Author: Site Staff

Career site operator Monster Worldwide announced Monday, June 23, that it will launch co-branded recruitment Web sites with more than a dozen local newspapers, part of the company’s effort to push its brand in specific markets.

The recruitment Web sites will include ventures with The Columbus Dispatch in Ohio, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Union Leader in New Hampshire, Rutland Herald in Vermont, Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram, The Post and Courier in South Carolina, The Blade in Ohio, San Francisco Examiner, Baltimore Examiner and Puerto Rico’s El Nuevo Dia.

At least four other co-branded sites are also in the works.

“These alliances provide thousands of consumers with another point of access to Monster’s job search and match technology,” said Lauren Chacon, general manager of media alliances at Monster, in a statement. “Regional employers in these markets will also be able to more easily utilize Monster’s résumé database and recruitment services.”

The joint sites will combine Monster’s national database with listings and employment experts in the local newspapers’ respective regions. The sites also include résumé builders and salary information centers.

New York-based Monster’s media alliances include more than 200 weekly and daily newspapers and more than 100 television outlets. In April, the company signed an agreement with MSNBC.com to provide career tools and services for all MSNBC-affiliated properties.

Filed by Kira Bindrim of Crain’s New York Business, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.

Lower courts should consider an insurer’s potential conflict of interest when reviewing a denial of employee benefits in which the insurer both determines and pays the benefits, a divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday, June 19.

The case, Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Wanda Glenn, involved a denial of disability benefits. Glenn, a former employee of Sears, Roebuck & Co., suffered from a severe heart condition. She received “total disability” payments from MetLife, which administers and insures the Sears-sponsored plan that is governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. But when Glenn’s condition began to improve, MetLife rescinded the benefits, holding that she could perform low-stress work.

Glenn sued and a federal court ruled for MetLife.

The decision was overturned in 2006 by a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which held that MetLife’s role in both determining and paying benefits represented a conflict of interest that had to be considered when reviewing a denial of benefits.

The Supreme Court agreed with the appeals court in a 6-3 decision written by Associate Justice Stephen Breyer. He wrote that a plan administrator’s dual role of both evaluating and paying benefits claims creates the kind of conflict of interest the court had noted in its 1989 decision in Firestone v. Burch. In that case, the high court said courts should review denial of ERISA plan benefits only for arbitrariness and capriciousness, as long as the plan explicitly grants discretionary authority to make benefit decisions to a plan administrator or other fiduciary.

The Firestone decision held that the courts could take potential conflicts of interest into account in such review.

Justice Breyer wrote that such a conclusion is clear when an employer both funds and evaluates claims and that such a conflict can exist when an insurer plays both roles.

Filed by Mark A. Hofmann of Business Insurance, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.

House and Senate negotiators have resolved the remaining differences in the benefit-related provisions in mental health care benefits parity legislation, moving the bill closer to final passage, business lobbyists say.

“We have an accord on policy language. We’re now at the 1-yard line,” said Neil Trautwein, vice president and employee benefits counsel with the National Retail Federation in Washington.

The most significant breakthrough came last month when House negotiators agreed to drop a provision in the parity bill passed by the House last year that would have required group health care plans to cover all mental health care conditions included in the most recent edition of a diagnostic treatment manual of the American Psychiatric Association. The parity bill earlier approved by the Senate lacked such a requirement.

Negotiators now have also set the date for plans to comply with the new parity requirements at January 1 of the first calendar year after the date of enactment.

Yet to be resolved is a provision not directly related to mental health care parity. A provision in the House bill that is strongly opposed by the Bush administration would impose new restrictions on physician-owned hospitals, which the administration believes could restrict patient choice of providers.

“We are very hopeful that difference can be worked out,” Trautwein said.

If a final agreement can be reached, it still would have to be approved by the House and Senate.

At the legislation’s core is a requirement that group health care plans provide the same coverage for mental health care disorders as they do for other medical conditions.

That would be a big change from current law, which was enacted in 1996 and bars discriminatory annual and lifetime dollar limits on coverage of mental disorders. Other kinds of discrimination are permitted, though, such as health plans limiting the number of outpatient visits for treatment of mental disorders they will cover while imposing no comparable limit on other medical conditions.

Filed by Jerry Geisel of Business Insurance, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.

Heard in the Halls—Tuesday, June 24

Day 3: No Booth Too Far

Booth in the back: One would think that being the very last booth on the SHRM show floor would be a detriment to business.

Not so, says Dan White, owner of the Immigration Group of Nashville. Traffic was steady throughout the show, he said, despite being booth No. 5446—or, as he described it, “the edge of the world.”

“We were worried we’d be talking to ourselves,” said White, whose three-person firm only deals in immigration law. “I’m pleased with the percentage of people coming by who are interested in what we do.”

It’s White’s first SHRM. And, he’s hoping to move in a little closer.

“Just so long as we’re not next to the booth with a karaoke machine,” he

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Award winner: SHRM on Tuesday presented the $50,000 Michael R. Losey Human Resource Award to Herbert G. Heneman III.

Heneman is a Dickson-Bascom professor emeritus of management and human resources at the University of Wisconsin School of Business. A researcher, Heneman also continues to teach, speak and publish. He is the senior author of four textbooks, the latest being Staffing Organizations, published in 2006.

“There are few more deserving of this award than Dr. Heneman,” said SHRM president and CEO Sue Meisinger. “His dedication and contributions to the profession over the past few decades have helped shape the direction of HR and made it the profession we know today.”

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Ax man: The gentle notes of “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” drifted from the Dice.com booth, courtesy of longtime Chicago musician Rob Curtis.

“I mix it up, see what turns heads,” said Curtis before launching into a couple Beatles tunes.

A full-time musician who occasionally picks away at trade shows, Curtis also has a band that ranges from nine to 24 pieces.

“We’ve really enjoyed having him here, and I think he’s brought a lot of people by,” said a Dice staffer as she listened to Curtis strum away on “Blackbird.”

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Double take: Also at the Dice booth were Cory and Kristin Veselka—sisters, singers, songwriters, dancers, models and, yes, twins.

The 22-year-old Milwaukee residents tour the globe as spokesmodels. And since you need two dice to make a set, well, the twin concept worked quite well.

“We just got back from Mexico and Palm Springs,” said Cory. Or maybe it was Kristin. “We’re going to Vegas next week.”
 

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Fairy good idea: If you grabbed a box lunch on Tuesday—what’s up with no fruit or veggies?—you no doubt noticed the picture of the fat guy in the fairy suit on the outside of it.

And not far away from the tables full of lunches, there he was in person, posing for pictures and yelling, “I’m the guy on your lunch box.”

The Onboarding Fairy—only in HR, folks—was a local actor and was helping Raleigh, North Carolina-based Peopleclick launch its new onboarding program.

The theme is whether companies are sending the right message to new hires, said Ginny Gomez, Peopleclick’s senior VP of product management and marketing. The new ad uses three models—new hires are told the job is like pulling teeth, that they will be treated like royalty (guy dressed as a king) or that they’ll be working from home (guy dressed in pajamas).

So, why the onboarding fairy? “He’s like the tooth fairy,” Gomez said, “for the job that’s like pulling teeth.”
—Rick Bell
 

The percentage of employers offering defined-benefit pension plans and traditional indemnity health benefits is continuing to erode, according to the Society for Human Resource Management’s annual employee benefits survey.

Today, just 33 percent of employers offer defined-benefit retirement plans, down from 40 percent in 2007, the survey found. Indemnity-based health care coverage is offered by just 12 percent of employers, compared with 18 percent in 2007.

Employers are also cutting back on certain specialty health benefits, such as cancer insurance, which was offered by 28 percent of employers in 2008, down from 35 percent in 2007; and wholesale generic drug programs for injectable drugs, which was offered by 24 percent of employers in 2008, compared with 30 percent in 2007.

Meanwhile, an increasing number of employers are instituting spousal surcharges, which are fees charged to employees whose spouses have the opportunity to enroll in their own employers’ health plans, but choose not to. In 2008, 37 percent of employers assessed spousal surcharges, up from 33 percent in 2007.

“Rising health care costs, combined with the state of the economy, are causing more employers to adjust health care and financial benefits,” according to Sue Meisinger, outgoing SHRM president and CEO.

The survey was conducted among 996 randomly selected members of SHRM.

Click here for full coverage of SHRM 2008

Filed by Joanne Wojcik of Business Insurance, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.

SHRM attendees filtering out of the mammoth conference hall in Chicago’s McCormick Place following Sue Meisinger’s farewell speech say they were deeply moved by the retiring president’s address.

   “It was heartfelt, elegant,” said Pam Pekar, the manager of HR for Westfalia Separator in Northvale, New Jersey. “It was short and sweet. She’s provided the profession credibility. She’s left it much stronger, with more recognition.”

   Alison Mitchell, director of HR for Diagnostica Stago in Parsippany, New Jersey, felt inspired by Meisinger’s 15-minute speech.

   “I thought she was extremely sincere,” said Mitchell, who along with Pekar is a SHRM regular. “But that’s the way she is. She tries to inspire you, and she certainly did with this speech.”

   John Cato, senior HR manager of sales and marketing at AutoTrader in Atlanta, said Meisinger’s speech raised the bar for all HR practitioners. He noted that membership has climbed from 180,000 to 250,000 members during her tenure and that she has taken the association beyond the U.S. on a global mission.

   “She told us to be proud of what we do,” said Cato, who was attending his fourth conference. “She told all of us not to wait, to be bold. She put it so eloquently when she said to stop asking for a seat at the table. She left a legacy for all of us to carry on.”

Heard in the Halls—Sunday, June 22

Busy, busy: The last-minute preparations were in full swing just before the masses of HR professionals at this year’s SHRM conference descended on the show floor in search of all manner of swag … er, information for improving their companies. It was so busy, in fact, that the teams staffing many booths were huddled up like they were planning a deep-pass route to nearby Soldier Field.

But members of family-owned corporate recognition firm Michael C. Fina managed a few seconds to talk. “We’re introducing a new product,” said George Fina. “We’ve been to a lot of SHRM conferences, but this one’s going to be good. I think it’s going to be a really good conference.”

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Continuing education: Karen Thaxton was sitting on the floor outside the SHRM bookstore with her daughter, Kiersten. Karen was busy plotting her SHRM conferences. For Kiersten, it was her tourist activities.

“This is also an opportunity to find vendors,” said Karen, human resources director for Townsend Corporate in Parker City, Indiana, which is now venturing into wind power. “We’re going through a lot of changes—acquisitions and consolidations. We’re looking for help with recruiting, benefit management and employee recognition.”

Her focus for sessions? “Strategic management.”

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One big booth: Phoenix-based Jobing.com has a big presence at this year’s SHRM. A big, big presence.

After making its SHRM debut last year in Las Vegas, Jobing.com has the conference’s biggest booth in Chicago—8,800 square feet. The mammoth booth is being staffed by about 120 people.

“It’s quite an undertaking for us,” said Jobing.com PR director Joe Cockrell. “But this conference is very important to us.”
 

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Incentive plan: Lourdes Cooke of Vista Staffing Solutions knows how to stretch a budget. The HR manager of the Salt Lake City company carried an armful of books through the SHRM store Sunday afternoon.

“We try to go out of our way to give something meaningful to our employees when they join our company,” Cooke said. “It’s just a little way to say, ‘Welcome, we appreciate you. Here’s a gift; you mean a lot to us.’ “

The books Cooke will be distributing to future Vista Staffing Solutions employees include Colin Powell’s Powell Principles; Dogs Don’t Bite When a Growl Will Do, by Matt Weinstein and Luke Barber; and Ken Blanchard’s Simple Truths of Service.

“They’re all pretty fast reads,” she said. “We don’t want to be giving them a homework assignment.”

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Sad note: Janet Parker, the current chair of SHRM’s board of directors, was absent from Sunday’s opening general session.

A death in her family prevented her from attending, said SHRM president and CEO Sue Meisinger. Chair-designate Robb Van Cleave filled in for Parker during the speech.
—Rick Bell

Employers do not have the right to read the contents of employees’ text messages that are obtained from a third-party provider, says a federal appellate court decision.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco also held in its decision June 18 in Quon v. Arch Wireless Operating Co. Inc. that the city of Ontario, California, had violated the constitutional privacy rights of a police officer and the recipients of his text messages when it obtained copies of the messages from Arch Wireless Operating, a unit of Westborough, Massachusetts-based Arch Wireless Inc. Arch provided two-way alphanumeric pages under contract with the city.

According to the decision, Jeff Quon exceeded his monthly allotted characters in his text messages several times. He was told the Ontario Police Department would audit his messages unless he paid an overage fee, which he did. But the city still asked Arch Wireless to send it transcripts of his messages to ascertain whether they were work-related.

Quon and the recipients of his messages subsequently sued, claiming violations of the Stored Communications Act and the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unlawful seizure.

In a ruling that partially overturned a lower court’s decision, the appellate court said Arch is an “electronic communications service,” which, according to the 1986 Stored Communications Act, is prohibited from “knowingly [divulging] to any person or entity the contents of a communication while in electronic storage by that service” except to the intended recipient.

The appellate court also held that the plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment rights were violated.

“Do users of text messaging services such as those provided by Arch Wireless have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their text messages stored on the service provider’s network? We hold that they do,” says the decision, which returned the case to the lower court.

Attorneys in the case could not be reached for comment.

Filed by Judy Greenwald of Business Insurance, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.