment to read it and see if all the information within is accurate and still current. If it’s not it is time to update and redistribute. Hundreds of employers a year find themselves on the losing end of lawsuits that focus on the fact that the polices in their handbook did not match the practices of the company. Further, policies where a specific employee is identified as the point of contact, for example, reporting sexual harassment, update the Handbook if that employee is no longer with your company. Similarly, update any changes to time-off policies, job classifications and the like. Updates are essential if you want to get the most protection out of Your Employee Handbook.

Utah Governor Jon M. Hunstman, Jr. has issued an executive order prohibiting unlawful harassment (discriminatory treatment based on race, religion, national origin, color, sex, age, protected activity or disability) in any and every workplace in which state employees and employees of public and higher education are required to conduct business. E.O. 2006-0012, effective Dec. 13, 2006, superseding E.O. “Prohibiting Sexual Harassment,” dated March 17, 1993. 46-21,550.01.

Effective April 1, 2007, Iowa’s minimum wage will increase to $6.20 per hour. The minimum wage will then increase to $7.25 per hour on January 1, 2008 (H. 1, L. 2007, enacted January 25, 2007, at IA 16-1000).

The City of Lansing has enacted a human rights ordinance that prohibits employment discrimination based on “irrelevant characteristics,” which are defined as a person’s actual or perceived race, religion, ancestry, national origin, color, sex, age, height, weight, student status, marital status, familial status, housing status, veteran status, political affiliation or belief, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, mental or physical limitation, and source of income (Ordinance #O1120, at MI ¶23-2500).

Nearly 80% of business executives prefer to wear either business casual or casual attire to work, according to a recent survey by TheLadders.com.

More than 60% of executives say business casual is now their standard office dress code and about 42.2% said more and more companies are moving towards business casual. About 22% said the definition of “business casual” is now stretching to include even more casual attire, such as jeans.

Employees who dress more casually risk being taken less seriously than their more professionally dressed counterparts, according to nearly half (48.2%) of executives. However, a third of executives say they perceive employees who are dressed more casually to be more fun to be around and nearly 40% say they perceive these employees as more creative.  

Nearly 65% of executives said they did not think that co-workers in more traditional business attire were more productive, but did say they perceived them to be more senior level (71.8%) and that they are taken more seriously (62.3%).

Some employees who wear suits are perceived by executives as being rigid (26.5%) and less creative (16.8%).