tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29386535478542510612023-06-20T22:00:18.984-07:00Schmidt Labor Research CenterAnnouncements of events and commentary for the Schmidt Labor Research Center at the University of Rhode IslandSchmidt Labor Research Centerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04066793208745768082noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-13199820280969084032013-06-27T12:17:00.000-07:002013-06-27T12:18:02.296-07:00In Support of RI Senate Bill 231: Temporary Disability Insurance<div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: right; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Barbara</b></span><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Silver, Ph.D.</span></b></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Research Coordinator</i></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">S 0231: Related to Labor and Labor Relations—Temporary Disability Insurance</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Testimony of Dr. Barbara Silver, Research Coordinator, URI Schmidt Labor Research Center, Co-Chair, URI Work-Life Committee</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Before the Senate Committee on Finance</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Good afternoon, members of the Senate Committee on Finance. I am Dr. Barbara Silver, Research Coordinator at URI’s Schmidt Labor Research Center and the Co-Chair of URI’s Work-Life Committee. Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you regarding RI’s proposed Temporary Caregiving Bill. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Schmidt Labor Research Center at URI is an independent, multidisciplinary unit devoted to the study and teaching of all aspects of work and employment. A primary focus of the Center and the URI Work-Life Committee is the study and promotion of policies and practices that contribute to work-life integration for our employees.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Work and Family are interdependent: in our present economy, especially, we are aware that families depend on work and workers to survive, but we less readily recognize that work depends on families, as well. Families bear and raise the next generation of taxpayers, workers, and they take care of present and past workers. Increasingly, progressive corporations are realizing that the “breadwinner-caretaker” family model, where workers come to work unfettered by family responsibilities, is no longer the norm. Because nearly everyone is working today, and our population is rapidly aging, these companies and the rest of us must address the needs of working caregivers if we are to remain viable and competitive. Too often, we still tend to think of children and caregiving as private choices, rather than a public good in which we must invest. It is untenable and contradictory to support workers without supporting caregivers – today, they are one and the same.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Significant research shows that supporting working caregivers reaps economic rewards that benefit individual workers, families, businesses’ bottom lines, the health care system, and ultimately, the Rhode Island state economy. Copious research shows clearly that on the national level, people want and need family-friendly workplaces and more balance in their lives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The University of Rhode Island has long understood this, and has been a strong supporter of paid family leave since 2005, when the University passed its own paid parental leave policy for faculty, and then for all employees not under state collective bargaining agreements. At URI, we recently surveyed all staff employees about their work-life needs and challenges. Representing a diverse sub-sample of the population, we suggest our findings reflect the experiences and desires of Rhode Island workers in general. Following are a few findings:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt;"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>Of a list of 15 work-life supports, after scheduling flexibility options, employees endorsed paid parental leave and a sick bank (to enable access to additional time off work if needed) as the most useful supports that could be offered URI employees.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt;"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>Half of all staff employees have (or anticipate having in the next 5 years) child care responsibilities. While the majority rely on family to assist with child care needs, the estimated annual total expenditures by the 1860 staff employees for child care is over $1 million. The majority of those with younger children who do not use child care do so because they cannot afford it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt;"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>Fully one-third of URI staff employees currently have elder care responsibilities; 45% anticipate having them during the next 5 years, and another 15% aren’t sure, meaning that perhaps over half of URI workers will be faced with elder care responsibilities soon. The large majority rely on family members for help; even so, the estimated total annual expenditures for URI employees is almost $400,000. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt;"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>Demands of elder care can be especially stressful. Compared to non-elder caregivers, elder caregivers report more work-life conflict, stress, and sense of overwork. They also express less job satisfaction, lower commitment to the organization, and lower supervisory support for work-life challenges. These findings mirror national studies of workers. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt;"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>13%% of URI Staff are simultaneously caring for elders and children (15% nationally). This number is projected to increase over the next few decades.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The TCI bill does not just make good economic sense for Rhode Island. It is a CLASS equity issue as lower income workers have less access to flexible work schedules, less job security and fewer options when faced with caregiving challenges. It is GENDER equity issue, as women are still the predominant caregivers, and caregiving challenges can disproportionately impact their job security or advancement. It is a RACE/ETHNICITY issue, as white people are much less likely to assume care for an elderly relative compared to Asians, Hispanics, and African Americans.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally, Rhode Island can embrace another opportunity to continue in its role as a progressive national leader by endorsing this legislation. Being one of the earliest states to pass breastfeeding in the workplace legislation in 2003, we see today that not only have at least 25 states followed suit, but so has the federal government. Likewise, as one of a tiny handful of countries in the world still without paid family leave, we believe Rhode Island can continue as a vanguard and help pave a similar path forward for working caregivers by passing this bill.</span></div>
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Schmidt Labor Research Centerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04066793208745768082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-92036308222333366672012-04-04T13:02:00.000-07:002012-04-05T07:50:07.233-07:00Breaking down the Maternal Foundation<div align="center">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Commentary</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Noel Burgess '13</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>MS Candidate</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Labor Relations and Human Resources</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Breaking down the Maternal <strike>Wall</strike> Foundation</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Are women not capable of being equally committed to their children and their job? Is it possible for women to excel at parenthood and a career? A bias against women, which is predicated on a stereotype that links motherhood with a lack of commitment and competence also known as the “Maternal Wall” suggests it isn’t possible. A probable reason for the misperception of work commitment of mothers by employers is rooted in socially constructed gender roles.</span><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Social Constructionism and Gender Role</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Social Role Theory is a perspective that men and women behave differently in social situations and take on distinctive roles, because of the expectations society puts upon them.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2938653547854251061#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title="">[i]</a> The concept of gender roles is a set of rules to describe how men and women should be behaving and how they really behave stemming from expectations established in Social Role Theory<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2938653547854251061#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title="">[ii]</a>. So how does this apply to mothers in the workplace? Social expectations of gender roles may lead to the perception that women are associated with a domestic role and men with a provider role. Consequently these beliefs can lead to attitudes, which influence employers on female workers once they become mothers, because women are expected to be more committed to their children, thus less committed to their work.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2938653547854251061#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title="">[iii]</a></span><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Commitment, Sex-Role Attitudes, and Women’s Employment</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Work commitment of women cannot be inferred from the assumption of gender roles in society. <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2938653547854251061#_edn4" name="_ednref4" title="">[iv]</a> . To conceptualize women’s role in employment I pose these questions: (1) What is the connection between attitudes, work commitment, and behavior? (2) Does work commitment remain stable as women accommodate employment behavior to family contingencies? (3) Finally, do sex role attitudes impact the perception of women’s behavior at work? Bielby and Bielby’s research findings support the idea that work commitment is stable over time and is differentiated from gender role beliefs. However their research supports that work commitment had an impact on employment behavior, but gender roles had no effect on the behavior of employees. Thus, mothers working fewer hours weren’t caused by lack of commitment; women are changing their behavior at work because of the burden of raising their children. </span><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Commitment and Behavior of Women at Work Over Time</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How is the pattern of women’s labor force behavior related to their current subjective feelings of commitment at various life stages? How does present psychological commitment to work affect subsequent labor force participation? To understand the basis for these questions two distinct approaches must be explained. First, a limited resource approach is the notion that people have a fixed amount of emotional investment, time, and energy to give. This relates to the perception of work commitment because of the current opinion of women is that their time and energy will be allocated toward their children thus less of those resources will be invested in work. The second approach is an expansionist approach, which can be described a person being able to have enough resources to allot equal resources to family and work without neglecting either. I subscribe to the latter, women whether married with children or single believe work is more than just a paycheck. Furthermore many women with heavy family obligations still maintain a strong psychological commitment in spite of the inability to maintain continuous full time hours.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2938653547854251061#_edn5" name="_ednref5" title="">[v]</a> The notion that a woman who has a family with children automatically translates into a lack of work commitment is false.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Conclusions</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have posited that women face a “maternal wall” in the workplace because of the misconceptions of the decision makers in the workplace. Furthermore I have argued that motherhood doesn’t necessarily correlate with lack of commitment to work. Allotment of time, energy, and motivation for a woman concerning her family and work, influences her work behavior but that is different than the idea of motherhood directly effecting work commitment.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2938653547854251061#_edn6" name="_ednref6" title="">[vi]</a> Gender roles may explain why men and women have perceptions and expectation about the sexes, but it certainly does not excuse them. It will take more than breaking down the “maternal wall” to counteract the misperceptions of mothers. This phenomenon is the direct consequence of rigid and archaic stereotypes people hold to, established long before they entered the workplace. Perhaps instead of knocking down a wall, which is the built upon an outdated base, people should look a bit deeper to the foundation and start there!</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">References</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2938653547854251061#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span style="font-size: x-small;">[i</span>]</a> Eagly, A.H. (1987) Sex Difference in Social Behavior: A Social role interpretation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2938653547854251061#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title="">[ii]</a> Eagly, A.H. & Steffen, V.J., (1986). Gender Stereotypes, Occupational Roles, and Beliefs about part time employees. <em>Psychology of Women Quarterly, 10,</em> 252-262 </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2938653547854251061#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title="">[iii]</a> Halrynjo, S., & Lyng, S. T. (2009). Preferences, constraints or schemas of devotion? Exploring Norwegian mothers’ withdrawals from high-commitment careers <em>The British Journal of Sociology</em>, <em>60</em>(2), 321-343. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2938653547854251061#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title="">[iv]</a> Bielby, D. D. V., & Bielby, W. (1984). Work Commitment, Sex-Role, and Women’s Employment. <em>American Sociological Review</em>, <em>49</em>, 234-247. </span></div>
<div id="edn5">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2938653547854251061#_ednref5" name="_edn5" title="">[v]</a> Moen, P. & Smith, Ken (1986). Women at Work: Commitment and Behavior Over the Life Course. <em>Sociological Forum</em>, <em>1</em>(3), 450-474. </span></div>
<div id="edn6">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2938653547854251061#_ednref6" name="_edn6" title="">[vi]</a> King, E. (2008). The effect of bias on the advancement of working mothers: Disentangling legitimate concerns from inaccurate stereotypes as predictors of advancement in academe. <em>Human Relation</em>, <em>61</em>(12), 1677-1711</span></div>
</div>Schmidt Labor Research Centerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04066793208745768082noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-70606872512098083182012-02-21T12:45:00.000-08:002012-02-21T12:45:52.377-08:00The Work-Life Movement and its Place at URI- Part 3<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Commentary</i></span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Barbara Silver, Ph.D</b>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Assistant Research Professor </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Research Coordinator
</i><title></title></span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Alexis Lyman</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>MS Candidate</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Labor Relations and Human Resources</i></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center">
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Part 3. Workplace Flexibility Close-Up: How One URI Office is Making it Work</strong></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Implementing new policies and practices to help employees better balance competing life, family, and work responsibilities can be complicated in an institution comprised of nine labor unions with nine separate collective bargaining agreements. But the flexibility model developed in the URI Controller’s Office is testament to the impact that creative determination can have, and offers an excellent example of how one URI office took the initiative to formally offer creative flexibility solutions to its approximately 62 employees across 5 departments and 3 labor unions.<br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Because of the nature of the work, the Controller’s Office is one place where flex hours and compressed work weeks are feasible options. At least as long as nine years ago, the office responded to staff requests, and made flexible starting times informally available. More recently, in 2007, Sharon Bell, Controller, and Trish Casey, Associate Controller, with input from Human Resources, implemented a comprehensive Voluntary Flexible Schedule program. This thoughtfully-developed program offers basic flex options, while emphasizing the need to ensure business continues to be conducted efficiently. As stated in the program description, it <em>“offer[s] the staff the option to work a flexible schedule based on [the] department’s needs as well as ensuring supervision, hours of operation, customer service, overall department responsibilities and deadlines, etc., are covered.”</em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />The program offers two flex options, available for 6-month terms, and approval for either is granted depending on seniority, the department’s work load and other factors. These options are offered to staff and managers alike. One option, a “flexible ‘day-off’ schedule,” offers essentially a compressed work week, in which an employee may take one day off during a 2-week pay period, while still working a 35-hour work week. The second option is a “non-standard hours schedule,” in which an employee may design a 7-hour schedule between the hours of 7:30 to 5:00, rather than the standard 8:30 to 4:30. Once the schedule is approved, it cannot be changed for 6 months, unless the employee wishes to revert back to her or his normal schedule. Those who choose a flex option must sign an agreement that includes parameters and restrictions for use, as well as consequences if abuse of the new schedule occurs. “This is a binding agreement between the supervisor and the employee. It is black and white,” says Bell. Departments within the Controller’s Office must develop plans that address issues relating to overall department schedules and optimal functioning. After 6 months and a positive assessment, employees may renew or modify their contract, or return to their regular work schedule.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Both Bell and Casey understand that today employees, both women and men, are increasingly facing multiple, competing, and sometimes simultaneous challenges in meeting family and personal demands while adhering to a strict work schedule. “We try to listen to everybody’s needs,” says Casey. “We emphasize that this is not about women or for special needs – it is for everybody across the board.” And, in addition to tuning in to the work-life needs of their employees, they believe they have improved their office’s functioning. “This is not meant to be an interference with how we service our community,” emphasized Casey. “We feel we are serving our community better with a broader number of hours we work. We are here as early as 7:30 to sometimes as late as 5:00 pm. And we do this without the additional expense of Overtime.”<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Why provide these options? “People wanted them. They heard about it being done other places, and asked for it. They use it to meet child care demands, go to doctor’s appointments, or to go to school themselves. For those who work the ‘day-off’ schedule, it also helps with gas prices,” says Casey. And the benefits the two managers talk about mirror national findings that flexibility reaps increases in job satisfaction, productivity, morale, and more. “People are able to be productive both at work and at home, and some employees say they are more productive during their flex weeks than their non-flex weeks,” she added. Bell agreed, “Things are going very well. There is no diminishment in productivity or workload. Employees opting for the flexible ‘day-off’ schedule get on a roll, they put in the extra time during a day, and don’t have to stop what they are doing. They know they have to get what they need to get done and have things in order for the day they are going to be out.”<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">At first, Bell and Casey shared concerns echoed by others hesitant to implement flexibility options. “We were worried about abuse. In the past, when flexibility was more informal, some people did take advantage of it. But this newer plan is more structured - we looked at everything that could go wrong – holidays, sick days, coming in late, etc,” said Bell. The administrators are firm about the rules. For example, the office has a 7-minute rule – if an employee is less than 7 minutes late, they make those few minutes at the end of the day. If it happens periodically, they work with the employee to perhaps shift their hours by 15 minutes. But for the flex people, there is no 7-minute rule, and those who come in late must discharge time. “If they want it, they have to be responsible,” says Bell. “People have been very appreciative. From a manager’s perspective, it is not as disruptive as one might think.”<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Another oft-cited barrier to implementing flex options is the fear by supervisors that they will be inundated with requests and that managing schedules and keeping track will become too time-consuming and burdensome. Not so, say both Bell and Casey. “It takes a little thought in the beginning, but it is not hard to manage, once you get it down. “ And not as many people opted for a flexible schedule as they expected. In the beginning, there were perhaps as many as half the staff on formal flex schedules, but that has dwindled to about a third. “People want it until they try it, then they find out it may not be so great. They find out that it is not really a “day off” – they still have to put in their 35 hours!” In one case, an employee opted out of a plan because it actually added stress at home. For another, a mother determined that a day off meant an older child spent some time unsupervised, and so she switched to a non-standard hours schedule that better matched her child’s school schedule.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Yet another perceived barrier, placing undue burdens on other employees and causing employee resentment, was touched on by Casey. She noted that this plan sometimes can place burdens back on managers who are covering for those off on flex days. “One of my managers takes every other Friday off as her flex day, and the burden of her not being here falls on me, just as if I took a day off, my duties would fall to Sharon [Bell].” However she noted that they did consider this when they implemented the model. The antidote to these shifts in duties is careful planning, and promoting a “culture of coverage,” or a work environment where employees support one another, recognizing that everyone will have a time when they need co-worker support. It appears the URI Controller’s Office offers a good example of this. Another tactic is to cross-train employees, so that each employee can assume other duties if need be. Cross-training can be a powerful flexibility tool in creating a nimble and efficient workplace, as it can not only service the organization’s needs, but can provide professional development and skill broadening for employees. The Controller’s Office has a “buddy system” in which a designated back-up, or buddy, is available to fill in when needed if their buddy is out.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Helene Bucka, Travel Clerk, is a member of the ACT union. She says that about 75% of the clerical staff, including managers, are on some type of flex schedule. Helene’s flex schedule enables her to take every other Friday off, except during pay periods in which a holiday falls. So for non-holiday pay periods, Helene works one regular 5-day, 35-hour week, and a flex week, during which she works 9-hour days Monday through Wednesday, an 8-hour day on Thursday. She notes that there really are no challenges, except perhaps that some 9-hour days, especially Mondays, seem long. However, she is quick to note that the benefits definitely outweigh any challenges. She appreciates the opportunity to have some quiet time when she comes in early. “I get more work done in the morning when it is quiet.” Why did she opt for a flex schedule? “It is nice to have a 3-day weekend. I can get mundane chores and errands done on Friday, and then I actually have the weekend to do some things I enjoy.” Helene has a counterpart in the travel office, who has also opted for a flex schedule, though with Mondays off, to enable someone to be in the office every day.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Helene says she is grateful to have this opportunity, and wishes she could do it even more. “I can’t see how it is difficult to manage at all. We all sign contracts, the payroll department and our supervisors know what our schedules are. It is good for morale – it is nice to feel that people are thinking of you.” When asked if she thought there might be a negative impact on productivity, she replied, “Not at all. I make a point to have everything ready before I take my day off.” She also noted that there was no resentment among co-workers. “We all have the same opportunity. It is a choice people make.”<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">In the Accounts Payable Department, says Manager Judy Moore, 7 of the 16 employees, including herself, are on a flex schedule. Her schedule is similar to Helene’s, which affords her 12 extra days “off” a year. Judy is also very enthusiastic about the program, and agrees that she and her employees are more productive. “It is a big benefit to employees, and people want to get the work done. A 7-hour day now feels like a short day to me.” From a management perspective, Judy says there are few challenges as long as the proper controls are in place, such as ensuring people’s schedules don’t conflict, and changing phone messages that direct customers to the appropriate person. She agrees with Bell that there has been no abuse. “We get things in writing, and everything is understood.”<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the employees on a flex schedule that Judy supervises is Kathy LaCroix. “I love it. I get a lot more work done, and am definitely more productive in those 2 extra hours on the long days. I get to take long weekends, have an extra day to get chores done, schedule appointments, and can travel more easily to visit my mother in Long Island. When you are a working mom, time is precious and you never have enough of it.” Kathy’s comments reflect a working environment that is supportive and that promotes a culture of coverage and co-worker support. She agrees there is no resentment among her co-workers, as everybody has access to it, and everyone knows to cover for one another on their days off. “I am grateful to my supervisors, and we all feel the same way in this department. It would be nice if everyone could have this opportunity. It makes life easier, and my family has adjusted to it. It might not work out for everyone, perhaps those with young children, but it has been great for me.”</span>Schmidt Labor Research Centerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04066793208745768082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-53206890788762390092012-02-13T14:16:00.000-08:002012-02-16T02:25:38.569-08:00Case on "Nonlawyers" in Labor Arbitration Calls for Statutory Action<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Commentary</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Matthew M. Bodah, Ph.D.</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Professor of Labor Relations</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Research Director, SLRC and </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Chair, Economics Department</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Recently the Rhode Island Supreme
Court issued a decision in the case <i>In re
Town of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Little Compton</st1:place></st1:city></i>
(Supreme Court No. 2011-101-MP). The
sole issue in the case was whether a “nonlawyer” union representative was
guilty of the unauthorized practice of law in representing grievants in a labor
arbitration hearing. The court prudently
determined that any “technical” violation of the statute governing the
unauthorized practice of law was trumped by years of labor relations norms and
the universal practice of other states. Justice Gilbert V. Indeglia concluded his
decision on behalf of a three-member panel of justices by stating “[A]lthough
the conduct involved in this case may be the practice of law pursuant to [Rhode
Island statute], because of the long-standing involvement of nonlawyer union
employees at public grievance arbitrations, we will not limit involvement at
this time.” In his decision, Justice
Indeglia also wrote that “neither we nor the parties herein were able to
uncover any jurisdiction that has specifically declared that nonlawyer
representation in labor arbitrations constitutes the unauthorized practice of
law.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> This case
began three years ago when International Association of Firefighters Local 3957
filed two grievances concerning a staffing issue on behalf of members in the
Town of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Little Compton</st1:place></st1:city>. Joseph Andriole, a staff representative of the
Rhode Island State Association of Firefighters, was assigned to handle the case,
which prompted the town to file a motion to have him removed based on his lack
of a license to practice law. The motion
was denied and the arbitration proceeded with an eventual decision in favor of
the town. Prior to the decision,
however, the town had brought the issue of Andriole’s status to the attention
of the Rhode Island Bar Association’s Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee,
which found him in “technical violation” of Rhode Island law and reported this
violation to the state supreme court for further action.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> In making
impressive use of a number of scholarly articles and reports from other states,
Justice Indeglia avoided what could have been a tragically ironic
decision. Labor arbitration was, after
all, developed as a quicker, less expensive, and less technically daunting
alternative to formal litigation. Nonlawyers
on both sides of the table have always been broadly accepted in the
process. Many of arbitrations earliest
practitioners were nonlawyers—often industrial relations scholars or
economists—who approached each case as an extension of the collective
bargaining process itself; an opportunity to clarify the parties’ intentions in
negotiations and develop working standards for the constructive conduct of
labor relations on the shop floor. In
fact, some claim that the process has veered from its problem-solving roots and
has become too entangled in the norms of litigation, a point made by Reginald
Alleyne in his article, cited by Justice Indeglia, entitled “Delawyerizing
Labor Arbitration.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> If there is
one troubling aspect to Justice Indeglia’s decision, it is in its lack of
finality. As stated above, he wrote that
the court will not disturb the current practice “at this time.” But he continues: “We may in the future, however, under the
supervisory powers of the Court and with the full Court participating, decide
the generic issue of nonlawyers participating in public grievance
arbitrations.” The General Assembly
should immediately forestall any need for the court to revisit this
matter. It could do so by adopting
statutory language similar to California’s and cited in Justice Indeglia’s
decision: “any party to an arbitration
arising under collective bargaining agreements…may be represented in…those
proceedings by any person, regardless of whether that person is licensed to
practice law in this state.” Action by
the legislature now could avoid an unnecessary waste of resources, including
the court’s valuable time, in the future.
</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>Schmidt Labor Research Centerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04066793208745768082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-36898043112268410522012-02-09T11:34:00.000-08:002012-02-09T13:15:56.492-08:00NLRB Remedies in Peril<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Commentary</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Alexis Lyman</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Schmidt Labor Research Center</i><br />
<i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">MSLRHR '12</i>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One important piece of legislation to watch right now is
Senate Bill 1523 (S. 1523 (2011)). This bill is the companion to H.R. 2587
which passed the House in September. The language of S. 1523 is identical to
H.R. 2587. The preface of the Senate bill reads “to prohibit the National Labor
Relations Board (Board) from ordering any employer to close, relocate, or
transfer employment under any circumstance.” With the prohibition applicable to
all circumstances, this bill significantly weakens, if not removes, the Board’s
means of remedying unfair labor practices that may arise during contract
negotiations or during the term of the collective bargaining agreements. To me,
this seems a slippery slope.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By eliminating remedies available to right unfair labor practices,
these bills turn the Board into a figurehead with no power. Section
10(c) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) states that when the Board has
determined an unfair labor practice exists that the “<span class="apple-style-span">Board shall state its findings
of fact and</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">shall issue and cause to be served on such person an order
requiring such person to cease and desist from such unfair labor practice and
to take such affirmative action including reinstatement of employees with or
without back pay.”</span> These bills would remove the ability of
the Board to issue a cease and desist order and to take affirmative action.
Basically, these pieces of legislation amount to allowing the Board to only
give violators a slap on the wrist and nothing more. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Section 1 of the NLRA espouses the findings and policies
behind the enactment of the NLRA. The findings address the inequality of
bargaining power between employees and employers. In addition, one purpose of
the NLRA was to encourage friendly resolution of industrial disputes. H.R. 2587
and S. 1523 seen to have forgotten about Section 1 since these two bills will
result in inequality between employees and employers by stripping the Board of
the ability to enforce adherence to the NLRA mandates by employers. Therefore,
these bills signal to Corporations that there will be no negative repercussions
for acting in violation of the NLRA.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The exact language of the S. 1523 (2011) is as follows:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> “Sec. 2 Authority of
the NLRB. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Section 10(c) of the National Labor Relations Act (29 U.S.C.
160) is amended by inserting before the period at the end of the
following: ‘<i>:Provided further, That the
Board shall have no power to order an employer (or seek an order against an
employer) to restore or reinstate any work, product, production line, or
equipment, to rescind any relocation, transfer, subcontracting, outsourcing, or
other change regarding the location, entity, or employer who shall be engaged
in production or other business operations, or to require any employer to make
an initial or additional investment at a particular plant, facility, or
location’. </i>“</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>Schmidt Labor Research Centerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04066793208745768082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-5291972014485978442012-02-03T14:33:00.000-08:002012-02-04T10:59:23.634-08:00The Work-Life Movement and its Place at URI- Part 2<title></title>
<br />
<title></title>
<br />
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px; text-align: right;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>Commentary</i></div>
<b><i>Barbara Silver, Ph.D.</i></b><br />
<i>Assistant Research Professor</i><br />
<i>Research Coordinator</i></div>
<div align="center">
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Part 2. Work-Life Initiatives Across the Country and Here at URI</strong></span></div>
<div align="center">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Demographic shifts have re-shaped the American workforce. Increasingly, the intersection of work, family, and life responsibilities provides challenges for the majority of workers. Workplaces across the country are responding. This series will cover: <em>Part 1. What Workers Need Today: Addressing the Workplace-Workforce Mismatch; Part 2. Work-Life Initiatives Across the Country and Here at URI; </em>and<em> Part 3. Workplace Flexibility Close-Up: How One URI Office is Making it Work</em></span></div>
<h1 style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 51, 153); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: thin; color: #003399; font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">National Work-Life Efforts are Vigorous and Increasing</span></h1>
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Alternative work schedules, compressed work weeks, paid leave, child/elder care services and subsidies, telecommuting, creative phased retirement plans, on-ramps and off-ramps for those negotiating career changes, job sharing, cross training, lactation rooms, part-time options, tenure clock extensions, and other solutions are becoming mainstream options rather than exceptions. University, as well as corporate, human resource divisions nationwide are creating work-life specialist positions, offices and programs to develop flexibility options and other benefits to meet the work-life needs of their employees. Increasingly, prospective employees rank work-life balance as a high priority and are seeking workplaces that offer work-life supports.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">In March 2010, the President’s Council of Economic Advisors published a report on the economic benefits of workplace flexibility, and the President hosted a White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility.<sup>1</sup> The Department of Labor led subsequent efforts around the country to promote workplace flexibility and generate best practices in the private sector. Telework mandates for federal employees, for example, have significantly increased in the last two years. In September 2011, the National Science Foundation launched a 10-year Career-Life Balance Initiative to promote greater workplace flexibility for its own employees, for men and women grantees in research careers, and within the institutions they fund.<sup>2</sup> In response to the NSF initiative, the Association of American Universities and the Association of Public Land-grant Universities have partnered with NSF to support and promote flexible work and learning environments at the nation’s universities.<br /> </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Organizations promoting the work-life agenda abound. These include the Families & Work Institute, Boston College Center for Work and Family, Corporate Voices for Working Families, Alliance for Work-Life Progress, the Sloan Work and Family Research Network, Work, Family, and Health Network, When Work Works, and Georgetown Law’s Workplace Flexibility 2010 Initiative. The National Clearinghouse on Academic Worklife specifically provides information for faculty and higher education administrators. The College and University Work & Family Association (CUWFA) provides leadership in facilitating the integration of work and study with family/personal life at institutions of higher learning. The University of Rhode Island is a member institution.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Regional University Efforts</span></h1>
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">These efforts include the </span><a href="http://www.unh.edu/hr/worklife-balance.htm" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">University of New Hampshire</a><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">, which has recently been awarded a 2011 Sloan Foundation Award for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility. Said Dick Cannon, Vice President for Administration and Finance at UNH, “</span><em style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Employers that provide flexibility to their employees, with regard to where and how their work gets done, gain a tremendous financial benefit and competitive advantage in today’s economy. With workplace flexibility, UNH is better prepared for challenging state budget cycles by taking advantage of cost savings and better positioned to deliver the highest quality and value education to our students.</em><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">”</span><sup style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">3 </sup><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> Of note among its many strategies is the launching of a comprehensive work-life survey to its employees, and an effort to “support a strong performance-based culture focused on results whereby flexible work arrangements and a results orientation need not be at odds, but can be a win-win for the university and its staff.” The </span><a href="http://www.uvm.edu/hrs/?Page=healthy/worklife.html" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">University of Vermont</a><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">, likewise, has recently hired Massachusetts-based Wellness Corporation to advise on the development of work-life programs. UVM has an active work-life website as part of their human resources division, offering several flexible work options and other work-life services. A sampling of other nearby institutions that have embraced a work-life agenda include </span><a href="http://worklife.uconn.edu/index.html" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">University of Connecticut</a><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">, </span><a href="http://www.brown.edu/Administration/ffpf/" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Brown University</a><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">, </span><a href="http://hrrisd.wordpress.com/hr-policies/work-life/flexible-work-arrangements/" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Rhode Island School of Design</a><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">, </span><a href="http://www.umass.edu/ctfd/work/index.shtml" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">UMass Amherst</a><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">, </span><a href="http://www.facultysenate.neu.edu/committees/20092010/examine_faculty/" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Northeastern University</a><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">, </span><a href="http://www.umaine.edu/hr/family/index.html" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">University of Maine</a><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">, </span><a href="http://www.jmu.edu/humanresources/benefits/worklife.shtml" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">James Madison University</a><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">, </span><a href="http://www.bu.edu/hr/benefits/worklife/" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Boston University</a><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">, </span><a href="http://employment.harvard.edu/benefits/worklife/" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Harvard University</a><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">, </span><a href="http://www.yale.edu/hronline/worklife/" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Yale University</a><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">, and </span><a href="http://www.bc.edu/content/bc/centers/cwf.html" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Boston College’s Center for Work and Family</a><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The URI Work-Life Committee (WLC)</span></h1>
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The WLC was formed in 2003, due to a collaborative effort between the </span><a href="http://www.uri.edu/uriwomen/" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">President’s Commission on the Status of Women (PCOSW)</a><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> and the </span><a href="http://www.uri.edu/advance/" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Program</a><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">. A volunteer group of faculty, staff, and students, the Committee is attuned to national and regional advancements in the work-life arena, and brings cutting edge scholarship to bear in its understanding and promotion of relevant issues. It is the sole voice on campus promoting a coherent work-life/workplace flexibility agenda, a position we hope will change as our efforts become institutionalized and embraced by Human Resources and the Administration. The Committee has remained very active over the past 8 years in pursuing policy initiatives, improved practices, and increased awareness of the organizational, economic, and individual benefits in creating a flexible and family-friendly work environment at URI. The WLC has worked to pass policy (paid parental leave, dual career, lactation), sponsor educational events (administrator and chairs’ workshops, outside speaker events, brown bag topical lunches, etc.), worked as an advisor and resource for individual issues, presented nationally (and internationally in 2012), and engaged in external outreach. Their website offers a thorough overview of the work-life effort at URI: </span><a href="http://www.uri.edu/worklife" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">www.uri.edu/worklife</a><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span> <span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Currently the WLC, in collaboration with the </span><a href="http://www.uri.edu/research/lrc/" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Schmidt Labor Research Center</a><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> (SLRC), is preparing to launch a campus-wide staff survey, to be followed by a faculty survey to assess the work-life needs, attitudes, and experiences of URI employees. This instrument, developed by URI social scientists, represents current, robust constructs in the work-life literature. It will provide valuable insights to URI administrators and supervisors, as well as exploring inter-relationships between several variables related to work-life, such as stress, care giving responsibilities, level of supervisory support, job satisfaction, intent to leave, dual earner status, etc. From these findings, they plan to develop a set of recommendations that they believe will be useful in moving URI forward.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Also in the near term, the Committee’s work will focus on exploring the improvement or creation of several URI policies, such as pregnant/parenting students, opt-out tenure-clock extension options, creative phased retirement options, more responsive dual career hiring options, paid parental leave modifications, and part-time employee tuition waiver options, as examples. As they recognize work-life initiatives as economic drivers, the WLC and the SLRC are aiming to foster relationships with union leaders and Rhode Island economic development offices to promote work-life and flexibility as key components in economic development efforts state-wide. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Work-Life Options at URI</span></h1>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While there is a need of expansion, options do exist in several forms. In 2004, a group of faculty campaigned to then President Carothers to improve an archaic maternity leave policy. Following many months of work by the PCOSW and the ADVANCE Work-Life Committee, a 6-week paid parental leave policy was adopted by the faculty union, AAUP. This policy was subsequently adapted by all Board of Governor unions, covering approximately 63% of URI employees. While a significant step forward, this policy is in need of improvement. Steps should also be taken to determine a means to offer paid leave to the remaining URI employees, who constitute over a third of the URI employee pool, and include employees in 2 of URI’s largest unions, Council 94 and ACT/NEA. Through this same collaboration, URI has a set of nationally-recognized dual-career hiring guidelines for faculty, an increasing challenge in recruitment, as the numbers of dual earner couples increase. These guidelines need to be better understood and applied more systematically by search committees. In 2008, due to an </span>
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px; text-align: left;"> </span><a arial,="" font-family:="" helvetica,="" href="http://www.elsevierfoundation.org/new-scholars/stories/video-lactation-program.asp" sans-serif;="" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Elsevier Foundation grant</span></a> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">awarded to the WLC co-chairs, Barbara Silver and Helen Mederer, a Lactation Program was launched, resulting in the adoption of a lactation policy for new mothers returning to work, the establishment of several lactation sites on 3 campuses, and the <a href="http://www.health.ri.gov/awards/breastfeedingfriendly/#uri">Rhode Island Department of Health Breastfeeding Friendly Workplace Gold Award.</a><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The WLC sponsors work-life workshops and brown bag lunches. The URI Human Resources Office sponsors talks and workshops on wellness and financial planning. Faculty have a phased retirement option, though it, too, needs expansion beyond the current one semester on, one semester off schedule. Offering phased retirement options to staff employees should also be considered. While URI has a generous benefits package, there is much more that can be done here to make URI a truly family friendly, flexible workplace. For example, while providing child and elder care giving assistance can perhaps be the one of the more expensive work-life benefits, this is a high priority for many workers. Options include developing a campus child/elder care center, providing care giving subsidies, and hiring outside contractors.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Workplace Flexibility: The Building Blocks are There</span></h1>
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">A</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">s far back as 1987, the Rhode Island General Assembly, recognizing changing workforce trends and actions taken by other states, and to “reduce commuter congestion, conserve energy, increase employee morale, increase productivity, and reduce tardiness and absenteeism,” (Ch. 36-3.1-4) passed legislation requiring that optional alternative work schedules be offered to state employees (Ch. 36-3.1-2-8).<sup>4</sup> These include flextime, compressed work weeks, job-sharing, permanent part-time, and other alternative work plans. As well, there are no union contracts for URI employees that specifically prohibit flexible scheduling. In fact, at least two local union contracts (PSA and ACT) have specific language regarding flexible work schedules, and most, if not all, national union websites have position statements and/or information about the need to balance work and family, and how to bargain for work and family benefits.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is time for URI to embrace the 1987 legislation and take actions to put a variety of formal, effective, well-publicized, and accessible measures in place for all employees. Relying as we largely have on a few informed supervisors, and an informal, case-by-case approach to solving workers’ needs is inefficient, invites discrimination, and can disadvantage workers who are unable or unwilling to ask and who may need scheduling adjustments the most. The bottom line is that the University should be proactive rather than reactive in being supportive and responsive to employees’ work-life needs. We need to embrace a “culture of coverage,” whereby employees and supervisors cover for each other when challenges arise, as they will for every employee at some point, rather than a “culture of compliance” to rigid rules. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The URI Controllers’ Office provides an excellent model of how to develop a unit-wide set of </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">policies to enable approximately 62 employees scheduling flexibility. Working with Human Resources, they put a formal “Voluntary Flexible Schedule” program in place, and managers in that office are very enthusiastic about its positive outcomes, citing increased productivity and morale. Coming up next in the Work-Life Movement series is a full description of their model, including an interview with the Controller, the Associate Controller, and employees who have used the program.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">References</span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><sup>1</sup> White House Council of Economic Advisors (2010). <em>Work-lilfe balance and the economics of workplace flexibility. </em>Retrieved from: http://www.whitehouse.gov/files/documents/100331-cea-economics-workplace-flexibility.pdf</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><sup>2 </sup> White House Office of the Press Secretary (Sept. 26, 2011). <em>The white house and national science foundation announce new workplace flexibility policies to support America’s scientists and their families. </em>Retrieved from: <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/26/white-house-and-national-science-foundation-announce-new-workplace-flexi">http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/26/white-house-and-national-science-foundation-announce-new-workplace-flexi</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><sup>3</sup> University of New Hampshire Campus Journal (September 21, 2011). <em>UNH receives prestigious Sloan award for excellence in workplace flexibility</em>. Retrieved from: <a href="http://unh.edu/news/campusjournal/2011/Sep/21sloan.cfm">http://unh.edu/news/campusjournal/2011/Sep/21sloan.cfm</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><sup>4 </sup>R.I. General Laws Title 36, Public Officers and Employees, Chapter 36-3.1: Alternative Work Schedules. Retrieved from: http://www.rilin.state.ri.us/Statutes/TITLE36/36-3.1/INDEX.HT</span></div>
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</div>Schmidt Labor Research Centerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04066793208745768082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-2946354217585460892012-02-01T13:39:00.000-08:002012-02-01T13:43:58.977-08:00Stuck in a Job and You Can’t Get Out<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Commentary</i></div><div style="text-align: right;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>by Professor Tony Wheeler</b><br />
Associate Professor of Human Resource Management</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br />
</i></span></div><div><b id="internal-source-marker_0.2931648069061339"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even in a down economy employees still voluntarily quit their jobs. Estimates suggest roughly 1.5% of the workforce recently quit their </span><a href="http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/JTS00000000QUR"><span style="color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">jobs</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> . Employees leave jobs regardless of prevailing economic conditions, and many times the employees who leave are the employees who can: your most marketable employees. Sometimes leaving a job is the healthiest course of action; however, we know that some people stay when they shouldn’t.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Have you ever been stuck in a situation, feeling that you cannot get out of it? What are the factors that bind you to your job and you organization? Certainly finances bind you to a job, as does the prevailing job market. You need to pay bills. Other factors also bind you to a job and an organization. You might otherwise feel like a </span><a href="http://uri-slrc.blogspot.com/2010/08/are-you-misfit.html"><span style="color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">misfit </span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">if not for the relationship with your boss. You might also stay at your job because of how it affects your home life. Changing jobs affects your home life. In fact, your spouse’s job can keep you from leaving your job. Really?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes. Really. I will presented a paper at a conference this past November on some research I conducted with colleagues that examines the impact your spouse’s job has on your turnover decisions. To your detriment. We looked at a concept called embeddedness, which describes the ties that bind you to your job and organization. Aspects of the job and company enmesh you; things like relationships with your boss or colleagues, your feelings of fitting the job and organizational culture, and understanding what you will sacrifice if you leave your job and employer. Similarly, aspects of your home life actually keep you embedded to your current employer. The more you like your neighborhood and community, the more close relationships you have in your community, the more you worry about losing those things. Changing jobs, even for a better job in the same local labor market, comes with inherent uncertainty. What if things don’t work out at the new job? What if the company goes under? What if they decide to relocate you? The uncertainty threatens your home life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We found, more specifically, that your spouse’s embeddedness in his or her own job and community affects your turnover decisions. However, there is a distinct downside to this. We tracked two large samples of employees and their spouses over 2 and 5 year periods, asking them how embedded they felt, whether or not they intended to change jobs and actually changed jobs, and their emotional exhaustion. We reasoned that when you want to leave but cannot, you start to feel worn out. You wake up in the morning and you want to stay in bed. That’s emotional exhaustion, and under normal circumstances emotional exhaustion is a precursor to turnover.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Before you leave a job due to exhaustion, however, you first become dissatisfied and decommitted. You become burned out, and your motivation to work hard decreases. Over time, your performance will deteriorate. Emotional exhaustion is the tipping point. Once you get there, the rest will slowly but inexorably occur. The personal effects of exhaustion can be quite severe, including increased heart attack rates, mental health </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">deterioration</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and a general decline in your overall well-being.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When you feel exhausted, you want out of your current job and employer. Yet changing jobs is disruptive to your life and to your spouse’s life. We found the more embedded you are in your job, company, and community, the less likely you are to leave, even if you are emotionally exhausted. Moreover, the more embedded your spouse is in his or her job, company, and community, the less likely you are to leave, again even if you are emotionally exhausted.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our findings pose problems for employers. Here you have employees with increasing emotional exhaustion who stay at the job when they would otherwise leave. This exhaustion not only hinders employee performance but actually hurts their well-being. Moreover, exhausted employees generally do not perform their job very well, tend to take more time away from work trying to recharge their batteries, and actually end up in the doctor’s office more (thus increasing employer healthcare costs).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First, I would recommend your company engage in at least semi-annual workforce surveying. Don’t just capture things like job satisfaction and commitment. Survey employee well-being. Survey for known stressers that lead to exhaustion (role overload, relationship conflict, supervisor relationships, perceived support). If you can detect environmental problems early, you can rectify those problems quickly. Second, you might also consider adding employee assistance programs (EAPs) through your benefits packages. Research on EAPs suggest they generate considerable returns on investment. Finally, you might consider helping employees separate from your company through outplacement counseling. I understand these last two options cost money, but so does a burned out employee. These last two options might save your organization money in the long term, and in the meantime will make your organization a better place to work.</span></b></div>Schmidt Labor Research Centerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04066793208745768082noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-65324006199913653392012-01-19T08:20:00.000-08:002012-01-19T08:32:07.986-08:00The Work-Life Movement and its Place at URI- Part 1<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px; text-align: right;"><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Commentary</i></div><b><i>Barbara Silver, Ph.D.</i></b></div><div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px; text-align: right;"><i>Assistant Research Professor</i></div><div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px; text-align: right;"><i>Research Coordinator</i><br />
<b><i>Noel Burgess</i></b><br />
<i>MS Candidate,</i><br />
<i>Labor Relations & Human Resources</i></div><br />
<div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Part 1. What Workers Need Today: Addressing the Workplace-Workforce Mismatch</b></div></div>Demographic shifts have re-shaped the American workforce. Increasingly, the intersection of work, family, and life responsibilities provides challenges for the majority of workers. Workplaces across the country are responding. This series will cover: <i>Part 1. What Workers Need Today: Addressing the Workplace-Workforce Mismatch; Part 2. Work-Life Initiatives Across the Country and Here at URI; and Part 3. Workplace Flexibility Close-Up: How One URI Office is Making it Work</i></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><h1 style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 51, 153); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: thin; color: #003399; font-size: 12pt;">This Ain’t Your Daddy’s Workforce</h1><div><div>The workforce is looking dramatically different than it did a few decades ago, and today, the intersection of work, family, and life responsibilities provides challenges for the majority of workers. First, the workforce is nearly gender balanced: women comprise 49% of the workforce, and this includes 72% of mothers with children under the age of 18.<sup>1</sup> Fully 80% of married/partnered employees live in dual-earner couples, outnumbering breadwinner/homemaker households 3-to-1.<sup>2</sup> Second, it is older. By 2015, 20% of the workforce will be over 55, and between 2006-2016 labor force participation by workers 65 and over will increase a staggering 85%.<sup>3</sup> Third, it is more ethnically diverse. From 1980 to 2020, the white working-age population is projected to decline from 82% to 63%, but during the same period, the minority portion of the workforce is projected to double, from 18% to 37%.<sup>4</sup> Fourth, it is working harder. In 2006, middle-income families worked an average of 11 hours more per week than they did in 1979.<sup>5</sup> Men are contributing more to household and care giving responsibilities than in the past, and women less, but women are still doing more than men. Today, 59% of those caring for an elderly parent or friend are simultaneously managing work and care giving responsibilities. The number of unpaid caregivers for the elderly is estimated to reach 37 million by 2050, an increase of 85% from 2000, as baby boomers reach retirement age in record numbers.<sup>6</sup> Elder care is expected to be one of the most important issues facing American families in the coming decades.<br />
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In short, this literally ain’t your daddy’s workforce, one that defined the time when traditional workplace policies and practices were created. Rigid workplace policies are still largely designed to meet the needs of a 1960s traditional breadwinner-caretaker family model, in which the ideal worker is someone (typically male) whose family or personal responsibilities do not interfere with work expectations or job performance. The mismatch between this traditional workplace and a workforce that is older, more diverse, technologically savvy, and in which the majority of workers have (or will have) some care giving responsibilities, calls for a paradigm shift in how we define when and how work gets done.</div></div></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><h1 style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 51, 153); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: thin; color: #003399; font-size: 12pt;">Workplace Flexibility – A Must</h1>Fully 90% of employed mothers and 95% of employed fathers now report some kind of work-life conflict.<sup>7</sup> Workplace flexibility ranks among the top 2 or 3 most important job characteristics to employees, just behind compensation. In one poll, nearly 80% of employees said they would use and benefit from more flexible work options if there were no negative consequences at work.<sup>8</sup> Employees report that the ability to balance work and home significantly impact their career choices and influence their decisions to accept a position or to remain in one.<sup>9</sup><br />
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Researchers and progressive businesses and organizations recognize that attending to the work-life challenges today’s workers face, including providing flexible working options, has become a business imperative and improves an organization’s bottom line. It is shown compellingly time and again that flexibility is an economic driver, increasing productivity, retention, job satisfaction, engagement and commitment, and improved physical and mental health.<sup>10a,b,c</sup> For example, businesses like Best Buy, Dow Chemical, IBM, American Experess, Sun Microsystems, to name only a few, report increases in productivity between 32 and 50% with telecommuting programs.<sup>11</sup> Concurrently, it results in lower operational costs and a greener workplace, as well as less stress, absenteeism, presenteeism, and turnover.<sup>12a,b</sup> In short, there are robust findings that support the many positive human capital and business outcomes that result from embracing a work-life integration agenda, and providing flexibility options to employees.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
It is crucial to recognize that workplace flexibility and work-life integration efforts serve two parallel goals. They serve economic goals, producing significant positive business impacts and serving as powerful recruitment and retention tools. However, they also serve important equity goals. Traditional, rigid workplace practices disadvantage, among others, care givers (the majority of whom are still women), older workers, and lower wage workers. Indeed, it is the lower wage family that arguably has the most severe challenges meeting competing work and home demands, and the ones who often have the least access to flexible work options. As Joan Williams, noted work-life legal scholar has written, these are the workers who are “one sick child away from being fired.”<sup>13</sup></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><h1 style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 51, 153); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: thin; color: #003399; font-size: 12pt;">Supervisory Support is Key</h1>There are several perceived drawbacks to providing flexible work options, all of which have been effectively disproven. These include cost, fear of abuse of policies, loss of productivity and absenteeism, difficulty in supervising employees, and others.<sup>14a,b</sup> Partly because of these perceived drawbacks, maintaining a traditional organizational culture and resistance to change on the part of supervisors and organizations presents perhaps the most challenging obstacle to promoting a flexible workplace. Even where policies may exist, in many workplaces they may be not well publicized or encouraged, producing a disconnect between policy and practices, or an "implementation gap."<sup>15</sup> And, along with managers, employees are also often resistant, fearing negative repercussions from using available leave policies. Indeed, the Families and Work Institute’s 2002 National Study of the Changing Workforce revealed that fully 39% of employees surveyed perceive the use of flexible work options as having a negative impact on their job advancement.<sup>16</sup> In one recent national poll from Workplace Options, a national work-life services provider, more than two-thirds of working fathers have experienced negativity or problems with their current employer due to conflicts between their job and duties as a caregiver.<sup>17</sup></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
While it may be challenging, manager resistance, employee skepticism, and cultural resistance to changing the old industrial work model can be overcome. A better understanding of the issues and the strength of the business case for flexibility, supervisory training in best practices, performance-based management strategies (rather than a reliance on “face-time”), and open, consistent communication between supervisors and employees will go a long way toward overcoming these obstacles. There are scores of ways work-life initiatives, policies, and practices can be implemented. Thinking creatively and tailoring options to meet the varying needs and job requirements of different categories of workers takes careful planning, but reaps rewards. There are many, many solutions, and they need not be cumbersome or costly. Employers must think flexibly about flexibility.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><h1 style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 51, 153); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: thin; color: #003399; font-size: 12pt;">References</h1></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">1</span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Current Population Survey, 2007.</span> <span style="font-size: 9pt;">Retrieved from: </span><a href="http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-databook2008.htm"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-databook2008.htm</span></a></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">2 </span><sup><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></sup><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. <em>Labor Force Characteristics by Race & Ethnicity, 2010</em>. Report 1032, August 2011. Retrieved from: </span><a href="http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsrace2010.pdf"><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsrace2010.pdf</span></a></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">3</span><sup><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> </span></sup><span style="font-size: 9pt;">US Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. <em>Spotlight on Statistics: Older Workers.</em> Retrieved from </span><a href="http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2008/older_workers/"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2008/older_workers/</span></a></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">4</span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, Policy Alert, November 2005: </span><a href="http://www.highereducation.org/reports/pa_decline/decline-f1.shtml"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">http://www.highereducation.org/reports/pa_decline/decline-f1.shtml</span></a></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">5</span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Mishel, L., Bernstein, J. & Shierholz, H. (2009). The State of Working America 2008/2009. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">6</span><sup><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> </span></sup><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Georgetown University Law Center, Workplace Flexibility 2010. <em>Older Workers and the need for workplace flexibility fact sheet.</em> Retrieved from: </span><a href="http://workplaceflexibility2010.org/images/uploads/WF2010_Older_JAZZY_COLOR.pdf"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">http://workplaceflexibility2010.org/images/uploads/WF2010_Older_JAZZY_COLOR.pdf</span></a></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">7</span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> Williams, J. & Boushey, H. (2010). <em>The three faces of work-family conflict: The poor, the professionals, and the missing middle. Center for American Progress and Center for WorkLife Law.</em></span> <span style="font-size: 9pt;">Retrieved from: </span><a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/01/three_faces_report.html"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/01/three_faces_report.html</span></a></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">8</span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Galinsky, E., Bond, J.t., & Hill, E.J. (2004). <em>Workplace flexibility: What is it? Who has it? Who wants it? Does it make a difference?</em> New York: Families & Work Institute</span></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">9 </span><sup><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> </span></sup><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Corporate Voices for Working Families (2005, November). <em>Business impacts of flexibility: An imperative for expansion</em>. Washington, D.C.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">10a</span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> Corporate Voices for Working Families (2005, November). <em>Business impacts of flexibility: An imperative for expansion. Washington, D.C.</em></span></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">10b</span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> Galinsky, e. Bond, J.T., & Hill, E.J. (2004). Bottom-line benefits of work/life programs. HR Focus (July):3-4.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">10c</span><sup><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> </span></sup><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Pitt-Catsouphes, M., Matz-Costa, C., & Besen, E. (2009). <em>Workplace flexibility: Findings from the age and generations study. </em>Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">11</span><sup><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> </span></sup><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Lister, K., & Harnish, T. (2010b). <em>Workshifting benefits: The bottom line. </em>TeleworkResearchNetwork.com</span></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">12a</span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> ibid.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">12b</span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> Halpern, D.F. (2005, May). <em>How time-flexible work policies can reduce stress, improve health, and save money. </em>Stress and Health. Retrieved from: </span><a href="http://berger.claremontmckenna.edu/Publications/Papers?Stress/Health.pdf"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">http://berger.claremontmckenna.edu/Publications/Papers?Stress/Health.pdf</span></a></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">13</span><sup><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> </span></sup><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Williams, J. (2010). <em>Reshaping the Work-Life Debate: Why Men and Class Matter</em>. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">14a </span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Bond, J.T., Galinsky,E., Kim, S.S., & Brownfield, E. (2005). <em>National study of employers. </em>Families and Work Institute. Retrieved from: http://familiesandwork.org/site/research/reports/2005nse.pdf</span></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">14b</span><sup><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> </span></sup><span style="font-size: 9pt;">McNamara, T., Wong, M., Brown, M. & Pitt-Catsouphes, M. (2009). <em>States as employers-of -choice. </em>A collaborative project of the Twiga Foundation, Inc. and the Sloan Center on Aging & Work. Retrieved from: http://familiesandwork.org/site/research/reports/2005nse.pdf.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">15</span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Lewis, S. & Haas, L. (2005). <em>Work-life integration and social policy</em>. In Kossek, E. & Lambert, S. (Eds.): </span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Work and Life Integration</span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">16</span><sup><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> </span></sup><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Bond, J., Thompson, C., Galinsky, E. & Prottas, D. (2003). <em>Highlights of the national study of the changing workforce. </em>New York: Families & Work Institute.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">17</span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> Workplace Options (2011). <em>Demands of changing workforce ramp up pressure on working dads. </em></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Retrieved from: </span><a href="http://www.workplaceoptions.com/news/press-releases/press-release.asp?id=F9FDCE88426C49F99605&title%20=Demands%20of%20Changing%20Workforce%20Ramp%20up%20Pressure%20on%20Working%20Dads"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">http://www.workplaceoptions.com/news/press-releases/press-release.asp?id=F9FDCE88426C49F99605&title =Demands%20of%20Changing%20Workforce%20Ramp%20up%20Pressure%20on%20Working%20Dads</span></a></span></div>Schmidt Labor Research Centerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04066793208745768082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-70498305207122739912011-07-19T10:35:00.000-07:002011-07-19T10:39:39.385-07:00The Nexus of Supervisor Abuse, Employee Entitlement, and Coworker Abuse: It Is not Pretty<i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Commentary</span></i><br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>by Professor Tony Wheeler</b><br />
Associate Professor of Human Resource Management </span></i></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; height: 11pt; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;"></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;">Over the past 2 or 3 years I’ve been fortunate to speak to several professional groups about workforce development issues. The first of the Boomer generation, born between 1946 and 1964, reached official Social Security retirement age about 2 years ago, signalling the start of a massive demographic shift in the U.S. workforce. The Boomer Generation comprises roughly 37% of the U.S. workforce, with Generation X (born between 1965 and 1975) and Generation Y (born between 1976 and 1994) contributing 22% and 38% to the workforce, respectively (<a href="http://www.mtctrains.com/institute/publications/DS-WorkForceOf2010.pdf" target="_blank">MTC Institute: The Workforce of 2010</a>). While I am old enough to recall the halcyon days of Boomers lamenting my generation (X) as being “slackers”, I can happily report to you that my generation appears to concur with Boomers about these Generation Y kids: We shake out collective fists at them.</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; height: 11pt; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;"></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;">At all of these meetings all anyone wants to talk about is how to manage Generation Y employees. The single word I hear again and again to describe Generation Y is “entitled”. These people think they deserve benefits from things for which they have not worked to earn. At least that’s what we think as we shake our fists at them. The study of entitlement, more properly termed ‘psychological entitlement’ in the academic literature, has increased over the past 5 years. Given that Generation Y employees comprise the largest percent of our workforce and have this reputation as being entitled, we should more closely examine entitlement in the workplace. How do entitled employees perceive the workplace? How do they behave in response to organizational cultures, processes, and practices? How do they behave toward coworkers? </div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;">As I wrote about almost a year ago, I have a research interest in <a href="http://uri-slrc.blogspot.com/2010/01/im-bully-hes-bully-shes-bully-wouldnt.html" target="_blank">workplace bullying</a>. I have continued this line of research to examine a specific aspect of workplace bullying: abusive supervision. Abusive supervision is a <span style="font-style: italic;">perception</span> an employee has about how the boss treats subordinates. We are not talking about physical abuse here but verbal or mental abuse. Again, a perception of abuse. Somewhere between 15 to 20% of the U.S. workforce reports the perception of being abused by supervisors, so this is quite a robust phenomenon.</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;">Two colleagues of mine and I had a simple operating hypothesis. We thought that employees who scored highly on a psychological entitlement measure would not respond well do abusive supervision. When you think you are entitled to anything and everything, you likely perceive any non-favorable feedback from your supervisor as being abusive. After all, you are entitled to only positive feedback!</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; height: 11pt; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;"></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;">How would entitled employees respond to this perceived abuse? We thought it would create stress. Again, when you feel entitled to anything and everything and do not get it, you will feel a bit whacked out. In turn, how would entitled employees react to this stress? Like a good entitled person should react: by acting out at those closest to them. Doesn’t this happen all the time? (Although you might call it a temper tantrum or displaced anger) And who in the workplace is closest to an entitled employee? Their coworkers.</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; height: 11pt; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;"></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;">We daily surveyed hundreds of pairs of employees from multiple industries over a 5 day period, and we found exactly what we hypothesized. Psychologically entitled employees perceive higher levels of abusive supervision compared to less entitled employees, and this abuse increases the emotional exhaustion of the entitled employees, who then engage in abusive behavior toward their coworkers. This pattern creates a hostile environment, the kind in which performance will likely suffer, escalations of abuse will increase, and turnover likely ensues. In other words, this will cost your company money and make life miserable for all involved.</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; height: 11pt; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;"></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;">So what to do? Can you use pre-hire tests to weed out entitled employees? Probably not. How is entitlement job related or predictive of performance? I recommend clear and strong anti-bullying and abuse policies that your company implements in a zero tolerance manner. You need to establish a culture where this type of behavior is immediately addressed. If not, by ignoring the abuse you tacitly endorse it, which only serves to increase it. This goes for supervisors and employees. What if your managers are abusive? Do you condone that behavior and all of its ill effects? Is that the culture you want to promote? In the end, I simply refer you to one of my favorite books on how to deal with disruptive or abusive employees;<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="btAsinTitle"> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Asshole-Rule-Civilized-Workplace-Surviving/dp/0446698202/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311043602&sr=8-1" target="_blank">The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't</a></span></span>. Employees will follow the rules, even entitled employees will, if your company enforces the rules.</div>Schmidt Labor Research Centerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04066793208745768082noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-53479885526903747632010-12-21T10:15:00.000-08:002010-12-22T11:19:04.687-08:00Building a Better Workplace<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><style type="text/css">
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</style><i>Commentary</i></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: right;"><b>Barbara Silver, Ph.D.</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: right;">Assistant Research Professor</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: right;">Research Coordinator<br />
<b>Vanessa Armstrong</b><br />
MS Candidate,<br />
Labor Relations & Human Resources</div><h1 style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Work-Life Movement</h1><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The contemporary American workplace is evolving far from its 20th century roots, during which the ideal worker was characterized as someone unfailingly committed and available to his job, and who did not allow personal or family responsibilities to interfere with his job performance. Today, this breadwinner-caretaker model has been replaced, as women and men are now represented equally in the workplace, as dual-earner couples become the norm, and as the workforce ages and becomes more culturally diverse. Research shows that employees are working longer hours than ever before and are increasingly strained as their role demands become more intense and multi-faceted. Implementing flexible work options that allow workers to work effectively but creatively as they juggle myriad responsibilities has become a central feature of the proactive 21st century workplace. The list includes teleworking, paid family leave, child and elder care assistance, part-time options, full-time modified duties, sick banks, shift bidding, phased retirement, compressed work weeks, job sharing, and many others. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">There are currently many national initiatives aimed at educating employers and the public about the need to be more caring and responsive to these conditions. For example, both houses of Congress have passed bills aimed at enforcing federal telework (working remotely) mandates, and the current administration's proposed 2011 budget requires a 50% increase in teleworking for federal employees (Lister & Harnish, 2010b). In March 2010, the White House brought national attention to this issue by sponsoring a <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/cwg/work-flex-kit/home" target="_blank">Conference on Workplace Flexibility</a>, and many federal initiatives are in place and being developed in recognition of the vital importance of these strategies to the modern workplace.</div><h1 style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Trends in Academia </h1><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Over the past decade, colleges and universities across the country have begun to catch up to the corporate sector in their recognition that our changing demographics and the changing ways we work and study require changes in workplace policies and practices. In order to maintain a competitive edge in recruitment, retention, and engagement, of faculty, staff, and students, higher education is making strides toward providing flexibility options, child and elder care services, paid leave, and other work-life balance options. The <a href="http://www.cuwfa.org/mc/page.do?sitePageId=23390&orgId=cuwfa" target="_blank">College and University Work/Family Association</a> has been a leader in providing work-life information and services specifically to the higher education community.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The World at Work report, <i>Workplace Flexibility: Innovation in Action </i>(2008), notes that the workplace flexibility challenges in higher education differ from other workplace settings in that higher education institutions have to accommodate widely differing positions, including faculty - tenured, on a tenure track, or not on a tenure track – as well as a wide variety of staff positions. Because of the nature of faculty work, they generally have greater control over when and where their work is accomplished, and thus have greater flexibility than many staff positions. When asked what flexibility options were of most value to faculty, the option of having dedicated time to focus on research with no teaching obligations was of high value for associate (65%) and full (73%) women professors (World at Work, 2008). This option was also the most highly valued among faculty in general (55%) as opposed to flex-time and part-time options. Among staff members, the most valued flexible work option (59%) was the flexibility in one's schedule to allow for taking courses. For women staff members in higher education, the most valued flexible work option (63%) was flex time or flexible hours. (World at Work, 2008) </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Many educational institutions have begun to implement innovative flexible work options. According to the American Association of University Professors, the "practices reported to have the greatest potential benefit to faculty included stopping of the tenure clock, modified duties, paid maternity leave, paid dependent-care leave, and the existence of units or personnel dedicated to work-family issues" (World at Work, 2008: 13). Another example of a flexible work option is Ohio State University's policy of "providing 100 percent compensation for up to two quarters of faculty professional leave" (2008: 38). After the University of Washington implemented a program called "Parental Teaching Release for Parent/Child Bonding," faculty taking part in the program reported higher satisfaction with the flexibility available. The University of Washington also pays for replacement instruction for faculty members taking leave. Other examples of work-life options at universities include tenure-clock flexibility, making funds available for faculty to hire post-docs when the faculty member is on leave, dissemination of best practices of family friendly accommodations to all system schools in a state, and offering a career database that allows for cost-benefit analysis of the flexible options offered to faculty. (World at Work, 2008). </div><h1 style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Benefits of Providing Work-Life Balance Options </h1><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The benefits of providing workplace flexibility have by now been well documented and are bi-directional. <b>We know that workplaces that foster flexibility and an atmosphere of trust, respect, and responsiveness to workers' needs are also characterized by several positive outcomes to both employee and organization, including increased organizational citizenship behaviors, worker satisfaction, commitment, productivity, retention and engagement, increased physical and mental health, and reduced absenteeism, stress, and attrition. </b>(Kossek & Hammer, 2008; Pitt-Catsouphes & Matz-Costa, 2008).</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Many companies today are reporting the effectiveness on recruitment offering flexible work arrangements is having (Corporate Voices for Working Families, 2005). According to the World at Work report (2008), "95 percent of employees in the United States say that availability of flexible work arrangements is a critical factor in taking a job" (2008: 31). As well, employees working in an organization with high flexibility were more likely to remain with their employers than those in organizations with lower levels of flexibility, and reported higher levels of job satisfaction. According to the Sloan Center Age & Generations Study, for all age groups of employees studied, a majority "reported that having access to flexible work options contributes to their overall quality of life 'to a great extent'" (Pitt-Catsouphes, Matz-Costa, & Besen, 2009: 2). </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">While the effects of workplace flexibility are clear amongst higher wage workers, "flexibility has powerful impacts on lower wage workers in terms of engagement, turnover, and financial results" (Corporate Voices for Working Families, 2006:15). When lower wage workers were offered flexible work options, the results included higher retention, higher profits, lower rates of absenteeism, and increased productivity. While different strategies may be required for different categories of employees, creative solutions can be found for everyone. </div><h1 style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Barriers to Flexibility </h1><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Cost </b> </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">While the business case for providing a flexible workplace has been convincingly made, many institutions have been slow to recognize this important relationship, or recognize it but are still reluctant to introduce flexibility initiatives. A National Study of Employers survey found that cost was cited as the number one obstacle for implementing flexible work options (46% of respondents). However, research also indicates that <i><b>administrators agree overwhelmingly that flexible work strategies have a positive effect on helping organizations meet business objectives</b></i> (Corporate Voices, 2007). An expanding body of research provides solid evidence that the <i><b>return on investments in flexible work options is high, in terms of productivity, engagement, loyalty, retention, and job satisfaction. </b></i> It is estimated, for example, that allowing employees to telework, or work remotely (also called workshifting) half time could save employers over $10,000 per employee per year as a result of increased productivity, reduced facility costs, lowered absenteeism, and reduced turnover (Lister & Harnish, 2010b). </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In addition, there are many, many <a href="http://www.uri.edu/worklife/_assets/Workplace%20Flexibility%20Options.pdf" target="_blank">creative solutions</a> to provide employees the flexibility they need that require few or no additional resources. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Fear of Abuse </b> </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A regularly cited reason for not implementing flexible work options is the fear that employees will take advantage of the flexibility offered. Lister and Harnish (2010a) note that "management styles that were born in the days of sweatshops and typing pools are still pervasive in business today." However, this attitude reflects a traditional top-down, control-oriented management model, one whose values contradict workplace flexibility and a corresponding ethic that includes trust, worker independence, and creative, agile solutions. Regardless of workplace policies, there will always be some abuse by some employees. Using management strategies that cater to this minority, or the "lowest common denominator," does not serve an organization or its employees well. <i class="bold_italics"><b>Effective management is a better strategy.</b></i> Indeed, it is found repeatedly today that <i class="bold_italics"><b>employees with more flexibility options are more willing to work harder than is required, are more loyal, and are more committed to their employer </b></i>(Families & Work Institute, 2002). </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Loss of Productivity & Absenteeism </b></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Supervisors sometimes assume that offering flexibility results in employees not working as hard, thus decreasing organizational productivity. In fact, the opposite has been found time and again: <i><b>flexibility increases productivity</b></i>. A Center for Work & Family study (2000) found that 87% of employees and 70% of managers reported that flexible work arrangements had a positive or very positive impact on productivity. BestBuy's flexible <i>Results Only Work Environment</i> (ROWE) has netted an average productivity increase of 35% and Dow Chemical estimates a 32.5% productivity increase in its teleworkers (Lister & Harnish, 2010b). It has been found that even with a small amount of flexibility, employees have higher levels of engagement, stronger commitment to their jobs, greater job satisfaction, and lower stress levels (Corporate Voices for Working Families, 2005). In fact, a study of over 1,300 hourly workers across 5 companies found that employee engagement was 55% higher for those employees who have flexibility options (World at Work, 2009).</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Workers in organizations without the flexibility to "presenteeism," has become a far worse culprit in loss of productivity than absenteeism, costing US employers between $150 to $250 billion annually (Schaeffer, 2007). In fact, it is estimated that 78% of employees who call in sick really are not. Instead, they do so because of family needs, personal reasons, or stress. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Concerns About Equity and Employee Resentment</b> </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Another reason employers may be reluctant to introduce flexibility initiatives is the difficulty in offering the same accommodations to all employees. Certainly in higher education, many different categories of employees exist who perform their work in different ways and under different parameters. However, "flexibility fit" is the important factor: <i class="bold_italics"><b>while what works for one employee might not work for another, alternative solutions can be found that help all employees balance their work and personal lives. </b></i> Offering an array of options is only valuable if those options fit the needs of employees (Pitt-Catsouphes, Matz-Costa, & Besen, 2009). What is important is that the accommodation process be same, even though the choices offered and outcomes may vary.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">If anything, offering flexible work options that fit the needs of different employees serves the goals of equity, rather than the reverse. Women workers, who still shoulder the majority of household and caretaking responsibilities, experience much greater levels of stress, burnout, and slower career trajectories due to these compounded demands. Especially in arenas where they are underrepresented, such as the science and engineering disciplines, women's path up the career ladder is easily sabotaged by unrealistic expectations to do it all (Valian, 1998; Williams, 2000). As well, lower wage workers are much more likely to be restricted in their ability to have some control over their work time, due to the nature of many of their jobs, accompanied by a prevailing attitude among managers about maintaining control over work processes and schedules (Corporate Voices for Working Families, 2006). </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Lack of Supervisory Support</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Maintaining a traditional organizational culture and resistance to change on the part of supervisors and organizations presents perhaps the most challenging obstacle to promoting a flexible workplace. Even where policies may exist, in many workplaces "there is a distinct disconnect between policy and practices, what is known as "the implementation gap". Much has been written concerning implementation barriers (Center for Work and Family, 2008; Hammer, et al, 2007; Mason, et al, 2004; Ward & Wolf-Wendel, 2004; World at Work, 2008). And, along with managers, employees are also often resistant. Drago and colleagues (Drago, 2007) have written extensively on the "bias avoidance" phenomenon, whereby employees fear negative repercussions from using available leave policies. Indeed, the Families and Work Institute's 2002 National Study of the Changing Workforce revealed that fully 39% of employees surveyed perceive the use of flexible work options as having a negative impact on their job advancement (Families and Work Institute, 2002). </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">While it may be challenging, manager resistance, employee skepticism, and cultural resistance to changing the old industrial work model can be overcome. A better understanding the issues and the strength of the business case for flexibility, supervisory training in best practices, performance-based management strategies, and open, consistent communication between supervisors and employees will go a long way toward overcoming these obstacles. </div><h1 style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">References </h1><div class="reference" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Bond, J.T., Thompson,C., Galinsky, & Prottas, D. (2002). <i>Highlights of the national study of the changing workforce: Executive summary. </i>Families & Work Institute<i>. </i>http://familiesandwork.org/site/research/summary/nscw2002summ.pdf</div><div class="reference" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Center for Work & Family (2000). <i>Measuring the impact of workplace flexbility: Findings from the national work life measurement project.</i> Boston College, Boston, MA: http://www.bc.edu/centers/cwf/research/publications/meta-elements/pdf/BCCWF_Flex_Impact_Final_Report.pdf </div><div class="reference" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Center for Work & Family (2008).<i> Overcoming the implementation gap: How 20 leading companies are making flexibility work.</i> Boston College, Boston, MA: http://www.bc.edu/centers/cwf/meta-elements/pdf/Flex_ExecutiveSummary_for_web.pdf </div><div class="reference" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Corporate Voices for Working Families (2005). <i>Business impacts of flexibility: An imperative for expansion. </i>Washington, DC. http://www.cvworkingfamilies.org/system/files/Business%20Impacts%20of%20Flexibility.pdf </div><div class="reference" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Corporate Voices for Working Families (2006).<i> Workplace flexibility for lower wage workers</i>, Washington, DC. http://www.cvworkingfamilies.org/publication-toolkits/workplace-flexibility-lower-wage-workers-october-2006<br />
Corporate Voices for Working Families (2007). <i>Flexible work strategies: Attitudes & experiences - Executive Summary</i>. Washington, DC. http://corporatevoices.org/system/files/flexibleworkstrategiessummary_for%20web.pdf </div><div class="reference" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Drago, Robert (2007). <i>Striking a balance: Work, family, life</i>. Boston, MA: Economic Affairs Bureau, Inc. </div><div class="reference" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Hammer, L.B., Kossek, E.E., Zimmerman, K, & Daniels, R. (2007).<i> Clarifying the construct of family-supportive supervisory behaviors (FSSB): A multilevel perspective.</i> In Perrewe, P.L. & Ganster, D.C (Eds) Exploring the Work and Non-Work Interface. New York: Elsevier, JAI Press. </div><div class="reference" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Kossek, E.E. & Hammer, L.B. (2008). <i>Family supportive supervisory behaviors (FSSB) intervention study: Effects oon employee's work, family, safety, & health outcomes.</i> National Work, Family, & Health Network: Center of work-Family Stress, Safety, and Health. http://wjsupport.psy.pdx.edu/ </div><div class="reference" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Lister, K., & Harnish, T. (2010a). <i>Results based management: The key to unlocking talent, increasing productivity.</i> Telework Research Network: http://img.en25.com/Web/CitrixOnline/Increasing_Productivity%20.pdf </div><div class="reference" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Lister, K., & Harnish, T. (2010b). <i>Workshifting benefits: the bottom line. </i>Telework Research Network: TeleworkResearchNetwork.com</div><div class="reference" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Mason, M.A. and Goulden, Marc (2004) <i>Do babies matter (Part II): Closing the baby gap</i>. Academe, November-December.<br />
Pink, D. (2009). <i>The surprising truth about what motivates us.</i> Penguin Group. </div><div class="reference" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Pitt-Catsouphes, M. & Matz-Costa, C. (2008). <i>The multi-generational workforce: Workplace flexibility and engagement</i>. Community, Work & Family, 11(2), 215-229.</div><div class="reference" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Pitt-Catsouphes, M., Matz-Costa, C., & Besen, E. (2009). <i>Workplace flexibility: Findings from the age & generations study</i>. <u>Issue Brief</u>, The Sloan Center on Aging &Work, 1-21. </div><div class="reference" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Schaefer, P. (2007)<i> The hidden cost of presenteeism: Causes and solutions.</i> Business Knowhow. Attard Communications, Inc. http://www.businessknowhow.com/manage/presenteeism.htm </div><div class="reference" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Valian, Virginia (1998) <i>Why so slow: The advancement of women. </i>Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press. </div><div class="reference" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Williams, Joan (2000) <i>Unbending gender: Why family and work conflict and what to do about it.</i> New York, NY: Oxford University Press. </div><div class="reference" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Ward, K., & Wolf-Wendel, L. (2004). <i>Fear factor: How safe is it to make time for family. </i>Academe, November-December. </div><div class="reference" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">World at Work (2008). <i>Workplace flexibility: Innovation in action. </i>WorldatWork Press. http://www.worldatwork.org/waw/adimLink?id=26715&from=book_search_worklife </div><div class="reference" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">World at Work (2009). Innovative worrkplace flexibility options for hourly workers. http://www.cvworkingfamilies.org/system/files/CVWFflexreport-FINAL.pdf</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
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</div>Schmidt Labor Research Centerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04066793208745768082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-7579899851278089002010-11-03T07:42:00.000-07:002010-11-04T04:58:51.330-07:00Nobel Prize in Economics: 2010<span id="internal-source-marker_0.43290523171007733" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Commentary</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">by </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Professor Richard McIntyre, Ph.D.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Professor of Economics</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Diamond, Mortenson and Pissariades were awarded the Nobel prize in Economics this year for “search theory.” This work was part of the increased interest in the costs of information in the 1970s. It was also one of a number of approaches that shifted attention from the demand to the supply side of the labor market at that time. Search theory has applications to housing and public economics but I will confine my comments here to the labor market implications of search theory.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The idea that workers and jobs are heterogeneous and that it takes time and effort to match them is useful for both policy and theory. Sweden’s “active labor market policy” sought to reduce frictional unemployment even before the now classic papers on search theory were published. Perhaps this is why the Swedish Central Bank made this award, although speculation about the reasoning behind these awards is not terribly productive in my opinion.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">One interpretation of search is that it explains the persistence of high unemployment rates. In the </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/business/economy/12nobel.html" target="blank"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">New York Times</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">article announcing the award Robert Shimer, an economist at the University of Chicago, was quoted as saying that “That’s a big controversy in the U.S. recently. Most of these models suggest that even in a depressed economy, more generous unemployment benefits tend to raise the unemployment rate. Benefits are obviously good for the unemployed, but there are some clear tradeoffs.”</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Standard labor market models assume that workers make choices whether to work or not based on their reservation wage and the level of unemployment benefits. But in the current situation, there are so few jobs available that workers are more likely to drop out of the labor market than to be re-employed. Those who have maintained employment are more likely to be involuntarily working part time because of slack demand. So far this is the weakest recovery since World War II. In other words the high rate of unemployment is overwhelmingly due to slack demand rather than longer search periods caused by extended unemployment benefits. Since only about 40 percent of the unemployed generally receive benefits, while there may be anecdotes about people remaining unemployed so as to collect benefits, this is a minor part of the current labor market story.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There is an older view associated with Frances Perkins and other architects of the New Deal in which unemployment and low wages lead to more unemployment. As people lose their jobs and/or wages fell, more people in the family had to seek work, thus increasing the excess supply of workers relative to available jobs. By this logic larger/longer unemployment insurance lowers unemployment by reducing the number of people who have to go job-hunting when employment opportunities are scarce.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Unemployment in Europe has generally been higher than in the US over the last two decades and some economists try to use search theory to explain this. Here is Lawrence Katz of Harvard from the same </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Times </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">article: “Many European countries put restrictions on the ability of firms to hire and fire. If you make it harder to hire and fire, then you end up with what’s called a sclerotic labor market, with less movement between jobs and more long-term unemployment.”</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There is a basic empirical problem here also. European labor markets were much more rigid in the 1960s and 70s than they are today, and yet unemployment rates at that time were significantly lower in Europe than in the United States.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Reactionary attempts to build on this year’s Nobel then are strained at best. The winners of this year’s prize do not draw these kinds of conclusions. Diamond has argued that current labor market problems are primarily due to lack of aggregate demand and that loss of skills by those who have dropped out of the labor market is a bigger problem than the disincentive effects of unemployment compensation. Mortenson has said that credit market and not labor market problems are the real issue that we face.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">These divergent conclusions point to both a strength and weakness of orthodox economics. The scientific apparatus of contemporary economics can be used to justify a wide range of policies. But that very range causes people to question the scientific nature of economics itself. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">More important is what search theorists don’t do. As Marx and others have pointed out, it is in the labor process, not the labor exchange that exploitation occurs. And here employers clearly have the upper hand. Further, many labor market and labor process outcomes – employment, remuneration, working conditions, training – reflect what employers choose to do, except perhaps during short-lived moments of full employment. Since the 1970s, in the US at least, the rhetoric of labor economics has been mainly about workers rather than employers, and mostly focused on what workers should do to make their labor time more salable. At best search theory tells us that people are doing something useful while they are unemployed. But for the most part it distracts us from that fact that employers have the upper hand in the labor market and that there is no such thing as democracy inside the firm, where Americans spend most of their waking time.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>Schmidt Labor Research Centerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04066793208745768082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-90172973640960599592010-10-27T12:41:00.000-07:002010-10-27T12:43:19.341-07:00Labor Arbitration Conference - 2010<div id="internal-source-marker_0.049452221144203334" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Contributions from:</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Vanessa Armstrong, MS ‘11</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Adeyemi Ogunade, MS ‘11</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sarah Soares, MS ‘12</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On October 1, 2010, the SLRC hosted its 11th Annual Labor Arbitration Conference at the Marriott Hotel in Newport, RI. Attendance at this year’s conference was higher than our previous high set last year. There were 157 attendees including SLRC students Vanessa Armstrong, Alexis Lyman, Bill Maccarone, Yemi Ogunade and Sarah Soares</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Professor Mark Grossman assembled an excellent group of speakers who addressed a number of important issues in the field of arbitration.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Tough Times Call for Tough Negotiations and Arbitrations</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mark Gursky, Jeffrey W. Kastle & Paul C. Reed<hr /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In the wake of the recent economic meltdown the response of employers both, in the private and public sectors of the economy, is to tighten budgets while at the same time shed recurrent expenditure which in most cases boils down to personnel cuts. Mark Gursky emphasized the ironic condition of public sectors workers where in one breath they are told by top public officers about huge budget constraints leading to salary freezes and on the other hand witness these officials receive huge compensation packages with benefits running into hundreds of thousands. The economic climate has encouraged employers to increasing use tactics like concession bargaining and judicial authority to overturn contractual obligations agreed upon in the CBA and ultimately impinge upon the fidelity of the arbitration process. It is not unheard of to see employers file chapter 11 and reorganize as a strategy to void CBA and thus avoid costs in terms of increased wage bill. In his recommendations to unions Mr. Gursky opined that unions should not only seek redress in Federal courts of law with more pro-union precedent but also seek to rebuild alliances with the grassroots and develop a political power base to change state legislation in their favor. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Other panelists affirmed the undeniable realities of the depression and proposed mid-term bargaining between union and employers to properly address and seek creative solutions to the new economic verities. Jeffrey Kastle was of the opinion that unions ought to be more open to the idea of mid-term bargaining and making concessions that would in the long term enhance labor relations. With interest-based arbitration used to resolve any niggling concerns that arises between both parties during mid-term bargaining.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Managing and Defending Difficult Employees</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sue Ellen Dunn & Gerard E, O'Neill<hr /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Managing and defending difficult employees is a delicate balance for the employer and the union. Sue Ellen Dunn focused on how the employer can mitigate risk, build relationships and make the right decision for all parties involved. When issues with difficult employees arise the focus must first be placed on areas including job performance, attendance and conduct in the workplace, this is the primary fact finding that must be conducted. As the employer you should know the job duties and any special requirements. Open communication with the employee and the union is essential because, depending on the situation, the union can be an ally because avoiding arbitration may be the ultimate goal, the employer may still find itself in arbitration despite best efforts.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There may be an actual valid excuse for misconduct including an employee that is bi-polar or has ADHD. In this case the employer should consider EAP but should not make it mandatory and only use EAP if it is appropriate (more serious cases). If EAP is mandatory the EAP should report back to the employer as to the employees’ progress. When issues may be in the context of the ADA the process should be flexible and interactive. The employee and employer should make reasonable proposals for accommodation to do essential functions of the job keeping in mind to be careful to ensure the law is followed, it should not be just about the employee wanting to do another job.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When dealing with physicians, ask the physicians what you can do as an employer. Fitness for duty should not be an employee choice, employers should require the evaluation at no cost to the employee, and the employer should inform the physician the job duties and any problems. The physician will give you an expert independent decision and make recommendations what to do next</span>.<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Gerard E. O’Neill focused on several considerations when dealing with employees who may be slightly unbalanced, the competency, liability, or a threat. He recommended that a union official is always be present and the fact that the employee may need a friend or relative to assist with the process. Difficulties arise when clients don’t tell the truth where he recommended jettison if possible and asking for records before moving forward. In multiple discipline clients and multiple attorney clients it is more difficult to win. Conflicting claims, poor behavior and poor record keeping are all red flags when trying for a win for the client. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Looking Over Your Shoulder: Surveillance in Employee’s Vehicles, Computers and Other Intimate Places</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Susan R. Brown & Bonnie J. McSpiritt<hr /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">With the prevalence of employee monitoring in labor management, many issues arise when arbitrating matters of surveillance. The presenters outlined reasons for surveillance, two being routine and suspicion-based surveillance. Routine surveillance, which may be necessary for safety purposes or performance oversight, is conducted in the course of doing business and is applied to everyone in a given category. Routine monitoring can be used in the pursuit of suspicion-based surveillance. The speakers explored many methods of surveillance, including time clocks, human observers, global positioning systems, cell phones, computer monitoring, identification badges, video surveillance, and radio frequency identification.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The presenters made several precautions for employers regarding the use of surveillance. It was suggested that employers ensure their surveillance policies reflect what they aim to accomplish. In writing policy, the language should be tailored to the specific workplace, stating both the types of surveillance that might be conducted, and areas which might be excluded from surveillance. When addressing surveillance in the workplace, an employer should consider whether it is covered by the National Labor Relations Act as well as what state laws say about audio surveillance and privacy. When presenting surveillance evidence before a neutral arbitrator, it is important not to assume that what is seen in the evidence, such as a videotape, is evident to an outsider. Before using such surveillance evidence, evaluate the evidence objectively to determine if there is a viable case for the arbitrator.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ways to Expedite the Arbitration Hearing and Also Make it Less Expensive </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Matthew M. Bodah & Joan Dolan <hr /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">With ever increasing costs of arbitration hearings and the increased amount of time it takes to resolve a grievance it becomes imperative arbitrators seek ways to help check this growing trend. Time and money can be saved by properly administering the pre-hearing phase of an arbitration, scheduling of the actual arbitration and during the course of the actual hearing. Prof. Bodah proposed measures to help expedite arbitration in the pre-hearing phase. He suggested the proper definition of the meaning of a grievance within a contract, with both parties actually negotiating and agreeing on a definition that is neither too broad or narrow. Other suggestions in the pre-hearing phase include ensuring a grievances are written down as soon as possible,ensuring contracts have appropriate time limits for grievances and proper training for union stewards and HR representatives in proper investigatory procedures prior to arbitration. Here a possible method proposed is the mandatory joint fact finding committee of both union and management that would help in articulation of the issue and agreement on the facts of the case prior to the arbitration hearing which significantly reduces time wasted on arguing facts during hearings.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Other suggestions include proper appraisal of grievance to ensure scheduling of appropriate time to hear and arbitrate case and thus avoid dragging out the arbitration process due to scheduling constraints with the arbitrator. Efficient scheduling saves time and money. Using the cheapest labor possible for non-essential tasks like transcribing e.t.c , to avoid wasting arbitrators time on mundane tasks and ensure optimal time is spent on making the decision regarding the case. Finally arbitrators could encourage and facilitate voluntary discourse between both parties to help communication, which helps expedite pending issues.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Violence in the Workplace: Dissecting the Termination Case: </span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Thomas R. Landry & George H. Rinaldi<hr /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The session was opened with the OSHA definition of workplace violence as violence or the threat of violence against workers. The panel them surprised the audience with the fact that homicide was the fourth leading cause of workplace deaths. Employers concerns with workplace violence were covered first including concerns with reputation, law suits, control issues, and issues that could roll into Title 7. The union concerns were member to member issues and the fact that zero tolerance does not equal immediate termination. With those concerns in mind the panel reviewed whether or not employer should have a workplace violence policy and if a policy exists to what depth should it cover. A simple policy may not cover enough and leave too much room to interpretation and a strict policy of zero tolerance can lead to issues in enforcing the policy. The panel discussed disciplinary factors and defenses including considerations of the level of violence, who the target is, the location, and any prior disciplinary record. Defenses included self defense, horseplay (threat vs. shop talk), cultural sensitivity, and an ADA disability defense. The union has to make many considerations and balance are their members safe and working through what members should actually be defended. Ultimately it comes down to what type of policy should the employer have, workplace violence (simple vs. complex), a bullying policy or no policy at all. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Context Matters: An Explanation of Perceived Inconsistencies in Disciplinary Cases</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lawrence Katz & Elizabeth Neumeier<hr /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The panel of arbitrators addressed a number of perceived inconsistencies in disciplinary cases and posed a number of scenarios to illustrate the importance of context when considering the offense, employment, and discipline. For employees, instances such as off-duty convictions, charges filed and later dropped, publicized arrests, or perceived threats, can greatly influence an employer’s course of action in discipline. This raises the question, should employees be punished for something done outside the workplace? When these issues arise, employers may discharge the employee for two reasons: determination that in light of the findings the employee is no longer suitable for the position or fear that the offense may be repeated on the job, also known as preventative discharge. An employer should question, what is the nexus of the offense to the employment? An employer must also consider the context of the offense and employment: Can the implication of the conviction be overwritten by a good record of employment? While an employer may be inclined to avoid discharge, especially of a good employee, other influences such as past practice or pressure from the public may lead the employer to take action for its own protection.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The panelists concluded with the issue of threats in and outside the workplace. Of great importance is where an employer draws the line in determining if a threat is real. What is the workplace policy on threats? Employers must decide if the threat warrants discipline and education, or the employee should be discharged. Due to this uncertainty and the possibility of misinterpretation, many employers have no-tolerance rules for threats and have prohibited some language altogether in the workplace. It is important for employers to establish clear and consistently enforced policies regarding threats. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Arbitrating in the Public Sector</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Darren F. Corrente & Thomas J. McAndrew<hr /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The statutory role of the arbitrator was explored at length in this segment of the conference especially especially in relating to public sector grievances and the recent rising trend of courts in Rhode Island overturn arbitration decisions. the discourse centered on how to balance the statutory responsibilities of the negotiators expounded by the supreme court in the Trilogy, against the excesses of an arbitrator dispensing his/her own brand of industrial justice. In light of recent R.I court rulings overturning arbitrations, the panelists opined that arbitrators should stay within the four corners of the CBA in making rulings in cases, especially in public sector cases where decisions have broader implications. Arbitrators should put foreword sound reasons grounded in the contract or past labor relations practices for decisions. Further arbitrators should avoid replacing facts of the case with biases in order to preclude judicial intervention.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On the other hand the panelist stated that both labor and management advocates in arbitration cases ,irrespective of the outcome of the decision ought to insist upon the fidelity of the arbitration process,as an extension of the CBA, except in egregious cases of misconduct by the arbitrator highlighted in the trilogy. Other issues discussed include the imperative of a nuanced approach to arbitration when dealing with the public sector cases due to sundry civil service laws and municipal ordinances that overlap with the typical private sector scheme thus limiting the scope of arbitration on certain issues in the public sector.Overall the discussion centered on the need to push for new legislative provisions that would help clarify public sector employers bargaining positions and limit the penchant of public sector employers exceeding their authority in agreeing to certain provisions in the CBA. Which in many respects is the root cause of grievances in the public sector.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Pros and Cons of Private Sector Interest Arbitration Provisions</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Jack Callaci & Joseph D. Whelan<hr /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In this session the panel spent time imposing the importance of preparation in the arbitration process. With private sector interest arbitration the parties cease the right to strikes, lockouts and impasse. It is rarely used in the private sector and there are many considerations that must be determined including: selection of an arbitrator, the hearing procedures, the authority of the arbitrators and post hearing issues. The panel stated there should be a template, definitions should be known, comparables should be defined and the whole economic package should be known. Both parties need to consider if the arbitration will put them in a better position, what they are trying to achieve, and the impact of someone else making the decision. The union’s perspective may be how many unions are winning strikes (is it smart to waive the right to strike if unions are winning). The employer’s perspective is that interest arbitration doesn’t create a panic for agreement, there is time to prepare and the prohibition of a strike allows for a better chance of maintaining a positive relationship with the union. For both parties the considerations have to be weighed and decisions need to make with both parties what the best alternative will be.</span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Classic, Difficult Issues That Arise During Arbitration Hearings and How to Resolve Them</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Joseph M. Daly & Michael W. Stutz<hr /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The very nature of arbitration proceedings demand mental acuity to deal with nuanced issues on a case by case basis. Despite this certain issues frequently arise during arbitration hearings and knowledge of the classic solutions to these problems espoused by preeminent arbitrators becomes crucial. The panel discussed some thorny issues that frequently arise in arbitration and classic solutions to these issues. Questions like, what happens when management calls the grant as it’s first witness in a case, what to do when a union steward is called by management and asked to testify about consultation with the grievant, how to handle requests by interested third parties to attend or participate in arbitration hearings and what to do when the union steward calls company HR manager and asks him/her to testify about internal documents. These as well as other troublesome issues were extensively discussed.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To Arbitrate or Not: Considering the Investigatory Process, Weingarten, Loudermill, last chance agreements, and other settlements.</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Jean E. Zeiler & Steven A. Torres<hr /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Many issues should be considered when deciding whether to take a case to arbitration. A key component of this process, taking place before the disciplinary hearing, is the investigatory interview. During the investigatory hearing, either party may solicit new information from a charged employee, or verify information already received. If an employee has a reason to believe he may be disciplined during a meeting with an employer, his Weingarten rights allow him to have the union representative available at that time present at the meeting. It is essential to make these Weingarten rights known to the employee, for an employer’s failure to allow the presence of a union representative can result in an arbitrator declining to uphold the discharge. Since the union is faced with the issue of the duty of fair representation, it should have a good faith reason for not taking a case forward after a fair investigation has been completed before it can be free of such DFR violation accusations. The duo offered tips for constructing last chance agreements, noting that these agreements are best if they define the triggering event leading to the last chance agreement. It was also noted that a last chance agreement protects the union from violating the duty of fair representation and the employer from future instances with the employee.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The panelists discussed additional factors which influence the decision for an employer or union to take cases to arbitration or settle. Each party should consider the cost of taking a case to arbitration, weighing in on the cost of trying the case and the amount which would be owed to the employee outside of liability if the case is lost. Both parties will participate in case valuation, or determining the probability of success of the case based on the merits of the case, including the strength of the evidence and proof. The non-tangible issues of public relations and politics also influence the decision to arbitrate such that either side may not want to arbitrate or appeal. Lastly, once an arbitrator is selected, either party may choose to settle after reviewing the arbitrator’s profile and previous decisions.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Effective Advocacy in the Arbitration Process</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">William E. O'Gara Jr. & Stephen T. Fanning<hr /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The focus of Steve Fanning’s presentation was the need to carefully prepare for any hearing with an eye towards simplifying the case. Preparation requires that any potential witness be interviewed and an outline on the questions prepared. The advocate should also spend time to identify what exhibits will be needed. An overlooked tool according to Mr. Fanning is contacting the opponent before the hearing to see what issue can be stipulated to with an eye towards eliminating unnecessary testimony and evidence.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mr. O’Gara focused on the need for an advocate to spend time outlining cross examination of likely opposing witnesses before the hearing. Cross examination is fundamentally different than direct examination. While direct testimony allows a witness to tell his story, cross examination is designed to develop facts that undermine that story. To be effective, cross should be concise and geared to developing facts that support one’s theory of the case.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A common failure on cross examination is to simply track the direct testimony. An additional trap is asking open-ended questions that allow the witness to offer self-serving answers. Advocacy requires at least a basic ability to cross examine a witness. Echoing the comments of Mr. Fanning, Mr. O’Gara emphasized the need to prepare for the hearing and outline the testimony that one needs to develop on cross examination.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mark did an outstanding job of organizing the annual event. Next year's conference is scheduled for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">October 7, 2011 at the Marriott</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> in Newport</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Our 24th Annual </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Labor and Employment Law Conference</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> is scheduled for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">April, 292011 at URI's W. Alton Jones Campus</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> in West Greenwich, RI.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Click</span><a href="http://www.uri.edu/research/lrc/outreach/Conferences/arbitration/Arbitration_2010.pdf"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;"> Here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> to view the 2010 Arbitration Conference brochure</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-71241297485996516472010-08-23T09:31:00.000-07:002010-08-23T09:31:23.354-07:00Are You a Misfit?<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i>Commentary</i></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: right;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>by Professor Tony Wheeler</b><br />
Associate Professor of Human Resource Management</span></i></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I completed my Ph.D. in 2003, and I have worked for three universities since that time, with URI hopefully being final employer. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned to my boss that I had recently experienced a strange feeling at work: job satisfaction. Yes, I teach students about job satisfaction, but I had totally forgotten what it felt like. <br />
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I have come to the conclusion that until recently I had been a perpetual misfit. Now people can experience fit in many ways. We can have the right knowledge, skills, and abilities to fit our jobs (unsurprisingly called Person-Job Fit), we can have the right predisposition to fit the career in which we have self-selected (called Person-Vocation Fit), we can share the same values that our employer does (called Person-Organization Fit), and we can have our personal resource needs met by the resources supplied by the organization (think compensation, benefits, work schedule, etc.). There are more ways to experience fit, like with teams and supervisors, but I'll stick with the major research areas within the study of fit and won't bore you with my dissertation on how we can assess multiple dimensions of fit. (Fact or fiction: My dissertation sits next to a toilet in my house so visitors can read it or use it for paper?) <br />
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When you fit...on whatever dimension of fit you value the most, which can change, life is good. You feel satisfied with your job, committed to your organization, and willing to help out around the office. We also know that when you fit, you will more likely report that you want to continue working with your organization. But what happens when you don't fit? Is it as simple as having decreased job satisfaction and commitment? Do you always leave your job when you are a misfit? What if you can't leave your job?<br />
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I have spent considerable time not just being a misfit but studying misfit. What I have found in my research is that misfit does not always lead to turnover. In fact, it's unlikely that misfit directly leads to turnover at all. Why? First, leaving a job, even when you have several job alternatives, is hard. It affects every part of your life. Just ask my wife. Do you think she's liked moving from California to Illinois to Rhode Island, even as each job got progressively better and we moved progressively closer to our families? Second, no one likes to be a misfit and probably spends time trying to correct the source of the misfit. My primary source of misfit with my previous employers almost always came from disagreements over values, and I spent months trying to persuade others that we should focus more on students than ourselves. <br />
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I'm likely not alone (am I?). I recently returned from Montreal, Quebec, where I presented a model of misfit to a symposium at the Academy of Management's annual conference (8,000 academics from all over the world in one place...insert jokes here). I described a series of behaviors triggered by someone feeling like they don't have resources to meet the demands of the environment, which might include passive job search at the beginning. More likely, that first feeling of misfit causes someone to try and adapt to the environment, which might mean trying to actually change the parts of your job that are causing the misfit. Maybe you seek training opportunities. Maybe you ask your boss for some new computer software to help perform your job. Maybe you spend more of your time and effort on the parts of your job that you really enjoy. Maybe you ask your boss to work on a new team, or you volunteer for new assignments. If you successfully re-craft your job, you probably feel like you fit. Life is good again. Congratulations! <br />
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If not, you likely engage in a series of either passive or active behaviors. You might simply go into denial (Who's a misfit? Not me.). You might want to hide your misfit for fear of being fired and engage in a lot of impression management (No, really boss, that's a great idea...I love it). Or you might become vocal about the source of the misfit in an attempt to change it (Where is that raise that you promised?). You might even engage in some deviant workplace behaviors (Why do you have so many office supplies from your work at home?). You might do all of these things. Each is an attempt to actively deal with your misfit. All the while your misfit causes you to feel increasingly stressed out, which will lead to burnout. Eventually, you will leave the organization, on your terms (Take this job and shove it, Jet Blue-style!) or theirs (You're Fired!). But this likely takes months if not years. <br />
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Maybe it takes a perpetual misfit to understand misfit, which really worries me. Now that I feel like I finally fit, will I no longer understand misfit? </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-79788979459912244392010-06-21T10:39:00.000-07:002010-06-21T10:39:10.600-07:00Furloughs Theoretically Save Money but Empirically Cost Job Performance<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i>Commentary</i></div><div style="text-align: right;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>by Professor Tony Wheeler</b><br />
Associate Professor of Human Resource Management</span></i></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The current government budgetary picture in many states, if not most, and in many localities looks fairly awful. I won't focus on any particular state's budget woes because you can read any newspaper from around the country to get the details. Governments have three broad courses of action to close budget shortfalls: 1) Cut spending, 2) Increase revenues (e.g., taxes), or 3) A combination of choices 1 and 2. National, state, and local politics, obviously, affects the choices that governments will choose. As I discovered while doing research with a colleague, these political pressures even affect the research that nobody academics like myself attempt to conduct.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Especially when you want to understand the impact of furloughs on state employees.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For political reasons I cannot disclose in which state my colleague and I conducted our research, as my colleague, who collected the data, had to agree state anonymity. He also received a phone call from a lawyer in the DOJ of the state where we collected the data telling him to stop data collection and consult a university lawyer (a.k.a., cease and desist). So much for "academic freedom," human subjects approval from a sanctioned institutional review board, and the permission to collect data from 4 agencies within the state government. Luckily, we were allowed to proceed with our study after political pressure was applied from on high.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This little story should tell you about the use of furloughs to help close budget deficits: Politics, not empiricists, make the decisions, and politics and empiricism might be mutually exclusive. Why did this particular state allow us to continue with our research? Because in the midst of a political race, one side wanted to know the results of our study and the other didn't. What could we, nobody academics, possibly find that politicians seeking office would want to highlight in a campaign?</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Simply, we found that as a furlough day approaches, employee emotional exhaustion, the key component of burnout, increases while job performance decreases. But it gets worse. The increased exhaustion peaks on the furlough day, remains high for a couple of days, and finally returns to pre-furlough levels a week or so later. All the while, employee job performance decreases until the exhaustion clears.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">To further examine what happens during the nearly 3 week period bracketing the furlough (10 days before, 7 after), we also looked at how these exhaustion/performance effects might differ among employees. We measured employee predisposition to ruminate (e.g., constantly think about bad events) and employee positive recovery behaviors (e.g., doing things to get mentally get away from work). Unsurprisingly to us, employees who ruminated more over the impending furlough became more emotionally exhausted and took longer to recover from this exhaustion; consequently, these employees often had the biggest decrease in their job performance. Conversely, employees who reported taking steps to "get away" from work indeed had lower exhaustion, not as large of a decrease in job performance in the run up to the furlough, and faster recovery after the furlough. It's worth noting, however, that even these employees experienced increased exhaustion and decreased performance, too. It just wasn't as bad as those who ruminated.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What do we think happened here? Let's be honest about what a furlough is: a pay cut disguised as a day off. The more someone thought about this, the more upset they became and the less motivated they were to perform their jobs. For those employees who actively sought ways to "get away" from their jobs, the less impact the furlough had on them. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We viewed furloughs as a personal resource drain, and we recommended giving employees choices in this furlough (as some states do but the state we examined did not): Take the pay cut and continue working (after all, deadlines don't take days off and many furloughed employees work from home on their furlough days), choose the day of the furlough akin to a floating holiday, or schedule furloughs around holidays or weekends. Again, some states allow for these choices, but the furlough remains what it remains: a pay cut. And the work doesn't wait.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I excitedly presented these results to my LRS/MBA 573 course on Organizational Staffing, and the discussion quickly devolved into a discussion on the worth(lessness?) of government employees. Aren't government employees depressed anyway? I found this interesting and indicative of the pernicious effects of staffing practices like furloughs. On the one hand, many Americans view government employees as lazy at best and utterly stupid at worst. On the other hand, furloughs achieve exactly the results that confirm these stereotypes. We want better government employees but do things through policy to achieve the exact opposite; yet another example of the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Is there any wonder politicians might be interested in our research?</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(In case you're wondering, I did remind the class that I am a government employee who liked my job and wasn't depressed, but I don't think that stopped them from thinking that government employees were lazy and stupid!)</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What we could not examine was how our results might link to financial or productivity outcomes at a more macro level. Unfortunately, governments have fixed budgets and metrics like sales or revenue in a for-profit sense are meaningless. We suspect that the decreases in employee performance affect the economic productivity of government organizations, which makes us question how much money furloughs actually save the government. Furloughs might make the short-term bottom line look better but ultimately do long-term productivity damage. This will have to remain a suspicion until we can find a government that tracks productivity and allows us to collect data. Good luck to us.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-68920581072412431892010-06-05T04:14:00.000-07:002010-06-05T04:19:37.471-07:00“What Happens to ADHD Kids When They Grow Up?” They Go to Work<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i>Commentary</i></div><div style="text-align: right;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>by Professor Tony Wheeler</b><br />
Associate Professor of Human Resource Management</span></i></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I’m old enough to remember the days before the phrase ‘ADHD’ (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) became a permanent fixture in the consciousness of Americans. Ritalin anyone? Like many of you, I’ve always wondered what happens to kids diagnosed with this disorder when they leave school. To be honest, I do not know if any of my undergraduate or masters’ students suffer from the disorder, and I always assumed that kids either learned to adapt to it or outgrew it. I do, however, hear stories that student pass Ritalin around the dorms to achieve the same thing that us geezers used NoDoze for, which makes me think that students used it recreationally instead of for its intended purpose.</span> <span style="font-family: Arial;"><br />
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But I digress. Why am I writing about ADHD on the SLRC blog? It turns out that about 50% of ADHD cases persist into adulthood, with about 4% of the US workforce suffering from the adult version of ADHD. Adult version meaning that it’s ADHD just with the word ‘adult’ in front of it. Persistent inattention? Check. Inability to focus? Check. Poor time management and organizing skills? Check. Tendency to procrastinate? Check. That’s ADHD, and researchers estimate that ADHD in the workplace accounts for an average of 35 lost days of employee performance per ADHD employee, costing an estimated $19.5B in annual employee productivity. And, don’t forget that ADHD is covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Yes, my technocrat HRM friends, that means reasonable accommodation.</span> <br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A colleague of mine and I just finished a research project that examined how ADHD impacts employee performance. Primarily, we looked at how ADHD interacted with employee engagement to predict job performance. Work engagement is “a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption” (Schaufeli, Salanova, Gonzalez-Roma, & Bakker, 2002, p. 74), and highly engaged employees have abundant emotional, psychological, and physical resources at their disposal to meet the demands of their job. Engagement positively relates to employee job performance and organizational citizenship (extra-role) behaviors. Which brings us to ADHD. </span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br />
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We collected data from 3 samples of full-time employed working adults (several hundred employees working across dozens of occupations and industries), and we found that ADHD is like a broken “resource governor.” That is, when you are engaged in your job and have all of the resources you need to excel at your job, ADHD impedes affected employees from properly allocating their energies to do their jobs as well as they could or should.</span> <span style="font-family: Arial;"><br />
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We admit it’s a simple finding. But it’s an important finding with simple solutions. First, companies need to know and be aware that ADHD affects a portion of their workforce. Second, employees need to know and be aware, too. There is a social stigma surrounding ADHD, which prevents affected employees from seeking help. This costs employees their dignity and companies their profits. Third, the solutions are simple. Aside from available health insurance to see doctors who can diagnose and treat ADHD, companies can provide simple accommodations to ADHD employees: a quiet and uncluttered workspace, time management seminars or training, and a supportive environment. The relative costs are minimal compared to the substantial benefits.</span> <span style="font-family: Arial;"><br />
</span><br />
<hr size="2" width="100%" /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Schaufeli, W.B., Salanova, M., Gonzalez-Roma, V., Bakker, A.B. (2002). <i>The measurement of engagement and burnout: a two simple confirmatory factor analytic approach</i>. <b>Journal of Happiness Studies</b>, 3:.71-92.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-83508953695775267062010-05-21T08:18:00.000-07:002010-05-21T08:22:28.359-07:00Workforce Integration<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i>Commentary </i><br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><i><b>Adeyemi Ogunade</b></i></div><div style="text-align: right;"><i>SLRC Graduate Student</i></div><br />
On April 29, 2010 the United States Navy announced its recent decision to allow female naval officers serve on submarines. The Secretary of Defense, in February officially notified congress of his intent to change the policy regarding the assignment of women to submarines. Prior to now females were precluded from assignments on missile submarines. Following the repeal of the combat exclusion law in 1994, civil and women’s rights groups within the military have pushed for increased representation in key areas of the navy. Rear Adm. Barry Bruner pointed out that “the percentage of women graduating with technically-based degrees in our country has risen to the point that females now make up 51 percent of the total talent pool of young Americans we can recruit to enter our submarine force in the nuclear-trained officer community.” This makes it necessary to establish policies targeted at not only recruiting and selecting the best female candidates, but also ensuring they are properly integrated into a predominantly male work force.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Wives of male sub sailors have vehemently protested against the new policy, raising concerns over the possibility of sexual infidelity, harassment and favoritism. They aver that the cramped spaces within submarines and lengthy tours of duty that span 90 days at a stretch leave their spouses susceptible to infidelity. These concerns may appear trivial on the surface, but have the propensity to seriously hamper productivity and morale of the entire submarine crew. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Navy’s response to these concerns has been flippant at best. Commander Kevin Byrne of the USS Alaska is of the opinion that “integrating women on board is nothing new to us. Women have been getting under way on submarines for overnight embarks and qualifications, familiarization, and sea trials embarks for week-long periods. So having women permanently established on board is not a major adjustment to the crew.” Is having a woman aboard a ship over night or for a week long period sufficient to determine the effects of the constant presence of females on submarines? Is offering female only accommodation within subs and mounting female signs on shower heads sufficient to prevent harassment in its nuanced forms? Is the existence of policies like “zero tolerance” policy, “red light, green light rule” sufficient to change ingrained attitudes and perception of male officers and non-commissioned crew men who may display antagonism towards change?</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The infamous “Tail hook” scandal of 1991 in which 83 service women were assaulted is a poignant reminder of the magnitude of harm that could arise from hasty decisions and slip-shod planning. Failure to consider the strategic effects of this decision and head off possible behavioral problems with clear policies could have a deleterious effect on morale aboard submarines far removed from terrestrial chain of command. Unprofessional behaviors occasioned by lack of training, will not only destroy trust and confidence among shipmates but also erode unit cohesion and combat readiness. Contrary to prevailing belief, providing technical training for female officers aboard submarines is not enough to ensure integration. It is imperative the Navy brass ensures all male sub sailors, from officers to rank and file are retrained in gender sensitivity and harassment policy to ensure seamless integration. Setting up a training program for all male sub sailors that would propagate appropriate conduct is necessary to ensure integration. It is trite to assert that the absence of women over the years would have lead to an atrophy of social and interpersonal skills necessary to navigate a heterosexual work environment. The paucity of such skills, lack of training in appropriate conduct coupled with the sudden inclusion of women in 2012 would produce a conflagration of legal, ethical and behavioral problems that would seriously hamper national security. Failure to retrain male sub sailor in the appropriate conduct and existing navy harassment policies would only leave room for a repeat of egregious abuse. Dictum sapient sat est.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-58179057709591495512010-03-19T12:43:00.000-07:002010-05-21T08:23:34.249-07:00Symposium on Shared Capitalism and Worker Appropriation<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i>Commentary</i></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: right;"><i>by <b>Richard McIntyre, Ph.D.</b><br />
Professor of Economics<br />
<br />
</i></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The ongoing economic crisis in the U.S. and world economies has called the governance structures of both financial and non-financial enterprises into question. I organized a symposium at the recent International Labor Process Conference at Rutgers School of Labor Management Relations to bring together two strands of research on employee ownership and economic democracy. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Research on "shared capitalism" covers a variety of forms of worker participation and gains sharing that are already quite common in the US. The new research shows just how common these arrangements are – covering between a third and half the workforce – and effectively addresses longstanding concerns that such arrangements might not be competitive because of collective action problems. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The notion of "worker appropriation" grows out of a critique of socialism as central planning and public ownership of the means of production. Worker appropriation means that labor and not capital is the residual owner of the firm's net product. A case can be made that it is collective and democratic control of the surplus, with or without ownership and whatever the role of markets in society, that would most effectively address concerns about justice in the workplace, in the boardroom, and in the distribution of income. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Building on cases studies and statistical analysis of survey data these research programs tell us quite a bit about the potential economic and political benefits and costs of providing workers both more voice in management, as well as greater dependence on the financial health of their enterprises. They come out of different traditions in political economy and social theory, and while there were no tensions on our panel over this there were such tensions in the conference as a whole, which I will recount at the end.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">According to <a href="http://www.nber.org/books/krus08-1/"><b>Doug Kruse</b></a> (Rutgers University) almost half of American private-sector employees participate in employee ownership, profit sharing, gain sharing, and/or broad-based stock options. He refers to these plans that directly tie worker pay or wealth to workplace performance as "shared capitalism." Such plans are often associated with greater employee participation in decision-making and information sharing, and may help increase worker pay, wealth, and quality of work life. More broadly, they have attracted interest for their potential to affect economic performance and societal income and wealth distribution. They can also, however, present serious issues of financial risk for employees, particularly if they substitute for other pay or wealth, and have the potential to worsen workplace relations.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Kruse's presentation was based on the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)'s Shared Capitalism Research Project. For an extensive view of shared capitalism, he put questions on the 2002 and 2006 General Social Surveys, containing representative samples of American workers. For an intensive view he conducted detailed surveys of over 40,000 employees in 14 companies with different combinations of shared capitalism plans, analyzing a wide variety of measures affecting workplace performance (e.g., turnover, loyalty, response to shirkers) and worker outcomes (e.g., pay, supervision, training, job security), with special attention to how shared capitalism may interact with other workplace policies. Shared capitalism is generally linked to positive outcomes for both workers and firms, with more positive outcomes when it is combined with employee involvement, training, job security, and above-market wages, and less positive outcomes when it is combined with close supervision. The results indicate that there may be significant potential for broad expansion of shared capitalism.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Erik Olsen</b> (University of Missouri-Kansas City) discussed his research on the growth of majority employee-owned (MEO) enterprises in the U.S. Overall employee ownership in the U.S. has grown to the point where more than one in six workers currently own some equity in the company for which they work. The number of U.S. workers employed in firms where the employees of that firm own the majority of the equity has also grown rapidly. These enterprises add an additional dimension to shared capitalism because the employees have an enhanced degree of control over of the firm. These MEO firms range from worker cooperatives, which typically combine employee ownership with egalitarian principles and participatory management, to firms that are majority employee-owned but operate in ways that are not substantially different from conventional capitalist enterprises. In the U.S. there are currently several hundred worker cooperatives employing only a few thousand workers, but there are several thousand MEO firms with close to one million employees. Thus majority employee-ownership is no longer an ephemeral or utopian endeavor, but rather has become a viable, and increasingly common, way to organize an enterprise in the U.S.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">MEO firms could conceivably support a different kind of industrial policy in the United States, to replace the war of the tax cutting states that only seems to impoverish everyone. It is plausible that MEO firms are less likely to outsource or offshore jobs, but no one has investigated this. Olsen recently received a Beyster Fellowship from Rutgers to conduct the first national survey of majority employee owned firms, so as to answer these and other questions</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Daphne Berry (</b>Doctoral candidate, Isenberg School of Management, UMass-Amherst)<b><br />
</b>and<b> Stu Schneider</b> (Cooperative Home Care Associates) examined the decision-making processes for allocating the net profit earned by one business that utilizes shared-ownership and participatory decision-making practices. Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA), currently the nation's largest worker-cooperative by employment, has developed an innovative process for determining the allocation of its annual net profit as: a) retained earnings; b) dividends; c) 401(k) plan contributions; and d) bonuses. While structured as a worker-cooperative, CHCA is actually a hybrid, also embodying some characteristics of a shared-capitalist enterprise. Because the work is dispersed across many sites and also because of the low levels of education of most of CHCA's 1,600 employees, some non-owner involvement is sensible in their opinion. However, worker-owners make final determinations regarding this surplus. Berry is a recent recipient of a Beyster Graduate Fellowship for this work and Schneider was able to give real insight into the practices used by CHCA to help its 1,600 home care workers learn about the company's finances so they can make informed decisions with respect to the annual vote on a proposed allocation of net profit.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Using her case study of Broadway musicians, <b>Cathy Mulder</b> (CUNY) argues that worker or collective "ownership" of the means of production may be sufficient but is not necessary for a democratic workplace. She gave concrete suggestions on how workers through their union might become the residual claimants to the firm's surplus with or without employee ownership. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Taken together these papers suggest the U.S. has a wide range of work organizations and that the possibilities for workplace transformation are much greater than is commonly believed. Worker ownership and cooperative production may be effective answers to the inefficiencies of traditional socialism as well as the inequality and social disintegration associated with market driven neo-liberalism. Whereas the standard political script seems to be a debate between those favoring more and those favoring less government, proponents of shared capitalism and worker appropriation say neither of these is the answer. Worker ownership in particular finds political support on both the left and the right of the political spectrum.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Our symposium came at the end of a long second day of conferencing and stood apart from the conference stream on "alternative work organizations" of which I had hoped it would be a part. This was especially unfortunate in that there was real tension in that stream between those interested primarily in worker cooperatives as socialist experiments in countries like Venezuela and Argentina, and those more interested in a variety of ways to increase worker voice in the very different political context of the United States. And while "shared capitalism" and "worker appropriation" share an emphasis on increasing worker voice they differ in their normative goals. Though we were not able to fully explore these tensions in the symposium, I intend to do so in a forthcoming paper in <i>Employee Rights and Responsibilities Journal</i>.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-6772930277650516702010-03-08T13:39:00.001-08:002010-03-08T13:53:43.209-08:00Central Falls Teachers: Lessons from Behavioral Science<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"><i>Commentary<br />
</i></span><br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"><i><b> by Richard W. Scholl, Ph.D.</b><br />
Director & Professor</i><br />
</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The attempts at transforming the educational system at Central Falls High School have now made national news. In order to qualify for federal grant money, the high school administrators had to select from among four improvement options. The options were school closure, charter school takeover, transformation, and turnaround. The final decision became a choice between the last two. Initially the transformation model was chosen, but when discussions between the superintendent and the union president broke down as to how to implement the transformation, the district adopted the turnaround model which requires termination of the entire high school staff with no more than 50% of the staff rehired.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As a response to the termination of the entire teaching staff, the union filed three unfair labor practice charges. Recently, representatives of the teachers' union presented a proposal that appears to have turned the discussion back to the transformational model. The legal issues regarding this case are unlikely to be resolved any time soon. Now that the naming of heroes and courage award nominees has pasted, at least for the time being, I want to offer some thoughts from the perspective of a behavioral scientist. Let's pretend we are really interested in improving learning. What can we learn about organizational change from the experience of organizations that have implemented change successfully?</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In teaching and doing research on organizational behavior, leadership, motivation, performance management and human resource strategies, I have uncovered a number of well established principles. My students in the master's program in Labor Relations and Human Resources are taught continually that the most effective organizations have human resource strategies that are both strategic and integrated. When human resource systems are aligned with an organization's strategies, our behavioral science knowledge is put to use in developing methods of employee selection, recruitment, performance management, compensation, employee development and conflict resolution that work to motivate and direct employee behavior towards building a strong competitive advantage. Integrated human resource systems exist when all of these functions work together in developing and maintaining an organizational culture that supports the mission of the organization.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Let's look at the Central Falls High School change effort from this perspective. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Models for Change</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">There are two things we know about all organizational changes. The first is that an organizational change is someone's solution to a perceived organizational problem. The second is that no matter how grandiose the change, it must manifest in the behavioral change of employees of the organization, that is, some people in the organization have to do some things differently. In the Central Falls case, the stated problems are low student test scores and low graduation rates. While there has been disagreement as to the cause of these problems, I have read of no disagreement that these are problems. The real issue here is what is the most effective way to change teacher and student behavior? While many organizations can use power and force to remove resistance to a proposed change, years of research and experience has taught us that when those required to make the most dramatic change in behavior participate in the problem solving process and eventual development of solutions, the result is generally not only a better solution, but one that is accepted rather than resisted. We all know of situations where employees actually impede the implementation of new methods that are forced on them, and situations where people commit themselves to the success of plans they have helped to develop.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">While we have read about the four models of change, we do not know who developed these choices. Why is there only one method, the transformation method, which involves actual change in educational methods? Are the six conditions demanded by the superintendent<sup>1</sup> the only way to improve learning in a school and is there any evidence that these methods work in all schools? While the superintendent did attempt to negotiate the implementation of transformational plan with its 6 demands, there did not appear to be any real participation on the part of teachers (not union officials) in the development of an improvement plan.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Change is rarely achieved through force, fiat, and fear</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Negotiation and Bargaining</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Throughout our master's program, our students learn about the differences between positional and interest-based bargaining (IBB). A related concept involves the difference between adversarial and cooperative labor relations strategies. In positional bargaining each party presents is position (alternative) and then attempts to get the other party to accept its position, generally through demonstrating its relative power. When one party does not have a decided power advantage, the parties generally move to a compromise. The compromise position lies on a continuum somewhere between the two positions. Interest-based bargaining uses a different framework. Rather than presenting positions, which are a party's means to one their goals, the parties identify their interests. Interests are the party's goals or outcomes they which to achieve through negotiation. In the CFHS case, we are told that negotiations<sup>2</sup> broke down over an irresolvable conflict between paying teachers $30/hour or $90/hour for additional time spent implementing the six elements of the transformational model. This is a clear case of positional bargaining in an adversarial relationship. What are the actual interests of the two parties? Were the teachers only concerned about income or was there some disagreement about the ability of the six new actions to actually improve learning and resultant test scores. Asking someone to devote more time to an activity that will actually bring about improvement in something that you value for no additional pay is one, while asking the same for increased effort with little chance of success is quite another. What were the interests of the commissioner and superintendent? If improved learning is the primary interest, is there no other way it could be achieved? I cannot answer these specific questions, but I am confident that is this situation was approached in a collaborative, interest-based approach; the changes for school improvement would increase.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Human Resource Strategy</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The successful management of human resources involves developing integrated approaches to recruiting, selecting, evaluating and developing skilled people. In addition, highly effective human resource strategies seek to develop and maintain high levels of commitment in employees rather than develop intricate external control systems. One of the recurring arguments made by those opposed to teachers' unions is that union hamstring administrators' ability to get rid of bad teacher and must use seniority as a basis for hiring. Additionally, one of the parts of the transformational model is that teachers must accept a more rigorous evaluation. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Here is a model for a successful human resource system. Selection processes are developed that discriminate between individuals in the job pool that have the ability and will to perform. These processes have proven ability to predict employee job performance based on data. Likewise performance evaluation methods are developed that are proven to measure actual job behavior and performance. They are based on behaviors and outcomes over which employees have control. The behaviors and outcomes expected of employees is clearly communicated to new recruits. Employees are evaluated on the performance dimensions of this system by collected information from multiple sources and this data is fed back to employees. An employee improvement plan is developed to improve areas of weakness. When these communication and development efforts fail and employees consistently are rating below acceptable levels, termination results.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">At this point that all of the teachers at CFHS have been terminated and some might be asked to return in the fall. The superintendent has recently stated "But even in the "transformation model," every person there has to be rigorously evaluated, and an explicit decision has to be made about whether they come back or not." I am sure that there are teachers at CFHS that represent all points on a performance continuum from excellent teachers to poorly performing teachers.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">While this sounds great in principle, how can a rigorous evaluation method that has yet to be developed, the elements of which have not been communicated to faculty members be used as a basis for deciding who will be asked back? What is going to be the real basis for the re-hiring decision? If the educational methods used at CFHS have not worked in the past, does it make sense to evaluate teachers on some failed educational model?</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Most successful organizations have cultures that reinforce effective employee behavior. Organizational culture affects employee behavior through peer support and reinforcement, rather than through administrative structures. Cultures are the most effective when members value acceptance from other group members and there is a high level of cohesiveness among members. While culture and structure represent two different mechanisms to control group behavior, cultures work best when there is consistency between culture and structure, rather than conflict between satisfying peers and satisfying administrators. A strong culture of excellence can be a much more powerful force than any administrative control system a district can develop through incentives and evaluation.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Let's assume the administrators of CFHS follow through and bring a portion of the faculty back and hire a substantial number of new teachers. What do you think the relationship between the veterans and the replacements will be? Does anybody think they will form a cohesive and mutually reinforcing team of educators? We also have to consider the role of leadership in the development of strong culture. CFHS has had quite a few different principals over the last couple of years and we do not know if the current principal will return. Consistent and supportive leadership is a must for strong cultural development.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">There has been a lot of rhetoric regarding the fact that students are, or should be, the most important stakeholder in this case which various stakeholders laying claim the group that values student learning the most. How can anyone disagree with that? However, it is one thing to say that your value learning and our kids and another thing to make this so. How will the current CFHS seniors benefit from the current approach? Do the proposed changes have any chance of improving learning? For example, will 20 minutes more a day of doing what has not worked improve learning? Is it learning we are after or is this all a way to winning grant money? </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">If one really cares about students and their futures, I don't see how advancing a political agenda furthers that. Find a way to involve those that work with students every day and have to actually implement any new system work collaboratively with leaders to create a way to improve learning at CFHS.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">__________________</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For my graduating master's students, here are some practice comprehensive examination questions.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Question 1: You are the superintendent or the principle of the CFHS. You are committed to improving learning and graduation rates in your school. What problem-solving and change approach would you use that has the greatest chance to develop a solution that works and that will be accepted by those who are required to implement it?</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Question 2: How would you approach negotiation with the union leadership using an interest-based bargaining approach? Contrast the expected outcomes from a positional versus interest-based approach.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Question 3: Design a performance management system that has the high probability to creating a faculty of effective teachers.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">__________________</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">1. The six conditions that teacher were told they must accept are: (1) school day increased by 25 minutes, (2) formalized tutoring schedule for before and after school assistance, (3) agree to eat lunch with students at least one a week, (4) Attend two week of professional development in the summer; (5) Stay after school once a week for 90 minutes to work with colleagues to analyze student work and test data, (6) accept more rigorous evaluations starting March 1<sup>st</sup>.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">2. It is not clear what the nature of the discussions between the superintendent and the union president were. Since the contract was not expiring, they did not seem to contract talks. Was this a contract re-opener or just a discussion of the principles of the plan between two individuals? It is clear that the teachers did not vote on any proposal.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-31912397505264741972010-02-28T06:45:00.001-08:002010-02-28T07:09:25.798-08:00Health Care Reform: After the Summit Meeting, February 25, 2010<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i>Commentary</i></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: right;"><b>by Dr. Suzanne S. Taylor</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: right;">Adjunct Professor</div><br />
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">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. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">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.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">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.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">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.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">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."</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-27286515264268119182010-02-25T12:58:00.000-08:002010-03-08T13:56:05.596-08:00Newsflash: Treating Employees Well Is Good<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"></span><br />
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Commentary</span></i><br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>by Professor Tony Wheeler</b><br />
Assistant Professor of Human Resource Management </span></i></div><br />
My standard “go to” set of videos to show in my HRM courses come from <i>The Office</i>, but I will now add <i>Undercover Boss</i> 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).<br />
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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.<br />
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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. <br />
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If nothing else, <i>Undercover Boss</i> 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.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-62753678793666798502010-01-30T05:05:00.000-08:002010-02-05T18:22:48.313-08:00I’m a Bully, He’s a Bully, She’s a Bully; Wouldn’t You Like to Be a Bully, too?<i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Commentary</span></i><br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>by Professor Tony Wheeler</b><br />
Assistant Professor of Human Resource Management </span></i></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
Reflexively, you’re saying to yourself, “No!” But have you ever experienced the following. You work on a team tasked with redesigning a long existing process. Your team spends months collecting data about the process, and the team comes to a radical decision about changing that process. Knowing that any recommended change will be met with resistance, the team extensively prepares a well thought, well researched presentation to make to other members of the organization. While making the presentation, a single coworker hijacks the presentation, interrupting you with questions and complaints before you can even explain your recommendation. As other coworkers, including you, plead with this coworker to let the presentation conclude before raising questions, the coworker continues to escalate his or her complaints to the point of yelling at you in front of everyone. You feel humiliated and belittled. How do you respond to this coworker in future meetings when he or she unloads on you or another coworker?<br />
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I recently experienced this situation when a colleague, who has a reputation for doing so, let loose on me. I’ve seen this type of behavior happen at almost every organization for which I have worked, and the only word to describe this type of behavior is ‘bully’. How do I respond to workplace bullies?The same way about 33% of employees who have been the target of bullying or even just been a bystander: I bully the bully. And no one feels good about it.<br />
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So let me explain some conclusions I’ve drawn from the findings of some theoretical research I recently completed on workplace bullying. (I’m collecting data this spring)<br />
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First, the basics. While we think that bullies have certain personality traits (aggressive, egocentric, and just plain old mean) that predispose them to bully, workplace bullying research suggests that environmental factors play a stronger role in who will become a bully and who will not. If you work in an organization that has an unsupportive, competitive, and stressed environment, where you feel overloaded in and have unclear expectations about your job, and have a laizzes faire ) supervisor, you will likely see bullying occur in your workplace. Bullies emerge in resource scarce environments, and bullying becomes a behavioral means to an end. That end is the acquisition and protection of personal resources that any employee feels they need to complete their jobs<br />
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When you don’t feel like you can meet the demands of your job and when you think you have no support from your boss, coworkers, or HRM department, even you might engage in bullying. If you don’t, surely someone in your workplace will. Workplace bullying data suggests that up to 25% of you currently experience or witness bullying in your organization, and almost 50% of you will experience or witness bullying over your career. <br />
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The organizational and personal costs of workplace bullying are staggering. In Great Britain, it is estimated that bullying costs Great Britain’s GDP more than $3B a year and costs employers an estimated 19 million employee absentee days. The targets and bystanders of bullying report decreased job satisfaction, commitment, and performance as well as increased turnover rates, depression levels, suicidal tendencies, and heart attack rates. <br />
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Once bullying occurs in any organization, it has a corrosive effect on targets and bystanders of bullying. It introduces more stress into an already stressful and unsupportive environment, and there is a 33% chance that non-bullies will see that the best defense of bullying is to become one. Because the organization allows bullying to occur in the first place, employees quickly realize that the organization tacitly encourages it happen. So employees learn that bullying in their organization might be the best way to get ahead or at the very least survive. Interestingly, heretofore bullies will stop when they change jobs into a more supportive environment.<br />
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I need to emphatically stress that becoming a bully to cope with bullying isn’t the most effective coping strategy. To the contrary, research suggests that everyone involved, including the bullies, dislike themselves for allowing the bullying to take place. Unless you are a sociopath, most employees know that bullying is wrong. And all of those bad health outcomes remain.<br />
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I do want, however, to emphasize that you can easily identify the climate in which bullying emerges. You can take a “resource temperature” of your workforce. Lower levels of support equal higher chances of bullying. Higher levels of stress equal higher chances of bullying. To stop bullying before it occurs, your organization should implement a zero tolerance bullying policy. And enforce it. Although Robert Sutton of Stanford University famously wrote that organizations should terminate problem employees, the mere presence of a bullying is corrosive. Organizations need to prevent bullying before it occurs, and I argue that resource support is the way to do it.<br />
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When my research gets published (hopefully!), I’ll be happy to forward to anyone who wants to read it. In the meantime, I’m here to discuss any questions you might have.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-32284020691832899202010-01-16T13:34:00.001-08:002010-01-18T04:36:34.727-08:00Teacher Evaluation and Performance Management<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i>Commentary</i><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: right;"><b><i>by Professor Tony Wheeler<br />
Professor Richard W. Scholl</i></b><br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What is at stake for your company when measuring performance? For the state, measuring teacher performance could be worth an additional $100M to a K-12 budget already approaching $700M, but it appears that the teacher unions have gotten in the way again (<a href="http://www.projo.com/news/content/reback_on_education_funds_01-15-10_72H487V_v25.c095ec.html" target="_blank">Projo, 1/15/09</a>). In one corner, we have the state wanting to measure teacher effectiveness via student test scores. In the other corner, we have at least one teachers' union wanting a more comprehensive assessment of teaching effectiveness.<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For many years, the topic of teacher evaluations has surfaced in discussions of educational improvement. On the surface, it stands to reason that the performance of teachers is an important determinate of student learning. Most recently, the use of student standardized tests scores as a measure of teacher performance has been a sticking point in obtaining union support for the state's grant proposal for federal <i>Race to the Top</i> funds. One aspect of the state's <i>Race to the Top</i> application, is that 51% of a teacher's evaluation will be based on test scores. While we are not fully aware of all the specific issues regarding this specific use of student test scores as teacher effectiveness evaluations, we believe that there a basic principles of performance management that bear directly on the issue of how teachers should be evaluated and for what purpose evaluations should be used.<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Performance Management is More Than a Set of Evaluation Metrics </b><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Typically, performance management constitutes a process whereby employers observe, document, and improve employee performance. Effective performance management involves the integration of appraisal, feedback, development, and behavioral change processes working in concert to improve employee performance. While in any performance management process there comes a point when it is appropriate to terminate ineffective employees, given the cost of replacing employees, effective companies attempt to first diagnose the causes of low performance and make efforts to improve performance. The use of student test scores as the foundation for a strategic performance management process appears to solely focus on "getting rid" of "teachers that can't cut the mustard." Like any type of employee performance, teaching effectiveness is a complex set of behaviors stemming from a combination of knowledge, skills, abilities, motivation, role expectations, and available resources. Before jumping into a plan of evaluation and action, we recommend a fuller understanding of the causes of ineffective teacher performance and student learning gaps.<b> </b><br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Outcome versus Process Measures of Performance</b><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A fundamental issue in performance appraisal is whether to measure employee performance using process/behavioral measures or to use outcome/results measures. Each type of appraisal outcomes has issues to consider. For example, when using process measures, there is the danger of reducing creativity and forcing all employees to use a single method which may not fit all situations. In using outcome measures, we run the risk that employees lack control over the factors that lead to the desired outcomes.<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Based on the current issue at hand, let's focus on the use of outcome measures. First, is the student achievement test a valid and reliable measure of student knowledge? Notice, knowledge not learning. You must document changes in student scores to determine student learning. Second, you then have to make the link that those changes in student learning directly result from teacher influence and not from things like parental involvement, socio-economic status, and the like over which teachers have no control. Third, what cut-off will the state establish for student performance that then suggests some "objective" evidence of teacher performance? Is it a certain amount of year-over-year performance from each student that is then aggregated (to school, grade, or teacher level)? Or is it some arbitrary number, like each student must pass a certain percent of the test? In either case, how can the state factor out teacher effectiveness from those numbers? Fourth, in their book <i>Freakonomics</i>, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner note how test scores can be manipulated and teachers feel pressure to "teach toward the test." In our opinion, the state's desire to use student test scores to account for 51% of a teacher's performance simply increases teachers' motivation to do whatever they can do to improve test scores. That's not student learning. Proceed at your own peril, State of Rhode Island.<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Educational Improvement versus Teacher Evaluation</b><br />
Whether or not test scores or other objective measures of learning have a place in teacher evaluation, we believe that it is imperative for schools to be able to assess student learning. In commenting on the use of test scores to evaluate teachers, Debra Gist, the state's education commissioner is quoted <i>"We don't take this lightly. We will develop a very clear plan, based on very solid evidence. We need a consistent measure that is objective and reliable … that has some ability to reconcile what a fourth grader in Westerly is learning with what a fourth grader in Woonsocket is learning."</i><br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We could not agree more, but there is a big difference between using outcome-based assessments of learning as a part of an educational continuous improvement process and using these metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of an individual teacher. In many years of studying and working with performance management practices, we have learned that there is often a conflict over whether the same metrics are used for teacher development or for decisions about employee pay, promotion, or termination. When teachers' careers are at stake, they will naturally feel pressure to deemphasize student learning issues and instead concentrate on simply increasing student test scores by any means. In essence, the state wants student learning but implements a system designed to boost test scores. The focus on outcomes leads to teachers ignoring the very learning that the state wants students to experience.<br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-27653577274857616462010-01-15T09:18:00.000-08:002010-01-18T04:35:20.483-08:00Potential Changes in Health Insurance and Pensions for 2010<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i>Commentary</i><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: right;"><i><b>by Dr. Suzanne Taylor</b></i><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: right;"><i>Adjunct Professor</i><br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Just how the new health care bill will affect human resource management and labor negotiations is not certain, but what is certain is it will affect just about every aspect of health insurance as we have come to know it. Here is a summary of some of the major issues remaining to be resolved.<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Retiree health insurance benefits will most likely become more expensive for employers. The Medicare Modernization Act provides subsidies to employers offering prescription drug coverage. The subsides will become taxable and the employer's liability under FASB 106 will increase as will the need to put aside more funding or to eliminate prescription drug coverage altogether. Reliance on the newly revised Medicare prescription program should reduce or drop the donut hole. It may be that legislation will prevent employers from changing benefits offered to employees and their beneficiaries once a person has retired. This could cause employers to cap their contributions to the cost, eliminate retiree health insurance as is already happening in both the private and public sectors, or even cut the benefits of active workers.<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The cost of providing retiree insurance for early retirees under 65 will not be a part of Medicare.<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">On the other end of the age continuum, the youngest generation is in trouble as the House Bill would end the CHIP, Children's Health Insurance Program, and redirect the millions of uninsured children to Medicaid or to the new health insurance exchanges where moderate income Americans can buy subsidized insurance. In the Senate bill, CHIP is preserved until 2015, two years past its current expiration date, but two Senators: Rockefeller (W. Virginia) and Casey (Pennsylvania) are hoping for more.<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As to the exchanges and how they will work; little has been determined. The expansion of Medicaid and how far it will go and in what direction is yet to be determined. Medicaid pays doctors and hospitals far lower reimbursement rates than private insurance. This is due in part to the fact that the states pick up some of the added costs. Both House and Senate versions will pay the states' additional shares in the first two years and 95% after that. California has indicated its additional costs, not paid by the federal government, will amount to an additional $3 billion a year.<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Furthermore, one of the least understood aspects of the bill is just how the new insurance will be sold on the open market. The Senate bill requires states to create new insurance market places. The House bill would establish a national exchange, but the states could opt out if they had the capacity to run their own exchange.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Another problem is who will oversee the new federal regulations? Will it be the states, that are understaffed now, or a new federal regulatory commission?<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What of the Cadillac tax proposed to be placed on plans, whose premiums exceed $8,000 for single and $23,000 for family plans, and how much it will rise in the future? As of January 15, 2010, there appears to be a compromise reached which increases the threshold to $8900 for individuals and $24,000 for family coverage. For people in certain high risk jobs, the threshold would be higher, up to $27,000 for family coverage. Moreover, state and local government workers and benefits from collectively bargained plans would be exempted until 2018. And in 2015, the cost of dental and vision coverage would also be deducted from the plan limit. It is still believed that the tax would slow the growth of health spending. The proposed tax is still subject to further modifications as it has not been fully agreed upon by all. It is thought, however, that the thresholds would probably rise less than health insurance premiums as the bill states the rise would be in correlation with the CPI plus one percentage point. The 40% tax on the excess to be paid by the insurer is expected to begin in 2013. Some still remain who want no excise tax at all. The House bill suggestion was to tax very high wage earners, but that proposal appears to be given up for now.<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It is predicted that there will be no mandate for employers to insure their workers; rather it will be a mandate for individuals to carry insurance. Moreover, insurers will be able to charge older people two and a half times as much as younger ones. As of now the House bill has a two to one ratio and the Senate a three to one ratio.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What role, if any, will Health Savings Accounts play in the new designs?<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Each of the bills is over 2,000 pages and both contain many recommendations for a variety of review commissions, some within the IRS and others within Health and Human Services.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Of course, not the least concern is how the package can ultimately be put together in the next month or so to pass both the Senate and House and gain the President's approval. Overall, Tom Daschle predicts that the starting date for the new bill would be "somewhere around 2014."<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Just this concern of what health care is going to look like would be more than enough for one summer course, but we must also take some time to look at the growth of defined contribution plans and how money can be safely invested in these hard economic times. The big question is will defined benefit plans survive and how can we save for the costs of retirement by planning ahead to have sufficient assets for living and affording health insurance. <br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-39577161971958361252010-01-10T06:58:00.000-08:002010-01-10T07:00:08.851-08:00What Is the Worth of the Person Tasked to Fix RI’s Economy?<i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Commentary</span></i><br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>by Professor Tony Wheeler</b><br />
Assistant Professor of Human Resource Management </span></i><br />
</div><br />
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Apparently not $250,000. <a href="http://www.pbn.com/detail/46998.html">Ioanna Morfessis</a> withdrew from her appointment to head RI's Economic Development Corporation (EDC). For those who don't know the purpose of this Governor-appointed group, the EDC (http://www.riedc.com/) basically assists the state in developing economic policies and strategies to enable the state to economically prosper. You could joke, as I often do, that the EDC has failed and miserably at that.<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">But its past failures that have contributed to the state's lackluster (to put it nicely) economic conditions should highlight the need to step outside of the state to find fresh ideas. Instead, the media focuses <a href="http://www.pbn.com/detail/46612.html">on Morfessis's proposed salary</a> instead of her qualifications or worth to the state. The focus on her salary, in my estimation, misses the larger picture.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">First, is she or anyone else who might head the EDC <i>worth</i> that salary? Some of you might say no. I disagree. Given the troubles the state faces, what will it take to attract, motivate, and retain the most qualified, best performing head of the EDC? That is the purpose of compensation: to attract, motivate, and retain. Compensation also signifies what a job is worth, both to the company and to the market. Yes, $250,000 is a lot of money, especially compared to what most people in the state earn, even the President of URI or the Governor himself. Do other states pay similar amounts to their respective EDC heads? I'd say that given the problems this state faces, maybe $250,000 isn't enough.<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Now the Governor appoints Keith Stokes, the Executive Director of Newport County's Chamber of Commerce, <a href="http://www.pbn.com/detail/47105.html">to head the EDC</a> for a temporary 1 year term. Why did the Governor seek an out of state replacement for this position only to find a replacement in the state? And why is his contract offer only $185,000?<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Second, with the focus on salary, what signal does the state send to future directors, especially given that the state will need to hire a permanent replacement next year? The state faces serious economic adversity, and the head of the EDC holds a serious position. The state should ask itself again: What is this job worth?<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Handling the performance management of this job is for a different post altogether.<br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938653547854251061.post-2098114496113270342010-01-10T06:46:00.000-08:002010-01-10T06:56:21.344-08:00Much Ado about Nothing (Job Satisfaction)<i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Commentary</span></i><br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>by Professor Tony Wheeler</b><br />
Assistant Professor of Human Resource Management </span></i><br />
</div><br />
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Okay, maybe the title of this entry understates the importance of job satisfaction, but the recently released national <a href="http://www.pbn.com/detail/47103.html" target="_blank">job satisfaction report</a> and subsequent media stir over the report overstate and simplify the power of job satisfaction. Or worse.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Before we start, can we agree that the next time you say "A happy worker is a productive worker," lightening will strike me down. I have two young kids and prefer to live to see them into adulthood. Is a happy worker a productive worker? Yes…just the same as a productive worker is a happy worker. What's that, you say?<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You heard me right. Employees who feel under-employed (not using their knowledge, skills, and abilities) often report very low job satisfaction. In a state like Rhode Island, where unemployment is near 12% with another 5-10% added on for under-employment, you can see how employees doing work beneath them might feel pretty dissatisfied. The generally lousy economic conditions also make people less satisfied with their jobs, even if they're lucky to have them.<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">But let's continue to discuss the job satisfaction-performance relationship. Empirically speaking, that relationship has a very weak, almost zero, positive relationship. Job satisfaction explains less than 1% of job performance. That's it (although it does explain quite a bit more turnover). So you are probably more likely to find a very satisfied <i>unproductive</i> employee than you are to find an <i>unsatisfied</i>, unproductive employee. Think about someone who has just experienced a traumatic personal event (parent passes away, spouse loses job, divorce, etc). How productive will that employee be over the next couple of days? Does that have anything to do with their job satisfaction?<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Sometimes job satisfaction is a canary in a coal mine. It tells you that something is wrong, but you don't know what's causing the problem. It could be something out of a company's control. Job satisfaction is also capricious. It can change from day to day. How satisfied are you with your job after returning from a wonderful Caribbean vacation? That's why job satisfaction can be much ado about nothing.<br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5