Snow day! Norah went to bed with PJs on backwards last night (and received her wish; now please use your time wisely to work on homework). Donovan is going to be pissed because tonight’s Mathmagic night at school (which he was really looking forward to) will be canceled.
And me? I’m enjoying some flexibility by working from the comfort of my kitchen island. If the storm forecast holds as predicted, however, I’ll be giving myself lots of extra travel time tomorrow morning for a court appearance. #lawyerlife
What about your business?
There is no law that governs whether businesses must, or even should, stay open during bad weather. Instead, it is simply a matter of policy for each company to decide for itself. Like all policies, communication is the key to ensuring that employees are all on the same page when it comes to whether a business is going to open or shut down to account for bad weather.
Bad weather will affect different employees differently. Commute times and distances, methods of transportation, and school closings will all impact whether a certain employee will be able to make it to work when bad weather hits. In drafting a policy for inclement weather, consider the following:
Communication. How will your business communicate to its employees whether it is open for business or closed because of the weather? Are there essential personnel that must report regardless of whether the facility closes? If an employee does not get word of a closure and reports to work anyway, will the company pay that employee for reporting?
Early closing. If a business decides to close early because of mid-day snowstorm, how will it account for the orderly shut-down of operations on that day? Which employees will be able to leave early and which will have to remain to ensure that the facility is properly closed? Is there essential crew that must stay, or is there an equitable means to rotate who can stay and who can leave?
Wage and hour issues. To avoid jeopardizing exempt employees’ status, they should be be paid their full salary when a company closes because of weather. For non-exempt employees, however, it is entirely up to the company whether to pay them for a full day’s work, for part of the day, or for no hours at all. Will employees have to use vacation or other paid time off if they want to be paid for the day, or will the company consider it a freebee?
Attendance. Will the absence be counted against employees in a no-fault or other attendance policy, or defeat any perfect attendance bonuses?
My two cents? Safety is more important than work. When in doubt, play it safe. Is it essential that your employees come to work in severe weather? If not, give them the day off. Must your business remain open? If not, close for the day. In my opinion, it’s not worth risking your employees’ safety for a few extra hours of work.
Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.
Snagajob is one of those companies that solves a problem no one else seemed to notice — how to quickly match hourly workers with the employers who need them.
In 2015, 78.2 million workers in the United States held hourly jobs, representing more than half of the national workforce. And as more people turn to hourly jobs to supplement their salaries or piece together a working income, these numbers likely will grow. Yet online recruiting sites mostly ignored this segment of the workforce, said Snagajob CEO Peter Harrison. “There is an inherent bias against these kinds of jobs,” he said.
“With the growth of the on-demand economy, we think there will be a substantial tailwind in this segment,” says Habib Kairouz, managing partner of New York-based Rho Capital Partners, which led a $100 million investment in Snagajob last year.
The Arlington, Virginia-based recruiting technology company provides a platform specifically designed to link low-wage hourly workers with employers, primarily via a mobile app that lets them apply for openings in a few clicks.
“Recruiting hourly workers requires a different set of processes and tools,” Harrison said. “Employers aren’t looking for extensive resumes and experience. They are concerned about location, availability and attitude.” At the same time, hourly workers want a quick, easy way to find and apply for jobs and get to work.
Snagajob was built to address these needs. It began as an hourly job board in 2000, but expanded over the years, adding testing features, tracking tools and its mobile app. Then in July 2016 it acquired PeopleMatter, an end-to-end talent and workforce management platform, adding training, scheduling and performance management features to its site.
The platform now has more than 75 million registered workers and 300,000 employer locations, and filled 3.5 million jobs last year — almost entirely via the app.
“It’s the largest marketplace for hourly workers out there and they have already made the hiring process much smoother,” Kairouz said. Because it has such a broad employer and employee base, his team believe it is well-positioned to maintain a leadership position in the space. “Innovation is always easier when you have an existing base of customers.”
Though the most exciting thing about Snagajob is the potential of a new pilot project, which will let employees apply for occasional shifts at a variety of companies. “We see it as an opportunity to be on the forefront of the work-on-demand trend,” said Harrison.
Through the pilot, employees register to be considered for shift work, then notify Snagajob when they are available. So far the company has seen a 98 percent fill rate on open shifts in the first minute of posting, Harrison said.
They are still working out some challenges, like how quickly workers need to arrive, who ultimately employs and pays them and how to best match candidates with positions. But Harrison believes once these issues are addressed, the Snagashift model will be a game changer. “There is a tremendous appetite for this kind of service.”
Snagajob Chief Operating Officer Jocelyn Mangan agrees. The shift work approach fills a need for employers, who often to scramble to fill shifts when workers quit or call in sick, and for workers to bolster their income without making a big commitment to any one job, she said. “It’s a great way for them to grab a few hours of work and get paid whenever they have the time,” said the former OpenTable chief product and marketing officer.
Snagashift is just another way the company can accommodate the needs of the young and mobile workforce — and the companies that hire them, Kairouz added.
“Thirty years from now it could be the way all hourly workers find work,” he said.
Sarah Fister Gale is a writer based in the Chicago area. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.
Randstad recently released its annual salary guide.
Staffing Agency Randstad released its 2017 Salary Guides, which cover seven industries including human resources.
With the low unemployment rate and a skilled labor shortage, HR organizations must position themselves to attract and retain top talent, according to the guide released Feb. 21. Across generations, gender and education levels, salary and benefits was cited as the most important factor when choosing an employer.
The guides provide an in-depth look at salaries for many in-demand roles:
Human resources
Information and technology
Engineering
Finance and accounting
Life sciences
Manufacturing and logistics
Office and administration
“As a staffing agency, we feel it is our responsibility to provide our clients and employers with the salary information they need to make employment decisions in their best interests,” said Jim Link, chief human resources officer of Randstad North America. “With the strong economic growth over recent months, workers can anticipate an average pay increase of 3 percent in 2017.”
Compensation information is highlighted for specific positions within these sectors. Over 40 geographic markets are grouped into five pay zones that offer similar pay rates. Salaries in specific regions vary based upon local market conditions and position-specific requirements such as company’s size, experience levels, professional certifications or certain software knowledge. The data reflects base compensation and is derived from a combination of private and public companies through the Economic Research Institute.
According to Randstad, among the highest compensated lower-level HR positions is a benefits and compensation specialist, earning a base salary of $79,644 per year in areas including San Jose, California, and Fairfield County, Connecticut. The average salary for an HR manager in the professional services industry is $78,898 to $100,940 in New York. The lowest compensated lower-level HR position is a human resources coordinator, earning a base pay of $32,187 annually in geographic markets including Jacksonville, Florida; southern Nevada; Columbus, Ohio; and central Pennsylvania.
In Chicago, the lowest salary for a VP of HR is $126,690 in the nonprofit sector, according to the report. Other salaries from the guide: The highest VP of HR position earns $190,550 in the insurance and IT/software industries. A senior HR manager earns $79,644 to $123,600 annually. The average salary for an HR coordinator in the health care industry is $37,131 to $47,792. The average salary for an HR generalist in the financial services industry is $63,705 to $84,924. A learning and development director earns $95,532 to $163,410 annually. The highest salary for head of recruitment is $164,800 in the insurance, IT/software and financial industries.
Today’s talent pool is limited, and it’s difficult for hiring managers to fill open positions. “There are currently 5.5 million job openings and only 1.4 unemployed people per job opening,” said Link. Employers requiring candidates with specialty skills have an even smaller candidate pool from which to hire. The supply and demand of talent can significantly impact how attractive your compensation package must be to draw top candidates.
The guide provides a benchmark for assessing the strength of an organization’s pay rates against those of competitors. It’s become a candidate-driven market where job seekers utilize tools to determine if they are getting paid what they’re worth. Knowing the market average for specific positions and nearby geographies can ensure candidates and employers receive the most competitive offers. “The guides serve as a reality-check for securing the best talent in a competitive, job-heavy, talent-short economy,” said Link.
Mia Mancini is a Workforce intern. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.
I recently attended an event for the Chicago chapter of the Disability Management Employer Coalition. The topic was tackling physical therapy/occupational therapy over-utilization, a national problem for employers, claims adjusters and case managers who handle workers’ compensation cases.
Most of the talk was geared toward case managers, but the employer takeaway I got was that self-insured companies end up paying for therapy that’s not necessarily helping injured employees return to work faster. Sometimes when PT isn’t getting the job done, a doctor, for whatever reason, will recommend more PT rather than an alternative treatment. Overutilization is a huge cost driver for companies. There should be a “next step” in case therapy is not working and the patient is not progressing, argued the speaker, workers’ comp expert Cindy G. Rega.
The Chicago chapter members had a lot of questions about their own personal experiences trying to deal with situations like this, when an injured worker is attending therapy but not getting desired results. These experiences were mostly from that case manager perspective. Still, the gist was: the longer these workers are injured and doing PT/OT that is not getting the job done, the longer the employer is out of an employee.
Hearing these experiences made me realize how prevalent this is and how frustrating working through the process can be.
To help me understand more deeply what employers should know about PT/OT over-utilization, LaVina Branch, president of the DMEC Chicago Chapter, gave me the rundown for employers. Branch is also the manager of workers’ comp and leave management at McMaster-Carr Supply Co. in Elmhurst, Illinois.
The employer-employee relationship puts the employer in the position to guide and empower employees, said Branch. Employers hear the complaints employees have when an injury isn’t getting better. They can ask the injured person questions like, have you talked to your doctor about the type of therapy you’re receiving? Do you think that’s working? Should they try something different? Have you talked to your therapist about this?
“You have to help your employee understand they need to be an advocate for their care,” she said. “Just because it’s a work injury doesn’t mean you’re not an advocate for your care. Just like you would advocate if it were a personal illness or injury, you have to do the same if it’s work related. It’s still your body.”
Ineffective physical or occupational therapy can be a drain on workers’ comp costs.
Another major employer takeaway was to be aware that over-utilization happens. And also be aware that other parties involved, like claims adjusters, might not be looking at this closely. That’s why the employers should take it on to empower employees to become a larger player in their own care.
“If they’re going to therapy that is not improving them, then something else might be wrong,” Branch said. “There might be a need to peel back the onion and dig deeper.”
This could go on for months, she added. Instead of letting that happen and having to be reactive, be proactive. Set up a calendar, and if the employee doesn’t get better by a certain time, take another step, like talking to the doctor, to find out if treatment plan is working.
Andie Burjek is a Workforce associate editor. Comment below, or email at aburjek@humancapitalmedia.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at@workforcenews.
The fact that the current administration is cleaning its Justice Department house by turning over personnel appointed by the prior administration is not notable. Washington bureaucracy is run by the party-in-charge, and right now that means that President Trump is calling the shots on whom he employs and doesn’t employ. For example, Attorney General Janet Reno took similar steps in the early days of President Clinton’s administration.
What qualifies Mr. Sessions for a nomination for the “Worst Employer of 2017” is how he handled communicating the news of the terminations. Via NBC News:
The Trump administration’s sudden request on Friday that all 46 U.S. attorneys resign was met with surprise by multiple federal prosecutors, with at least one first finding out about the demand on social media, a source close to the U.S. attorney told NBC News.
“We saw it on Twitter,” said the source, who is not the prosecutor and who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. …
There is nothing easy about communicating a firing. I’ve had to fire people. It’s the worst part of any job. It’s also part of what you sign up for when you assume a management role. But, as uncomfortable as it is to tell someone they are losing a job, it is exponentially more difficult to be on the receiving end of that news.
Every employee deserves to learn of a job-loss via a face-to-face conversation. It is never acceptable to fire someone by a phone call, letter, voice mail, email, text message, Facebook message, tweet, or any other method of communication other than a face-to-face conversation.
For this reason, and this reason alone, I nominate Attorney General Jeff Sessions as the Worst Employer of 2017.
Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.
Tedious administrative tasks have long been the bane of the HR professional’s job.
Updating paperwork, sending out benefits reminders and plowing through hundreds of resumes can eat up hours every day, preventing HR leaders from focusing on more strategic tasks related to workforce planning and development. But the days of drudgery may soon be over, at least according to some vendors. Over the past year, HR software providers have trumpeted the fact that their technologies automate all of the manual and repetitive tasks that few want to do.
Don’t fear, HR. Industry tech experts say your job is safe.
It’s an appealing offer, said Mark Somol, co-founder and CEO of Boston-based Zeal Technology Inc., which offers software to measure employee engagement and morale. “At the heart of the automation trend are leaders who recognize that they need to understand their people better,” he said.
It’s an important message when it comes to HR automation. Unlike the manufacturing industry or the promise of self-driving taxis, automation isn’t intended to replace HR staff, it’s meant to enhance what they do. By eliminating tedious tasks, HR employees can finally focus on what Somol calls “personalized talent management.”
“We are all better off if HR and talent management leaders spend more time with people, taking care of their individual challenges,” he said.
The need for more time has often been a challenge for HR, so why are vendors suddenly eager to automate?
“Because they can,” said Alan Lepofsky, vice president and principal analyst for Constellation Research in Toronto. Access to massive amounts of data and computing power coupled with advances in the machine learning technology means vendors can finally use artificial intelligence, or AI, to automate many of the manual tasks that waste so much time.
In some cases they can do them better, faster and with fewer errors than any human ever could. In recruiting, for example, trying to find candidates on social media using keyword searches is tedious and inconsistent. But a system that uses machine-learning algorithms can be programmed to search millions of profiles and to learn which kind of candidates, sources and backgrounds deliver the best candidates.
“It’s more accurate and easier for the computer to do it for you than to do it yourself,” he said.
These tools can also be used to analyze internal forums to identify in-house experts or identify complaints that might suggest an employee is a flight risk. “If you can remediate the problem before an employee quits, that’s a great value,” he said.
The promise of automation is intriguing, though Lepofsky warns HR leaders to not get drawn in by the hype.
“A lot of the talk about AI in HR is overblown,” he said, adding that many tools are more like chatbots than AI. “They can simulate human conversations, but they can’t learn or communicate in any meaningful way.”
So while a chatbot can convincingly respond to an email query about the benefits programs, an AI system could recognize that an employee is struggling to complete their benefits enrollment and recommend training or a support tool based on what previous employees have used.
Vendors like Oracle, SuccessFactors, and Infor already offer automation capabilities that use machine learning to do compliance checks and make suggestions, and more are likely to come, said Ray Wang, principal analyst for Constellation Research. Though it will likely be another year or two before AI technology is trusted enough to be allowed to take action without any human review.
As with virtually every previous HR technology trend, Wang predicts that the small start-ups will likely bring the most innovative AI tools to market first, then shortly after, the big firms will start acquiring them to add that functionality to their suite. “Small companies have the agility to test their theories, but the big companies have the data to scale them,” he said.
Regardless of who is first to market, this trend will ultimately be benefit for HR.
“The days of counting contingency workers and entering data will soon be over,” Wang said. “As vendors automate more tasks, HR leaders will become more strategic, focusing their time on taking care of the workforce and planning for the future.”
Sarah Fister Gale is a writer in the Chicago area. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.
The Supreme Court reversed an earlier decision that would have heard the appeal of a 4th Circuit opinion granting a transgender boy the right to use the bathroom of his identified gender.
The March 6 decision comes on the heels of the Trump administration’s policy change [pdf], which revoked the Obama administration’s guidance that protected the bathroom rights of transgender students in public schools.
As a result, the lower court must now answer the thornier question of whether federal law (and not just a White House interpretation of it) equates gender-identity discrimination with sex discrimination.
From a legal standpoint, this case is fascinating. From a human standpoint, I ask this question — why is this an issue with which are grappling in the first place?
Consider what I wrote on this is very issue just last year:
If an employee genuinely believes she is female (regardless of whether she was born a male), why do we care if she uses the women’s restroom?
I’m certain I have readers who are thinking, “I don’t want those freaks in my bathroom.” Well, this post isn’t for you (or maybe it’s especially for you). You are doing exponentially more harm to the mental well-being of your transgender employee(s) if you force them into the wrong bathroom or segregate them in a single-gender bathroom, than you are doing to your other employees by having them share their bathroom with their trans co-workers. Any other answer to this issue is bigotry, period. And, in 2016, we should be well beyond institutional bigotry of any kind.
This issue is one of the most glaring examples I’ve ever seen of a solution in search of a problem.
Employers, do right by all of your employees, and let’s make this the last time I need to write about this as an issue of concern in the workplace.
Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.
The need for speed in business does not excuse an organization from taking the time to create and execute a thoughtful, sincere and diversity-friendly talent strategy — not when your customers and employee base are potentially diverse.
Ask Uber. The company is finding that out firsthand given the rash of problems the once exalted startup is facing. Reports of sexual harassment, senior executives resigning for similar reasons, and then Uber CEO Travis Kalanick recently was caught on camera in a confrontation with one of his own drivers.
The company’s image is in the toilet. It even has a hashtag: #DeleteUber. Or, as Susan Wu cleverly stated in a recent article on backchannel.com, “We need a Chapter 11 for company culture and diversity. Uber needs to declare diversity bankruptcy.”
Her bio said Wu is an internet entrepreneur and angel investor, so I imagine she has firsthand knowledge of finance, technology and diversity. She was certainly clear about Uber’s missteps:
“How do companies incur diversity debt? Take a couple of cofounders and their cognitive biases, add a second seed round where they’re faced with the existential imperative of finding product-market fit, and whirl in the velocity of needing to “just get things done” in a very short timeframe.
Woman uses a transportation app to conveniently call a car
After all that, poof. Uber’s image goes up in smoke. But I was struck by her comparison between financial and diversity debt. With money, you borrow, accumulate interest, if you’re a good borrower, eventually you repay both principal and interest. If you’re not, you declare bankruptcy.
Wu wrote that the startup industry is primed to accumulate debt. It’s essentially the price of doing business very quickly. But when that debt is diversity debt, a toxic culture, pervasive bias, talent management and/or leadership issues — and in Uber’s case the length of time these issues go unchecked — not even a cultural makeover may help. Not when your reputation in the marketplace, what Wu calls a company’s “fundamental goodwill,” is deeply tarnished.
Like so many things diversity-related, when it comes to problems or challenges, it’s best to begin with the foundation. A company’s foundation is set with its first few hires. Wu agreed. “Nearly all startups choose to opt for speed, believing that hiring from existing friends-of-friends networks will be more effective than working hard to recruit candidates with a range of race, gender, and socioeconomic backgrounds.”
I can understand that. In the name of speed to market, a congenial work environment, late nights and in the case of technology, like minds and skill sets, you go with the familiar. But what about after the foundational concrete has been set? Once things are up and running, it’s time to think strategically, and sometimes that means asking some tough, certainly direct, questions and finding the answers: Who are our customers? How do our employees treat them? Do our employees know them? If not, how can we get to know them? Who are our leaders? What do they know, and who do they know? How do we look to the global marketplace?
Of course, it makes sense that I would think like that. I’m black, I’m a woman, and I work in media with a focus on HR and talent management. I’m knee deep in best practices. The thing is, not being black or a woman or knee deep in HR best practices is not an excuse for ignorance or bad behavior. Not these days.
If you’re unaware, you can maybe leverage that excuse for one free pass. After that, the public, your employees, your investors and certainly your customers, they expect — no, they demand — that you wise up. That you see the flowers and the trees. Uber’s on pass, like, 70.
And leaders can’t try the old, ‘we don’t have time to look for diverse talent,’ complaint either. There are literally apps out there to help with diverse recruiting, not to mention niche staffing agencies, the Internet, social media, you can see why the excuses get old fast.
“Once you start to think of homogeneous hiring practices as a debt — one that limits your ability to cultivate a strong portfolio of diverse employees and diverse ideas that can yield greater potential upsides and serendipity for your company — then you’re in a much better position to choose which diversity debt you’re willing to live with,” Wu wrote.
Most adults owe something. Credit is akin to life for many of us. But if you don’t watch it, that interest will kill you. In that way, diversity debt is no different than its financial counterpart. You don’t attack the principal, you keep adding to it, you end up in a real pickle.
Uber hasn’t sufficiently addressed the fundamental workplace culture and diversity issues that have plagued it from the very beginning. HR and talent management, marketing, engineering, safety, these systems are all broken. And it likely will take some drastic action to fix them. We’re talking big time firings in order “to start cleaning house,” Wu wrote, and building a new, more inclusive culture. Then there’s the image to repair. It’s a big job. Huge. And that’s only if the company acknowledges that it has a problem to begin with.
It’s a dangerous position to be in; Uber’s main competitor Lyft seems to have none of its issues. I just tweeted out a link to a beautiful Lyft commercial with a strong, positive message that clearly states how valuable diverse talent is to the organization. I saw it as an ad on YouTube. Watch it. It’s one of the most compelling pieces of advertising I’ve seen in a long time, and I was late to the game. The commercial has been out for months.
Uber’s been on fire for a lot longer than that, and if it’s not careful the weight of its diversity debt is going to sink it without a trace.
Kellye Whitney is associate editorial director for Workforce. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com
CNN reports that a ransomware attack has locked the computer network of the Pennsylvania Democratic Caucus. This is what we call a teachable moment.
What is ransomware? Ransomware is malicious software that locks one’s computer or network until a sum a money is paid, at which point the cybercriminal provide a code to unlock the system. If the ransom is not paid with a set timeframe, they will wipe the data. And, any organization that relies on access to data, and cannot afford to lose access to that data at any time, is the prime target of a ransomware attack. Does that sound like your business?
How does one become infected with ransomware? Like any other virus or malware, most often by clicking a suspicious link in an email or on a website.
If you become victim to a ransomware attack, your options are limited. Depending on the type of encryption used by the cybercriminals to lock your system, you may be able to break the encryption. But that is unlikely. Much more likely, you either pay the ransom, or rely the quality of your system back-up and the expense that goes along with restoring it.
No business is immune from suffering a cyberattack. Being proactive is better than being reactive.
Either way, plan on a ransomware attack costing you. In 2015, for example, victims of these attacks paid a collective $24 million in ransom to these cyber-extortionists, and another $325 million to disinfect machines and restore backup data. In other words, ransomware is big business and a bigger threat, and it’s not going away anytime soon.
The best cybercrime offense is a good defense. Here are four tips to best protect your organization from suffering a crippling and expensive ransomware attack.
1. Diligently back up everything. If you invest in quality and reliable system backups, then you remove most of the risk of suffering a ransomware attack. In the event of an attack, you simply wipe your computers and servers, and start from scratch via the last uninfected backup.
2. Avoid suspicious emails and links. This, of course, is easier said than done, especially if your employees do not know for what to beware. Even a little bit of cyber-training goes a long way, and with the right training, your employees will learn to vet before they click. Your employees are the prime targets of these attacks, and they are also your first, and best, line of defense. 3. Patch software and block suspicious emails and websites. This step does not work without training your employees. The cybercriminals are at least one step (if not two three, or more steps) ahead of software patches and email/website blacklists. Nevertheless, have the latest version of everything installed lets the security experts working for your software providers do their jobs. 4. Disconnect immediately upon an infection. Any cyberattack is easier to contain and correct and limited to one desktop. Once it spread to multiple machines or, worse yet, servers, it becomes more difficult and exponentially more expensive to remedy. Once you learn of infection, notify IT and get everything offline as soon as possible. Quarantining the infected machines is the only way to stop ransomware from infecting your entire network.
No business is immune from suffering a cyberattack. However, being proactive is better than being reactive. Taking these four steps will help position your company best to avoid a cyberattack such a ransomware and to respond when it occurs.
Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.
About a month ago I blogged about the movie “Hidden Figures.” I’m still gratified at the amount of support the piece received, so I feel justified in revisiting this particular well for a different reason — whitewashing.
Hollywood, rather the film industry in general, has always been a bit more advanced than corporate America when it comes to accepting and promoting diversity. I say a bit because both have their issues, and likely will continue to have those issues for some time. But, however long it actually takes to cross that particular finish line — I will not be holding my breath — the film industry is moving more quickly and visibly toward parity.
When I read “Hidden Figures And the Diversity Conversation We Aren’t Having” on Huffington Post’s Black Voices channel, I rolled my eyes. Not because of the article — the piece was well written and perfectly logical — but the idea that a white film director, Theodore Melfi, should be taken to task for “whitewashing” history because he took creative license with some historical facts bugged me.
In the film — sorry if you haven’t seen it already; I’m about to spoil a highlight — Al Harrison (played by Kevin Costner) knocks down a colored restroom sign. He does this because Katherine Johnson (played by Taraji P. Henson), the brilliant mathematician at the heart of the narrative, has been missing in action for a good chunk of the film, running back and forth to a segregated toilet a half-mile away. Harrison says, “Here at NASA we all pee the same color.” This was the so-called white savior moment.
Melfi admitted he made that scene up and was subsequently accused of whitewashing in order to appeal to a white audience. But his response, “These are creative choices, these are not catering to a white audience or catering to a black audience, this is making the best movie,” holds up.
Theodore Melfi was taken to task for ‘whitewashing’ history in the film ‘Hidden Figures.’
According to NASA, desegregation actually happened via memo. I think we can all agree Kevin Costner knocking the hell out of a sign emblematic of oppression, cruelty and struggle is the stronger message. I would also posit that it is entirely acceptable for Melfi to put Harrison’s character in this white savior position, with one codicil. Let’s immediately scratch the words white savior from our memory because they sound yucky and unnecessarily biblical and replace them with — wait for it — leader.
Maybe if there were more so-called white saviors, or, white leaders who are unafraid to step forward and set an example for their brethren to follow, things would move a little bit faster on the diversity continuum. White savior? Good grief.
The idea that minorities need or want to be saved is both insulting and completely inaccurate. I — a double minority — don’t want or usually need a helping hand when I fall down. It’s nice when it happens, but I’m a big girl. Even if I metaphorically skin my knees, I can handle it. But when I do fall down, because everyone makes mistakes at some point in their life and career, I don’t want everyone looking up my skirt and laughing up their collective sleeve as I pick myself up off the ground. Know what I mean?
Don’t make it hard for me to learn or to fail or to do my job. Don’t throw arbitrary obstacles in my path that make my work more difficult, and then when the product you demand suffers because of that, punish me as though I am solely to blame for everything that has gone wrong.
Failing — particularly if you fail fast, learn the lesson and pass that learning on to others — is good more often than it is bad in an organizational context. In business, growth of any kind can pave the way for process, product and service changes and innovations that are often the direct result of someone’s failure or mistake paving the road to a better way.
So, yeah. Be my champion when you see things aren’t right on the job. I could care less what color you are, but if you’re white, I commend you. I know it’s not always easy to buck the system, rock the boat and risk your standing and career when your peers start whispering about loyalty and question your intentions or the motivations behind your actions.
In the movie, Harrison was visibly uncomfortable more than once. He saw Johnson being mistreated, but it was easier to go along and get along, to ignore his team not acting like a team toward one of its members because that was the way things had always been done. When he finally had his savior moment — I’m cringing as I type that word — it wasn’t some heroic movement. It was a leader finally getting all of the information and doing what was necessary to ensure that a very specific productivity and performance barrier was removed.
Sure, he did it passionately, noisily and disruptively, and I doubt many leaders could get away with that kind of violence against signs these days, but it’s a movie.
In real life, minorities in the workplace don’t need saviors. But we want them.
We want our supervisors and managers to stick up for us when we’re being mistreated, ignored, belittled, discounted and misunderstood. Whether they do so loudly while breaking a sweat going postal on a sign, or quietly behind closed doors when they put forth our names for the high potential leadership program or for a promotion, corporate America could use a few white saviors.
But in the workplace, we simply call them leaders.
Kellye Whitney is associate editorial director for Workforce. Comment below or email editor@workforce.com.
