Author: Gail Dutton

Ah, success. There’s nothing as sweet as reflecting on it. And for human resources departments that have attained it, success is especially sweet because they’ve made a measureable impact on their companies’ bottom line — and they’ve gained respect in their organizations because of it.

In the following features, learn how 12 companies found winning solutions and how they got there. They faced a challenge, researched the possible ways to solve the problem, devised a strategy and then implemented the change.

>All of these companies will continue to evolve and grow. However, they made the iniial effort to improve — and there’s no success sweeter than that.

Performance appraisals can be expensive, and it’s not because of thesoftware. KnowledgePoint’s Performance Impact 2.0 Hosted Edition starts at$4,500 for one year, and a site license for the Intranet Edition starts at$8,000-a paltry sum in the grand scheme of things.

    The real costs are in the time spent:

• preparing appraisals

• setting goals and objectives

• conducting reviews

• conducting higher level reviews of lower level appraisals

• designing, printing, copying, filing and distributing appraisal forms

• designing and communicating the appraisal process

• training supervisors to conduct appraisals

• dealing with post-appraisal appeals and grievances

    As a rule of thumb, Fred Nickols, senior consultant with DistanceConsultants, in Robbinsville, New Jersey, estimates performance appraisals tocost $1,500 per employee. That may be a low figure, however. Two seniorexecutives with overseas firms who responded to Nickols’ 1997 Internet surveyfor HR professionals cited actual costs of $1,945 per employee and $2,200 peremployee.

Workforce, April 2001, p. 81SubscribeNow!

The old-fashioned, paper- and-pencil performance review didn’t workwell for us,” says Steve Nadeau, vice president of human resources forGwinnett Health System. “Evaluations were late, employees said it was toosubjective, and managers didn’t like the system,” he says. The problemscarried over into other areas also, potentially affecting the hospital system’saccreditation by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of HealthcareOrganizations, which evaluates more than 19,500 health-care organizations in theU.S.

    Nadeau saw KnowledgePoint’s Performance Impact solution at an HR conferenceand decided to do a demonstration project with some of the hospital system’smanagers. About nine months later, the system was installed. At the time, Nadeausays, it was simpler to integrate new hires and departing employees into thesystem using their own mainframe than it was to use KnowledgePoint’s server as ahost. “This allows automatic updates using our mainframe,” he says.

    The hard part came at the very beginning. A development team was formed,consisting of managers and employees, to sort each staff member into one of ninebroad job categories, and to develop evaluation criteria for those specificcategories. Performance Impact has eight industry-specific competency modules,including one for health care. Many of the competencies were already built intothe program, including patient care, diagnostic testing, safety and infectioncontrol, food service, and housekeeping. These were combined with criteriadeveloped by the hospital, as well as with standard competencies built into theprogram. As a result, evaluation criteria are based on the actual jobs atGwinnett Health System.

    As part of the changeover, Nadeau says, the Performance Impact rating systemwas incorporated into the hospital system’s appraisal program. It uses a 1-5rating, based on standards set by managers, “and ties pay to performance.Employees have liked it from the start, because it’s less subjective than theold system,” Nadeau says. Gwinnett Health System uses the evaluationsoftware for employee self-evaluation, too.

    The writer’s block that often accompanies performance reviews is virtuallyeliminated by the Intelli-Text Designer. That module prompts managers to provideobservations about their employees’ performance using a high-low scale and turnsthose observations into evaluation text. Managers have the options of generatingtheir own supporting text or customizing the existing text to ensure that”cookie-cutter” evaluations are avoided.

    Although Performance Impact is designed to include 360 degree reviews,Gwinnett’s version focuses on the formal, manager-to-employee annual reviews.For 360 reviews, a paper-and-pencil check-off system is used. “Commentsaren’t needed, so it’s easier for employees to do,” Nadeau says, notingthat only about one third of the hospital workforce has routine access to PCs.

    Version 2 of this system, released last November, moves the software into theperformance-management category by supporting multi-level, cascading goals forstrategic integration through the organization, as well as individualdevelopment plans, goal setting, and tracking. It also has a log to documentperformance year-round, helping the entire staff to focus on the organization’skey goals. That version features an optional integration module for automaticdata synchronization with the HR information services system, more than 2,000competency-specific coaching ideas, and automatic notification of tasks that aredue.

   Additionally, says Ian Alexander, KnowledgePoint vice president ofmarketing, “the new Performance Impact empowers employees to manage theirown performance and see how their actions support the entire organization,”which has “a powerful effect on employee retention.”

    At Gwinnett, classes to train employees and managers to use the softwarelasted about two months. “For ongoing training — especially for new hires– we have a ‘train the trainer’ situation with an expert in eachdepartment.”

    For the physical implementation, Gwinnett Health System formed a team ofmanagers and employees from throughout the hospital, to work with the HR andinformation services departments. “The biggest issue was getting all thepieces in place, planning the information services side,” Nadeau says.

    Nadeau hasn’t measured the differences in outcome between Performance Impactand the old paper-based method. That will come once the system has been in usefor a full year. Early indications, however, look promising.

Workforce, April 2001, pp. 79-81SubscribeNow!

Ideally, performance-appraisal software streamlines the evaluation process,reduces paperwork, and encourages objectivity. But the gains aren’t givens.Managers have to spend some time tailoring the systems to their own workforces.If they don’t, says Gene Drumm, senior partner with the Vector Group, Inc. inDenver, “it’s a more efficient way of doing a bad process.”

    The problem, Drumm says, is that many software programs have a generic set ofquestions that too often aren’t customized for the jobs being evaluated. Itdoesn’t have to be that way. Despite charges of “cookie-cutter”evaluations, managers have the option of customizing most programs so theyaccurately reflect the goals and values of the organization and, perhaps moreimportantly, so they fairly evaluate the jobs being appraised.

    Independent research on performance-appraisal software, as yet, is virtuallynon-existent. Anecdotal reports tend to focus on speed and objectivity. Forexample, Walker Information, a survey firm in Indianapolis, developed its own360-degree appraisal software for in-house use only, three or four years ago,according to Ray Becker, senior vice president for organizational effectivenessand ethics. “It’s easier, faster and uses less paper.”

    Appraisals donewith paper-and-pen would take about six weeks from the beginning of the processto the time that final reports were issued. Now reports can be completed in oneday. As a result, Becker says that more appraisals are completed on time. As forthe outcomes, “Some employees don’t like the results, but they’re happywith this system.”

    For managers, many of whom are uncomfortable giving feedback,performance-appraisal software helps to pinpoint areas that need improvement andto communicate the information to their staffs. According to the “2000Performance Management Survey,” conducted for the Society for HumanResource Management, only 33 percent were satisfied with coaching efforts. Thesurvey also found that only 34 percent were satisfied with their developmentalplanning.

    Yet, if companies focused on the developmental side of performancemanagement as identifying training needs or coaching, they got far more out ofthe evaluation process, says Scott Snell, professor of business administrationat Penn State University. When goals are agreed to by the employee and themanager, he says, employees are more likely to accept the standards, becausethey had some input.

    Since software-based performance-appraisals tend to focuson results and actions rather than personality traits, employees are more likelyto view them as fair. They provide objective facts that can be used to craftindividual development plans, and to help employees not only improve performancebut also focus more closely on achieving the organization’s key goals.

Workforce, April 2001, pp. 76-81SubscribeNow!

One of the biggest barriers toemploying disabled job candidates is the negative attitude of supervisors andcoworkers, according to a July 2000 study by Cornell University, “Americanswith Disabilities Act Implementation in the Federal and Private Workplaces.” 

    In that study of human resourcesmanagers at 400 federal employers and 800 private-sector employers, 43 percentof the federal employers and 22 percent of the private employers cited negativeattitudes of supervisors and coworkers toward persons with disabilities as acontinuing barrier to employment and advancement. 

    “Anecdotally, negative attitudesmanifest themselves in overt and subtle ways,” says Susanne Bruyère, directorof the program on employment and disabilities at Cornell and author of thestudy. “When employees are interviewed, they may be passed over because ofconcern they may not be as capable as other candidates. Often it’s notintentional.” 

    “Managers need to see a person who isboth productive and well-educated,” says Beth Hatch-Alleyne, a blind seniordesktop specialist for general markets at Xerox, in Webster, New York. Youcan’t expect people to know what you’re capable of if you don’t tell them,she says. “They don’t always understand that I need to do additional work inthe beginning. If a database doesn’t speak, I need to learn to program it tospeak.” Additionally, if a program is causing problems that decrease herproductivity, they need to know that also. 

    Basically, overcoming bias is a matterof educating managers and coworkers about the possibilities, and that’s a jobfor companies as well as individuals. The Norfolk Southern Corporation, arailroad headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia, addresses the issue of negativeperceptions by providing training classes for all supervisors, says R. DavidCobbs Jr., director, EEO and employment. “But,” he adds, “it isn’t asextensive as sexual harassment training.” Nonetheless, he says, “Some of theperceptions have changed. Our managers look toward reasonable accommodationsnow.” 

Workforce, December2000, Vol. 79, No. 12, p. 42  Subscribenow!

Supervisors’ lack of knowledge aboutaccommodations was cited as an obstacle to hiring disabled job candidates,according to the July 2000 Cornell University study “Americans withDisabilities Act Implementation in the Federal and Private Workplaces.” 

    But that lack ofknowledge extends to disabled individuals, too, says Sheridan Walker, vicepresident of recruiting and development, and co-founder of Hire Potential, aDenver-based workforce training organization. “Some don’t understand thatit’s their responsibility to understand how to use their adaptive equipment tobe productive.” 

    GoodwillIndustry’s Santa Ana, California, location, for example, has a comprehensiveprogram that includes more than 1,000 assistive devices, including page readers,specialized devices for typing and mousing, voice-output devices, and ergonomicequipment. These are available for training and for loan. 

    But not allaccommodations are extensive. Xerox Corp. in Rochester, New York, developsretrofit kits for its multifunction machines that make them usable for the blindor for those in wheelchairs. Dick Schieck, manager of customized applications,says the modifications include Braille kits for multifunctional devices,including maps of the keypads and menus, and modules that angle the keypads,which usually are on top of the machines,  so they are accessible to those in wheelchairs. 

    Wynd Communicationshas designed a wireless communication system specifically for the deaf. Using apalm-sized pager called WyndTell, the company provides a complete set ofcommunication options that include e-mail, TTY, fax, voice, and paging. Many ofits users can’t operate a regular phone and so can’t phone the office orcall home while they are in transit unless they can find a phone with a TTYdevice or access to e-mail. The WyndTell service remedies that. 

    Technology can’tsolve every problem, however. Only 10 to 20 percent of the pages on the WorldWide Web can be read by page readers for the blind, Walker says, but Beth Hatch-Alleyne,a blind senior desktop specialist at Xerox in Webster, New York, begs to differ.“I’m on the Internet all the time. If screens use alt-tags codes insertedinto the copy — similar to the meta tags used by Web search engines to findkeywords in searches — to describe the images, most readers will work withthat.” The World Wide Web Consortium posts access standards on its Web site,and the beleaguered wireless application protocol (WAP) promises it will broadenaccess for everybody by streamlining page content. 

    Sometimesaccommodating a disabled employee is simply a matter of being creative. It canmean changing a desk layout from right to left, altering a work schedule toensure that an employee doesn’t work a shift that interferes with medication,providing written instructions, or reassigning tasks. “Most accommodationsdon’t cost a lot of money,” points out Robin Hoornstra, human resourcesconsulting and EEO officer for Wisconsin Electric. Identifying accommodationsand making them work “boils down to having a good supervisor.” 

Workforce, December2000, Vol. 79, No. 12, p. 44  Subscribenow!

A lot has changed since the Americanswith Disabilities Act (ADA) passed into law 10 years ago. Most sidewalks nowhave wheelchair ramps, stairs usually have either ramps or wheelchair lifts, anddoors and aisles generally are wide enough for a wheelchair to pass throughunimpeded. Just as important, technologies now are available to help individualswith vision, speech, or hearing disabilities hold meaningful jobs. 

    Access andtechnology are only part of the solution for fully integrating the disabled intosociety, however. “The ADA is the United States’ most ambitious attempt atsocial engineering,” according to Christopher Bell, a blind attorney whohelped craft the law and who is also a managing partner at Jackson Lewis inMinneapolis. Ten years after it was enacted and eight years after it tookeffect, “it’s too early to tell the outcome.” 

    Corporate humanresources directors say the ADA hasn’t significantly affected theiroperations. “A lot of our accommodations for people who are disabled had beenin place for a long time,” says Robin Hoornstra, HR consulting and equal opportunity officer for Wisconsin Electric in Milwaukee. Butthe ADA did provide a framework for working through the process, “and in thatway, it’s been helpful. It also caused us to be more precise in defining therequirements of a position,” he says. 

    The strengths andweaknesses of the ADA can be demonstrated in two ways. There has been a dramaticincrease in accessibility to public facilities since its passage. But theunemployment rate for disabled persons remains virtually unchanged since the ADAwas passed in 1990. 

As Fred Grandy, president and CEO ofGoodwill Industries International, says, “The Americans with Disabilities Act,on balance, has created a more favorable environment” for people withdisabilities, but  it has notactually improved their employment fortunes. For that segment of the U.S.population, unemployment typically is about 70 percent. And in that figure liesthe debate. 

ADA Is Misunderstood
    “There is a hugemisperception of the ADA,” says John C. Fox, chairman, employment law, at thePalo Alto law firm of Fenwick & West. Bell agrees: “The ADA protects thosewho are able to do the job.” It doesn’t guarantee the right to a job. 

    “If someone isdangerous or acts out in the workplace, employers can discharge that person.Mental illness is not a defense. It’s just like drinking on the job,” addsRobert Dinerstein, professor of law and associate dean for academic affairs,Washington College of Law at American University in Washington, D.C. 

    The ability to dothe job is foremost in the minds of employers, and “a lot [of disabled people]don’t have the skills necessary or are unable to work,” says Bell. Butskills can be learned. Goodwill Industries International has the proof. In 1999,“we trained 370,000 people and placed 66,000,” says Grandy. “Weconcentrate on people deemed ‘lost causes.’ We don’t give up on you untilyou give up on yourself.” 

    Goodwill Industriesis one of several organizations that helps disabled people enter the workforce.Its emphasis, like that of the ADA itself, is on putting capable people to workdespite their disabilities. As Fox says, “The ADA was considered a modesteffort by Congress. It is only a few words different from the Rehabilitation Actof 1973, which applies to federal workers and government contractors — about 80percent of the large and medium-sized companies — yet it received many timesthe attention given to the Rehabilitation Act. The reality hasn’t matched itsperception.” 

What Constitutes a Disability?
    The reason for thedisparity between reality and perception may be the catch-22 that’s writteninto the law. “You have to have a disability using a narrow definition of theterm, but you have to be qualified to work,” Bell says. “Disability” isdefined in the ADA as loss of a “major life activity.” After nearly 30 yearswith the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the courts have compiled a growing catalogof conditions that constitute a disability, but debate continues. 

    In 1999, forexample, two nearsighted sisters brought a case against United Air Linesclaiming disability. In that case, Sutton v. United Air Lines, Inc., the Suttontwins applied as global airline pilots for, but were not hired because theycould not meet United’s visual acuity requirement of 20/100 or betteruncorrected vision. The U.S. Supreme Court determined that the use of mitigatingmeasures, including eyeglasses and medications, must be considered indetermining an individual’s disability status. But although they wereprevented from being global airline pilots, they were not prevented fromperforming other pilot jobs. As such, they were not considered disabled. 

    “The court notedthat simply having a physical or mental qualification standard does not create aperception of disability. That decision circumscribes the number of those whoare deemed disabled,” says Nan Alessandra, an attorney with the New Orleanslaw firm of Phelps Dunbar. “That doesn’t defeat the ADA.” 

    The Equal EmploymentOpportunity Commission (EEOC) accepted the Supreme Court’s decision. But inits March 1, 1999, “Enforcement Guidance: Reasonable Accommodation and UndueHardship Under the Americans with Disabilities Act,” the EEOC announced thatit intended to continue to interpret the definition of disability as broadly asit can, by reading court decisions narrowly, Alessandra says. 

    In July 26, 1999,instructions to its field offices, the EEOC noted that the Supreme Court’srecent decisions emphasized that the definition of disability must be determinedon a case-by-case basis, and directed its personnel to use the definition ofdisability that provides ADA coverage for persons with a “record of”disability from which they have recovered in whole or in part, Alessandra says. 

Uncertainty for Small Businesses
    That further muddiesthe waters for all employers affected by the ADA — those with 15 or moreemployees — and is particularly troubling for small businesses. “The ADA iswritten in a vague way, and small businesses may not know whether they are incompliance,” says Mary Leon, spokesperson for the National Federation ofIndependent Businesses. 

    “It isn’t thecost of accommodations, it’s the cost of litigation that hurts small firms,”she says. For example, “remodeling a bathroom for wheelchair access can costbetween $300 and $3,000, and adding a concrete ramp in lieu of stairs costsabout $1,000 per step,” Leon says, citing the book The Americans withDisabilities Act: Private and Public Costs (National Legal Center for the PublicInterest, 1996). Most accommodations are inexpensive. In fact, the JobAccommodation Network reports that 80 percent of the accommodations it suggestscost less than $500. 

    In contrast, if anADA discrimination suit is filed, legal fees can be astronomical, she says. A small business typically doesn’t have an attorney on staff andtherefore needs time to find and thoroughly brief the attorney, which takes timeaway from the business. Additionally, suits currently are often filed withoutgiving the firm an opportunity to correct the situation. 

    For example, Bellfound 112 such suits filed in Florida during the first six months of 2000. Heterms them “drive-by lawsuits,” with attorneys going door-to-door in malls,slapping lawsuits on small businesses. This might change if H.R. 3590, the ADANotification Act, is passed. It would require that businesses be given 90 daysto correct non-compliant situations before a civil action can begin. The factthat employers win 94 percent of the ADA cases brought against them is smallconsolation. 

Conditions That Fall Through theCracks
    The key to thesewins is that individuals’ abilities to perform major life activities must besignificantly impaired, but employers are not required to accept substandardperformance, says Dinerstein. “So, you could have a serious impairment ordisease, but if it doesn’t affect you now, you’re not covered under theADA.” For example, he says, cancer patients in remission are not coveredbecause there are times when they are not limited. 

    Likewise, acondition such as paruresis — shy bladder syndrome — is not covered. Paruresis,explains Steven Soifer, president of the International Paruresis Association, isa condition that prevents people from urinating on demand and in places wherethey fear they might be seen or heard. But it isn’t considered a disability.The consequence is that firms requiring urine samples for drug testing oftencan’t get samples from people with this condition. Unless a firm is willing toprovide a blood test (which is more expensive than a urinalysis), the employeetypically is fired. Why? Because companies tend to follow U.S. Department ofTransportation guidelines, which as yet don’t allow alternative testingmethods. 

Supreme Court Weighs In
    The issue ofdisability, however, goes beyond simply hiring and retaining workers. It alsoinvolves disability insurance claims. If a worker becomes unable to perform anyjob in the company, short- and long-term disability claims eventually will befiled, and insurance companies have different payment schemes for physical andmental disabilities. 

    The 1999 suit Lewisvs. Kmart Corp. is a case in point. At 41, Harold Lewis became disabled byorganic brain syndrome, commonly called depression. He collected short-termdisability for the maximum allowable period of six months. At that point, unableto return to work in his supervisory position or to successfully perform any jobat Kmart, he filed for long-term disability. 

    In the UnitedStates, long-term disability insurance pays about 60 percent of the employee’ssalary until age 65 for physical disabilities. Mental disabilities, however, arepaid for only two years. When that period expired, Lewis sued Kmart for offeringan unlawful insurance policy to its employees. “The courts said thatdifferential benefits were not unlawful,” says Fox, who was the attorney forKmart. In refusing to hear the case, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld thatpractice. 

   Despite its clouded language, the ADA is doing what it was designed todo: extend the anti-discrimination protection provided by the Rehabilitation Actof 1973 to employees and job applicants at firms with no government contracts.If Americans want more (or less) than that, Congress would have to amend thelaw. 

Workforce, December2000, Vol. 79, No. 12, pp. 40-46 Subscribenow!