Can you be fired for missing work during Hurricane Irma Unfortunately, yes.

Can you be fired for missing work during Hurricane Irma Unfortunately, yes.Can you be fired for missing work during Hurricane Irma Unfortunately, yes.This weekend, Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded in the Atlantic, is rushing toward Florida after completely devastating Caribbean islands earlier this week. As the hurricane aims towards its next target, Floridian residents are facing hard choices between safety and job security as gas shortages, miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic, and evacuation orders make showing up to work on time a herculean task, if bedrngnis an impossibility for some employees.Do employers look kindly on these extenuating circumstances? The reasonable ones do. But for the unreasonable ones who may want workers to risk life and limb to get into the office, Ladderstalked to Florida-based employment lawyers in the midst of handling their own hurricane preparations about what rights employees have during a hurricane.If you skip work due to an evacuation order, you can still get firedEach employees circumstance would need to be handled on a case-by-case basis, but in general, the outlook for Florida employees is grim as there are no overall laws protecting them from immediate dismissal if they choose to flee during the storm.Even if you live in a county under a mandatory evacuation order, the law wont protect you from being fired if thats why you dont show up to work.Since Florida is a right-to-work state, both employees and employers have the right to make employment decisions like quitting or terminations as long as these actions are not unlawful.But what if you couldnt show up to work because youre waiting in line for gas for your car, or youre putting up shutters in your home, or youre busy evacuating your family? The law is unsympathetic here, too.From an employers standpoint, they would consider that a no-call, no-show. The fact that youre unable to get gas, thats not a protected right, Tampa-based employment law yer Erik DeLEtoile said. If they physically have to flee their homes, thats not the employers concern.Harsh, but true. For some employees, that may be a wake-up call to get a new job with a more compassionate company.If this is really how theyre going to conduct themselves in a time of need, its probably best not to work for them. But thats a difficult decision for people who need their jobs,DeLEtoile said.What about OSHA?There are no specific Occupational Safety and Health Administration laws requiring companies to evacuate their employees during a hurricane. Of course, OSHA regulations enforce your right to work in a reasonably safe workplace, so if your workplace is endangering your life, you can make the case to them.Theres no reason a business should be operating during an actual hurricane. If for whatever reason, they wanted you to do that, then there might be an OSHA issue, Venice-based employment lawyer Frank Malatesta said. But were not talking about four days beforehand so you can put up shutters. Even if its not common sense, theres still that expectation.Under certain cases, you can also use the Family Medical Leave Act to argue your absence if you had to skip work during a hurricane to attend to a direct family member, Malatesta said.Your best advice? Communicate with your employer.It may be uncomfortable and awkward to explain why you dont want to show up to work, but open communication with your employer is needed not just to clear up any misunderstandings, but also to help your case before a judge if your misunderstanding reaches that point.Its always best to reach out to your employers in advance, DeLEtoile said. Many times, employees feel like their employer is being unreasonable, but they dont say anything to their employer.Before you make any decisions about skipping work, DeLEtoile advises employees to reach out to human resources about why the company wants you working and why you need to evacuate.Above all, Malatesta advises employees to document everything. Make sure you put your communication in some kind of written form, he said. You want to get your employers reply and reasoning for being unreasonable in writing.Take a recording of emergency-related government speeches on gas shortages, so if need be, you can play that before the judge. Thats what Malatesta said he advised a young woman who was terminated for being a no-show at work after not being able to get gas for her car.When it comes to these cases, it will be your definitiv against your employers, and you will need all the written ammunition you can get.

Your Job Applications Journey

Your Job Applications JourneyYour Job Applications JourneyKnowing what recruiters and hiring managers do with your resume at every step of the application will let you set expectations about if and when you will receive a response.Job seekers often complain that potential employers more closely resemble black holes than functioning companies. Submitted resumes even those addressed to specific managers and hand carried by contacts on the inside often get no response.Even after several stages of kontrolle and in-person interviews, thank-you elendes and inquiries, job seekers often find themselves in a dead zone where all communication ceases, despite their best efforts and best-laid plans.What happened?The black hole is alive and well, and thats really a shame, said David A. Earle, lead researcher at Staffing.org, an analyst company that measures recruiting trends. Weve taken a fairly strident position that corporations that dont change their way of doing things in this Internet-cent ric environment will start to encounter candidates that know theyre being treated well at distribution policy A and badly at Place B, and that knowledge will start showing up in those companies recruiting.But a better understanding of the application process can help illuminate the black hole and help job seekers prepare for lack of response and abrupt replies theyre likely to encounter during the job search.Odds are youll never know what happenedWhy arent recruiters more responsive? The No. One reason is the sheer volume of candidates, said Lindsay Olson, a partner and recruiter at Paradigm Staffing, a recruiting company that specializes in marketing and PR positions.Were getting so many resumes these days and so many people will apply for a job that theyre not qualified for that its a big stretch for HR people or recruiters to get back in andeutung with every single person, Olson said. Its unrealistic of a candidate to expect that. But very few companies even try its not hard to s et up an automated response that gives people some idea of what to expect from the process, but alfruchtwein nobody does it.That refusal is a special kind of arrogance on the part of hiring companies, said Sally Haver, senior vice president of business development at The Ayers Group/Career Partners International, a recruiting company that specializes in career transitions and outplacement.What should you expect when you apply for a job? Neglect, she said. There are all kinds of things that happen behind the scenes, from someone being out sick to someone else realizing they didnt do their due diligence to find an internal candidate to people on the inside lobbying for someone theyre championing. If you are passed over during all that, odds are youll never know what happened.Unexpected kinks in the process notwithstanding, every application goes through certain steps and an expected timeline. That doesnt mean the process wont get short-circuited, sidetracked or altered along the way, but understanding the typical flow of a job application can help an expectant applicant adjust his expectations.1. Resume goes in Whether youre responding to an ad on Ladders, a special-purpose job site, or working with a contact at the company who can hand-deliver your resume to the hiring manager, your resume and cover letter are going to be screened by someone. More often than not, its a third-party recruiter who gets paid only when a hire is made, and might not get hired again for presenting any but the absolutely most appropriate candidates and not too many of them, Olson said.We might present three to the client, and we decide on those by sifting through resumes, doing initial interviews and asking extra questions about topics the client might want more information about than the resume says, she said. We try to get some kind of response out within 48 hours, at least acknowledging that we got your resume. Most companies dont even do that.Next, most companies feed the resumes into an Applicant Tracking System database, Earle said, then use search keywords to match candidates to the job description and build a list of suitable candidates to interview. At this point, someone inside the company is finally looking at your resume to get any further, your credentials must make a good impression the moment an HR screener or hiring manager sees them, Haver said.People have no attention spans they have no time to read, so if you think youre a good fit, list all their requirements down the left side of the paper and all the experiences you have that answer each one on the right side, Haver said. Show them how you match up on each point, and make it really short less than one page.2. Youve been pickedIf you are one of the lucky ones to get a screening call, expect it to last about half an hour, be reasonably pleasant and leave you with very little idea whether you will progress to the next stage.Recruiters are looking for how well a candidate communicates, how she comes across on the phone, and whether shell be a good match in personality and work expectations for the hiring manager. Its a judgment call for the recruiter, Olson said.Even if you look like a very good candidate, that person is probably in the middle of screening a lot of candidates, so you might be the leading candidate when you hang up but not later on, Olson said. You should ask at the end of that conversation, Whats the next step? and they might tell you theyll send your name on to the client. But recruiters could have a lot of reasons for saying it but not doing it.Among those reasons Better candidates might crop up, the recruiter might be trying to avoid giving a candidate bad news, or the hiring company might change the criteria for the job.Ask at the end of the interview whether youll be passed on to the next step, but dont expect always to know whether it will actually happen, Haver said. Your best bet is to call the recruiter back a few days or a week later to touch b ases.3. Presentation behind closed doorsThe next stage is completely out of your control, so you should try to not worry about it, Haver said.Once the screening interviews are finished, the recruiter or internal HR manager will present the top candidates to the hiring manager or managers. Usually that will happen within a day or two of completing the screening calls. Many companies require more than one decision-maker to sign off on hires or even which candidates to interview.Recruiters present a candidates strengths to show where he matches the description laid out by the hiring manager and describes weak points such as the lack of proficiency in the particular software package the hiring company uses.With the number of candidates they have, hiring managers are incredibly picky, Haver said. If they lay out 10 requirements, they want 10 for 10, not nine out of 10.In most cases, it takes less than a week to get that signoff, and an indeterminate time to set up and conduct in-person i nterviews. If you havent heard from the recruiter or the company within a week or two, dont count on hearing back, she said.4. Audition and follow-upFrom the hiring managers perspective, the interview and immediate aftermath can be like judging a childrens talent contest in a town where you know all the parents, Haver said.People inside are leaning on the hiring managers, she said. Its unbelievable how much pressure some of them are getting from people who want to find a spot for their brother-in-law or friend who cant pay the mortgage and needs a job, or someone inside. Everyones flagging their own candidate, so if youre outside and dont have a champion, its hard to stay at the top of the list.Still, as with the screening interview, cover your bases. Keep in touch with the hiring manager, if possible. If not, contact the HR manager or third-party recruiter. Send a thank-you note. Phone the recruiter a few days later to see how it goes, and about once a week thereafter. Any less, an d you will lose touch any more, and you will overstay your welcome.Its perfectly fair to expect to know whats going on and what you can expect, but it doesnt always happen, Olson said.If you get no response at all, either to the interview or the thank-you and follow-up notes, thats a bad sign you should not expect to hear back about the job, Earle said. Its possible hiring managers are having trouble coordinating, but more likely theyve made a decision that doesnt include you and dont want to call to confirm it, Earle said.One word of advice from Olson Dont go around the recruiter and call the hiring manager directly. Thats a good way to get them annoyed and wanting to not work with you again, Olson said.And dont call more than once a week or so to check, even if the ad is still up weeks or months after your interview.Ads might be posted automatically to hundreds of job boards, or might go up as part of a longer-term contract with mass-market job sites, Earle said. Often the ads rem ain online long after the job was filled because the companys ad buy required that it be listed for 30, 60 or 90 days far longer than it might be valid.Ive seen companies take six months to make a decision, though, Olson said. Not hearing doesnt necessarily mean its gone. If theyre open with you and tell you why theres a delay, go ahead and stick with it. But dont stop looking for other things.

6 easy ways Joanna Gaines gets ahead of the holiday chaos

6 easy ways Joanna Gaines gets ahead of the holiday chaos6 easy ways Joanna Gaines gets ahead of the holiday chaosNo one tackles timemanagementquite like the queen of DIY projects, Joanna Gaines. The HGTV host ofFixer Upperhas shared tons of tips for getting ahead over the course of herbei television career - both on the screen and on herblog,Magnolia. And because its holiday crunch time, weve decided to key in on some of those tips.If youre anything like Gaines, youll want to get a head start of the holidays - perhaps before your neighbors even put away their pumpkins. We dont blame you the holidays can be an exhausting, time-consuming few weeks of decorating, gift shopping, hosting and celebrating.Gaines shared her early holiday celebrations via her Instagram story in October, when she and her sister were cozied up by the fire listening to classic Christmas songs the night before Halloween. Maybe you didnt jump on the bandwagonthatearly, but if you get a grip of the holidays soon er rather than later, youll have more time to enjoy all of the festivities.With that said, here are eight tips Gaines has shared to help you handle the holidays (almost) as well as she does.Photo via Instagram1. Hang onto tradition rather than stressing yourself out with the trends.While the popsicle-stick picture frames have cracked over the years, and the photos within them have faded - it only makes me love them all the more, she wrote in her blog, Magnolia. I want to decorate our tree with our same ornaments that we ooh and ahh over each year.Our tree could never be complete without the kids handmade offerings.Its okay to hang onto family traditions, even if that means your tree doesnt necessarily look as chic as the trees on social media - family traditions are what make the holidays beautiful. In fact, Gaines actively steers clear of all trends surrounding the holidays.Its rare for me to get excited about a new holiday recipe or trendy ideas for decorating the tree, she wrot e. Im not looking for ways to reinvent this season. Instead, all I want is to gather the same ingredients for the same beloved cinnamon rolls that Ive baked on Christmas morning for as long as I can remember.Photo via Instagram2. Simplify your gift wrapping.Handmade gifts are generally considered extra-special because the recipient appreciates the time and effort you put into making them, she writes on her blog. You can easily evoke the same appreciative sentiment with purchased gifts by putting a little extra time into the wrapping. This year, why not keep it simple by using brown kraft paper? Its classic, and the possibilities of making these packages look beautiful are endless.Sheshares three tipsfor making gift wrapping look like the stuff of dreams, which include yarn, personalized letters and ornaments.Photo via Instagram3. Delegate seasonal tasks.Seasonal responsibilities like holiday decorating or baking are a team effort for Gaines family.Everyone takes a task The older kid s lead the dienstgrad on hanging the ornaments while the younger ones hunt for everyones stocking, she wrote. And every year, Chip and Drake hang my very favorite antique sign, the one that we got earlier in our marriage, that says Christmas Trees For Sale.Photo via Instagram4. Use lots of garland rather than spending time (and money) on more complicated decorations.On her blog, Gaines shared that Garland is one of her favorite decorations, calling it timeless and beautiful wherever its placed. She uses it on her staircase, mantle, chandeliers and more.Photo via Instagram5. Make less of mess by using artificial plants in your home.Pine trees and festive sprigs might look beautiful, but they aya do leave behind a mess. Gaines uses artificial stems for some of her decorations to cut down on the vacuuming shell have to do later.I like to stick to one kind of stem and use a few in each vase because it looks the most authentic, she reportedly told Target. Make sure you tease out the bran ches to give them a little life and movement.Photo via Instagram6. Light some candles.If youre looking to relax a little in between all the decorating, shopping and cooking, light some Magnolia Marketsholiday candles, which come in two scents this season Joyeux Noel (mandarin, cranberry and clove) and Twelve Nights (cedar, citrus and Fraiser Fir).Photo via Instagram- AnnaMarie Houlis is a feminist, a freelance journalist and an adventure aficionado with an affinity for impulsive solotravel. She spends her days writing about womens empowerment from around the world. You can follow her work on her blog,HerReport.org, and follow her journeys on Instagram her_report,TwitterherreportandFacebook.This article originally appeared onFairygodboss. As the largest career community for women, Fairygodboss provides millions of women with career connections, community advice, and hard-to-find intel about how companies treat women.