The Vice-President of Human Resources or Personnel performs a number of important functions to a K-Business company, but at the most fundamental level, the VPoHR must muster the work force so that it produces. Without this happening, the company cannot produce its product, make it sales, or make its profits.

B. A Typical Meeting for the VPoHR

When the typical meeting begins, whether regular or monthly Board meeting, the VPoHR will immediately take attendance. This should take no more than 5 minutes. After ascertaining who is absent or late, the VPoHR should immediately call these members to determine the reason for their absence. This information goes into the Attendance Master record. If a worker is not present, the VPoHR needs to record the reason for the absence in the Absence Record. All of this information will become of relevant later in the life of the company. The company president will typically ask about this information some time during the meeting. Other than this time period, approximately 15-20 minutes, the VPoHR can spend the majority of each meeting producing the product.

A good, pro-active VPoHR, however, will go beyond this basic function. Whenever possible, he/she will try to encourage full attendance. He'll also help write attendance policy for the company.

C. Attendance Policy

Every company maintains an attendance policy, so should a K-Business company. The VPoHR and President should ideally suggest a policy that the Board would approve after a full discussion. Of particular importance is the entire concept of what is "tardiness" and how much tardiness or absence a company should tolerate.

A company may choose to fire an employee over attendance. More usually, though, the VPoHR and CEO will discuss the problem with the employee and come up with a common solution to such problems. For an ordinary wage worker, the "solution" may lie in simply not paying for hours not worked; for an officer, it may lie in either (a) reducing the monthly salary paid to the officer to accommodate his weak attendance or (b) demoting him to hourly status so that he/she has an incentive to come on time and/or more often. The Board, at its monthly meeting, would have to come to final approval of any such decision if not agreed to by the employee his/herself.

For example, a company attendance policy may go like this:

D. Personnel: the Basic Division between Hourly and Salaried

Before proceeding, the VPoHR must clearly understand that the company includes two different types of employees, hourly and salaried. The responsibilities of the two and his treatment of them will fundamentally differ.

Salaried workers received a fixed income each month. This income accrues whether they work 12 hours or 200 hours. Ideally, individuals in these positions have a higher sense of obligation to the company and will often work many hours beyond the regular meetings. The VPoHR, himself, may end up working extra hours on his personnel records, payroll, etc. which will take place outside the two hour meeting period. The concept of "overtime" ("OT"), therefore, does not generally apply to salaried workers. The VPoHR, however, needs to record their attendance because this may become the subject of public discussion at the Board meetings. Indeed, the Board might well remove a President who misses three meetings in a row, and only the VPoHR can produce the records to show whether the merits of such a move.

Wage (hourly) workers strictly work on an hourly basis. The more hours they work, the more hours they receive pay. Thus, the VPoHR must record the exact total of hours they work. If wage workers work more hours than the usual, particularly in more difficult circumstances such as on a Friday or Thursday, they receive more pay and may qualify for overtime. At the earliest possible moment, the VPoHR should propose, with the CEO, a policy regarding (a) tardiness and (b) early departures. In most real life businesses, a wage worker who comes even a minute late loses 1/4 hour of pay. The same would apply to a worker who leaves 5 minutes early. A company should vote on this even before it votes on offices.

The Board must approve the salary and wage rates, and it can take a novel policy if it so wishes. For example, some real companies pay very low salaries to officers, but then pay everyone high wages. Other companies pay every employee a salary. Occasionally, a company will even choose to pay "zero salaries" and pay only commissions or let employees get their "bonuses" only at the final liquidation of stocks. In the end, the VPoHR only implements the Board's ideas though a wise VPoHR will certainly have a strong voice in writing this policy. In some companies, a single person may hold more than one office. While the Board can vote on any policy it wants, the VPoHR should probably suggest that such individuals receive salary only for their most lucrative office, not all offices.

Given the experiences in the first year of K-Business, every company should have a policy that gives some kind of deduction for poor attendance or persistent tardies and rewards good attendance.

Most businesses pay some form of extra pay to hourly workers. Often this amounts to "time and a half," i.e., 1.5 of their normal pay. For holiday hours, they may even rise to "double-time."

A K-Business should exercise some caution in awarding overtime "OT." A company behind its production totals may well want to consider scheduling an extra meeting but simply paying the normally hourly wage. The VPoHR should also exercise some caution in paying "OT" to workers who volunteer to continue finishing products on their own at home as they may not end up doing any work during the regular meetings.

Perhaps more appropriately, a K-Business may want to award "OT" to a special selling opportunity, such as a sale at Sharq Mall. This would encourage a full turn-out of students at the sale, when increased sales would "pay for itself."

A company does not have to use overtime pay. Ideally, the VPoHR and President should suggest a policy on this for Board approval and allow full discussion.

Keep in mind, though, that the VpoS may well wish to encourage sales through commissions.

F. Attendance Bonuses

A firm may decide to award attendance bonuses. If the Board approves, this should occur as a one-time expense at the end of the year.

Just a month ago, United Airlines, the second largest airline in the USA came to a deal with its employees in which it cut salaries and wages by an average of 20-30%. This happens in the real world, so might it happen in a K-Business company.

A K-Business company may choose to suspend, lower, or withhold its salaries. A suspension would mean that the company would pay the wages and salaries at some later date, a decision to withhold would mean that the company would not pay salaries for some period of time, typically a month, before resuming. A K-Business company will typically experience a period of initial "wealth" after the sale of stock, a "fallow" period during which manufacturing begins with considerable expenses and sales only trickle in, and a longer sustained period in which proceeds from sales outstrip purchasing expenses. For that reason, a company may well find itself withholding or suspending salaries in January or February and paying them later.

Needless to say, such a move on the part of the company may have an adverse effect on the morale and attendance of the work force. Younger workers, in particular, may become disheartened and quit. For that reason, a company may well want to start with relatively low salaries and wages, low enough to pay them the first several months, before raising them. In May, the company, hopefully in better financial shape, can either pay attendance bonuses or higher salaries. On these issues, the VPoHR should work very closely with the President and CFO.

However, please note the new Company Code in the section below.

The Vice-President of Human Resources must fill out four different forms of records for the company. These involve serious enough issues that, should the VPoHR need to miss a meeting, he/she should designate another worker to fill out the records in his place.

For each of these records, the VPoHR should maintain a copy on the company computer with a back-up on a disc or CD. VpoHRs may want to run printed copies of these forms after each update, take attendance in pencil, and then update the computer.

In order to simplify record-keeping all but one of these records come as either Excel or Works spreadsheets. If necessary, Dr. Dan can give you a copy of Office97 (never versions should read the old Excel files) or Works97 to work with the files.

This form keeps the contact information for each student. The very night, if possible, even before elections, everyone should sign a paper copy of this sheet. After elections, the form becomes the responsibility of the VPoHR.

The VPoHR first needs to type the information of the students into the appropriate spaces, i.e., whether for officer or for worker. Whereas he needs to place the officers into the appropriate space, the workers should go into alphabetical order. Then, after carefully saving the file, he/she should print it out.

In the case of new students, the VPoHR should add these new students to list. If officers alter, the VPoHR can probably simply cut and paste students from one place to another. Whenever this form changes, the VPoHR should save it under a new name and take copy home on disk.

This form, as noted below, will go to the sponsors, so the VpoHR must complete and submit this form.

This spreadsheet stands at the center of VPoHR's attentions. Once he/she has the initial personnel list and offices from the elections, he should enter students' names in the appropriate places. While the VPoHR can probably place the names for each month, as indicated in the spreadsheet, he/she may end up changing them.

The Master Attendance Form contains several "defaults." First, it assumes that every person will attend every meeting and that the school will cancel no meetings. Hence, for each meeting, for each student, it contains a "2" for two hours worked. The VPoHR should print out a paper copy of the entire spreadsheet in either Excel or Works form.

Each meeting day, the VPoHR will immediately take attendance. On his paper copy of the records, he will change the "2" into a "0," "1" or "1.75," depending on if a student comes late, not at all, or leaves early and on company policy as to tardiness. For students who come on time and stay the entire two hours, the VPoHR does not need to do anything. After taking attendance, the VPoHR needs to make several quick phone calls and update the master copy of the Absence Record (below). Then the VPoHR needs to update his copy of the Master Attendance Form on the company computer. He should then make a backup copy to take home. At least monthly, he/she must print out a new paper copy to complete the payroll forms (below).

The VPoHR needs to keep extremely accurate records on the Master Attendance Form. Thus, he/she cannot come late to the meeting, and in the event of his/her absence, someone should at least record the absences and lates. Failure to do this could well result in having inaccurate payroll records.

On this form, also, the VPoHR needs to enter any overtime hours and the dates. Initially, the default assumes no overtime hours. Should the company meet an additional day, the VPoHR must create a new column on the spreadsheet with total hours per employee. The "DN" signifies that typically officers will not receive overtime.

The monthly and yearly totals for each employee will initially always add correctly. However, changes to the spreadsheet may alter this. For example, deleting an employee from February, March, April, and May payrolls after he quits in January may result in incorrect yearly totals. Thus, the VPoHR should manually double-check both the formulas for each "Sub" column and the totals arrive at therein, correcting as necessary. The VPoHR should leave at least a couple of blank "workers" at the bottom of the sheet in case more workers join later in the year and then delete out the unused lines in June, again checking all totals. In an event of a problem, consult with the "CIO" for assistance.

The VPoHR fills out the Absence Log through calling absent employees in the first few minutes of each meeting. For every absence, the VPoHR needs to find the excuse given by the employee. Thus, this form will grow, line-by-line, as the year passes. At the meeting, the VPoHR should record such absences on paper and update them on his/her computer. Again, each night the VpoHR should save the form under a new name, i.e. "Ablo02.doc" etc..

As mentioned above, an absent wage-earner will simply lose his wages for the missed time period. Of course, though, a company may choose to reprimand or fire such an employee if that pattern persists, particularly if the Board finds his excuses particularly weak.

The excuses of officers form a somewhat more important entry. Since, for example, a VP of Sales receives his salary whether he comes twice in a month or three times, the President and Board may take a particular interest in the validity of his/her excuses. Thus, the VPoHR must faithfully find out and record the reason for these individuals missing meetings.

Again, the VPoHR should print this list out at least monthly.

In a K-Business company, the VPoHR, along with the CFO, maintains the primary responsibility for payroll. Unlike the other forms above, the VPoHR should fill out the payroll form at home after the last meeting of the month, after consulting with the CFO, and then print out a paper copy to give to the CFO by the next week. If the CFO accepts the payroll records, he will then issue cash to the VPoHR who will, in turn, obtain signatures from employees verifying their receipt of their paycheck which he will return to the CFO. The CFO will present the entire amount upon receipt of the correct totals.

The payroll form gives a "sample" pay schedule for salary-earners. These salaries will equal the amount that they earn, as indicated above. Their part of the record contains no space for hours worked as this doesn't matter. The figures given their act simply as "defaults."

For the hourly employees, the VPoHR must enter four figures, first the hours worked, second the wage rate, third the overtime (OT) hours worked, and the overtime rate (otr). The current defaults equal "8," "1," "1" and "2." Whatever the OT and hourly rate entered, they MUST remain the same for all hourly workers. If the VPoHR has any doubts, he should consult the Corporate Secretary's notes from previous board meetings. The hours and OT hours, of course, come from his Attendance Master Record.

Since each payroll comes on a separate page, the VPoHR can enter different wage rates and different individuals in different months.

After each month's payroll, the VPoHR should print out a copy of his/her records.

As noted below, to keep from falling into receivership, a company MUST pay its December and May payroll. Further, it must submit the payroll plan ahead of time. See below.

The new K-Business Code of Operations effects the VpoHR in several respects quoted below. Each different deadlines requires some separate discussion.