At the Workforce Online forums, you can get answers from other HR professionals who are making an impact on their organizations.
- How to Post
- What Can I Post?
- About the Legal Forum
- Some More Tips
How to Post
- Weave a New Thread.
There are two types of messages you can post in the HR Forums: New threads and responses to existing threads.
To start a new thread, click on the “Post ” link directly above the list of discussion threads. You will be given a form that asks for your name, your e-mail address, the subject heading and the message itself. That’s it! Type in this information, hit “Post,” and everything else is done for you automatically. Since it is a new thread, it will appear at the top of that forum. [Note: You may need to click “Reload” on your browser to see your posting. In other words, please do not submit your post twice, thinking it hasn’t appeared. It will.]
- Join a Thread.
To join an ongoing discussion, click on the first message in the thread (the one that isn’t indented). Scroll to the bottom of the screen and the list of responses. Click on “Post a response to this discussion thread”. Again, just fill out the form and hit “Post.”
- Know the Rules.
Remember to read the privacy policy in the Terms, which, among other things, explains that people can find your posts, even from outside of Workforce Online.
What Can I Post?
- An Employers Forum.
If it’s a question or comment written by and written for employers, managers, and others in the HR community post it. Employees are better off at another venue.
- No Solicitation.
Please, no advertising. Discuss specific products and services only when responding to relevant user inquiries.
More Tips - See If Someone Else Has Been There, Done That.
Read a few postings, get a feel for how the Forums work, then post your message. You’ll be more likely to generate responses if your posting fits into the culture users have established here.
Also, try searching the archives. Your question may already have been asked and answered earlier in the forums, saving you time or giving you enough information to sharpen your question and get a good, specific response.
- Don’t Make Your Subject a Mystery.
When posting a message to a forum, make sure to give your message a descriptive subject heading. Remember, if you want to generate responses, you have to make your subject clear for the people who see it. They will only choose to read the subject headings that are of interest to them.
- Formatting Is on Auto-Pilot.
When you type in a message, don’t worry if your message extends beyond the boundaries of the input box. When you click on “Post Message,” the text will be automatically formatted and wrapped so that it fits a standard screen width.
If you want to format your posting (such as indenting an entire paragraph), however, you should insert the hard returns yourself, so you know where each line breaks. If you do this, try to keep each line of text around 60 characters or so (if you stay within the boundary of the box you will be fine). This will make your posting easy for others to read.
- Become a Groupie.
It’s easier to keep up to date with the discussions if you set aside a regular time period once or twice a week to visit the forums. And be patient — sometimes thorough and helpful answers appear weeks after the original question was posted.
About the Legal Forum
- Employment law attorneys from Epstein, Becker & Green
host a forum on Workforce Online devoted to legal issues of many kinds: FLSA, ADA, FLMA, harassment, immigration, discrimination, labor relations, and the rest of the alphabet soup of human resources law. If you’re a member of Workforce Online, you have special access to ask questions of EBG attorneys.
- They’ve got clients, too.
Out of respect to their time, please keep your questions general. Also, they answer employer questions only (other sites have forums set up for employees).
- Watch for deja vu.
Also, please scroll through the posts before submitting a question, as it may very well have been answered already.
- Read the legalese.
Check out the Terms of this site. They’re a reminder that the legal information on the site is information, not advice, and that neither Workforce Online nor EBG are liable for it.
Anyone visiting the site can read the Topic Forum postings. To participate, you need to become a member of Workforce Online. Join now and, you’ll receive the free weekly e-mail newsletter, Workforce Week, to keep you up to date on site contents, events and hot forum topics.