Author: Todd Raphael

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Bush:

Now that you’ve had time to unpack yourbags, toss your Stetsons on the rack, and trash all the leftover Filet-o-Fishwrappers from the Oval Office, I want to make some suggestions to you and LaborSecretary Elaine Chao:

For the first time ever in history, youshould support and sign a federal law making it illegal to fire someone forbeing gay or to reject a candidate because of his or her sexual orientation.

What quicker way to show you’re seriousabout uniting and not dividing America? A similar bill was introduced during thelast Congress – by one of your fellow Republicans, as a matter of fact. I don’tbuy the nonsense that such a law would cause quotas, cripple religiousinstitutions, and require employers to pay domestic-partner benefits. In fact,this Republican bill was carefully written to prevent all three things fromhappening.

Once you’re done with that, take a hardlook at the Family and Medical Leave Act. Now I’m aware of that sugar-n-spicysurvey the Labor Department in the previous administration came out with. Youknow, the one that claimed, “The FMLA is working without the burden tobusiness many have feared. More than 8 out of 10 employers report eitherpositive or no noticeable impact on company productivity, profits, orgrowth.”

Come on now. I’ve been checking out theWorkforce Legal Forum, this online message board we have, every day for threeyears now, and the FMLA generates more confusion than most of the other laborlaws on the books combined. Readers of Workforce magazine spend hours at thatforum, and have learned that if you stick the FMLA, vacation time, sick time,and workers’ comp in a big blender, you get nothing but confusion stew, with anoccasional lawsuit sprinkled on top.

Spending all that time just figuringout the FMLA can’t have a “positive impact on company productivity,profits, or growth.” Simplify and clarify the law, or throw it out.

Next, use the tax code to encourageemployers to hire employees with disabilities.

An expanded tax credit will do a muchbetter job than the ADA has. The ADA is another mandate, and that means thatemployers are getting scared off from hiring disabled employees in the firstplace, fearing – rightly or wrongly – that accommodations will be expensive. Carrots(money) are usually better than sticks (rules).

One more thing. Take a day and spend itwith a human resources professional. You’ll see that she wants to help thecompany recruit top employees and create a culture that fosters innovation andcreativity. Instead, she’s having to comply with a numbing array of state andfederal laws, many of which are duplicative and contradictory.

It’s hard to be in the boardroomtalking with the CEO about how to become an “employer of choice” whenyou’re spending your time figuring out whether the dishwasher detergent in thebreak room is grounds for a government fine.

These HR people wear a lot of differentStetsons, Mr. President, and it would help to walk a mile in their boots.

Other columns by Todd Raphael:

A 25-year-old has just agreed to aquarter-billion-dollar contract (yep, that’s a “B”), but it’s really ahome run for human resources. As we speak, Alex Rodriguez, a shortstop who nowworks for the Texas Rangers baseball franchise, is entering spring training withone of the largest jackpots ever in the hands of a nonexecutive employee.

    Terry Turner,assistant vice president for human resources for the corporation that owns theRangers, told Workforce late last year that the contract was “like buying acompany … or a country.” Turner says the HR department had to buy insurancein case something happened to Rodriguez.

    All these zeroes area good thing for everyone who reads this magazine. They’re a good thingbecause it’s a sign that people are adding up the contribution that employeesmake to the bottom lines of their employers. I mean, if we really believe that(cliché coming) employees are our most valuable asset, then certainly Rodriguezis worth every penny. In his profession, in his position, he’s the bestemployee in the world, and arguably the best ever. If we look at the company’sbusiness results, and put the money where our mouths are, this kind of doughstarts making sense.

    Why should we care?Well, if employees are getting paid solely for their worth to the business’sbottom line – not their experience, not their age, not anything else – itfollows that those who must evaluate these employees (HR) suddenly become very,very important.

    That same importancemust hold for those who:

• Train that talent
• Help that talent get along withother talent
• Try their darnedest to hold on tothat talent
• Design benefits, salary structures,and relocation incentives
• Hire and supervise the people whomanage that talent

    Whew.

    The Rodriguezsigning is a signal that when all’s said and done, what really matters to thesuccess of your company are the people on the payroll. It’s a signal that nomatter how nice a stadium you build, no matter how big a computer chip plant orhow great a business plan that promises to sell 5 million widgets by 2020, inthe final analysis it’s your employees that make a difference to the bottomline.

    One might argue thatwe shouldn’t draw too many conclusions here, that since baseball is merely agame played with a stick, it falls in an industry that is somehow unlike therest of American commerce. This sounds like it makes sense, and believing it isa nifty way out of the huge responsibility and opportunity that greaterattention to employee worth could mean for HR. But the radical opposite is true.

    Baseball has been abreeding ground for one workforce trend after another. The concept of “freeagency” started taking root in baseball in 1969, and spread to the rest ofwhat became a job-hopping workforce. Baseball became more diverse more quicklythan many other workplaces, with Hispanics (like Rodriguez) and other minoritiesfrom every walk of life working side-by-side in relative harmony. Long-rangeworkforce planning and succession planning were a way of life in baseball beforethey were in many other industries. Arbitration gained prominence in 1974 as ananswer to baseball’s salary disputes and has spread into other industries andinto other areas of contention. Pay-for-performance was alive and well inbaseball before it was trendy in many corporations.

    The signing of AlexRodriguez may be an indication of yet another trend, one that will place HRprofessionals in an even brighter spotlight.

Workforce, February 2001, Vol80, No 2, p. 112  Subscribe Now!

Other columns by Todd Raphael:

Here are some questions you’ll want to consider asking vendors ofapplicant-tracking products before you sign on any dotted line:

Functionality
Installation and training
Customer service
Pricing
Security and stability
Flexibility
Scability
Other

• What is the maximum number of users who can use this? Can they use itsimultaneously?

• Can a hiring manager use the technology in such a way that prevents him orher from seeing other hiring managers’ candidates?

• Tell me about how the system finds jobs from job boards. Where else can itfind resumes?

• Does the system work with my existing company Web site with job listings?How?

• Does the system work with my e-mail program (e.g. Microsoft Outlook)?

• Does HR have the option of having as much or as little control as itwants?

• How does your system interface with services such as background checks, relocation vendors, or drug testing companies? Do you have “preferred partners” I have to use?

• Is your system compliant with the various international laws regarding data importation? For example, moving data from Germany to the United States?

• Does the system work “wireless”?

• What are the installation fees? How long does it take? Who on my end wouldbe involved? Tell me about the process.

• What are the training fees? How long does it take? Who on my end would beinvolved? Tell me about the process.

• Will the system interface with my HRMS? Are there any difficulties indoing so, or things to watch for?

• How many people will handle customer service for my account? When are theyavailable (what hours)? Tell me about the estimated response time. Any feesinvolved?

• Does scanning resumes cost extra?

• Are there any other added fees? Tell me about them. Are there anydiscounts?

• What are the costs per additional user? As my company grows, how willcosts be affected?

• Do I have to pay extra for the test environment?

Security and stability

• How often do you back the system up? What happens if you’re down—whatsafety-net plans are there? How are fees discounted?

• How customizable is the system for me? Can it be used with a specificlanguage I need (Italian, Spanish, etc.)?

• Can I change the layout or the navigation?

• How can the system adapt to the unique aspects of my industry?

• What are the prices on this customization? How long would it take to do?

• How often is the system upgraded? Does this cost more? How much more?

• What upgrades do you have planned? Can our version be meshed into theupgrade?

• How long have you been in business? How many clients do you have when itcomes to applicant management?

• What is the normal/ideal company size of a customer of yours?

• Tell me a little bit about data recovery (what happens to my data if you go out of business).

• Can I have names and contact information of your references?

What we’re thankful for this November:

• The vision of our Gen-X employees may be bad from growing up in front ofcomputer screens, but laser eye surgery is getting cheaper.

• Our stock in Amazon, Ask Jeeves and Buy.com (and all the rest) can’t getmuch lower.

• Goodyear.

• A member of the HR profession, Richard Hatch, was the sole”Survivor.”

• The Olympics have gotten so good at drug testing, they’re taking goldmedals from people who’ve taken cold medicine.

• Toll-free help lines to HRMS providers.

• The United Nations has realized that helping cure world poverty will helpachieve world peace.

• Telephones — still much better for talking than e-mail.

• eBay.

• We never hear the phrase “Total Quality Management” anymore.

• We don’t always get a busy signal anymore when we dial into AOL.

• At last, an answer to the labor shortage – cloning.

• You all like our e-mail newsletter so much, you e-mail to tell us when it’s late.

• United Airlines’ labor problems may be ending.

• The 2004 presidential election is just beginning.

One company that has used its employees in its ads is tech giant IBM. Thecompany is refashioning itself from an “old economy” hardware companyinto a “new economy” services company.

At the beginning of 1997, IBM began a campaign that featured employees innewspaper and magazine advertisements.

The company figured that by showing the world the variety of tasks itsemployees undertook on a daily basis, people would understand the far-reachingrange of services the company had to offer.

“We wanted for people to see who’s actually going to do thework,” says spokesman John Bukovinsky. “We have services people handlevery specialized tasks. Some of them are involved in Web security, some are inconsultative roles, some are system integration specialists…”

In putting the campaign together for its Global Services division, IBM firstcontacted managers and had them detail the types of jobs and descriptions ofindividual employees. Managers also described their best performers, and thebest employees at customer services.

The company also put out word of the campaign to employees. In all, a groupof about interested 150 employees were whittled down to about 50 to be featured.

The advertisements featured employees and their “resumes” — whatthey do, the customers they work with, and actual contact information for thoseindividuals.

The series of ads ran from early 1999 through the end of the year, and laterin some countries.

Says Bukovinsky, “One of the great things is that it was a tremendousrecruiting tool, which it was not designed to be. Prospective employees likedthe fact that employees got some high visibility. They also became aware of therange of jobs we had. It’s an expensive want ad but it was an addedbenefit.”

“If you looked at the ads,” Bukovinsky says, “these are peoplefrom an extremely diverse workforce. Both based on their physical appearance(and their job duties). We wanted to show a wide range of skills. It did notappear as a homogenous people … which surely helps in recruiting. That has tobe an advantage.”

Assuming we are voting solely on workforce management — which for thesepurposes is all we’ll address — for whom should we vote?

Philosophically speaking, Gore is far less friendly to employers. He believesin a more expansive role of government than does Bush, who believes more in theprivate sector. If you want to vote for the president who in his heart probablyunderstands you better, Double Ya may be for you. This is a guy who has been thehead of a Texas oil company, a demographic group that generally doesn’t supplya lot of liberal Democrats.

Now that we’ve taken care of philosophy, what would they really do? Wecould spend hours dissecting everything each candidate has said and done duringthe campaign, with hopes of understanding how they’ll govern. The fact is,history indicates that the party in office may not do what we’ll think they’lldo.

Historically, under Democratic presidents, the stock market has faredslightly better. Certainly the last eight years have been a stellar period underDemocratic rule.

Clinton and Gore got the Family and Medical Leave Act passed practicallybefore they unpacked their bags in 1993. This is a well-intentioned, some saysuccessful law that is also very complicated and burdensome on employers.President Bush signed the Americans With Disabilities Act a decade ago. This isa well-intentioned, some say successful law that is also very complicated andburdensome on employers.

Clinton and Gore have increased the minimum wage, a mandate whose veryexistence is oxymoronic in a capitalistic society in the first place. But Reaganand Bush did the same thing.

Clinton and Gore have supported expansive roles for the National LaborRelations Board and the Department of Labor. George W.’s father signed strictenvironmental regulations — the Clean Air Act — which provided for strict mandateson businesses.

Bush is feeding off the wallets of the gun lobby and the oil industry, twoconstituencies to which some of you belong, and which have a perfectlylegitimate right to get their messages out. Gore is in the pocket of the triallawyers and teachers unions, two professions to which some of you also belong,and which also have a perfectly legitimate right to get their messages out.

Gore has promised to push for campaign finance reform that would slightlyreduce the power of special interests. I believe he’ll do it. The problem is,you’re special, and you’re interested, and your business may not benefitfrom campaign-finance reform.

Bush and Gore are both free traders. This is good news to those of us in theUnited States, and also to those of you reading this in Malaysia, Argentina,India, Iceland, and other countries in which Workforce members work.

In the health care arena, Gore believes in a strong “Patient’s Bill ofRights,” which would place some limits on the power of HMOs. But thosethree-letter words are so disliked in this country that limits on their power, whether state or federal, may be inevitable regardless of who’s Commander-in-Chief.

Early in his presidency, Clinton spearheaded a massive deficit-reducing package, one that passed by one vote–that of Vice President Al Gore, who under the Constitution decides Senate tiebreakers. This $500-billion deficit-reduction bill (about half of the deficit reduction came from spending cuts, about half from tax increases) may have helped put the country on road to economic recovery. Then again, many economists believe that tax increases are almost never good for the economy, and that the recovery happened in spite of — not because of — Clintonomics.

Clinton and Gore got a sweeping pro-business welfare reform measure passedduring their term. On the other hand, this may not have happened but forRepublican control of Congress.

Speaking of Congress: the fate of pending ergonomics regulations — and everyother bill for that matter — may rest not in the hands of the next presidentbut in the hands of the United States House of Representatives.

Partisan control of that 435-member body looks like it will come down to ahandful of votes in a handful of races. Examine your local candidates carefully,for they, more than anyone, may decide the near future of workforce managementlegislation and regulation.

Other columns by Todd Raphael:

• We Wish You a Merry Winter
• Thoughts for the New Leaders of the New Dot-coms
• Let Rocker Talk
• To: All E-mailers From: Todd
• Holidays: Some Minor Revisions
• The Year HR Became Cool

Q

Dear Workforce:

I have been asked to develop an incentive pay plan for our employment recruiters…any advice as to how I begin?

— Patricia, director employment/temporary service, Birmingham, Alabama

The process of developing an incentive plan of virtually any type essentially involves several key sequential steps. These include:

• Determining the purpose or objective of the plan (e.g. retention, motivation, etc.)

• Determining what you want to use and can use as performance measures

• Designing the plan’s key elements

• Developing formal plan documents

• Communicating and implementing the plan.

Incentive plans for recruiters are often individual plans, meaning that each recruiter is rewarded for his or her individual performance. However, they can be also be ‘group’ plans or a hybrid involving both individual and recruiter ‘group’ performance measures.

Key ‘end result’ or ‘output’ performance measures often associated with recruiters include the number of actual successful placements who stay with the company for a minimum defined period of time, the number of successful offers made, adherence to recruitment budget for new hire compensation, and how satisfied new employees were with the process by which they were recruited.

Generally, behavioral or ‘input’ measures such as the effort expended, number of calls made, and number of interviews conducted can and often should drive base pay, while the output factors in the prior paragraph should drive the incentive portion of a recruiter’s direct cash compensation.

Other suggestions include involving the recruiters themselves in the actual plan design, financially modeling the impact of proposed incentive approaches, and taking time in the plan design stage to cover key considerations such as vesting, deferral, termination impact and plan administration.

SOURCE: Brian Walby, director, in PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Unifi Network compensation practice. Walby is based in Detroit.

E-mail your Dear Workforce questions to Online Editor Todd Raphael at raphaelt@workforceonline.com, along with your name, title, organization and location. Unless you state otherwise, your identifying info may be used on Workforce.com and in Workforce magazine. We can’t guarantee we’ll be able to answer every question.

Q

Dear Workforce:

–Janette, regional HR manager in New Zealand

I’m not so sure you can always rely on the informal grapevine.

First, there might be a natural human tendency to only listen to one vine. You’re going to go to the same people for advice time and time again. You feel comfortable with them, and they feel comfortable with you.

Second, people may be less forthright when they feel like their jobs and their livelihoods may be on the line. They may be less critical, for example. You may want to consider administering a confidential survey to illicit responses that you may not get “live.”

SOURCE: Online Editor Todd Raphael.

E-mail your Dear Workforce questions to Online Editor Todd Raphael at raphaelt@workforceonline.com, along with your name, title, organization and location. Unless you state otherwise, your identifying info may be used on Workforce.com and in Workforce magazine. We can’t guarantee we’ll be able to answer every question.

Workforce members have asked if we have any examples of companies that have moved parts of their orientation programs to the Internet. One example to take a look at is Duke University. Here’s a quick look at what they’ve done:

Duke’s orientation site is just one component of its HR Web site, which includes policies, benefits information, job listings, a resume builder, and more.

The orientation section took about four months, and was completed this spring.

“Our goal is to offer an orientation tool to new staff coming to Duke University, as well as to help managers orient their new staff to Duke,” says Nancy Denenberg, special projects manager, Duke Learning & Organization Development. “We want to highlight the tangible and intangible benefits for working at Duke, as well as introduce them to the Duke culture.

“This is just one tool in the entire Duke Orientation process. All new campus employees hired by Duke (and their managers) are encouraged to use this Web site” says Denenberg.

Some of what new employees find on the Duke site:

• Benefits info. Duke offers a wide variety of downloadable documents for employees to make plan decisions, and see how life events will effect their coverage. There are additional links to forms, calculators and other information.
  
  
• An employee orientation checklist. This lists everything employees will learn during their orientation, and includes a space for them to mark “completed.”
  
  
• Safety policies and procedures. Includes a training checklist, as well as additional links to injury-reporting information and more.

Some of what managers find on the Duke site:

• Sample letters and checklists. These letters include sample templates for supervisors to write to their employees, for ‘buddies’ to write to their employees, manager’s checklists and more. “Most of our templates and letters originated from various operational manager’s practical experience in orienting new employees,” says Denenberg.

http://www.hr.duke.edu/orientation

It’s a bit early to tell how many people are using the site, but the anecdotal evidence is positive.

“We have received positive feedback on the Web site so far from new hires, managers, and senior leaders at Duke,” says Denenberg.

Denenberg says they’re in the process of revamping their orientation process for managers, and the Web site will be a key component.

“We are constantly updating and improving the information within the site to fit the changing needs of this organization.”

Denenberg says, “We are still in the process of working out the kinks. Again, as Duke changes we are continuously trying to adapt the site. Short term we need to make the site searchable. Another of our goals is to launch a similar site for Duke Health System.

“Long term, we would love to make it more interactive with quizzes, etc. Make it more fun. Multimedia such as video, and employee interviews, etc, can be incorporated as we progress.”

The Duke team has high hopes for the rest of their HR site, too. “We’d eventually like to put everything online,” says Nancy Sutter, Duke’s director of HRIS. “You’ll be able to apply for jobs, do career development, training, manager’s toolkits…It will all be linked together on one site.”

 
Duke’s department letter, new-employee announcement, as well as the buddy letter, “buddy requirements” and “buddy selection criteria” that are in the buddy program suggestions and manager/supervisor checklist are all adapted from and used with permission from Jean Barbazette, Successful New Employee Orientation published by Pfeiffer & Associates, Copyright Jean Barbazette, 1994, thetrainingclinic.com