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Many Employers Uncertain About Providing Health Benefits

Employers are losing confidence that they will be able to continue providing health benefits to their workers 10 years from now, according to a survey released Thursday, March 12, by Watson Wyatt Worldwide and the National Business Group on Health at the NBGH’s 2009 Business Health Agenda in Washington.


Just 62 percent of employers reported being “very sure” that they will continue to offer health care benefits 10 years from now, down from 73 percent last year, according to the 14th annual NBGH/Watson Wyatt Employer Survey on Purchasing Value in Health Care.


Moreover, even though increases in health care costs are expected to hold steady at 6 percent in 2009 because of recent events in the U.S. economy, 60 percent of employers either already have or are planning to revamp their health care strategy, the survey found.


“This is the first time that trends are stable, yet there’s been a significant drop in confidence, and I have to believe that is directly related to the uncertainty of the economy and concerns about potential health reform,” said Ted Nussbaum, North America director of group and health care consulting at Watson Wyatt. “They’re saying now with the economy and its effect on their businesses, they’re uncertain they can afford to continue to offer benefits.”


The survey of 489 large U.S. employers, conducted in January, also identified a group of 53 employers that have maintained a consistent track record of lower increases in health care costs than those of their peers over the past four years.


“If you take their trend and run it out for some period of years, the difference between what they pay and what the others pay [for health care benefits] is tens of millions of dollars,” Nussbaum said.


This group, whose median two-year trend was 2.4 percent compared with 6 percent for all employers participating in the survey, have outperformed other employers in five key areas: They offer employees financial incentives to participate in health promotion activities; they have more effective benefits communications; they are more likely to offer centers of excellence and high performance provider networks; they are likely to have a data warehouse and measure outcomes in addition to processes; and their focus is on overall improvements in employee health and productivity.


“They are much more likely to be providing employees with tools and resources to help them know how to best impact their own health status,” Nussbaum said.


Other findings of the survey include:


• More employers are conducting eligibility audits to cut benefit costs. While 47 percent did so in 2007, that number increased to 54 percent in 2008 and 61 percent this year.


• Employers are more likely to offer health savings accounts than health reimbursement arrangements. Thirty-four percent of employers offer HSAs, but that number is expected to increase to 43 percent by 2010. By comparison, while HRAs are offered by 21 percent of employers today, only 3 percent plan to add one next year.


Retiree medical coverage for pre-Medicare-eligible retirees continues to erode, with just 23 percent of employers offering it in 2009, down from 24 percent in 2008. Supplemental coverage for Medicare-eligible retirees also is declining, with just 20 percent of employers providing it in 2009, down from 23 percent in 2008. Only 12 percent of employers provide traditional retiree medical coverage to new hires, down from 15 percent in 2008.


Sixty-seven percent of employers say the biggest challenge to managing health care costs is employees’ poor health habits. In addition, 42 percent said they also struggle with employees’ underuse of preventive services, while 36 percent are wrestling with the high costs of catastrophic cases and end-of-life care.


To view the 14th annual NBGH/Watson Wyatt survey report, visit www.watsonwyatt.com.


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


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Budget Extends E-Verify Program Through September

The federal budget signed by President Barack Obama on Wednesday, March 11, reauthorized the E-Verify immigration database through September 30.


An amendment to extend it five years didn’t make it into the final budget bill. E-Verify is a Web-based service for employers that checks information from I-9 forms against Homeland Security and Social Security Administration databases to verify whether a worker is legally eligible to work in the U.S.


Federal contractors will have to use E-Verify beginning May 21, under an executive order signed by then-President George W. Bush in June, according to the Department of Homeland Security.


The Society for Human Resource Management and other organizations have filed a lawsuit to stop the rule, arguing that such a mandate must come from Congress and that it could expose employers to more lawsuits from workers who feel they were discriminated against on the basis of race or national origin.


Opponents of E-Verify have also argued that the databases it uses contain errors and could cause workers with a legal right to work in the U.S. to be denied jobs.


E-Verify is a voluntary program, although some states require employers to use it.


—Staffing Industry Analysts


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Obama Signs Health Care-Heavy Appropriations Bill

President Barack Obama has signed a $410 billion appropriations bill, a sizable chunk of which goes to a number of health care initiatives. The measure cleared the Senate on Tuesday, March 10.


The package, which funds a total of nine federal agencies, allots $30.3 billion to the National Institutes of Health for disease research, $6.6 billion for public health programs under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and $125 million more for community health centers.


The legislation, which came under attack for the number of earmarks it contained, also sets out spending for a variety of workforce training programs, rural health outposts and programs to help seniors.


The bill adds $15 million more than was available last year for nurse education and training, for a total of $171 million, and adds another $28 million to train doctors and other health care professionals, for a total of $222 million.


Rural health providers will also see a financial bump.


The measure provides a total of $289 million to help aid the more than 1,200 small, rural hospitals serving more than 775,000 patients each year. The House passed the bill in February.


Filed by Matthew DoBias of Modern Healthcare, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.


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Job-Bias Claims Soar to Record High in 2008, EEOC Says

Employment discrimination claims soared 15 percent to a record high in the fiscal year that ended September 30 and will probably surge again this year, propelled by the recession, said a spokesman for Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.


“Historically, whenever there’s been a severe economic downturn, charges have usually spiked the next year,” spokesman David Grinberg said in an interview.


The most dramatic surges in employee claims occurred for those alleging age discrimination and retaliation for complaints of bias. Age discrimination claims rose 29 percent to 24,582, and retaliation claims increased 23 percent to 32,690, according to EEOC data released Wednesday, March 11.


Overall employee claims with the EEOC jumped to 95,402, the most since the agency opened its doors in 1965. Retaliation claims were second in number only to those alleging race discrimination.


“Someone who has lost his job is in a very tough situation and may be looking at a number of avenues where he can replace revenue,” said Gerald Hathaway, an employment lawyer with Littler Mendelson in New York. “But true victims of discrimination are rare. Most commonly, someone files a claim thinking he’s a victim of discrimination, but is not.”


Employers announced 1.22 million job cuts in calendar year 2008, the most since 2003, according to consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The numbers skyrocketed in November and December to a total of 348,019, accounting for 28 percent of the year’s cuts.


The reductions continued to soar in January and February, rising to 428,099, according to the firm. If cuts were to continue at that pace throughout the year, the 2009 figure would be by far the highest annual total in the last 20 years.


Employees who want to file a claim have six months since the last action of alleged discrimination to do so, Grinberg said.


A charging party does not have to wait and see how the EEOC resolves his/her case before filing a private suit, according to Grinberg.


A charging party can ask for a Right to Sue Notice at any point in the process, and EEOC is required to provide one no later than 180 days after the request is made. according to Grinberg. An individual may file a private lawsuit even if the EEOC has not resolved their case.


Many employees who may be genuine victims of discrimination may not file claims out of fear of losing their jobs, especially during a recession, Grinberg said.


“It is clear that employment discrimination remains a persistent problem,” EEOC acting Chairman Stuart Ishimaru said in a statement.


Hathaway disagreed, saying that the claims surge is a reflection of both the recession and poor management communication.


“Managers tend to manage around troubled employees rather than confronting the problem directly,” said Hathaway, who advises large and midsize companies on layoffs. “These employees start to feel isolated and wonder if they’re being discriminated against.”


If employees then file claims, managers sometimes “go ballistic,” which explains the soaring number of retaliation complaints, he said.


“The record is full of cases where employees lose on their discrimination allegation but win on complaints of retaliation,” Hathaway said.


The striking increase in age discrimination claims reflects both the aging of the baby boomer workforce and the frequent correlation between employees’ age and pay, said Steven Weatherhead, an employment lawyer with Bello Black & Welsh in Boston.


“Older employees tend to earn more,” Weatherhead said. “And higher salaries are one of a number of factors that managers consider when trying to make the right business decisions.”
 
To view the EEOC announcement, go to http://www.eeoc.gov/press/3-11-09.html


—Neil Roland


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Employee Advocacy Group Pushes for Required Contributory Retirement Savings Plan

All employers would be required to contribute to a retirement plan for their workers under a series of reform principles presented Tuesday, March 10, by a group of worker advocacy and policy associations.


At a conference in Washington, the group, which includes the Pension Rights Center and the Service Employees International Union, rolled out its new “Retirement USA” initiative, which is intended to pave the way for the creation of a new retirement system that would provide workers without an employer-sponsored retirement plan enough income on top of their Social Security payments to “maintain a reasonable standard of living in retirement,” according to a statement the group released.


The federal government would subsidize the contributions of lower-income workers under the plan, with all contributions pooled and professionally managed to minimize costs and financial risks. A government regulator would oversee the plan.


Payouts would generally be limited to retirement, and employees would be able to make additional contributions to the accounts, “with reasonable limits for tax-favored contributions,” according to a statement by the group.


At the conference, representatives of the Pension Rights Center (PRC), SEIU, Economic Policy Institute and National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare said the existing system leaves many Americans without adequate retirement savings and half of full-time private-sector workers lacking a retirement plan.


In his 2010 budget blueprint, President Barack Obama proposed enhancing retirement savings by requiring automatic enrollment for existing sponsors of 401(k) plans and to mandate that employers who aren’t providing a retirement program to automatically enroll their workers in a direct-deposit IRA account. The principles endorsed by Retirement USA reach far beyond that, in part by requiring employer contributions.


“They [President Obama’s proposals] recognize the problem,” said Karen Ferguson, PRC director, at the conference. “They certainly don’t solve it. We’re hopeful that the president will come out with something bolder.”


“We will be asking members of Congress to take the principles into account as they consider any retirement income legislation,” said Nancy Hwa, a PRC spokeswoman.


Filed by Doug Halonen of Pensions & Investments, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.


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Court Fired Worker Must Prove Danger Met Standard

An employee who was fired after he said he had complained about an unsafe working environment must meet an objective standard of alleged danger, a federal district court said.


The March 6 decision by the federal district court in Hartford, Connecticut, in Cesar Ferrer v. T.L. Cannon Management Corp. involved a worker who claimed he was discharged for complaining about his employer’s alleged violation of public policy requiring employers to provide a reasonably safe workplace.


Ferrer said he was discharged after telling his manager that a co-worker had thrown a punch at him and missed. He also said the co-worker had assaulted another employee about a year earlier.


The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled in a 1997 decision that employers must “exercise reasonable care” to provide a “reasonably safe place in which to work,” according to the opinion. However, the “plaintiff cannot recover unless he can carry the burden of proving that the danger he faced met the objective standard enunciated” in that decision.


“This stringent standard is not satisfied by plaintiff’s bare allegations that the co-worker who unsuccessfully tried to punch him had assaulted someone else about a year earlier,” said the court.


The plaintiff was given three weeks to amend his complaint to show that the co-worker “had a known propensity for violence and specifically threatened him with serious bodily harm.”


Commenting on the decision, Daniel A. Schwartz, of Pullman & Comley in Hartford, said the court is saying in its decision that simply complaining “you believe a co-worker is going to commit violence, without something a little more tangible” is “not going to be enough.”


T.L. Cannon’s attorney, Glenn Duhl, of Siegel O’Connor O’Donnell & Beck in Hartford, said Ferrer was discharged after witnesses disputed his version of the incident, the company learned he had a record of prior disciplinary warnings and he refused to go back to work at the same shift as his co-worker.


But Ferrer’s attorney, Steve Jacobs of Jacobs, Jacobs & Shannon, said he believes Ferrer was discharged in retaliation for complaining about an unsafe workplace.


The judge seemed to think that to successfully plead his case, the plaintiff had to have suffered “serious bodily injury,” and to have alleged the assailant “had a propensity to commit violent actions in the workplace. I’m not sure that that’s necessarily the law,” he said.
 
Jacobs said no decision has been made as to whether he will plead the case again.


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


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LinkedIns Corporate Play Takes Aim at Recruiters

Depending on your perspective, LinkedIn Corp. couldn’t have picked a better time to launch an upgraded suite of products for corporate recruiters—or a worse one.


As U.S. companies lay off tens of thousands of workers, the newly unemployed are flocking online to post résumés and connect with friends and former colleagues in hopes of landing a job, and business networks such as LinkedIn are among their first destinations.


The influx of job seekers is helping the privately held Mountain View, California, company add 1.5 million new members every two weeks, essentially creating one of the biggest job boards around.


On the other hand, the very companies laying off workers are the prospective customers LinkedIn is targeting with its expanded suite of corporate recruiting products that went live February 2.


The suite, previously called Corporate Solutions but rebranded as the company’s new Talent Advantage division, revolves around a stand-alone software-as-a-service applicant tracking system called Recruiter that LinkedIn debuted in March 2008. The suite also includes a new internal LinkedIn e-mail marketing campaign tool, employment ads, annual subscriptions for job listings and customizable profiles that companies can use to display job information to LinkedIn members based on their network profiles.


Skeptics maintain that companies shedding jobs and reining in HR costs aren’t in the market for new recruiting tools. They also point out that many corporate recruiters already supplement formal applicant tracking systems with informal use of Facebook, Twitter and other social networks that cost nothing.


LinkedIn executives argue that they aren’t trying to displace applicant tracking systems. In fact, shortly after rolling out its upgraded corporate recruiting services, LinkedIn announced a deal with Jobvite to integrate the latter’s software-as-a-service applicant tracking system into the business network. Jobvite simultaneously announced similar deals with Facebook and Twitter.


Job boards are a different story. If companies are using fewer recruiters to handle more responsibilities, they need the most cost-effective tools to get them the highest-quality candidates. LinkedIn fits that bill better than traditional job boards because of its huge pool of passive job seekers, says senior marketing director Francois Dufour. “They can tap into talent that’s not on job boards, so it’s a better value and has better results,” Dufour says.


HR industry consultants concur that if LinkedIn successfully continues its push into recruiting, job boards will suffer the most. That fact isn’t lost on companies such as Monster.com, which in its own effort to stay relevant in today’s job market completely overhauled its Web site in January following a year that saw the $1.3 billion job board expand internationally, redo its technology and pump up sales efforts.


Even so, in a side-by-side comparison, LinkedIn wins because the company has changed the concept of what a job board is, says Dan Finnigan, CEO of Jobvite and former head of Yahoo HotJobs.


“The old model of posting a job in a database and hoping the active job-seeking audience finds it is insufficient. What LinkedIn is doing is innovative,” Finnigan says.


Waggener Edstrom sold on Recruiter
Apparently corporate recruiters agree. Since LinkedIn introduced Recruiter in March 2008, more than 900 companies have signed up for the pay-per-seat service. That has helped bring LinkedIn’s corporate recruiting offerings up to par with its other major revenue sources: premium accounts, individual job listings, advertising and market research.


One of those Recruiter customers is Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, a Seattle-based, public relations agency whose 820-person staff handles such clients as Microsoft, eBay and T-Mobile. Last year the agency filled 439 positions, including more than 300 external hires to staff up for new accounts. It was sourcing strategist Kristin Kalscheur’s job to act as an in-house headhunter and find candidates for the hardest-to-fill spots. Kalscheur started using LinkedIn shortly after its 2003 debut and over the years built up a network of 2,000 connections she regularly mined for prospective candidates.


Before Recruiter, using LinkedIn to search for candidates was a cumbersome process, Kalscheur says, because she couldn’t save searches or do mass mailings. Given that experience, it didn’t take a lot of convincing for her to try the Web-based software, which is a separate application from LinkedIn’s consumer service but dips into the same 37 million-member pool.


With Recruiter, Kalscheur can create customized searches that drop lists of potential candidates in her e-mail every day, send group e-mails to prospects and save correspondence and other data in folders she can share with colleagues—helpful so multiple recruiters from the same firm don’t contact the same prospect. The software has drawbacks: It’s not completely integrated with LinkedIn’s consumer service, nor does it work with the applicant tracking system from iCIMS that Waggener Edstrom uses, forcing Kalscheur to cut and paste information from one application to the other manually.


Despite those flaws, Kalscheur is a big fan—so big that she has foresworn using any kind of job board, even the one on LinkedIn.


“We get really bad candidates; maybe one in 40 is decent,” she says. “Our job titles can be misconstrued, so we get someone who is 20 years overqualified or the compulsive networker types.”


TiVo Inc. is another LinkedIn Recruiter customer, and because of it, the digital TV recording service didn’t need to use an outside recruiter in 2008 despite hiring 75 to 80 people, according to William Uranga, director of talent acquisition. That’s a major change from three years ago, when the company did 25 to 30 percent of its hires through agencies, a change that has translated into cost savings and more qualified prospects.


“Is it a silver bullet? No,” Uranga says. “But it’s certainly a competitive tool.”


As for LinkedIn’s other new corporate recruiting features, Uranga is cautious, especially about the company’s InMail e-mail marketing tool. “In social media, the moment you get into campaign mode and you’re doing large-scale messaging, people sense they’re losing specialness,” and that’s a turn-off, he says.


Management changes cap busy year
Kalscheur and Uranga are two of 521,000 corporate recruiters and a total of 829,000 HR professionals on the business network. LinkedIn is launching its Talent Advantage corporate division to convert more of those members into paying customers.


The new division’s launch comes on the heels of a busy year. In December, the company brought back founder Reid Hoffman as CEO to replace Dan Nye and added Silicon Valley veteran Dufour, who came from Yahoo, as well as several other senior execs from Google and Yahoo. In the past 12 months, LinkedIn also added numerous member features and, in addition to the Jobvite partnership, struck a deal to incorporate several IBM Lotus products into the service while introducing French- and Spanish-language versions.


During 2008, the company also raised $75.5 million in two rounds of venture financing, bringing its total funding to date to $103.2 million. Company officials won’t discuss finances in detail but say funds will be used to finance new products. In earlier news reports, LinkedIn officials have said the company has been profitable since 2007.


In better days, LinkedIn would be poised for an initial public offering and then a possible acquisition, according to industry analysts. In fact, the Silicon Valley rumor mill buzzed over possible acquisitions by Yahoo in 2006 and News Corp. in 2007, but neither deal materialized. While such a merger might make sense for a bigger tech or media player looking to bolster its social media play, in today’s market, “All bets are off,” says Bryon Abramowitz, principal consultant at Knowledge Infusion, a Minneapolis-based HR management consultant.


LinkedIn’s news hasn’t been all good. The company is down to 350 employees after laying off 10 percent of its staff in November—par for the course at a time when tech companies from Microsoft on down have announced cuts. Despite adding a new member every second, LinkedIn continues to run a distant fourth behind online networks MySpace, Facebook and Classmates.com.


Recent surveys and anecdotal evidence show people are using all four networks for work as well as socializing, although LinkedIn executives refuse to lump their service in with the rest.


“I won’t say we’ve never lost an opportunity to create value for our client because of another social network,” says Mike Gamson, a LinkedIn Talent Advantage division vice president. “But if we go in and talk to a company, to the best of my knowledge they haven’t come back and said, ‘We’re not using you; we’re using Facebook.’ “


Upstart Twitter, which lets people share messages of 140 characters at a time with their online connections, is catching on in HR circles too. While Twitter is still only a fraction of LinkedIn’s size, its user base jumped 343 percent in the 12 months ended September 30 to 2.4 million.


The bigger that LinkedIn and online networks get, the more fruitful they become for recruiters hunting for job candidates, says Jim Durbin, a recruiter and social media expert who pens the Social Media Hunter blog. At the same time, if recruiters misuse tools like Recruiter or LinkedIn’s other new corporate services, they’ll blow the opportunity and end up “trashy” like job boards, Durbin says.


“Ultimately it’s the behavior of the recruiters, not the tools,” he says. “The more people who come on, the less who know the rules and etiquette.”

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10 Elements for a Successful, Effective Corporate Learning Program

In a health care company, much depends on your drug pipeline. But there is another pipeline to consider in building a successful business, health care or otherwise, and that is the talent pipeline.


    Novartis established its corporate learning department in 1998 to provide a learning environment for its senior executives. The goal was to develop a stable of future leaders who could grow with the business. Key to creating this pipeline for the future was identifying and selecting top talent with high potential, providing them with the right job experiences and supporting continuous learning with instruction from the best institutions.


Any enterprise can draw lessons from the critical points that drive the very successful and respected Novartis corporate learning program. Here are 10 guidelines:


1. Secure top management support
Based on experiences on different advisory boards and through benchmarking with many different companies, there’s one clear message regarding the success of the Novartis corporate learning program: It’s a result of the participation and commitment of senior executives. Over the past 10 years, the senior management executive team has remained focused on all of the learning programs in Novartis, both in designing the programs and providing a presence at them.


Novartis always involves top management in the design of its training programs, right from the beginning. Corporate learning talks about content and direction, about participant profiles, and about who will make the decisions regarding content. There’s very close interaction with all the sponsors of the training programs during the three to six months of the design process.


Once the program is established, the sponsor attends the course as a participant or as a speaker. This is true for every course program. The course portion represents about 50 percent of the overall learning program; the rest is made up of video and other training elements, such as Web-based resources.


2. Focus on key initiatives
Learning must be directly aligned with corporate strategy and business challenges. Companies will struggle if their learning functions do not focus on these key issues.


Because of its mandate from the executive committee and the quality of the programs it has consistently delivered to management, corporate learning at Novartis has emerged as an excellent “brand.” Its experience, combined with a centralized budget for training, has also contributed to this status. But while becoming more known and respected is rewarding, the threat for the corporate learning team is that it could lose its focus. It is vital for the group to ensure it is aligning learning programs with the organization’s strategy, and not just creating programs for any functional group that requests one.


For instance, the corporate learning department may get a request for a program from a Novartis function that is important for only about 30 people in the company. For those 30 people, it’s really important, but for the overall company, it’s not very strategic. While it might not deliver exactly the program that’s originally requested, the corporate learning department does help other Novartis functions build up their learning programs. Like many companies, the company has limited resources. It has to be careful to focus its resources on the right programs that continually align with the overall strategy and challenges that the company faces.


3. Hire the right people
In the past, only HR people served in training departments. While the corporate learning function at Novartis, together with global talent management, is a key component of corporate human resources, an HR background is not the only knowledge needed for the learning group.


What’s needed is a mix of backgrounds—commercial, finance and marketing people with business acumen, along with professionals who have “people understanding,” such as a psychology background. We might even include a trader or a dealer, someone with in-the-trenches business experience. So, even though it is a learning department, the company doesn’t necessarily look for academics.


Novartis’ team is now a 50-50 mix of colleagues with HR and business experience. The corporate learning group has very little attrition, resulting in a considerable buildup of expertise over the years.


4. Put quality first
Novartis focuses directly on the top 10 percent of people in the organization. It’s very important for a corporate learning function to deliver programs of extremely high quality for this top tier of management. The intention is always to have these top-quality, top-level programs in place, and then it can diversify its other activities.


The most important programs at Novartis are done through its strategic partnership with Harvard Business School or other business schools. This has significantly helped the corporate learning function at Novartis to establish its reputation as an exclusive provider of training programs. Novartis does not provide Harvard programs to first-time or middle managers. It reserves these programs for top-level senior management. The corporate learning department has credibility with these leaders, who know it can deliver quality programs to align with the strategic initiatives that are driving the organization. It is important to maintain this kind of reputation and build on the momentum it creates. In other words, think of your learning group as an exclusive boutique that sets trends and draws elite customers, not as a shopping mall that offers something for everyone.


5. Manage carefully and with consensus
Novartis has a centralized learning function for the top 10 percent of the company, and decentralized learning for the lower levels. There are functions with direct reporting lines to the local HR organization, rather than to corporate learning.


Of course, cultural awareness and sensitivity must be taken into account in this type of organization. While diversity is an asset, differences present communication and management challenges, underscoring the need for respectful and globally collaborative processes. For instance, certain cultures are less likely to speak up, and others—such as Japan and China—have more formal business protocols.


6. Act globally
It goes without saying that the people working in a global organization must have excellent cross-cultural skills. But the programs that such an organization puts in place require a global standard. Novartis, for example, delivers its “Leading on the Frontline” program to first-time managers 90 to 100 times a year in 12 languages around the globe. But the basic elements of 80 percent of the content cannot be changed, because it contains the global standard for how Novartis wants to see its leaders behave.


Some customization is possible, for business or cultural reasons. If there is a restructuring in one country or region, for example, and people must be released from their jobs, the business would need to adjust its training module to place more emphasis on how to hold difficult conversations. While the weight and focus of the program can be adjusted, the central elements must be included.


In addition to Novartis programs and training, the corporate learning group is also responsible for creating strategic learning projects in the organization. It identifies growth opportunities in emerging markets, such as Latin America, and in countries such as China and Russia, where it expects significant growth in the future. With that in mind, Novartis elected to focus on China and opened a learning center in that country, where employee retention has been a problem. Novartis discovered that employee learning could greatly improve retention in a company, since employees like to feel valued and connected within a growing organization that is willing to invest in its personnel.


7. Select and partner with the best training providers
Ten years ago, 90 percent of Novartis’ training providers were Swiss or German — not ideal for a global learning function. That was changed. In your organization, too, the key is to look globally to find the best training providers wherever they are, not just in your own headquarters’ back yard. The best providers may not necessarily be in the U.S., although it has an excellent pool. At Novartis, which is now investing heavily in Asia, and China in particular, we are looking more and more to find providers in that part of the world.


In total, Novartis’ corporate learning department has about 450 different providers for its programs. This number includes its business school partners, but also individual professors from these schools. In addition, Novartis uses consulting companies, training consulting companies and individual consultants. It currently works with about 150 of these providers a year. The company’s local affiliates now ask the corporate learning experts for help in finding local sources for their training programs.


8. Fully integrate into overall processes, but focus on the business
First and foremost, the business is the most important contributor to program development. The corporate learning department conducts many interviews and a great deal of research with the business sponsors and potential participants. This level of detail and collaboration with managers leads to more valuable and relevant programs.


When it comes to selecting participants, the business is again the primary driver. When Novartis selects a participant for its top-level training, it carefully considers his or her potential and past performance. Considerable time is spent with the business functions and departments, actually dealing with the potential candidates and upper management while leveraging valuable HR information. There is no open enrollment for the top management training; the nominations are done top-down in the organization.


9. Assess learning results and align with the business
Novartis prefers to get direct feedback from participants immediately after the conclusion of a learning program. Then, six months later, it conducts random telephone interviews with the alumni to check on what they have learned, as well as what they have retained and executed. Those are the only two steps the company uses regularly to assess its programs. For instance, every two to three years it also gets the external assessments needed for certification—such as from the European Foundation for Management Development, the leading global organization in the area of management training and development.


Some advice here: If a program is good, you should talk about it, but if it’s bad you should still talk about it. At Novartis, the corporate learning function is so visible that if something is going wrong, it’s seen early. If corporate strategies change, it is nimble enough to adapt to those changes.


So the key is to use some formal assessment tools, as well as informal discussion with participants and initial follow-up with participants after the program. Obtain their input; listen, learn and continuously improve your programs.


10. Persevere and thrive
I want to take special note of the economic climate of the day. We are in the midst of a global recession, and more and more companies are cutting back programs—including corporate learning. Although that is a reality in some organizations, it’s important that learning leaders not resign themselves to such a fate. Instead, you should view this time as an opportunity to operate in a lean fashion. Trim the fat in your learning organization, then refocus and prioritize. Keep your ego in check and continue to improve programs so that they become indispensable to your organization, its survival and its ultimate success when the economy turns.


Last thoughts
The main focus of a good learning program is people management: how to manage people, how to manage leaders and how to manage middle managers as they move through the leadership pipeline. All training programs should be built around the leadership standards, values and behaviors that are defined by the company.


In other words, reinforce leadership as a core competence. Take a global view, encouraging the sharing of best practices across business divisions. Integrate and implement the 10 elements outlined here and your learning department can become a successful, critical part of your organization.

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Recruiters Seeking Untapped Talent Among Outplacement Firms

Manpower Inc.’s countercyclical star is Right Management, the world’s largest outplacement services provider, with headquarters in Philadelphia and 2,500 employees worldwide. In the fourth quarter of 2008, when the rest of Manpower’s divisions tumbled, Right’s revenues rose 10.3 percent over the fourth quarter of 2007.


    With revenue of $449.7 million in 2008, Right represents a small part of Milwaukee-based Manpower’s $21.6 billion-a-year empire, but it provides welcome relief from the otherwise grueling environment that now grips Manpower’s recruiting and staffing divisions as well as the entire staffing industry.


    Right was adding business before the downturn began. Even during the growth phase of the business cycle, employers used outplacement services on a consistent basis to assist employees who lose their jobs during restructurings, technology shifts, and mergers and acquisitions.


    “But as the recession has deepened, existing outplacement clients have asked for more services, and we’ve also added new clients,” says Rich Doherty, vice president for client services, based in Right’s Seattle office.


    Because recruiting and outplacement are the bookends of the employment relationship, recruiters may find opportunities in working with outplacement firms on a number of levels. As layoffs throw millions of qualified candidates into the job market, recruiters can use outplacement firms for efficient sourcing.


    In addition, as recruiting levels drop precipitously and many recruiters find themselves out of work, outplacement may offer a new career path for those who are ready to shift their perspective.


Sourcing from outplacement
   Recruiters now charged with filling positions from swollen markets can tap outplacement firms to help narrow the field.


    “Recruiters like our candidates because they are well prepared,” Doherty says. “They know how to write a strong résumé and they’ve received coaching on how to present themselves.”


    Right uses a variety of channels to communicate with corporate and agency recruiters who might find suitable candidates among its job seekers. For approved recruiters, Right offers a job bank where recruiters can post open positions and create virtual job fairs.


    Right also provides a résumé bank for the candidates it is trying to place. “We get a lot of inquiries, particularly from companies that are looking to trade out talent and upgrade,” Doherty notes. “Savvy recruiters recognize the advantage of recruiting our candidates.”


    Right’s job resource consultants also reach out directly to corporate and agency recruiters.


    “In most local markets, outplacement specialists have a relationship with the retained search firms,” Doherty says.


    Doherty notes that while employers are laying off workers, many are interested in exploring the possibilities for re-employing their displaced employees.


    “Our outplacement clients have asked us to help them be creative in maintaining relationships with their laid-off employees through contingent and project work,” he says. “Despite the downturn, employers are still concerned about talent issues down the road.”


    Keystone Partners, a career management services firm based in Boston, also reaches out to recruiters through several channels to place job seekers from the firm’s outplacement clients. Keystone has seen a steady increase in its outplacement work over the past six months as existing clients expand their requests for services and new clients come on board.


    Keystone posts synopses of job seekers on its Web site and actively contacts recruiters.


    “Both contingency and retained recruiters see us as a good source for candidates,” says Elaine Varelas, managing partner. “It is important for companies to understand that when a recruiter brings in a candidate though an outplacement service, that doesn’t mean the recruiter hasn’t done his or her job.”


    Keystone also brings in recruiters to speak to job seekers about how they can best work with recruiters. In these sessions, the recruiters explain the sourcing and hiring process and how contingencies work.


    Many corporate and agency recruiters are now closely monitoring layoffs.


    “Some corporate recruiters are very proactive and contact us to inquire about layoffs at another company,” Varelas reports. “They let us know that if we are handling the outplacement services, they want to see the candidates. And, they let us know which jobs they are interested in filling and the type of talent they are looking for.”


Outplacement advantages
   Surveys conducted by Right indicate that a substantial majority of employers now offer outplacement services.


    “Some industries have been hit very hard by the recession, and employers recognize that a job search within these industries is very challenging,” Doherty says. “And increasingly, employers realize that a job search in any industry is difficult under the current conditions.”


    The current trend among large employers is to offer outplacement services to more employees—in some cases, to all employees.


    “We still offer executive outplacement with a very hands-on approach, but we are also using more technology so that employers can make outplacement services available to more employees at a lower cost,” Doherty says.


    Doherty notes that most of Right’s clients say they want to offer outplacement services to their displaced employees because they believe it’s the right thing to do.


    “But one of the underlying drivers is that providing outplacement services sends a positive message to the remaining employees,” he notes.


    Employers also remain concerned about talent shortages in the years to come and offer outplacement services to help preserve their employment brand. Doherty notes that many are also concerned about post-termination litigation and offer outplacement services to reduce that risk.


    Right carefully tracks how many of its job candidates find work and asks them to report how they discovered new employment. Right assists job seekers with building and tapping their personal networks, and 45 percent to 50 percent report that they found new positions through this approach.


    More than 30 percent report that they found work through Internet channels; about 5 percent used traditional methods such as responding to newspaper ads.


    “Only 15 percent land a new job through an in-house recruiter or a recruitment agency,” Doherty says. “This is because many jobs are simply not put out to the market. In general, people are getting jobs, but it may take longer than it normally would.”


    At Keystone, Varelas stresses the advantages of using outplacement specialists to plan any workforce reduction. Consultants can advise the employer on all aspects of a termination or layoff, including scheduling the day of notification and developing scripts to announce the reduction.


    Outplacement services can also boost organizational resilience, Varelas notes.


    “It is very important to re-recruit the retained employees through communication and support and carefully reviewing with them the mission and culture of the organization,” she says. “Some employers are reticent because they are afraid to make promises to the remaining employees, but employers can still communicate to them that they are valued.”


    Keystone maintains relationships with a number of contingent employment firms.


    “In some cases, candidates need a temporary job for financial reasons, but we try to find them temporary positions that will also enhance their competitiveness in the market,” Varelas says.


    Varelas advises employers to become knowledgeable about outplacement services before selecting a firm.


    “This is particularly important because companies that provide only online services are marketing to employers. These services are never adequate. Online services are very valuable as an enhancement for consulting. Personal support is crucial, even if it is only one hour of strategy discussion and consulting.”


    The price range for outplacement services varies considerably by job category and the extent of services provided.


    According to Varelas, an employer might expect to pay $500 to $1,000 per employee for nonexempt workers. Outplacement services in this price range would cover a one- or two-day program for groups of 12 employees each, with some individual consulting included and online support provided.


    For outplacement services for managerial employees, the price might range from $3,000 to $5,000 per employee. For senior executives, the range would be $6,000 to $10,000 or more for top executives.


New career path for recruiters
   Keystone has outplacement specialists who are former recruiters.


    “Recruiters are good in the job development role and some of them are good at one-to-one counseling,” Varelas notes.


    The skill sets for recruiting and outplacement work overlap, but recruiters looking for work with outplacement firms may need to shift their perspective.


    “Outplacement work is relationship-driven, and some recruiters are more accustomed to transaction-driven work, so they may not be a good fit,” Varelas explains.


    Recruiters interested in working at an outplacement firm should enhance their relationship-building skills and emphasize the talent management planning and consulting aspects of their work experience.


    To improve their skills and job possibilities at outplacement firms, recruiters should also understand that outplacement work is exploratory.


    “Recruiters are used to looking for a candidate to fill a specific job rather than exploring all career possibilities for a job seeker,” Varelas says.


    Right is not hiring recruiters.


    “We rely on experienced career management people, and recruiters generally only have one piece of the skill set that we need,” Doherty says. “But we have people on staff who were recruiters, and recruiters can think about the skills they have that might allow them to transition to outplacement.


    “They can connect with outplacement firms to determine the additional skills they need. There are jobs out there in outplacement services.”

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New York Video Game Makers Still Playing to Win

Until she was laid off in late 2008, 24-year-old Ariele Mason’s fortunes were firmly tied to those on Wall Street.


During the 2½ years she worked as technology consultant with Computer Sciences Corp., her clients included financial firms such as Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan. With the city’s financial pillars crumbling, Mason wasn’t optimistic about her job prospects. So she decided to make a career change and leave the financial world.


Her goal: find a job where she could work on video games.


“The downturn was the perfect opportunity to reassess myself and what I wanted to do,” she says. “When I was younger, I always wanted to work in the video game industry, but when I graduated, consulting was what paid well and what was hiring.”


Of course, with no experience and or contacts in the industry, it wasn’t going to be easy. Mason knew she was going to have to start at the bottom and earn far less than the $55,000 to $65,000 she earned as a consultant. She found a way in by taking a six-month unpaid internship with mobile video game developer GameLoft.


“I made a list of game companies that were in the city. GameLoft was the first one I contacted,” she says.


Mason’s strategy may pay off for her in the long run since GameLoft, like other companies in the video game industry—while not completely impervious to the recession—is hiring.


“I think it’s understood that if I perform well I will hopefully get a position within the company,” she says.


Cautious optimism
Industry research seems to bear that out. According to a recent report by research firm NPD Group, U.S. retail sales of games, game machines and accessories hit $5.1 billion in December, up 9 percent year-over-year. Sales for all of 2008 were up 19 percent year-over-year.


While this is less growth than previous years, it’s still growth. Even in New York, where video game publishers and developers are feeling the effects of fewer investors and publishing contracts, they are still busy and growing. That means they’re also hiring.


“I think there’s still cautious optimism,” explains Wade Tinney, CEO of Large Animal Games.


“Over the past couple of years we’ve developed a greater sense of community. Folks are definitely hunkering down,” says Tinney, who also is the coordinator for the New York City chapter of the International Game Developers Association, a group of 1,100-plus members.


Dante Rinaldi also made a transition to the video game world. Rinaldi, who spent 20 years doing Web design for HBO and Fujitsu, is a user-interface artist with Kaos Studios. While he wasn’t laid off, he said his move into the game development world was for reasons similar to Mason’s.


“Coming from a marketing background, you know that in a downturn the first people to go are in the marketing department,” he says. “I wanted to make a change, and there’s a lot of room to grow in the video game industry if you have a strong portfolio and are willing to learn new tools.”


Rinaldi’s employer is a perfect example. Kaos Studios is in the middle of a hiring binge, says David Schulman, the company’s CEO. Kaos, which employs 90 people, will add 18 people to its ranks by spring. And Schulman says he’s open to candidates without specific gaming experience as long as they are willing to learn.


Kenny Rosenblatt, CEO of Arkadium—another company that’s currently hiring—agrees.


“We’re getting résumés from Lehman and other companies in the finance sector who always thought they would like to be in the industry,” he says. “We’re interviewing them. Will we hire them? It depends on the position, but project management and producing are jobs that translate well from industry to industry.”


Media types also have an edge in the hiring process, Rosenblatt says, since game developers—like traditional publishers—create pop culture. “All games have stories. We need people to write those stories,” he says.


Scott Stringfellow, a project manager at the Game Agency, a company that produces and develops video games for brands, was able to parlay his storytelling experience as an account manager at Ogilvy & Mather into a new job in the video game industry.


“The biggest change was getting used to the sales cycle,” he says. “It can take months and months and months for a client to agree to go forward. If I went right out of school it would have been a harder transition. My experience working with clients definitely helped.”