Your Employee Matters

People are losing jobs to robots and technology at an accelerating rate. Have you used one of those self-serve checkout stands lately? One was installed at my local CVS only 3 months ago. Awkward at first but seems like old hat now. The manager there told me the new system allowed him to let two full time clerks go. Two jobs lost to robots and their technology that will never reappear. Here’s just some of the other jobs that are suffering the same fate as retail clerks:

Pharmacists

Soldiers

Reporters

Drivers

Fast food workers

Assembly workers

Bank tellers

Secretaries

Stock traders

Warehouse workers

…and there is more

Technology alone changes the employment landscape. Objects like the iPhone have the consequence of laying off Kodak workers, as well as workers in the mapping, printing, alarm clock and record industry.

I recently listened to an interesting podcast (all Radiolab podcasts are interesting!) about work in a shipping warehouse for online mega-providers, such as Amazon. If you thought stop watches were banned in the workplace at the beginning of the last century, guess what – they’re back! Technology, along with its gamification, is reducing worker output to a competitive logarithm using the most minute of performance indicators.

Years ago Buckminster Fuller (otherwise known as “Bucky”) surmised that the rise of computers and technology would bring use to a place where it is inefficient to have full scale employment. It would actually be cheaper to pay people to stay at home.  And we are getting there. Even in a “good” economy we have 7% unemployment. And we are being asked to pay for those folks who have to stay at home…because there are no jobs. This has more to do with the macro-economics of production than it does anything a politician can influence.

While Bucky believed that less is more, most folks don’t think that way. In their idleness they will want to be serviced, entertained and otherwise cared for, by a growing service class economy. So the fantasy of growing the middle class back to where it was before all these technology changes is a pipe dream. A political football divorced from reality. There will be a continued division between highly paid knowledge workers and low paid service workers. Sooner or later we will end up paying service workers to stay home or do some form of public service.

As we march forward you will either be a highly paid knowledge worker who cannot yet be replaced by a machine or a low paid service worker who cannot yet be replaced by a machine. That’s true for your kids’ future too!

FYI – Looks like John Henry would be out of a job today. Now trains lay their own tracks http://www.wimp.com/traintrack/

Mindfulness is fast becoming a buzzword. Long the bastion of the new agers, it is showing up in everything from the Wall Street Journal to the World Economic Forum. Mindfulness has been championed as a methodology for present moment awareness. Awareness that is neither judgmental nor critical… but simply aware. There is a growing body of evidence that mindfulness lowers stress, combats fatigue, helps address substance-abuse, eating problems, sleep problems, pain and weight problems as well. Bottom line is it can be an antidote either in part or in whole to a wide range of maladies. Mindfulness has an upside to it as well. Many of my most creative and innovative thoughts have come when I’ve rested in the silence of mindfulness. In a sense, the space between the thoughts.

Mindfulness can be practiced in many ways. One of the more traditional ones is meditation. So is yoga, walking, lying down, breathing and other activities. Mindfulness is less about what you are doing than it is who you are in that moment. Hospitals, corporations, wellness programs and coaches are all expanding the use of mindfulness as a valuable practice.

Much of mindfulness has to do with our intention in the moment. It’s very hard to be mindful when you’re running 75 MPH or trying to control a situation. In fact, they are opposites. Mindfulness is about “being” with the situation. If your intention into going into a meeting is to see how much money that prospect can make you then all they will be is a tool in your financial story. However, if your intention when going into a meeting is how can you be of service to another human being the outcomes can be profitable at a whole other level.

If you go to an executive meeting with the intent to see how see how much budget you can get for your team you’ll have a different outcome than if you go into the meeting with the intention to do what is in the best interest the company and its customers.

If I was in HR I would begin to familiarize myself with mindfulness practice, if you haven’t already. I encourage you to use it for yourself first so that you can fully understand its benefits. Then you can champion it to others with integrity. Here are number of resources where you can get additional information about mindfulness:

• The Institute of Noetic Sciences http://noetic.org/
• Mindfulness Magazine www.mindful.org
• Be Here Now by Ram Dass
• The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
• The Five Keys to Mindful Communication by Susan Gillis Chapman
• Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life by Thich Nhat Hanh

A final note: mindfulness is not about crystals and New Age foofooness. In fact, it’s been practiced for centuries worldwide. While it might not all have always been labeled as being “mindful” its benefits have been enjoyed by millions.

The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) defines service animals as dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities. Examples include guiding the blind, alerting the deaf, pulling a wheelchair, alerting and protecting a person who’s having a seizure, reminding a mentally ill person to take prescribed medications, calming someone with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) during an anxiety attack, or performing other duties. Service animals are working animals, not pets – and the task a dog has been trained to provide must be directly related to the person’s disability. Dogs whose sole function is to provide therapy through comfort or emotional support do not qualify as service animals under the ADA.

The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing has compiled a helpful Service Animals Laws Comparison Chart that should be of interest to all employers. Although the chart compares how the ADA and Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) match up with California state laws, the federal information alone is helpful.

For more information on the difference between ADA support animals and companion animals, go to http://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm or http://www.iaadp.org/iaadp-ada-training-requirements.html.

To learn more, go to http://www.ada.gov/qasrvc.htm  or visit the Job Accommodation Network page \http://askjan.org/media/servanim.html .

For more information on the contents of this newsletter, please contact your attorney or Employer Advisors Network, Inc., a resource for employment law attorneys, insurance agencies, and their clients (e-mail: info@employeradvisorsnetwork.com or www.employeradvisorsnetwork.com).

The case of In re: Beth V. New York State Office of Children & Family Services (OCFS)  involved a decision by the New York State Workers Compensation Board that settlement proceeds from an employment lawsuit against OCFS should offset any Comp payments based on the same set of facts. What’s significant about this case was how the employer mishandled an allegation of sexual harassment. To make a long story short, Beth, an OCFS youth division aide, was working in the kitchen, where M, a male resident, was assigned under a facility work program. One day, Beth confiscated a notebook that M had brought with him to the kitchen, apparently because he had told her he was writing suggestive notes about her and had made crude, sexually explicit gestures. She gave the notebook to the youth division aide on duty. When M discovered this, he threw a fit.

After the incident, Beth told various supervisors and fellow employees that she felt unsafe, uncomfortable, and feared physical and sexual harm from M. A few days later, while she was logging out from work, he accosted her from behind, choked, punched, and raped her at knifepoint. M then forced her to turn over her keys to her Jeep and abducted her from the camp. When he stopped to make a call at a pay phone, Beth escaped and reported the crime to the police. She filed a lawsuit against OCFS and eventually settled for $646,000, of which she ended up with $430,000 – the amount that the Workers Comp carrier claimed it had a right to offset.

I can tell you that from my years of trial experience that if OCFS were a private employer, the punitive damages would have been in the millions. The bottom line: Take all claims of sexual harassment seriously! During my career, I represented three women in Beth’s position – and all of these cases were ugly. In two of them, a decent investigation and follow-up by the employer could have prevented the horrible outcome.

Last October, while conducting a webinar on Creating an Injury Prevention and Management Program That Works, I asked the attendees three questions:

1. Do you conduct pre-hire fit for duty exams? More than two in three attendees either didn’t spend the time or money on these exams, weren’t aware that they were available, or didn’t know how to conduct them. For nine straight years I trained Workers Comp brokers on how to help clients reduce their claims by doing these exams. The bottom line: You don’t want to hire a future Comp claim. For more information, read more the report: Creating an Injury Prevention and Management Program that Works.
2. Have you ever calculated the total cost of your Workers Comp claims?  Only one in three attendees have done so. For every dollar paid in claims, there’s at least another dollar of bottom-line impact in reduced productivity, lost customer satisfaction, the cost of replacing an employee, etc. Bear in mind that insurance companies have little incentive in preventing or managing Comp claims, especially when the interest rate on your modifier is in the double digits. In fact, it’s the most expensive money your company will ever borrow
3. Do you have a formal return-to-work program? Once again, less than half of the attendees did so, even though these plans make eminent sense. The program should acknowledge concerns and fears by both employee and supervisors. Many Comp claims take on a life of their own because managers ignore injured employees as “damaged goods,” rather than trying to nurture them back to work – and then wonder why some of them malinger on claims.

I encourage you to watch the webinar or read this report, and then follow up with us if you have any questions.

I recently read George Gilder’s Knowledge and Power, a powerful and profound book. Gilder’s bottom line:” Knowledge is power today. Knowledge is wealth today.”

The book uses the word “entropy” a lot. Gilder defines entropy as “a measure of surprise, disorder, randomness, noise, disequilibrium, and complexity.” Its economic fruits include creativity and profit. Its opposites are predictability, order, low complexity, determinism, equilibrium, etc. Gilder wants a low-entropy government that provides a foundation for high- entropy entrepreneurs to create, innovate, and grow the economy.

I see a dual role for HR in a knowledge economy. One role is to provide the low-entropy stability that supports a creative, innovative workforce by ensuring that a business hires the right people, stays in compliance, has the right insurance, etc. HR also has an opportunity to be creative and innovative in a high-entropy environment that works not just on the system, but in it. As Gilder states, “economic conditions can change overnight when power is dispersed and the surprises of human creativity are released.”

What knowledge – which is far more than just information – is your HR department providing to management? What have they discerned and communicated about company hiring approaches, productivity, retention, and motivation?

Gilder’s insight reminds me of Orbiting the Giant Hairball by the late Gordon Mackenzie, creative director at Hallmark, a man widely known for his high-entropy approach. McKenzie describes an organization’s policies and procedures as the giant hairball, arguing that people need vision, mission, values, and goals to provide a low-entropy stabilizing foundation that allows them to orbit the handball, while unleashing their creativity.

This is another way of saying that a business needs both “administrative HR” (low entropy and stabilizing) and “strategic HR” (high entropy and creative).

To help you unleash the strategic potential of your business, I encourage you to read and absorb the lessons of Gilder’s book.

The Gallup 2013 Engagement Survey produced its usual morbid results. According to the survey, only 30% of employees are “actively engaged” (care about doing a great job every day). Another 52% are “not engaged” (otherwise known as “zombies”) and 12% are “actively disengaged” (purposely trying to work poorly, sabotage, cheat time, etc.). In many cases, managers bear the responsibility for these unengaged workers either because they hired the wrong people or failed to provide effective leadership. However, assuming that management did not cause the problem, what can you do to improve the situation?

1. The Actively Engaged. Learn what makes them tick! Thank them and let them know you love them. Find out how you can hire them at twice the rate. Leverage their enthusiasm to motivate the Zombies.
2. The Zombies – Give them something to be excited about, like a decent paycheck or a great company party. Then provide them with a sense of meaning in their daily work. Offer additional financial incentives. Manage and coach them actively so they have no choice but to perform. You can also go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention web site on how to manage Zombies (http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/zombies.htm).
3. The Actively Disengaged: If they walked off the job would you be upset – or relieved? In the latter case, make sure you have checks and balances to get them off your bus now! Don’t hesitate to fire these people; the longer you keep them, the greater the risk they pose.

Finally, ask yourself what is motivating or demotivating about your company. Step back and become a keen observer of your own reality.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires businesses covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act to allow mothers unpaid break time for nursing their child. All employers are subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act break time requirement unless they have fewer than 50 employees and can demonstrate that compliance would impose an undue hardship. This obligation lasts for at least one year after the child is born.

The law requires the company to provide a suitable location (other than a bathroom )which is shielded from view and is free from intrusion, permit a reasonable break time given the circumstances, and let the worker take as much break time as she needs to express milk. However, here’s little guidance on what constitutes a “suitable location” and the length of a “reasonable” break. For example, the Department of Labor suggests two or three 15-minute breaks during an eight-hour shift. There’s also the matter of tracking for the employee’s time: Is she supposed to clock in and out for every nursing break – or can she coordinate a break with a meal or rest period?

To learn more, go to: http://www.dol.gov/whd/nursingmothers/faqBTNM.htm

http://www.dol.gov/whd/nursingmothers/

http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs73.htm

http://www.usbreastfeeding.org/LegislationPolicy/ExistingLegislation/tabid/233/Default.aspx and finally

your BNA State Law Summary on HR That Works.

In a recent survey for the Inc. 500 Companies, entrepreneurs gave these reasons for wanting to work for themselves:

1. Entrepreneurship has suited my skills and capabilities – 29%
2. I wanted to be my own boss – 20%
3. I had an idea I just had to try -18%
4. I wanted financial success – 11%
5. I admired and wanted to emulate other entrepreneurs –9 %
6. Other – 13%

Employers are increasingly challenged to hire quality employees, especially those with an entrepreneurially bent. The question is: why would somebody with these attributes rather work for you than start their own company? What can your business offer these people that they can’t provide for themselves?

Although some jobs (such as piloting an airliner), require working for a large business, many of today’s fastest-growing companies don’t fall into this category. I believe that today’s most successful companies understand that, instead of controlling people as “employees,” they need to liberate them as co-workers and team members. Ask yourself what you can do to help people do their brightest and best work while working for you.

As a result to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) both the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and American Medical Association (AMA) now recognize obesity as a disease that requires medical and psychiatric intervention for prevention and treatment.

In a sense, the medical standard has expanded beyond morbid obesity to include one in three workers! It’s easy to see how the medical and drug community would like to expand their opportunities – and why the obese can be quick to claim that they have a disease for which they bear no responsibility. Combine this level of special interest groups working together with an aggressive EEOC, and you can expect to find many frustrated employers dealing with this issue.

Did you know that binge eating, formerly known as gluttony, is a mental disorder characterized by eating large amounts of food quickly at least once per week for three months? I don’t make this stuff up! How do you accommodate a person who shows up sick the day after one of these binges? Did you know that obesity is a defined primarily by body mass index (BMI), which is a far from accurate indicator of a person’s actual health?

It’s important to ask “Why should I have to accommodate (meaning pay for) an employee’s poor lifestyle choices?” The best justification the AMA could come up with is: “The suggestion that obesity is not a disease, but rather a consequence of a chosen lifestyle exemplified by overeating and/or inactivity is equivalent to suggesting that lung cancer is not a disease because it was brought about by an individual’s chose to smoke cigarettes.” My response is that employers should not have to pay for health consequences of employees who choose to smoke either.

Let’s hope that the EEOC will limit obesity accommodation protection to those who truly have an underlying medical disability and not self-imposed poor choices. Time will tell.