Have you ever hired a great candidate for a position, only to learn that they are a poor performer? Not all candidates turn out to be the employee you expected. What contributes to this problem is that 25 to 30% of all resumes and applications include at least one major fabrication. Wouldn't it be great if you could count on a resource to deliver the facts on your candidates? A service you could depend on to tell you how your candidates stack up? Now you can...

The Northern Illinois Business Association has partnered with MRA - The Management Association, Inc., Wisconsin's employer's association, to provide you with accurate, economical and efficient reference checking services. MRA has offered Reference Checking Services since 1989 and have completed over 10,000 reference reports for employment candidates in a wide range of hourly, salaried, and management positions in various industries.

MRA's professional staff investigate these important areas:

Employment history
Past performance
Job duties
Accomplishments
Academic record
Job potential and development needs

This service is unique and valuable because MRA strives for objective information on past performance, not subjective opinions. MRA can customize the service and focus on technical areas pertinent to your industry and particular jobs. Information is documented in a quality, written report.

Please call Brenda Larson at NIBA (847) 963-9860 for more information on this new service or to find out other ways NIBA can be of service to you

MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS
Overtime for Professionals - How to Compensate?

An issue that many companies are facing today is that of compensating professional employees who are asked or required to work far above the normal hours of a work week. This question was brought to our consultants recently. A company asked how to pay its information systems programmers for the extra time they would be putting in while assigned to a major project. On the one hand, the company wanted to fairly compensate the employees for 10-14 hour days and weekend work; on the other hand, it wanted to manage and control its salary costs within federal and state wage and hour regulations.

A simple solution? Not really. We helped the client to look beyond the easy solutions of tracking hours and paying an hourly rate for the extra time or increasing base salary levels, to see that there were more complex wage and hour issues involved. Were the jobs correctly classified as exempt professionals or should they have been classified as non-exempt jobs eligible for overtime pay? Incorrect classification and failure to pay overtime can result in a very expensive wage and hour audit. We assisted the client in performing job analysis to determine if the jobs met the Fair Labor Standards Act criteria for exemption from payment of overtime. Attention was paid to addressing and revising company policies and procedures involving tracking of hours for exempt level employees and granting comparable time off in order to meet standards mandated by wage and hour regulations. A compensation solution involving incentive pay at project milestones was implemented which assured compliance with regulatory guidelines and allowed the company to manage within salary budget.

SOCIAL STYLE NEXT GENERATION: NEW COURSE OFFERED BY NIBA

The Eagle of Training has landed at NIBA! SOCIAL STYLE: THE NEXT GENERATION is the cornerstone to NIBA programs such as the Supervisory Development Institute, Sales Institute, Team Building and Presentation Skills, and further enhances the learning experience for previous course participants. This unique curriculum utilizes a "building-block" technique which, when completed, will equip those in attendance with the most comprehensive and applicable interpersonal, diversity, communication, team-building and management skills available.

This two day course provides these tools:

Module One:
Understanding Social Style

1. Define Interpersonal Style
2. Distinguish the dimensions of human behavior
3. Choose a productive strategy when communicating with others
4. Use skills to influence the behavior of others
5. Identify their efforts to organize work
6. Realize their expectations of others
7. Discover their management process

Module Two:
Adapting Your Social Style

1. Become a better observer of other's behavior
2. Understand their preferred interpersonal style of behavior and their affect on others
3. Recognize the strengths and contributions of other people's interpersonal style
4. Use skills to influence the behavior of others
5. Identify others' needs, expectations and goals
6. Adapt behavior to establish relationships built on mutual goals that meet individual needs

Module Three:
Style Applications

This module is devoted to individual and team exercises, individual and group presentations and role-play sessions that focus on applying social style skills with different people and situations.

Module Four:
Managing Styles In Conflict

1. Identify interpersonal styles under stress
2. Learn a process to reduce defensive fight behavior
3. Learn a process to reduce defensive flight behavior
4. Apply strategies for improving less than satisfactory relationships

Objective
The objective of this system is to develop skills in managing oneself in interpersonal situations for more productive outcomes. Emphasis is placed on how a person becomes more effective in adapting to a variety of situations, in creative and productive ways, with respect to their interpersonal needs, treatment of time and decision making.

Unique Feedback Report
Each participant receives a computer scored graphic and narrative based on input from five individuals which evaluates evaluates the information based upon five behavioral scales. This unique feedback report is fully validated and is utilized throughout the workshop. In addition, each individual completes a self-report to measure his or her own behavioral perceptions of others. This individual report helps participants gain a thorough understanding of how their behavior impacts others.

Applications of Social Style:
The Next Generation
The workshop uses a variety of instructional techniques, exercises and facilitator led discussions. Participants learn to apply the skills into the following environments:

Managing
Decision making
Team building
Presentation skills
Sales
Coaching

Social Style: The Next Generation
NIBA Training Professional:
Ed Hendricks

Two Dates offered:

April 14 & 15
Special introductory Offer
Fee: $350 Member, $450 Non Member

June 1 & 2
Fee: $425 Member, $650 Non Member

8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. (each day) Location: NIBA, 625 North Court, Suite 300, Palatine