Our next Athens Area SHRM meeting will be on Tuesday May 14, 2013 at the Georgia Center. Networking will begin at 5:30pm followed by dinner and our program.
Please register by Friday May 10th so that we can have an accurate count of attendees.
Our May 2013 program will be “Impact of Restructuring and Layoffs on Job Descriptions and Fair Labor Standards Act Compliance” presented by Dr. Suzanne Butterfield from Brenau University.
About the program: The content of an employee’s job may have changed as a result of layoffs, and restructuring easily can lead to actions such as increase or decrease in work assignments, discretion, decision-making, job autonomy, skills variety and depth, etc. These changes could mean a decrease in overall responsibility that could mean a previously FLSA-exempt position now being FLSA non-exempt, or it could mean that a previously FLSA non-exempt position now being FLSA exempt. It is also not unusual for there to be work role transitions when major changes are introduced to role requirements or work content. It is also not unusual for employees to redefine perceptions of their jobs when job enlargement or job enrichment occurs as a result of restructuring. When a job is “enriched”, incumbents are given more variety, discretion, personal control, and decision-making responsibility. Job enlargement occurs when the amount of work in a position is increased, and such work is typically a similar level of difficulty of work – just more of it. This often leads employees to become overwhelmed thus leading to employee frustration and negative attitudes toward the job changes and the organization. Especially when feelings of “powerlessness” prevail, the incumbent may feel the only recourse for relief is to pursue corrective action with the State’s Wage and Hour Department for the recognized labor union in the unionized setting.
This presentation will explore how such job redesigns occur, how and when to correctly and defensibly conduct job analyses and job evaluations to develop job descriptions that represent changed responsibilities of jobs to ensure FLSA compliance, and how to prevent third-party intervention to resolve such issues.
Suzanne Butterfield, Ph.D., Professor, Human Resource Management and Organization Leadership; Brenau University, Gainesville and Norcross, Georgia. Dr. Butterfield has in excess of 25 years in Human Resource Management and Organization Development in multinational corporations and HRM consulting practice. She has been a faculty member at Brenau University for approximately 16 years, leading the Human Resource Management undergraduate and graduate programs.
Dr. Suzanne Butterfield has over 30 years in government, industry, and higher education in human resource management, organization change, and faculty roles. She has designed and implemented a variety of interventions and processes in a leadership capacity. Her experience includes an extensive corporate background in workforce and succession planning, talent management, recruiting, employment law, diversity initiatives, compensation and benefit system design, maintaining union-free work environments, employee relations, performance management systems, complaint investigation, and training.
