Training – Page 13

November 24, 2009August 31, 2018

Dear Workforce How Do We Get Our Employees to Embrace Cross-Training

Dear Handcuffed:

Often the best way to sell any new idea is to focus on the benefits to the person being asked to accept it. When it comes to cross-training, there are many such benefits:

• First and foremost, being trained in a variety of tasks/skills/functions enhances job security. Staff cutbacks are more likely to spare those who can fill multiple slots than those with a more limited menu of offerings.

• Aside from job security in one’s current organization, being cross-trained affords greater career security in the workforce as a whole. Don’t be afraid to use this as a selling point. The employer-for-life model is long gone, and there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that your organization may be but one port of call on the employee’s career itinerary. It serves the employee well to have as many arrows in his or her quiver as possible.

• Cross-training equips employees to provide better customer service, and people who have more successes each day typically are happier in their jobs. Customers view such employees as going “above and beyond,” and are more likely to provide positive feedback. If you have good reward systems in place, the likelihood of being recognized and rewarded for outstanding performance goes up. (Whether or not your organization is a for-profit enterprise, make sure your customer concept is operative—whether those “customers” are patients, parishioners or citizens.)

• In today’s world of leaner, flatter organizations, with a premium on speed and innovation, many jobs have far less definition than they formerly did. To the degree that they are defined, that definition tends to be more in terms of outcomes rather than tasks. By and large, customers don’t care what tasks get done or by whom. Their primary interest is a particular outcome. Cross-training allows people to weave numerous tasks into a single customer-focused outcome.

• It also gives people a window into the rest of the organization and helps them see how their core job fits in with the rest of the operation. It also gives people a better sense of how their work affects customers. This, in turn, puts people in closer contact with the meaning of their work—and the source of their paycheck.

• Having a widely cross-trained workforce makes it easier for managers to approve requests for vacation and other time off.

However, avoid limiting the application of cross-training to coverage of sick leave and vacation. It allows employers to be more nimble, flexing with customer demand, seasonal trends and economic cycles. It makes it easier to send people to training, and to allow healthy employees to care for children or elders. It helps organizations survive natural disasters, temporary bad weather and flu outbreaks.

Don’t overanalyze it, but in setting up cross-training systems, consider the needs of the organization, your customers and the employee. Consider the needs and capabilities of both the functions giving and receiving the training. Ask where the need is most acute and start there. It’s also smart to start with willing participants, leaving the “prisoners” for last.

Finally, remember that a person’s natural talent in one area doesn’t guarantee a similar knack for everything else. Just as you hire for job fit, cross-train with an eye to that as well. Don’t force it.

SOURCE: Richard Hadden and Bill Catlette, co-authors, Contented Cows MOOve Faster, August 13, 2009

LEARN MORE: Make initial cross-training or job-rotation efforts a selective process and clearly recognize both the subject-matter experts and those chosen to be trained.

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.

Ask a Question

Dear Workforce Newsletter

October 27, 2009August 31, 2018

Workforce Development 2010 Webcast Spending and Staffing Trends for U.S. Training

In the webcast, attendees will learn:

How learning and development spending and staffing have been affected by the economic downturn

Which segments of learning and development have been most affected

Where organizations are allocating learning and development resources and where they’re cutting back

How organizations’ learning and development functions are changing their delivery methods for greater efficiency and effectiveness

This webcast will be presented by Karen O’Leonard, principal analyst at Bersin & Associates and author of Bersin & Associates’ annual Corporate Learning Factbook. O’Leonard’s presentation will be filled with statistics on spending, staffing and programs that can be used for benchmarking your organization against its peers. All attendees will receive complimentary webcast presentation materials and an executive summary of Bersin & Associates’ 2010 Corporate Learning Factbook.

The program has been approved for one hour of recertification credit through the HR Certification Institute.

July 20, 2009August 31, 2018

Training That Starts Before the Job Begins

While some organizations struggle with layoffs, or at best freeze their hiring plans, others are hiring in considerable numbers, and want their new workers to be steeped in company culture, processes and community from day one—maybe even sooner.

One such organization is consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, which is set to add 5,000 jobs by the close of 2009. That’s in addition to a similar number of new workers brought on board last year. All told, Booz Allen’s workforce should top 20,000 people this year, with most of them based in the U.S.

That rapid hiring pace necessitates a new approach to training. Eighteen months ago, Booz Allen began an overhaul of its onboarding processes. It begins delivering training and developmental tools to new employees the moment they accept a job offer, rather than waiting for their first official day at work. It is a process Booz Allen executives refer to as “preboarding.”

During preboarding, new recruits are directed to an internal Web portal to access job information, “early learning” activities and company information, including the company’s 15 business lines and messages from senior executives. It’s also an opportunity for newcomers to begin making professional connections with their Booz Allen colleagues.

The prehire learning exercises set the stage for a first year of filled with mentoring, coaching and peer support. The purpose is straightforward: By the time new employees sit through a required weeklong orientation session, they typically are familiar enough with their new roles to make meaningful contributions immediately.

“Preboarding is all about getting someone engaged and excited about being here, prior to their actually showing up for their first day,” says Aimee George Leary, who is the McLean, Virginia-based consulting company’s director of learning and development.

Vestas Wind Systems is experiencing similarly stunning employment growth. The company, which is based in Randers, Denmark, hired more than 5,000 people in 2008 to meet anticipated demand for its turbines and integrated wind technology systems, swelling its total employment to nearly 23,000 worldwide.

Although most of its employees are in Europe, Vestas is also in the midst of a recruiting binge in the United States. Vestas, which has its U.S. headquarters in Portland, Oregon, had a U.S. workforce of nearly 1,900 people in 2008. Nearly three times as many employees could be on board in 2010, including a horde of technical professionals to support a growing U.S. presence that includes a new factory near Denver and research centers in Boston and Houston.

The resulting “people and culture tsunami” is prompting Vestas to take a more comprehensive approach to training and development, says Helle Bay, the company’s senior vice president of business performance and operations.

Simply hiring people and training them as they came on board—an approach that worked fine when Vestas was a firm of a few hundred people—is proving to be unsustainable.

“We had to focus on our people and our culture: finding out what’s good for them and walking the walk” to help them grow professionally, Bay says.

Booz Allen and Vestas are anomalies against a backdrop of seemingly endless layoffs and shrinking training budgets. Both companies’ surging employment is traced, at least in part, to unprecedented levels of anticipated federal spending.

Steady growth in tough times
With $4 billion in annual revenue, Booz Allen’s growth isn’t really a surprise. Its consultants provide technical expertise in areas ranging from systems integration and intelligence gathering to leadership development and change management. Many employees have backgrounds in the military or defense and national security and were recruited to consult on information assurance, cyber-security and other sophisticated challenges.

Fueled by the U.S. government’s war on terror, the company has been expanding nearly the entire decade. New business seems all but assured. Private contractors, many of them small businesses with limited staff, are seeking advice on how they could snag a chunk of federal stimulus money, underscoring Booz Allen’s need for people with high-level skills.

The company hires analysts to provide advice and technical and professional services to numerous federal agencies. “And what else is the government doing now but trying to solve tons of problems?” says Lee Ann Timreck, a Booz Allen principal who is helping to redesign new-employee training.

Booz Allen chose the preboarding approach to help new employees ease into their work environment. Introductory videos include greetings from senior leaders and a broad overview of Booz Allen’s customers, service lines and corporate philosophies. The breadth of the material couldn’t effectively be delivered in just a weeklong orientation session.

“Previously we just had a one-week training program and that was it. We just trained people on the [functional] skills they needed to be successful, which meant they would go to a client site and maybe not have all the information they need,” George Leary says.

Another new learning tool for new employees is Hello.bah.com, Booz Allen’s internal social network. Embedded within it are user-created wikis, blogs and community forums that enable employees to exchange information about customer projects more immediately. The site serves two main functions: to foster collaboration among Booz Allen’s widely dispersed workforce, and to help new employees build their own personal networks with other employees in the company.

“There’s no value to us in hiring a bunch of people and having them leave in a year” because they aren’t satisfied with the company, Timreck says. “Also, as we get more widely dispersed, it’s really critical to have these social tools.”

There’s more to the strategy than technology, however. The personal aspect is equally important, with new employees paired almost immediately with a “peer sponsor,” typically a Booz Allen veteran who helps them learn the ropes. Within their first six months, employees also are matched with a mentor, while managers face stricter accountability for helping their employees grow professionally. Personal development plans are a standard item for new employees, and are usually in place within six months. The process is being accelerated with the rollout of preboarding. Upon completion of a week of orientation, new employees are encouraged to begin drafting a career plan.

As part of a leadership development campaign launched last year, Booz Allen introduced a series of information and development tools for its 2,500 frontline managers, the people who play a more formal role than in employees’ professional development.

In turn, a new tool called the Leadership Quality Index enables employees to provide anonymous 360-degree feedback on their managers’ performance. The input is being gathered and evaluated as part of each manager’s annual performance review.

Managers at first resisted the new program, thinking it would prove to be just another item on their to-do list. In time, however, they have come to embrace it as a tool to help them accomplish objectives they already have to meet, Timreck says.

Now, feedback from frontline managers “is helping to ensure the process of coaching and developing employees runs smoothly,” Timreck says.

Booz Allen also sought to reduce “classroom size,” winnowing the number of employees under each manager’s supervision. The ideal number of employees is now between 15 and 25, rather than dozens, as was previously the case.

Finally, Booz Allen provides intensive interactive training when employees move into new and very different organizational roles.

Kristine Rohls, a seven-year veteran at Booz Allen, advanced in February to the position of principal in the company’s strategy and organization division. That’s a step up from her previous position as senior associate. She acknowledges being apprehensive about a “principal immersion” workshop that all new senior leaders are required to take within six months of their promotion.

“I thought, ‘Gosh, I don’t have a week to sit and listen to lectures,’ but it wasn’t like that at all,” Rohls says.

The session forces people to work collaboratively and learn the art of persuasion. Actors are hired to simulate the role of clients. Principals have to overcome objections and sell Booz Allen to the would-be “customer.” That includes being able to respond to unexpected comments such as “I heard Booz Allen is nothing but a bunch of old, rich white guys.”

The immersion course also teaches collaboration. Co-workers are given the task of assembling proposal requests for new businesses and persuading a panel of actual Booz Allen partners to pursue the approach they are presenting.

“As a new principal, it’s designed to get me thinking as a business owner. I’m no longer responsible just for my capability area—now I represent the firm,” Rohls says.

Wind-blown training
Like Booz Allen Hamilton, Vestas’ business is booming. The company says it has installed nearly 40,000 wind turbines worldwide, including 10,000 in the United States. In a recent financial statement, Vestas’ executives predicted that 2009 sales will jump at least 20 percent, topping $10 billion. Revenue is expected from several long-term contracts that Vestas signed last year with electricity utilities in Europe, Asia and the Americas.

That rosy revenue projection also is fueled by unprecedented federal spending in the United States. The U.S. stimulus package includes plans to make money available for developing renewable energy sources. In addition, a proposed new federal energy plan seeks to curb toxic emissions, creating more opportunities for alternative energy sources such as wind.

Adding huge numbers of employees poses a number of challenges, says Peter Christiansen, who joined Vestas in 2007 as manager of learning design and implementation. While hiring the right people is crucial, it is equally important to make sure they get up to speed quickly.

Christiansen last year instituted an “induction program” that tests the mettle of employees, whose average tenure is about two years. The star of these animated sessions is “Mr. Butler,” a highly demanding customer with a stream of questions about how and why Vestas is different from its competitors. Employees are thrust into the role of explaining products and services to Mr. Butler, whose facial expressions are enough to let them know if the answer is satisfactory or not.

Known as “One Vestas,” the induction training is mandatory for all employees. It consists of five hours of total training, which employees can do all at once or in smaller chunks. It serves two functions: to develop a culture in which employees make learning a priority, and to help Vestas document the strategic value of learning, Christiansen says.

“Failure is not an option,” Christiansen says, quoting Vestas’ mission statement.

The induction program is part of a broader attempt within Vestas to capture and analyze various employee data. Chief among them is data that shows a correlation between an employee’s job satisfaction, customer loyalty and financial results. The fact-based approach gives top leaders at Vestas a glimpse into strengths and weakness within the workforce, thus providing a rationale for continued training investments, Bay says.

In addition, Vestas is consolidating to one learning management platform that is used to develop job competencies, streamline performance reviews and create a “people development dialogue” with employees. Managers are expected to initiate performance discussions on goals and achievements with their employees two times a year.

The endgame of training is to zero in on highly technical employees who are good candidates for leadership at Vestas, Bay says.

June 12, 2008June 29, 2023

Special Report Training and Development—Building Better Leaders…Faster

General Electric remains the world’s standard-bearer for leadership development. It ranks first in Fortune’s “Top 20 Global Companies for Leaders” and draws universal admiration for its $1 billion training and development budget, its legendary 53-acre Crotonville campus in New York and a long list of alumni who now lead major companies.

GE’s massive leadership development programs range from entry-level training to ongoing classes for the 197 officers who run the 300,000-employee company. “Leadership development is embedded in GE’s philosophy and operating system, and is a core competency of the HR function at GE,” says John Lynch, senior vice president for human resources. “It’s also where I, and all our senior human resource managers, spend the majority of our time.”

But Fortune’s Top 20 list also includes companies that are less well known for leadership development, including four companies from India, led by Hindustan Unilever, which ranks just three notches below GE on the list. The company’s 37-year-old executive director for human resources, Leena Nair, is both the powerhouse behind a new model for accelerated leadership development and one of its early products. The model springs from India’s leadership shortage, but offers universal best practices for training and retaining the next generation of executive talent.

Also on the Fortune list is Whirlpool, which has finally pulled the wraps off its leadership development program after years of quietly producing top executives. Senior vice president for global human resources David Binkley runs a tiered series of leadership development programs based on a proven set of leadership attributes defined by the CEO and the executive committee.

The common ground for all these companies is that human resources owns the leadership development process but receives enormous support from the full executive committee and from a system that holds business leaders and line managers accountable for identifying and training executives. At the top companies, leadership development dominates the HR agenda and the C-suite agenda as well. Fortune’s list was developed by Hewitt Associates in partnership with Fortune and the RBL Group.

Feedback and accountability
Whirlpool has been pouring its corporate heart and soul into leadership development for decades, but shunned publicity about its programs to avoid attracting poachers. The company is determined to keep its leaders for itself, unlike GE and other “academy” companies that are famous for their leadership programs and expect to see some of their executives picked off.

“We don’t want to be an academy company, and unlike some of my colleagues, I find no flattery in the title,” Binkley says. “We do everything we can to keep our exceptional people from leaving. We used to keep our leadership development programs below the radar for precisely that reason, but we now recognize that our work has value to shareholders, and we communicate more about it.”

Whirlpool is the largest manufacturer of major home appliances in the world, with 2007 sales of $19.4 billion. Binkley, who manages 73,682 Whirlpool employees in 32 countries, has moved up though the company’s leadership channels for 20 years, including a couple two-year stints as director of HR for Europe and for Asia.

He is also a member of the executive committee and a teacher in Whirlpool’s high-level leadership training courses. “Compelling leadership is necessary for success here,” he says. “Leaders are accountable for developing leaders. This is our explicit stated philosophy.” Binkley devotes 75 percent of his time to leadership development.

Whirlpool’s leadership development programs now center on a model of 12 attributes developed by the CEO and the executive committee in 2002. “We were locked in together in a hotel room on a Sunday afternoon to develop the model,” Binkley recalls. “To put science behind it, we worked with the HR group and pulled in a number of experts from a wide range of fields. Before, we used a model that HR developed, but it never had the traction of the model developed by the executive committee.”

The 12 critical attributes and practices are character and enduring values, communication, confidence, customer champion, developing talent, diversity with inclusion, driver of change/transformation, extraordinary results, management skills, strategy, thought leadership and vision.

Whirlpool’s leadership development programs and its worldwide policies and practices for selection, onboarding, performance systems, rewards and corporate culture are now governed by the 12-attributes model. The leadership development programs, designed around the model, are organized into three tiers.

The first tier consists of the company’s Leadership Development Programs to train new graduates, many with MBAs, for top positions in brand marketing, engineering, finance, global information systems, global supply chain and human resources. Each program runs three or four years and includes formal training, mentoring and rotations though job assignments lasting 12 months or more. The human resources program, for example, is a four-year rotation through three job assignments, including one global assignment.

“LDPs are next-generation leadership development,” Binkley says. “We recruit from the best universities and put 100 people into the programs each year.” Globally, 350 to 400 people are moving through their LDP rotations at any one time.

The second tier is a series of programs called Leading the Whirlpool Enterprise, which moves senior executives though two one-week classes taught at two levels. Leading the Whirlpool Enterprise 1 is a global program that focuses on each attribute in the leadership model and includes a 360-degree assessment based on the attributes for each participant. “The point is deep feedback,” Binkley says. Level 1 of the program is required for the top 700 leaders at the company.

Leading the Whirlpool Enterprise 2 is a one-week program for the top 300 to 400 Whirlpool executives. “We take the top 10 strategic objectives of the company and ask leaders to take on the most pressing business issue and develop a 100-day plan to resolve it,” Binkley says. Whirlpool is now developing the curriculum for Leading the Whirlpool Enterprise 3, which will reinforce classic leadership development and provide additional feedback for participants.

The third tier of Whirlpool’s leadership development process is called Leaders Developing Leaders. The executive committee members shape the design, determine the investment and teach in the program at the company’s Brandywine Creek Training Facility in Covert, Michigan. The participants are 20 to 25 top Whirlpool executives selected from around the world.

“They undergo a very intensive assessment and enter a one-year leadership development plan with an external coach and an internal coach,” Binkley says. “We don’t use this to fix broken people. We use it to make the best better.”

GLOBAL TOP 20 COMPANIES FOR LEADERS
1. General Electric	11. Inditex
2. Proctor & Gamble	12 Medtronic
3. Nokia	13. Eli Lily and Co.
4. Hindustan Unilever	14. McDonald’s
5. Captiol One Financial	15. Whirlpool
6. General Mills	16. Natura Cosméticos
7. McKinsey & Co.	17. GlaxoSmithKline
8. IBM	18. Australia and New Zealand Banking Group
9. BBVA	19. ICICI Bank
10.Infoys Technologies	20. Wipro
Source:Fortune

The company also uses a multi-language worldwide survey to measure employee engagement, with a section that evaluates managers’ leadership skills and organizational leadership. “We slice the results by geography, position, gender and a number of other factors,” Binkley reports. “We really monitor the health of the business through the scores we see for managerial and organizational leadership. For managers and executives, the scores are directly connected to their rewards.”

Whirlpool’s approach to leadership development hinges not only on instruction and mentoring but constant feedback and direct accountability for developing talent. “Leaders know that meeting their specific objectives for leadership development are just as important as their financial results,” Binkley says.

Accelerating development
On the other side of the world, Indian companies now focus intensely on building skills to meet the shortage of executive and managerial talent and the scramble for top business leaders at companies experiencing high growth rates. Hindustan Unilever has accelerated leadership training and promotions across the company.

“Five or six years ago, it took 15 years to hit the top level; now it takes 10 to 12 years,” says Nair, the company’s executive director for human resources. “This is true not only at Hindustan Unilever, but all across India. Companies need to accelerate leadership development to match their growth needs. We have been taking a risk and pushing younger people into roles of greater responsibility. They step up to the task and bring fresh thinking to the position. We balance this with a mix of more experienced people. This acceleration has been highly successful.” The average time in any one position is two to two and a half years.

Hindustan Unilever, which is 51.55 percent owned by the Anglo-Dutch Unilever, is India’s largest consumer products company. Nair manages the company’s 15,000 employees, including 10,000 production workers, with an HR staff of 250, including 80 managers and a leadership development team of seven. In addition, each of the company’s 45 plants employs three HR leaders, who spend 50 percent of their time on leadership development.

To replenish the ranks, Hindustan Unilever brings in 50 to 55 MBAs every year for 15 months of business leadership training, with heavy mentoring and rotations out to rural areas and through other parts of Unilever. “This is a program for which we are very much admired,” Nair says. Both Nair and the company’s CEO are products of this program.

Nair joined Hindustan Unilever as a management trainee when she finished her MBA 16 years ago and is now the first woman on the management committee and the youngest executive director at the company. In April 2008, the former CEO of Hindustan Unilever moved up to become president of Unilever’s Western Europe region, and Nitin Paranjpe, executive director for the home and personal care unit, moved into the CEO spot.

Paranjpe joined the business leadership training program when he completed his MBA, and quickly moved through a series of increasingly challenging executive positions, including a stint with Unilever in London. At 44, he is Hindustan Unilever’s youngest CEO. The company runs with a minimum of three candidates in line for the CEO position and two for other critical positions.

“The essential reason that we are so successful in leadership development is the commitment of senior managers and executives, who devote 40 percent of their time to leadership development,” Nair says. “I have ultimate responsibility, but the process is owned by senior management.”

HR is directly accountable for managing what Hindustan Unilever refers to as “hot jobs, hot people.” The hot jobs are the 50 most strategic positions in the company, and the hot people are the 50 people with the highest potential. “Our objective is that the hot people must occupy 90 percent of the hot jobs,” Nair says. “Every 15 days, I report to the management committee on these 50 jobs and 50 people, including any difficulties that any of the 50 may be having. We want to maximize the movement of these 50 people into these 50 jobs.”

For six days each year, the management committee meets to discuss the highest band of executives in the company. Every committee member has a regret-attrition number, and bonuses are affected by performance in this area.

“At these meetings, the committee discusses the top 150 to 200 people, name by name,” Nair explains. “It’s not acceptable for a committee member to say that he has never met one of these people. Each member has to find a reason to know every one of them. We bring in every piece of objective information about all of these people and make a very informed call about their development.”

To recruit the best MBAs in the country, Hindustan Unilever now promotes itself as a company that produces top executive talent. According to Nair, 440 Hindustan Unilever alumni are now CEOs or board directors. Alumni include Anand Kripalu, managing director of Cadbury India; P.M. Sinha, chairman of Bata India; and Debu Bhattacharya, managing director of Hindalco.

Nair regrets the departures, but notes that alumni-turned-CEOs give full credit to their training at Hindustan Unilever. Globally, Unilever has pulled 150 executives from Hindustan Unilever, which is the largest exporter of talent to the parent.

Nair outlines four best practices for leadership development. “You need tremendous involvement from senior management,” she says. “And you need to take the basics of talent management and do them brilliantly. The basics are quite simple: Know your jobs, know your people.”

She also notes the importance of differentiating talent. “Put your mind behind the top 50 people,” she advises. In addition, it’s important to closely manage careers. “We move people across businesses every two-and-a-half or three years. Our rule is that no business can hold talent. All job openings are visible to everyone across the company.”

“The key is our belief that talent makes all the difference,” Nair says. “This is deeply ingrained. Senior management models the behaviors that stem from this belief.”

Workforce Management, June 9, 2008, p. 25-28 — Subscribe Now!

May 25, 2001July 10, 2018

Sample Project Charter

Below is an example of a “project charter.” This document, oftenprepared by a senior executive and a project manager, gives the project managerthe go-ahead and the authority to get moving on a project.

Project Title: Project Management Control System (PMCS) Date: April 7, 2000

Scope and Objectives: The Jacksonville Information Systems Company isundergoing rapid change and growth resulting in an urgent need for a moreefficient use of capital funds and for managing our many projects. To this end,we are implementing a new project management control system that will satisfyboth these needs and will enhance our project teams’ ability to better focus onour customers’ requirements.

General Objectives:

Enable better communication among project, group, and corporate managementwith regard to progress of major projects.
Enable senior management to more closely monitor progress of majorprojects.
Provide project personnel the capability to manage and control theirprojects.

Specific Objectives:

Reporting and Control System
1. For communication of project activity within and between groups and senior management
2. Initially for high-cost projects, then for “critical,” then forall projects
Computer Support Systems
1. Survey with recommendations to determine the amount and cost of computersupport
Procedures Manuals
1. Document procedures and policies
2. Preliminary manual available by end of year for operator and usertraining
Project Management Training Course
1. Provide basic project planning and control skills to personnel directlyinvolved in project management
2. Follow-on courses to provide software, financial, and contracting skillsneeded by project managers

Defining Conditions, Constraints, and Assumptions: The PMCS must beoperational on the last day of this year. The first phase of this project is atechnical survey and a feasibility study with a go/no-go decision point at theconclusion of the study.Implementation of the PMCS will commence on July 1 if the recommendation isto proceed.

Project Organization: The key members of the project organization are:

Sponsor: Dr. Jack Malloney, VP of IS
Project Manager: Mr. James Martin
User Representatives: Ms. Jean Matthews and Mr. John Collier
Technical Lead: Mr. Sean O’Reilly

Team Members: To be nominated by functional managers based upon the projectmanager’s skill set requirements and his recommendations. Functional managerswill provide team members for the project duration and they will be 100%dedicated to the project.

Project Manager Authority and Responsibilities

Staffing – the project manager will determine the skill requirements for the PMCS project and provide them, along with specific team member names, by June 1 to the appropriate functional managers. The project manager isauthorized to have one clerical person and one cost analysis to assist him.Because of other project priorities, the project team is limited to no more than10 technical members without specific authority from the President.
Budget – the initial estimate of the project cost is $500,000. This budgetcannot be exceeded without authority from the President and the Chief FinancialOfficer.
Communications – status reports will be provided to the President, CFO, andthe Sponsor bi-monthly.
Planning/Tracking – this project will be tracked using our in-house projectmanagement software. An earned value analysis will be provided in every otherstatus report beginning with the second report.
Change Control – the project manager is authorized to make project changesprovided they do not exceed $5,000 in additional cost and do not impact theschedule. Otherwise, any changes will be made through the Configuration Change Control Board.
Document/System Access – the project manager is authorized access to anycompany document or system in the pursuit of this project completion.
The project manager will provide a project plan to the Sponsor no laterthan May 12. The project plan will include a description of the work, schedules,budget, spending plan, resource utilization charts, risk management plans, and aquality plan.

Support Requirements from Other Organizations:

The PMCS project has the top priority in The Jacksonville Information SystemsCompany. Functional groups will provide all support possible to the projectmanager. Where conflicts in personnel assignments occur, the President will resolvethem.

Approvals:

_____________________
VP Project Management

_____________________
VP Information Systems

_____________________
Chief Financial Officer

_____________________
VP Human Resources

_____________________
President

Published by AMACOM Books, www.amacombooks.org, Division of AmericanManagement Association, 1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019, To order call:800/262-9699.

May 3, 2000March 5, 2019

Acknowledgment of Receipt of Employee Handbook

Whether you post company policies on your intranet or elsewhere, it’s a good idea for employees to sign a statement indicating they’re familiar with the policies. You don’t want to end up in court some day, trying to convince the jury that your employee did indeed know of a policy when they started work, even though they didn’t sign an acknowledgment.

Here’s a sample statement:

My signature below indicates that I have received a copy of the Company’s Personnel Policies and Procedures Manual.

I understand that this manual contains information regarding the Company’s rules, regulations and benefits which affect me as an employee.

I acknowledge that I have read and understood Company policies.

I also understand that the Company may revise, supplement or rescind policies, procedures or benefits described in the manual, with or without notice.

Print Name _______________

Signature _______________

Date _______________

SOURCE: Todd Raphael, Online Editor, and other Workforce staff.

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. This handbook acknowledgment would be different in an at-will state.

April 1, 2000July 10, 2018

Light Duty, Limited Duty or Modified Duty Assignments

In most cases, some temporary modification of duties can be made for an employee that would allow them to return to work in a limited capacity, subject to his/her medical restrictions. Such temporary modifications are called “light duty, limited duty, or modified duty” assignments.

Temporary restructuring may include modification of essential or non-essential functions of the job, limitation of working hours, changes in working conditions, or physical modification of the work place. Departments are encouraged to have a policy regarding light/limited duty assignments.

Several of the Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) contain specific provisions related to light/limited duty as well. In general, light duty assignments are typically limited in duration (e.g. 45 days), but each supervisor should check with the applicable MOUs and department policy to get a better idea of the parameters of such assignments.

Reasonable Accommodation
Reasonable Accommodation is the modification or adjustment to a job, the work environment, or the way things are usually done that enables a qualified person with a disability or injury to enjoy equal employment opportunities.

It is expected that most requests for reasonable accommodation will involve existing employees who have become disabled, either through a work related injury or illness, or through a non work related injury or illness. The most common request will include the restructuring of jobs or tasks within a job, reassignment to a vacant position in another classification, modification of the existing work site, or acquisition of special equipment and devices.

Job Restructuring
Often the employee’s medical restrictions involve limitation of movement of one of more limbs. This is the case with back injuries that limit lifting, leg injuries that limit walking or bending, and arm/hand injuries that restrict any type of repetitive motion (e.g. carpal tunnel). Permanent job restructuring may involve reassignment of the injury aggravating tasks to another employee, perhaps in exchange for another task that the injured employee is able to perform.

For example, a cook who has a permanent back injury, may be unable to lift heavy pots or food sacks any longer. It is possible that this task may be assigned to another employee in exchange for additional cutting, peeling or washing chores that do not place additional strain on the back.

Reassignment to a Vacant Position
A common request of a worker upon return to work after an extended absence may be for a complete job reassignment. While it is preferable to consider other accommodations that will enable the employee to return to his/her customary job, if this is infeasible, the employer may seek to move the employee into another job classification for which the employee is qualified. This position may be at the same rate of pay, or a lower rate of pay.

Acquisition or Modification of Equipment of Devices
Another common request of an injured employee may be for special equipment to enable the individual to perform the job. Persons with back injuries may request special carts or lifting devices to help them transport heavy items. Persons with hearing disabilities may request things such as telephone handset amplifiers.

Contrary to popular belief, such accommodations are rarely too expensive when compared with the costs for training new staff to do the job of an experienced, though injured, employee. There is a tremendous amount of adaptive equipment available, much of it at minimal cost. In fact, many adaptive devices have been fabricated at the workplace, by a creative supervisor, for virtually no cost (e.g. ramps over stairs, lowered work stations).

Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA)
The ADA protects qualified individuals with disabilities from employment discrimination. The ADA has a three-part definition of “disability.” This definition reflects the specific types of discrimination experienced by people with disabilities. Therefore, it is not the same as the definition of disability in other laws, such as workers compensation. Under the ADA, a person with a disability is a person who has (a) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, or (b) a record of such an impairment, or (c) is regarded as having such an impairment.

A physical impairment is defined by the ADA as “any physiological disorder, or condition, cosmetic disfigurement, or anatomical loss affecting one or more of the following body systems: neurological, musculoskeletal, special sense organs, respiratory (including speech organs), cardiovascular, reproductive, digestive, genito-urinary, hemic and lymphatic, skin and endocrine.”

A mental impairment is defined by the ADA as “any mental or psychological disorder, such as mental retardation, organic brain syndrome, emotional or mental illness, and specific learning disabilities.”

To be a disability covered by the ADA, an impairment must substantially limit one or more major life activities. These are activities that an average person can perform with little or no difficulty, such as walking, breathing, seeing, hearing, working, etc.

Whether an injured worker is protected by the ADA depends on whether or not the person meets the ADA definitions of an “individual with a disability.” Work related injuries do not always cause physical or mental impairments severe enough to “substantially limit” a major life activity.

Also, many on-the-job injuries cause non-chronic impairments which heal with little or no long-term or permanent impact. Such injuries, in most cases, are not considered disabilities under the ADA. The fact that an employee is awarded workers’ compensation benefits, or is assigned a high disability rating, does not automatically establish that this individual is protected under the ADA.

What the Law Requires
To be protected by the ADA, an individual with a disability or an injury, must be qualified for the job that he/she is seeking. Qualified means that the person “satisfies the requisite skill, experience, education and other job-related requirement of the employment position such individual holds or desires, and who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions of such a position.”

The key component of the definition, with regard to injured workers, is the ability to perform the essential functions of the position, with or without reasonable accommodation. Therefore, an injured worker may be protected under the law, if he/she can continue to perform the essential functions of the job with some type of reasonable accommodation.

It is important for supervisors to know that failure to provide reasonable accommodation under the ADA to a qualified employee with a disability, without good cause, can expose the State to penalties in excess of $100,000.

What the Law Does Not Require
The ADA does not require that you accommodate an injured employee by reassigning the essential functions of his/her job to another employee — even if the injured worker requests such an accommodation. The ADA also does not require that an employee be reassigned to another position in order to provide him/her with a job, especially if the employee is not qualified to perform the new job.

Remember, the employee must be able to perform the essential functions of the job to be protected under the ADA. It is the employer’s responsibility, however, to determine the essential functions of the job using reasonable, objective standards. For example: it is an essential function of a proofreader’s job to know the proper rules of grammar, however, it is probably not an essential function of a proofreader’s job to read sitting in a chair.

Relation to Workers’ Compensation
The ADA and Workers’ Compensation Laws have totally different purposes. Sometimes those purposes intersect, but they are by no means congruent. In some cases, the laws may conflict. However, there are three primary areas of focus for the supervisor in dealing with an injured worker:

The supervisor must be able to accurately, and objectively, develop a duty statement or job description for each employee’s assignment that accurately defines the “essential functions of the job.”

The supervisor must be open to returning an injured employee to work if he/she (a) can continue to perform the essential functions of the assigned job with reasonable accommodation, or (b) are qualified to perform another available job with or without reasonable accommodation.

The supervisor should not use a person’s injury as an excuse to preclude him/her from doing work that he/she is qualified and medically able to perform. This is especially true for injured workers who otherwise qualify for promotions, transfers, etc.

Disability Retirement
No matter how hard we try to keep our injured workers employed, there are some situations when the employee’s disability is so extensive, that he/she is incapable of performing most of the essential tasks of the job. In these cases, the employee may be eligible for a disability retirement, in addition to the permanent disability benefits provided under workers compensation.

If you believe that you have an employee who is incapable of returning to work, because of the severity of the medical restrictions imposed by the physician, then discuss the feasibility of disability retirement with the Return-To-Work Coordinator in your department.

The information and forms contained in this feature are intended to provide useful information on the topic covered, but should not be construed as legal advice or a legal opinion.

February 28, 2000September 19, 2019

Employees’ Top Training Needs

Do you ever wonder whether your training needs are similar to your competitors’? Do you want some ideas on where to focus your training?

Leadership development is the No. 1 training need of employees, according to a survey of over 200 organizations nationwide. In a tight labor market, organizations have become more interested in developing employees they already have on board, and providing them with the training they need to take on additional responsibility, such as training in interpersonal skills, communication skills, managing change, and teamwork.

The Top 10 training needs of today’s employees are:

Leadership development (selected by 65% of respondents).
Interpersonal skills training (59%).
Communication skills training (53%).
Managing change (52%).
Teamwork (52%).
Management skills training (51%).
Problem solving (45%).
Customer service (41%).
Retaining employees (40%).
Creativity and innovation (36%).

You can bet your competitors will be working to satisfy these needs. Try to do the same if you want to keep up with the Joneses.

SOURCE: Manchester Inc., Jacksonville, Florida, February 2000.