A city in Florida has a new mandate for employees: Wear underwear. In other words, don't show up to work “going commando.”
The St. Petersburg Times reports that the Brooksville City Council recently approved a new dress code that included a requirement to wear underwear.
In addition to requiring city employees to wear underwear, the policy instructs employees to wear deodorant and prohibits them from wearing “distracting, offensive or revealing" clothing, Spandex, halter tops, and skirts worn below the waistline such that the abdomen or back is exposed." It also prohibits city employees from having visible body-piercings (with the exception of those in the ear) and having exposed cuts or wounds.
The vote to approve the dress code would have been unanimous if not for the Mayor Joe Bernardini, who said he voted against it because he didn't know how the underwear requirement would be enforced.
Learn about drafting effective and legal dress codes and grooming polices with BLR's Dress Codes Audio Conference on CD.
"They said you had to wear undergarments, but who's going to be the judge of that?” Bernardini tells the newspaper. “Sometimes when it comes to certain people going bra-less, it's obvious. But who's staring to see if that person doesn't have underwear on?"
Employees can be sent home if they violate the policy. For repeat offenders, disciplinary action up to an including termination is possible, the newspaper reports.
Source: St. Petersburg Times
Your company wants to reduce costs but not reduce staff. What can you do? Aetna U.S. Healthcare did something out of the box--it got rid of its building instead of its workers.
Well, the fact that the lease on its Dover , Delaware customer-service facility would be up for review probably entered the decision mix. But, says Aetna spokesperson Walt Cherniak, turning all 167 Dover employees into teleworkers would be nothing new for this company, so it was willing to give it a go.
“Aetna has thousands of work-at-home employees,” Cherniak told delawareonline.com, “so it's not uncommon.” Once the decision to layoff the building was made, Aetna immediately began training in successful telecommuting/offsite phone techniques in order to meet company performance standards.
Most of the Dover employees provide support for large, multistate employee plans, which can be done at home by computer link and telephone.
Starting your employees out in a telecommuting program? BLR's What to Do About Personnel Problems in [Your] State can help you navigate regulatory and compensation concerns.
Cherniak admits that telecommuting is not for all employees. Those who do not wish to telecommute will be given a transfer to another facility. After the other employees are gradually acclimated to telecommuting, some will find they just can't work well in a home-based environment.
Terminating the facility instead of the workers is an experiment; Cherniak confirms that Aetna has no specific companywide plan for a mass layoff of buildings.
Source: delawareonline
He started with the company in 1940--no that's not a typo. He's still there at age 90--and he just refused a buyout!
David Perlman, The San Francisco Chronicle' s award-winning science writer/editor, still loves his job after 69 years, according to an article in the June AARP Bulletin. And he keeps pursuing stories, even if they take him to all corners of the world.
That's why he just turned down a voluntary buyout offer (1 year's salary plus health insurance) from the Hearst Corporation, even through over 100 other members of the paper's California Media Workers Guild unit, including other high-profile, long-term Chronicle editors and columnists, did accept.
Perlman's interest in journalism began when as a boy in New York City , he saw the play Front Page. He went on to Columbia University , where he edited the daily newspaper.
Use BLR's It's All About Respect: Avoid Discrimination in Your Workplace PowerPoint Kit to help train your employees how to prevent age bias and other forms of discrimination.
Perlman went West and started at the paper as a “copy boy” (that's what they were called back then, even if they were college grads). His first big assignment was in December 1941 when an editor told him to go up on the building's roof during an air raid to see if enemy planes were indeed on the way, according to the Chronicle . The paper then sent him to cover the war as a foreign correspondent. When he returned, they gave him the science beat.
Not surprisingly, Perlman received the American Geophysical Union's Sustained Achievement Award in 1997 as “a journalist who has made significant, lasting, and consistent contributions to accurate reporting or writing on the earth sciences for the general public.” Perlman is also known for his coverage of the space program from its infancy through today--and, of course--earthquakes.
Sources: San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Business Times, CBS 5, and AGU