When the feds said their new immigration strategy was to crack down on employers’ hiring and record-keeping practices, they weren’t kidding.

Last week, U.S. Immigrations and Custom Enforcement (ICE) told 652 employers their I-9 forms were being audited. That’s more than the the number of audits ICE conducted in the entire previous fiscal year. In addition to I-9s, many of the audits will also include subpoenas for EINs, payroll records and correspondences with the Social Security Administration regarding no-match letters.

The nationwide inspection follows an April announcement that ICE planned to focus the majority of its resources on prosecuting employers who hire illegal immigrants.

The list of companies being audited hasn’t been released. ICE has described the effort as a “first step,” meaning there will likely be more mass inspections in the near future.

What should HR managers do if they get a Notice of Inspection (NOI) from the feds?

Preparation is key. Employers must act quickly — the NOIs generally require HR to turn over all I-9s within three business days.

If I-9 records don’t pass muster with ICE, the agency could launch a criminal investigation. But even if there are no criminal charges, employers could face civil fines for faulty record-keeping.

An audit doesn’t always mean charges or fines are coming. After receiving an NOI, employers should:

• Respond quickly, even if it’s to ask ICE for a time extension
• Choose one point person to correspond with ICE — that will avoid any inconsistencies in the information given
• Notify all managers and employees who deal with I-9s and related documents
• Secure all applicable records — any missing documents could be seen as an attempt to destroy evidence or sabotage the investigation, and
• Consider conducting their own internal audit.

Many insist on continuing to do their old jobs, instead of managing.

Think about it: Performing the previous job well is what got them promoted in the first place. So it’s tempting for them to keep trying to succeed at those duties.

Also, it often takes time for new supervisors to learn how to delegate work effectively.

It’s necessary to detect and correct the problem early. If the habit persists, the newbie’s direct reports won’t be as productive because they won’t have the guidance a good manager provides. And the manager will burn out trying to do too much.

Read more about rookie management mistakes in the PBP Executive Report 9 Mistakes New Managers Make Most Often.

To apply to work for the city of Bozeman, Montana, candidates are asked to list “any and all” Web sites, chat rooms and social networking groups they belong to (”including but not limited to Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.”) — along with their usernames and passwords.

Many hiring managers Google applicants’ names or look for them on Facebook, but actually wanting to log in to their personal profiles is something new entirely.

Why does the city want that access? According to city attorney Greg Sullivan, it’s “to make sure the people that we hire have the highest moral character and are a good fit for the city,” The Consumerist reports.

Sullivan also said the city doesn’t look at “the things that the federal Constitution lists as protected things” (whatever that means).

The story has drawn a lot of attention, especially considering there’s a debate going on about whether hiring managers should even look at candidates’ profiles, let alone obtain log-in information.

Do you think any employer has the right to ask for usernames and passwords from applicants? Should social networking profiles play any role in the background check process at all?

Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Many employers follow a policy of paying out unused vacation time to employees who voluntarily resign — but not when employees are fired.

But that practice has come under scrutiny in some areas. Take this recent case from Massachusetts:

Francis Tessicini was fired from his job at Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS). Before the termination, he’d only used one day of his allotted paid vacation — but, according to company policy, he wasn’t owed payment (which would’ve amounted to about $1,800).

He sued, claiming the policy was against the law. The case made it to the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which agreed EDS’s policy violated the state’s Wage Law.

Under the law, vacation is considered part of an employee’s wages, the court ruled, so it was owed to Tessicini along with his regular salary for work he’d completed.

That’s not the law of the land everywhere, though:

In 2007, the Minnesota Supreme Court took the opposite stance. Last year, Maryland passed a law clarifying that employers’ individual policies dictate whether vacation time will be paid out after termination.

The rules on payment of vacation time vary from state to state. Make sure you check your state’s laws and write your policy accordingly.

Cite: Electronic Data Systems Corp. v. Attorney General

Employees must now wear underwear and deodorant.

The dress code is part of a new, three-page policy the city council of Brooksville hopes will increase professionalism, Tampa Bay Online reports. Revealing clothing and body piercings are now expressly banned, and employees are told to observe “strict personal hygiene,” including the deodorant clause.

Written under the heading of “unacceptable attire”: “the observable lack of undergarments and exposed undergarments.”

The underwear mandate and the other rules were approved by a council vote of 4-1, with the city’s mayor, oddly enough, as the lone dissenter. He said the requirement “takes away freedom of choice.”

A recent employment law ruling by the Supreme Court has gotten a lot of attention — but what impact will it have on HR’s day-to-day job?

A summary of the case:

The fire department in New Haven, Connecticut, used a standard test to choose which firefighters to promote to lieutenant and captain. In one round of testing, 19 white employees and one Hispanic employee passed. No black firefighters passed the test.

According to the employer’s policy, the 20 employees who passed should have been promoted. But, viewing the test as biased against the black employees — and fearing a lawsuit from them — management scrapped the results and based the promotions on other factors.

In a classic case of “you’re damned if you, you’re damned if you don’t,” the department was hit with a lawsuit — from the 20 employees who passed the test and weren’t promoted. They claimed they mere most qualified for the jobs — according to the department’s policy — but weren’t promoted because of their race.

Two lower courts threw the case out before the Supreme Court reversed.

What does it mean to HR?

The case has gotten a lot of attention, mostly because the decision overturns one made by High Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. But what does it mean for HR pros?

The Court’s ruling stressed two points:

1. Employers do need to be careful about using selection procedures that have a disparate impact against a protected class, but
2. It’s not just a numbers game — if a test is job-related and consistent with business necessity, there’s no reason to suddenly change a selection procedure based on how many people of a certain race, gender, religion, etc., pass.

So basically if the test is legal, employers should stay consistent, rather than using the results in some instances and not in others.

Of course, few employers base hiring and promotion decisions solely on one thing, so deciding whether or not to scrap a test’s results likely wouldn’t have as big an impact as it did for the New Haven fire department.

But the case does contain a general lesson managers should be reminded of: Fear of being sued by members of one protected class is not a defense for discriminating against another.

Cite: Ricci v. DeStefano

One goal of intern programs is finding people who will come work for the company when they’re finished school.

But if companies aren’t careful, they can turn these people off to the idea of seeking permanent employment. Here are some of the common problems and advice on avoiding them:

• Cutting them too much slack. That doesn’t do anyone any good. They’re there to learn about the “real world,” and you want to learn about them. Sure, they probably won’t be treated exactly the same as regular staff, but it should be pretty close. Most importantly, constructive feedback is key.
• Not helping them learn. In addition to giving them meaningful work, managers should give interns plenty of time to ask questions about the company and the business in general. Also, if there are specific things an intern wants to try doing, some flexibility in assignments might be the best way to get the most out of him or her.
• Avoiding talk about the specifics of future opportunities. If you’d like the interns to consider taking a permanent job after graduation, tell them it’s a possibility and that you’ll be in touch down the road. Getting too specific might box you in or give the impression you’re making a commitment. Sending regular e-mails to past interns (the good ones, anyway) is a good way to keep the company on their minds.

In one case, an applicant was turned down for a job he thought should have been his. He was African American, and the hired applicant was Caucasian.

He claimed he was more qualified and “mature” than the guy who got the job. The company said both were qualified, but the other applicant was a better fit.

The rejected applicant sued for bias. In court, he gave no specific reason why his qualifications were better — his experience and education weren’t any more impressive than the successful applicant.

So the judge threw out the case. He said it isn’t a court’s job to second guess employers’ hiring decisions. Companies are free to decide who’s the best candidate for a job, as long as the decision doesn’t include discriminatory factors.

The lesson: When two or more applicants appear equally qualified, a manager will often have to use some subjective reason for choosing one over the others. That’s OK, as long as there’s no appearance of bias.

Cite: Spell v. Connecticut, Office of Chief State’s Attorney

A division of Ernst and Young held a retreat for employees at a resort in Colorado. The program included an assortment of fun and games, as well as an open bar.

One of the events: a mock sumo wrestling game in which employees wore inflatable fat suits and tried to tackle each other on a rubber mat.

Employee Katherine Giles was playing the game and was pushed off the mat. She was wearing a helmet, but it slipped off during the fall. Giles hit her head on the carpeted concrete floor and fractured her skull.

Suffering permanent damage, Giles sued the manufacturer of the mock sumo suits, the company that planned the retreat and the resort. The latter two settled out of court, but the case against the manufacturer went to a jury trial.

The company claimed Giles was intoxicated when the accident happened, but that didn’t sway the jury, which awarded her $2 million, Denver’s CBS 4 reports.

The company’s working on a formula that can help them predict who’s most likely to resign.

The formula, which is still being tested and kept secret, uses data from performance reviews, surveys and pay and performance histories to identify employees who are likely to quit in the near future, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Presumably, they’ll take what they find and look for ways to convince those employees to stay.

Google’s had some retention issues lately, as several top employees have left the company. But is designing an equation to identify potential quitters the answer, or is it a needlessly complicated technical solution for an age-old personnel problem?

Some folks think it’s the latter. “They need to come up with ways to keep people engaged,” career consultant Valerie Frederickson was quoted as saying in the WSJ article. “If Google was doing this enough, they wouldn’t be losing all these people.”

Sounds like the general advice every company needs to follow.