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Goal for 2013: No Goals

Maybe it’s time for a new year’s resolution that trashes previous ones.

Maybe we should toss goals in the garbage.

Author Peter Bregman has a provocative essay at Harvard Business Review arguing that goals can do more harm than good. “It’s not that goals, by their nature, are bad,” Bregman writes. “It’s just that they come with a number of side effects that suggest you may be better off without them.”

Bregman argues that goals can generate unnecessary stress, and he cites a HarvardBusinessSchoolworking paper with the excellent title, Goals Gone Wild. It finds goals can lead to myopia, harm interpersonal relationships and motivate unethical behavior. The paper also saw these side effects of goals: “corrosion of organizational culture” and “reduced intrinsic motivation.”

On the culture corrosion and unethical behavior fronts, the paper cites an example of Sears setting a productivity goal for its auto repair staff. Employees were asked to hit the target of $147 in sales for every hour of work. But the target prompted the staff to overcharge and complete unnecessary repairs on a companywide basis.

I think Bregman and the paper’s authors are onto something. Another piece of the puzzle concerns the way performance targets may crimp creativity.

Innovation is a top priority for executives worldwide these days. So we recently asked readers about the most effective tools for spurring innovation among employees (our package on innovation and workforce management will be published next month). We found that “Giving employees freedom to spend time developing ideas and projects” ranked as the second-most effective approach (behind “facilitating more collaboration among employees”). But providing employees with freedom ranked a distant fourth when companies were asked what strategies they are actually using.

In other words, companies know employee autonomy to explore ideas is a smart innovation strategy. But they aren’t tapping this tactic like they should. I suspect a major reason for the disconnect is that companies and employees are too focused on hitting their performance goals.

Yes, goals can be useful and sometimes can’t be avoided. But today’s business climate puts “measurable results” on a pedestal.

I’m among the guilty. I look for goals and goal-achievement in the companies I write about, in my own organization, in my own life. But lately, I’ve been feeling a lot of stress related to a book I’m co-writing and the deadlines I’ve helped to set. Fear that I won’t hit the goals sometimes leads me to procrastinate. Which of course deepens the stress!

So I took Bregman’s advice to consider an alternative to goals. Bregman (a former college classmate pal of mine) suggests thinking in terms of “areas of focus.” That is, prioritize important matters but avoid specific targets. More journey, less destination.

And it seems to be working! I decided not to worry about hitting a goal I’d set to complete a chapter draft by the end of the week, and immediately a great weight lifted off my shoulders. But that didn’t lead me to shirk the work. On the contrary, I dug into the project with as much gusto and effectiveness as I’ve had on it.

We’ll see whether I continue to be a goal-less wonder-worker. But for now, I’m taking aim at targets.

My goal for 2013 is to put goals in the trash.

Ed Frauenheim is senior editor at Workforce. Comment below or email efrauenheim@workforce.com.

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Ohio Supreme Court all but Eliminates the Intentional Tort Exception to Workers’ Comp Claims

The history of the workplace intentional tort as an exception to the state workers’ compensation system has a long and tortured history in the annals of Ohio jurisprudence. In Houdek v. ThyssenKrupp Materials N.A., Inc. (Ohio 12/6/12), the Ohio Supreme Court may have put the final nail in the coffin of this long misused claim.

Generally speaking, the state workers’ comp law provides immunity to employers from their employees’ workplace injuries. In Blankenship v. Cincinnati Milacron Chems., Inc. (1982), the Ohio Supreme Court recognized a cause of action for an employer’s intentional tort against its employee, holding that because intentional tort claims do not arise out of the employment relationship, the workers’ compensation laws do not provide immunity from suit.

Blankenship started at three-decade odyssey to define the meaning of “intention.” This odyssey included three different statutes, the first two of which the Court declared unconstitutional. The current statute (R.C. 2745.01), the constitutionality of which the Court in 2010 blessed twice, provides:

(A) In an action brought against an employer by an employee, or by the dependent survivors of a deceased employee, for damages resulting from an intentional tort committed by the employer during the course of employment, the employer shall not be liable unless the plaintiff proves that the employer committed the tortious act with the intent to injure another or with the belief that the injury was substantially certain to occur.

(B) As used in this section, “substantially certain” means that an employer acts with deliberate intent to cause an employee to suffer an injury, a disease, a condition, or death.

(C) Deliberate removal by an employer of an equipment safety guard or deliberate misrepresentation of a toxic or hazardous substance creates a rebuttable presumption that the removal or misrepresentation was committed with intent to injure another if an injury or an occupational disease or condition occurs as a direct result.

In Houdek, the plaintiff brought suit for an intentional tort under 2745.01 after being struck by a sideloader. He alleged that his employer deliberately intended to injure him by requiring him to work in a dimly lit aisle without a reflective vest and by failing to place orange safety cones or expandable gates to prevent machinery from entering aisles where employees were working.

The Court concluded that for an employee to prevail on an intentional tort claim, the employee must prove that that the employer deliberately intended to cause injury:

Absent a deliberate intent to injure another, an employer is not liable for a claim alleging an employer intentional tort, and the injured employee’s exclusive remedy is within the workers’ compensation system.

The Court made clear that the law differentiates between accidents and intentional injuries, and that 2745.01 provides a remedy only for the latter:

Here, Houdek’s injuries are the result of a tragic accident, and at most, the evidence shows that this accident may have been avoided had certain precautions been taken. However, because this evidence does not show that ThyssenKrupp deliberately intended to injure Houdek, pursuant to R.C. 2745.01, ThyssenKrupp is not liable for damages resulting from an intentional tort.

The lone dissenter, Justice Pfeifer, laments that the majority’s decision ends the workplace intentional tort claim under Ohio Law:

The court below … wrote what the consequences would be if my dire evaluation of the law was indeed correct: “As a cautionary note, if Justice Pfeifer is correct, Ohio employees who are sent in harm’s way and conduct themselves in accordance with the specific directives of their employers, if injured, may be discarded as if they were broken machinery to then become wards of the Workers’ Compensation Fund. Such a policy would spread the risk of such employer conduct to all of Ohio’s employers, those for whom worker safety is a paramount concern and those for whom it is not. So much for “personal responsibility” in the brave, new world of corporations are real persons.” More’s the pity.

Houdek is a huge victory for Ohio’s employers. “Deliberate intent” is a very high standard for injured employees to meet, and should protect employers except in the most egregious of circumstances.

What cases will still prove problematic for employers under this statute? Because of presumption of deliberate intent created by 2745.01(C), those in which it is alleged that the employer deliberately removed an equipment safety guard or deliberately misrepresented a toxic or hazardous substance. How do you guard against these intentional tort cases?

  • Train all of your employees about the importance of safety guards, and the dangers of toxic and hazardous substances.
  • Inspect all equipment at the beginning and end of each shift to ensure that safety guards are in the proper place.

Written by Jon Hyman, a partner in the Labor & Employment group of Kohrman Jackson & Krantz. For more information, contact Jon at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.

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Some Thoughts on Sandy Hook and Workplace Violence

There is nothing to say that can capture the grief and inhumanity we all witnessed last Friday, Dec. 14. For what it’s worth, and because these events of unmistakable tragedy seem to be occurring at a more rapid clip, let me share some of my previous thoughts on how to cope when violence invades the workplace.

In the wake of this tragedy, lots will be written about the need for tougher gun laws, better help for the mentally ill, and whether 24/7 news coverage of these tragic events helps encourage the next person to shoot for his 15 minutes of fame. The reality is that nothing can stop these events from happening. If an evil or sick person wants to get his or her hands on some guns and impose his evil or illness on a group of innocent people, there is nothing anyone to can do to stop it. All we can do is offer our prayers in its aftermath.

Written by Jon Hyman, a partner in the Labor & Employment group of Kohrman Jackson & Krantz. For more information, contact Jon at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.

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12 is the Magic Number: 12 Thoughts for Your Workplace

Today is 12/12/12. The number 12 holds a lot of historical significance. There are 12 tribes of Israel, 12 months in the Gregorian calendar, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 days of Christmas, and 12 original studio albums released by the Beatles (in the UK).

Since today won’t come around for another 100 years, I thought I’d honor its unique date with 12 thoughts to help better your workplace.

  1. Review your employee handbooks and other personnel policies (annually is preferred).
  2. If you don’t have policiesaddressingsocialmedia and the other roles technology plays in your workplace, draft one(and train your employees on them).
  3. Hold company-wide harassment training (least once every two years, if not every year).
  4. Make it a point to rid your workplace of bullies (even though there is no law against it).
  5. Even if your business is not a jurisdiction that bans sexual orientation discrimination, adopt a policy outlawing it anyway.
  6. Audit your wage and hour practices.
  7. Document all discipline and performance problems.
  8. Do not make promises to your employees that you cannot keep.
  9. Make hiring and firing decisions based on performance.
  10. Be more understanding of your employees’ family responsibilities outside of the office.
  11. Employ the golden rule — treat your employees as you would want to be treated.
  12. Have fun (but not too much fun).

Written by Jon Hyman, a partner in the Labor & Employment group of Kohrman Jackson & Krantz. For more information, contact Jon at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.

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What Is the Best Way to Benchmark First-Year Turnover?

 

Dear Turnover Tension:

 

Your best approach would be to assume that turnover is not healthy and keep adjusting your goals to make it better. Not the answer you were expecting?

In his book “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t,” author Jim Collins notes how good organizations look over their shoulder at competitors’ metrics for comparison. Great organizations, on the other hand, compare themselves only to themselves.

You lose most new employees either because you hire them wrongly or manage them poorly. It requires taking responsibility to improve your organization’s performance. Some would argue that a certain amount of turnover is good. But what’s wrong with keeping everyone you desire to keep—if you truly do want to keep them?

Some comparison metrics provide false hope. Should you be pleased if your turnover is 25 percent while that of your competitor is 30 percent? Or if you conduct an engagement survey and 63 percent of your team is engaged versus a comparison metric of 61 percent? Flip it around: Should you feel content if 25 percent of your workforce is looking to jump ship or if 37 percent are disengaged?

A far better metric is to place a dollar value on turnover and drive your losses down by reducing all forms of turnover. Your top team will be motivated to help you improve turnover once they see the dollars lost—rather than taking comfort by comparing your company’s performance to others.

That’s the best way to avoid targeting your company settling for being only better than average, and move up to the class of excellence.

SOURCE: Dick Finnegan, Retention Institute, Longwood, Florida

LEARN MORE: Workforce.com has a free whitepaper “Leading the Way in Employee Engagement & Retention,” available for download here.

The information contained in this article is intended to provide useful information on the topic covered, but should not be construed as legal advice or a legal opinion. Also remember that state laws may differ from the federal law.

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How Do We Determine Employees Who Exceed Expectations? (Revised January 15, 2013)

Dear Taking Stock:

Typically, only a small percentage of employees are top performers. To overlook even one star, or to lavish time and money on someone who comes across as a star but really isn’t could be a critical mistake.

Identifying your top performers involves a blend of well-written job descriptions, a commitment to ongoing performance management, and a talent-overview process that gives insight into candidates whose potential deserves future development.

Job Descriptions

You can’t determine a star performer until you clearly define your expectations. The best job description details the specific tasks to be performed, how long each should take and the measurements used to help the employee and supervisor gauge true accomplishment.

Performance Management

Performance management flows from good job description—measurements are compiled and discussed with employees, their successes and developmental needs are noted, and future plans are made. The best method is to instruct managers to keep a record of day-to-day performance.

Have managers keep a simple “plus and minus” sheet on each employee. Each day, the manager will take five minutes to record the plus (above expectations) or minus (below expectations) performance of each employee. (This is not five minutes per employee, but five minutes a day.) Normally, there are only a few notes that need to be made each day in work groups of 10 or fewer.

These contemporaneous notes help ground performance management in fact. Many of the errors normally found in performance management are avoided; evaluations are more objective, more compliant with applicable law and more effective in communicating actual performance results.

Talent Overview Program

Even with good job descriptions and evaluations, stars may still be overlooked. Some managers are better promoters of their employees than others. Some locations or departments may be less in the spotlight than others.

Unless there is a coordinated process that shares performance information companywide, there is a chance some star performers will go unrecognized. Create a talent overview in which your HR function dedicates staff to compile performance information about all employees. This information is used to develop performance profiles on top performers in each area of the business, including an inventory of their skills and professional interests.

Your senior management should review this information as part of its planning for business development and succession. Each candidate should be discussed, including avenues for future assignment and career growth.

Your organization’s available talent becomes a known quantity as a result of these processes. Existing resources are used wisely, with talent shortages noted and efforts launched to fill them.

One final word: In your push to seek out high performers, don’t neglect average employees who may benefit from additional training and performance feedback. You just might discover an unexpected diamond in the rough.

SOURCE: Rick Galbreath, Performance Growth Partners Inc., Bloomington, Illinois

LEARN MORE: Despite their widespread uses, job descriptions are not always helpful.

The information contained in this article is intended to provide useful information on the topic covered, but should not be construed as legal advice or a legal opinion. Also remember that state laws may differ from the federal law.

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What Is the Difference Between Career Growth and Career Development?

Dear Growth or No:

There is a major distinction between the two. In fact, career growth depends on career development.

Growth is your organization’s ladder or, to use the parlance of the day, career lattice. While a ladder displays only vertical movement between jobs, a career lattice, by contrast, contains both vertical and lateral movement between jobs and may reflect more closely the career paths of employees in the modern work environment. The ladder is the somewhat dated model of career growth. The lattice is the more prevalent path today.

Career development, on the other hand, includes things employees do to enhance or develop your career. It is just as important for professionals as it is for other types of employees—perhaps even more so. Professionals need solid credentials to instill trust in customers, but also must continuously polish and improve those credentials. Also, professionals have just as much ambition to take on new responsibilities as do other employee groups. Your organization figures financially benefits (increased revenue from new clients) when your professionals become known as “go to” people. That takes development, so your organization should implement a clear program to boost its expertise and management skills.

For professionals, this can take shape in different ways, depending on the stage of their career. Consider a plan to help familiarize newly hired professionals with their teammates and organizational decision-makers. This helps them learn the culture of the organization and how to build successful working relationships with their managers. Aid them in developing a well-mapped career path, including short-term objectives that serve as milestones.

For those who’ve been employed in their professional field for some time, your organization needs to keep them from getting stuck in a rut. Sponsoring formal training tuition that advances them in their field of expertise is pretty common, but there are such things as conferences, webinars and online lectures, and opportunities for professional networking that can be part of their career development and enhancement.

A professional organization depends on the expertise and engagement of its employees to generate business. Not all your professionals will be interested in a promotion, but for those who are, your business will benefit by helping them foster the skills they’ll need.

SOURCE: Ron Thomas, director of talent and HR solutions, Buck Consultants, New York

LEARN MORE: Well-Trained Managers Can Curb Attrition

The information contained in this article is intended to provide useful information on the topic covered, but should not be construed as legal advice or a legal opinion. Also remember that state laws may differ from the federal law.

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When Is Confidential Medical Information Not Confidential?

The Americans with Disabilities Act requires that employers treat employee medical information obtained from “medical examinations and inquiries … as a confidential medical record.” In Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, the 7th Circuit recently decided the extent to which that confidentiality requirements applies when an employee volunteers medical information to an employer.

Gary Messier worked for Trivent as a business analyst, and during his first four months of employment developed a reputation for letting his employer know when he would be absent from work. When he failed to report to work one day, his supervisor emailed looking for a report and explanation. In response, Messier sent an email detailing his long battle with migraine headaches.

Messier quit one month later, but had trouble finding a new job. When three jobs fell through after a reference check, he hired a company to conduct a fake reference check for him. In response, his former supervisor at Trivent said that Messier “has medical conditions where he gets migraines.”

Based on that statement, the EEOC brought suit on Messier’s behalf for a violation of the ADA’s confidentiality requirements.

In affirming the district court’s dismissal of the lawsuit, the 7th Circuit examined the plain language of the ADA.

The EEOC argued that the ADA’s confidentiality provisions protect all employee medical information revealed through “job-related” inquiries.

The 7th Circuit disagreed:

The subject matter discussed in the body of section (d) confirms that the word “inquiries” does not refer to all generalized inquiries, but instead refers only to medical inquiries. The entire section is devoted to a discussion of a disabled employee’s “medical record,” “medical condition or history,” “medical files,” and medical “treatment.”

Instead, the Court concluded that the ADA’s confidentiality requirements only apply to medical information provided by an employee in response to a medical examination (not an issue in this case) or a medical inquiry.

Because Trivent had not made a medical inquiry before Messier sent his email detailing his migraines, any disclosure it made did not violate the ADA.

[P]revious courts have required—at minimum—that the employer already knew something was wrong with the employee before initiating the interaction in order for that interaction to constitute a [protected] inquiry. There is no evidence in the record suggesting that Thrivent … should have inferred that Messier’s absence on November 1, 2006 was due to a medical condition. There is no evidence in the record that Messier had been sickly during his first four months of employment. There is no evidence that Messier had experienced a headache at work during his first four months. For all Thrivent … knew, Messier’s absence was just as likely due to a non-medical condition as it was due to a medical condition. Indeed, as Thrivent pointed out to the district court, “Messier could have had transportation problems, marital problems, weather-related problems, housing problems, criminal problems, motivational problems, a car or home accident, or perhaps he simply decided to quit his job….”

Thus, Thrivent was not required to treat the medical information that Messier sent in response to the email as a confidential medical record. Accordingly, Thrivent did not violate (and could not have violated) the ADA by revealing Messier’s migraine condition to anyone, including to prospective employers.

While this case is a great holding for employers, businesses should still tread carefully when dealing with employee medical information. This area of the law remains risky waters in which companies swim.

Written by Jon Hyman, a partner in the Labor & Employment group of Kohrman Jackson & Krantz. For more information, contact Jon at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.

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The ‘Naked Organization’ Gets Nakeder

You think Glassdoor is radical corporate transparency?

Just wait until Tom Vines’ vision of the future takes shape.

Vines is IBM’s vice president of technical and business leadership, where he oversees the computing giant’s leadership development and succession planning. Leaders at Big Blue and elsewhere could blush a deep pink if Vines is correct about where performance management, crowdsourcing and social media are heading.

I spoke with Vines recently for an article about what people management will look like 10 years from now. Vines argues that the sorts of comments and endorsements you see at LinkedIn and in applications like Salesforce.com’s Work.com will evolve to the point where employees will select their managers based on very visible feedback given to those supervisors. What’s more, Vines expects companies to publish this information as a recruiting tool. “It will be both inside and outside” the company, Vines says. “Companies will want to expose their managers’ ratings to attract talent.”

Wowza. Vines is talking about airing the laundry of millions of supervisors in an unprecedented display of corporate candor. Individual performance reviews these days are private, internal affairs. And knowledge of ratings flows upward in organizations rather than downward—bosses get to see ratings of underlings, not the other way around.

But already some sophisticated forms of employee feedback about firms and leaders are becoming public. Visit Glassdoor and you will see approval ratings of CEOs by the employees who leave feedback there. Yes, those reviews are anonymous. But Glassdoor has taken steps to get past the era of pure employee venting—for example, company reviews have to include both positive and negative comments.

And CEOs take those reviews seriously. I spoke with Glassdoor CEO Bob Hohman recently, and he said he’s had CEOs contact him to quibble over their published rating. The titans of industry are doing their own calculations of Glassdoor data.

This suggests an acceptance of greater corporate nakedness. It’s a trend fueled also by feedback sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp, which showcase strong performance and prevent companies from hiding their mistakes.

Hohman says Glassdoor consciously chose not to publish the names of middle managers in company reviews. These folks, Hohman and crew reasoned, don’t expect to be public personalities.

But that could change over time.

As Vines argues, companies may decide to bare more of their selves as a way to win over talent. Just being willing to expose the strengths and weaknesses of managers might make a powerful statement about an organization’s commitment to the values of honesty and transparency. What’s more, there are practical considerations. Vines points out that detailed comments about managers could help job candidates apply to a job with the right boss. For example, a supervisor who gets credit for being very supportive and hands-on might be a good choice for someone at the start of his career. A manager known for giving direct-reports more autonomy might be a better fit for a mid-career worker ready to do her own thing. “At different points, you may want a different style,” Vines says.

Get ready for a very different style of management if Vines is right. The ‘naked organization’ will get a lot more naked.

Ed Frauenheim is senior editor at Workforce. Comment below or email efrauenheim@workforce.com.

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Another Reason Not to Ban Social Media on Company Time (Hint: It’s the NLRB)

I’ve written before about the practical problems employers face when trying to ban employees from accessing social media at work.

Last week, an National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge provided us another reason for employers not to implement workplace bans on social media—such a ban might be an unlawful infringement on employees’ rights to engage in protected concerted activity.

In Dish Network [pdf], the ALJ considered the following policy in the company’s employee handbook:

Unless you are specifically authorized to do so, you may not … Participate in these activities [Social Media—blogs, forums, wikis, social and professional networks] with DISH Network resources and/or on Company time.

The ALJ struck down the policy as an unreasonable restraint on the right of employees to engage in protected concerted activity:

The Social Media policy is unlawful…. [T]he policy banned employees from engaging in negative electronic discussion during “Company time.” The Board has found that equivalent rules, which ban union activities during “Company time” are presumptively invalid because they fail to clearly convey that solicitation can still occur during breaks and other non-working hours at the enterprise.I’ve written before about the logistical problems of workplace social media bans.

If you are going to consider banning social media in your workplace, the practical reasons far outweigh the legal issues (Dish Network notwithstanding). I call it the iPhone-ification of the American workforce. If most of your employees can take their smartphones out of their pockets to circumvent your policy, how can you possibly police workplace social media access? Why have a policy you cannot police and enforce?

Instead of legislating an issue you cannot hope to control, treat employees’ use of social media for what it is—a performance issue. If an employee is not performing up to standards because he or she is spending too much time on the Internet, then address the performance problem. A slacking employee will not become a star performer just because you limit his or her social media access; he or she will just find another way to slack off.

When dealing with employment concerns, there are legal issues and there are business issues. Decisions cannot be made without considering both, and sometimes one must trump the other. In this case the legal issue and the business issue happen to jive. The legal issue, however, remains in flux, as the NLRB continues to grapple with the role of technology in the 21st century workplace. The business issue, though, dictates the employers think long and hard about implementing a policy they will struggle to enforce.

The blog is taking the rest of the week off. I’ll be back on Nov. 26 with fresh content. In the meantime, enjoy your holiday, and take a moment to say thank you to that and those for which you are grateful.

Written by Jon Hyman, a partner in the Labor & Employment group of Kohrman Jackson & Krantz. For more information, contact Jon at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.