The HR Cafe

EFCA -- Is Card Check Unconstitutional?

Dear HR Executive:
If you missed yesterday's (3/30/09) Wall Street Journal editorial on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), you should check it out. To date we haven't heard a stronger case for defeating EFCA.

The gist of the WSJ argument is that the "card check" provision in EFCA is unconstitutional. Card check is of course a method for employees to unionize when a majority of employees at a company publicly sign authorization forms, or "cards," stating they wish to be represented by the union. The WSJ says that violates workers' constitutional right to "anonymous speech" (currently the yes/no decision is made by secret ballot).

The main point the anti-EFCA forces have made thus far is that workers who oppose unionization will cave in and vote yes because they'll fear being ostracized or even physically harmed. Given the violent history of the American labor movement, this argument certainly has merit.

But the WSJ article takes it a step further and says that forcing a worker to vote publicly is a violation of that person's constitutional rights: "Sanctioning -- and thereby promoting -- demands that employees publicly disclose how they feel about unionization clearly violates their First Amendment entitlement to vote and practice their speech privately."

EFCA advocates will claim that a worker can simply abstain from voting, but that misses the point. On the shop floor an abstention will be viewed as a "no" and potentially subject the worker to retaliatory threats and abuse. Those who favor EFCA have a significant hurdle to overcome: If voting is public, how do you protect the rights of workers who 1) don't want to be in a union and 2) feel their opinion on this issue is nobody's business but their own?

If card check is in fact anti-constitutional, and if EFCA passes, we'd see a wave of lawsuits filed by workers who claimed that their First Amendment and privacy rights were violated. How ugly would that be? The mere thought of it might make legislators think twice.

Here again is the link to the WSJ article.

Please share your thoughts by clicking on "comments" below.

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: Don't miss B21’s upcoming audio conference, "Personal Accountability: How Supervisors Can Get Workers to “Own” Their Jobs and Their Results." Why are some supervisors better than others at achieving goals? They all have the same motivational tools at their disposal: They can give employees raises, promotions and nonmonetary rewards when deserved. They can all use the performance review process to provide positive feedback and fire people up. But why do the best managers dramatically outperform the rest? What’s their secret? Two words – personal accountability.  Great supervisors have a unique talent for tapping in to an employee’s sense of personal accountability to achieve goals.  On Thursday, April 9, our speaker, Valerie Grubb, will lay out six steps successful supervisors can use to instill personal accountability in their direct reports.

Employee motivation: Trailing by a point

Dear HR Executive,

You and your line managers are always looking for that extra edge to boost performance.

A new study of college basketball games, of all things, provides some insight into how you can best motivate your people to push themselves harder.

Comebacks
The study, published by professors at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, found that teams trailing by a small margin -- one or two points -- at halftime were surprisingly likely to win the game.

In fact, the slightly trailing team won 51.3% of the time, whereas with other performance influences factored out they should have won only 46% of the games.

'We're close'
What's this mean for your motivational efforts? A couple of things, according to the Wharton profs.

• First, it may help to tell your people that you're slightly behind a selected competitor in some aspect of business -- sales, customer service, production efficiency, whatever you want to emphasize. This leads people to exert more effort -- and is more effective than telling them they're slightly ahead, dead even with the competition, or way behind.
• Second, you can use the research to help you set goals, personal and/or organizational, for your employees. The idea is that straining to reach overly ambitious goals -- the mental equivalent of being way behind at halftime -- actually can demotivate people. Trying for realistic, close-at-hand objectives, though -- the equivalent of being a point or two behind -- tends to being out their best.

You can see more on the Wharton study here.

Dave Clemens
Editor-in-Chief
The HR Cafe Newsletter 

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: Don't miss B21’s upcoming audio conference, "Advanced Morale Boosting: How to Keep Employees Up when Everything Else is Down"   On Tuesday, April 7, our speaker, Valerie Grubb, will explain why line managers must understand THEIR critical role. They’re in a better position than anyone at the company to pick up on gossip and misinformation that fuels fears, poisons morale and hurts productivity. And they’re well-positioned to apply  “Advanced morale boosting” skills that can keep your workforce engaged, productive and upbeat even in bad times.  She will lay out the five most common mistakes companies make that kill employee morale in difficult financial times. And will give you a blueprint for how to realign employees and get them back on track to focusing on company goals.

Free training program -- How to talk to employees about money

Note: Click to view free online training module on salary discussions

Dear HR Executive:

Business 21 has a new product line we'd like our HR Cafe blog readers to take a look at. It's a training and information resource called the "HR Cafe Training Center" and I guarantee you you've never seen anything like it. We'd love to know what you think of it.

The HR Cafe Training Center combines two services that HR executives will find useful:

1. A fast-read HR newsletter -- nothing too unusual here. Subscribers get a print and online version that keeps you current on employment law, benefits, comp, etc.
2. Fast-paced online training modules -- now these ARE unusual, and the feedback we're getting from early users (see below) suggests they're helping HR executives increase their perceived value in their organizations. Imagine a library of remarkably affordable training modules, all a very watchable five to 10 minutes long, that you can deploy with a click of a mouse when a need arises. You email them to employees; they click on a link and program launches right on their screen.

OPTION 1: See for yourself. Learn more about the product and sign up for a no-risk 60-day trial to test drive the HR Cafe Training Center.

OPTION 2: Click here to view a quick-launching online training module for supervisors who struggle when talking to subordinates about money (that group includes just about ALL supervisors, by the way). It's called: "Don't You Love Me Anymore? How to Drain the Drama and Emotion from Annual Salary Reviews."

We'd love your feedback on both the Quick Take and the HR Cafe Training Center platform. Please feel free to post a "comment."

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

P.S. Here's what HR executives are saying about the Quick Take training modules in the HR Cafe Training Center:

How to Conduct Effective Exit Interviews - 6 mins 32 secs
"This is the first time I have heard your approach to exit interviews, but I intend to use it. The Quick Take format is great for those of us with really busy schedules and limited free time. I can learn something new in only a few minutes. Karen Morton, Town of Ledyard, CT

How to Conduct An Excruciatingly Difficult Conversation With An Employee - 8 mins 43 sec
"Provides a lesson that any level supervisor can understand and use. Very clear and specific. Even helpful for 'HR specialists.' " Marcie Johnson, Virginia Department of Transportation

Why 95% of Training Doesn't Stick - 8 mins 45 sec
"Excellent narrative and perfect amount of time. I scheduled a follow-up meeting for my situational leadership requirements. The Quick Take format is really to the point." Sammi Fox, Avnet

Boost employee morale: one simple step you can take today

Dear HR Executive:

A new survey from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) suggests that workers are spending a good part of their time worrying about their jobs instead of doing them – and managers may be promoting those fears unintentionally.

Worry is one of the hidden costs of this recession. Companies are already struggling to get more work done with fewer people. Now, it turns out, workers are spending up to three hours a day worrying about work, according to a telephone survey of approximately 1,000 U.S. workers commissioned by the firm Lynn Taylor Consulting.

Open doors improve employee morale
Sure, there’s plenty to worry about. But the study found that companies may be unintentionally sending out signals that are pushing employees to the brink.

In fact, there’s one thing you can recommend to reduce worker anxiety and improve employee morale right now: Urge managers to keep the office doors open.

In the survey, 76 percent of workers said that when they see closed doors at work, they think one thing: Layoffs.

“In today’s economic environment, employees are searching for every clue to determine their job fate,” said Lynn Taylor, a nationally known expert and author on workplace issues. “Too often, not enough direct input is given to employees, and so nonverbal cues are heavily relied upon. Managers working behind closed doors may be shutting out more than noise—they may be shutting down productivity.”

Michael Boyette
Editor, HR Café Training Center

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: Don't miss B21’s upcoming audio conference, "Advanced Morale Boosting: How to Keep Employees Up when Everything Else is Down"   On Tuesday, April 7, our speaker, Valerie Grubb, will explain why line managers must understand THEIR critical role. They’re in a better position than anyone at the company to pick up on gossip and misinformation that fuels fears, poisons morale and hurts productivity. And they’re well-positioned to apply  “Advanced morale boosting” skills that can keep your workforce engaged, productive and upbeat even in bad times.  She will lay out the five most common mistakes companies make that kill employee morale in difficult financial times. And will give you a blueprint for how to realign employees and get them back on track to focusing on company goals.

Employee communication: Let workers know that management shares their pain

Dear HR Executive:

With all the reports recently of big bonuses being handed out to top execs at failing firms, your rank-and-file employees may be looking at their next salary discussions with a pretty skeptical eye. They may be wondering whether everybody’s sharing the pain. 

Right now, management communication should address how everyone is carrying his or her part of the load. You might want to let employees in on this new data: Nearly one fifth of employers are freezing pay for executive and top managers in the current economic slump, according to a new survey by World at Work. The organization questioned more than 1,000 companies and found that employers are clamping down hard on big bosses’ pay. In April 2008, only 3 percent planned zero increases for 2009. By last December, it was up to 17%.

Shared sacrifice
HR can craft strategies to let employees know how the higher-ups are helping shoulder the sacrifices needed to get through the recession. What are you doing along these lines? Is your management communicating enough about salary discussions and wage issues to the rank and file?

Michael Boyette
Editor, HR Café Training Center

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: Don't miss B21’s upcoming audio conference, "The Seven Deadly Sins of Employee Compensation Plans (and How to Fix Them)"   On Wednesday, April 1, our speaker, Rick Olivieri, will present a list of the top seven mistakes companies (and individual managers) make when compensating employees.  There is no magic bullet for compensating people right. But – and this is a big “but” – there are lots of things you can do to make sure you don’t shoot yourself in the foot.

Memo to employees: 'Training is too expensive; we’ll just hire someone new instead'

Dear HR Executive:

Here’s the sort of short-term thinking that companies just can’t afford right now: A new survey finds that few firms are willing pay for employee training on emerging-media skills. Yet they’ll pay top dollar to recruit new hires with those same skills.

A survey of HR execs conducted by profs at Ball State University found that 90 percent of firms were willing to pay a premium of 1 to 8 percent for workers with new-media skills. And 94 percent of respondents said it was important for employees to have these skills. Yet 77 percent of the firms said they provided little or no employee training on them.

Yes, new-media skills are in short supply and companies desperately need to develop those capabilities to stay competitive. But it’s almost certainly more cost effective to train current employees than to hire someone new at a higher salary. And it’s likely to be a lot less risky. That new hire may be a technical wizard, but does he or she know your business, your goals and your culture?

Your current employees know all of those things. And you know which ones are capable of growth. When you train and promote from within, you send two powerful messages to the entire workforce: We care about your advancement, and these skills are important to us.

So the next time someone says, “We need to bring in people who know how to do X,” step back and ask whether it wouldn’t make more sense to train someone instead.

Michael Boyette
Editor, HR Café Training Center

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: Don't miss B21’s upcoming audio conference, "On-Boarding: A Four-Step Process to Ensure that New Hires Succeed in their First 90 Days"   On Tuesday, March 17, our speaker, B. Lynn Ware, Ph.D., will explain why this process, now commonly called “on-boarding,” is widely misunderstood and vastly underutilized.  Why it’s easy to underestimate just how difficult it is for new employees to adapt to a new job and a new culture and it takes a long time for them to contribute. Dr. Ware will discuss how you can dramatically improve your success rate and avoid the staggering cost of failed hires if you implement a systematic “on-boarding” process at your company.

Motivating employees: How do you inspire workers?

Dear HR Executive:

What motivates employees to do their best? We recently hosted an audioconference with Dr. Michael Burchell of the Great Places to Work Institute – the organization that compiles the annual rankings for Fortune magazine.

At great companies, Burchell says, people are inspired by their work. They arrive every day energized by what they do and go home knowing that they’ve made a difference.

But motivating employees isn’t a matter of soaring rhetoric, feel-good videos or those often-mocked motivational posters touting Teamwork or Persistence.
 
Inspiration, Burchell said, “connects the head and the heart and the hands with whatever the work is.” It draws a straight line between what workers do and how that work affects the world.

Show them the end result
Take Medtronic, for example. It manufactures medical devices, and many workers spend their days sealed off in clean rooms, assembling tiny parts into highly complex products. Yes, the work is important. And it has to be done right. But it would be easy for these employees to start thinking that their job is about whatever happens in the clean room.

So a couple of times of the year, management at Medtronic have a unique way of motivating employees.  They bring all their employees together and have a patient or physician talk about how those devices impacted their lives. Workers sit face-to-face with people who are alive because of the work they do. And it makes a huge difference. People feel connected. Even though they do a job where they’re focused in little parts that go down a conveyor belt, they can see how it all fits together.

As an HR manager, you can have a big impact on how people feel about their jobs. The question to ask: Can every employee reasonably make a straight-line connection between their work and some tangible metric or outcome that the organization really cares about? You can take steps – like Medtronics’ patient meetings – that help employees gain that line-of-sight. And when they do, they’ll be inspired to do their very best.

Michael Boyette
Editor, HR Café Training Center

B21 Survey: How's the economy affecting you?

Dear HR Executive:

Our most recent survey shows that three quarters of HR executives find the current economy scary. Nearly half are confident they're going to survive. But nearly a third aren't so sure.

Whoa! Almost a third of you feel your company's very survival is at risk?

Here are the survey results:

Q. Which statement below most accurately captures how you're feeling about the recession's affect on your business?

• It's terrifying; Our leadership seems frozen by fear -- 5%
• It's very scary. We've made all the right moves, but we fear it might not be enough -- 27.2%
• It's scary, but we made the right moves and adapted to hard times. We'll be okay  -- 43.2%
• We haven't been hit too hard. Pretty much business as usual -- 22%
• Things are better than ever -- 2.3%

At a recent executive forum, I got a snapshot of the problem facing us all today. A successful consultant to the manufacturing industry said his bank just turned him down for a loan to buy his building. He's been with them 20 years. He's always been profitable. The bank just said, "No hard feelings; we don't do those loans anymore."

Next to him was a builder who said, pointing to the consultant, "He's the reason my business is in the toilet. If he can't get a loan, who can?"

As an HR executive, you're a leader in your company and rank-and-file employees no doubt try to gauge how optimistic you are about the future. You probably feel an obligation to put on a happy face, even when you can't see even a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel. I know I wake up every day trying to find something to be optimistic about, but the morning paper and the nightly news have been relentless downers for as long as I can remember. So I'm getting creative, scratching and clawing for a reason to be optimistic. Let me share some hopeful thoughts I've had in the past week:

• At my executive forum one member, a steelmaker who'd been through the harsh recessions of the early 80s and early 90s, reminded everyone that when customers stop spending their inventories deplete, creating huge pent-up demand. That demand is building now. Tough this out and it should come roaring back.
• I had breakfast in Montana last week with a 68-year-old retired fellow who'd run several businesses in his life. He said early in our conversation that he loved recessions because he knew he was good enough to survive, and that he'd come out of them stronger. That sounded like bluster at first, but by the time I'd finished my last pancake I'd learned that the guy was for real. And I walked away hopeful that someday I'd be able to say that the people in my company were tough enough, and unified enough, to survive the 2008-2009 meltdown and come out of it swinging.
• And finally, I heard a segment on the radio yesterday morning where a Japanese economist compared his country's economic meltdown in the 90s with what we're seeing in the U.S. today. The similarities are remarkable (although Japan's crisis was even worse). But I found economist Richard Koo's assessment encouraging because he spoke with great authority and confidence about what Japan did wrong, and offered hope that if our government makes all the right moves, we'll be okay. Here's a link to a summary of what he said:

One last thought. Nowhere near a third of those surveyed will see their companies fail. In recessions most companies survive. The ones that don't are those where leadership simply freezes up and can't make decisions. Relax. Make necessary cuts. Come up with a good plan and stick with it.

See you at the other end of the tunnel.

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: Don't miss B21’s upcoming audio conference, "Advanced Morale Boosting: How to Keep Employees Up when Everything Else is Down"   On Thursday, April 7, our speaker, Valerie Grubb, will explain why line managers must understand THEIR critical role. They’re in a better position than anyone at the company to pick up on gossip and misinformation that fuels fears, poisons morale and hurts productivity. And they’re well-positioned to apply  “Advanced morale boosting” skills that can keep your workforce engaged, productive and upbeat even in bad times.  She will lay out the five most common mistakes companies make that kill employee morale in difficult financial times. And will give you a blueprint for how to realign employees and get them back on track to focusing on company goals.