Exposing Breasts in the Workplace: Part of Healthcare!

Ok now that I have your attention, get your mind out of the gutter. This has to deal with the Healthcare bill. The Healthcare Bill, officially, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and the "fix-it" bill being signed today, contains a broad spectrum of issues to which we must pay attention. The items are diverse and include not just insurance regulations, but also requirements to post caloric values of foods by all fast food restaurants, taxes on medical devices and drugs, taxes on Medicare wages and even a revamping of the Pell Grant program. (Explain the healthcare implications of that one for me!)

One of the little known aspects of the PPACA is the requirement for companies to provide unpaid breastfeeding breaks. This is an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and "....requires employers to provide reasonable, unpaid break time to employees who are nursing mothers to express breast milk for their infants. The Act amends section 207 of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and requires an employer to provide a reasonable break time for an employee to express breast milk for her nursing child for 1 year after the child's birth each time such employee has need to express the milk. The employer shall also make reasonable efforts to provide a place, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from co-workers and the public, which may be used by an employee to express breast milk." (Source: Smith Gambrell & Russell, LLC Client Alert, March 25, 2010.)

Employers of fewer than 50 employees are exempt from this amendment if "...such breaks would 'impose an undue hardship by causing the employer significant difficulty or expense when considered in relation to the size, financial resources, nature, or structure of the employer's business.'" Hmmm... how do you really deny this one regardless of the size of the company?

One challenge here is recording of this time so you can make it non-paid. I think it would cost more to attend to the recording of time than it would be to just allow the mothers the time to perform this act. So a possible solution is just make it paid break time. But of course then you will have to deal with all the whinny men and women who don't get this paid break time. However, it would put them on par with all the smokers who take unathorized breaks to get their fix.

Anyone have a suggestion on what is going to be the best way to deal with this? I am all ears.

Healthcare Reform: Get In On the Debate

Ann Bares over at Compensation Force posted on HR Pros: Make Your Voice Heard in the Healthcare Reform Debate. This is a call for "people in the know" to have some input on the legislative process. READ THIS and DO SOMETHING! If we do not help guide this debate we run the risk of having to deal with a MAJOR DISASTER OF A BILL.

Of course such a bill might be good for the longterm employment prospects of benefits specialists, so you decide whether you want in the fray. But for all of you who have complained in the past of NOT BEING PROACTIVE here is your opportunity.

Step up. It is ok to express an opinion. If nothing else at least study the issues.

Want to Improve HR: View HR As A "System"

Yesterday consumer advocate and radio and TV personality Clark Howard had a show segment on a hospital (I believe it was Geisinger Health System and their ProvenCare system) in which he discussed their system approach to providing healthcare. He talked about how they have a protocol for ensuring that patients get the proper treatment, which includes a strict checklist that must be completely checked before anyone gets operated on. This "system" they have put in place has been so successful in reducing relapses and thus greatly reducing costs that they now give 90-day warranties on certain procedures. This means that if you need further care within the 90-day period there is no additional cost to you, the patient. It has increased the "wellness" of the patients and has reduced costs by 15%.

This got me to thinking about HR and the fact that it is a system and as such could probably benefit from a strict protocol similar to what is used at Geisinger. I know many HR departments have checklists for various procedures, yet many are not followed. We have a checklist for hiring, yet many times I-9s are not completed. We have checklists for terminations, yet many times a form is missing or ignored. These checklists, often poorly done, are for discrete segments of HR and could use some improvement. If we used them strictly we might avoid bad hires, bad terminations, poor reviews, missing reviews, undocument promotions or demotions, expired visas or missed enrollments. Think about that. Anything you can improve in your shop?

But a bigger picture comes from thinking about HR as a system and realizing that things we do in compensation, e.g., also has an impact on recruitment, promotions, employee relations, terminations, retirement and benefit costs. I think it would be a major change for many HR departments to sit down in a working session and go through a checklist asking the question "If we put this in place how will it affect ......?" This might help some of us avoid problems caused by implementation of "programs" where we have not thought about the impact on a bigger system. It would also help companies that have a tendency to implement the "HR or management program de jour". You can ward off managers and executives who bring you "the newest and the best."

Who knows, this approach might lead to better care for your "patients" and reduce your operating costs as well.

If you are reading this and have such a system in place PLEASE leave a comment and tell the rest of us about how it works (or doesn't). Let us learn from you.

Employee's Perceptions of Benefits: Good or Bad

The results of a Fidelity Investments’ Consulting Services survey were posted on Talent Management on Monday. The survey dealt with perceptions employees have of the benefit packages their employees provide. The good news was that the "...study that found that 72 percent of people believe that the benefits they receive at work are better than or as good as what most other companies offer." The bad news was "...most feel the value of benefits has dropped, with 61 percent of workers reporting they are paying more for benefits, but getting less or the same as they did in 2007." Unfortunately employers are increasingly put between a rock and a hard place. (If you are not sure what this means click on the link) Omega HR Solutions, the company in which I am a partner, helps companies with their benefit programs. My partners are group health insurance experts. They constantly struggle with this issues of coverage, group experience, desired coverage, employee retention and COST. In many cases employers have to make choices between coverage or no-coverage or reducing the amount of coverage.

The article goes on to say "Most workers surveyed underestimate the employer cost of providing health insurance to employees. A majority (53 percent) believe their employers pay less than $5,000 annually per person to provide health insurance. In fact, health plans typically cost employers $5,000 to $15,000 per employee on an annual basis." If this describes your company you need to make sure you are communicating the cost of benefits. Many employees do not have any idea what their employer spends on them. It can be a big retention tool. It certainly makes it easier to explain why benefits may be reduced if employees understand the money crunch those benefits may cause an employer.

Another section of the study talked about the view that many workers have about the future of their benefits. "The study found almost half of American workers surveyed (48 percent) believe their benefits, including health insurance, retirement savings plans and pension plans, won’t be provided by their employer 10 years from now.
The study found that 30 percent of workers surveyed think they will be responsible for obtaining their own benefits by 2019, 18 percent think the government will provide benefits, 28 percent think employers will still provide benefits to their workers, and 24 percent are not sure. Yet, benefits are so critical to today’s employees that one out of four surveyed said they are working more to receive the accompanying benefits than to receive the income."

An interesting future view. I wonder what the mix will be? What do you think?

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same.

I was reviewing some old files and happened to come across an article on HR Trends for 2002, that appeared in a January 8, 2002 issue of HRNext. This got me focused on the "FUTURE" by looking at the past. I feel it is important for all HR professionals to keep up on trends. You need to be a "futurist" of sorts, and I would like to be one for real. So the next three blog posts will be focused on trends and the future. Today's post will discuss the first half of HRNext's 2002 article and how those trends are playing today. Tomorrow's post will discuss the second half of the article. Then Wednesday I will take my own stab what will be happening in HR after January 1, 2009.

So back to 2002. Here is trend #1 from HRNext.

"HR More Important, Strategic. In the midst of an ongoing recession, companies will need more than ever to pay close attention to the bottom line. As a large portion of any company's expenses is related to personnel, HR departments will be asked to play a more strategic and prominent role in company decisions. HR managers will be asked to closely align HR to company objectives. "

This is an "oh-so-familiar" refrain. I am not sure how successfully we have accomplished this in the past 7 years. We still preach this, we still write articles about this and we all hope that this has occurred but I am not sure we have progressed too much beyond this hope. It is however as important today as it was in a 2002 recession. Hopefully the years of teaching this in class has had an impact and HR is functioning on a strategic level. It certainly does point out the importance of paying attention to the economy as part of environmental scanning. I think I will put Paul Krugman's column on my reading list.

Trend #2

Staff reductions and other cost containment. As companies layoff employees, leave positions unfilled and make other cost reductions to try and stay afloat during the economic recession, it will be up to the HR department to implement the reductions, assist terminated employees and keep the retained workforce motivated and content. HR mangers will be asked to contribute ideas on how the company can continue to minimize expenses.

Well this has not changed! I don't really see this as a trend but as an ongoing duty of HR. I do believe that the recent meltdown will make this permanent part of all managment practices. Keeping staff trimmed yet motivated and retained regardless of how "fat" the times are.

Trend #3

Containing the cost of health care benefits. (I abbreviated this one.)

When will this not be a trend??? "Nuff said."

Trend #4

Workplace security and safety. Everyone is taking this issue very seriously since Sept. 11, as company leaders realize they will need more than a simple evacuation plan in place. HR managers will be developing thorough plans and policies designed to keep employees safe and the workplace secure. Workplace violence will also continue to be a concern.

In the days that followed Sept. 11, 2001 this was a major concern. Today the terrorism aspect of work safety has diminished, but workplace violence and domestic violence spilling into the workplace has increased. This is an area the HR needs to be continually vigilant to. Violence to female employees often comes from their home life and will often have an impact on other employees as well. It points out the importance of a good EAP.

Trend #5

Leave issues. FMLA continues to be a concern to HR managers, as companies try to make do with fewer employees. Also, military leave issues are top-of-mind in many companies, as the war on terrorism continues and more employees are called to serve.

This has not changed much since 2002 either. FMLA continues to be difficult to deal with as the law gets new definitions and amendments. With the loosening of the rules surrounding the ADA there will be an impact on FMLA leaves.

As you can see, 2008 looks alot like 2002. Tomorrow the remaining Trends of 2002.

Cornucopia of HR Topics: The Wall Street Journal

The Tuesday, March 4, 2008 issue of The Wall Street Journal has a plethora of topics dealing with HR issues. In the MarketPlace section you will find the following:

• The New Workplace Rules: No Video-Watching: This article talks about companies clamping down on employees watching videos online during work hours. The primary reason is the amount of bandwidth the videos take, negatively affecting the performance of the company's entire network. YouTube and Yahoo are the main culprits. Missing in this article was the comment that employees must be taking a tremendous amount of productive time to do this as well. Yes, some of this may be productive, but my guess is that much of it is not.
• How to Hunt for Jobs As Time Out of Work Drags On and On: This article points out that some people are having a hard time finding work and it is taking longer and longer. The article does point out that alot of this is due to poorly presented skills requiring rewriting resumes. One point made was that many people spend way too much time using the Internet for their job hunt.
• Smaller Firms Offer More Responsibility, Credit: This article bascially points out that not everyone has to work for a big company, not even the "high powered." People find that small companies may not offer as much money, but they may "... provide alluring tradeoffs, such as shorter workweeks, less travel, and work-life balance incentives including telecommuting arrangements and flexible schedules." It is nice to see the "big" world discovering what many of the rest of us know.

In the book review section of the Personal Journal section you will find a review of Critical, a book written by Senator Tom Daschle. It provides a glimpse of what the next "solution" to the healthcare crisis may become. Another crisis in the making in my opinion and not much of a solution. But read the review and form your own opinion.

Book Review: Future, Inc. How Businesses Can Anticipate and Profit from What's Next

I mentioned in a previous blog that I like "future" stuff and strategic impact. In addition to just finding it interesting I think knowing about trends and anticipating the future is an invaluable skill for consultants and senior HR people. This is especially true for the latter if they want to be a strategic player. If you truly want to make your "place at the table" being a "business futurist" is one way to do it. I just finished reading Eric Garland's Future Inc.: How Businesses Can Anticipate and Profit from What's Next and I think it is excellent. Garland steps you through the process of viewing the world as a system, recognizing trends, developing scenarios, drawing pictures to make those scenarios easier to communicate and then actually communicating the future to your target audience. One tool that I found to be very helpful, in fact I have already applied it to one consulting situation, is what he called the STEEP model. It is a model that you can use to think about all the potential impacts on your situation, as an example, your current recruiting method. STEEP stands for:

• Society
• Technology
• Economics
• Ecology
• Politics

Thus, if you were trying to determine what future recruitment for you company might look like you would consider these areas and what their impact might be on recruiting. For example, society might include, Gen Y considerations, talent shortages, demographics, migration patterns, and educational shortages. Technology might include the impact of Internet recruiting and video resumes. Economics might include inflation, cost-of-living, and relocation expense. Ecology might include "green" considerations and your company's reputation. Politics might include federal and state legislative changes that would change discrimination definitions. If you get nothing else out of this book other than the use of this tool it will be well worth the price of the book.

Garland then finishes the book with his take on what he calls the "Drivers of the Future." He discusses: Aging, Information Technology, Health Care (versus what we do today which is 'sick care'), Biotechnology, Energy, Nanotechnology, Media and Communications, and Ecology and Sustainability. All of them are important, but for the HR professional the first three are of particular importance.

The key point of his book is to view the world as a system and to realize that there are multiple impacts on whatever you are working on and to be effective in anticipating the future you must consider this system. That is why the STEEP tool is so effective. This can be put to use today in ALL HR departments and it will have an immediate impact on how you view the strategic aspect of your job and how you are viewed as a contributor to strategy.

Strange Bedfellows: WalMart and Union Join Forces

In one of the strangest alliances of recent memory, WalMart and arch foe the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), joined forces to announce that they were going to work together to push the federal government to provide universal healthcare and to get out of the system of employer provided healthcare. As reported in a Washington Times article, H. Lee Scott, CEO of WalMart and Andy Stern, President of the SEIU, held a press conference in in Washington, D.C. and "...pledged to work together for the first time to fix what they called the nation's health-care crisis by 2012." Joining in the press conference were representatives from AT&T, Kelly Services, Intel, and the Communication Workers of America.

The thrust of the announcement was that the healthcare system in the U.S. is not working, people are uncovered by insurance and the system of employer provided healthcare makes U.S. companies less competetive in a world market.