When she was the director of organizational development at a family-run auto parts manufacturer employing 3,000 workers, Amy Schuman had an odd experience.

“I remember when the 10-year-old son of the owner came to lunch at the cafeteria one day. Suddenly, you got the sense that he could be your boss,” she said in an interview with SHRM Online.

As disconcerting as it might be to run into your future supervisor while he’s still a child, HR professionals can help ease the leadership transition from one generation to the next by making sure that upcoming presidents and CEOs have the necessary skills to run the business and that the outgoing leaders are making good choices based on the company’s business needs—and not just the parents’ heartstrings.

Incoming second-generation leaders face different hurdles than their predecessors, according to experts from the Chicago-based Family Business Consulting Group. Where the first-generation founder of the company might enjoy the loyalty and respect of the company’s workers and their own children, the incoming leader is going to have to work to earn that trust—even if he or she does things the same way as the preceding generation.

“When the leader is chosen, [the other siblings working or having ownership stakes in the company] want them to lead the way mom or dad led,” said Otis Baskin, Ph.D., consultant with the Family Business Consulting Group, in a March 2012 webinar. “But as soon as [the leader] makes the first decision the way the parent would have done, there’s pushback from the other siblings. They know you’re not mom or dad. No one can lead that way again.”

Building up skills, trust and rapport with the company’s workers can stave off some of that pushback, said Schuman, now a principal with the Family Business Consulting Group. Long before the new leader takes his or her place in the corner office, the company’s HR leaders can help young family members find ways to be leaders in their schools or community, talking about what skills will be needed to guide the company in the future, creating a career development plan and bringing them into the office to shadow their parent.

Encourage the first-generation leader to “model the leadership behavior you want them to have,” said Kent Rose, Ph.D., with the Family Business Consulting Group. “That will impact them most strongly.”

HR can take the lead with the family in developing policies that incorporate the family’s values and will help select the best next leader, Schuman said—and HR might have to be the one that enforces those policies.

“Set up objective criteria before” the next leader must be chosen, Schuman said. “Have everyone agree that family members [who want to run the business] must be qualified.” And then help the family stick to its policies and guidelines to achieve the best outcome for the business, she added. This can be especially challenging when family members begin making decisions out of sentiment, rather than business savvy.

“You can remind them, ‘I know this is hard, but for several years, you’ve said you want to make employment choices that do not jeopardize the business. You may be doing so through this choice of your son or daughter,” Schuman said.

HR can help other family members find their places in the company, even if they are not the president or CEO, Schuman said. In addition, she said HR can serve as a trusted advisor, communicating, as appropriate, information about the business to family members who might not be involved in the day-to-day operations but who still have financial interests.

Twice the Work, Big Rewards

On their way to the top, incoming leaders might realize they are challenged not just by family members but also by co-workers. Eric Oppenheim, SPHR, COO of Republic Foods Inc. in Bethesda, Md., started working in his father’s company in 1997. At that time, the company—which owns 19 Burger King restaurants in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan region—lacked an HR department. Oppenheim, who was working in the hotel industry, was tasked with starting up the HR function. But he had no HR experience.

Not only did Oppenheim earn his master’s degree in organizational development and HR, he also took classes to learn how to manage the restaurants and oversee operations to build credibility with other employees and restaurant managers in the group. He learned that he had to work to change people’s perception of him.

His father “was very concerned at that time about how I was perceived by others in the organization,” Oppenheim said. Gaining employees’ trust “took longer than I thought it would. They had watched me grow up, I knew them, I’m likable. But in the working environment, people started to think I was a threat to them and their livelihood. …People want to see you fail. They assume you have advantages you don’t have.”

Knowing the business inside and out and “working two times harder than anyone else in the organization” are proving to his colleagues that Oppenheim has earned the right to lead alongside his father, he said. “Every day, I had to prove I was worthy of it and would work harder to get there.”

To be successful, said Baskin, second-generation leaders have to make sure that they sell their ideas to their employees, respect their family members, listen to their families and employees, and communicate their company’s vision as a rallying point. The second generation won’t be the same as the first, but that’s a good thing, Baskin said: “You have to be open to change. Children are different from their parents, and business needs change.”

Oppenheim, who is part of the Labor Relations Special Expertise Panel for the Society for Human Resource Management, encouraged HR professionals to make sure that second-generation leaders “outwork” other company leaders. Warn them that “it’s a long process to earn credibility and trust. [Tell upcoming leaders] to keep an open mind and learn all you can. Go in with a mind-set that you don’t know much and learn from your own people.”

At the end of each day, though, Oppenheim said, “I appreciate the fact that I get to work with my dad. When it’s gone, I’ll look back and cherish it.”

Beth Mirza is senior editor for HR News. She can be reached at Beth.Mirza@shrm.org. To read the original article, please click here.

 Interview by Donna M. Owens

Having witnessed the end of apartheid in his native South Africa, Mark Addleson knows what it's like to see a society undergo transformational change. Perhaps that's why the business professor says it's possible—and necessary—to revolutionize U.S. management practices.

Addleson, an associate professor of public policy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and the author of Beyond Management: Taking Charge at Work (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), contends that management must be re-created to empower 21st century knowledge workers—and ultimately their organizations.

What is management?

First, it is the people who manage others. Management also refers to certain processes, such as planning, budgeting, coordination and control. Finally, management is a mindset that pervades an organization and shapes the way people work.

Why doesn't traditional management fit today's workplaces?

The work of management hasn't changed fundamentally. What has changed is the work that is managed. Management practices were developed during the industrial era, when most work was done in factories. It was highly mechanized and repetitive. This is a time of profound change. We're emerging from centuries-old patterns of thought that encourage and reward specific ways of working.

"Knowledge workers" figure prominently in your book. Who is a knowledge worker?

Just about everybody who isn't a factory worker is a knowledge worker, ranging from the CEO to the janitor. It's not so much who they are but what they do. There have always been knowledge workers. Their work is not mechanical, and it varies. Knowledge workers talk, text and network. They have to be creative, as they make decisions individually and collectively.

What are some of the most counterproductive common management practices?

Knowledge work requires collaboration. But management often focuses on individuals to the exclusion of groups. Many organizations rely on high-control systems. We talk about accountability, but what we really mean is compliance. This and the hierarchy of management—somebody in charge who makes decisions for everyone else—get in the way of people sharing knowledge.

HR practitioners should be on the lookout for every potential roadblock to collaboration and try to remove it.

In a collaborative environment, how are workers held accountable for their work or disciplined?

Those are the million-dollar questions. They're the heart of everything. Using the traditional model, unless there's control—in other words, compliance—the view is that workers will be unproductive.

But when people agree to be accountable to one another as peers, they recognize what they're doing is a joint effort. They each commit to specific actions or goals and to holding each other to their commitments. What's important is a commitment to do good work together.

The interviewer is a freelance writer based in Baltimore. To read the original article, please click here.

"Every generation needs a new revolution.” – Thomas Jefferson

On May 16 at 3 p.m. ET, We Know Next conducted a lively and insightful #NextChat discussion on "Creating Generational Engagement with Reverse Mentoring" with Next Official Blogger, Microsoft's Ross Smith and his reverse mentor Prem Kumar.

Ross and Prem shared their experiences with reverse mentoring and explained how leaders should think differently about managing multiple age groups.

Reverse mentoring helps to remove stereotypes. It also increases employee engagement, trust and collaboration.  As Ross tweeted, "It's all about exposure to different thinking, which helps spark creativity and innovation for all." 

Does your company have a reverse mentor program in place? If not, take a look at the tweets below and get some tips on how you can begin to break down the generational silos at your organization.

In case you missed it, there are more great chats ahead. Please join us on May 23 at 3 p.m. ET, for #NextChat with special guest, Next Official Blogger and "Cynical Girl" Laurie Ruettimann for an enlightening discussion on "What's Holding Women Back?" 

Until then, here are some highlights from this week's chat:
 

Michael was a Director at a medium-sized company. A self-proclaimed perfectionist, he had equally high expectations of his direct reports. He began with the company when they were first formed and had the luxury of hiring and training his own team. Like so many young leaders, he struggled with delegation. Michael was a work horse. He could crank out work like nobody’s business, and many times, found it easier to do things himself rather than engage the team he had hired. His team of professionals was relegated to less than fulfilling work for much of the time.

When he did let go and assign a project to his capable team, they were thrilled. The team would fly into a flurry of activity and enthusiastically complete the assignment. Michael would review their work and the “red pen” would come out. He wasn’t pleased with their staff work, so he would grab a red pen and begin to edit and edit and edit and edit. He would share with me how shocked he was with the "quality of their work "and comment this was precisely the reason he preferred to do all of the project work himself. Once Michael finished with his editing, he’d hand the work back to the team. Completely demoralized, they would make the necessary "corrections" and return the product to Michael. Now, he was satisfied.

So, what’s wrong with providing your team constructive feedback? Nothing, if it is done well.

You see, Michael wouldn’t give much in the way of guidance when he’d give an assignment to his employees. Instead, he would communicate just enough to give the team the sense they understood what was being asked of them; however, never enough for them to be successful. What was always interesting was the fact Michael thought he was a very strong communicator. He’d make reference to his communication skills quite often, in fact.  To Michael, he provided more than sufficient guidance.

In addition to a lack of communication, Michael had difficulty realizing that no one on his team was going to be a miniature version of him. I find it interesting, just how many leaders struggle in this area. He expected a work product that looked exactly what he would have put together, rather than stepping back to consider whether the end goal was accomplished.  Did it really matter how his team got there? To Michael, the answer to that question was “yes”.

So, how do you ensure that you’re providing your team sufficient information to be successful and yet giving them creative license to learn and grow? Does the path the team chooses to take as they successfully complete a project have to be yours or one they are comfortable with? Are you offering a safe environment or one where it is only safe to take on projects in the manner in which they believe you would have done it?

My advice to you is that you take your team’s training wheels off and watch how far they can go.

There is "a significant, across-the-board increase" in the number of workers seriously considering leaving their employer, according to a global survey released in April 2012.

The data reflect "a profound shift in employee attitudes and opinions," wrote Patrick Gilbert, Ph.D., global leader for employee research at Mercer, and Pete Foley, Ph.D., a principal at Mercer and its North American Employee Research Leader, in What's Working Around the World.

Nearly one-fourth of workers in each country surveyed have no plans to leave but are more negative about their job than those who seriously are considering quitting.

"The reality is that many organizations are making smaller overall investments in their workforces today, and employees are not happy about it," they write.

Workers have "reluctantly accepted" that the days of lifetime job security, generous benefits and pensions, and steady pay increases are gone and they are accepting tradeoffs such as more training and pay for performance, according to the researchers. But now "employees believe employers are not living up to their revised promises and are not delivering on this 'new deal.' "

They're frustrated and stuck—the economic climate makes it difficult to move on, and flattened structures at their employer leave little or no room for moving within their organization.

Because of the recession, "managers have become increasingly business- and task-focused, rather than people-focused, tending more to bottom lines and business goals than to people management and investments in rewards, training and career opportunities."

Respondents were asked if they were seriously considering leaving their employer, the significance of benefits in their decision to stay, the value they place on retirement savings or a pension plan, the value they place on base pay, their confidence in how their organization is managed, and questions related to workplace flexibility and to job satisfaction.

One of the most startling findings, Foley told SHRM Online, is the high percentage of employees who, although "fence sitters" on the question of whether they would leave their organization, "were hands-down the most negative on nearly everything" else measured in the survey.

This "signals to us we have a fairly big group … of apathetic, disaffected, [mentally] checked-out" employees, he said.

Mercer's findings are based on its survey of nearly 30,000 employees at organizations with 100 or more employees. It did not include anyone working fewer than 15 hours per week and excluded workers in agriculture and the government.

Global Findings

Reports of decreased employee engagement have surfaced elsewhere. A Kelly Global Workforce Index survey of more than 9,000 employees from Canada in late 2011, for example, found that 69 percent of respondents definitely intend to look for a job with another employer within a year.

And in April 2012, SHRM Online reported findings from Kenexa High Performance Institute—a division of  global HR consultancy Kenexa—that found "a marked drop" from 2010 to 2011 in engagement among retail workers in the U.S., Brazil, China, Germany, India and the United Kingdom.

The Mercer survey, conducted from the fourth quarter of 2010 through the second quarter of 2011, covered 17 countries in four regions:

• Asia Pacific—Australia, China, Hong Kong, India and Singapore.
• Europe—France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom.
• Latin America—Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.
• North America—Canada and the United States.

It also includes a section on generational insights. Those 24 and younger are more likely to act and think alike around the world, a distinction not found in previous Mercer What's Working surveys. However, workers age 25 and older are more likely to reflect the cultural norms of their country.

Workers 24 and younger are more satisfied with their jobs and organizations and more likely to recommend their employer to others. But they are also more likely to seriously consider leaving soon.

Among some of the regional highlights, loyalty is eroding throughout Latin America, and "apathy is a serious hidden problem." Career advancement, training, base pay and incentives are important in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.

In North America, respondents see limited career opportunities; just half are confident that they will achieve their long-term career objectives at their organization. U.S. and Canadian workers value base pay above all else. Additionally, Canadian workers said they have less flexibility to provide good services, less access to necessary job information, and less authority to be effective on the job.

In Europe, one-fifth of more than 13,000 workers surveyed are indifferent about whether to stay or leave their employer. The percentage of employees seriously considering leaving is highest in Italy, at 40 percent. In France, the biggest declines in job satisfaction from previous years related to having enough flexibility to provide good customer service and having sufficient authority to be effective on the job.

In Asia Pacific, workers are in short supply and high demand. A common theme is workers' declining satisfaction with, and confidence in, their direct managers and senior management. Women are somewhat less engaged than men but less likely to consider leaving, pointing to a need for diversity and inclusion programs to raise engagement, according to the report.

What HR, Employers Can Do

"It's all about balance," Foley said, noting that if the value proposition gets out of balance for too long, it leads to employee apathy, withholding of discretionary effort, absenteeism and, ultimately, turnover.

"HR right now is thinking 'what do we do to refashion the value proposition?' " Because the old days of big merit pools and big pay increases are not coming back, he pointed out. "I don't think HR has figured it out yet. I really don't."

In the U.S. and some other countries, HR is "starting to focus on … the softer stuff—creating a more collaborative environment, doing more things around paid time off and sabbaticals."

He pointed out that retooling the value proposition requires understanding what is unique about a company's culture.

"Companies are adopting practices without thinking about whether it fits well with what they're doing," he said. "It comes down to evidence-based management" and using data to make informed decisions. 

"We need to measure what people are valuing or not valuing," he said. "Make sure you're able to differentiate [in those markets], because we do see a fair amount of variability" among countries in what employees value.

To read the original article, please click here.

We all know that powerful women face Catch-22s.  When Donald Trump exercises control, he is in control. When Martha Stewart exercises control, she is controlling.  Same behaviors; different labels.

A lot has been written about these Catch-22s.  Less has been written on how women with power can handle them.

Here are three of the many Catch-22s women with power face and my suggestions for how to navigate them.

1. Ice Queen

Women who maintain emotional control are sometimes described as Ice Queens.  Of course, those who demonstrate emotion may be equally criticized.

I once had a male client scream at me about how an emotional woman working for him was making him nuts.  I was glad he was not emotional.
 
It's okay to show passion, compassion and emotion.  Just make sure that it's in the framework of control.

Indeed, consider getting ahead of the curve. Whether you are male or female, educate your team on the importance of emotional intelligence. 

And don't react to fears of being perceived as too emotional by being non-emotional.  That goes too far, unless you want your subordinates to wear winter coats in August.

Ice Kings and Queens are not likely to inspire passionate followers.  But subordinates tend to be tougher on the queens than the kings.

2. Tough

Women with power who are simply as tough as men are sometimes described as tough in either a disparaging way (“bitch”) or with surprise (“wow, is she tough”).  What were you expecting from the COO:  a shoulder to cry on?

Of course, if a woman is more collaborative, she may hear that she is not tough enough. Why can’t she make a decision on her own? Why does she need so much buy in?

Whether male or female, you need to be tough to lead.  And, regardless of gender, being strong is not inconsistent with being collaborative.

But, for women, this can be a more difficult balance in the eyes of the beholder.  Same behaviors may produce different responses.

People continue to tune in to hear The Donald say “You’re fired.”  People tuned out when The Martha said the same thing (in a less direct way). 

Be strong.  And that doesn’t mean out-toughing Cro Magnon man. 

Be collaborative. But be clear that you will make the decision (when it is your decision) and be decisive when you do.

3. Anger

When men are angry, they're often seen as powerful.  Anger is a very powerful emotion if coming from a Y chromosome.  When women are angry, they are sometimes viewed as one step away from Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.

There are times when you should be angry.  But recognize the double standard and be careful that the anger be focused on what was done and less on how you feel about it.  Contrary to therapeutic advice, keep the focus on actions and not on feelings.

Related, when men complain, they push.  When women complain, they sometimes are labeled “whiners.”  Don't get me wrong:  incessant whiners, regardless of gender, are irritating.

But women often are judged more harshly when they complain so be careful when and how.

Compare:  “I am so mad I was excluded from the meeting” with “Glad to be here.  I’m sure you simply forgot to include me.”

Of course, not all women face all (or even some) of these or other stereotypes.  And, where they exist, they tend to be subtle pastels rather than the fluorescent lines I have painted to make the point.

The devil does not only wear Prada.  How easy it would be if it were that simple.

Where these stereotypes exist, they are often the product of unconscious bias and sometimes hard to detect.  Women with power need to deal with them consciously.  But, they do not need to go it alone.

There are plenty of progressive (and secure) men who do not hold these stereotypes.  To suggest that a progressive (white) male is an oxymoron is also an unfair and untrue stereotype.
 

THIS BLOG SHOULD NOT BE CONSTRUED AS LEGAL ADVICE, PERTAINING TO SPECIFIC FACTUAL SITUATION OR ESTABLISHING AN ATTORNEY-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP.

Although organizations have been talking about gender as a critical diversity priority for many years, there has been limited advancement made globally in moving women into leadership roles, said Anita Zanchettin, managing director, global talent strategy for Aperian Global, in an interview with Rajeshwari Sharma, editor of the website for SHRM India, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

Zanchettin has more than 25 years of experience providing strategic consulting and training to organizations around the world in the areas of global diversity and inclusion, leadership, teams and business skills. She is co-author of Global Diversity: Winning Customers and Engaging Employees within World Markets (Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2006) and has lived in France, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Spain and the U.S. She was based in Singapore at the time of this interview.

Despite efforts, women continue to be poorly represented in senior management and leadership roles around the world. What are some reasons for this?

A significant amount of work has been done by corporations, governments and nonprofit agencies to advance women. However, there are challenging systemic issues that still need to be addressed, such as the lack of feedback and informal mentoring provided to women in most organizations. Women face significant obstacles in their current work environments, some of which are complex or subtle. Some examples are:

• Exclusion from informal networks.
• Stereotyping and preconceptions about women’s roles and abilities.
• Lack of leadership commitment and accountability for women’s advancement.
• Societal pressure on women due to their personal and family responsibilities.

It is important to recognize that these obstacles are interrelated. For example, stereotypes about women can often lead to their exclusion from relationship-building activities such as mentoring and networking. This exclusion can, in turn, impact decisions about high-visibility assignments.

Additionally, the more women are excluded from such assignments and positions, the more likely the stereotypes will persist.

These obstacles should be analyzed not just from a gender standpoint, however, but by looking through the prism of gender, ethnicity, organizations and society. For example, changes in legislation and affirmative action around the world have facilitated women’s careers to some extent, but deeply entrenched cultural values and traditions continue to pose barriers. Thus, the future of women in management will depend partly on how societal attitudes toward women shift over time.

In addition, companies need to go beyond providing flexible hours and support for child care or elder care responsibilities to efforts that help women leverage informal networking platforms and resource groups for career advancement.

When it comes to developing, attracting and retaining female employees, do organizations need different strategies for emerging economies and mature markets?

For the most part, the strategies are similar across mature as well as emerging markets, although there might be infrastructure or cultural issues unique to specific markets. For instance, a good practice used by global organizations based in India is to provide safe transportation home for women who are staying late at work to take calls across time zones.

In my experience, companies need to be more mindful of societal issues and play a proactive role in creating an environment that develops women employees and advances their careers. For example, if women face pressure from their families or society related to their work, then even the best flexible work and child care programs in the world will not be utilized.

One of the best strategies I have seen for advancing women in global organizations is the availability and support of networks for women. It is essential for women to get support and advice from other women as they move forward in their careers, especially if women are not getting support from their families or society.

What is your advice to organizations and HR practitioners struggling to retain female employees, especially at the mid-management level and above?

Take a proactive and systemic approach to developing women in leadership roles. Go beyond one-time-only events or speeches and look for opportunities to embed a focus on women in leadership into the day-to-day operations of your organization.

Talk to women in your organization to identify supports and barriers they find as they move up in the organization. Be ready to address subtle and challenging issues they identify, such as limited feedback and informal mentoring for women.

Pay attention to the impact of national culture, and cultures within cultures, on the development of women as leaders, especially in global organizations. Often, the model of a successful leader is tied to the cultural values of headquarters which might not match the cultural norms of women in global locations.

HR can play a critical role in raising awareness of the impact of culture on leadership development and can develop strategies to enhance the leadership skills of women globally.

In addition to focusing on the inclusion of women, what are some other diversity trends to note for 2012?

• Inclusive leadership. We are definitely going to see increased conversation around competencies needed to manage a diverse workforce and a greater focus on leadership skills linked to diversity and inclusion. The primary tenets of an “inclusive leadership” approach include being aware of one’s own cultural values and beliefs, perceiving how others behave according to their own cultural values, and leveraging differences and bridging gaps in thought and behavior to improve performance. CEO and C-suite engagement is critical for a diversity effort to succeed, and we are going to see greater contributions by leaders to the vision, mission and strategy of the strategic diversity management plan. In addition, more senior leaders will demonstrate their commitment to diversity by attending diversity events, sponsoring and advocating for employee networking groups and dedicating resources to diversity and inclusion.
• Multigenerational diversity. Another broad trend includes managing a multigenerational workforce. A lot of companies will be focusing on attraction, engagement and retention measures for several generations of employees in the workplace.
• Mentoring up. Mentoring is often seen as a top-down activity based on an experienced person sharing knowledge and tips with less experienced employees. “Mentoring up” means that employees provide insights to those with more experience as well, so the mentoring relationship becomes reciprocal. Mentoring up is particularly beneficial for women, who can share insights with senior level men in an organization about the ever-changing realities women in the organization face. When such sharing occurs, we often find that men become champions for women in leadership in a more authentic way.

Rajeshwari Sharma is editor, SHRM India.

Jason Lauritsen shares how we make the mistake in the employee engagement survey process of treating all employee opinions as equally credible. He illustrates how organizations already know that employee opinions are not equal and reveals the insanity of treating them as such. www.BulletproofTalent.com

To attract, retain and engage Hispanics and Latinos, employers need to understand the common—and unique—characteristics of the various cultures that fall under the label of “Hispanic,” according to Di Ann Sanchez, SPHR, president and founder of DAS HR Consulting LLC in Hurst, Texas.

“People from 22 different countries of origin are considered to be Hispanic,” she said during a concurrent session of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) 2012 Talent Management Conference & Exposition held April 30-May 2. “Hispanic is a culture, not a race.”

Although Sanchez noted that the label “Hispanic” is a government term, rather than one adopted by those who fall within the demographic group, it’s a term most don’t mind and many prefer over the label “Latino,” she said, citing data released April 4, 2012, by the Pew Hispanic Center.

Often, however, individuals will identify themselves by their family’s country of origin, she said, which is why she urged employers not to “lump Hispanics into one category.”

Highlights of 2010 Census

In order to help conference attendees understand the population of potential applicants, Sanchez summarized a few facts from the 2010 U.S. Census:

• Sixty-six percent of Hispanics in the U.S. are of Mexican descent.
• The median age of Hispanics is 27.4, compared to the U.S. average age of 36.8.
• Hispanics have an average of four children per household, while non-Hispanic households have an average of two.
• Hispanics made up 16 percent of the U.S. population in 2010. By 2050, it is projected that 30 percent of the population will be Hispanic.

“The majority of the Hispanic population is still blue collar,” she noted. “Education is our challenge,” she added, because it is difficult for large families to fund a college education and because parents with a below average English reading level sometimes have a hard time filling out financial aid applications.

What Recruiters Need to Know

The applicant pool will vary based on location, Sanchez noted, with Puerto Ricans and Cubans mostly on the East Coast and Mexicans mostly in the West. And the level of English skills and American acculturation will depend in part upon whether someone is a first, second or third generation immigrant.

Though differences exist based on country of origin, Sanchez said, there are some common characteristics recruiters and hiring managers will need to understand in order to attract and retain Hispanics:

• Family is the most important value. Adult children stay home until they get married and tend to live at home during college. Thus, each household is likely to have multiple workers and several family members. Anything that involves families or enables employees to spend more time with family will appeal to members of this population.
• Individuals look to their “elders”— the individuals that help the family navigate acculturation issues in the U.S.—for work-related guidance. Such individuals are not necessarily of advanced age, and some might not even be related to employees, but they can play a critical role in helping Hispanic colleagues find jobs, understand policies and deal with challenges in the workplace. “HR practitioners: Find your elders,” said Sanchez. “If you are doing any kind of change management, you need to make sure they understand.”
• Hard work is valued. “We came to this country for the American dream … to live, work and provide for our families.” And that means the extended family, she noted, including those in the country of origin who continue to receive financial support from those working in the U.S. Employee referral programs are an ideal way to generate candidates, she said, adding that Hispanics will not refer family members if they are not hard workers because it’s a negative representation of the family.
• Preserving the culture and language is a priority. As the Pew report revealed, three-quarters of Hispanics believe that it is very important for future generations of Hispanics in the U.S. to be able to speak Spanish. Thus, it’s helpful to provide application and employment information, such as employee handbooks, in Spanish.“Be cautious about discriminating against those with accents,” Sanchez warned. “They are very sensitive about accents.”

Diversity and inclusion efforts such as mentoring programs, employee affinity groups and community involvement are likely to appeal to Hispanic applicants as well, said Sanchez.

Rebecca R. Hastings, SPHR, is an online editor/manager for SHRM.  To read the original article, please click here.

We are pretty good at knowing what our point of view is (and we are pretty good at thinking highly of our point of view). We are also good at knowing when someone disagrees with our delightful point of view. We are not quite so good at understanding why they disagree with us.
 
The value of diversity is not just that it gives us more options —  it actually gives us the opportunity to create new options. Seeking a broad range of perspectives and ideas is not just about amassing the largest pool to choose from (though that has value); it also gives us the opportunity to recombine and synthesize — to create new options out of those that are already in place.

If I’m asking you to paint a picture and I slap some yellow paint on your palette, your choices are pretty limited. You can paint with yellow. That’s it. If I add some blue paint to your palette, now you get to choose between yellow and blue.
  

And.
 
You can also put them together.
 
Having two colors to choose from does not limit you to two choices, because you can mix them together and create a third choice — and even a broad range of shades in between.
 
Powerful stuff.
 
I think that when it comes to sharing our perspectives and ideas we generally struggle to go bigger and better than simply picking “the best one.” We struggle to explore the messy middle where your idea is informed by my idea and then is flipped on its head by another idea and something completely new emerges.
 
The ability to do this requires some empathy. We have to work toward understanding where the person with a different perspective is coming from. Do I understand why they have the perspective that they do?
 
The next time that you are in a disagreement with someone, try this: Try to take the third chair perspective.
 
Ask yourself if you can step back from the conversation and explain both points of view clearly and coherently. If you cannot do that, then you probably do not yet fully understand that other person’s point of view. You still have some listening to do, some questions to ask.
 
Be good to each other. 

In case you missed it, here’s what happened on We Know Next this week.

When trust breaks down in organizations it can impact employee turnover, communication, collaboration, risk taking and creativity—among other things—all of which can harm the bottom line, according to Richard Fagerlin, president of Peak Solutions Inc. in Fort Collins, Colo.

Each day, the 39 Filipino nationals worked up to 16 hours at South Florida country clubs, golf courses and restaurants that cater to a wealthy clientele. Each night, they returned to crowded homes in a quiet residential neighborhood in Boca Raton where food was scarce and barely edible. Despite the long hours, these employees received little or no pay for their work. They were modern-day slaves, a concept incomprehensible to most Americans.

Gov. Martin O’Malley, on May 2, 2012, signed S.B. 433, a bill prohibiting employers from requesting the social media passwords or accessing the social media accounts of prospective and current employees, making Maryland the first state to pass such a law. The new provision, which will take effect Oct. 1, 2012, bars employers from requesting or requiring that an employee or applicant for employment disclose any user name, password or other means to access a “personal account or service” through an electronic communications device.

Most health benefit plans include some kind of wellness program. As costs rise, plan administrators hope that their wellness programs will help stem and reduce rising health plan costs. Plan administrators might harbor over-optimistic expectations of what a wellness initiative can deliver, however.

By a 4-1 vote, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on April 25, 2012, approved a new guidance on criminal background checks. Consolidating and superseding previous EEOC guidance on criminal background checks, the guidance discourages blanket exclusions of individuals who have been convicted of crimes and encourages the use of individualized assessments of whether an employer’s criminal conduct exclusion is job related and consistent with business necessity.

We Know Next is the leading resource for business executives, policymakers and human resource leaders to explore and discuss the latest workforce and workplace trends—providing the in-depth research and insights needed to adapt and take advantage of what’s next.

By a 4-1 vote, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on April 25, 2012, approved a new guidance on criminal background checks.

Consolidating and superseding previous EEOC guidance on criminal background checks, the guidance discourages blanket exclusions of individuals who have been convicted of crimes and encourages the use of individualized assessments of whether an employer’s criminal conduct exclusion is job related and consistent with business necessity.

However, Commissioner Constance Barker strongly opposed the guidance, saying that the process in developing the guidance wasn’t transparent and should have included a notice and comment period. She noted that the Senate Appropriations Committee had raised concerns about hasty changes to criminal background check guidance and said the guidance exceeds the agency’s authority.

The guidance provides a “major shift in interpreting the obligations of American businesses,” she remarked, saying that the guidance will harm business owners. Barker said she believes that many employers will conclude that they will never conduct a criminal background check unless it is required by federal law. And that in turn will hurt customers and clients because of the business risks that might arise if criminal background checks are not conducted, she cautioned.

Fellow Republican Commissioner Victoria Lipnic disagreed, remarking that the guidance was “worthy of bipartisan support.” Although Lipnic voted in favor of the guidance, saying that it “closely tracks well-known policies,” she did express some reservations about the guidance.

She noted that there should be an appropriate opportunity for individuals to explain past crimes and called this a “wise practice,” but she added that Title VII does not always require an individual assessment. For example, she remarked, a day care center would not need an individual assessment of a child molestation conviction before eliminating the individual from consideration. She expressed disappointment that the guidance did not provide more examples of such lawful practices.

In addition, Lipnic referenced a part of the guidance that provides that Title VII pre-empts a state or local law requiring a criminal background check if the check is not job related and consistent with business necessity. EEOC investigators in the field should “think long and hard before pursuing policies that arise from state law,” she said.

Katharine Parker, an attorney with the New York office of Proskauer Rose and attendee of the commission meeting on the guidance, did not think today’s guidance prohibited employers from drafting criminal background check policies based on state law. But she told SHRM Online that employers should review their procedures and make any necessary tweaks.

Barry Hartstein, an attorney with Littler Mendelson in Chicago, noted that while state laws might in some circumstances be too restrictive and also inconsistent with Title VII, if federal law requires criminal background checks the federal law must be followed.

Job Related and Consistent with Business Necessity

The guidance provides that there are two circumstances in which the commission believes that employers will meet the “job related and consistent with business necessity defense” consistently:

• The employer validates the criminal conduct screen for the position in question according to the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures standards if data about criminal conduct as related to subsequent work performance is available and such validation is possible.
• The employer develops a targeted screen considering at least the nature of the crime, the time elapsed and the nature of the job and then provides an opportunity for an individualized assessment for people excluded by the screen to determine whether the policy as applied is job related and consistent with business necessity.

The individualized assessment would consist of:

• A notice to the person that he or she has been screened out because of a criminal conviction.
• An opportunity for the individual to demonstrate that the exclusion should not be applied because of his or her particular circumstances.
• The employer’s consideration as to whether the additional information provided by the person warrants an exception to the exclusion and shows that the policy as applied is not job related and consistent with business necessity.

Title VII “does not necessarily require individualized assessment in all circumstances,” the guidance provides. “However, the use of individualized assessments can help employers avoid Title VII liability by allowing them to consider more complete information on individual applicants or employees, as part of a policy that is job related and consistent with business necessity.”

Individual’s Showing

• The individual’s showing may include information that he or she was not identified correctly in the criminal record or that the record is otherwise inaccurate. Other relevant individualized evidence includes:
• The facts and circumstances surrounding the offense or conduct.
• The number of offenses for which the individual was convicted.
• Older age at the time of conviction or release from prison. (Recidivism rates tend to decline as ex-offenders’ ages increase.)
• Evidence that the individual performed the same type of work, post conviction, with the same or a different employer, with no known incident of criminal conduct.
• The length and consistency of employment history before and after the offense or conduct.
• Rehabilitation efforts, such as education and training.
• Employment and character references and any other information regarding fitness for the particular position.
• Whether the individual is bonded under a federal, state or local bonding program.

Commissioner Chai Feldblum defended the criminal background check guidance and process for issuing it, noting that subregulatory guidance does not typically go through the notice and comment period. She added that it might be useful to use a public comment period.

She noted that, according to the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, assuming that incarceration rates remain unchanged, about one in 17 white men are expected to serve time in prison during their lifetime. This rate climbs to one in six for Hispanic men and one in three for black men. “What sort of society is that?” Feldblum asked, noting that the commission has the authority to enforce a civil rights law that prohibits policies that have a disparate impact unless they are job related and consistent with business necessity.

“In this economic climate of continued high unemployment, particularly in communities of color, it was critical and truly momentous for the EEOC to take such a proactive step to help all workers and employers,” said Ray McClain, director of the Lawyers’ Committee’s Employment Discrimination Project. “No longer will persons with criminal histories be permanently excluded from the workforce.”

Other Guidance

Although the commission did not issue rumored guidances on credit checks or leave as a reasonable accommodation, Feldblum said the commission will continue to work on those matters. There needs to be additional time in considering the accommodation guidance, she said, to arrive at “a workable, credible guidance.”

Allen Smith, J.D., is manager, workplace law content, for SHRM.  To view the original article, please click here.

You probably recall the dust-up in April after it was revealed that the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) hired a clown and a mind reader to entertain some of its employees at a conference. Among the mind reader’s services was giving a GSA employee a message from Beyond from the employee’s dead dog. The scandal prompted the head of the agency to resign.

That dust had barely settled when another federal agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), was found to be advertising for a magician to wow attendees at its conference. The magician was supposed to be talking about the magic of change management, but the ad disappeared in a Washington minute, so we’ll never know whether that involved transmuting dimes into quarters.

Many people have questioned whether these are wise expenditures—particularly because the services were to be paid for with our tax dollars. In an election year, no less. They might be better than the trouble that the Secret Service stirred up down in Colombia, maybe. We hold our government agency leaders to very high standards.

But, just for the sake of argument, let’s consider the merits of engaging clowns, mind readers and magicians for certain leadership-related exercises. Not in government, but in the private sector. Might there be some merit?

I’m not a fan of clowns, and I have a real problem with street mimes. I suspect many business leaders share my aversion, and I imagine that few likely would have the patience to sit though a mime’s act without growling “spit it out!” and “get to the point!” So they don’t make the cut.

But mind readers might add another dimension to the business world. I can see hiring one for a leadership retreat, or perhaps even taking one on as a consultant. Consider the bane of many a CEO’s existence: the Board Meeting. Why not bring in a mind reader, under the cover of an up-and-coming CFO or an intern. She or he could text the CEO with insights about which board members want to slash the budget or seem determined to can the CEO. Knowing what others are thinking could be da bomb in merger/acquisition talks. And anyone’s Facebook password would be yours for the taking—not that I recommend it.

I think that a mind reader could help business leaders improve employee engagement. Those periodic engagement surveys are valuable, but someone with ESP could provide more granular results. It would certainly help HR to know that Fred is melting down because there is no more hazelnut coffee in the break room, that Janet is copying her resume on the third floor and that Andrew would be willing to take a pay cut to transfer out of accounting.

Magicians could bring additional skill sets to the private sector. Having trouble with that monthly or quarterly financial report? Abracadabra! Budget balanced. Facing the miserable task of having to lay off 10 percent of staff? Shazam! Several disaffected employees suddenly decide that they need to spend more time with their families, or leave to pursue an exciting new business venture with a Nigerian businessman they met online. Just make sure that the magicians stay away from extreme acts such as making a person disappear and sawing a lady in half; the Family and Medical Leave Act and health care reform law are hard enough to administer without these complications.

I concede that there might be drawbacks to these innovations. Through mind reading, leaders might inadvertently discover legally protected personal genetic information or might have to face the fact that half the company simply hates their guts. More likely, however, is the possibility that our employees--and maybe even our shareholders--might come to expect us to pull rabbits out of hats on a regular basis, setting expectations so high that it would be almost impossible to deliver on a consistent basis.

So even if “magician” and “mind reader” become standard job descriptions in corporate America over the next few years, we must keep in mind that there are no true shortcuts to the hard work of leadership. If we really want to know what our employees are thinking, we should talk to them and listen to them. And develop their skills and opportunities. Understanding the changing needs of our workforces, and demonstrating that we recognize that our employees’ success is tied to our organizations’ success, is the neatest trick.

But don’t throw out that straitjacket yet. You never know when it might come in handy.
 

Attracting and retaining a skilled workforce is the most important consideration among U.S. chief financial officers (CFOs) in weighing whether to continue offering employee health coverage, according to a survey by the Integrated Benefits Institute (IBI).

Regardless of the outcome of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling over the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), employers will face a dilemma over whether to continue offering health benefits or drop coverage and point employees to the individual insurance market, revealed analysis by IBI, a nonprofit provider of health and productivity research.

According to the February 2012 survey report, Making Health the CFO's Business, attracting a skilled workforce was cited by 80 percent of U.S. CFOs as one of the top three reasons to provide health benefits. Other high-ranking considerations were:

• Impact on employee satisfaction.

• Ability to promote healthy behaviors in the workforce.

• Ability to manage medical treatment to improve workforce productivity.

CFOs appeared to recognize the established links among workforce health, productivity and financial performance. A large share of the 313 CFOs surveyed described poor health as having a significant impact on financial success through factors such as opportunity costs, sick leave and turnover that influence productivity.

“These concerns indicate that CFOs see medical coverage as a competitive necessity in managing human capital, rather than simply a cost to be minimized,” said IBI President Thomas Parry. “While there is widespread speculation among employers, insurers, benefits professionals and corporate leadership as to how organizations will respond as this historic legislation is rolled out, it’s apparent that the C-suite sees the importance of medical coverage not only as a means to maintain a skilled workforce but also as a tool to be leveraged in improving employee health and productivity.”

Regulatory Concerns Not Predominant

Interestingly, the PPACA's "play or pay" penalty was not cited as a major reason to continue providing employee health coverage. Just one in five CFOs cited the cost of the fine as a top-three factor regarding whether to continue providing health care benefits, and only 8 percent cited the PPACA's tax implications as a top-three factor. In short, "the regulations contained in the PPACA may be among the least important factors that financial executives consider in determining health benefits investments," the survey found.

The report advises benefits professionals to determine the metrics and performance goals valued by their CFO and to use them in conveying their health care program's results and goals. Likewise, CFOs are encouraged to ask for the information they value and need from benefits professionals and suppliers. Based on the survey’s findings, such information is likely to be available and useful, but CFOs must make their needs known.

An April 23, 2012, Associated Press report revealed some troubling information regarding job opportunities for the Class of 2012. It said that half of recent college graduates are jobless or underemployed in positions that don’t use their skills and knowledge fully.

The figures were based on 2011 U.S. Census data analyzed by Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University.

While there are still many good job opportunities available for graduates with skills in sciences, technology, education and health care, prospects are dimmer for arts and humanities majors as well as those with other liberal arts degrees. It’s clear that picking a course of study that’s in demand in the workforce is more important than ever.

This, however, is not always easy for a typical 18-year-old. For many, college is the place where young adults first discover their skills, and there are countless young people who aren’t sure what to do when they’ve finished their studies after four (or more) years of collegiate studies. That is not to say that students should be forced into certain courses of study. But many experts agree that stepped-up career counseling is needed to help connect education with career prospects.

Career Counseling, Not College, Being Scrutinized

An April 19, 2012, survey report titled Pathways Through Graduate School and Into Careers, commissioned by university and business leaders convened by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) and Educational Testing Service (ETS), calls for such changes in graduate education’s link to the workforce. Results of surveyed students show that only slightly more than one-third of them believe that they had received “as much information as needed” to understand their career options prior to entering graduate school.

The report also noted that employers should “enhance and expand collaborative relationships” with their higher education counterparts and that many students still don’t have a firm grasp of the job opportunities available to them.

“To date, there has been little research to identify whether graduate students understand the relationship between their studies and future career options,” said Cathy Wendler, principal director of research at ETS and co-author of the report. “If we can illuminate career pathways, we will ensure that students have a map or framework within which to make informed choices, employers will understand key factors integral to employee and employer success and universities will be able to adapt and improve programs to better meet workforce demands.”

“Simply put, we’re failing kids coming out of college. We’re going to need a lot better job growth and connections to the labor market,” Sum told the Associated Press, emphasizing that when it comes to jobs, a college major can make all the difference.

Combine that with a labor market that has experienced steady but unspectacular growth in early 2012, and the immediate future looks cloudy for some college graduates. But this speaks more to the selection of a major that is in high demand for jobs than to dismissing the value of a college education altogether.

The positive link between college degree attainment and employment and income levels is stronger than ever. From 2010 to 2020, 17 of the 30 occupations projected to have the fastest employment growth will need some type of postsecondary education for entry into the occupation, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Only three of the 30 occupations projected to have the largest employment declines during that time are classified as needing postsecondary education for entry.

More proof that students should forge ahead in the classroom after high school: In October 2011, unemployment rates for young men and women with at least a bachelor’s degree was 9.5 percent and 8.0 percent, respectively, according to an April 19, 2012, BLS report on college enrollment. Jobless rates for those without a high school diploma were 19.7 percent for young adult men and 31.2 percent for young adult women.

That same report said that in October 2011, 68.3 percent of 2011 high school graduates were enrolled in colleges and universities, not far from the record high of 70.1 percent set in October 2009.

Will the job market provide more opportunities for those students when they finish college in 2015? It will require not only a stronger economy overall, but also better coordination between academic institutions and the private sector, in order to match students’ skills with the types of jobs that will be in demand at that time.

As a professional, your reputation is your most valuable career asset. Whether you're climbing the ladder at your current company or seeking a new job, in today's fast-paced work environment, you must proactively and continuously position yourself for success. Your credibility, visibility, personality, and personal style all make up your brand. Build and nurture your personal brand and you'll make yourself a must-have in ANY company.  

Career Distinction, written by, William Arruda and Kristen Dixson, outlines the proven personal branding process and provides case studies of successful professionals that will help you not only survive, but thrive, in today's dynamic and ultracompetitive workplace. You'll learn to manage your brand with innovative tools that enable you to differentiate yourself and stand out from your peers. In this definitive step-by-step guide, career and personal brand management experts Arruda and Dixson show you how to:

• Brand yourself for career success
• Determine how others perceive you
• Develop your unique value proposition
• Define your target audience
• Tell your brand story
• Express yourself clearly and consistently
• Build and manage your online identity
• Stay on-message and on-brand every day
•  Increase your career karma

The increasing pace of change in the business world gives you less time than ever to make your professional mark. Career Distinction demonstrates how to express who you are and the value you bring to your organization branding you as an indispensable, memorable, and unique professional. Success takes more than just hard work; brand yourself and watch your career soar.

"Hands down, this book is the bible on branding for your career!"
— Susan Britton Whitcomb, author of Job Search Magic

For more information on Career Distinction or to purchase from The SHRMStore, click here. 

“Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.” – George Orwell

When your alarm goes off each morning, and you roll out of bed to schlep off to work, you are entering a community that’s unprecedented in human history (even if it doesn’t feel that way on a Monday).

Yep, it’s true - you are a part of the first global workforce that contains members of FOUR generations.  Economic, technological, geographic, and socio-demographic trends are contributing to make the early 21st century stand alone when it comes to generational diversity in the workplace -- and we are experimenting with how to turn generational differences into organizational capabilities.

Pearl Buck said, “The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible - and achieve it, generation after generation.”

Prem Kumar wrote a paper a few years back on Gen Y in the workplace, and one of his recommendations was reverse mentorship. 

Reverse mentoring is not about giving Boomers tips to get more friends on Facebook. It’s about transparency, trust, and the influence to make the world of work more productive, fun, and effective.

This is the story of our reverse mentorship experience. 

At the beginning, we asked these questions:  Could sharing information and perspectives help make our work better? Were there insights that each of us had that could enlighten the other?

Our hope is that by sharing our stories, others will experience some of the growth and cool accomplishments that we’ve had during our three years of doing this.

Please join @weknownext on May 16 at 3 p.m. ET, for #NextChat with Next Official Blogger Ross Smith of Microsoft and his reverse mentor Prem Kumar for a discussion on “Creating Generational Engagement with Reverse Mentoring.”  We can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the following questions:

Q1. How are four generations in the workplace affecting the way we work today?
Q2. What strategies is your organization using to successfully manage four generations in your workplace?
Q3. What is your experience with reverse mentoring?
Q4. Should managers think differently about how they manage various age groups?
Q5. What benefits can companies expect from reverse mentoring programs?
Q6. Based on your specific Reverse Mentoring experience, what roles do you feel HR can play in organization’s generational silos? 

Most health benefit plans include some kind of wellness program. As costs rise, plan administrators hope that their wellness programs will help stem and reduce rising health plan costs. Plan administrators might harbor over-optimistic expectations of what a wellness initiative can deliver, however.

We can rank approaches to wellness as low, moderate and high impact.

Low Impact

Low-impact wellness programs generally have little or no cost to the employer. They are strictly voluntary and employee-focused. They do not include engagement of dependents and offer few, if any, incentives to participate. Examples include passive distribution of wellness materials, worksite events such as health fairs, promotion of healthy eating, coordination with an on-site cafeteria, and sponsorship or promotion of community health events such as runs and walks.

Although low-impact wellness initiatives can help create a culture of wellness, because they are passive few people participate and it is difficult to measure the success of the program. Return on investment (ROI) is difficult, if not impossible, to realize, so low-impact programs tend to serve as initial steps toward preparing the population for more-comprehensive wellness initiatives. The primary expectations for a low-impact wellness program should be to build awareness about healthy behavior and to improve workplace morale, rather than to reduce costs in the near term.

Moderate Impact

Moderate-impact programs cost more and engage more individuals. They are still mostly voluntary but provide incentives for those who participate. Like low-impact programs, they are employee-focused but can include dependents in limited areas of the program.

Examples include health risk assessments, biometric screenings, plan design incentives like low and no co-payments for annual visits with a primary care physician, incentive rewards for tobacco cessation, and weight control and disease management. Incentives might be somewhat passive, like rewards for participating in smoking cessation or disease management programs, with no requirement that the individual quit smoking or meet some quantitative goal.

Moderate wellness programs duplicate the primary expectations of low-impact programs but cover individuals who are taking actions to promote healthy behavior and measuring those actions in a rudimentary fashion.

Planning and patience are important for a moderate-impact wellness program. Expectations should be set at a three-year horizon for the planning implementation, execution, analysis and measurement of ROI for the program, as follows.

Year One: Build and Develop

• Assess needs. Establish a wellness committee to facilitate decision making, define the scope and components of the program and establish a communication strategy.
• Engage vendors. Work with medical plan vendors to design and implement any benefit changes.
• Select other vendors. As needed, select and contract with vendors for web portals, biometric screenings, etc.
• Communicate to employees any plan changes and program details for open enrollment.

Year Two: Administer, Monitor and Modify

• Begin wellness programs (for example, screenings, health risk assessments, lifestyle coaches); analyze engagement statistics and vendor reports.
• Revise/adjust scope of wellness offerings, employee incentives and communication strategy as needed; engage vendors as needed.
• Communicate changes for open enrollment.

Year Three: Initial ROI; Continue to Modify

• Analyze screening results via vendor reports.
• Measure financial results.
• Make adjustments, including review of vendor performance.

Savings resulting from a moderate impact program are difficult to attribute to any one facet, as the programs and data produced by them are not personalized. For example, data would include numbers of people who had their cholesterol measured or how many fell into various risk categories but generally would not indicate who lowered their cholesterol and by how much.

The annual cost of a moderate impact program should range from $46 to $150 per employee per year. Assumed savings after two years should range from $69 to $225 per employee per year.

Because of the global nature of the engagement and ensuing data, savings are assumed to be reflected in benefit costs that are avoided in areas such as emergency room visits, specialist visits and disability costs.

High Impact

The high-impact approach focuses on improving health while reducing health risks and costs, and measures outcomes with continuous redesign. It is easier to attribute the savings that result to the various programs because interventions are targeted, personalized and directed where the need is greatest. The focus is on an entire population, including dependents. Individuals are selected and engaged based on data (enrollment, claims, health history, lab values, screening results, etc). Participation, which is steered rather than voluntary or passive, is prompted by major plan design contribution or through benefit differentials, such as targeting tobacco users or those who fail to complete screenings or participate in risk assessments and incentives. Penalties are contingent on measured outcomes.

High-impact programs are based on data that identifies those in the population who are healthy, healthy with certain conditions or poor habits, chronically ill and at high risk. Unlike low- and moderate-impact programs where one size fits all, the programs targeted to these groups differ. They include:

• Motivating those who are healthy to promote continued health.
• Targeting health improvement of those who have poor health habits or who are living with certain conditions to prevent those conditions from worsening.
• Coordinating and managing the care of those who are chronically ill to ensure the best outcomes at the lowest cost.
• Intense assistance and coordination of care for those who are at high risk in order to reduce their risk.

The high-impact approach identifies episodic care and seeks to find efficiencies for better cost control of shock claims, regardless of an individual’s population group.

Structuring a Successful High-Impact Program

To realize the highest ROI, a program must be structured to include executive leadership, governance and commitment of human and capital resources. It should incorporate strategic planning, budgeting, program management, data warehousing and analysis.

The high-impact program encompasses the same functions in the first three years as does the moderate impact program, albeit with greater detail and additional resources. High-impact features include the following targets:

Year One: Build and Develop

• Establish a data warehouse to house lab values, screening results, claim data, etc.
• Develop and structure a steerage program through benefit and contribution design.
• Seek and analyze medical, case and disease management vendors for possible carve-outs.
• Establish a baseline quantitative measure of the population and quantifiable program goals based on data analysis of the population.
• Communicate changes at open enrollment.

Year Two: Administer, Monitor and Modify

• Require employees to complete health risk assessments and biometric screening for contribution differentials.
• Provide incentives for participations in various health management and lifestyle management programs.
• Pilot or seek alternative care delivery and coordination programs, such as a patient centered medical home model for steerage of key individuals.
• Measure results against a baseline and goals.
• Communicate changes at open enrollment.

Year Three: Initial ROI; Continue to Modify

• Expand alternative care delivery and coordination system to other groups of key individuals.
• Develop clinical integration programs within the health plan for condition management of ailments such as diabetes and hypertension.
• Measure results and revise programs.

Savings under the high-impact approach are quantifiable because the programs are based on data and targeted to individuals who the data has shown require intervention to save costs and improve care.

In the near term, multiple metrics are compared before and after implementation of the program. Among them are hospital and ambulatory utilization, lab testing, physician utilization, in- and out-of-network utilization, generic prescription drug substitution rates, coordination of benefits and subrogation, outpatient care in lieu of inpatient care and reduced length of stay.

In two to three years, data should begin to indicate certain cost avoidance, such as an individual identified as a diabetic whose clinical data and lab values show that the disease is under control; an individual with back pain who has not had surgery and has shown improvement through physical therapies; or other chronic patients who show clinical progress toward defined goals based on key measurements.

In three to five years, the program should begin to show detection of chronic conditions through health assessments and biometric screenings, enrollment in lifestyle improvement and wellness programs and evidence-based care compliance for newly discovered or first-time health concerns. For example, patients who are indentified as hypertensive might show evidence of medicine compliance or lifestyle changes that reduce blood pressure measurements as indicated by clinical data.

The high-impact approach leverages data for continuous cost and quality improvement and results in lower costs. These are achieved by better management of chronic conditions, reducing disease progression for high-risk members and members in the early stages of disease, reduction of the medical cost increase trend, improving member satisfaction and reducing disability costs.

Cost reductions are quantifiable based on targeted categories that have been identified through data. Categories include reduced length of stay, improved health related behaviors and reduced inpatient costs, medically necessary review and steerage to network provider.

Wellness is becoming increasingly important for stemming the rising tide of health care costs in group health plans. Health plans cannot continue to deploy a passive/reactive approach, waiting until individuals are ill before intervening, or engaging in inefficient treatment of those who are ill or experience sudden unforeseen catastrophic illnesses.

Bob Marcantonio is a consultant in the health and welfare practice at Cammack LaRhette Consulting.  To read the original article, please click here.

It wasn't the first time Pamela Howze, SPHR, was proposing an unorthodox solution to her human resource manager. Howze, a training and development manager for Siemens Energy Inc. in Charlotte, N.C., looked across the table at her boss and tried to establish some context. "I have a training idea," she said, "and I know it's going to be a little out of the box."

This time, her colleague was prepared. "Pam," he replied, "you don't even have a box."

Like Howze, more HR professionals need to replace their traditional thinking about training as competition for skilled labor intensifies, globally and locally. Public-private training programs represent a solution. The leading thinking on such programs centers on apprenticeships and community colleges—and both figure prominently in Siemens' approach.

Howze is closing in on her doctorate in adult education. She's one of the primary architects of the German manufacturing giant's innovative partnership with Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte—and her innovative thinking helps make the partnership work. This initiative played a part in doubling Siemens' Charlotte workforce to roughly 1,450 employees when the company relocated its gas-turbine manufacturing plant from Ontario to Charlotte in late 2010.

The partnership, a complex combination of publicly funded incentives and sizable investment by Siemens, elicited praise from President Barack Obama in his January State of the Union address. The president subsequently proposed an $8 billion Community College to Career Fund to be co-administered by the U.S. departments of Labor and Education. The fund would help "forge new partnerships between community colleges and businesses to train 2 million workers for good-paying jobs in high-growth and high-demand industries," according to the White House.

Similar incentives, with smaller payouts from the Labor Department, already exist, reports Michael Ferraro, president and chief executive officer of Training Solutions Inc. in Chantilly, Va.

The president's proposal comes at a time when the nation's employers need out-of-the-box training solutions. Unemployment, though decreasing, remains high. Yet researchers for the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) contend that traditional federal employment and training programs have become inefficient, and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., in a separate report said they're "rife with waste, fraud and abuse."

Meanwhile, the global skills gap grows broader. Last year, 52 percent of U.S. companies reported that they experienced difficulty filling jobs, a 38 percent increase from the percentage of companies expressing the same challenge in 2010, according to an annual ManpowerGroup survey. As early as 2006, says ManpowerGroup Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Joerres, survey data indicated that employers were upgrading technology quicker than people were developing their own skills. Training programs have not kept pace.

President Obama shared concern about this skills gap in January, noting that business leaders who want to hire in the United States "can't find workers with the right skills. Growing industries in science and technology have twice as many openings as we have workers who can do the job."

Demanding Overhaul

The skills gap raises a thorny question: How effectively do government training programs address the gap? Not very, according to a 2011 report by the GAO that said the programs were "in need of improvement." The report shows why the president in his Jan. 24 address expressed a desire to "cut through the maze of confusing training programs."

This maze includes 47 programs administered across nine federal agencies. Despite costing taxpayers approximately $18 billion in 2009, "Little is known about the effectiveness of employment and training programs," GAO researchers concluded. The report indicates that all but three overlap with at least one other program. In his report, Sen. Coburn offers a harsh assessment: "The government has taken on a role for which it was never intended, pouring billions of taxpayer dollars into a broken web of job training and employment programs … lacking demonstrable effectiveness."

Many HR professionals and workforce development experts also voice frustrations. "How does an HR person even know where to start to look for training programs and/or funding?" asks Michelle Miller, executive director of corporate learning and economic recruitment at the Harris Campus of Charlotte-based Central Piedmont Community College. "How do they know what's available or might be available?"

This lack of efficiency and inability to determine effectiveness stems in part from such programs targeting a variety of overlapping objectives such as:

• Reintegrating people with criminal convictions into society.
• Supporting at-risk youth.
• Addressing specific industry sectors, such as agriculture.
• Assisting specific groups of citizens, such as American Indians or veterans.

The funding process adds twists to the maze. The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 created a Workforce Investment Board for every U.S. community. These boards direct federal, state and local funding to workforce development. One of the law's objectives was to foster coordination among publicly funded training via a "centralized delivery system through one-stop centers," the GAO report indicates. "[H]owever, only a few employment and training programs have been consolidated."

And, serious questions remain about whether these investment boards are directing sufficient targeted training dollars to retool underutilized labor pools with specific technology, health care and manufacturing skills needed today.

With some exceptions, the majority of boards focus on providing "generic training for the hardcore unemployed," reports Ed Gordon, author of Winning the Global Talent Showdown: How Businesses and Communities Can Partner to Rebuild the Jobs Pipeline (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2009) and founder of Imperial Consulting Corp. "Generic training is not what employers need today unless they're looking to hire people to stock shelves."

Sharing the Blame

At least half of Workforce Investment Board members come from private businesses, with designated positions for representatives of unions and educational institutions, so businesspeople share responsibility for the skills gaps.

Educators must take responsibility, too. "U.S. students' performance on standard math and science tests has declined relative to that of students in many other countries," Thomas A. Kochan, a management professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-director of the Institute for Work and Employment Research, wrote in the March 2012 Harvard Business Review. "The percentage of young adults obtaining a four-year college degree in the U.S. grew steadily for much of the 20th century but then leveled off (and actually declined for men) during the 1980s. Enrollment in community colleges has grown, but the rate of completion remains very low. And just 15 percent of college students pursue math, science or engineering degrees."

Kochan points out that corporate leaders who say "people are our most important asset" rarely support that sentiment in practice. Citing higher turnover, he notes that the U.S. male worker's average tenure with a private company decreased by 25 percent from 1973 to 2006.

"The issue is not talent management anymore. The issue is talent creation," Gordon adds. "We need talent to make and service our products and do other work—not just the executives who run corporations. The fixation in business schools has been on the upper levels of the professionals. Well, we lack the technical talent."

That said, emerging public-private partnership models, like the one used by Siemens, as well as partnerships involving small and medium-sized employers, may offer some salvation.

Tailoring Your Approach

Examples of effective government training and retraining programs tend to include components such as public-private partnerships, apprenticeships and hands-on learning. "There has definitely been a rise in apprenticeship programs in the U.S.," notes Jennifer Homer, vice president of communications and career development at the American Society for Training & Development in Alexandria, Va.

Chicago Career Tech helps retrain unemployed city residents with previous annual incomes from $25,000 to $90,000. Launched in 2009, this private-public partnership receives federal, state, city and private dollars.

Participants hone technology skills in one of two ways:

• A three- to six-month, five- to six-day-a-week job retraining program that offers classroom instruction from an educational institution and hands-on training with a business or nonprofit organization.
• A corporate-based "train-to-hire" opportunity, in which local companies partner with the nonprofit to develop custom programs that include classroom-style instruction and hands-on training.

More than 225 businesses and nonprofits partner with Chicago Career Tech. One, medical billing and collection services provider Accretive Health, has hired 74 graduates for "follow-up representative" positions with an average starting pay of $17 per hour, or about $35,000 per year, since May 2010. The company now has 2,700 employees and continues to hire people to help clients comply with health care regulations. This year, Accretive officials expect to operate three training sessions on-site for approximately 80 participants. Accretive and other "train-to-hire" partners do not pay for the training; Chicago Career Tech declined to reveal the cost.

Children's Home + Aid, a child and family services agency with 880 employees, recently created a staff position for one of six interns it was hosting as part of a hands-on training component.

Eric Brenner, the company's lead systems analyst, created an HR data conversion initiative for interns to work on during a six-month assignment. The company's chief operating officer, Michael Shaver, says the organization agreed to be a host as a community service. In hindsight, he notes that the training also served as a six-month interview.

Shaver and Brenner point out that the benefits the organization gains from working with interns outweigh the time Brenner invests in oversight.

Figuring the Return

Larger companies that participate in public-private training programs have difficulty calculating return on investment.

Howze reports that Siemens Energy invests $170,000 per person to train apprentices in a community college program. Pre-screened 17- and 18-year-olds are paid for 40 hours of work a week while attending Siemens-certified training on the Central Piedmont campus. They will ultimately become certified computer numeric control machinists at Siemens' gas-turbine factory. The first six apprentices began in August 2011, and Howze and her team have just selected the next round of four apprentices from a stack of more than 60 applications.

This element of the Siemens partnership operates via Apprenticeship 2000, a technical training public-private partnership that recruits from high schools and the current workforce. Other members of Apprenticeship 2000 that partner with Central Piedmont Community College include Ameritech Die and Mold Inc., Blum Inc., Max Daetwyler Corp., Pfaff Molds, and The Sarstedt Group. Graduates, who are paid wages during training, become machinists, tool-and-die makers, injection molding specialists, welding fabricators, and other machine and electronics technicians.

The Siemens partnership does not end there. From October 2010 to October 2011, Siemens filled more than 4,000 training seats in community college classes with new hires and existing employees who studied basic computer and software skills, advanced design software, technical writing, and more. Most of these classes take place at Siemens' site. "We share the cost of most of those classes with the state," Howze reports.

That helps explain why Siemens elected to relocate its gas-turbine operations to Charlotte in late 2010, when it also announced that it would expand operations—and add jobs—to its existing Westinghouse Boulevard campus. The incentives, according to the North Carolina Office of the Governor, include a $1 million grant from the One North Carolina Fund to help recruit for and expand high-quality jobs in the state and a state Job Development Investment Grant that could yield as much as $21.75 million in benefits for the company.

In 2010, the Office of the Governor estimated that Siemens would add 825 jobs in Charlotte through 2015 and invest at least $135 million in these operations. A Siemens spokesperson declined to provide a breakdown of the state incentives that the company received, and estimated the company's overall investment—including training, recruiting and relocation costs—at roughly $350 million.

There may have been political and financial factors at play when Siemens relocated its factory to Charlotte, site of the 2012 Democratic National Convention. Siemens, like many other companies, has donated to the Obama campaign. Regardless, the presence of the country's fourth-largest community college and the college's devotion to "becoming the national leader in workforce development" play a major role.

The partnership works extremely well, according to Howze and Miller, who meet weekly to assess progress and plan future training.

Such plans will only drive Howze further away from thinking about training in traditional ways. She helped arrange for three community college teachers to fly to Siemens' headquarters in Germany, where they received training at the company's technical academy. They are now Siemens-certified and use Siemens equipment in their classrooms. "Last fall, we kicked off a mechatronics program for Siemens' apprentices," Miller reports. "The curriculum blends electrical, mechanical and computer skills. … The graduates are not specialists in one area, but technical specialists in multiple areas."

Although Howze may not know the specific return on investment of the partnership right now, she expects to acquire the skills and information to measure it. "My dissertation," she adds, "is going to be on return on investment."

And it might behoove other HR and training professionals to study her model. After all, when it comes to closing the skills gap, "the federal government is not going to be able to retrain the American workforce," Gordon says. "It's just too big and too costly of a problem. This is a problem that's going to be solved in the local level, through regional talent and innovation networks formed through the collaboration of American free market enterprises, educational institutions and communities."

Eric Krell is a business writer based in Austin, Texas, who covers human resource, finance and social marketing issues.  To read the original article, please click here.

Gov. Martin O’Malley, on May 2, 2012, signed S.B. 433, a bill prohibiting employers from requesting the social media passwords or accessing the social media accounts of prospective and current employees, making Maryland the first state to pass such a law.

The new provision, which will take effect Oct. 1, 2012, bars employers from requesting or requiring that an employee or applicant for employment disclose any user name, password or other means to access a “personal account or service” through an electronic communications device.

“Employer” means a person engaged in a business, an industry, a profession, a trade or other enterprise in the state, or a unit of state or local government, and includes “an agent, a representative and a designee of the employer.”

The bill does not define personal account or service, but does define “electronic communications device” to mean “computers, telephones, personal digital assistants, and other similar devices.” The bill, however, allows employers to make such a password or username request to access “nonpersonal accounts or services that provide access to the employer’s internal computer or information systems.”

Covered employers also “may not discharge, discipline or otherwise penalize or threaten to discharge, discipline or otherwise penalize” an employee or applicant for refusing to disclose any information covered by the law. Further, employers “may not fail or refuse to hire” any applicant because he or she refused to disclose any covered information.

The Maryland law would prohibit an employee from making unauthorized downloads of “employer proprietary information or financial data to an employee’s personal website, an Internet website, a web-based account, or a similar account.” However, based on receipt of information of unauthorized downloading, an employer is not prevented from investigating an employee’s actions.

Finally, an employer is not prevented from conducting an investigation based on the receipt of information about an employee’s use of a personal web or similar account for business purposes to ensure compliance with applicable securities or financial law or regulatory requirements.

Similar legislation is pending in California, Illinois, New York, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, South Carolina and Washington. In addition, Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., has introduced federal legislation—the Social Networking Online Protection Act—which would prohibit asking for the social media passwords of employees or applicants.

Joanne Deschenaux, J.D., is SHRM’s senior legal editor.  To read the original article, please click here.

Each day, the 39 Filipino nationals worked up to 16 hours at South Florida country clubs, golf courses and restaurants that cater to a wealthy clientele.

Each night, they returned to crowded homes in a quiet residential neighborhood in Boca Raton where food was scarce and barely edible.

Meals sometimes consisted of chicken feet soup and rotten vegetables. When one complained, the owners of Quality Staffing Services forced her to drink muriatic acid, causing her lasting stomach problems, according to advocates for the workers. When another worker broke his wrist, he was refused medical care for more than a week, leaving him permanently disabled, they say.

Despite the long hours, these employees received little or no pay for their work. Their wages were nearly depleted after owners of the staffing agency deducted fees for food, housing, even for showers. The workers couldn't pay off the $5,000 they had borrowed to pay the recruiting fees to the agency. They weren't allowed to leave their homes without an escort. Their visas were withheld. Complaints were met with threats—against them and their families back home.

They were modern-day slaves, a concept incomprehensible to most Americans.

"You had an unscrupulous staffing agency that would literally dupe these workers into coming over thinking they were going to have the American dream, only to find out shortly thereafter that the dream was actually a nightmare," says Carmen Pino, assistant special agent in charge of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations, who investigated the case. "They were in this perpetual trap."

In December 2010, agency owners Alfonso Baldonado Jr. and his wife, Sophia Manuel, were sentenced to more than four years in prison for human trafficking. The employers that hired the workers weren't charged because they weren't aware of the workers' plight, Pino says.

However, such cases underscore how easily HR professionals and their companies can become inadvertently involved in trafficking through the actions of labor providers, subcontractors or suppliers. They can face costly legal troubles, lost business and lasting damage to their reputations.

U.S. consumers' recent outrage regarding workers' suicides and alleged child labor at Apple's major manufacturing contractor—Foxconn Technology in China—illustrates a potential repercussion. In February, Apple announced it would hire an independent organization to inspect Foxconn facilities.

Government and law enforcement officials have increased their vigilance, too. U.S. State Department officials are working with their counterparts in other countries to enforce international treaties that outlaw human trafficking. U.S. Justice Department officials are coordinating federal and state efforts to pursue traffickers operating in the United States. Meanwhile, a new California law is adding pressure on companies doing business in that state by requiring them to publicly disclose what they are doing to prevent human trafficking in their supply chains.

Traditionally, many HR professionals have concerned themselves only with their direct employees—ignoring what happens beyond their walls. But some experts now are urging those in HR to help their companies build cultures that respect and protect the human rights of all workers—wherever they might be.

"Just like you've got to know where your raw materials come from, you've got to know where your people come from. I think HR people are just awakening to this. 'How do I unleash the potential of people through the whole supply chain?' " says Mara Swan, ManpowerGroup's executive vice president of global strategy and talent.

How Widespread?

More than 27 million people worldwide are victims of human trafficking, which is estimated to be a $32 billion industry, according to a 2011 State Department report. It's the fastest-growing criminal activity after drugs and weapons trafficking. Immigrants, especially those who are poor, desperate for work or fleeing violence, remain particularly vulnerable. Last year, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that 130 types of goods in 71 countries were produced with forced labor, child labor or both.

One Worker's Story: A Prisoner, Paid Just Dollars a Day

Jagdish Prajapati already had a good job in India when a friend told him about an opportunity to work in the United States.

He and his wife had a 7-month-old son. Prajapati was thinking about their future.

"When a good opportunity comes your way, you don't want to miss it," he says.

The owner of the U.S. company came to India to interview applicants. He shook Prajapati's hand, promising good pay, good homes, good food.

So, Prajapati borrowed money from family members to pay a recruiting fee equivalent to several months' salary.

But the excitement turned to worry as he and the other recruits landed in the United States in October 2001 to begin their jobs at the John Pickle Co. in Tulsa, Okla. The owner's wife collected their passports and visas on the bus ride from the airport.

Living quarters were a cramped makeshift dormitory in the factory. After workers complained, the doors were locked at night. A security guard sent a clear message when he showed Prajapati his gun.

"It was like a jail," Prajapati recalls.

He and the other men worked long hours making steel parts for only a few dollars a day. There wasn't enough food.

In 2002, Prajapati and others escaped with the help of a man they met at a nearby church. They filed a civil suit, and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) joined the case.

A federal judge in 2006 found the John Pickle Co. guilty of fraud, false imprisonment and civil rights violations, and ordered the company to pay $1.2 million to the 52 men from India.

The men haven't seen the money. The Pickle family has appealed to the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Yet Prajapati isn't angry.

"The fight was not for the money," he says. "We fought so this would not happen again."

When Prajapati was invited to Washington, D.C., to relate his experience before the EEOC in 2007, he took a side trip to visit the monuments. While standing in line, he told a tourist why he had come.

"He couldn't believe in the United States this kind of thing can happen. He said, 'What century are we living in?' " 

Although many might conclude that human trafficking occurs only in developing countries, the U.S. has become a top destination for victims lured by promises of work and then forced into modern-day slavery, according to government and human rights groups. Estimates of U.S. victims range from 17,500 to 100,000 citizens and immigrants at any one time.

A majority of those people may be victims of sex trafficking, but victims' advocates say the number of individuals coerced to work for little or no pay is growing as economic pressures force executives to trim costs and make leaders more receptive to presumed legal sources of cheap labor. Others say those trapped in forced labor aren't always recognized as victims, so their numbers are underreported.

"They're hidden in plain sight. You see these people every day," Pino says.

Alberto Pozzi, general manager at Miami Shores Country Club in Miami Shores, Fla., says he had no idea that workers he hired through Quality Staffing Services were being abused—until he read about it in the newspaper. "I was flabbergasted, to be honest," Pozzi says. "These people never had a word or outward indication that they were unhappy."

Legal Battles

The owners of Quality Staffing Services, incorporated in Florida, were charged under various federal laws. But the primary law used against human traffickers is the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act passed by Congress in 2000. Strengthened by subsequent amendments, the law prohibits the use of physical force, fraud or psychological coercion to retain workers against their will. Employers can be liable if they know about or profit from trafficking. The law allows temporary visas for victims who testify against their abusers.

Federal government task forces opened 2,515 suspected incidents of trafficking for investigation from January 2008 to June 2010. Of those, 29 percent involved labor trafficking, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Last year, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed lawsuits against a labor broker, Global Horizons of Beverly Hills, Calif., and eight farms in Washington state and Hawaii, alleging that they subjected more than 200 Thai men to low pay, vermin-ridden housing and physical assaults by overseers. In another suit, attorneys contend that Signal International, a marine services company with facilities along the Gulf Coast, subjected 500 Indian welders and pipefitters to unsanitary housing and bad food, for which they were charged an inordinate amount of money.

Such civil suits can be easier to prove than criminal cases, where the threshold for a guilty verdict is "beyond a reasonable doubt." Six years ago, the EEOC's Los Angeles office reached a $1 million settlement with Trans Bay Steel Inc. to compensate 48 Thai welders held against their will and forced to work without pay.

In addition to federal law, all but two states—West Virginia and Wyoming—have laws prohibiting some form of human trafficking, according to the Polaris Project. The nonprofit organization advocates for stronger federal and state laws, operates the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline, and provides support for victims.

Private lawsuits can be filed on behalf of victims. In Louisiana, a federal judge in December granted class-action status to more than 350 Filipino teachers suing two labor contractors, Universal Placement International of Los Angeles and Manila-based PARS International Placement Agency, under the federal anti-trafficking law. The teachers were allegedly tricked into paying as much as $16,000 in recruiting fees and charged high rates for substandard housing.

While the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board has been dismissed from the case, its top HR official, Elizabeth Duran Swinford, formerly associate superintendent for human resources, is still named as a defendant. Attorney Dennis Blunt denies wrongdoing: The school board and its employees "bore no responsibility for whatever fees they [the teachers] agreed to pay … to a placement company they hired."

But Jim Knoepp, senior staff attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center, who represents the teachers, says school officials should have known who was paying the recruiters' fees. "Whenever someone tells you it's not going to cost you anything, maybe you should look behind the curtain to see who it is going to cost," Knoepp says.

Zero Tolerance

In 2006, ManpowerGroup was the first company to sign the Athens Ethical Principles, a voluntary public-private accord that declares a zero-tolerance policy for working with any entity that benefits in any way from human trafficking. The policy includes signatories' clients, vendors and business partners.

"We had to protect our reputation, our people and our clients from working with these bad actors who are exploiting workers and participating in human trafficking," Swan says.

Today, more than 12,000 private employers have signed the Athens accord. David Arkless, ManpowerGroup's president of corporate and government affairs, serves as president of the board of End Human Trafficking Now, a Geneva-based organization created to assist businesses in adopting the zero-tolerance policies.

While many senior leaders assign responsibility for monitoring and training personnel at international factories to corporate social responsibility (CSR) teams without collaboration with HR departments, ManpowerGroup's structure places those functions under Swan's HR umbrella—along with communications, marketing and innovations. The CEO deliberately grouped the functions together to strengthen the culture of valuing human rights, she says.

"When you have integration like we have, we can actually say we have changed behavior," Swan says. "I feel very strongly that HR understands behavior better than anyone else in the organization." Every communication connects to the company's purpose of protecting human rights, she adds.

Social Responsibility for HR

Most HR professionals don't understand the implications of managing human rights, says Elaine Cohen, a CSR consultant and author of CSR for HR: A Necessary Partnership for Advancing Responsible Business Practices (Greenleaf, 2010).

"They don't consider it part of their role, unless someone plunks it down on their desks. They just, unfortunately, stay very unaware of this issue," Cohen says.

In a Society for Human Resource Management survey of more than 700 HR professionals in the United States released last year, only 6 percent of the respondents confirmed that HR was primarily responsible for creating the CSR, or sustainability, strategy and 25 percent indicated that HR was involved in implementing such strategy.

Yet HR professionals can bring critical skills to the endeavor, including the ability to create and drive organizational culture, to lead change management processes, and to enhance organizational and individual capability for CSR issues such as human trafficking, Cohen says.

Engaging Business

In February, The Coca-Cola Co. co-hosted its fifth conference on human trafficking since 2008, bringing together more than 115 business leaders to hear the diverse perspectives of victims' advocates, socially responsible investor groups and law enforcement officials.

The conference was sponsored by the U.S. Council for International Business, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the International Organization of Employers.

The annual gathering was an opportunity to make other companies more aware of a problem that might not be on their radar, says Ed Potter, director of global workplace rights for Coca-Cola.

Potter says he's an anomaly because he reports to the company's senior vice president and chief people officer, Ceree Eberly. He has dotted-line responsibility to the company's new chief sustainability officer, Beatriz Perez. Most conference attendees work for their CSR, compliance or legal teams, he says.

Coca-Cola's HR team "owns" 22 of the 30 basic human rights outlined in the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Potter explains. The HR team wrote the company's human rights statement and workplace rights policy and is responsible for championing them.

"We understand there cannot be a sustainable business unless there are sustainable communities. So to one degree or another, it's part of everyone's job to own sustainability," he says.

The company provides guiding principles for U.S. and international franchise bottlers and companies in its global supply chain. The HR team has primary responsibility for developing and providing training on the policies. All direct employees are required to certify annually that they have read the policies, acted consistently with them and reported known violations.

Suppliers are audited by an independent organization to ensure compliance, and there are numerous in-person training programs each year with suppliers' employees. The company's migrant labor human rights tool is used globally to identify potential issues and remedy them.

"The issue of human rights should be part of the totality of human resources," Potter says. While auditing suppliers may be supervised by another department, there must be cross-functional collaboration, he adds.

Down the Line

The apparel industry's sweatshop scandals in the 1990s caused companies such as Gap and Nike to create elaborate systems for conducting third-party audits and inspecting factories in other countries.

Other companies are getting a crash course in human rights as they struggle to comply with the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act, which became effective in January. The law requires retailers and manufacturers with more than $100 million in annual revenue doing business in the state to disclose on their websites their efforts to eliminate human trafficking from their supply chains.

"It's positive peer pressure," says Mary Ellison, director of policy at the Polaris Project. If one company is seen doing a good job, she explains, others will want to do the same.

Some attorneys also are seeing a ripple effect. Suppliers, who aren't bound by the law, are being asked by customers to set up monitoring systems, says David S. Christy Jr., a partner with Thompson Hine LLP in Washington, D.C. Then suppliers have "to take that [request] to their suppliers," he adds.

Catherine Cormier, PHR, HR manager at Tower Laboratories Ltd. in Centerbrook, Conn., learned about the California law from a vendor. She was shocked when she read about modern-day slavery. Although attorneys told her Tower wasn't required to take action, she proposed that her 150-employee company take a stand against human trafficking. She plans to send the company's other vendors a questionnaire about their practices.

"We do pride ourselves on being socially responsible," Cormier says.

Patricia Jurewicz, director of the Responsible Sourcing Network, a project of San Francisco-based CSR advocacy group As You Sow, anticipates that consumers will study what companies post to their websites and compare their activities.

Google recently donated $11 million to three nonprofits to gather more data on human trafficking and increase public awareness. Some funds will go to Slavery Footprint, operator of a website where consumers can find out whether products they use have been manufactured with slave labor.

The complex economic, political and cultural pressures that allow human trafficking to flourish in some countries are impossible for one company to tackle alone, says the Rev. David Schilling, director of human rights and resources for the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a coalition of religious institutional investors.

That's why many executives are joining other businesses, advocacy groups or government agencies to share best practices and improve desperate economic conditions that make individuals vulnerable to traffickers.

As for the Florida workers, they spent three years waiting for the court case to be resolved. Some went through counseling. Others were treated for medical and dental problems. Some went back to school and learned trades.

"We wanted to give them the choices that the traffickers took away," says Anna Rodriguez, executive director of the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking, whose counselors aided the trafficked workers.

All former victims are now employed in various states. Six have been joined by their families. Three are expecting babies, she says. With help, maybe one day they will realize their American dreams.

The author is a senior writer for HR Magazine.  To read the original article, please click here.

Who would you say are the best rock and roll lead singers of all time? I'm guessing that a bunch of names come to mind for you. In fact, we could probably have a spirited debate over who is the best, even if you aren't a big music fan. Now, name the best back-up singers of all time? You know, those people on nearly every album who provide the harmonies and the depth to the songs. Nothing? The list of the best backup singers is a lot harder to come by.

So, what is it that makes the difference between a lead singer and a backup singer? The easy answer is that the lead singer has more musical talent, but I'm not sure that's quite right. It may be true that a lead singer is just a better singer in some cases, but I suspect that there are a lot of wildly talented back-up singers who, based on singing talent and musical ability, are just as talented as lead singers.

I think the difference has a lot to do with mindset. Somewhere along the line, if you are a singer with some talent, you have to make a decision. Are you a lead or will you provide the backgrounds? I suppose that everyone initially wants to be a lead, but the real decision plays out in the actions the individual takes.

At its foundation, being a lead singer is about standing out, being different from the crowd. I've become a fan of the reality show, The Voice on NBC. It's one of the many singing competitions on television. The thing that makes this one unique is that the contestants are selected and coached by a current successful singer (Adam Levine, Chistina Aguilera, Blake Shelton and Ceelo Green are the coaches). The show begins with the signers auditioning for these coaches. The coaches have to choose a singer to be on their team based on their voice alone. During this selection process this season, the single criteria that was mentioned the most by these successful singer coaches was "uniqueness". They each at some point said they were looking for someone who had uniqueness in their voice--something that made them sound different from the crowd. Being different is apparently really important if you want to be a lead singer.

Contrast that with what makes a great back-up singer. Singing background is the opposite of being the lead. It's about making your voice blend with others, to fit into the harmonies. Even when back-up singers are on stage, their job is to visually blend into the background. Fundamentally, being a backup singer is about complimenting the lead singer without every upstaging them.

Professional background singers are in the big leagues of music. They are tremendously talented singers. They are among the best of the best in the world when it comes to singing. But, they have chosen professionally to blend in, to not stand out. The result is that no one remembers who you are or even really notices your work, even if you are the best in the world at what you do. Despite the fact that backup singers make the lead better, the backup rarely gets recognized while the lead collects the attention and the rewards.

I think that we all make this same decision in our lives and in our professions. At some point, we commit ourselves to either being a lead or being a back-up. When you decide to be a lead in your life or profession, you decide to be different -- to emphasize your uniqueness. This means standing out, taking risks, investing in developing what makes you unique.
In contrast, being a back-up means you've decided to fit in, go with the flow, not rock the boat. Being a backup feels safe. Back-up singers are rarely blamed for the success or failure of the band. They get to be a part of the band and they get a steady paycheck, particularly if they happen to be lucky enough to land in a successful band. But, back-up singers are also easily replaced.

Being a lead singer requires some guts. You have to being willing to flaunt what makes you different, to throw yourself out in front of the crowd on occasion. That's what makes lead singers memorable. They stand out. They aren't going to be liked by everyone, but they will be remembered by everyone. And leads are difficult to replace, just ask Van Halen.

Are you a lead? Do you want to be a lead? If so, then that means spending less time fitting in and playing it safe. What is it that makes you unique and memorable? To be a lead, you have to make it your job to put those things on display to the world. Being a lead means that you won't always be liked, but you will win loyal and crazed fans. Being a lead means that you will make great music (do great work), but you will do it in your own way with your style all over it.

Being a lead means that people will remember your performance.

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.  - George Orwell 

Mentee perspective – Ross

 I am 48 years old and started working on software before my mentor, Prem, was born.  Prem’s research on Gen Y was intriguing, particularly his
recommendations around reverse mentoring, and I asked if he would be MY mentor a few years back. 

A few of the things I’ve learned is how similar Prem is to how I was at that age, and how my priorities and perspective have changed as my life-stage has changed. 

From what I’ve read, reverse mentoring helps a lot when older workers struggle with technology, though I don’t feel like that’s been my experience.  What’s been enlightening to me is how communication has changed. I’m on Facebook and all I see are updates from old high school friends, and I'm learning more than I need to know about my kids’ social life.  <grin>  I’m not typically connecting with my work peers there. That happens in person, or on the phone or email – but things are changing.

I learned a lot about the impact of benefits on our life-stage goals. When I was 22, I worked for the government, and we had “comp time” (compensatory time) – and I LOVED it.  I could work hard one week, and take more time off the next week. I realize that’s not an option for Prem.

I am working to make sure my kids can go to college, so money and career advancement are important to me.  I realize that my mentor cares less about the things that I care about.  He wants to be exposed to diverse technology, unique jobs, and career experience – and that it’s less about financial reward and advancement than getting experience.

If you asked us these two questions:

• Would you work seven days a week for an extra $10,000?
• Would you give up 20 percent of your salary to get experience doing XYZ?

I think we would answer oppositely. What the reverse mentorship has taught me is not how to be better at Facebook – but that motivation, incentive, and goals vary dramatically as we move through the life-stages.

I know that people on our team have benefitted from my experience with my mentor (though as I write this, I realize I could do more) – because we have cut people loose from their “day jobs” to seek out new experiences.
 

Mentor perspective – Prem

I’m currently 28 years old and started working at the company as a college hire when I was 22, much like many of my peers.

At that point in my life, the longest paid position I had held was at a local grocery store, which I enjoyed, but was drastically different than Corporate America. Coming into such a large corporation fresh out of college was a daunting proposition for me and the hundreds of employees in my cohort.

I wasn’t sure how -- and if -- I’d fit in, let alone thrive.

Many of us soon figured out that to succeed -- really succeed -- we’d need more than “formal” or “on-the-job” training. The jury is still out on whether we’ve succeeded, but we all agree mentorship has played a large role in improving our careers and job satisfaction in big ways.

Since I started in 2006, I’ve had career mentors, both formal and informal. Being involved in a mentoring relationship is the single most effective career development tool I’ve found in in my professional career, and reverse mentoring is no different than traditional mentoring with regard to the value one can glean from it.

Being able to bounce ideas off Ross over the last year has really helped me as I grow in my career. Contrary to my initial guesses, I’ve learned that Ross and I -- despite our different life-stages -- are passionate about many of the same things.  But we also differ on some very tangible things, such as "away time."

Placing the “Reverse Mentoring” wrapper around our relationship has really helped set expectations in a way that helped me get quite a bit out of it. I think having Ross really drive the relationship, as my “Mentee” took out some of pressures I’d subconsciously feel just by being in a room with someone that has 80 people under him, and who's is in a completely different life-stage and generation than me.

Devoid of this pressure, I was able to share any ideas that came to my mind, and get context for those ideas that could only be provided by someone in his life-stage and at his level.

When trust breaks down in organizations it can impact employee turnover, communication, collaboration, risk taking and creativity—among other things—all of which can harm the bottom line, according to Richard Fagerlin, president of Peak Solutions Inc. in Fort Collins, Colo.

Trust is the foundation of a strong organization, he said during a concurrent session titled “The True Truth on Trust,” held April 30, 2012, as part of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Talent Management Conference & Exposition at the Gaylord National Hotel & Convention Center near Washington, D.C.

He dismissed those who suggest that conversations about trust are “fluff” or “touchy feely stuff” by explaining that when trust is absent, employees experience what he called a “trust hangover.” This can manifest itself as:

• Regret and lack of confidence in decisions.
• Constant questioning of other people’s motives.
• An unwillingness to set and maintain expectations.
• A survivor mentality as people wait for “the other shoe to drop.”
• Paranoia, as if employees think that people in a huddle are talking about them.

Yet low trust—and the accompanying fear it tends to cause—is understandable given the way many organizations are doing business in 2012, as the economic recovery continues, he suggested. Everyone is expected to do more with less; job responsibilities have changed; raises, bonuses and benefits have been reduced or eliminated; change, in general, is nonstop.

Fagerlin challenged certain “truths” many people were raised to believe, such as “trust is earned over time” and “it takes a lifetime to build trust and a second to lose it,” and he encouraged attendees to consider a new model of trust.

According to Fagerlin’s “three-legged” model, trust requires confidence in one’s relationships with others and a belief that they will meet expectations in three overlapping areas:

• Integrity—how one is—is the sum of a person’s behavior, principles, values and tendency to follow through on commitments.
• Competence—how one performs—includes an individual’s knowledge, skills and abilities as well as their ability to produce desired results on a consistent basis.
• Compassion—how one relates to others—refers to an individual’s willingness to understand others’ points of view and to put the good of others ahead of a personal agenda.

Instead of saying “I don’t trust you,” individuals can use the three concepts in the model to pinpoint the reason they feel distrust toward a colleague, employee or leader. It provides a new vocabulary to talk about what’s behind the emotion of distrust, he said.

However, trust in the workplace requires a focus on relationships and a recognition that everyone plays a key role in the success or failure of those relationships. “Relationships can’t be a zero-sum game,” he noted, “There can’t be winners and losers.”

HR’s Role

To build trust, HR professionals need to:

• Know when to build and when to protect.
• Serve others rather than being served.
• Drive results, demand transformation and ask why.
• Remove road blocks rather than adding them.
• Be true business partners.
• Get on the ground.
• Stop saying “we can’t do that” and start saying “how can we do that?”

The next step for HR is to “train the trainer” by teaching others a new approach to trust. After all, “Trust is an attitude, and attitudes are contagious,” he said.

Rebecca R. Hastings, SPHR, is an online editor/manager for SHRM.  To read the original article, please click here.

According to the SHRM Leading Indicatiors of National Employment (LINE) Report for May 2012, job creation will continue in the manufacturing and service sectors in May 2012, although the rate of growth will not reach the level of a year ago. 

Manufacturing will continue to hire at a solid rate in May. About 40.5 percent of manufacturers will add jobs in May, while 30.4 percent of service sector companies will hire. The rate of hiring for May 2012 will fall by 3.8 percent compared to May 2011, for the manufacturing sector and will fall by 17.1 percent in the service sector compared to the rate of hire a year ago. 

In terms of recruiting difficulty, numbers remained relativelty the same to that of a year ago. Difficulty in recruiting candidates for key positions rose 1.6 percent in manufacturing and fell 2.8 percent in the service sector, compared with a year ago. Compared to April 2012, the rate of recruiting difficulty increase in May was siginificantly less. 

The world of work is a complicated place.
 
Technology, globalization and the great recession have accelerated the pace of change and brought about category disruption, new competition and what can feel like never ending chaos.
 
In a time where we need people to step up and become the very best of who they are capable of becoming, job satisfaction is at unprecedented lows and trust and confidence in senior leadership has plummeted.
 
We can do better. Leaders and Managers have to recognize that the legacy, command and control style of leadership we relied upon for so long isn’t working.
 
Change is hard.  It is also the one constant we can count on.
 
The LeaderShift required to compete today is to a more collaborative, connected approach where everyone has a voice, the best ideas are brought forward, people are valued and culture is viewed for what it is…the only long term, sustainable advantage.
 
4 keys to developing a more collaborative leadership style.
 
Lead to Inspire: Employees want to be inspired. Leaders need to lead from the front and live the change they want to see in others. The best way to inspire is to truly care. Through active mentoring and coaching you have the powerful opportunity to elevate performance and help people stretch to achieve their potential.
 
Lead to Influence: Authority is overrated. Talent trumps tenure or title. The work is the boss. The ability to earn “followership,” by aligning people around shared objectives is essential. Influence is rooted in credibility and connectedness and today’s leaders needs to forge meaningful connections inside and outside the organization. You don’t need permission to have influence.
 
Lead to Innovate: Leading change means facing internal resistance and taking some calculated risks. It’s too easy to say that you believe in something new, but then back down at the first sign of failure. Stopping short doesn’t serve as a catalyst for change. You’re inevitably going to make some mistakes. Failing forward is something that progressive leaders readily accept.  Are you ready to go all in for something you believe in?
 
Lead for Impact: Impact is a daily commitment to action and outcomes. Collaboration doesn’t mean consensus, and daily progress is a vital force for engagement. By working together we all have the opportunity to contribute and add value to the business.
 
How committed to collaboration and connectedness is your CEO?  Senior leadership?  You?  Worth considering.
 
The way we organize work, elevate productivity and improve performance is changing.  Right now.
 
It will be incumbent upon Managers and Leaders to be increasingly more open, transparent, flexible, creative, and collaborative.  Collaborative Leadership is simply the new and improved model for navigating this ever complex, constantly changing business landscape.
 
This next generation approach to business (Generation Flux) is opening up opportunity for those willing to embrace change, challenge the status quo and connect people to each other and a common purpose.
 
Seems like work worth doing.

At State Street Corp., a multinational financial services provider, we view flexible work arrangements as a strategic tool for achieving business objectives and employee engagement.

In 2009, we created an executive committee to strengthen our ability to recruit and retain top talent. One of the findings: the necessity of having tools and resources that consistently support better work/life balance for employees through flexible work arrangements. As a result, after several years of offering informal, ad hoc, alternate work arrangements, we implemented a formal Flex Work Program, known simply as Flex. In today's fast-paced, 24/7 workplace, professionals have too much to do in their work and personal lives—and look for solutions to ease that pressure.

In a 2011 survey by Work+Life Fit Inc., for example, one-third of the 637 full-time employed respondents to a telephone survey said they plan to look for a new job either in or outside their organizations. Two-thirds said they want greater flexibility, including:

• Flexible hours.
• The ability to work remotely.
• The option to work a reduced schedule for less money.

Other studies have shown that an employee's loyalty and intent to stay with an organization increase when flexible work arrangements are available.

At State Street, the results we've seen from Flex support these findings. We have heightened employee satisfaction, productivity and operating efficiencies and lowered turnover in virtually all locations where Flex has been implemented.

Furthermore, a companywide internal employee engagement survey in October 2010 revealed that employees with some type of flexibility in their schedules are the most loyal, the most committed—and the hardest working. Employees with the most favorable perceptions of Flex scored 20 percent higher, on average, across a variety of engagement indicators, including emotional and rational commitment, intent to stay and discretionary effort.

Natural Environment

As a company with more than 29,000 employees in 26 countries, we emphasize our corporate value "Stronger Together." It supports collaboration across geographies and business units. Hence, we have long had people working with each other, but not necessarily side by side.

Even before we implemented a formal flexible work program, many managers were regularly connecting with employees in other locations and collaborating globally on projects. Time-zone differences required managers to be flexible about when and how they worked.

Employees' appetite for flexible work arrangements grew so much that by 2009, we needed a standard approach that would permit us to look at the idea from a strategic business perspective. At first, we provided a framework, giving employees a method for requesting that managers create alternate work structures and giving managers a means to evaluate requests. Flex evolved from employee-initiated arrangements into today's manager-initiated program.

The program needed to be more than just an "add on," so we built Flex around partnerships between our human resource, information technology, real estate and business strategy teams. Besides a dedicated staff of two employees, Flex relies on alliances with stakeholders through our Flex Working Group. This group consists of 12 work streams ranging from information technology and finance to communications and HR. This structure gives my HR team the ability to gauge how Flex impacts different constituencies.

Employees with formal flexible work arrangements reported that they are driving 140,000 fewer miles each week.

A toolkit helps managers assess roles to determine what flexible work arrangements may be feasible for each individual from a business perspective. The managers can then proactively discuss Flex options with team members to implement a strategic and transparent program.

So far, feedback gathered during the last year about our manager-initiated flexible work arrangements has been positive. Elements once perceived as barriers have been broken. Flex is addressing the evolving needs of our workforce and business strategy, while keeping clients satisfied and operations running smoothly.

Five Options

Flex components include employee engagement, governance, technology and real estate.

Our HR policies define five options that give employees flexibility on when, how and where they work:

Flex time. Altering start or finish times while maintaining the same number of regularly scheduled hours.

Compressed schedule. Extending the start and finish times to compress scheduled hours into fewer days.

Reduced hours. Working fewer than the standard work hours.

Flex place. Routinely working away from the assigned office, including working from home, a remote office or a satellite location.

Job share. Sharing a position with another employee on an ongoing basis.

Of course, Flex isn't a one-size-fits-all program that works the same way in all locations globally or in each business area. We have HR policies that guide managers in evaluating job and employee suitability for Flex. Using an array of online and other HR training support, managers evaluate the compatibility between roles and these work options. Considerations include the level of client interaction, the need for physical proximity to co-workers and local laws.

Business-unit managers assess legal risks associated with each function and determine whether that function is appropriate for options like Flex place. The manager must address risks such as information security or privacy.

While HR policies are at the core of Flex, technology serves as its engine. We have a roster of tools to enable em­ployees to work remotely. Currently, employees have remote access to their desktops and business applications, and can connect with each other from their homes or other offices using instant messaging, desktop sharing and audio-video conferencing.

Real estate is another component. We are looking at innovative ways of setting up our physical footprint with the goal of arranging work around groups instead of around buildings and to support the mobile workforce we employ. The manager-initiated flex program is now enabling us to track and measure flexible work arrangements by type and location. This information is proving valuable for our global realty function by helping to inform our future occupancy needs. Specifically, metrics around the types of flexible work used assists us in planning office configuration as well as deployment of flex centers and hoteling space globally. State Street currently uses single-occupant offices, shared office spaces, Flex centers and Flex pods—seating clusters in multiple buildings to accommodate employees in the office only a few days a week.

Spreading the Word

The case for Flex could begin and end with the increased employee satisfaction we are seeing. Almost every week, my HR team and I hear from managers about the "spillover" effects. A few examples:

An associate is studying for a master's in business administration, thanks to the time he saves working from home.
A managing director finds that scheduling flexibility enables him to make evening appointments and run errands after work rather than having to use vacation time.

A senior associate meets her growing client demand with less commuting time, while spending more time with her family.
Supervising managers note that these employees seem more enthusiastic, more creative in problem-solving and more engaged than before Flex. Stories like these help build support for Flex.

We have more-formal methods for spreading the word: Our Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Jay Hooley promotes Flex at quarterly all-staff town hall meetings, and senior managers hold similar meetings. We have Flex information kiosks, screen savers describing Flex and a full complement of resources on the company intranet. The toolkit includes templates for managers to use in coordinating and communicating the program.

Although we still have some employee-initiated working arrangements, our long-term plans depend on the manager-initiated component. Managers now think of Flex as a business tool, not just a way to make employees happier. They use it to enhance team efficiency, optimize workflow and make better use of physical space. Our ability to showcase Flex gives State Street a powerful recruitment tool.

Powerful Case

Flex is gaining traction and support in every department where it has been implemented. A companywide engagement survey in October 2010 found that 67 percent of respondents had participated in some type of flexible work. An equal number of males and females at all levels have participated.

Managers report operating efficiencies. Productivity is up due to lower absenteeism and the fact that reduced travel time lets employees spend more time on job-related tasks.

Flex options help global teams align schedules across time zones. Last winter, we had severe snowstorms in Boston, where we have a significant employee population. Many worked seamlessly from home because we had the tools. And, following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, employees working from home helped keep local operations running.

Flex generates environmental benefits. As of December 2011, employees with formal flexible work arrangements reported that they are driving 140,000 fewer miles each week.

There is no doubt that metrics make a powerful business case for Flex. But in my view, the human side is equally powerful.

Vice President Yves Baril uses Flex to inspire junior employees and show them how they can rise through the ranks while still balancing work life with personal life. Baril takes pleasure in seeing Flex arrangements work out well, especially among skeptical employees who initially thought the program was just another corporate cost-savings measure.

One of his team members, Kimberly Jayasinghe, recently returned from maternity leave and now works a Flex schedule. She explains that working from home gives her the ability to focus on her work beyond the hours of 9 to 5, while still spending extra time with her baby.

Changing Face of Flex

Flex is ongoing. We have evaluation and assessment tools to help my HR team capture data from front-line managers as they implement Flex with direct reports. Our FlexTrax tool, for example, records and tracks flexible work arrangements, giving visibility to when and where employees are scheduled to work.

We are constantly evaluating what works and adjusting what does not. While there have been bumps—like the feasibility of Flex in certain jobs or specific hourly arrangements that needed to be modified—we are adapting well. We will continue refining the program to keep employees engaged and the company competitive.

The author is executive vice president and head of Global Human Resources at State Street in Boston. To read the original article, please click here.

As work, family and personal demands increase and we are tethered to smart phones and tablet computers to be available instantly to anyone who might need us, our ability to perform at our best diminishes and our physical and mental health suffers. It’s time to revamp the way we approach work, according to Tony Schwartz, CEO of The Energy Project. It’s time to reclaim focus and be more productive, efficient and healthy.

Schwartz, a former journalist, was the opening keynote speaker on April 30 at the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) 2012 Talent Management Conference & Exposition, held at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center outside Washington, D.C. His company helps individuals and organizations perform better and more sustainably.

“We are not changing as fast as the world is changing,” Schwartz told the more than 1,000 attendees. “Technology is way out ahead of our ability to manage it.”

To meet the rising demands of work and technology, we have to expand our capacity—our energy—for ourselves and our organizations, Schwartz said.

There are four qualities of energy, he said:

• Physical—the amount of energy. We refuel this source through sleep and rest. Hardly anyone gets enough sleep, Schwartz said.
• Emotional—the quality of energy. Do we feel positively or negatively toward what we are expending energy on?
• Mental—the focus of our energy. Schwartz stipulated that people should do one thing at a time—no multi-tasking—for a sustained period of time to see the best results.
• Spiritual—how expending our energy makes us feel. This is the boost we get when we serve something larger than ourselves, Schwartz said.

The longer people spend in circumstances that drain and do not replenish their energy, the more they acclimate to it. A frog tossed into a pot of boiling water will jump out, Schwartz said, but a frog in a pot of water that is slowly heated will cook. It grows more and more accustomed to untenable circumstances. Like the frog, people who try to satisfy ever-increasing demands by drawing on ever-decreasing energy sources will “become numb to the consequences of the choices you are making,” Schwartz said.

Get In the Zone

To break out of those circumstances, employees and organizations need to learn to work when their energy—dictated by circadian rhythms, or our natural ebb and flow of energy—is high, and to rest and refuel when energy is low. The greater the demand, the greater the need to rest for a sufficient time.

Schwartz defined four zones in which people normally work:

• Performance—high energy, positive feeling. People here feel empowered, focused, engaged and confident.
• Survival—high energy, negative feeling. People in this zone are in fight-or-flight mode. They are defensive, fearful and impatient.
• Burnout—low energy, negative feeling. People here are exhausted, empty and depressed.
• Recovery—low energy, positive feeling. People in this zone are mellow, peaceful and relaxed.

Optimally, employees should move from performance to recovery throughout the day as their energy levels dictate. Their productivity and efficiency will increase, Schwartz said, as they “intentionally move to the recovery zone when demand gets high.”

“We need to respect renewal and value rest,” Schwartz said. “Most of us move from performance to survival and end up in the burnout zone [when energy is depleted]. We need to enable renewal.”

Clients of his company—including Google, Apple, Kraft and Coca-Cola—have learned that “it’s not about the number of hours you work, it’s the energy you bring to work,” he added. That gives these companies the competitive advantage, bringing out the best performance from their employees, he said.

Turn Off the Technology

Being overwhelmed by e-mail, phone messages, tweets and blog postings is distracting people from their jobs, not facilitating them, Schwartz said. Juggling several tasks doesn’t make you a better performer because your brain isn’t fully engaged in any of them.

“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention,” said Schwartz, quoting Nobel Prize winner Herbert Simon.

A take-home tip many of the attendees appreciated: Tell your peers and reports that you will be reading e-mails only at certain times of the day. If they need immediate responses, they should call you. Schwartz said in his client companies in which this practice was implemented, e-mail traffic dropped—and no one called. Once people considered the effort involved in picking up the phone, they decided that the problem could wait or they could figure it out themselves.

To read the original article, please click here.

Job creation will continue in the U.S. manufacturing and service sectors in May 2012, though less robustly than a year earlier. Meanwhile, recruiting difficulty, which had been rising in the first months of 2012, appears to be leveling off, according to the latest Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Leading Indicators of National Employment (LINE) survey report.

Service-sector hiring is improving more slowly than manufacturing; a net of just over 30 percent of service businesses are hiring in May 2012 compared with a net of just over 40 percent of manufacturers. Both sectors could experience somewhat slower increases in new-hire compensation based on LINE results for April 2012 compared with April 2011.

The LINE report examines four key areas: employers’ hiring expectations, new-hire compensation, difficulty in recruiting top-level talent and job vacancies. It is based on a monthly survey of private-sector human resource professionals at more than 500 manufacturing and 500 service-sector companies. Together, these sectors employ more than 90 percent of the nation’s private-sector workers.

“Overall hiring expectations continue to be fairly positive,” said Jennifer Schramm, GPHR, SHRM’s manager of workplace trends and forecasting.

Still, employers can expect a bumpy ride on the road to recovery. Not all industries are improving. For example, retail trade lost an estimated 34,000 jobs in March 2012. Skills shortages continue to make it difficult to find the right applicants for some jobs. The U.S. economy—and the employment picture—will continue to be buffeted by domestic and international influences. Headlines will suggest an upbeat job market one day, a beat-up one the next. Ironically, an improving job picture might encourage more unemployed people to re-enter the job market, which could result in an increase in the official unemployment rate.

Source: SHRM Leading Indicators of National Employment (LINE), shrm.org/line

Many factors will influence the economy and job market during 2012. Among them:

• The global economy. The Euro crisis, shocks to the oil market and other factors beyond most employers’ control will impact American businesses’ bottom lines.
• Demographic trends. Young people might start moving out of relatives’ homes; Baby Boomers might decide to give up full-time work; there are already signs that American consumers are paying off some of their debts.
• The housing market. If it does bottom out, low mortgage rates might encourage newly hired or rehired Americans to buy.
• Election year politics. If the presidential campaign becomes a referendum on the economy in general and jobs in particular, candidates and the news media will magnify reports of gains and setbacks, potentially adding to employers’ unease and unwillingness to commit to full-time hires.
• Government actions. This might be one of the biggest wild cards. While no big surprises are expected from the Federal Reserve Board, another Washington showdown is looming over the U.S. economy. Large federal tax cuts and spending reductions are scheduled to expire on Dec. 31, 2012, unless Congress acts. It’s possible that a deal to modify or delay some of the major changes might happen, but probably not until after the Nov. 6 elections, which might provide yet another reason for already-cautious employers to resist hiring until the picture becomes clearer.

So, what’s an HR professional to do? Is the job market as fickle as the weather? 

Actually, the two might even be related. A few economists have suggested that the mild weather over the winter threw off the federal government’s seasonal adjustment calculations, causing it to underestimate the number of jobs created in March 2012.

For the short term, at least, slow employment growth seems to be the word from the HR professionals who provide the data for SHRM’s LINE report. When a company has a clear need to fill a position and doesn’t expect to turn right around and lay off workers, it will probably take on staff.

Employment Expectations for May

A net of 40.5 percent of manufacturers will add jobs in May 2012 (46.6 percent will hire, 6.1 percent will cut jobs), according to the LINE report. The sector’s hiring index will fall in May on a year-over-year basis by a net of 3.8 points. A net of 30.4 percent of service-sector companies will add jobs in May (35.5 percent will conduct hiring, 5.1 percent will trim payrolls), and the service hiring index will fall by 17.1 points compared with a year earlier. The layoff rate in manufacturing will fall in May compared with 2011; service-sector companies will cut jobs at a slightly higher rate than that of May 2011.

The LINE results for May 2012 reflect a continuing trend of overall steady job growth, in accord with recent federal data. March 2012 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that 37,000 manufacturing jobs were added during the month. Several industries related to the service sector also posted employment gains for the month, but other segments of that industry suffered losses.

Recruiting Difficulty

In April 2012, difficulty in recruiting top-level candidates was nearly unchanged from a year earlier. LINE’s recruiting difficulty index measures how difficult it is for firms to recruit candidates to fill the positions of greatest strategic importance to their companies.

A net of 16.1 percent of manufacturing respondents had more difficulty with recruiting in April 2012. This is an increase of 1.6 points from April 2011 and the highest net of recruiting difficulty in four years in April. A net of 1.7 percent of service-sector HR professionals had less difficulty recruiting in April, a decrease of 2.8 points from a year earlier. The recruiting difficulty data suggest that, particularly in the manufacturing industry, the labor market is suffering partially from structural issues.

“While overall recruiting difficulty has been increasing in 2012, in April this indicator appeared to stabilize, showing very little change from one year ago,” said Schramm.

A November 2011 SHRM survey found that 52 percent of HR professionals are having trouble finding properly skilled workers for job openings at their companies. A December 2011 SHRM study showed that 24 percent of companies have hired workers from outside the United States for staff positions that were deemed difficult to fill.

New-Hire Compensation

In April 2012, fewer companies increased compensation for new hires compared with a year earlier. During the recession, a high rate of unemployment and a large pool of job seekers gave many companies the option of holding down the wages and benefits they offered new hires in an effort to control costs. If hiring rates improve significantly, new-hire compensation can be expected to increase. LINE provides the only published index of changes in new-hire compensation.

In the manufacturing sector, a net total of 7.7 percent of respondents reported increasing new-hire compensation in April (8.7 percent increased, 1.0 percent decreased). That is a 0.5-point decrease from April 2011. In the service sector, a net total of 9.1 percent of companies increased new-hire compensation in April (9.3 percent increased, 0.2 percent decreased). That represents a 4.3-point decline from a year earlier.

Overall, the data show that most organizations are still keeping new-hire compensation rates flat. Several private surveys have forecast minimal increases to salary budgets in 2012, typically around 3 percent.

“The slight slowdown in both hiring expectations and recruiting difficulty may be behind the fall in the new-hire compensation index for both sectors in April,” commented Schramm.

Vacant Positions

Salaried job openings dropped slightly in April 2012 compared with a year earlier. Vacancies are defined as open positions that employers are trying actively to fill. LINE data cover exempt vacancies, or primarily salaried positions, and nonexempt vacancies, which are mostly hourly employees. Changes in the number of job vacancies can be one of the earliest indicators of a shift in the balance between labor supply and demand. 

In the manufacturing sector, a net total of 17.7 percent of respondents reported increases in exempt vacancies in April 2012 (25.2 percent reported increases, 7.5 percent reported decreases). This represents a 3.5-point decline from April 2011. In the service sector, a net total of 6.5 percent of respondents reported increases in exempt vacancies in April (16.1 percent reported increases, 9.6 percent reported decreases). That is a 2.0-point decrease from April 2011.

Typically, exempt employment declines by a smaller percentage than nonexempt employment during economic downturns and increases by a smaller percentage during economic expansions.

Hourly job vacancies rose in April 2012 in service and fell in manufacturing compared with a year earlier. A net total of 20.0 percent of manufacturing respondents reported that nonexempt vacancies increased in April (29.1 percent increased, 9.1 percent decreased). This represents a 6.8-point decrease from April 2011.

For nonexempt service positions, a net total of 24.7 percent of respondents reported increased vacancies in April 2012 (32.7 percent increased, 8.0 percent decreased). This marks a 13.9-point increase from April 2011.

Steve Bates is manager of online editorial content for SHRM. He can be reached at steve.bates@shrm.org.  To read the original article, please click here.

We all talk about high potentials being the next best thing since sliced bread.   They are the employees in our midst that seemingly can do it all and we recognize them for their efforts.   We come to rely on them whenever there is something we need to get done and done well.  They are thought of first for projects and are primed for promotions.  Where does that leave everyone else, though?  High potentials are a small number from a much larger pool of employees.  If you don't engage this larger group, how will you know what their potential even is?

Let's face it.  You would be hard pressed to find many people that  wake up in the morning and say to themselves, "I want to be a mediocre employee today".   We all understand that people want to work in a job where they feel valued and understand how their contributions tie to the organization's goals and objectives.  They want meaning in what it is they do. There are many professionals speaking about employee engagement and how detrimental a disengaged workforce is to your business.   What role does the focus on high potentials have toward driving some of the low engagement?   Many times, we hear that disengagement is the employee's fault, so we don't bother scratching below the surface to identify where we are contributing to the problem.

When you keep going back to the well for the same people, your high potentials, aren't you risking the very real possibility of failing to tap into more high potentials in your midst?   I realize not everyone is going to be a superstar, but I can assure you talented people that don't feel valued, aren't given opportunity to prove themselves and be recognized end up in your "disengaged" group.  They will also be looking for a new job. Why stick around?   If the opportunity with your company isn't one that is meaningful to them, they will get it elsewhere.

It is our job as leaders to tap into all of the talent within our ranks and not just focus on a select few for all of the brain power.   Essentially, you need to build your bench strength.   With only a handful of high potentials and a group of employees behind them who are being left out of meaningful opportunities you have to challenge them, you're doing everyone a disservice.   Your high potentials are on the radar of other organizations as passive candidates. so they may not always be there for you.  This is especially true if they are hungry to move up in an organization and you are unable to offer them rapid movement.   High potentials tend to burn out due to the additional burden placed upon them.  With a deep bench, that individual will impose less of a negative impact should they leave.

To summarize, here are 5 reasons you should put others in the game:

1. High potential programs breed dissension among those that are not in the elite group
2. High potential employees tend to burn out and/or get plucked by other organizations
3. You need to have as many people that you can rely upon as possible - develop bench strength
4. You need stronger team cohesion
5. You need to decrease the number of disengaged employees

Workplace flexibility is replacing the one-size-fits-all, 9-to-5 way of working in a growing number of organizations.

What’s motivating companies to consider new ways of making work “work?” And what impact does giving employees more choice over how, when and where work gets done have on workplaces and the bottom-line?

On May 2 at 6 p.m. ET, We Know Next chatted with special guests, Ellen Galinsky (@EllenGalinsky), president, Families and Work Institute and Lisa Horn (@SHRMLobbystLisa), co-leader of SHRM's Workplace Flexibility Initiative to discuss why companies can no longer say “no” to workflex.

In case you missed it, there are more great chats ahead! Please join @weknownext on May 16 at 3 p.m. ET, for #NextChat with Next Official Blogger, Microsoft’s Ross Smith (Management Innovation Exchange) and his reverse mentor Prem Kumar for an enlightening discussion on reverse mentoring and multiple generations in the workplace.

Check out some of the highlights from this week's chat:

Road trip!

About 75 members of the Charlotte Area Society for Human Resource Management (CASHRM) chapter will be attending the SHRM 2012 Annual Conference in Atlanta June 24-27. Many will arrive on two buses the chapter has chartered.

It is the largest U.S. chapter delegation attending the conference, according to SHRM. The second-largest group is made up of 64 people from AutoZone Inc.

Seventy of the members qualified for another “ride” as well—a significant break on their conference registration fee.

Working with SHRM headquarters, the chapter took advantage of corporate group discounts for 50 or more people who met the April 13 early bird registration deadline for a fee of $870 per person. On top of that, CASHRM gave a $500 per person stipend, to be applied to registration, to the first 70 chapter registrants, reducing attendees’ costs to $370 per person.

Those who referred a new member to the chapter received another $50 toward registration from CASHRM, which negotiated a block of discounted rooms at two hotels.

Sending a delegation was the brainchild of chapter president Jeremy Stephenson, an attorney at the McNair Law Firm.

As chapter president, he is required to attend the Annual Conference and his registration is paid from chapter funds. Since 2008, when Charlotte hosted the annual state conference, those funds have been ample. North Carolina chapters take turns hosting the state gathering, and proceeds go to the host chapter.

CASHRM “has been sitting on a significant reserve fund,” which has continued to grow, Stephenson said.

Neither he nor most of the chapter’s board members had ever been to the Annual Conference, and Stephenson reasoned that “if this is true for our board, it’s probably true for our membership as well.”

This year, with the Annual Conference less than a five-hour drive away, Stephenson proposed using some of those funds to send members to the conference.

“A core plank of our [chapter] existence is to tighten our connection with national SHRM,” he told SHRM Conference Daily.

CASHRM’s board unanimously approved the proposal in January 2012 and, with an eye toward its 70th anniversary in 2013, voted to limit the $500 stipend to the first 70 registrants. Others may ride the bus and take advantage of the corporate registration and hotel discounts, but they do not receive the stipend.

The result: The approximately 350-member chapter has seen an estimated 10 percent increase in chapter membership. New members include people from other chapters, such as the one in Raleigh, N.C., which is three hours away from Charlotte.

“It’s the coolest thing. It’s been a real rallying point for our chapter,” Stephenson said. “Most chapters I’ve seen send one or two senior leaders to these types of events, and most of the membership is just not exposed to this whole other world.”

The same idea could be applied to other state SHRM conferences or one of SHRM’s other conferences, he noted.

CASHRM’s actions have inspired the Winston-Salem, N.C., chapter, which is hosting the 2013 state conference, to consider using the proceeds toward attendance at a future Annual Conference, according to Stephenson.

“It’s got kind of a buzz,” acknowledged North Carolina SHRM state director Paula H. Harvey, SPHR, GPHR. “It’s going to be a big party and a lot of fun and a lot of great learning,” she said. This will be her 12th Annual Conference.

Stephenson gave “enormous credit” for making the idea a reality to chapter treasurer Georgia Meyer, SPHR, and Larry Valenti, GPHR, chapter webmaster, past chapter president and past state council member. He also thanked his predecessors among chapter leadership who built the reserve fund that sat untouched for four years.

“Without their stewardship, [the money] wouldn’t be there,” Stephenson said.

His advice to other chapters: “Think big.”

Kathy Gurchiek is associate editor of HR News. To read the original article, please click here.

Note: This series is based on the paper  My Generation. 

Generational and life-stage issues affect us both consciously and subconsciously every single day.

A survey by Lee and Hecht Harrison tells us that “70% of older employees are dismissive of younger workers’ abilities and nearly half of younger employees are dismissive of the abilities of their older co-workers”. 

Even at the most progressive of companies, these trends often persist. It’s important to address them head-on to win the battle of engagement.

According to Charles H. Green, Founder and CEO of Trusted Advisor Associates, “inter-generational workforces provide a great opportunity to benefit from enlightened diversity policies demonstrated with other multi-group workforces.  The Young and the Restless have a ton to learn from the Older and Wiser, and vice versa.  A firm that can master inter-generational politics can master markets. Or at least do a whole lot better. 

Green goes on to note that it’s tremendously important that today’s companies “don't boil down the differences between the generations by limiting their interactions to molecular homogenization; say it loud, they're young and they're proud!  Gray Power!  To each his own! Working in the same company is difference enough--no need to create oatmeal organizations when you can have rainbow teams, each doing what they're best at.”

For organizational purposes we’ll split this segment into one about Younger Workers (Generations X and Y) and Older Workers (The Baby Boomer Generation and Veterans), present the unique traits that folks of these various life-stages and generations share and provide recommendations and tips for addressing these differences.

The Younger Workforce

With regards to the younger workforce a huge engagement challenge for many companies lies in missing out on opportunities to grow future leaders

One of the biggest historical challenges in the tech workplace is effectively motivating and engaging top young talent. Human Resources plays a huge role in bringing this talent in but engaging and developing it is a responsibility all employees share.

Gen Y and Gen X are our current and near term future leaders. Employers need to invest in efforts to engage these future leaders in a positive way, at the risk of losing them and their influence on their peers.

Building a Pipeline of Future Leaders

Whether leadership is measured by title or influence, organizations need to proactively address the leadership potential of Gen Y and Gen X employees and engage them in a way that prevents cognitive attrition.

Companies are losing leaders at a much faster pace than they are producing them, say Douglas R. Ready and Jay A. Conger, co-authors of a recent MIT Sloan Management Review article titled "How to Fill the Talent Gap." "More than 30 million managers and leaders will be retiring within the next five years," they report. 

The respect for gender or cultural diversity and the programs to build pipelines for future leaders in these areas helps corporations see opportunities they might otherwise miss in these arenas, but they don’t always have that in place for generational diversity. This is one area where organizations can stand to greatly improve. so as to not lose their future leaders to attrition, or lack of engagement.

According to a Taleo study conducted in 2008, 43% of college graduates stayed in their first job less than two years and 19% of 18-34 years olds wanted to quit their first job every day, compared to 3% of those 55 years and over. 

The focus on keeping younger talent will become even more important when the economy turns. According to the Economist “managers will have to make an extra effort to keep the “Net Generation” motivated in times of economic downturn, to prevent an exodus of young talent once the economy improve”. This is attributed to a capricious quality present in the latest generation of professionals, Generation Y (or the “Net Generation”).

The great news for many tech companies , if they are able to adequately engage these folks technological savvy is a core skill for most every college recruit – whether the job is writing code, developing an ad campaign, or doing corporate tax work. 

Growing up in a tech savvy environment also means that during development, Gen Y’ers may actually approach problem solving differently than workers of other generations. They are after instant gratification and recognition and often value the speed of a solution over its comprehensiveness. They are used to getting things now, and are drawn to two-way communication (rather than one-way instruction). They love feedback.

Gen X-ers bear many similarities to Gen Y employees, though both these younger groups are strikingly different in work style than Boomers and Veterans.

"3 out of 5 Gen Xers have said that someday they want to work for themselves. I believe this is less to do with the need for true business ownership than it is a sense of control over their own destiny."

Gen Xers have an entrepreneurial streak. Like Gen Y employees, Generation X-ers also seek recognition and are drawn to opportunities to learn and enjoy their work as well have control over their surroundings. Since X-ers value workplace environment and culture, employers should create a light and lively learning culture. Be honest and unafraid of conflict when providing feedback. X-ers seek responsibility, but not always proactively: create a career ladder or promotion plan for them. Gen X grew up in an era of corporate downsizing, so they are skeptical and want to control their own destiny.

X-ers love technology and toys; equip them with the latest office technology. They also work to live lives full of the best and the biggest; therefore give them perks that are personal.

In return, expect a strong work ethic and an amazing ability to multi-task. X-ers will commit to you if they feel you have committed to them.

To keep future leaders on track it is important to understand the aforementioned traits and make changes in management practices to build on them.

Younger Managers

The four-generation workplace finally turns upside-down some of the visible symbols of hierarchy in the traditional workplace" comments Jonathan Winter from Oxford-based think-tank Career Innovation (Ci). "For example, we have twenty-somethings managing people the age of their grandparents. So someone's importance can no longer be assumed from grey hairs. That can only be a good thing since it forces us all to respect people and not to judge too quickly or our assumptions will come back and bite us."

One of the most dramatic changes that this demographic shift brings with it is the increase in younger bosses managing older workers. Traditionally, the more experienced move up in the organization and manage those with less experience. The societal demographics and rapid increase in the pace of work brought on by technological change has led to a growth in instances of younger managers managing employees older than themselves. In many corporation this dynamic has not been specifically addressed by management training programs and it is essential that happens to successfully prepare a pipeline of future leaders. 

What Should a Younger Manager Do?

“The very first step towards making the younger boss/older worker relationship work is to accept the situation for what it is and stop kicking and screaming! The younger boss is the boss and wouldn’t be the boss if he or she were not qualified – diapers or no diapers. At the same time, a boss is only as strong as his or her direct reports. The younger boss needs to respect the older worker for the years of experience and expertise that he/she brings to the table, which will help to make the team shine – dentures or no dentures. If both individuals can accept that they each have something unique to bring to the table, then one big hurdle has been overcome.”

In situations where a manager has a direct report older than them, the manager must have enough self-confidence to respect the experience and not try to dictate or micro-manage. This can even help young manager accelerate their own learning and growth. However, many young managers are uncomfortable in situations where their employees are much older than them and can fall into a trap where they dictate and micro-manage as a reactionary tactic, which leads to either mistreatment, ignorance, under-utilization, or a general lack of success in these situations.  As a result, many organizations with younger management chains are reticent to hire older workers. Younger managers need to show respect, and make a solid first impression with older employees, and be open to listening to their wisdom, while still maintaining their position as the leader.

Asking questions, asking for feedback and learning from employees are areas where younger managers must particularly focus on, and can do so without losing authority as a leader.

As with most employees, older workers want to be respected, to be consulted and involved in decision making. Younger managers need to engage older employees and empower them, perhaps more so than they typically would with employees of a similar age or generation.

Lastly it is important for the younger manager to understand the people s/he is managing, and be aware of the motivations and tendencies of the older workforce.

The Older Workforce

With regards to the older workforce challenges for many companies around engagement lie in understanding the demographical changes at play, ensuring that the rise in workforce age is treated with respect and urgency (taking into account older workers’ unique traits), and ensuring that older employees have positive exit experiences.

Given the aforementioned work dynamics and opportunities brought upon by the unprecedented generational diversity demographers are seeing, it is equally important to understand the older workforce as the younger.

Both head count retention and cognitive retention should be evaluated in determining a company’s plan for engaging the Older workforce .

If employees decide to hold off on retiring organizations need to understand what keeps them at the company and use that to engage them – or risk losing millions of dollars a year in cognitive attrition. Companies also need to develop strong exit options for the older workforce, so they leave on good terms.

So what makes the Boomers and Veterans unique?

“You cannot build a reputation on what you are planning to do.”  Henry Ford’s words are resonant in a time where HR leaders are tasked with a myriad of planning activities: strategic action planning, performance plans, development planning, succession plans.  Planning is important, but it is how your plans translate into reality that builds your reputation. 

This is the much recited, ‘past behavior predicts future performance’ mantra that lays the foundation for many leadership programs today.  This is not news to you, I know.  But it is an important starting point to examine what really creates ones reputation.  It turns out that for those who work with diverse peoples, reputation actually boils down to two key ingredients: leadership behaviors and cultural adaptability (i.e. Global Mindset). 

According to renowned industrial and organizational psychologist Dr. Robert Hogan, both are key ingredients for global business success.   Recently, Dr. Hogan spoke at Najafi Global Mindset Institute’s Summit on Developing Leaders for Global Roles (you can view Dr. Hogan’s full speech here: http://youtu.be/la4pzb25IUU).  He emphasized four points:

• Cultural adaptability is essential for global business success—at the individual level.
• Leadership is essential for global business success—at the business unit level.
• Cultural adaptability and leadership are not the same thing.
• Both are a function of one’s reputation.

What this boils down to in our increasingly diverse workplaces is that cultural adaptability is not simply a one-time module to be included in leadership training. It is a fundamental framework that should be integrated into every development discussion across the leadership pipeline.   To see the complete research-based framework for Global Mindset, visit www.globalmindset.com.

Stay tuned for next month’s blog where I’ll give you a preview of my session at the SHRM Annual Conference: “Creating a Global Learning Organization.”

A wide variety of in-depth educational offerings, many beginning on Saturday, June 23, offer 2012 SHRM Annual Conference attendees a chance to jump-start their Atlanta experience.

SHRM Executive Education, Seminar Series and Certification Preparation courses provide some basic HR course work, some advanced studies and some targeted training. Additional program fees are collected for these courses, and many will sell out before the second half of June. Attendees can see what courses are available and can register for them at the Annual Conference website, http://annual.shrm.org.

The PHR/SPHR Certification Preparation course has sold out and seats in other classes are filling up fast, noted Matthew Konetschni, SHRM’s director of educational programs.

The Executive Education offerings are presented in partnership with other organizations, such as “Sustaining a Competitive Advantage through a Culture of Excellence,” which features Scott Milligan, SPHR, business programs consultant at the Disney Institute. Disney is a recognized leader in workforce management and is an employer of choice, in large part because of its philosophies and practices designed to engage and retain employees. This program usually sells out quickly.

Leadership Skills, Strategic Outlook

“The Executive Education programs provide an opportunity to hear directly from high-level, high-performing organizations and instructors providing unique programming,” Konetschni said. The topics are timely and enhance participants’ leadership skills and strategic outlook, he added.

The programs run from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 23, and conclude with Sunday sessions from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. They are being held in the Omni Hotel, where participants can also take care of their registration for the Annual Conference.

The first Executive Education session to sell out for 2012 was “Strategic Leadership: The Next Paradigm for HR,” presented in partnership with Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

A third Executive Education program is titled “Improving Employees’ Financial Fitness,” presented in Partnership with The George Washington University; the instructor is Annamaria Lusardi, Ph.D. The final offering is “Boundary Spanning Leadership: Collaborate, Innovate and Transform Your Organization,” presented in partnership with the Center for Creative Leadership; the instructors are David Magellan Horton and Edward M. Marshall, Ph.D.

The SHRM Seminar Series addresses the professional development needs of the entire HR profession, from the “SHRM Essentials of HR Management” course, aimed at those starting out in the profession, to sessions in strategic, financial and global challenges faced by higher-level HR professionals. All are offered on Saturday, June 23. Some continue on Sunday and on Monday.

“The Seminar Series is a diverse offering of skill- and person-specific training opportunities,” Konetschni said. “They are a great way to package some very specific training with the broad umbrella of offerings that the Annual Conference provides.” In addition to offering learning opportunities, the programs provide “another great opportunity for networking and small-group interactions with instructors and other participants,” he added.

The “HR Generalist” course is designed for the professional with two to four years of experience and for those looking for an overview or refresher course. The “HR Business Partners” program allows participants to develop or enhance their knowledge of how businesses operate and how HR contributes to the bottom line. Another course allows participants to “Drive Results with HR and Workforce Analytics.” “Employee Relations” covers a broad range of issues faced by many HR professionals, regardless of level or experience.

High-level offerings include “Finance for Strategic HR Partners,” “Global Cultural Competence for Business Leaders” and “Strategic Human Resources: Delivering Business Results.”

For Annual Conference attendees who find their preferred educational programs are sold out, there are alternatives. One- and two-part workshops offered on Saturday and Sunday—also with additional fees and advance registration—deal with such topics as managing a virtual workforce, creating a culture of integrity, boosting negotiation skills and mastering project management.

Free Super Sunday sessions also help attendees get a head start on the conference.

Steve Bates is SHRM’s manager of online editorial content. To read the original article, please click here.

Compensation governance in the U.S. is drawing increased scrutiny as legislators, regulators, shareholders and the news media focus on how—and how much—companies pay employees in general and executives in particular. The attention has been heightened by recent headlines and media stories on perceived abuses in executive compensation, with a specific emphasis on financial services firms.

The landscape for compensation governance, design and administration is shifting in response to legislative and regulatory action, including enhanced proxy disclosure requirements, Dodd-Frank proscriptions, the Federal Reserve Bank’s guidance on incentive compensation and non-U.S. regulatory intervention. Companies are evaluating their compensation governance practices, re-examining compensation and business strategy integration, aligning amounts granted with employee value created and adjusting for risk and the cost of capital. Human resource executives and boards of directors are devoting more time to reviewing pay decisions, homing in with an especially penetrating look at company performance and sustainability.

Not all of what companies are doing relates solely to how much or how executives are paid. They’re identifying and correcting the compensation governance process, which can be undermined by inadequate documentation and other examples of looseness. Nor are financial services firms alone in introducing risk management into compensation processes; it’s a practice that has reverberated throughout numerous organizations as businesses look to reduce the chance of surprises and threats to reputational risk.

HR professionals can aid in these efforts by reviewing and, if necessary, changing internal process considerations to keep the organization on solid, sustainable ground.

Increased Complexity

The current corporate governance environment, infused with the influence of stakeholders such as investors and regulators, features new expectations for the HR function. Companies that once focused primarily on the market competitiveness of their compensation programs now find they need to consider multiple factors in evaluating those programs. While market competitiveness is still important, it’s no longer the endgame but one of many data points that influence program decisions. The focus has shifted to include these compensation program analyses:

• The appropriateness, rationale and continued viability of the compensation philosophy/policy.
• Well-defined modeling of the linkage between compensation levels and performance, not only at the executive level but also throughout the organization, to increase the likelihood that shareholders are getting the right bang for the buck.
• The use of equity grants on annual and aggregate levels to align the use of shareholder resources with return to shareholders.
• Whether compensation programs encourage employees to take unnecessary and excessive risks.
• How compensation payouts are adjusted for risk and the cost of capital.
• How wealth accumulation, retirement and other benefits integrate with direct compensation philosophy.
• Whether compensation programs support leadership development and management succession plans.
• Appropriateness of employment agreements, including severance and change-in-control arrangements.
• The story that compensation programs tell about how the company is being managed as reported in the Compensation Discussion & Analysis (CD&A) section of the proxy statement.

These new compensation program imperatives have been layered on top of already complex and demanding compensation-related requirements. Changes in accounting and tax provisions—such as the Financial Accounting Standards Board's ASC Topic 718 stock-based compensation rules and the Section 409A deferred compensation regulations—have heightened the challenge of understanding all aspects of compensation. These rules have increased the complexity of executive and broad-based employee compensation plans, with an increasing number of companies using a greater number of equity vehicles and more complex performance-based plans.

Pressure from Stakeholders

The new corporate governance environment and legislative imperatives have ratcheted up complexity and transparency to a new level, placing much greater demands on the HR function and the board’s compensation committee. In addition, companies face continued changes in proxy disclosure rules, which provide investors and other stakeholders with a far more detailed understanding of the committee’s decision-making processes.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken a perspective consistent with other regulators that the greater the compensation program disclosure, especially related to risk taking, the better for companies and stakeholders. Recent proxy disclosure enhancements require companies to explain as much about the how and why of executive compensation decisions as the CD&A numbers. Disclosures provide shareholder advisory groups with the information that grants them a public forum through which they can hold companies and their boards to higher standards—or face "no" votes on their re-election.

The SEC requires that companies disclose whether their compensation programs are “reasonably likely to have a material adverse risk” to the company. While companies that conclude that their programs don’t meet SEC standards aren’t required to issue additional disclosures, many CD&A disclosures feature a section that describes the process used to measure the risk arising from compensation programs, the company’s findings and remediation efforts. As a result, companies are engaging in robust analyses of how their incentive and other compensation programs interrelate with business risk and the extent to which the programs might encourage employees to take unnecessary or excessive risks.

Legislators are getting into the picture. The Dodd-Frank Act imposes additional compensation-related governance and disclosure responsibilities, including:

• Holding a nonbinding, advisory vote on executive compensation programs ("say on pay") and discussing the impact of that vote on executive compensation programs in subsequent proxies.
• Disclosing "golden parachute" executive compensation protections in the context of a change in control and a shareholder advisory vote on those payments before the transaction can be completed.
• Confirming that board compensation committee members are independent.
• Developing and implementing clawback policies for cash and equity incentive plans.
• Determining and disclosing the ratio of CEO total compensation to the median total compensation of all employees.
• Describing the pay-for-performance relationship in executive compensation programs.
• Following special rules relating to how much incentive compensation can be paid in cash vs. equity for certain financial services institutions.

The SEC is not the only organization focusing on risk. The Federal Reserve Board, along with other federal banking regulators, is focusing on the compensation-risk relationship with new incentive compensation guidelines that banking organizations must follow. These include:

• Balancing risk and financial results so incentive programs don’t encourage employees to expose the organization to imprudent risks for personal gain.
• Developing effective risk management and internal controls processes that oversee and support the balance between risk and financial results.
• Implementing corporate governance processes (up to the board level) that are strong and effective enough to enable sound incentive compensation practices.

The Federal Reserve Board participated in a multi-agency effort to develop sound financial and compensation practices in broad-based financial services organizations as mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act. This has resulted in proposed rulemaking that would prohibit companies from providing excessive compensation and from implementing incentive compensation plans that reward inappropriate risks. Proposed rulemaking related to the "Volcker Rule" of the Dodd-Frank Act would prohibit financial institutions from implementing incentive plans that reward underwriters, market-makers and hedgers for proprietary trading based on the appreciation in value of the underlying securities.

These financial services-specific regulations appear to be making their way slowly out of financial services and into general industry through the corollary actions of investors and non-executive directors. The SEC’s proxy disclosure rules for compensation risk assessments and say on pay are among the first indications that these requirements will soon apply to all companies.

Managing Risk and Transparency

Given the scrutiny by stakeholders on enhanced compensation program reporting and the examination of compensation risk, companies are focusing on compensation risk management in ways they had never contemplated. Well-managed companies rely on robust compensation risk assessment processes that include:

• Identifying enterprise business risks on product/service, business unit and corporate levels and developing relative risk ratings.
• Determining the relative ability of each employee and aggregated groups of employees to influence business risk and identifying employees/groups that can materially influence risk (known as "covered persons" in banking organizations under the Federal Reserve’s guidelines).
• Assessing governance, controls and other mitigating factors (outside of incentive programs) that limit the influence that individuals or groups can have on risk.
• Correlating the relative business risk and employee risk influencers to determine which employees’ incentive and other compensation plans should be reviewed.
• Inventorying incentive and other compensation programs throughout the organization.
• Reviewing and modeling payouts under the compensation programs to determine the level of risk they encourage covered persons to take and whether they encourage employees to take unnecessary and excessive risks, especially under unanticipated but possible "Black Swan" events.

Some companies are learning through this process that their compensation programs might be fueling unintended results. In a few cases, these programs might be jeopardizing long-term organizational viability. In other cases, companies are finding that their compensation programs are working at cross-purposes with each other—or with the company’s business strategy—because of behaviours created by performance metrics and operation of their programs. At the very least, companies are uncovering areas where their incentive programs can be governed better and aligned more effectively with business performance.

Aligning Programs with Risk

Even with increased activity and oversight by management and boards, there are still areas where companies can improve processes to address areas of risk and business vulnerability, for instance by conducting a robust pay-for-performance analysis that reviews the overall pay-for-performance relationship in each element of the compensation program as well as in the aggregate.

When performing this analysis:

• Acceptable performance for incentive payouts should consider fully forward-looking business risks and shareholder expectations rather than just backing into payments that are market competitive.
• The levels of pay should be balanced against the risks to the organization that are being taken to deliver the performance.

These organizational risks should include not just the possibility of not achieving performance goals, but also the reputational, liquidity and business risk to the company of employees’ actions. In other words, payouts should be lower not only where the risk of not achieving performance is lower, but also where the risk to the organization is higher, in order to reduce the motivation to bet the company to derive outsized rewards.

In addition, to align compensation with risk better companies should:

• Include the cost of capital in determining appropriate goals. Similar performance levels should not result in similar payouts if there are differences in the amount of capital needed to drive that performance.
• Analyze fully the pro forma data rolled up from business unit levels. This can help to ensure that distortions in financials across business units don’t result in outsized awards relative to overall corporate results.
• Understand fully and vet competitive market analyses. For example, the compensation programs of your industry peers ("peer comparators") might be based on premises that differ from those at your organization, leading to a different mix of executive rewards. They might, for example, have a philosophy that provides for job security through non-pay-for-performance elements such as high-value defined benefit pension plans, supplemental executive retirement plans and service-based equity and other awards.
• Develop a robust decision-making process to counter pressure to sidestep shareholder perspectives by providing incentives such as special awards in the event of poor financial performance. Special awards in these circumstances (and setting easier-to-achieve goals for the following year) are especially troublesome to shareholders when the company’s performance is lagging its peers.
• Test the linkage between incentive plan payouts and performance over the time horizon of the risks being created as well as over multi-year performance periods.
• Stress-test incentive plans under various scenarios, ranging from poor to superb performance. Be prepared for "Black Swan" events such as macroeconomic developments that could hurt company sustainability and result in reward payouts for performance that’s outside of management’s control.
• Include rigorous mitigating controls so that the company can be assured that it’s paying for performance properly and that the system is free of fraud. To the extent possible, risk and control functions should be represented in the development and testing of incentive compensation arrangements.

In addition, new and revised compensation programs should undergo a structured risk assessment before they are implemented. This review should include the groups that have responsibility for compensation, including the HR, risk, finance and legal functions. Assistance from an objective third party—one that can act as project manager and traffic cop among the internal constituencies—will help advance the review.

Summary

Although many companies are improving their understanding of how compensation programs affect business risks, changes to the compensation and business risk environment require continued diligence and improvement. Compensation processes should be reviewed regularly so that their role in exacerbating or mitigating business risk is understood fully. Rigorous reviews and modeling of the effectiveness of the programs and the risk mitigation processes should be part of this process. Through constant attention to these areas, companies can improve the likelihood that their compensation programs will promote the desired business results without encouraging employees to engage in activities that can compromise the viability of the business.

Steven Slutsky is a director and executive compensation consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Scott Olsen is leader, U.S. Human Resource Services, at the firm.  To read the original article, please click here.

Jobvite, an innovative and handy tool for recruiters, taps social networks to distribute and target job openings, while tracking the real-time value of job placement ads. In order to promote open positions, make referrals and find qualified candidates, this app leverages social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn, to send users job invitations, or “Jobvites”.  Recruiters and HR staff can track not only the jobs themselves, but the sources of referrals.

The site is mobile and computer accessible, as long as a Jobvite subscription has been purchased. The software uses an algorithm to determine those potential candidates that best meet the job qualifications. Recipients of the “Jobvites” can also pass along the message to others who they think might meet the qualifications, expanding the pool of candidates.

Here’s how it works: a participating employee opts into to the Jobvite service by logging into Facebook or Linkedin via the Jobvite site. Jobvite then analyzes their Facebook friends and 1^st-degree LinkedIn contacts, analyzing the skills they list, their job titles and companies and other relevant information. The software matches this to the specific job description, which is then reported to the employee, who may choose whether or not to move forward by messaging the candidate via the said social media site. The recipient can then opt-in to forward the message to their contacts based on the matching feature.

“In a world in which the job seeker is changing,” says Dan Finnigan, CEO of Jobvite, “It’s obvious the backend side of e-recruitment is going to change.” 

Programs designed to develop high-potential employees are more likely to succeed if there’s clear agreement on the criteria needed to drive organizational success, developmental options and program outcomes, according to study results by AMA Enterprise, the American Management Association’s research arm.

Senior executives, managers, directors, and HR and training and development functions need to be on the same page when it comes to participants’ selection criteria or there’s a risk that senior leaders will tap only those rising stars that mirror themselves.

“The selection criteria are essential,” said Tom Armour, co-founder of Toronto-based HR consulting firm High Return Selection. “Those future leaders will either reinforce and build upon the company's culture and success or, if improperly selected, [they] will create subcultures, usually to the detriment of the company.”

But the selection criteria for such programs vary considerably, according to the findings of AMA Enterprise’s study Identifying and Developing High-Potential Talent. The April/May 2011 online survey of 562 senior-level AMA business, HR and management professional members found that 32 percent of respondents require “minimum tenure” to qualify, while the others do not.

The survey found that many employers see two to three years’ tenure as reflecting some loyalty or commitment as well as providing the candidate with sufficient knowledge of company values and goals. But several experts cautioned that tenure is not always the best selection criterion.

Tenure is very different than performance, skills and potential and shouldn’t be a key factor except “for seeing a high-potential candidate in your environment long enough to be sure” that they are high-potential, said Patti Johnson, CEO and founder of Dallas-based organizational development consulting firm PeopleResults. “Key considerations for entry into a high-potential program typically include performance, contribution, capability relative to the organization’s current and future needs, and potential for growth and advancement.”

Deciding Who Makes the Cut

A well-defined selection process should include regular senior management talent reviews, assessments and performance reviews, as well as problem-solving task forces aligned with strategic growth initiatives to monitor the high-potential pipeline, according to the report.

The majority of respondents said high-potentials are identified based on performance appraisals (74 percent) and senior management recommendations (68.5 percent). However, only 41.6 percent said they weigh innovative and/or unique contributions to the business; slightly more than one-third said their companies use either or both talent assessments (35.1 percent) and peer input (34.7 percent). Only 17.5 percent reported educational background as a metric.

Senior executives play the biggest role (55 percent) in identifying high-potentials, followed by managers (52 percent), directors (44 percent) and supervisors (33 percent), the study shows. In addition, 33 percent of respondents reported that HR is responsible for identifying high-potentials, while 13 percent reported that high-potentials self-identify. Eleven percent reported that the training and development staff is responsible for identifying high-potential employees; another 11 percent reported that they don’t know who is responsible.

When it comes to who is invited to apply for high-potential leadership development programs, 41 percent reported that not all employees are invited; participation is limited by specific criteria. Meanwhile, 24 percent said that while no announcement is made, interested employees can learn about programs informally and can ask to participate. Only 14 percent of respondents said all employees are invited and that periodic program announcements are made, while 21 percent said they don’t know whether all employees are invited to apply.

"Informal high-potential programs that exist at many companies can be a double-edged sword that undermines their very purpose,” noted the study report. “They don’t enhance a company’s ability to retain its high-potentials, and they threaten to alienate those employees who feel they should be considered.”

“There has to be support at the top and the selection criteria have to be fair,” explained Libby Anderson, SPHR, president of Human Resources Now, located in Naples, Fla. “Vague selection criteria are a morale killer.”

Johnson, a former senior HR executive at Accenture and instructor at Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business Executive Education program in Dallas, agreed, noting that strong programs need “top-down sponsorship” from the CEO or business leadership when setting up selection criteria to ensure that they meet the business objectives. Programs typically are run by HR or a talent leader; there should be clear agreement on strategy and metrics.

Such metrics might include:

• Retention of high-potential employees compared with overall retention.
• Promotion rate of high-potentials.
• Readiness of participants compared with identified succession plan needs. 

For example, if the objective is to increase the rate of global leaders to keep pace with growth, “then we know it must be global, built to accelerate and fast-track future leaders, and tied to performance and potential. To make it really work, it has to be tied to other workforce planning efforts and processes.”

Developing Program, Selection Criteria

For organizations setting up such a program, Anderson recommended gathering a mix of potential contributors—the head of a business unit, HR, business development and possibly a shareholder, customer or client. Consider holding focus groups with top performers from each department to help come up with selection criteria.

“They should be concrete factors, [not] vague, general terms that are up for a huge amount of subjective thinking—like just saying ‘an attention to customer service,’ ” Anderson said. “What I want to see is something definitive like, ‘has a proven track record of exceeding expectations in all areas of supervisory requirements. ’”

To continue to support organizational culture, for example, selection criteria and the person being considered should reflect an organization’s values, mission and vision.

Among the program components that companies use to develop high-potential employees, the report noted the following:

• Mentoring (51.6 percent).
• Personal assessments (50.6 percent).
• Individual development planning (47 percent).
• Leadership programs (46.8 percent).
• Coaching (44.6 percent).
• Exposure to senior executives (44 percent).
• Stretch assignments (43.2 percent).
• Special workshops and training (39.2 percent).

In addition, respondents cited soft-skills training (31.2 percent), technical training (27.6 percent) and functional training (24.6 percent) as popular options.

The biggest mistake made with high-potential programs is making them too complicated, too political and not user-friendly, Anderson said.

“Don’t make [the selection process] so cumbersome that the people required to make it happen end up having to do an enormous amount of work,” said Anderson, a past member of the Society for Human Resource Management’s former Organizational Development Special Expertise panel. “Start small and build on your own success so you don’t unleash this wonderful program that is a total failure.”

Pamela Babcock is a freelance writer based in the New York City area.   To read the original article, please click here.
 

When I retired, I thought I was through with business. And I was, until the social network came along and enticed me to blog.

Like most bloggers, I write about what I know -- strategy, leadership and branding. My motive is nothing more than to share my experience with today’s business community, in the hope they might put an old warrior’s advice to good use.

To improve relevancy, I’ve had to familiarize myself with the new economy and products and services that didn't exist when I was CEO of coffee/confectioner, Jacobs Suchard. As a side benefit of this crash course in catch-up, I have learned more than I ever imagined. And although I'm no longer engaged in commercial business, I am once again “thinking business” and enjoying the rush of discovering the ideas and innovations of today’s entrepreneurs.

Nothing has been as illuminating as studying the ways and means of Apple. More recently, I delved into the business of “cult” energy drink brands, Red Bull and Monster.  I strongly advise anyone in consumer products or services to examine Red Bull’s strategies and culture. Do that and you can’t help but think differently about your own brand or business. The folks at Red Bull are the ultimate entrepreneurs. Although you may be caught in the bureaucracy of an old-economy organization, you cannot escape the fact that great ideas create change.

Your idea can change a company. That idea can also change you.  Believe me, there's nothing like a business breakthrough to set the right foundation for the rest of your career. Take the time to look at other industries. You’ll be surprised what you can learn and how that information can affect your own business or industry. A trade show is a great place to start.

After 15 months of blogging, here’s the most important things I’ve taught:

1. Complexity in a company is a cancer. Keep it simple. Focus.
2. Strategy has never been more important. With the pace of business and with so many options at a leader’s disposal, clarity of purpose is critical to differentiating you from the rest of the pack. Leverage it to get ahead. Remain focused on it to stay ahead.
3. Creativity is the last great bargain in business. Institutionalize it within your modus operandi and mindset. This is difficult for big-company people because they are part of a “spend your way out of it” culture. Creativity is the key to a small company’s success. With the emergence of social media, the leverage of creativity is immeasurable.
4. Appreciate that culture is the strategy. Look at Apple. No question Apple would not be what it is today without Steve Jobs' vision and tenacity. But don't overlook the fact that Apple's culture is innovative, competitive, focused, passionate and collaborative.

Look to a future beyond the fiscal year. Develop strategies that define the future based on the actions you will take to achieve that vision.

And after 43 years in business, here are the five most important things I learned:

1. Life is a journey, not a destination. I didn’t get this until I left the corner office and began to discover interests beyond business. Don’t wait that long.
2. You can successfully balance work life and home life. Hug your kids. They grow up faster than you can imagine. Sure, there are times where you’ll have to put in the long hours. But you can work smarter. That means more hours for your family and your out-of-work passions. Trust me; the business won't suffer.
3. Business is more exciting than ever. Okay, so there are roadblocks – government meddling, environmental challenges, cheap foreign production. But look at the opportunities – online marketing, social media, niche products and services, specialization, the list goes on.
4. “Greed is good” is becoming “greed for good.” Entrepreneurs invest in opportunity. Saving the planet is good business. In the renewable energy market, global investment has increased from $33 billion in 2004, to $211 billion just seven years later.
5. The most important thing in business and life is to love what you do. This means following your passion. Mine was marketing. Now that I’m out of the business, my passion is writing. And one day I’ll find a publisher not afraid to take a chance on a grey-haired, rookie novelist.
    

The percentage of America’s young workers who say that a retirement program is an important factor in joining or staying with an employer jumped sharply in the past two years, according to a survey by consultancy Towers Watson. This was especially true when the employer offered a defined benefit pension plan.

The firm's Retirement Attitudes Survey, conducted in June and July 2011, includes responses from 9,218 full-time U.S. employees at nongovernment organizations with 1,000 or more employees. The survey found that:

• Among workers younger than age 40 whose employer offers a defined benefit (DB) pension plan, the percentage who agreed the retirement benefits were an important factor in accepting their job more than doubled—from 28 percent in 2009 to 63 percent in 2011.
• For workers younger than age 40 at organizations that offer only a 401(k)-type defined contribution (DC) plan, the percentage who agreed the retirement program was an important factor in accepting their job grew more modestly, from 19 percent in 2009 to 28 percent in 2011.
• Nearly three-fourths (72 percent) of young employees whose employer offers a DB plan cited the retirement plan as a strong incentive to stay with their employer—nearly double the percentage (37 percent) in 2009 and twice the retention value reported by young workers whose employers offer only a DC plan.
• More than three-fourths (77 percent) of new hires at companies with a DB plan said the retirement plan gave them an important reason to stay on the job, and 85 percent hoped to work for their employer until retirement.

“In good and bad economic times, building and keeping a talented workforce can often mean the difference between success and failure. Employers with open DB plans appear to have a leg up on their competitors in keeping employees,” said Laurie Bienstock, North America practice leader for rewards at Towers Watson. “Understanding worker preferences toward their reward programs is critical for employers that are looking to attract and retain the critical skill employees needed to drive business success.”

I admire the passion of Cesar Millan, star of National Geographic Channel’s Dog Whisperer. Cesar works with man’s best friend to help create a much more positive and enjoyable home life.  I have noticed a common thread throughout the Dog Whisperer’s work: bad behavior in dogs is not necessarily the fault of the dog, but the OWNER!

Wow! This juggernaut of wisdom has application to the cubicle jungles all across America.  During my years as a people practices consultant and human resource practitioner, I have found that adverse behavior, or negative energy, in the workplace is not necessarily the fault of employees but a natural reflection of OWNER or LEADER behavior.

To be the pack leader that every dog wants, Millan espouses calm-assertive leadership.  He states that leadership is all about doing what’s good for the pack and that harmony can only be created when someone is in control.

In no way am I comparing employees to dogs, but the comparison to leadership principles rings loud and clear.

In his book, “Be the Pack Leader,” he states that calm-assertive leaders exude calm-assertive energy. “Animals don’t follow unstable leaders,” says Millan. “Only humans have leaders who lie and get away with it,” states the mild-mannered Dog Whisperer.  Not too many leaders fit the calm-assertive category in my past.  In fact, I can only recall one.

You may ask, what is so great about calm-assertive leadership? A research study cited in “Be the Pack Leader” shows that “nurses in cardiac care units who were grumpy and depressed had four times higher death rates among their patients than those units where nurses’ moods were more balanced.”  Attitudes and behaviors are contagious, both positive and negative.

Those of us who are leaders have a great deal to learn from man’s best friend.

In case you missed it, here’s what happened on We Know Next this week.

A study by the National Allicance for Caregiving, conducted for the coalition, Respect a Caregivers Time (ReACT), highlights successful elder care programs at 17 U.S. employers. The study, titled Best Practices in Workplace Eldercare, was released March 29, 2012, at the “Aging in America” conference in Washington, D.C., where Holzapfel was among the speakers.

Oregon has enacted a new law that prohibits overt unemployment discrimination in job advertisements, becoming only the second state—after New Jersey—to prohibit this practice. The new ban, signed into law by Gov. John Kitzhaber on March 27, 2012, is limited in scope. It prohibits employers from publishing job advertisements that include language indicating that unemployed individuals should not apply for the job or that they will not be considered for the position. But as long as unemployment remains high, state legislatures are likely to continue to revisit this issue.

A joint survey released April 9, 2012, by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and AARP shows that U.S. employers are ramping up training programs aimed at closing expected skills gaps left when Baby Boomers retire. In addition, companies are enhancing employee benefits that they hope will help with recruiting and retaining older workers, defined by the survey as workers 50 years old and older. But fast action is needed.

Less than a third of HR professionals believe that employees are satisfied with the level of recognition they receive for doing a good job, according to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)/Globoforce Employee Recognition Programs Survey released April 12, 2012. In addition, the SHRM/Globoforce survey found that organizations with an employee recognition program are more likely to indicate that employees are rewarded for performance, appreciated by managers and satisfied with the recognition they receive than those without such programs.

The overall median salary in the U.S. for Class of 2012 college graduates is up 4.5 percent over the median posted by the Class of 2011, according to a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). NACE’s April 2012 Salary Survey report shows the overall median starting salary for a bachelor’s degree graduate has risen to $42,569 for the Class of 2012, up from the final median salary of $40,735 for the Class of 2011. Data contained in the report represent accepted starting salaries (not salary offers), produced through a compilation of data derived from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census Bureau and a master set of data developed by the research firm Job Search Intelligence.

We Know Next is the leading resource for business executives, policymakers and human resource leaders to explore and discuss the latest workforce and workplace trends—providing the in-depth research and insights needed to adapt and take advantage of what’s next.

Video game giant IGN Entertainment has issued its second “Code-Foo Challenge”—a no-resumes-allowed recruitment program aimed at finding coding talent, regardless of educational background and experience.

The six-week program gives aspiring coders the chance to get paid to learn coding languages and work on real engineering projects. “Blow our minds while you're here and we'll hire you. No kidding,” stated the IGN website.

Instead of submitting a resume, candidates are asked to submit a statement of passion for IGN and answer four questions that test their coding ability.

IGN, headquartered in the San Francisco Bay area, decided to take this nontraditional approach to recruiting because “we wanted people with the passion to become developers,” said Greg Silva, vice president of IGN’s human resources. “We were looking for people passionate about gaming. We weren’t looking for any resume.”

In 2011, 75,000 people viewed the application page, 104 people completed it and 30 participants were accepted into the program. Those participants, ranging in ages from 20 to 30, came from all over the United States, including many places with limited employment opportunities for technical talent. Only half the group had college degrees, according to Silva.

Out of that group of 30, IGN hired eight. “We benefited significantly on our return on investment,” Silva said, because all participants, including the eventual new hires, worked on useful projects.

The participants were especially well-connected to IGN’s gaming audience because they are members of that audience, he said.  “One of the ways we did outreach was on our website, to our users.”

Adam Passey was one of 2011’s applicants who found information about the contest on IGN’s website.

“I always wanted to get into gaming,” Passey said. “I saw this as a conduit into the gaming industry. It was a huge chance where I could show my fire for gaming.

“What I love about this program is that it gives people a shot [even] if they don’t have a resume but have skill and passion,” said Passey, who said he had an “okay” resume but one that “wasn’t going to get a second look. … I had work experience. I had led a small team but not at a big-name company.”

Passey not only is an IGN employee but also runs the 2012 Code-Foo program and will serve as mentor to the new group of participants.

Game Challenge Changes

In 2011, the company did not require applicants to create videos, but some did so to illustrate their devotion to gaming, Silva said. “They were taking the process to the next level. They had that drive. That’s what defines us: We’re not looking for people who just complete the work assigned. We want people to take it to the next level.”

This year [2012], he adds, “we are asking for video clips. We’ll see how that goes.”

Another difference in 2012, according to Silva, is that there will be more focus on mentoring and on “pair programming—two people pairing up to bounce ideas off each other.”

Silva doesn’t expect the coders who arrived at IGN Entertainment without formal training to face career obstacles in the long run.

“Not at all. … Look at Adam [Passey], for example. He’s deeply involved. People are fighting over Adam,” Silva said. Passey’s lack of a college degree “is not going to hold him back; he’s going to continue his career growth.”

IGN Entertainment has a tuition reimbursement program and offers employees an opportunity for career growth, according to Silva, because the company understands that such opportunity is an important retention tool.

“People ask: ‘Am I growing, am I learning, am I getting development?’ The development [Code Foo participants] are getting, not only during the six weeks [of the program], but beyond that, definitely is a hook.”           

And so far, “Everybody is still here who came from the program” in 2011.

The application deadline for Code-Foo 2012 is April 30, 2012, with IGN notifying applicants by May 18, 2012, if they've made the cut.

Stephenie Overman is a freelance writer based in Arlington, Va.  To read the original article, please click here.

Employee engagement and participation in learning and development programs has always been a challenge. With the rapid development and deployment of new tools and technology in the workplace, though, there's more to be learned and mastered than ever. Leaders are now looking for methods to tackle this issue head-on, and driving demand for changes in learning managemen. Enter gamification.

The use of game mechanics in non-game environments to improve user experience and participation is rapidly gaining interest as a solution for improving learning management. We're told it can fundamentally change an organization’s learning and development processes, but many still aren't sure how -- and have questions around what gamification really is.

The Truth About Gamification

Let me be clear: Gamification is not about turning work into a game, or making work fun. As Andrzej Marczewski of Capgemini explains, employees won’t be sitting at their desks, “with Call of Duty-like games on their screens, shooting at reports and running around 3D spreadsheets.” At its core, gamification is a tool for motivating your people to show up and perform to the best of their ability.

Gamifying a process takes basic elements of gaming (e.g. levelling-up, progress bars), brings them to a non-game environment (like an elearning module) to enhance user experience and motivate employees to take a more active role in the work. But it takes more than badges to effectivey gamify a process.

“Gamification isn’t about turning the office into a circus,” says Molly Kittle, VP of Digital Strategy at Bunchball. “You’re taking things that are fundamental to motivation, which have been proven to work, and applying them in a very non-game way.”

Why Gamification Thrives in Learning Management

Though application of this strategy is still in its infancy, there is undoubtedly an opportunity for gamification to make a stagnant learning management program more dynamic.

Learning and development for many organizations is dry at best. And, as Kittle points out, “Leaders are intrigued by gamification because it allows you to tie learning to things that aren’t stale,” like business objectives and performance goals.

Newsflash: The workforce is getting younger and more demanding. Employees have come to expect a deeper level of interaction in the workplace. It’s important to understand what gets your employees going, and that’s the greatest opportunity gamification has to improve learning management.

Motivators innate to gaming -- levelling up, achievements, and real-time feedback -- all act to consistently reinforce a clear path forward. In learning management, gamifying provides indicators of mastery and connects mastery with application, which makes learning a more interactive and dynamic experience.

Studies Show Wider Adoption in Days

Until recently, we’ve lacked good examples of game mechanics being used in the workplace to encourage employee motivation, completion, adoption. But according to a Gartner study conducted last spring, “more than 50 percent of organizations that manage innovation processes will gamify those processes” by 2015.

Games are nothing new. I’d guess that anyone who attended elementary school in the last 50 years has experienced gamified learning. Games have successfully encouraged knowledge retention and application for years, but is that value limited to young minds? I’d argue not.

A maintenance mechanic in Illinois received twenty-eight disciplinary-action forms from his supervisor. Ultimately, he was offered two choices: (1) accept a demotion to a non-mechanic position and take a significant pay cut; or (2) keep the position, fight the discipline, but face potential termination.

On the advice of his union representative, the mechanic took the demotion. He later sued for retaliation, claiming that the demotion, which he voluntarily accepted, was a direct response to a charge of discrimination he previously filed with the EEOC.

Is this retaliation? A federal circuit court gave us the answer.

The case is Hicks v. Forest Preserve District of Cook County, Illinois. At trial, a jury determined that the company had, in fact, retaliated against the plaintiff and awarded him $30,000. The company subsequently appealed, arguing that no rational jury could have found for the plaintiff because he did not present sufficient evidence of retaliation.

To prevail on a retaliation claim, a plaintiff must demonstrate three elements:

1. He opposed an unlawful employment practice;
2. That he suffered an adverse employment action; and
3. That the adverse employment action was caused by his opposition to the unlawful employment practice.

The company argued on appeal that the mechanic did not present evidence that he had suffered an adverse employment action. Indeed, he voluntarily accepted a demotion on the advice of his union representative.
 
Yeah, not so much, said the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals:

A demotion to a different position that pays significantly less than the former position is certainly materially adverse...a demotion taken voluntarily is not an adverse employment action...[But], Hicks testified that he had no choice but to accept the demotion because he [reasonably] believed that he would be fired if he did not...Such a choice could be said to be no choice at all, and the jury agreed. Thus, Hicks presented sufficient evidence at trial for a reasonable jury to find that his demotion was involuntary.
 
The lesson for employers is that giving an employee a Hobson's Choice is indeed a great way to promote employee litigation. And for the love of Pete!  Twenty-eight disciplinary notices?!? Remember folks: hire slow, fire fast.

Despite improvements in the U.S. economy, the hangover effect from the 2008-09 recession and slow economic growth continue to erode employees’ retirement confidence and overall financial wellness, according to the PricewaterhouseCoopers 2012 Financial Wellness Survey.

Employees’ financial stress remains high: Overall, 61 percent of employees find dealing with their financial situation stressful, and more than half (56 percent) reported that their stress level related to financial issues had increased over the past 12 months.

The annual survey tracks the financial and retirement well-being of working American adults nationwide, incorporating the views of 1,700 full-time and self-employed adults.

“Employees are still very much burdened by day-to-day financial concerns,” said Kent Allison, partner and national practice leader in PwC’s financial education practice. The resulting levels of stress affect employees’ health and productivity and become an obstacle when it comes to longer-term retirement planning.

Delayed Retirements

While there was a slight uptick in the proportion of employees saving for retirement—67 percent in 2012 vs. 65 percent in 2011—savings remained weak, with 40 percent of respondents reporting that they were saving less for retirement than during the previous year.

As savings dwindle, so does retirement confidence: In 2012, more than half (53 percent) of employees younger than age 65 planned to retire later than they previously intended (up from 46 percent in 2011).

Of those employees who expect to delay retirement, the top reasons they gave were:

• Haven’t saved enough (60 percent).
• Retirement investments declined in value (34 percent).
• Too much debt (26 percent).
• Too many other expenses (25 percent).
• An increase in expenses (23 percent).
• Need to keep health care coverage (21 percent).
• A decrease in income compared to the previous year (19 percent).
• Supporting children/grandchildren (14 percent).
• Don’t want to retire/prefer to continue working (13 percent).

“Competing financial issues are pressuring employees to deprioritize retirement funding by saving less or, in some cases, not saving at all,” said Allison.

“Employees are being forced to extinguish more immediate fires—such as making a monthly credit card payment or paying a child’s college tuition—over retirement saving, which from a long-term perspective is highly risky behavior that can leave employees severely underfunded for retirement as they deal with increased longevity and rising health care costs down the road.”

Decreased Productivity

The high stress levels found among employees are encroaching into the workplace: One-third of respondents admitted that personal financial issues have been a distraction at work. Among these employees, 97 percent spent time at work thinking about or dealing with issues related to their finances.

Personal finances being a distraction at work was again highest among respondents ages 35 to 44. However, the income level of those most distracted has shifted from those earning more than $100,000 annually in 2011 to those earning $30,000-$49,000 in 2012.

In 2012, 40 percent of those earning $30,000-$49,000 reported that personal financial issues had been a distraction at work, up from 28 percent in 2011.

To read the original article, please click here.

Note: This series is based on the paper My Generation.

The Multi-generational Workplace

Before generational differences can be adequately addressed it is important to have a high-level understanding of the four generations that share our workplace; Generation Y, Generation X, Boomers and Veterans.

“Armed with an improved knowledge of the motivators and disincentives that drive its employees, an organization is more likely to develop the recruitment and retention strategies that others only dream about.” The same can be said about engagement strategies.

Generation Y, Generation X, Boomers and Veterans

As the 2012 National Study of Employers (NSE) suggests, workplace flexibility is replacing the one-size-fits-all, 9-to-5 way of working in a growing number of organizations.  What’s motivating companies to consider new ways of making work “work?” And what impact does giving employees more choice over how, when and where work gets done have on workplaces and the bottom-line?

Please join us for #NextChat on May 2 at 6 p.m. ET with special guests Ellen Galinsky (@EllenGalinsky), president, Families and Work Institute, and Lisa Horn (@SHRMLobbystLisa), co-leader of SHRM’s Workplace Flexibility Initiative.  We'll explore the key findings from the 2012 NSE and best practices in creating effective and flexible workplaces and ask for your thoughts on the following questions:

1.  How do you define workplace flexibility or what you call workflex?
2.  What are the benefits of workflex to the employee/employer?
3.  What new trends do you see emerging in workflex?
4.  In what innovative ways is your organization implementing workflex?
5.  What are the reasons some organizations are hesitant to implement workflex programs?
6.  Where is your favorite place to work outside the office?

We look forward to your contributions to this conversation!
 
 

What have you done for me lately? It's a vital question for both manager and employee.

The answer is readily apparent with increasing ease and frequency. As information flow and transparency become ubiquitous in the workplace, managers have everything necessary to provide real-time feedback. 

We can be nimble and, in turn, help our teams and companies do the same. The days of the regimented quarterly and annual performance reviews are over.

We interact with our teams multiple times a day, dozens of e-mails, information shared on intranets, wikis, social media, project tracking software, etc. Very few of us suffer from too little data.

We know intuitively, in real time, what's working and what isn't. If you don’t, then you aren’t a manager.  You’re a time clock.

I was with a gathering of CHROs and senior HR execs last week and someone said, “I can tell you right now how my team will end up at the end of the year -- who will be at the front of the line, right down to who will be at the end.”

My response was, “Why don’t you do something about it when you get back to the office next week?” Then came the sheepish look and response: “There is the issue, what will compel me to take on the challenge next week, above all other priorities?” I said, “Because everyone else can probably already rank the list too, that should compel you to make it a priority.”

Managers used to be able to sit comfortably behind the fact that metrics rolled up the organization, and they could afford to address performance over larger chunks of time. While people had a sense of who was doing well and who wasn't, the actual results weren’t always readily apparent. There used to be time, but no longer.

The impact of managerial machinations around performance is accelerated and amplified.  All managers inherently know the consequences of not recognizing and acting on top and bottom performance. Top performers will disengage more quickly, leave or turn cynical. The rest of the team will slip into a safety zone of mediocrity.

In the age of transparency, performance management occurs in real time -- whether we want it to or not.
 

This survey commissioned by and conducted in collaboration with Globoforce examines employee recognition programs and their return on investment (ROI). Findings revealed that nearly two-thirds of respondents (63%) agree that employee engagement is a “very important” challenge that their organization is currently facing. Organizations that have employee recognition programs in place were more likely to indicate that employees are rewarded according to their job performance (64%) and that managers effectively acknowledge and appreciate employees (55%).

Whether your virtual teams are in the formation stage or have been operating for a few months – it is critical to ensure that they are set up for success and get off to a good start.  Organizations that proactively plan how to structure their virtual teams to set them up for success will see a better return on their investment than those that do not.
 
Here are some other guidelines to follow to ensure your organization will maximize its investment in remote work:
 
Keep Your Virtual Teams At a Manageable Size
 
OnPoint’s research found that high performing virtual teams were smaller and more cohesive than low performing ones. For a team to make decisions effectively and operate efficiently, its ideal size should be five to ten people. When forming a new virtual team, consider who really needs to be included and make sure each member has a clear role. As more and more people get involved, virtual teams may be more susceptible to common pitfalls such as a lack of clear roles or clear goals.  If you have a larger virtual teams, consider breaking it into sub-teams responsible for a specific deliverable or a core team with advisory groups so that they function effectively in a virtual setting.  It is also critical that leaders are thoughtful about team membership and ensure that they are not encouraging their employees to over-commit themselves.
 
Choose Virtual Team Leaders Carefully

The most effective virtual team leaders balance both the execution-oriented practices and the interpersonal, communication, and cultural factors that define virtual teams. Therefore, organizations should select leaders who possess those key characteristics. When assigning a leader, take the time to select the individual with the appropriate skills—and not just go with the first person to volunteer or someone who already happens to lead a team or the person with the best technical skills.  In addition, periodically assess the leaders’ effectiveness and provide targeted feedback about how they can enhance their performance. Great leaders will be happy to learn what they can do to keep improving. 
 
Determine How Performance Will Be Recognized and Rewarded
 
When virtual team members are consistently recognized and rewarded for their achievements, their commitment to the team and organization is reinforced and they stay motivated. A lack of engagement is common when virtual team members get little recognition. When a new virtual team is established, consider the best ways to recognize its individual members, the team as a whole, and its leader. As the team’s work gets underway and progresses, make sure members are consistently recognized for their achievements. This is particularly important when people join virtual teams on a voluntary basis. It’s also important to ensure that the reward and recognition systems promote collaboration among team members.
 
Group celebrations and bonuses shared by all team members might be effective rewards for some virtual teams. Whenever possible involve the team’s senior sponsors and stakeholders in the recognition process in formal and informal ways. Doing so will help further motivate team members because they’ll see that their work is appreciated from the top down.
 
Hold a Great Kick-Off Meeting
 
While meeting in person requires time and costs money, OnPoint's research shows that virtual teams that have an initial kick-off meeting perform better than those that do not. To facilitate team performance, we recommend that companies invest the time and money to bring members together for a kick-off meeting within the first 30 days of the team’s inception.  Kick-off meetings help get everyone on the same page. Virtual team members learn about the scope of the work or project, get to know the people who are on their team and come to a consensus on team structure and processes. These sessions also allow time for members to develop a team plan and to build interpersonal relationships. The synergies and significant long-term payoff gained from working face-to-face on setting team norms, processes, and relationship-building appear to outweigh the expense of travel. If a face-to-face kick-off meeting is not feasible, we recommend replicating this through a series of well-planned virtual meetings that address the same issues.
 
Develop A Plan for Communicating Among Team Members

Agree on the types of technology members will use to communicate and how the team’s progress will be shared with stakeholders and management figures. Be sure to:

• Illustrate the connection between team activities and technological infrastructure
• Clarify communication needs and desires of team members
• Identify when face-to-face meetings should be used
• Train team members on communication technologies

 
During the kick-off meeting, new virtual teams will benefit from discussing how and when team members will use the available technologies. For example:

• How will the team share documents and update one another?
• Is email the best tool for this or is there another preferred mechanism?
• What communication technology will be best for conflict resolution? How about for brainstorming solutions to problems?
• What decisions are best for teleconferences or other collaborative e-tools?
• Are any key technologies not available for the team?
• Will this lack of availability create problems for the team? If so, what accommodations need to be made and how will the team minimize the impact? 

Hold Team Development Activities

Virtual team members often have a hard time establishing trust with one another because they don’t have the advantage of frequent in-person interactions. They also struggle because they cannot see one another’s body language, which makes it difficult to gain a sense for team members’ personalities and intentions.
 
Using team development activities during the kick-off meeting can help to build trust and camaraderie among team members. Many of the most successful teams in OnPoint’s study had skill development training during their initial kick-off meeting and subsequent training over time.
 
Three types of activities during the launch meeting help team members get to know each other, build confidence in each other’s ability, and provide a platform for teamwork and communication back on the job. They are personal introductions including background and experience, review of individual style and how it affects teamwork and communication, and an experiential exercise or team project.
 
Monitor and Assess Team Performance
 
Leaders need to have a system in place that helps them regularly review virtual team processes to assess what’s working well and what needs to be improved. Leaders should continually monitor, assess, and improve communication, as it’s the top skill development need reported by team members and the top characteristic needed to lead from a distance.  And most importantly, they need to periodically examine how well the team is performing.
 
The decision to launch a virtual team should not be made on a whim. Factors such as team membership, team size, the right technology, and effective kick-off meetings should be carefully considered before launching a virtual team.  It is also important to ensure the overall organization is prepared to support virtual team work.

According to experts, candidates with the right skills are being overlooked by employers more interested in "cultural fit" and alignment of core values with their company. In fact, cultural fit has become so important to hiring managers that it now often rates above a 100 percent match to the necessary technical skills.

In a recent article it was stated that this trend is being seen across a wide range of industries and even in highly-skilled roles like project management. Experts are saying that for most roles, soft skills and cultural alignment is more important than technical ability. 

While “cultural fit” can cover a range of skills, it’s been said that employers are mainly looking to align the candidate with the values of the company (think Zappos) – whether it’s entrepreneurial attitude, the proper work-life balance, creativity or how they communicate with others.

Let’s take a look at Zappos. Although they pride themselves on exceptional customer service, their number one priority when recruiting for the Zappos family is company culture. During his keynote at last year’s SHRM Conference, CEO Tony Hsieh opened with the statement “If you hire the right people in the strategic culture plan everything else will fall into place.” They want employees who feel this is the right culture for them and are looking to be there long term.

Even Zappos' HR Manager says it’s important for employers to use whatever ways are culturally appropriate to find the right people, and defines culture as simply being the personality of an organization. She is quoted in Employee Benefit News as saying “It doesn’t matter how qualified the candidate is; it’s who fits the culture, is there to enhance it, to fit in or completely change it.”

While some believe cultural fit is just a fad, the Hays Quarterly Report reveals that employees are also choosing jobs based on the culture of the organizations.

Sue Ellen Mackintosh-Dixon, CEO of PeepToe, ranks cultural fit higher than an exact skills match when hiring – and not just in roles like customer service and sales, and says, “If the person has the right attitude and they really want to be in your business - which is critical to a company's cultural success - the rest can be learned.”

According a recent study of 20,000 new hires, 46 percent of them failed within 18 months. More importantly when new hires failed, 89 percent of the time it was for attitudinal reasons and only 11 percent of the time due to lack of skill. (Hiring for Attitude, CEO of Leadership IQ, Mark Murphy)

In the end, it doesn’t matter what your core values are for your organizational culture -- it’s about committing to them all the way, aligning your organization around those core values, developing your culture accordingly and finding the people that align with those values.

Three out of four workers diagnosed with a mental health disorder in Western Europe, Australia and the United States might forgo treatment out of fear of job loss, yet their conditions can still contribute to lost productivity at work, a recently published report found.

Research by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) titled Sick on the Job? Myths and Realities about Mental Health at Work published in December 2011 found that one in five workers—in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands,

Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States—suffers from mental illness, such as anxiety, bipolar disorder and depression.

“The challenges [of mental illness] are enormous to society because of the high cost for both individuals and employees,” said Shruti Singh, an OECD economist based in Paris and co-author of the report. “People suffering from mental health disorders are also having trouble finding and holding onto jobs.”

The report found that:

• Workers with mental illness are absent more frequently than those without such conditions.
• Between 30 percent and 50 percent of all new disability benefit claims in OECD countries, including the United States, are attributed to mental illness.
• People with a mental disorder are two to three times more likely to be unemployed as those without such disorders.

Another phenomenon costing companies money and productivity, Singh explained, is “presenteeism”—a term used to describe those times when employees are at work but are not engaged fully in work activities because of illness, preoccupied thoughts or other ailments. “Employees are often unaware that they might be performing at a very low level, and this affects the bottom line of a company,” Singh added.

Ingrid Ozols, managing director of Mental Health at Work in Australia, agreed with the OECD’s findings and said the trends cited in the report are evident in the Australian workplace.

“Stress is costing Australia’s economy billions of dollars in lost productivity, absenteeism, presenteeism, medical costs and work cover claims,” she wrote via e-mail to SHRM Online.

In Australia, work cover claims are filed by workers in cases where accidents occur on the job.

Job stress is costly in the United States as well, with an annual price tag of more than $300 billion, according to the New York-based American Institute of Stress. U.S. businesses attribute the cost to increased absenteeism, employee turnover, diminished productivity and medical, legal and insurance expenses, as well as workers’ compensation payments.

Since the beginning of the recession, “U.S. companies are cutting back and are re-examining what they can cover financially, including health care benefits,” Susanne Bruyère, Ph.D., director of Cornell University’s Employment and Disability Institute, told SHRM Online.

Job Insecurity

According to the OECD report, increasing job losses and pressure occurring in workplaces in 2012 could drive a rise in mental health problems later in the 2010s. Since 2000, workers exposed to work-related stress have increased across countries in the OECD, including Australia, the United States and several in Europe.

In Australia, Ozols explained, people with mental health problems are afraid of disclosing their condition during job interviews because they fear discrimination and rejection.

Employers in the United States cannot, by law, single out those with a mental illness, Bruyère added, even though health conditions of some employees might have been brought on by the stresses of the economic downturn.

“Job security—or lack thereof—can affect your mental health,” Singh said. “High unemployment rates, especially [during and after the recession], have made it difficult to find a job. “In Europe, job insecurity has risen quite a bit with the onset of the European economic crisis.”

However, Singh noted that there is no evidence in the OECD report about the recession having an impact on hiring and retaining those who have mental illness.

Societal Stigma

The OECD report addressed the stigma attached to mental illness in organizations worldwide.

“We now may be more aware of mental illness, like depression, but most employers are slow to change behaviors, [such as knowing] how to treat people with a mental illness. The stigma is still there,” Ozols said.

To combat this, governments in the Nordic countries and the United Kingdom are raising awareness about mental health issues through media campaigns, Singh explained.

In Norway, then-Prime Minister Kjell Bondevik revealed in a speech in 1998 that he had depression, becoming the highest-ranking world leader to disclose he had a mental illness while in office.

Meanwhile in the United Kingdom, telecommunications company BT is a champion regarding mental health issues. According to the Department of Work and Pensions, BT recruiting managers are told not to focus on resume gaps. Additionally, once an offer of employment has been made to a prospective BT employee, job applicants are asked if they want any support to overcome obstacles related to a health condition or disability.

“However, in European countries, many institutions are unaware about mental health issues,” Singh added. “There is still a long way to go.”

Treatment Works

To help those with mental illness, a new approach is needed in the workplace, the OECD report concluded. Methods suggested by the OECD include: 

• Providing decent working conditions to reduce stress and manage it better.
• Monitoring sick leave behavior systematically.
• Helping employers reduce workplace conflicts.
• Avoiding unnecessary dismissal based on behaviors linked to mental health problems.

“In all workplaces, the role of the line manager is absolutely crucial [as the] one who supports the worker, gives adequate feedback and recognizes the work effort,” Singh said.

Cornell’s Bruyère suggested that human resource professionals should provide specialized training to educate their colleagues about mental illness.

Bruyère explained that diversity training, at the managerial and employee levels, will teach workers how to communicate with people with disabilities. Her views are in line with the OECD’s recommendations to provide training for individuals and managers.

Ozols added that HR professionals must not shy away from addressing mental illness in the workplace.

“HR needs to collaborate and communicate with workers with educational programs, while employees need to feel comfortable talking to their superiors if problems in their personal life are beginning to impact their work,” Ozols said. “We are humans, not robots. We may think we can leave our personal disguises at home; however, the cracks eventually do show up in our work.”

“Treatment works,” Singh concluded. “Giving treatment to those [with] mental illness is very important for those who want to obtain or stay in a job.”

Catherine Skrzypinski is a freelance writer in Newport News, Va.  To read the original article, please click here.

Some U.S. companies are offering additional paid time off for special circumstances, which might help employees maintain their work/life balance, according to Compdata Surveys' Benefits USA 2011/2012 report.

“Emphasis on creating a work/life balance has been an increasingly important issue for employees for several years,” said Amy Kaminski, director of marketing for Compdata Surveys. “While some companies have responded by offering flexible schedules and telecommuting, it will be interesting to see how paid-time-off programs are affected as well, particularly as women in the workforce are waiting longer to start families and more households are becoming responsible for the care of an aging relative.”

The survey of nearly 4,500 benefit plans covering over 6 million employees across the U.S. revealed that, in addition to vacation days and sick days, employers offered paid time off for:

• Death in the family (33.3 percent of employers). Employees are granted an average of 3.4 days off.
• Jury duty (33 percent).
• Military leave (17.2 percent).
• Maternity leave, paternity leave and adoption leave (8.6 percent).
• Family illness (5.1 percent).

Military Leave Variations

The number of paid days off an employee in the U.S. might receive varies by region. For example:

• In the Southeast, an average of 83.2 paid days off was granted for military leave.
• In the Midwest, 76 paid days.
• In the West, 71.4 paid days.
• In the South Central region, 65.8 paid days.
• In the Northeast, 53.6 paid days.

Overall, 62 percent of U.S. organizations reported no limit on the number of paid military leave days for which employees are eligible.

Other Highlights

In addition, the survey revealed that:

• Leave assistance programs were in place at 24 percent of surveyed organizations to assist employees who have exhausted their paid leave.
• Leave bank programs allow employees to pool unused, accrued time off into a bank to be drawn on by employees who need it. Leave bank programs were offered by 6.8 percent of companies surveyed.
• Leave transfer programs, which allow employees to transfer unused paid time off directly to another employee, were used by 5.5 percent of companies surveyed. 

Stephen Miller, CEBS, is an online editor/manager for SHRM.  To read the original article, please click here.

An important customer, client, colleague or business partner asks an executive if her son can intern with your company for the summer.  Don’t worry about the money, she says.  My son is only looking for the experience.

As we approach the summer, expect more of these requests.  I personally have received quite a few already!

Sounds like a classic “win-win.”  The intern learns something and you strengthen an important relationship at no cost. So, the executive says “of course.”  Not so fast, please!

There have been several recent high-profile cases in which interns have alleged that they were really employees and should have been paid. While mere allegations do not mean actual liability, the fact is that the Department of Labor and the plaintiffs’ bar are focusing very closely on this issue.

In September 2011, a case was filed against Fox Searchlight Pictures, Inc. by two interns who had worked on the production of “Black Swan.”  They claim that they were misclassified as unpaid interns and that they should have been paid.

In February of 2012, an unpaid intern who worked for Harper’s Bazaar sued Hearst Corporation, the publisher of the magazine, claiming that her unpaid internship did not meet the internship requirements, and she should have been paid.

And, just last month, a class action suit was filed against Charlie Rose and the production company Charlie Rose Inc., alleging that unpaid interns who worked for the Charlie Rose Show should have been compensated saying they were really employees, not interns, under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Under FLSA, six requirements must be met for an individual to qualify as an intern. Take the time to read the regulations now or you may find yourself reading them later -- responding to a DOL audit or answering a complaint.

The six requirements are:
 

1. The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training that would be given in an educational environment;
2. The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern; 
3. The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff;
4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;
5. The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship; and
6. The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.
   
   Of the six factors listed, the fourth is typically the hardest to meet. It requires that the employer not receive any real benefit from the intern’s “work,” and that, at times, the intern’s presence actually impedes operations.  Ouch.
   
   So, talk with your executives.  Let them know that before they say yes to an offer that sounds too good to be true, they should check with you -- because it may be too good to be true. You don’t want your unpaid internship to make a plaintiff's lawyer rich at your expense.
   
   THIS ARTICLE SHOULD NOT BE CONSTRUED AS LEGAL ADVICE. 
    

The overall median salary in the U.S. for Class of 2012 college graduates is up 4.5 percent over the median posted by the Class of 2011, according to a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).

NACE’s April 2012 Salary Survey report shows the overall median starting salary for a bachelor’s degree graduate has risen to $42,569 for the Class of 2012, up from the final median salary of $40,735 for the Class of 2011. Data contained in the report represent accepted starting salaries (not salary offers), produced through a compilation of data derived from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census Bureau and a master set of data developed by the research firm Job Search Intelligence.

“The overall median salary increase is the result of gains throughout most sectors,” says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director. “Even in those sectors that showed decreases in median starting salaries, the dips were very slight.”

For those graduating with bachelor degrees in the first quarter of 2012, education and communications majors saw the most significant increases to their median salaries over the Class of 2011:

• Graduates with education degrees were entering the work force with a 4.5 percent increase in median salary over the Class of 2011, rising to $37,423 from $35,828.
• Communications majors saw a 3.8 percent increase in their median salary, rising to $40,022 from $38,549.
• Math and science majors' salaries increased 2.5 percent, rising to $40,939.
• In the computer sciences fields, new graduates were being offered starting salaries up 2.4 percent, rising to $56,383.

Still posting gains, albeit nominal ones, were humanities and social sciences, and business majors:

• Business graduates' median starting salary crept up 1 percent to $47,748.
• Humanities and social sciences graduates' salaries inched ahead by just 0.5 percent, to $34,789.

On the other side, the median salaries for engineering and health sciences graduates dipped incrementally:

• Engineering graduates posted a median salary of $58,581, a slight drop of 0.4 percent.
• Health sciences majors’ median salary dipped 0.7 percent to $43,477.

We (Americans) live in a “take action” culture, a culture of the “yankee work ethic” in which incremental effort and pressing the nose harder to the grindstone supposedly leads to success and rewards. We are also a culture of immediate gratification the “I-want-it-now-quick-fix-diet-pill-plastic-surgery-100% LTV loan” society.

Don’t get me wrong, those traits are to be admired when put to good purpose. They have helped to make us the innovative, industrious, can do leader of the modern world. But they can often (as in a crisis) work against us.

Here is the inevitable confusion: Because some hard work and immediate action (activity) might lead to desired results does not mean that ANY or MORE activity will increase the positive results. Too often the reality is that MORE IS NOT NECESSARILY BETTER.  Thus we find ourselves stuck in the same old “stinkin’ thinkin:”

1. Why only put in 40 hours a week at my job – wouldn’t 50 or even 60 get me farther?
2. If we accomplished so much understanding in ONE meeting, wouldn’t 10 be better?
3. If a sale can be made for every 10 calls on average, wouldn’t 100 calls be better?

And so on.

At first blush, this seems sensible. But from a performance perspective, it is insanity. There are three fundamental truths to performance in the workplace:

1. It is the OUTCOME of the activity that matters.
2. What people DO is important only as it relates to what they PRODUCE.
3. You get only what you measure.

Combine these three and you begin to understand my point. If we focus on activity, if we measure activity, if we create the mentality that more activity is better, then what do we get? MORE ACTIVITY. Fortunately, some of that activity will drive results for us. Unfortunately, much of it will only inflict cost on our organization.

In the end, the difference between good and great organizations rests on eliminating wasted motion by focusing activity on producing valuable outcomes and then measuring those outcomes. If we measure time on the job, we get time. If we measure number of calls we get calls.

Think about your own organization: Do you REALLY need more activity, or do you need a measured approach where the ONLY activity we undertake is if clearly targeted toward producing a well defined outcome? Sometimes in business our personal lives and our nation, we would do well to pause. Perhaps our principle motto for times of crisis should be, “Don't just do something, stand there!”

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about talent management in terms of the new workforce.  We’re starting to see the signs that the economy is going to rebound.  When that happens, the speculation centers around whether companies will go back to their old ways and just start hiring people or will the new workforce be a blend of freelancers and consultants along with employees.

As you may guess, my bets are on the latter.  At least for a few years, I think we’ll see more permatemps in the workplace.  Which prompts a question about the best way to optimize the use of talent (whether it’s internal or external).  If the new workforce is a hybrid composed of employees and contractors, should companies still focus on hiring A-level players?  Companies could focus on recruiting and retaining B-level (or C-level) talent and then bring in the A-team only for projects that require it.

Or should companies still focus on hiring A-level talent and when they need an extra set of hands, then the contractor doesn’t necessarily have to be top notch?

I wonder how many businesses are taking the time to think through their talent strategy for the new economy.  It seems to me this is a pretty important decision.  There might be implications beyond a company’s hiring strategy to how they deliver products and services.

For example, if an organization employs B- and C-level players, this could impact customers and the front-line delivery of products and services.  If external consultants are brought in to create programs and/or processes, they would need to realize the capabilities of the staff they’re working with.

On the other hand, let’s say the company employs only A-players.  This might change the projects that are given to consultants.  Maybe the focus is less about a consultant’s expertise and more about scalability.  So it would not only be acceptable but advantageous to have B-level contractors.  And of course, they would only do B-level work.

Now you might be saying why can’t you have A-level talent in both places.  Well, realistically speaking…everyone is not nor will be an A-player.  That’s because, in part, companies don’t make the investment to develop people or employees don’t have the desire.  The end result?  B-, C- and possibly even D-level players will be in our workplaces in some capacity.

I’m interested to know where you think companies will place their emphasis.

• Will companies decide it’s cheaper to hire B-players and bring in A-consultants?
• Or will they make the investment to turn B-employees into A-employees?
• Or will businesses do something else altogether?
  
  And, are employees out there ready for the gig economy?
   
• The idea of work becoming a series of small projects (or gigs).
• The concept that our offices might be coffee shops or kitchen tables.
• The notion that job security is a thing of the past.

Wishing for the good old days won’t bring them back.  It’s time to prepare for the future.

Less than a third of HR professionals believe that employees are satisfied with the level of recognition they receive for doing a good job, according to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)/Globoforce Employee Recognition Programs Survey released April 12, 2012.

Just 29 percent of the 770 respondents—all HR professionals selected randomly from SHRM’s membership—said employees were satisfied with their organization’s recognition efforts, findings comparable to data from a similar survey conducted in June 2011.

Fifty-two percent of respondents worked for organizations with U.S.-based operations only; 48 percent had multinational operations. Forty-seven percent of respondents worked at firms with fewer than 2,500 employees.

The survey, which was fielded Dec. 22, 2011-Jan. 12, 2012, found that:

• Fifty-eight percent of HR professionals said employees are rewarded according to their job performance.
• Fifty percent of respondents said they believe managers and supervisors acknowledge and appreciate employees effectively.
• Fewer respondents (55 percent) said annual performance reviews are an accurate appraisal of employees’ work.

In addition, the SHRM/Globoforce survey found that organizations with an employee recognition program are more likely to indicate that employees are rewarded for performance, appreciated by managers and satisfied with the recognition they receive than those without such programs.

The majority of respondents (76 percent) said their organizations do have a recognition program, and the same number said their employee recognition program is aligned with their company values.

Of those respondents who said their recognition program is aligned with organizational values, 43 percent said employees are satisfied with the level of recognition they receive, a slightly more promising result than the overall survey sample (29 percent). In addition, those with aligned recognition programs and values report higher levels of agreement with other key questions explored in the poll:

• Seventy-six percent said employees are rewarded according to their job performance.
• Sixty-five percent said managers and supervisors acknowledge and appreciate employees effectively.
• Sixty-four percent said annual performance reviews are accurate appraisals of employees’ work.

Just 15 percent of respondents with recognition programs said they track the return on investment (ROI) of their employee recognition program. Of those that track ROI, 55 percent said they think employees are satisfied with the level of recognition they receive. In addition, of those that track ROI:

• Ninety percent said employees are rewarded according to their job performance.
• Seventy-six percent said managers and supervisors acknowledge and appreciate employees effectively.
• Seventy-two percent said annual performance reviews are accurate appraisals of employees’ work.

The most common ways organizations track the ROI of employee recognition are by measuring:

• Employee retention levels (74 percent).
• Overall financial results such as return on equity and profit margin (61 percent).
• Employee productivity levels (60 percent).
• Employee engagement scores (57 percent).

Fewer organizations track recognition program ROI by measuring employee absenteeism (28 percent) or customer retention levels (21 percent).

However, organizations that do measure recognition program ROI perceived various improvements in their organizations by doing so:

• Sixty-three percent said employee productivity increased.
• Sixty-one percent said employee engagement increased.
• Fifty-two percent said customer retention increased.
• Fifty-one percent said employee retention increased.
• Fifty percent said return on equity increased.
• Forty-two percent said return on assets increased.
• Twenty-eight percent said employee absenteeism decreased.

Other Findings

When asked about workforce management challenges, respondents to the latest SHRM/Globoforce survey placed the following at the top of the list, in order of importance:

• Employee engagement.
• Employee retention.
• Effective performance management.

Challenges associated with managing multiple cultures, global diversity and different generations had diminished slightly in importance to SHRM members since the poll of June 2011.

Rebecca R. Hastings, SPHR, is an online editor/manager for SHRM.  To view the original article, please click here.

10 dangers of inexperienced leaders:

1. Needing to be liked.
2. Blaming.
3. Emotional decisions.
4. Impulsiveness.
5. Trying too hard.
6. Neglecting the long term.
7. Focusing on symptoms rather than causes.
8. Aiming without pulling the trigger.
9. Meddling.
10. Forget to say thank you. (Speaking of thanks, many of these points were inspired by contributors on the Leadership Freak Facebook Page. Thank you!)
     

10 questions every inexperienced leader must keep asking:

1. What type of world are my behaviors building around me?
2. How many questions did I ask today?
3. What am I learning?
4. Am I acting or reacting?
5. When was the last time I spent an hour in self-reflection?
6. What’s the most fun?
7. Am I soliciting input from experienced leaders and staff?
8. Do I welcome ideas from everyone?
9. How are we leveraging everyone’s strengths?
10. Who do I feel threatened by? Why?
     

12 powerful suggestions for inexperienced leaders:

1. You matter in ways you can’t imagine. Watch your tone, body language, and attitude, everyone else is.
2. Be optimistic about the future and realistic about the present. Optimism frustrates others if you don’t acknowledge present realities and problems, first.
3. Challenges aren’t your biggest opportunity, people are.
4. Be tender when you’re being tough.
5. Remove manipulators and backstabbers. They may quickly deliver results but everyone around them slows down.
6. Courageously ask dumb questions. (From the Chief Security Officer of Microsoft)
7. Protect your team from political fallout and organizational interference.
8. Believe your perspective matters. Listen to yourself as well as others.
9. Avoid extreme reactions.
10. Recruit mentors, advisors, and, coaches. Get support.
11. Take responsibility.
12. Make the best interests of your organization and others your priority, always.
     

Bonus: Stick with it. The reason it’s called experience is it takes time.

**********

What can you add to these lists?
What can you modify or amplify?

The writing’s been on the wall for a number of years, but only now are people starting to read it: Corporate America must reinvest in its workforce and come up with creative ways to retain that massive amount of knowledge that will walk out the door as millions of Baby Boomers retire.

A joint survey released April 9, 2012, by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and AARP shows that U.S. employers are ramping up training programs aimed at closing expected skills gaps left when Baby Boomers retire. In addition, companies are enhancing employee benefits that they hope will help with recruiting and retaining older workers, defined by the survey as workers 50 years old and older. But fast action is needed.

Stepped-Up Corporate Response

An analysis of 2010 U.S. Census data revealed that during the past decade the percentage of Americans age 55 and older who are in the labor force increased from 32.4 percent to 40.2 percent. According to the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the labor force is projected to grow by 8 percent between 2008 and 2018 and will include nearly 12 million workers age 55 and older. The number of workers ages 16 to 54 is projected to grow by less than 700,000 during that same time.

Data from the Pew Research Center revealed that 10,000 Baby Boomers will reach age 65 every day during the next two decades. The oldest of the country’s estimated 77 million Baby Boomers began turning age 65—the traditional retirement age—in 2011.

Despite this alarming data, the SHRM-AARP survey—conducted Feb. 13-March 12, 2012—found that many U.S. organizations are largely unprepared for the brain drain and skills void that talented, retiring older workers will leave. While 72 percent of the poll’s 430 responding human resource professionals described the loss of talented older workers to be “a problem” or “a potential problem” for their organizations, roughly 71 percent said their company has not conducted a strategic workforce planning assessment to analyze the impact of workers age 50 and older who will leave their organizations. Sixty percent have not even identified their company’s workforce needs over the next five years.

“At AARP, we believe that business leaders need to better understand how important the unique talents and skills of their employees age 50-plus will be to their future success,” said AARP CEO A. Barry Rand.

HR managers said that the actions their organizations have taken to prepare for the loss of talented older workers who retire include:

• Increasing training and cross-training (45 percent).
• Developing succession planning (38 percent).
• Hiring retired employees as consultants or temporary workers (30 percent).
• Offering flexible work arrangements (27 percent).
• Offering part-time positions to attract older workers (24 percent).

The survey asked HR professionals to identify the greatest “basic skills” and “applied skills” gaps between workers age 31 and younger and those age 50 and older. Among the basic skills identified, about half (51 percent) of HR managers said they find older workers to have stronger English language writing, grammar and spelling skills.

As for applied skills, just over half (52 percent) of HR managers said older workers exhibit stronger professionalism and work ethic.

Helpful Resources Available

“Although we are encouraged to see that many organizations across the country are preparing for the challenge of Baby Boomer retirements, much more work needs to be done in both the short- and long-term,” said SHRM President and CEO Henry G. (Hank) Jackson. “That is why we are working together with AARP to provide organizations and their HR professionals with the tools they need to retain and engage their older, experienced talent.”

To help U.S. businesses and organizations, SHRM and AARP offer numerous resources through their partnership, including AARP’s free, online Workforce Assessment Tool, which provides a snapshot of an organization’s workforce and demographics and analyzes its programs to leverage the talents of its older workers.

In addition, SHRM members can access a a SHRM-AARP Partnership Resource Page on SHRM Online. The resource page includes poll and survey findings, articles and links to AARP’s assessment tool, among other tools.

The survey is one of several projects marking the SHRM-AARP partnership to raise awareness about older worker issues and to provide resources and strategies to address these issues.

Theresa Minton-Eversole is an online editor/manager for SHRM. To read the original article, please click here.

Curtis Midkiff, the Director of Social Engagement at the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), took some time today to share a little about himself, and his views on HR and leadership.

Join @weknownext on April 18th, at 6pm, for #NextChat, where Curtis (@SHRMsocmedguy) will be featured as a special guest!

Q&A

Oregon has enacted a new law that prohibits overt unemployment discrimination in job advertisements, becoming only the second state—after New Jersey—to prohibit this practice.

The new ban, signed into law by Gov. John Kitzhaber on March 27, 2012, is limited in scope. It prohibits employers from publishing job advertisements that include language indicating that unemployed individuals should not apply for the job or that they will not be considered for the position.

An employer whose job advertisements feature language such as “unemployed applicants not considered” or “all applicants must currently be employed” would violate the law. But the new law does not bar employers from considering an applicant’s employment status during the course of the hiring process.

Also, the law does not allow disgruntled job applicants to sue employers. Instead, only the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) can pursue a violation. The law caps any penalties the BOLI commissioner may assess at $1,000 per violation, with the penalties going to the government rather than to individual applicants.

However, despite its limited scope, “employers should rightfully be concerned” that this new law “could lead Oregon down a slippery slope resulting in a ban of discrimination against unemployed individuals,” according to Richard Meneghello, an attorney in Fisher & Phillips’ Portland, Ore., office. Such a law could easily be abused, he said, and potential lawsuits could be difficult to defend.

Laws Would Add Unemployed Status to Protected Classes

Exactly this type of broader law has been considered in state legislatures around in the country in their 2012 legislative sessions.

For example, a proposal in Connecticut would make it a discriminatory practice to refuse to hire someone who is unemployed, including it in the same equal employment opportunity statutes that protect classes such as gender and race. Prospective employees could sue to recover damages and attorneys’ fees.

The bill is unlikely to pass this time around, Daniel Schwartz, a partner and employment law specialist with the law firm of Pullman and Comley in Hartford, Conn., told SHRM Online. “Numerous legislators have pointed to holes or flaws in the legislation,” he said. It would be difficult to prove bias under the law, he noted, and passing such a proposal could lead to many claims against employers.

But as long as unemployment remains high, state legislatures are likely to continue to revisit this issue.

“I think it emphasizes further that employers ought to document the reasons why they are selecting candidates,” Schwartz said.

As to the wisdom of such laws, he noted that “Everyone can agree that getting people back to work is a lofty goal. The real issue is the means for doing that.”

Gaps in a person’s resume, he added, may give rise to some legitimate questions about that person. “The fact that someone is unemployed may not mean anything, or it may mean something. The employer is looking for a person with job skills; it may be relevant. This has usually been left up to employers, not legislators,” Schwartz said.

States can pursue their interest in getting people back to work by providing tax incentives for employers to hire unemployed workers, as Connecticut has done. “These provide an incentive for an employer without resulting in more litigation,” Schwartz added.

A bill that would have added unemployment status to the protected classes under Maryland’s fair employment practices law was also considered by the Maryland legislature. Although that proposal, like the one in Connecticut, appears unlikely to pass this year, according to Christine Walters, SPHR, an HR consultant with FiveL Co. in Westminster, Md., employers need to be aware that these proposals are out there and may return next year.

Adding another protected status creates more liability for employers, Walters said, commenting that “My concern is that it can create a presumption that is difficult to disprove.”

Employers should also be cognizant of the fiscal implications of such legislation. The fiscal note of Maryland’s bill, for example, indicates that the small-business effect is potentially meaningful, Walters noted. “Small businesses may experience increased legal costs to the extent that more individuals allege discrimination based on employment status.”

She said her main concern is not unemployed status in and of itself. “But if you’ve been unemployed for a long time, your experience and abilities may be staler than those of someone who is employed,” she explained.

She added that, “We always want to try to hire the most qualified candidate. I’m not sure that employed or unemployed status has a direct correlation.” But, “I’m not sure it’s realistic that an employer is not going to take into account the length of time someone is unemployed.”

As to what employers should do in the face of potential new laws, Walters advised that “Whether we are talking about discrimination based on race” or any other protected status, the same practices should apply. “You want to demonstrate why the person you chose is the best candidate. You want to show more years of experience, more knowledge,” more applicable job skills.

The existence of these bills makes it important for HR professionals and business owners to make sure they are communicating with their state legislatures on a day-to-day basis “about well-intended legislation with practical negative consequences,” Walters concluded.

“These bills are out there,” and they are “another sign that employers really need to keep track of legislative developments and speak out” before they are passed in their current form, Schwartz said, echoing Walter’s advice.

Number of States Weigh Proposals

At least a dozen other states are considering, or have considered, some sort of protection for unemployed job applicants during their 2012 sessions, including California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

The proposals range in scope from banning advertisements that require current employment, similar to the law passed in Oregon, to allowing unsuccessful job candidates to sue businesses under the same discrimination laws that apply to bias on the basis of religion, race, gender or national origin.

The proposal in California, for example, contains a broad prohibition barring an employer with 15 or more employees from refusing to consider an individual or offer employment because of the individual’s employment status, unless the decision is based on a bona fide occupational qualification. However, the California bill contains no private right of action. Instead, an employer that violates the law would be subject to a civil penalty of up to $1,000 for the first violation, enforceable by the state Division of Labor Standards Enforcement.

Joanne Deschenaux, J.D., is SHRM’s senior legal editor.  To view the original article, please click here.

It's not enough for an HR professional to get the basics right. Becoming a strategic business partner in your organization is also about knowing the right people and being able to establish and manage key relationships. The most effective HR leaders understand the importance of alliances in influencing behavior and overcoming resistance. Could you use more influence? 

Joe Gerstandt is a leader helping organizations understand diversity and inclusion. As a keynote speaker and consultant, Joe works with Fortune 500 companies, small non-profits, and everything in between. Seamlessly interweaving art and science, Joe uses stories and research to illustrate how next generation cultures can flourish both inside and outside the workplace.

Q&A

“We know caregiving is associated with loss of retention, reduced productivity and higher stress,” said Drew Holzapfel, director of global commercial development at Pfizer Inc. This impacts caregivers’ wages, Social Security and pension benefits over the course of their career at a time when they need to be saving for their own retirement, he explained. Additionally, it impacts organizations as they experience a loss of talent.

On a positive note, “Employers can have a powerful and meaningful impact on caregivers,” Holzapfel added, pointing to the new study, Best Practices in Workplace Eldercare, which the National Alliance for Caregiving conducted for the coalition Respect a Caregivers Time (ReACT). The study, highlighting successful elder care programs at 17 U.S. employers, was released March 29, 2012, at the “Aging in America” conference in Washington, D.C., where Holzapfel was among the speakers.

Responding to the needs of employees who have caregiving responsibilities does not have to be expensive or elaborate, the study noted. Best practices include offering a flex-time policy to help workers struggling to balance work and caregiving duties and allowing employees to use sick days and vacation days for caregiving. One example cited was the Family Caregiving Network that employees at Kimberly Clark organized and managed on a volunteer basis to provide information to family caregivers and increase awareness on the part of managers about employees with caregiving responsibilities.

Other practices highlighted in the study include:

• Discounted backup home care for emergencies. The discounted rate for in-home care was $4 to $6 per hour, and the number of hours of care available at the subsidized rate varied by employer.
• Help with insurance paperwork and information about Medicare, Medicaid and other insurance policies.
• Paid time off and flexible approaches to time off.
• Elder care resource and referral services, including geriatric care management services. Some employers provided this through employee assistance programs.

Suggestions for Employers

The study found that while employers felt that employee feedback regarding their program is important, once their program was established, few conducted employee surveys other than consumer-satisfaction polls. Additionally, few conducted a needs assessment before establishing a program or modifying it.

The report included the following suggestions to employers:

• Understand your workforce and their needs.
• Make an elder care program or policy available to all employees, not one category of employee.
• Train supervisors and managers about elder care.
• Educate employees about the caregiving process and ways in which the employer’s program can support their goal of continuing to be a family caregiver and a productive worker.
• Consider programs that help employees plan for caregiving responsibilities.

Executives might not know how much elder care issues impact their employees, Holzapfel said, but providing benefits to help employees deal with these issues “seems like the right thing to do.”

Retention Issue

More than one-third of adults leave the workforce or reduce their hours worked once they begin caregiving duties, and women are more likely than men to quit their jobs rather than reduce their hours, according to conference speakers who cited MetLife's study of Caregiving Costs to Working Caregivers, released in June 2011.

The percentage of adults age 50 and older who are caring for a parent more than tripled from 1994 through 2008, and the need for flexible workplaces and policies that benefit caregivers likely will grow as they approach their own retirement, according to the MetLife study. In 2008, 17 percent of men and 29 percent of women provided basic care to their parents. In 1994, only 3 percent of men and 9 percent of women provided parental basic care, defined as helping with personal tasks such as dressing, feeding and bathing.

While the percentage of working caregivers is increasing, Holzapfel noted that the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) 2011 Employee Benefits survey report showed a steady decrease in the proportion of U.S. employers with elder care programs following the 2008 recession. The survey of SHRM members found that in 2011:

• Only 1 percent of their employers subsidized the cost of elder care, down from 4 percent in 2008.
• Just 2 percent offered access to elder care backup services, down from 4 percent in 2007.
• 9 percent offered elder care referrals, down from 22 percent in 2007.
• 11 percent offered care leave above federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave, and 11 percent offered leave above state family leave; down from 16 percent and 14 percent, respectively, in 2007.

Kathy Gurchiek is associate editor for HR News.  To read the original article, please click here.

I’ve always held the opinion that big organizations move at a snail’s pace. Every day, we see or read about bureaucracy – government is the biggest offender. But anyone who has worked with large NGOs (non-government, not for profit organizations), or giant corporations has tasted it. Sure, there are exceptions to the rule. The most valuable business on the planet has set a wonderful example for getting things done. But unlike Apple, most big companies don’t have the will or the way to cut through the quagmire of red tape to “just do it.”  Even Procter & Gamble, a perennial success and a company I greatly admire, struggles to find nimbleness.

Check out my complete list of similarities between big companies and snails. 

Snails are slow. While the speed of a snail is the most common knock against big-company bureaucracy, there are several other similarities between the species.

Snails can’t hear. Neither can some of the largest companies on the globe. I’d suggest hearing aids for the executives of BP, AT&T, Bank of America, American Airlines, and Charter Communications (cable TV provider). Consumers are telling these companies what they want, but no one is listening.

Snails live in a protective shell. The shell for big companies is not bricks and mortar. It is clout. Clout comes from cash. We see this in the rash of acquisitions that fuel scale economies. Look at Kraft Foods. Nimble? Hardly. Mighty? Definitely. Here are just some of the acquisitions added to the Kraft portfolio since 1985 – General Foods, Tombstone Pizza, Jacobs Suchard, Nabisco, DANONE Biscuits and Cadbury.

Snails live in cool, dark environments. Companies like Halliburton and Monsanto inhabit similar environments. Despite consumer concern over its practices (particularly with regard to genetically modified foods), Monsanto doesn’t deviate from its unwavering vision to dominate. The power of Monsanto's market share (much of it gained through acquisition of independent seed companies) has left farmers with fewer and fewer seed choices. A massive legal department has proven itself awfully good at pursuing those who challenge the company's dominance.

One last question: What happens when you take away a snail’s shell?

Answer: You are left with a slug.

PS:  For those of you in HR who are frustrated by bureaucracy in your organization, I offer this advice:

1. Bureaucracy or not, if you can’t support the organization’s ethics, get out.
2. If you are supportive of the ethics and see a better future, I suggest you make a concerted effort to clean your own house. HR is often considered the most bureaucratic of all departments. Show the way by simplifying and/or systematizing.
3. Operate as a service department. Your clients are the other departments. Chances are, they don’t like bureaucracy any more than you do. Know the workings of those functions, and you’ll be more effective at helping them reach their goals.
4. Ensure your focus is on the growth of talent. Care about employee spirit, ambition, competencies and productivity. Sure, you work for the company. But you can be more effective and more fulfilled as an HR professional if you work for the employees.

One of the most popular trends in the IT world right now is the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) approach, where employees use their own mobile device at work. Its another case of new technology creating new problems. Before implementing a BYOD policy, you need to weigh the risks against the cost benefits.

IT departments have spent years working on desktop security and trying to prevent data loss via web and email, but employees are increasingly accessing corporate data with their own smartphones and tablets. As a result, employers have much less control over the security protecting their corporate data. Unlike desktops, very few people have protection against viruses and malware on their smartphones and tablets. Thirty-seven percent of IT decision makers reported that their business had unintentionally exposed corporate data through theft or loss of removable devices in the past two years.

From a legal standpoint, ownership of the smartphone or tablet is irrelevant in case of a lawsuit. Current discovery rules require litigation parties to preserve all relevant electronic data, which will include information stored on employee devices. Employees will need make any personal information stored on their devices accessible, including the history of the websites visited, songs and movies downloaded and played, copy of financial transactions or statements, the list of personal contacts and electronic communications including personal emails, personal phone call, text messages and various social media activities including Facebook, Twitter and VoIP services such as Skype.

While employees may initially be happy to choose their own device for work, that happiness may fade when the reality of the BYOD policy sets in. The IT department may restrict access to certain device features, like the application store, camera and media tagged as explicit. Employees may lose personal information if their device has to be remotely wiped. Employees may also be concerned that the IT department could access their personal data, even though most device management solutions do not allow such intrusions. Finally, if an employee is on a business trip, and loses their smartphone or tablet, there will likely be some confusion as to who is responsible for replacing the device.

Despite the risks, a BYOD policy may be the right choice for your business. You can adopt certain policies, which must be clearly communicated to employees, to help mitigate the risks. Any lost personally-owned or personally-owned devices belonging to a terminated employee should be remotely wiped. Employees should be prohibited from storing confidential corporate data or credit card data on unencrypted devices. Employees should also be prohibited from conducting any company business through the use of personal accounts, such as text messaging or email. And, as with all technology-based policies, it’s important to remember that the policies must evolve and change along with the technology, as it seems like smartphones and tablets have new features every day.
 

Casey Sipe is a management-side labor and employment law attorney for Harmon & Davies in Lancaster, PA.  To view the original article, please click here.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) requires that each state establish a health insurance exchange for individuals and small businesses by 2014, or the federal government will establish one for them. Exchanges will essentially function as a health insurance marketplace for individuals and small businesses. For 2014 and 2015, states can decide whether to include businesses with 100 or fewer or 50 or fewer employees in their exchange. In 2016, all businesses with 100 or fewer employees must be able to purchase insurance through these exchanges. The exchanges have the option of including employers with more than 100 employees beginning in 2017.

Even if the U.S. Supreme Court were to declare unconstitutional the PPACA's so-called "individual mandate," requirng individuals to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty, many expect that other provisions of the sweeping bill, including those covering the creation of state health care exchanges, would survive.

In addition to health insurance functions—such as operating Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP)—states will be responsible for running their exchange. The new responsibilities they will have to take on include:

• Operating a toll-free number and website to inform individuals and businesses about insurance options.
• Certifying qualified health plans (QHPs) that will be available for purchase through the exchanges.
• Making eligibility determinations for tax credits and the state’s Medicaid/CHIP programs.
• Notifying employers if their employees are eligible for and receiving health insurance tax credits and if employees enroll in or disenroll from an exchange-sponsored plan.

Ready, Set, Go

Exchanges will be expected to be ready for their first open enrollment period by October 2013. The first coverage year for exchanges will begin Jan. 1, 2014. Exchanges must be fully operational and prepared to facilitate the purchase of QHPs for individuals and small businesses through the exchange.

As of March 2012, 21 states indicated that they intended to or have already passed health exchange legislation, 11 states said they will not pass legislation or host an exchange, and 17 states were undecided.

Key Definitions

Full-time equivalents. PPACA language states clearly that all large employers—defined as having 50-plus full-time equivalent employees (FTEs)—will be required to provide affordable coverage of minimum value to FTEs and their dependents or face penalties. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has yet to clarify some of the terms of this requirement, so employers do not yet have all of the information they need to develop compliant coverage options.

There are, however, several basic definitions available for employers to consider. For instance, the law defines a FTE as one who works an average of 30 hours per week per month. Employers with transitional or part-time workforces might have trouble determining who their FTEs are under this definition, so the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) were considering potential solutions. For example, the IRS stated in May 2011 that it planned to issue a proposal that would give large employers the option to use a look-back/stability period safe harbor to determine which employees would be considered full time for a particular coverage period. According to the IRS, this approach “would be designed to give effect to the statutory provisions while accommodating a wide variety of current eligibility and enrollment practices in group health plans.”

Affordability. Coverage is considered “affordable” only if the employee’s share of the premium does not exceed 9.5 percent of household income. But because employers do not have the ability to determine an employee’s household income, HHS will allow employers to base their definition of affordability on the employee's individual W-2 wages.

Minimum value. The term “minimum value” is not yet fully defined, but it has been established that a plan must pay 60 percent of the total allowed cost of benefits.

As federal regulators continue to develop regulations, large employers should monitor these rules and policies, as they will impact benefit plan design, budget and strategy.

Tax Credits and Penalties

Another function of the exchanges will be to certify whether an individual who does not have access to affordable health insurance through an employer is eligible for a tax credit to offset the cost of coverage purchased through an exchange. If a large employer’s employee seeks and receives such a tax credit because the employer failed to offer coverage to FTEs and their dependents, the employer will incur a penalty of $2,000 times the number of FTEs it employs. Similarly, if a large employer offers coverage that is unaffordable or not of minimum value, the employer will incur a penalty of $3,000 times the number of FTEs receiving tax credits. (The maximum penalty for providing coverage that is unaffordable or not of minimum value may not exceed $2,000 times the total number of all FTEs.) When calculating these penalties, employers may subtract the first 30 workers.

Keep in mind that employees who are eligible for Medicaid will not be eligible for tax credits, which means that employers will not face penalties on these employees. Under the PPACA, individuals earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level are Medicaid-eligible, so single employees earning from 138 percent to 400 percent of the federal poverty level (or $7.41- $21.48/hour based on 2012 numbers) may be eligible for a tax credit and could impact employer penalties.

It’s important to note that employers will not be penalized if they fail to provide coverage during a formal waiting period to a new FTE for the first three months following the employee’s date of hire. However, employers must offer coverage to eligible employees as soon as the three-month period is up to avoid potential fines.

Determining Eligibility for Tax Credits

HHS’ final regulations on eligibility determinations and exchange standards for employers gives exchanges the authority to decide who is eligible for tax credits and whether employers are providing appropriate coverage. The rule allows exchanges to verify the annual and current household income of individuals seeking coverage through an exchange via HHS, the U.S. Treasury and individual self-disclosure. This particular provision may be challenging for exchanges, as the information available might not always be accurate or up to date. In addition, HHS will permit individuals to report to the state whether they are covered through their employer and exchange must notify employers when their employees is eligible for premium tax credits. Future guidance is expected the structure of this employer notice.

The Treasury Department’s proposal on the premium tax credits contains an affordability safe harbor that might be of interest to employers. For example, if an employee enrolls in an employer’s plan—regardless of whether the plan meets the affordability or minimum value requirements—the employee will not be eligible for tax credits. This means that the employer cannot be penalized. Additionally, even though employers are required to offer coverage to dependents, the affordability test will be based on the employee’s household income compared to the employee’s contribution to the lowest cost plan for self-only coverage. Finally, the Treasury proposed establishing an affordability safe harbor to protect employers from penalties with respect to an employee who receives a tax credit or subsidy “if the employee portion of the self-only premium for the employer’s lowest cost plan that provides minimum value does not exceed 9.5 percent of the employee’s current W-2 wages from the employer.” Treasury requested comment on whether employers will need a “transition relief period” as they adjust to new requirements in 2014.

Reporting Requirements

Once all of these rules have been finalized and exchanges are operational, employers will be required to report new information to the exchanges and the IRS to help them determine individual eligibility for tax credits and liability for tax penalties. The new data that employers will be obligated to report includes:

• Employer name, date and employer identification number.
• The number of FTEs for each month during the calendar year.
• The name, address, and taxpayer identification number (TIN) of each FTE during the calendar year and the months (if any) during which the employees (and any dependents) were covered.
• Certification of whether the employer offers minimum essential coverage to FTEs and their dependents. If so, the employer must report: length of wait period (not to exceed 90 days), months during the calendar year during which coverage was available, monthly premium for the lowest-cost option in each of the plan’s enrollment categories, and large employer’s share of the total allowed cost of benefits under the plan.

Not all employers operate on a January-to-January timeline, and plan year does not always coincide with calendar year or with the open enrollment season for the exchanges. Consequently, the agencies will have to grapple with timing issues as they develop regulations.

Prepare for Challenges Ahead

Going forward, employers and state exchanges will face a number of challenges related to the PPACA. In order to remain compliant, employers must be prepared to interact with exchanges quite frequently, including receiving notifications about employees seeking exchange coverage and fulfilling new reporting requirements (unless the final rule says otherwise). This could be particularly burdensome for employers that operate offices in multiple states, as they might have to contend with different exchange rules depending on how individual states choose to set their exchanges up. Employers will want to ensure that exchanges are making their determinations based on accurate data, so they might have to establish new verification processes for income information self-reported by employees. In addition to these challenges, employers must continue to focus on containing rising health care expenditures while absorbing new compliance costs.

Ultimately, employers will need to ensure that they’ve coordinated with their employees, exchanges and the IRS in order to minimize administrative burdens, ensure proper verifications and protect themselves from erroneous penalties.

Even if large employers are already providing coverage that they feel is affordable, they will still be subject to reporting requirements and might still need to consider whether their coverage meets HHS’s definitions of affordability, minimum value and FTE. Therefore, employers are encouraged to stay involved in the process and to be mindful of future guidance.

Arika Pierce is the division vice president for federal government relations at HMS, a provider of health care cost containment solutions. HMS helps its clients ensure that health care claims are paid correctly and that those enrolled to receive program benefits meet qualifying criteria. © 2012 HMS.   To read the original article, please click here.

There is an explosion happening all around us.  We are getting grayer as a society - much grayer.   As a result, organizations are faced with a diversity-related challenge.   Younger managers, on a much broader level than ever before, are finding themselves in the position of having to supervise older subordinates. 

Early on in my career, I found myself in a similar position.   As a very young, first-time manager, I found myself with subordinates who were considerably older than me.   To be honest, I didn't think much of it.   A few months after becoming a manager, an employee from another department approached me and indicated that she had seen an employee of mine in the ladies room.   She was stuffing a bottle of alcohol into her purse.  I found myself on the doorstep of human resources shortly after hearing the news.

HR's advice to me was, of course, to counsel her.  This woman was, to me at the age of 22, "old."   She was in her 50s.   As I headed back to my office to prepare for the counseling, it hit me.  I was supervising my mother, and I didn't like it.   How would I sit across from someone I was raised to always respect, based on age alone, and now deliver a counseling?   I was horrified.

My experience is not unlike what so many young managers are facing today.  The population of older workers is exploding.   Based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage increase in employment for those age 65 and older for the period of 1997 through 2007 was over 100 percent.   If you parse that group down further, you'll find that the number of women 65 and older grew 147 percent.    What is even more remarkable is the fact more of these older workers are engaged in full-time work, as opposed to part-time work.  Prior to 2001, this wasn't the case; however, over the last decade, the trend has continued with more older workers putting in a lot of hours.

Let's discuss the term "old."   What does "old" mean?   When you're 40, "old" may be someone in their 80s.   A person in their 30s may view a 65 year old as being old.   But a person in their 20s, likely believes someone in their 40s and 50s are, at the very least, getting up their in age.   And therein lies our challenge.   If organizations are placing younger people in management roles in which they supervise middle-age workers, human resources departments have a duty to provide these managers with the tools and knowledge to overcome biases and get them to the point where they view older workers as a great opportunity for their departments to flourish.

The Association of Executive Search Consultants asked people at what age they believe age discrimination becomes apparent to them.   They found that 17% believed it was apparent at age 40, while 38% responded it was at age 50, and another 25% at age 55.   If a young manager views someone in their 40s and 50s as being old and that age group clearly feels age discrimination is apparent at that same age, there is cause for concern.  You see, a young manager isn't going to tell the recruiter in human resources that they don't want to hire an older worker simply because they are old.  Having said that, there is likely a mind process going on in their heads leading them to the same result.   A "now hiring" shingle on your business has morphed itself into a "not hiring" sign for older workers.

So, what is it that these managers are thinking about?  For starters, they probably get concerned when a seasoned candidate sits down to interview and they have 20+ years of experience noted on their resume.  This can be very intimidating to younger people.   Many times, these candidates get the "Heisman" (stiff arm) because the manager doesn't want someone to make them look bad.   Another thought they may have is this individual is going to be too set in their ways and will be more of a challenge than a help to them.  You see, there are biases that enter our minds - these natural tendencies to lump groups of people into boxes many times based on negative and unsubstantiated beliefs.

Here are five ways you can help younger managers view older workers differently:

1. It's not about the process, it's about the outcome.   Do you really need to worry about how they got from A to Z as long as they got to the Z you wanted?  Give these workers the flexibility to tap into their years of experience to get the job done.
2. Communicate and then communicate some more.  Don't shy away from dialogue.  There is a natural tendency to just let older workers be and not to engage them.  This is a huge mistake.  These workers are there because they want to understand the big picture, how they contribute, and to know what they are doing means something.
3. Let them share their knowledge.   This group is perfect for mentoring.  What a better way to establish mutual respect, engage them, and show that you respect their experience?   Allow them to impart their knowledge to others.   Even consider them for reverse mentoring (e.g., training managers)
4. You don't have to be the boss.   I made this mistake in a very big way when I first moved into management.   Everyone knows you are the manager, you don't have to prove that point in every move you make.   "Team" with your employees and ensure they know that you are willing to work shoulder to shoulder with them.
5. Train them.   You can teach an old dog new tricks.  Unfortunately, older people in the workforce are quickly discounted as being incapable of learning, so training isn't considered.

In case you missed it, here’s what happened on We Know Next this week.

Facebook itself reported that in the last few months it has “seen a distressing increase in reports of employers or others seeking to gain inappropriate access to people’s Facebook profiles or private information,” according to Erin Egan, chief privacy officer, policy, with Facebook, in a March 23, 2012, posting. The potentially illegal practice of demanding passwords is being heavily criticized in light of recent media coverage.

Remember 2011’s strong start? From February to April 2011, U.S. employers created an average of 239,000 jobs per month. Then from May to July 2011 that rate fell by two-thirds; only an average of approximately 78,000 jobs per month was added during that time frame, according to data tallied by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Is the U.S. job marketing finally starting to thaw or is this déjà vu?

SHRM and AARP jointly conducted this survey which asked HR professionals about their organization’s strategic workforce planning activities in preparation for the potential skill gaps that may occur as younger workers enter and older workers exit the workforce. Nearly three-quarters of HR professionals (72%) described their organization’s loss of talent due to older workers retiring/leaving their organization as a “problem” or “potential problem.

The brains of young people growing up “hyperconnected” to the Internet might be wired differently from those of their elders, suggests a recent survey of technology experts from the Pew Research Center and Elon University, who were split on whether the newfangled wiring is desirable according to researchers.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) requires that each state establish a health insurance exchange for individuals and small businesses by 2014, or the federal government will establish one for them. Even if the U.S. Supreme Court were to declare unconstitutional the PPACA's so-called "individual mandate," requiring individuals to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty, many expect that other provisions of the sweeping bill, including those covering the creation of state health care exchanges, would survive.

One of the most popular trends in the IT world right now is the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) approach, where employees use their own mobile device at work. Its another case of new technology creating new problems. Before implementing a BYOD policy, you need to weigh the risks against the cost benefits.

We Know Next is the leading resource for business executives, policymakers and human resource leaders to explore and discuss the latest workforce and workplace trends—providing the in-depth research and insights needed to adapt and take advantage of what’s next.

1. Corporations stand to lose more employees through lack of engagement in the short-term and head count attrition over the long term as the economy stabilizes.
2. Corporations will lose opportunities to capture experiential learning and institutional knowledge buried in the minds of our veterans, before they retire.
3. Our future leaders, Gen Y and Gen X will not develop and remain focused on their careers at their current companies - instead their focus will be around where to go for their next job.
4. Veterans – or more significantly – the experienced boomers who reach their late 50’s and 60’s - will spend the last of their years waiting to retire, collecting a (big) paycheck, and yet, by Gallup terms, are disengaged or worse, and companies will lose out on the opportunity for these folks to mentor, teach, learn from, and engage with the younger generation to develop a new and improved corporate culture.

It’s no secret that technology as well as social media are changing the way we work and live.  Thankfully, corporate America and the U.S. Government are finally getting the clue, learning that technology offers an opportunity to provide more employees flexibility while cutting overhead costs at the same time. 

Two trends I’ve seen emerging among the workplace mainstream are telecommuting and BYOD. 

Telecommuting is a relatively simple idea, although a challenge for managers and supervisors to execute effectively.  Employees and teams work virtually from their home office, collaborating and communicating online and by phone.  Telecommuting is a very highly desirable benefit.  In fact, 83% of the 2,500 American adults stated that it was a trend growing not only in popularity, but importance.  Importance that translates into 32% of those surveyed willing to give up a pay increase or half vacation days to work from home.  The survey released by Team Viewer and Harris Interactive found that employees are willing to make significant sacrifices in both their work and personal lives to telecommute.  In fact, 5% of respondents would leave their spouse and 12% would forego taking showers for the ability to work from home.  

Telecommuting offers a benefit not just for the employee.  In 2010, the government passed the Federal Telework Act allowing employees to work from home or have flexible schedules.  The act, in less than a year, has had 79 agencies participate with 42% of them experiencing cost reductions. 

BYOD “Bring Your Own Device,” employees are asked by employers to bring their own personal computers, tablets, and smart phones to work, lowering company technology costs while increasing potential corporate risk.  The cost savings for an organization, depending on their size, could be in the thousands or millions each year.  As companies transition to the cloud and the need for data storage, company issued devices become less important. 

I no longer have the need for the company laptop and VPN to be able to access my presentation.  In the cloud, I can quickly upload my presentation to my tablet, making for a more interactive discussion and lighter load.  Employees no longer have to juggle two cell phones, multiple tablets, and lap top computers.  With BYOD and technology, data is as safe as it was before, except it is stored via the Internet making my life and work less complex.  The transition between the two is seamless and makes having to juggle multiple smart phones, calendars, and computers throughout the workday a problem of the past.

While these emerging trends are not new, they are catching the attention of corporate human resource professionals and members of the C-Suite who are beginning to use tablets, social media, and mobile technologies as part of their own everyday lives both personally and professionally.  And when it comes to ROI for telework and BYOD, business leaders are more likely to make the connection to getting business done more than ever before.  Because if the federal government can benefit, surely you can, too.

The brains of young people growing up “hyperconnected” to the Internet might be wired differently from those of their elders, suggests a recent survey of technology experts, who were split on whether the newfangled wiring is desirable.

Researchers from the Pew Research Center and Elon University recently conducted an opt-in, nonrandom, online survey of 1,021 technology stakeholders and critics. Participants were asked which of two predictions about teens and young adults seem more likely by 2020—a scenario in which they’re savvy and productive, or one in which they’re hampered by impatience and shallowness.

HR professionals might, as a result, have to change the ways in which they manage these younger workers.

Some 55 percent of survey participants agreed that the brains of multitasking young people will be wired differently from the brains of those older than 35, mostly for the better. They said young people won’t suffer notable cognitive shortcomings, and that “they are learning more and they are more adept at finding answers to deep questions,” in part because they’re good at going online and finding collective intelligence.

Some 42 percent of survey participants expected brain-wiring changes with negative results, including a thirst for instant gratification. They expect young people will “not retain information; they spend most of their energy sharing short social messages, being entertained, and being distracted away from deep engagement with people and knowledge. They lack deep-thinking capabilities; they lack face-to-face social skills; [and] they depend in unhealthy ways on the Internet and mobile devices to function.”

Even some who chose the positive prediction said it was more their hope than their best guess, “and a number of people said the true outcome will be a combination of both scenarios,” according to the Pew-Elon survey report, published Feb. 29, 2012.

While they were not offered a third option, some participants disagreed with the notion that the wiring of young people’s brains will be different from previous generations’ wiring but thought Millennials’ thinking patterns probably will be.

Game Change

Teens and adults who grew up playing video games “will have lasting problems with focus and attention,” futurist author Marcel Bullinga commented in the survey.

“They find distraction while working, distraction while driving [and] distraction while talking to the neighbors. Parents and teachers will have to invest major time and efforts into solving this issue,” he said, by helping young people learn to appreciate quiet contemplation without their mobile devices. “All in all, I think the negative side effects can be healed,” Bullinga added.

Some of those surveyed noted that they themselves, as older adults, have become highly connected to technology, with positive and negative results. Respondents included educators who noted a diminishment of critical thinking skills and attention spans among students.

David Ellis, communications studies director at Toronto’s York University, contends that multitasking hinders productivity, even for the very bright. Contrary to popular opinion, he doesn’t see Millennials as effective users of digital tools.

“The idea that Millennials have a cognitive advantage over their elders is based on myths about multitasking, the skill sets of digital natives and 24/7 connectedness,” he commented in the survey. “Far from having an edge in learning, I see Millennials as increasingly trapped by the imperatives of online socializing and the opportunities offered by their smart phones to communicate from any place, any time.”

HR experts already see refreshing and exasperating differences in Millennials in the workplace.

“Millennials are an interesting group of employees” and “very different” from other generations, said Susan Heathfield, a Michigan-based management consultant and business owner who writes the human resources section for About.com.

Attachment to technology “causes them to be on 24/7,” she told SHRM Online, adding that young workers wouldn’t imagine going on vacation without a phone and e-mail access. They’re likely to conduct most business on smart phones, she said. “It creates this mentality where work and what is not work is flowing together.” For example, she said, an employee might watch the NCAA basketball tournament on a computer at 11 a.m. and answer a colleague’s e-mail at 11 p.m.

“Millennial employees are looking for change and challenge. Boring is bad. They want their tasks changing all the time,” Heathfield said. They want autonomy and reassurance. “It just blows my mind watching how this batch of employees was raised,” she said. “They want lots of praise, lots of feedback—every day. … If you ignore their ideas, ‘What’s your problem? My ideas are great.’ ”

Their connectedness can lead to behavior that older colleagues consider rude, like texting during meetings.

While Heathfield didn’t want to generalize, she noted that Millennials grew up working in teams and “they don’t think twice about whether the opinion they express hurts someone else’s feelings. … A Millennial is more likely to say, ‘What a sucky idea,’ and they don’t mean it in an insulting way.”

Everyone must adjust in order to become comfortable with generational differences, she said.

“You appreciate these kids with their fresh ideas, their youthful thinking, their sort of ‘I can do anything’ approach to the workplace,” she said. “They’re like a breath of fresh air in many ways.”

Dinah Wisenberg Brin, a former wire service reporter, is a freelance writer living in Philadelphia. She can be reached at dwbrin@comcast.net.  To view the original article, please click here.

Each day HR professionals in companies of all sizes are addressing issues related to planning for the eventual departure of baby boomers from the workplace.  There is much talk of succesion planning as it relates to filling key positions and roles within these companies.  

In the midst of these conversations, another question needs to be raised: "Who will succeed our current generation of HR professionals?" 

Join us for #NextChat on April 18 at 6 p.m. ET, and we'll tackle questions such as Who's Next? -- Who will be the next generation of HR pros and where will they come from?   How can we promote the HR profession to millenials?  What can we do to make HR a "destination occupation" among this important group?

I will be joined by Joey V. Price, CEO of Jumpstart HR, who will also share his thoughts on the following questions:

 Q1. What can HR pros do to encourage millenials to enter the HR profession?
 Q2. What advice would you give to millenials who are new to the HR profession?
 Q3. What distinguishing strengths does the millennial generation bring to the HR profession?
 Q4. How will millenials change the HR profession for the better over the next 10 years?
  Q5. How has working with a millennial coworker influenced or changed the way you work?  What new ideas, skills or practices have you learned or adopted?

We look forward to your contributions to this conversation via #NEXTCHAT.  

17 Rules for Developing and Keeping Devoted Employees is a must read on how to foster commitment, respect, trust, honesty, fun and above all performance.

Why people choose to work for you and why they stay. It’s not about money, not even now. Don’t just demand alignment: nurture it: Create powerful opportunities for employees to link with vision, values, and mission. Applaud effort, but reward contribution, recognize the crucial difference between behavior and outcomes. 

17 Rules for Developing and Keeping Devoted Employees features new case studies from retail, healthcare, high-tech, low-tech, and beyond, by David Russo, one of the world’s leading experts in workforce optimization. This book is about developing outstanding employees and getting them to stay. It’s about building a workforce that’s truly engaged, committed, aligned with strategy, and capable of incredible performance. Simply put, it’s about optimizing the #1 factor associated with outsmarting, outhustling, and out executing your competition, your people. This easy read outlines exactly what great companies do differently when it comes to managing their people. And beyond this, how to apply those lessons in virtually every aspect of your organization: from resourcing and compensation to leadership development, culture, and beyond. Want people who care, engage, work hard, support your strategies, and deliver results? Start right here!

For more information on 17 Rules for Developing and Keeping Devoted Employees or to purchase from The SHRMStore, click here. 

SHRM and AARP jointly conducted this survey which asked HR professionals about their organization’s strategic workforce planning activities in preparation for the potential skill gaps that may occur as younger workers enter and older workers exit the workforce. Nearly three-quarters of HR professionals (72%) described their organization’s loss of talent due to older workers retiring/leaving their organization as a “problem” or “potential problem”; however, only a small percentage of organizations (5%) have implemented specific policies and management practices in anticipation of this potential talent loss. Approximately one-half of organizations (51%) indicated that writing in English (grammar, spelling, etc.) was the top basic skill observed among older workers that is not readily seen among younger workers, while 52% of organizations reported professionalism/work ethic is the top applied skill that younger workers are less likely to exhibit. Almost one-half of organizations (45%) have increased training and cross-training efforts in order to prepare for the potential skills gaps and/or to retain and recruit older workers. 

Joe,
 
Great question: How do we avoid jobs and companies that suck?
  
It is heart breaking to me when I see talented people trudging away in jobs that either they don’t love or at companies where they don’t fit.  And, as you hint at, in almost every situation when you talk to someone who is in this kind of predicament, they almost always say something like “This isn’t at all what I thought it was going to be.”  They were toast before they even showed up to new hire orientation.
 
I’ve been in that spot a few times myself.  I’ve felt the pain of waking up to the very crushing reality that you made the wrong choice when you decided to take the job.  I felt discouraged.  I felt deceived.  I felt lost.  It sucks.  It’s a terrible thing to be in a job or a company where you don’t belong and where you can’t utilize the best of who you are.  And there are way too many people stuck in this situation.
 
It doesn’t have to be this way.

You asked what we can do to avoid ending up in the vortex of work suckage.  I’m no expert, but I’ve seen it enough to offer up some thoughts and suggestions that might help.

1. Seek out a job before it’s a crisis.  If you really need a job or are desperate to leave where you are, you will almost always make a knee jerk decision because anything looks good when you are in that situation.  To make great decisions, you need time and perspective.  And, you need to be not only able to but willing to walk away from any job or company if it doesn’t feel right.
2. Know what is most important to you.  Sadly, most people don’t spend the time to understand what really matters to them.  What kind of culture is a fit for you?  How do you know?  What kind of work do you want to do?  What kind of manager do you want to work for?  What kind of people do you want to work with?  If you can’t answer these questions with clarity, there is no way for you to evaluate a new opportunity for fit.  By not answering these questions, you are leaving the “fit” entirely up to luck.  That’s bad strategy.
3. Interview the company.  Ask to meet with a number of people individually at the company you are considering and have a set of questions ready that are based on your answers to the “fit” questions above.  For example, you might ask the question “Tell me about the culture here” or “How would you decribe the atmosphere here at the organization?  Listen for consistency.  In a strong culture, all of the answers will sound similar.  If they aren’t, that’s a huge red flag.  When you interview the company, it’s not about showing them that you are interested, it’s about legitimately deciding if this is the right company for you.
4. Look for reasons not to take the job. My experience has been that most of us go into a job interview looking for reasons to join a company so we tend to see only the things that appeal to us.  Instead, I think most people would be wise to go into a job interview looking for reasons not to join the company.  That doesn’t mean tanking the interview or being a jackass, but just being constantly on the lookout for danger signs.
5. Seek out people who had what you want and left.  With social media, particularly LinkedIn, it’s easy to find people who have worked in the company you are considering, maybe even having done the exact job you are considering.  Ask them the same questions you asked in the interview process.  Ask this person why they left and if they’d ever go back.  Listen intently to what they say and how they say it.  Then, ask them if they know of others who have left who you could also reach out to and talk to.  The more info you collect, the more likely you are to have a really accurate picture of the company with which to make a decision.
6. Don’t suck.  All of these suggestions assume that you are a desirable and sought-after talent.  So, you have to always be working to expand your value and your options.  Build your network.  Read a lot of books.  Take on stretch assignments in your current job.  Always be in the process of building your own value.  The more valuable you are, the more options you have.  When you don’t have a lot of options available to you, it’s likely you will have to adapt the strategy of simply taking the job available to you that sucks the least rather than going after a job you’d truly love.
    
   The foundation under all of this is to treat the decision of where you will work as the critical, life-changing decision it is.  A great job at a great company can positively impact every aspect of your life for the better.  And, a terrible, soul-crushing job can negatively impact every aspect of your life.  This is a really important decision and we need to treat it with the respect it deserves.
    
   The great news is that we have control.  We get to make the decision about where we work and how we work.  The real issue is whether we’ll put in the time and energy to ensure we make the right choice.
    
   What did I miss?

Jason

Is the U.S. job market finally starting to thaw, or is this déjà vu?

Remember 2011’s strong start? From February to April 2011, U.S. employers created an average of 239,000 jobs per month. Then from May to July 2011 that rate fell by two-thirds; only an average of approximately 78,000 jobs per month was added during that time frame, according to data tallied by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Fast-forward to 2012. January 2012’s BLS report showed an increase of 284,000 jobs; 227,000 jobs were created in February 2012, and 120,000 jobs were added in March 2012.

So are we headed for another letdown? It’s too soon to tell, but some hiring professionals and employment organizations are actually showing more faith in the job market in 2012.

According to the Society for Human Resource Management’s Jobs Outlook Survey for the second quarter of 2012, 58 percent of respondents have some level of confidence in the U.S. labor market and expect job growth for the April-to-June 2012 time frame. That’s up sharply from 34 percent of respondents in the fourth quarter of 2011.

There’s also a positive report for the much-maligned young workers, whose unemployment rates have soared during this post-recession period. The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) said that employers will hire 10.2 percent more college graduates in 2012 compared with 2011. Even better news for graduates with high skill sets: 69 percent of the respondents to NACE’s most recent polling are seeking engineering majors for open jobs in 2012, followed by those with business degrees (63 percent), accounting degrees (53 percent) and computer science degrees (49 percent).

The bad (and now old) news is that there is still an imbalance between some job seekers’ qualifications and the qualifications needed for positions available today.

A new report by McKinsey Global Institute found the skills gap is not going away anytime soon.

McKinsey’s research said that in 2011, 30 percent of U.S. companies had positions open for more than six months that they could not fill, and this was at a time when unemployment hovered above 9 percent.

The skills shortage is coming to a head in places like Memphis, Tenn., which had the third-highest hiring rate among major metro areas in 2011, according to new research by Gallup. Memphis city officials estimate they have at least 3,000 new jobs coming in the next couple of years because of hiring surges at certain large employers like Mitsubishi and Electrolux. Many of those positions are rooted in manufacturing, which has been a stalwart of the economic recovery but is also falling victim to the skills mismatch problem.

“There’s a great shortage of people who are educationally equipped for these jobs that are coming,” said Patricia Myers, a business services analyst with Workforce Investment Network, a division of the federally funded Workforce Investment Act program that serves the Memphis region’s labor market development needs.

Myers’ organization is collaborating with local industry groups, community colleges and businesses to mold the talent to fill those future openings. The process includes interviewing manufacturers to determine their specific skill requirements for new jobs and then developing curricula that address those needs, she said.

The Workforce Investment Network has applied for a federal grant in the range of $6 million to $12 million to assist with the skills gap effort.

“The grant would be phenomenal,” Myers said. “It would allow us to accomplish things much faster. But regardless of whether we get the money, we’re doing this anyway. We have no choice.”

Joseph Coombs is SHRM’s workplace trends and forecasting specialist. To view the original article, please click here.