HR Documents
There are many kinds of HR related documents; some documents are legally required by federal, state, and local laws, and others are not legally required but practically used by many companies to document receipt by the employee. For Example,
●Offer Letter or Employment Contract
●Confidentiality Agreement
●Employee Handbook
●Job Description
Based on our knowledge and experience, HRM will develop and/or update these HR related documents with necessary advice.
Job Description
The Job Description is a document that describes a job’s work duties and responsibilities.
This document becomes more useful when adding more detail that includes reporting obligations, characteristics, skills, duties, academic background, experience, physical conditions, and work environment. It helps the employer and employee to mutually communicate and understand their tasks, and it also helps reduce legal risks.
Also, the job description is a useful tool to reduce the liability of overtime payment because job responsibilities are one of the main factors of the Fair Labor Standard Act (FLSA) which is a law that determines who is paid overtime or not. Making an inaccurate misclassification on an employee who should have been paid overtime can create a very expensive liability.
In addition, the job description is the basis for designing HR strategies and systems such as recruiting, training, developmental activity, performance appraisal, and the compensation system.
When HRM develops job descriptions, we will conduct job analysis interviews for the client management and employees if necessary.
Performance Appraisal System
The Performance appraisal system is an important tool in employee engagement and performance management including employee motivation, promotion, discipline, and termination.
Since each department and position has different responsibilities, job contents, and necessary knowledge and skills, the performance appraisal system should be customized for their features so that an organization can effectively manage its employee’s performance.
HRM and the client company will have a discussion with considerations on the size of the company, the number of positions, the objectives and evaluation criteria so that we design an effective program. Also, HRM may conduct a performance appraisal training to the client so that the client can successfully implement the new program.
Compensation System
Many Japanese companies in the United States try to implement their Japan HQ’s compensation system directly but they fail to implement them successfully because the practice of Compensation systems differs between Japan and the United States. Also, salaries are different between the two countries as well as the company size between the operation in the U.S. and Japan is different which leads to a failure to attract and retain talented employees.
HRM supports the client to design and implement a new compensation system that is customized to their business strategy, based on the HR practice in the United States.
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Salary Market Research
One of the key challenges of an employer is to retain talented employees. Excellent people, regardless of whether the economy is good or bad, are always the target of recruiting from competitors, and companies need to make sure that wages are competitive and align with business strategy. Therefore, many companies conduct salary surveys often for measuring competitive salaries. HRM uses highly accurate survey databases to extract wage data using factors such as industry, region, and job summaries closest to the target position, and develops a report including recommendations based on the data and our experience.
- Compensation System Development and Implementation
A company’s Compensation System is one of the key factors of success for its business to thrive and grow because it encourages employee engagement and helps keep skilled workers. The Compensation System also needs to be supportive of non-discrimination laws to avoid wage complaints that lead to discimination lawsuits. HRM will take account of many factors such as salary survey data, seniority, company size, and business strategy to design and implement a customized Compensation System.
Organizational Restructuring・Termination
Due to the rapid changes in the business environment such as the economy and market, there are more opportunities for companies to consider reorganization such as merger and acquisition, divestitures, and department or corporation closure. Due diligence, post-merger integration, layoffs and other HR actions are required to streamline the organization and reduce risk.
Based on the knowledge and experience for many years of human resources management in the United States, we will provide the clients company with necessary consultation so that they can realize smooth and effective organizational restructuring and reduce legal risks.
HR Management Advisory Service
The Employer needs to handle many HR issues such as responding to changing federal and state laws, employee relations, responding to employee complaints, conducting internal investigations and reviewing HR strategies.
With our Human Resources Management Advisory Service, an HR consultant will be assigned to each client so that we can respond immediately, and provide support in both Japanese and English, mainly by telephone or e-mail. We also provide on-site support as needed.
As your HR business partner, our consultants will support you on planning HR strategies, advise how to resolve HR issues, and answer questions in your day-to-day operations or urgent issues.
HR Functional・HR Professional Outsourcing
With our HR Functional/HR Professional Outsourcing services, HRM and the client will discuss the scope of the area where the client plans to outsource their HR functions, and decide the monthly service hours in advance. Following are example of outsourcing areas:
- Regular meetings with top management including scheduled on-site or web conference video meetings.
- Support for HR-related policy decisions
- Creation / update of HR-related documents
- Hiring and Termination support
- Dispute resolution and Employee discipline support (including conducting Investigation and preparing related documents such as Warning Letters)
- Conducting personnel-related training (harassment training, evaluation training, etc.)
- Payroll-related activities including tracking time and attendance, etc.
HR Audit
The HR Audit is a systematic evaluation of a Company’s current HR-related policies, procedures, practices, and strategies. The HR Audit is conducted for many reasons including pre-merger and acquisition activities, reviewing compliance and identifying organizational problems and resetting policies and practices. In the HR Audit, we will collect the information on your company’s current HR status, analyze them, and provide a report that includes suggestions for actions that may be required in the future. HRM will customize the type and scope of an HR audit according to your concerns and needs.
Employee Survey
An Employee Survey is a quantitative and qualitative measurement tool that allows a company to take a snapshot to see how employees feel about the company, management, work environment, wages, benefits, etc. It allows management to see the company’s strengths and weaknesses as well as identify particular problems.
A Company’s management often cannot identify employee issues as they have a different perspective from employees. The Employee Survey, if designed properly, is an important tool that allows management to get an understanding of how employees feel about the company.
The overall design and management of an Employee Survey by a third party is a useful method to understand the issues objectively and also a helpful method for the company to collect and understand employee attitudes and perceptions of the work environment.
With HRM’s Employee Survey service, we will take into consideration company factors such as industry, organization size, company concerns, and business goals when we support designing the questions. In addition, we will assure confidentiality and anonymity to secure honest responses and constructive feedback from employees.
Employee Hotline
Most companies have an open-door policy that encourages employees to report and discuss workplace issues with their direct supervisors and managers. However, in some companies, especially small or medium-sized companies, the open-door policy does not work well because the problem may be attributed to their direct supervisor or the employee may be afraid of making relationships worse in the workplace after they report a problem which may put them at risk of employment termination.
Many Japanese companies in the United States use an employee hotline service operated by a third-party service for the purpose of responding to complaints made by the employee. Both the U.S. Sox regulations as well as its Japanese version (J-Sox) has requirements for such hot lines.
HRM’s Employee Hotline Service accepts complaints from a client’s employees about workplace fraud, theft, harassment, unethical conduct, and workplace safety via telephone and e-mail. The HRM Consultant provides a written report and telephone meetings with the company-appointed representative handling complaints in conjunction with other services. Anonymity is maintained as per employee desires with intentions to positively handle the complaint.
HR Related Training
Some states and cities in the United States require all or some employers to regularly conduct sexual harassment prevention training that meets the requirements set by the state or city laws. Also, it is important that expatriates who have just arrived in the United States understand the differences between American and Japanese HR practices and how to manage subordinates in the United States
We offer the following training to meet these needs.
- Sexual harassment prevention training
- American labor practice training
- Management training
Others
We also provide a wide range of human resources-related services including consultation on recruitment, benefit, and safety, and video streaming on sexual harassment prevention. Please feel free to contact us.
■ How to watch the video streaming on sexual harassment prevention
- Go to the URL (https://vimeo.com/)
- Search for “セクハラ基礎知識 アメリカ版”
- Select rental period (3 months, 6 months, 12 months)
- Click the “Rent” button
* You need to create a new account of Vimeo.
This sexual harassment prevention video streaming provides in-dept information on harassment and discrimination. However, it does not meet the full training requirements of state harassment-related laws requiring interactive training.
