The HR Cafe

Paid Time Off: It benefits the company, too

Dear HR Executive,

At first glance, swine flu may not seem like an HR issue. But when you think about how epidemics spread -- and how they're stopped -- there's an important lesson that needs to be communicated to employees.

In a flu epidemic, it's not the most severe cases that spread the disease. Those people stay home. It's the milder cases -- people who have the virus but are still well enough to get out and about. Those dedicated employees who feel kind of lousy -- but hate to call in sick.

Oh, that presenteeism
You know why they do it. Some are ultra-conscientious. Some don’t want to let teammates down. Others are insecure about their jobs, and are afraid nobody will miss them if they stay home.

But when folks show up sick, usually nothing good can come of it. Either they infect colleagues, or don’t get much if anything done, or both. It’s called “presenteeism,” and ultimately it's counterproductive.

Using Paid Time Off
You may want to draft an all-staff e-mail reminding people that if they’re feeling unwell, they have vacation, sick and/or personal days – whatever your organization offers – to cover the time off, and they should use them.

With top management’s approval, you might even temporarily relax your paid time off policies – for a month or so – to allow absences to exceed PTO limitations as long as the employee produces a doctor’s note.

(It’s not clear at this point whether those with swine flu would qualify for FMLA leave. DOL says only that such flu “may” amount to a serious health condition under FMLA regs. If somebody actually comes down with swine flu, you might want to be liberal in your judgment about paid time off eligibility.)

Finally, you could consider reminding people about hygiene – for example, frequent hand-washing is recommended as a swine flu prophylactic. The government’s pandemic flu website (www.pandemicflu.gov) has recommendations for employers and downloadable flyers and posters. Simple preventive measures may have a big impact on your organization's productivity.

Dave Clemens
Editor-in-Chief
The HR Café Newsletter (www.hrcafe.net)

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: Don't miss B21’s upcoming audio conference , "COBRA UPDATE: Another Round of Changes You Need to Know About"  This conference will give participants an update on the March 31 guidance and also review the February 17, 2009 COBRA changes under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). Some of these changes were significant, notably a 65% government-provided COBRA tax credit that will benefit your company. You also need to be up-to-date on these changes because more employees will now be electing COBRA coverage, requiring new notices and changes to existing notices. On Thursday May 7, our speaker Ashley Gillihan, will provide a detailed action plan for employers under the new regulations.

Employee development programs: Are they getting enough attention now?

Dear HR Executive,

It’s all too easy to let an employee development program go by the board when times are tough.

Amid the deep recession, top management is thinking hard about the day-to-day survival of the business. Responding to that executive imperative, HR may slip into reactive mode – focusing on downsizing and all that goes with it: proper documentation of RIFs, unemployment hearings, COBRA issues and the like.

Plus, with a new, employee-friendly administration in Washington, HR has to make sure the organization is ready for any regulatory crackdowns and/or new employment laws.

It all adds up to a lot of putting-out-fires work for you. Any kind of forward planning – like an employee development program – can slip to the bottom of your list of priorities almost without your noticing.

Greater importance
You probably don’t want that to happen. Employee development may be more important – and even more feasible – during periods of organizational stress than at other times.

Why? According to Matthew Street, research and policy officer at Britain’s Management Standards Center, there are at least three reasons:

• Your most talented employees – those who value training and professional development the most – are the most likely to leave. Average employees won’t have the confidence to venture out into a cold job scene, but your best people well might. Making sure these folks can continue to develop their abilities is a great way to keep them around.
• Tough times require change. Strategies for coping with change can be taught and promoted as part of your talent development effort. 
• Senior executives may be more willing to participate in training and mentoring during a recession. Like everybody else, they’re eager to prove their value to the organization, and you may be able to tap their expertise for training that avoids the cost of expensive outside consultants.

How about you?

How are your employee development programs faring?

We at Business 21 would like to hear how you’re approaching training and professional development at this difficult economic time. Post a comment and let us know.

Dave Clemens
Editor-in-Chief
The HR Café Newsletter (www.hrcafe.net)

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: Don't miss B21’s upcoming audio conference , "The Five Attributes of Great Leaders: A Manager's Roadmap for Career Advancement." On Wednesday May 13, our speaker Hal Adler,  who has studied highly successful leaders for many years, has identified five “not-so-obvious” attributes that distinguish great leaders from merely good ones. Mastering these attributes can propel your managers and supervisors to top management roles and set your company on a course to greatness.

Some fringe benefits with a decidedly green tinge

Dear HR Executive:

Here’s some out-of-the-box thinking about fringe benefits.

The city of Austin, Texas, has bought 15 bicycles for employees to use for business needs or during lunch. The move is intended to help reduce use of cars in the city and thereby reduce Austin's carbon emissions. The city spent $3,840 -- $256 apiece -- for the bikes and will provide helmets and locks, city spokeswoman Charlotte Blum said.

The city is also partnering with Daimler, which is providing 200 fuel-efficient Smart cars in a car-sharing program for employees.

Bikes and Smart Cars aren’t for everyone, of course. But when you think about what people spend on getting from Point A to Point B, there’s an opportunity for innovative companies to come up with ideas that have a big impact on workers’ lives. For example, I once worked for an organization that allowed employees to use its pickup truck on weekends – first come, first served. It was a nice perk – and the cost to the organization was minimal. Transit subsidies like TransitChek are another low-cost, yet highly visible, benefit.

And if, like the City of Austin, you can reduce your organization’s carbon footprint at the same time, you’ve got some great fringe benefits that deliver a lot of bang for the buck.

Michael Boyette
Editor, HR Café Training Center

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: Don't miss B21’s upcoming audio conference, "Low-Cost, High-Impact Recognition Strategies When Money is Tight."  Although employee recognition and non-monetary/low-cost rewards are absolutely mission critical for maintaining morale, productivity and retention, they’re high risk, requiring thought, planning and insight. The easy way out – just throwing money and rewards at people or taking a “one-size-fits-all” approach – just doesn’t cut it. You’ve got to get it right. This 60-minute conference will show you how. Valerie Grubb, a top-ranked B21 speaker, will lay out the most common mistakes companies make with employee recognition. And she’ll give you a blueprint for creating a recognition program that’s aligned with your company goals and in sync with the needs of your workforce in today’s economy.

Work-life balance: The guys are hurting too

Dear HR Executive,

Who struggles more with work-life balance: men or women?

Conventional wisdom says women face more stress juggling their roles at work and at home.

But the Families & Work Institute found that poor Pops is suffering way more from clashes between his work and life balance. Three decades ago, just about one third of men reported significant conflict between home and the office. Today, though, 45% of men surveyed by the Institute say they experience such conflict.

By contrast, 39% of women now report serious problems with work and life balance, also up from one third 30 years ago. In other words, as women have increasingly moved into the workplace and gender roles at home have shifted, men are feeling more stress than women over work-life balance.

That may be because working fathers are spending more time with their families – an average of 3 hours a day now, compared with 2 hours in 1977. Working women’s time with the family stayed static at 3.8 hours.

Equal treatment
What does all this mean for HR?

There’s a legal angle, and there’s a management angle, to work-life balance.

Legally, the FMLA mandates equal treatment for both parents when it comes to your responsibility to provide leave for the birth of a child, or for someone whose family member needs care for a serious health condition. You can’t grant such leave for one gender and not the other.

Also, remember that plaintiffs’ lawyers have started to use the concept of family responsibilities discrimination in lawsuits against employers. So, you’d likely be in trouble if you, say, refused a promotion to a man because he plays a big role in taking care of his kids and you think he won’t concentrate on his new duties.

What they expect
From a management standpoint, it’s important to remember that the sharp younger employees who are key to your company’s future increasingly expect their employers to understand their need for work-and-life balance. They won’t come to work for you, or stay, if they think you don’t get it.

Proof of the point: The Families & Work Institute noted that among Millennials – employees who came of age after the year 2000 – working fathers devote an especially large amount of time to their families. These younger guys spend 4.3 hours per workday with the wife and/or kids, compared to just 2.4 hours for men their age in 1977.

That’s a big shift in attitudes about work and life balance, and implies a big shift in employee expectations, too.

For more on the Institute’s study, go here: http://familiesandwork.org/site/newsroom/releases/timeschanging-release.html

What you can do help Dads’ work and life balance
Your organization may already be quite Dad-friendly. But if you think you might need to do more to help working fathers, here are a couple of ideas:

• Check your culture. For example, are new fathers afraid to ask for paternity leave because they think it would hurt their careers? You may have some work to do with more traditionally minded managers who still consider that a man’s place is in the office.
• Consider flex-time or telecommuting options for new/young fathers, or those whose wives have extremely time-consuming jobs. But remember, getting away from the family may also provide these guys with a break from home stress, so make sure any flexible schedule does include significant office time.
• Weigh the pros and cons of offering a few days of paid paternity leave. Not every employer will want to afford this. But if you do offer paid maternity leave, you might want to even up the scales by doing something for the guys.

Father’s Day is coming up pretty soon – it’s June 21 this year. Maybe the fathers in your workplace would appreciate something other than a loud tie or a coffee mug inscribed “World’s Best Dad.”

Dave Clemens
Editor-in-Chief
The HR Café Newsletter (http://www.hrcafe.net)

Please tell me April Fool's came late this year

Dear HR Executive:

Business is hurting. You’ve got to cut staff. You’re worried about the impact of layoffs on employee morale, productivity and your company’s image in the marketplace.

The CEO comes to you and says, “So how do I decide who’s getting the pink slips?” What do you recommend?

A. Make the layoffs based on the best interests of the company
B. Make the layoffs based on the best interests of the company
C. Make the layoffs based on the best interests of the company
D. Make the layoffs on a reality show

Okay, we tried to make it easy. But, according to Fox TV, there’s no shortage of companies who believe the correct answer is D.

The network has green lighted a new reality show, “Someone’s Gotta Go.” Each episode will feature a company with about 15 or 20 employees that needs to cut costs because of the economy. Instead of the boss deciding who is fired, the company will open its books to show everyone’s salaries and let the employees make the call.

Forget Trump and his weird hair. This is Spectacle! Real people losing their livelihoods right in America’s living rooms!

Mike Darnell, chief of alternative programming at Fox, said they’ve had “absolutely no trouble” finding companies willing to participate in the series.

Am I the only one who feels like the floor has given way and we’ve plunged into a terrible Bizarro universe where someone’s idea of fun is to set up a video camera on Deadman’s Curve and wait for the 6:05 to jump the tracks? (Note to Fox TV: Don’t get any ideas.)

You can only hope your competitors decide to avail themselves of this great opportunity for free publicity: “Let’s show the world – including all of our customers, future customers, potential investors and prospective employees -- just how dysfunctional and petty we are! Let’s shine the ol’ Fox searchlight on our extreme lack of judgment! We’ll be a household name. And then when it’s all over, we’ll go out and … and….”

What? Get new customers? Recruit top talent? Get a line of credit to rebuild the business? What exactly would the long-term plan be?

Is it just me, or is this the worst idea ever? Comments, anyone?

Michael Boyette
Editor, HR Cafe Training Center

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: Don't miss B21’s upcoming audio conference, "Performance Management: Why Alignment is Now Priority #1 - and How to Achieve it."  When employees fully invest themselves in their work, there’s a huge payoff to the bottom line. Despite the obvious benefits of an engaged workforce, studies have consistently shown that only one-out-of-four employees work to their full potential – more than half do only the bare-minimum required to keep their jobs – and 75% say they could be significantly more effective if they chose to be!  On Tuesday, April 14, our speaker, Christopher D. Lee, Ph.D., SPHR, will present a fast-paced, fun, and informative session that will provide you with a host of tips, tricks, tools and techniques you can use right away to transform minimally engaged employees into a workforce that goes the extra mile for your business.

Exempt employees: Watchdog, heal thyself?

Dear HR Executive,

It can’t be good news for us ordinary folk when even a government agency tasked with overseeing employment fairness can’t get the overtime rules right.

Yet that’s exactly what happened recently. The EEOC, the federal employment discrimination watchdog, admitted in a somewhat sheepish news release that it had in fact violated the Fair Labor Standards Act with its own employees. Of course, it’s DOL, not the EEOC, that enforces wage/hour rules, but still…

Where they went wrong
How did the EEOC go wrong? It seems the agency misclassified some of its mediators and investigators as exempt employees under FLSA overtime requirements when they weren’t. At least that’s what an arbitrator ruled after the union representing these employees filed a complaint.

Not that the EEOC didn’t think before it acted; the agency said it had hired an outside consultant that opined the mediators and investigators were exempt employees. So the EEOC was acting on supposed expert advice – and still fouled up.

The EEOC now says it will do whatever it must to make things right. But the whole episode points out what a delicate judgment call it can be to decide whether administrative and/or managerial employees are exempt employees or not.

Points to ponder
Here’s what we’d advise if you have to make such a call:

• For administrative employees, remember that to be exempt they must exercise independent judgment on “significant matters.” This rules out people whose most responsible task is deciding what kind of paper to put in the office printers. And it doesn’t matter whether they have “administrator” in their title if their range of judgment is limited.

• For managers, keep in mind that they’re not exempt unless they manage at least two full-time employees, and spend most of their time on truly managerial stuff – like hiring, training and disciplining.

• Don’t forget that exempt employees must earn at least $455 a week on a “salary basis.” This means their base pay isn’t linked to how much or how well they produce.

And if you’re really unsure, you can request an opinion letter from DOL at http://www.dol.gov/esa/WHD/opinion/flsa.htm. Given that DOL has pledged to enforce wage/hour rules with greater efficiency in the future, you could do worse than ask its opinion before you make a classification that could expose you to an investigation and a fine.

Dave Clemens
Editor-in-Chief
The HR Café Newsletter

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: Don't miss B21’s upcoming audio conference, "Performance Management: Why Alignment is Now Priority #1 - and How to Achieve it."  When employees fully invest themselves in their work, there’s a huge payoff to the bottom line. Despite the obvious benefits of an engaged workforce, studies have consistently shown that only one-out-of-four employees work to their full potential – more than half do only the bare-minimum required to keep their jobs – and 75% say they could be significantly more effective if they chose to be!  On Tuesday, April 14, our speaker, Christopher D. Lee, Ph.D., SPHR, will present a fast-paced, fun, and informative session that will provide you with a host of tips, tricks, tools and techniques you can use right away to transform minimally engaged employees into a workforce that goes the extra mile for your business.

Employee productivity: Web surfers get more done, study says

Dear HR Executive:

You’ve no doubt seen reports on how Web surfing at work is killing employee productivity. When people spend time checking their favorite sites on company time, business results have to suffer, right?

Not so, says researchers at the University of Melbourne. Surfing the net at work for pleasure actually increases concentration levels and helps improve employee productivity, according to a new study.

'Reasonable' Web surfing boosts employee productivity

Dr. Brent Coker, from the Department of Management and Marketing, says that workers who engage in ‘Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing’ (WILB) are more productive than those who don’t.

“People who do surf the Internet for fun at work -- within a reasonable limit of less than 20% of their total time in the office -- are more productive by about 9% than those who don’t,” he says. “Firms spend millions on software to block their employees from watching videos on YouTube, using social networking sites like Facebook or shopping online under the pretense that it costs millions in lost productivity.”
 
According to the study of 300 workers, 70% of people who use the Internet at work engage in WILB. Among the most popular WILB activities are searching for information about products, reading online news sites. Playing online games was the fifth most popular, while watching YouTube movies was seventh.

The attraction of WILB, according to Dr. Coker, can be attributed to people’s imperfect concentration. “People need to zone out for a bit to get back their concentration. Think back to when you were in class listening to a lecture – after about 20 minutes your concentration probably went right down, yet after a break your concentration was restored.” Coker says that short Web breaks help the mind rest itself, boosting employee productivity.

Interested in more details? You can download an interview with the researchers at media.marcom.unimelb.edu.au/pub/newsroom/Coker/cokerb_mr_20090401.mp3

Michael Boyette
Editor, HR Cafe Training Center

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.

Healthcare coverage: The hidden cost of rising premiums

Dear HR Executive,

Nobody can blame you if you ask employees to assume a larger portion of their healthcare coverage as costs continue to rise.

But have you considered the hidden impact of this seemingly straightforward business decision?

Startling stats
A recent study by the Commonwealth Fund threw out some startling statistics about the effect of healthcare coverage costs on U.S. households – and this may lead you to different conclusions about asking employees to pony up more.

Here's what the study found:

• 41% of working-age adults had trouble paying medical bills in 2007, up from 34% in 2006.
• Of those struggling with medical bills, 39% used up all their savings paying them. Some 30% took on credit debt to do so, and 29% were at some point unable to pay for food, heat, or rent.

• And, significantly, 61% of those with problems paying bills or significant medical debt were insured at the time the care was provided.

Dire straits
Think about the effect on your employees if they're among those in such dire straits over the cost of healthcare coverage.

They may:

• Suffer financial stress that affects their sleep and drains their daytime energy.
• Be forced to take second or third jobs, potentially affecting the quality of the work they do for you, their main employer.
• Forgo filling prescriptions and other health-related expenses, leaving them vulnerable to medical conditions that hamper their productivity.

Rethinking healthcare coverage
Nobody knows what's best for your business better than you. Next time you're hit with a health insurance premium hike, you may feel you have no choice but to ask employees to pay a bigger share of the cost.

But before you take such measures, it may be worthwhile to consider the hidden costs spotlighted by the study. You may be able to find ways to revamp your plan design so as to make co-pays and deductibles for the worst productivity-sapping conditions more affordable.

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.