44 Human Resource Executive®
Santa Monica, Calif.-based Cornerstone OnDemand and Aon Hewitt, of Lincolnshire, Ill., have formed an alliance in
which Aon Hewitt will provide global
deployment and administration
services to clients implementing
Cornerstone’s software. Aon Hewitt
will also provide post-deployment
operational services, ranging from
supporting one-time projects to full
administration of Cornerstone’s
integrated talent management suite.

Monster, headquartered in New York, and Boston-based recruiting software provider Bullhorn Inc. have partnered to integrate Monster’s Power Resume Search and SeeMore cloud platform into the Bullhorn applicant-tracking system and customer-relationship management application.

SAP, headquartered in Walldorf, Germany, has acquired Fieldglass, a Chicago-based provider of vendor-management systems services, in a deal designed to complement SAP’s cloud-based SuccessFactors HR applications and its Ariba procurement network.

Diebold Inc., a Canton, Ohio-based self-service technology, security systems and related service provider, has reached a business-process outsourcing agreement with Dublin, Ireland-headquartered Accenture, in which Accenture

Supplier Briefs

will manage Diebold’s finance, accounting, HR and procurement operations on a global scale.

Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp. has selected Randstad Sourceright, headquartered in Atlanta, and Pinnacle Technical Resources, of Dallas, to co-manage Comcast’s managed services program and support Comcast’s contingent labor-acquisition program.

Urbandale, Iowa-based BettrLife has entered a partnership with Phoenix-headquartered Viridian Health Management, in which BettrLife’s mobile health software will be integrated with Viridian’s Maestro population health-management platform, allowing users to interact directly with Viridian health coaches.

Hoboken, N.J.-headquartered John Wiley & Sons Inc. has acquired Profiles International, a Waco, Texas-based provider of employment assessment and talent-management platforms.

Maitland, Fla.-based HRsoft and

Equifax Workforce Solutions, of St. Louis, have partnered to create an interface between HRsoft’s applicant-tracking system and Equifax Workforce Solutions’ Compliance Center, designed to move new employees from the recruitment stage through onboarding.

End-to-End Recruiting

Workday Inc. has unveiled Workday Recruiting, an application that joins with Workday HCM to support all parties involved in the hiring process, including candidates, hiring managers, interviewers and recruiters, according to Workday.

The new application includes features that allow external applicants to access a career site to apply for jobs, while internal candidates can apply using their profile already in Workday. Recruiters can share candidate resumes and provide real-time feedback from screening interviews with hiring managers. Interview teams can track candidate progress and communicate about next steps, while recruiters can set up automated processes to promote job postings across a variety of social channels. In addition, hiring managers can boost referrals and recommendations with buttons for employees to share job postings with people in their social networks.

Price varies.

Workday Inc., Pleasanton, Calif.

www.workday.com

Workforce-Assessment Portfolio

Mercer has introduced
enhancements to Talent Impact,
According to the company, the
newest release includes more than
100 new features and functionality,
including expanded compensation
benchmarking capabilities, an added
ability to simultaneously interact with
multiple jobs and make job-scope
modifications in real time, and a new
visualization for its internal labor
markets map that includes employee
data, updated projections and a
step-by-step tutorial for creating an
internal labor markets map.

Price varies.

Mercer, New York www.mercer.com/talent-impact

The Law By Paul Salvatore/Legal Columnist

In recent weeks,
there has been
much discussion
concerning
the Society for Human Resource
Management’s decision to offer its own
HR certification program independent
of the HR Certification Institute. The
attention this move has brought to
certifiable HR competencies got me
thinking about just competent HR
professionals are when it comes to
employment law and where they would
do well to hone their compliance skills
and reduce their organizations’ risks.

Three of these areas are: 1) internal investigations, 2) whistleblowing and 3) diversity initiatives.

Internal investigations can be fraught with risk because botched ones can lead to litigation, whereas good ones can win the day. To combat the potential pitfalls of a shoddy investigation, HR professionals

Keep Honing Your Legal Competencies

should—among other things—promptly initiate and complete the investigation, maintain confidentiality to the extent possible, avoid omitting important witnesses, pursue all contradictions that emerge in witness accounts, take appropriate remedial measures, and document thoroughly and communicate the results of the investigation.

Whistleblowers need attention as they are increasingly protected in the workplace. An HR professional must know how to respond or the employer could end up defending a retaliation lawsuit. On June 3, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued an order that awarded two whistleblowers $437,500 each, a full 30 percent of the monetary sanctions collected by the SEC.

It’s also imperative that employers
prohibit retaliation against whistleblowers
and maintain reporting procedures and
compliance programs that encourage
employees to report issues internally.

HR must serve as a liaison to the whistleblower, starting as soon as the HR professional receives the complaint.

The HR professional should assure the whistleblower that the company prohibits retaliation, explain that the company takes good-faith complaints seriously, and assist in fielding the complaint and facilitating the investigation. HR should continue to serve as a resource to the whistleblower even after the investigation and should encourage feedback from employees to help keep complaints internal.

When initiating diversity programs,
“getting it right” is important. There have
been situations in which an employer
embarks on a diversity program without
fully understanding the law. For example,
in an effort to promote diversity, some
non-federal contractor employers
voluntarily adopt affirmative-action
programs where the employer makes
race- or gender-conscious employment
decisions (hiring, firing, promotions, etc.).

Such programs have been successfully challenged in court. Another diversity initiative that is problematic is the misuse of employee networks for diverse employees, sometimes referred to as “affinity groups.” While these groups are legally permissible, they should not exclude membership based on an individual’s protected status.

These compliance areas have to be viewed against the backdrop of the constantly changing workplace legal landscape. HR should partner with in-house and/or outside counsel in undertaking investigations, handling whistleblowers and implementing diversity programs. Such partnerships will also help raise the compliance skill level of HR and will benefit the profession and the organizations HR professionals serve.

Paul Salvatore is a member of Proskauer’s executive committee and former co-chair of its global labor and employment law department. He can be emailed at psalvatore@proskauer.com.