Prepare for some gobbledygook:

Job Announcements — Public notices are used to announce the recruitment for vacant positions. These job announcements can be accessed through NVAPPS (Nevada Applicant Placement and Processing System) via the Division of Human Resource Management\’s website at www.dop.nv.gov. NVAPPS allows you to conveniently search and apply for job openings online. Job announcements include salary information, a description of the position, the minimum qualifications, the location of the vacancy, an explanation of the examination, and the filing period. An announcement may be published to provide for open competition, a promotional competition, or a combination of both. The system also allows for position vacancies to be posted in real time. Results of any recruitment may be used to fill subsequent vacancies. Therefore, individual job announcements may not be published for each individual vacancy. (NAC 284.295, 284.309) -From the Nevada Employee Handbook

Today I want you to think about readability. If you’re considering readability and how well the average person will understand what you’re creating, you probably wouldn’t throw out a paragraph like the one above. This applies to policies, job descriptions, employee handbooks, and more. Make your information understandable for the average person.

If you absolutely must have lawyers creating your documents, go back through them and ensure that they are readable for your employees. There are two common methods for testing the readability of text, the Gunning Fog index and the Flesch Kincaid readability test.

I’ve used this tool with some measure of success previously for testing documents for audience readability. Why not plug in some text  to see how it works? Just for fun, I put the opening paragraph above into the system to see how it reads, and it’s measured at grade level 11.55.

So what does that mean? If you employ mainly blue collar workers with a a GED, will they understand what you’re trying to say in your employee communications? Some experts in the field suggest targeting an 8th grade reading level to ensure near-universal understanding.

Have an example of some policy or handbook wording that would make even the crustiest lawyer cringe? Feel free to share in the comments below!

AKA Our Work Life Balance Program Saved My Sanity

I’m writing this with the grainy-eyed-haven’t-slept-in-almost-24-hours stare that is usually associated with psychopaths and highly-caffeinated college students. This has been a week for the record books, and I’m hoping tomorrow turns out better. The short version is that a perfect storm of personal and work activities led to my week turning inside out. This is the third night this week that I’ve had to work late, and I don’t know what I would do without the little miracles like remote access to my email and workstation.

We believe in work/life balance here. Plenty of you work for companies that say that, and some of them mean it while others don’t.

I tell new hires a few things about this to help cement the idea in their heads that we’re not typical. The first is: We are flexible here with work schedules. You work when and where you want. As long as you and your supervisor are okay with it, pretty much anything goes. The second one is good enough to be set apart with the fancy block quote thing:

This flexibility/balance thing is about fitting your work  into your life, not fitting your life in around your work.

My manager is simply amazing when it comes to this. Whenever it even remotely looks like something personal might conflict with something work-related, she immediately pushes you toward the personal choice. It’s never a conflict because she doesn’t let it be, and that’s incredibly refreshing.

The ability to work when/how/where I want is worth a lot to me. Previous jobs didn’t offer that flexibility. Now that we have toddlers running around at home, there’s approximately 4000% more potential for getting sick or having something else come up that impairs my ability to work normal hours.

At one point in my life I would have seriously freaked out about that kind of thing. I’d wonder what everyone was thinking about me having to take off. I’d make excuses to try and feel better about missing work. I’d rationalize.

Now I just relax the best I can, catch up on email during nap time, and keep a smile on my face. Crazy things may come, but I can handle it.

Anyone else have a deep love for their work-life balance program? Tell me I’m not the only one. :-)