A blockchain-based Decentralized System for proper handling of temporary Employment contracts

Temporary work is an employment situation useful and suitable in all occasions in which business needs to adjust more easily and quickly to workload fluctuations or maintain staffing flexibility. Temporary workers play therefore an important role in many companies, but this kind of activity is subject to a special form of legal protections and many aspects and risks must be taken into account both employers and employees. In this work we propose a blockchain-based system that aims to ensure respect for the rights for all actors involved in a temporary employment, in order to provide employees with the fair and legal remuneration (including taxes) of work performances and a protection in the case employer becomes insolvent. At the same time, our system wants to assist the employer in processing contracts with a fully automated and fast procedure. To resolve these problems we propose the D-ES (Decentralized Employment System). We first model the employment relationship as a state system. Then we describe the enabling technology that makes us able to realize the D-ES. In facts, we propose the implementation of a DLT (Decentralized Ledger Technology) based system, consisting in a blockchain system and of a web-based environment. Thanks the decentralized application platforms that makes us able to develop smart contracts, we define a discrete event control system that works inside the blockchain. In addition, we discuss the temporary work in agriculture as a interesting case of study.Comment: Accepted for publication in the proceedings of the "Computing Conference 2018" - 10-12 July 2018 - London, United Kingdo

An Industry Missing Minorities: The Disparate Impact of the Securities and Exchange Commission\u27s Fingerprinting Rule

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ( EEOC ) recently asserted that the use of criminal background checks as an employment screening tool may have a disparate impact on African Americans and Hispanics, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC and some private claimants have even filed lawsuits against employers claiming disparate impact violations based on statistics that show African Americans and Hispanics are considerably more likely to have criminal records than other racial groups. Yet, certain federal regulatory agencies require participants in their industries to subject employees to criminal background checks as a condition of employment. The Securities and Exchange Commission ( SEC ) is one such agency. The SEC has promulgated a rule requiring industry employers to fingerprint employees and disqualify those that have been convicted of certain types of crimes. This Note discusses the requirements of a disparate impact claim and the EEOC\u27s position that criminal background check policies have a disparate impact on minorities. This Note further examines how technological changes in the securities industry have led to an unnecessarily broad application of the SEC\u27s fingerprint rule, resulting in potential Title VII liability for employers and contributing to the low number of African American and Hispanics in the securities industry. Finally, this Note proposes that the SEC could alleviate the potential Title VII liability created by the fingerprinting requirement by narrowing the scope of the fingerprint rule to bring it within the business necessity defense to Title VII

Going to Work with a Criminal Record: Lessons from the Fathers at Work Initiative

Many of the 650,000 adults released from American prisons each year find their way to One-Stops or community-based, faith-based and other organizations that provide employment services. Yet relatively few of these organizations specifically target former prisoners. Workforce development practitioners have experience with a wide range of job seekers, but a great number of them are looking for additional guidance about the complexities of connecting formerly incarcerated people to the labor market and helping them stay on the job.Going to Work with a Criminal Record was developed to help meet this need. It is based on lessons from the Fathers at Work initiative, a three-year, six-site demonstration funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation to help young, noncustodial fathers achieve increased employment and earnings, involvement in their childrens lives, and more consistent financial support of their children. The report describes seven fundamental lessons workforce organizations should consider as they help formerly incarcerated people move toward stable employment, along with a more detailed discussion of how program staff can put these lessons into practice. It outlines how to avoid mistakes and how to develop important relationships, including with employers, parole officers and the local child support enforcement agency

The Rhetoric of Surveillance in Post-Snowden Background Investigation Policy Reform

abstract: In June 2013, United States (US) government contractor Edward Snowden arranged for journalists at The Guardian to release classified information detailing US government surveillance programs. While this release caused the public to decry the scope and privacy concerns of these surveillance systems, Snowden's actions also caused the US Congress to critique how Snowden got a security clearance allowing him access to sensitive information in the first place. Using Snowden's actions as a kairotic moment, this study examined congressional policy documents through a qualitative content analysis to identify what Congress suggested could “fix” in the background investigation (BI) process. The study then looked at the same documents to problematize these “solutions” through the terministic screen of surveillance studies. By doing this interdisciplinary rhetorical analysis, the study showed that while Congress encouraged more oversight, standardization, and monitoring for selected steps of the BI process, these suggestions are not neutral solutions without larger implications; they are value-laden choices which have consequences for matters of both national security and social justice. Further, this study illustrates the value of incorporating surveillance as framework in rhetoric, composition, and professional/technical communication research.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation English 201

Onward and upward? An empirical investigation of gender and promotions in Information Technology Services

The shaky ascent of women up the organizational ladder is a critical factor that may contribute to the lack of women in information technology (IT). In this study, we examine the effect of gender on the likelihood of employee promotions. We further examine whether women get an equal lift in promotion likelihood from performance improvements, work experience, and training as men. We analyze archival promotion data, as well as demographic, human capital, and administrative data for 7,004 employees at a leading IT services firm located in India for the years 2002–2007 and for multiple levels of promotion. We develop robust econometric models that consider employee heterogeneity to identify the differential effect of gender and performance on promotions. We find that, contrary to expectations, women are more likely to be promoted, on average. However, looking deeper into the heterogeneous main effects using hierarchical Bayesian modeling reveals more nuanced insights. We find that, ceteris paribus, women realize less benefit from performance gains than men, less benefit from tenure within the focal firm, but more benefit from training than men. These results suggest that despite the disparity in returns to performance and experience improvements, women can rely on signaling mechanisms such as training to restore parity in promotions. We find that the effects of gender and performance vary with the level of employee promotion; although not as much as men, women benefit more from performance gains at higher organizational levels. Our findings suggest several actionable managerial insights that can potentially make IT firms more inclusive and attractive to women

Employment Retention Essentials

Employment retention is one of the critical challenges facing the workforce field today. For any organization that seeks to improve retention services, "Employment Retention Essentials" is an invaluable resource. User-friendly and filled with practical ideas, this guide offers concrete tools for keeping people working, including tips on how to involve employers, build relationships and stay in contact with participants

Analysis of Background Check Policy in Higher Education

In the higher education environment today, lack of agreement about background checks between campus community members, fueled by unresolved tensions between security and privacy, has led many universities to adopt a patchwork of fragmented background check policies. Many of these policies have been created and accepted without careful consideration of the wide array of risks and complexities involved with background checks. This policy analysis examined the experiences and history behind Georgia Institute of Technology’s adoption of background check policy. This was achieved through interviewing relevant constituents and analyzing of all available/related official policy documents associated with Georgia Tech’s Pre-employment Background Check Policy and Program. This dissertation presents a chronological account of the events and influences associated with Georgia Tech’s adoption and revision of background check policy. Results of this study offer valuable insights and recommendations for further study in order to assist higher education policy makers and HR professionals at other universities in making more informed decisions regarding the challenges involved with background check, and similar, policy. Some of these insights include an awareness of societal tensions that exist between privacy and security policy; the importance of understanding how national, local, and organizational level triggering events have shaped and contributed to higher education background check policy that is based on a general concern for security; and my recommendation for further study into background check policy as it will relate to the higher matriculation process