Sunday, February 28, 2010

Health Care Reform: After the Summit Meeting, February 25, 2010

Commentary
by Dr. Suzanne S. Taylor
Adjunct Professor

The question remains will the Democrats be able to pass a health care reform bill without Republican support. The Republicans made it clear they wanted to start anew and in increments even though there were some issues of agreement discussed. The Democrats appeared convinced that time is of the essence and reform is essential. The kind of reform desired became clearer after the 7 hours of debate. The New York Times Editorial of Friday, February 26, 2010 is an excellent statement of where the impetus for reform is now and concurs that the Senate and House must act on a complete bill not just some minor improvements. The White House issued an 11 page summary of their proposal the day before the debate. It is possible there will be some further changes as Obama made it clear that the special interest aspects of the original Senate bill will be withdrawn in a response to John McCain's criticism. Medical malpractice limits may also be included, along with measures that will reduce medical errors, improve communication, provide transparency, and allow prevention with wellness programs. Nonetheless Obama indicated he wanted the bill by spring break or at least by June.

In the end some will pay more but premiums for all will become less than they would have become with the status quo. More government expenditures do have to be paid for somehow and yet much of the bill's reforms will be cost effective. The proposed Democratic provisions will cover over 30 million uninsured now as opposed to the Republicans coverage of only 3 million uninsured. Clearly reform is politics. Almost 20 years after the Clinton reform proposals the Democrats are again in position to effect positive change. Hopefully, the American public will no longer be scared by the false rhetoric about government control. After all as Sen. Harkin pointed out the government controls food, drugs, many motor vehicle laws and numerous other aspects of our lives. Why isn't every American entitled to health care as almost every other citizen of other countries is? Having the best care only for those who can afford it should not be the American form of democracy.

The issue of health care has now become Obama's Bill and his mastery of moderating the debate demonstrated his superb understanding of the extreme complexity of reform. Praise from the liberal news media has been extensive in support of the need for health care reform. But I am sure there are more negative news stories in the Republican forums of those likely to be taxed more. It is likely that the succeeding deliberations of congress will not only be tense this spring, but extremely difficult. It will be helpful to continue transparency such as became evident on C-Span and CNN.

The struggle for universal health care continues. Those of us who can should speak up to their legislators and colleagues. Doing nothing is not acceptable or helpful. As it is coverage for employee health care is primarily through employment and is strongest in the government sector. In Rhode Island state employees have lost future retiree health care coverage and this also is happening to new hires in other state and local government jobs. Instead of eliminating coverage it is often being reduced and made more expensive. In both the private and public sector employers have switched to high deductible insurance or what covers catastrophic expenses only. The employee may, if they have the money, self insure in a tax deductible way, with a Health Savings Account or if lucky a Health Reserve Account, partially funded by the employer. Employees are dependent on the will of their employer, while the old, the young, the disabled, unemployed, and self employed are dependent on the largess of the government for Medicare, Medicaid, and Children's Health Insurance (CHIP) among other programs.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi has vowed to work with the Senate to achieve Health Care Reform that will be in her words: "Affordable, Acceptable and Accessible."

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Newsflash: Treating Employees Well Is Good


Commentary
by Professor Tony Wheeler
Assistant Professor of Human Resource Management 

My standard “go to” set of videos to show in my HRM courses come from The Office, but I will now add Undercover Boss to my video library.  In the event you haven’t seen the show, the title conveys its purpose.  A CEO from a large corporation sheds his corporate suit to go undercover as a prospective frontline employee.  Once undercover, the CEO gets firsthand experience of doing these jobs and also seeing how corporate dictates impact frontline employees. So far Waste Management, Hooters, and 7-11 have participated, and White Castle is on deck for this week (mmmm, White Castle).

A couple of notes before I get to the main point of this post.  First, the executive teams of the 3 companies shown look like stereotypical executive teams: almost exclusively white males.  If anyone is paying attention, it sure looks like the glass ceiling exists.  Second, the prevalence of on-the-job training in these companies disturbs me to no end.  Maybe this is for another post, but I’ll just state it simply here: on-the-job training is the least effective method of transferring knowledge from training to work settings. There are better, less expensive ways to train.

But I digress.  The great thing about Undercover Boss, aside from how much my wife laughs at me as I get all worked up watching the show, is that in a mere 60 minutes the show demonstrates a simple point: Treating your employees well is good business.  The CEOs are aghast to learn that managers who disrespect employees are in fact bad managers.  The CEOs can’t believe that when employees don’t have the resources to effectively perform their jobs, they in fact can’t perform their jobs.  The CEOs express shock that the pure outcome-based goals (productivity, financial) they set in lieu of learning or mastery goals lead employees to simply focus on hitting their numbers at the expense of focusing on quality.  The CEOs nearly weep upon hearing the personal hardships faced by many of their employees, from inadequate healthcare to the effects of stress and burnout from role overload to the family sacrifices that many employees experience.

If nothing else, Undercover Boss shows everyone that profit and treating employees well are not mutually exclusive.  In HRM, we’ve known for decades that treating employees well has a pretty healthy return on investment.  I know you’re thinking “Yeah, no duh treating employees well is good for business.” Too bad so many companies don’t know how “no duh” it really is.