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Women Expats — Shattering the Myths

Suzanne Danner doesn’t think of herself as a groundbreaker. But the soft-spoken, articulate manager, who is a partner in Price Waterhouse’s Audit and Business Services in Warsaw, Poland, blazes new trails and shatters myths wherever she goes.Not only is Danner a female expatriate in the world of finance, but she’s also a human resources partner for the firm’s Audit Practice, which gives her a crucial role in establishing new personnel and benefits practices for much of eastern Europe. Indeed, Danner, with her three children and working husband in tow, serves as a role model for other expats as well as for eastern European women she meets. She’s such a strong believer in work/family balance and flexibility that she’s trying to forge new alternative work policies that are considered radical in Eastern Europe.

Ask Danner if she believes the notion that there are so few female expats because of prejudice or a global glass ceiling. Ask her if she has experienced negative consequences overseas as a result of being female. She’ll pause, wrack her brain for examples, and then give you an unqualified, “No.” In fact, she’ll tell you that her gender may actually afford her advantages that allow her to be more effective in her job.Danner’s future is bright. According to New York City-based Catalyst’s 1996 study, “Women in Corporate Leadership,” almost 50 percent of Fortune 500/Service 500 CEOs say international experience is crucial to upward movement. But not many women are in a position to take advantage of an overseas assignment to boost their corporate careers.Women comprise only 14 percent of the expatriate population according to the “1996 Global Relocation Trends Survey Report” conducted by Windham International and the National Foreign Trade Council (both in New York City). Why the disparity? It’s more a reflection of the U.S. domestic glass ceiling than anything to do with women’s effectiveness on international assignments or their willingness to go. Expatriates often are selected from upper-middle to senior corporate ranks, where women are still striving to achieve gender parity.Then women face additional hurdles before landing in the expatriate candidate pool. They must challenge two commonly assumed misconceptions. First: Women face overwhelming cultural barriers on international assignments. Second: Women don’t want global postings because of career or family concerns.

Guess what? The world is changing, and while some of the same difficulties remain as they have in the past, it’s time to re-examine assumptions, question why women’s numbers are small and consider ways to make greater use of this valuable labor resource.

The numbers show an upward trend.
The number of female expats is growing. Catalyst’s research shows that only 5 percent of expatriates were women prior to 1993. The “Global Relocation Trends Survey Report” also indicates a positive trend, albeit a slow one. These reports for the last several years show the percentage of international assignees who were women to be: 10 percent in 1993, 12 percent in 1994, 13 percent in 1995 and 14 percent in 1996.

“Progress is slow, but there’s a steady increase in women who are being considered for — and who are accepting — overseas assignments,” says Nina Segal, manager of cross-cultural services at Windham International and previously assistant dean for Career Services at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs in New York City. “If you look at organizations that have made special efforts to recruit and promote women, you’ll see a larger number of female expatriates.”

If people are going to have a difficult time in specific cultures, it’s going to be all of the Westerners, not just women Westerners.

Indeed, according to Nancy J. Adler, a professor of organizational behavior and cross-cultural management with McGill University in Montreal, the global arena may be more receptive to female managers than the domestic one. Global corporations are in such a highly competitive business environment that they must select the very best people regardless of gender. Furthermore, she says in her book “Competitive Frontiers: Women Managers in a Global Economy” (co-authored with Dafna Izraeli, Blackwell Business Press 1994) that the less hierarchical, more inclusive structure of global firms is very conducive to women’s success.So, let’s examine those outdated beliefs.

Assumption No. 1: Women are less effective because of cultural biases against them.
Laura Simeone has a broad perspective on the international experience. As senior manager of human resources in Asia for Palo Alto, California-based Cisco Systems, Simeone has supervised dozens of Asians and Europeans during her tenure at headquarters and is currently an expatriate in Singapore.“There’s an interesting dynamic,” Simeone says. “Western women are in a unique position and are generally well-received in other countries. They’re foreign — and therefore not expected to conform to the same standards that local culture dictates for women. They get the opportunity to function more in their normal roles because they aren’t constrained the way local female counterparts would be; they aren’t in a subordinate position to men.”Simeone continues, “If people are going to have a difficult time in specific cultures, it’s going to be all of the Westerners, not just women Westerners.”According to Simeone, women have the opportunity to succeed in several ways. “It has always been said that women have to be at least as good as men in order to prove themselves. I think there’s a natural tendency [among expatriate women] to want to do high-quality work and it speaks for itself. Furthermore, if a woman has strong support from senior management in her organization, it lends her credibility. Other managers and employees in the country will take their cue from that.”

While some cultures are more challenging to women than others, most are manageable with flexibility and planning. For instance, many societies conduct business in environments where there’s heavy alcohol consumption. “The tension between a woman wanting to appear to fit in and be on equal footing with local males, yet at the same time not wanting to be viewed in a pejorative way, always brings up tricky dynamics,” says Simeone. “Women are going to have to decide how to handle the situation before they get into it.” Business networking can become a tough cultural issue. But its one that women can handle with predeparture cross-cultural training.

Nancy Laben is a powerhouse. Based in Hong Kong, she is general counsel for Andersen Worldwide, providing legal support and services to 13 countries in the Asia region. Trotting between Japan, Southeast Asia, Australia and China, she helps negotiate contracts with clients and assists with personnel questions. Laben, who spent part of her childhood in Japan, shows that ingenuity and cultural wisdom can overcome many cultural difficulties.“In Asia, much of the business-generating activity occurs in surroundings where women are typically not accepted,” Laben explains. For example, in Japan it’s on the golf course. Although she doesn’t see herself teeing off as part of a high-powered foursome, she does construct other opportunities. “What I try to do is to arrange circumstances [requiring us] to work late. Then we go and grab dinner. I try to turn it into a team-building exercise.” Others create family barbecues and dinners with couples as a way to network. They take advantage of every occasion that’s gender-neutral to build business relationships.These women acknowledge that cultural sensitivity and awareness are crucial. Women who don’t have that cultural experience may not be aware of how to create opportunities and may become severely frustrated.

Assumption No. 2: Women managers with families aren’t eager for global assignments.
Moving a family internationally isn’t an easy task. And, it becomes extraordinarily complicated for expatriate women in dual-career marriages. This is because typically women — even working women — carry the majority of the responsibility for taking care of the family. To emphasize this point, the “1996 Global Relocation Survey Trends Report” shows that of the 71 percent of married expatriates, married men outnumber married women nine to one; but single males outnumber single females only three to one. Clearly, single women have less complicated hurdles to overcome than married women.But this disparity is a changing reality as well, and it doesn’t mean that women who have families don’t want international assignments. Just ask Eleanor Haller-Jorden, managing director of the Paradigm Group, a Zurich, Switzerland-based international human resources research and consulting firm. “With the rise of dual-career couples, companies obviously will need to confront this issue more directly,” she points out. “I think there have been some dated assumptions in terms of the willingness and ability of male spouses to travel.” Line managers and HR professionals need to be more open and direct, speaking to employees about what might be of interest to them and what might get in the way of their taking assignments.

Haller-Jorden, who has two children and a husband who is an international banker, is in the midst of conducting a 10-year longitudinal study on international dual-career families. She’s able to reel off examples of couples who have eagerly sought assignments, as she and her husband did.

Talk with women who have relocated their children internationally, and they’ll wax poetic about the advantages for their children.

And why wouldn’t they be eager? As stated earlier, CEOs want to see international experience in their executives. In the same Catalyst report, 50 percent of senior women said that high-visibility assignments were important, and 33 percent wanted cross-functional job rotations. Adler’s research underscores these findings. As she puts it, there may have been differences in the past, but today, both men and women are equally interested in expat assignments.Despite this interest, many line managers assume women won’t want to move their children overseas. But talk with women who have relocated their children internationally, and they’ll wax poetic about the advantages for their children. They’re thrilled about providing them with new surroundings, the sense of being an international citizen, and the language and educational opportunities. Although it’s not exactly an easy adjustment, most parents claim their children soak up the foreign culture and adapt to it quickly.By contrast, it’s the spouse or partner who has trouble. When Danner landed in Poland she was immediately thrown into a bank privatization. Within three days she was on a plane to Gdansk, working every night until midnight. Her husband and children were living in a hotel. But, she says, even though it was tough for her, it was extraordinarily difficult for her husband. He’s a marketing expert who decided to take advantage of this opportunity and agreed to help the children adjust first before looking for work.“It took him six to nine months to get through the whole shock of language barrier, culture problems and just learning to get around,” says Danner. “He’d never been alone with the children in the same way, either,” she says. Although the family had some cultural orientation, Danner believes it wasn’t enough. “There needs to be more assistance as to what it’s going to be like,” she says.

An overseas relocation isn’t a quick adjustment, and it isn’t an opportunity for everyone. But when women with families come forward and express their eagerness for expatriate assignments, they shouldn’t be faced with managers who had assumed they wouldn’t be interested because of the age of their children or their spouses’ careers.

Don’t assume anything.
Just as the global marketplace changes constantly, so do the individuals who work in multinational firms. Greater opportunities and greater knowledge of the expatriate lifestyle will encourage women to step forward.“I’ve seen how important international assignments have been in a lot of women’s careers in terms of increased mobility and visibility for them in the workplace,” says Segal. “There needs to be encouragement and proactive behavior on the part of the organization to empower female executives to feel they have some control over where their careers are going.” If career management and effective mentoring of women is successful, if sufficient support and education become commonplace, there will likely be more female expats and more women in the foreign work environments altogether.But old assumptions won’t move the corporate culture or the global business effort forward. HR managers, along with managerial women and their line managers, must shatter stereotypes and create an action plan that works toward making full use of all individuals in the workplace.

Global Workforce, May 1998, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 10-14.

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Integrate HR and Training

Applied Materials Inc. is a $4 billion global company that’s growing an average of 30 percent a year. Like so many other high-tech, high-growth companies in the Silicon Valley, the Santa Clara, California-based employer has a difficult time finding skilled technical and managerial talent. To keep up with the rapid growth rate, the company’s HR professionals can’t sit around and hope that experienced professionals will knock on the door looking for a job. They have to grow the skills and capabilities they need internally.


Company leaders recognized this need, and approximately four years ago, they set out to determine what technical and managerial skills were needed to keep up with the rapid growth. Then, armed with a list of these characteristics, the company’s HR professionals embarked on a massive organizational development effort designed around a new entity known as Applied Global University (AGU). Established just two years ago, AGU is an internal organization dedicated to building the capabilities the company needs to be successful.


AGU, which is part of the HR department, oversees $30 million worth of annual training and development activities. Its mission? “To make employee development visible, efficient and strategic,” explains Jim Hessler, managing director of AGU. In so doing, everything AGU does is lockstep with the rest of human resources. The organization is involved in recruitment, performance management, retention—even reorganization, if necessary. “By working with HR, all development activities are more closely aligned with the business process,” Hessler explains. “This way, we don’t have training that’s separate from what we’re trying to achieve as a company.”


It wasn’t always this way—at Applied Materials or any other major U.S. corporation. Training, although a part of HR, has long been an independent operator. Training professionals have traditionally stitched together a patchwork of training programs with little thought given to overall corporate objectives. The training developed for manufacturing employees was different from the training for technical employees, which was different still from the training offered to managers. Not only that, employee development was rarely linked to other HR activities. Employees often were hired based on one skill set, promoted based on another, and trained on yet other competencies that may or may not directly impact their job performance. This mishmash of efforts was costly, wasteful and unproductive.


Fortunately, all this is changing now as HR professionals begin to realize that to stay competitive, training and all other HR activities have to work together to support and reinforce corporate strategy. “In high-performing companies, HR departments are more closely integrated,” explains Kerri Folmer, director of the Human Capital Group at Watson Wyatt Worldwide in San Francisco. By forgetting about ownership and turf battles, Folmer says HR professionals can more clearly identify the people practices needed to help the company reach its strategic goals.


Why training and other HR activities are becoming more closely aligned. According to Alice J. Pescuric, vice president of the Workforce Effectiveness Practice at Development Dimensions International (DDI) in Pittsburgh, companies are becoming savvier about the need to integrate training and other HR practices for a number of reasons.


First, there’s tremendous pressure on all fronts to do more with less. Naturally, the way this is done is by becoming more efficient and eliminating redundancies and unnecessary work. Why should three separate training programs be developed for management, technical and manufacturing employees if the course content is the same throughout? By working together, each HR group can take advantage of established capabilities.


Second, enterprisewide technology and reengineering are making it possible for the entire HR department to become integrated in a way never before possible. Today, information on recruitment, benefits, training, performance management, skill sets, payroll and succession planning all can be stored and accessed in the same information system.


The third reason HR and training are working more closely together is because of the pressure felt by every corporate function to become strategic bottom-line business partners—or get outsourced. This not only applies to HR as a whole but to every activity within HR, including training.


“When put together, all of these factors are forcing HR to pool its resources and take a holistic look at business objectives,” Pescuric says.


Interestingly enough, in many organizations, it’s the training department that’s spearheading this integration. As companies strive to become learning organizations that are capable of adapting quickly to market changes, training professionals are giving up their old role as classroom trainer. Instead they’re becoming “performance consultants” who work to boost productivity in a variety of ways of which traditional classroom training may play only a small part.


“Trainers are starting to talk about the entire business process,” Pescuric explains. This is because not all performance problems are training problems. “If, when holding a gun to an employee’s head he or she will perform for you, the problem isn’t a training problem,” she says. It may be a problem with the rewards or performance-management systems, a problem of unclear roles or a lack of information. Because there are so many things that impact performance, trainers are becoming more intimately involved in—or at least aware of—other HR activities.


How training integrates with other HR functions. One of the ways trainers are taking on a more strategic, performance-oriented mindset is by working with the rest of HR to train line managers in HR responsibilities.


At the Sony Technology Center, a San Diego-based division of Sony Electronics Inc., trainers consider themselves consultants to the line organization. They work to help managers throughout the company understand their HR responsibilities. Instead of HR bearing the burden of hiring and performance management, for example, Sony’s executives believe better performance occurs when individual managers are responsible for these activities.


Debby Swanson, manager of training and organizational development at Sony, says Sony’s training consultants are helping supervisors and line managers by:


  1. Training them how to hire employees using DDI’s targeted selection process, which is a competency-based approach to hiring. By helping managers learn how to effectively interview candidates based on a predetermined list of job competencies, trainers empower managers to make smart hiring decisions on their own.
  2. Working with the company’s equal employment opportunity administrator to provide annual updates on departmental affirmative-action goals. The trainers hold regular informational sessions for managers about their roles and responsibilities in maintaining affirmative action in the company.
  3. Training managers how to develop performance plans and conduct performance reviews. “We teach managers the skills and processes necessary to conduct performance reviews, attack performance-improvement problems and conduct performance-planning discussions,” Swanson says.

In addition to partnering with HR to give managers HR skills and responsibilities, trainers are working hard to change the way training is delivered. “Because of the speed of change and the pace of work today, people don’t have as much time to come to training,” Swanson says. “They don’t have time for role plays. They want real-time, short-version, bottom-line, value-added tips they can use right away.” At Sony, for example, trainers are starting to put together short meeting topics that can be delivered in less than an hour. They also are looking at putting resources and reminders on the company intranet so employees have just-in-time access to information.


The trend toward alternative delivery methods has certainly created changes at BASF Corp., a chemical company based in Mount Olive, New Jersey. Three years ago, as part of a reengineering process, the company’s HR function identified a strong need for an employee career-development system. “We needed a system that balanced employee career-planning needs with the talent requirements of the organization as a whole,” explains David Wight, manager of career development. In creating the system, HR chose not to develop employees through traditional training but through work-related development opportunities. “Adults learn by doing,” Wight says. Although the career-development system is still evolving, BASF’s trainers probably won’t be training employees in order to fill skill gaps. Instead, they’ll be working with HR to educate managers on the importance of supporting employee development through special assignments, work rotations and other on-the-job development opportunities. To support this new direction, the company’s other HR systems, including internal job posting, performance management and incentive compensation, are being revamped. “We need to make sure HR is pulling in the same direction,” Wight says.


But even trainers who continue to provide regular classroom training are becoming more strategic and mindful of overall HR objectives. For example, HR professionals at Transamerica Life Companies in Los Angeles have spent the last two years identifying the skills and capabilities needed to achieve the company’s overall business strategy. “We needed some kind of model to look at the way we manage, assess and develop people,” explains Michael Wolfe, vice president of corporate human resources. In doing so, the company executives identified job competencies that are needed companywide. These include such skills as communication, accountability, initiative and collaboration. They also identified competencies such as technical knowledge or value focus that are needed only in certain business units. These competencies will be used by HR to make hiring, promotion and compensation decisions. Furthermore, all employee training and development activities will be linked to the competencies.


According to Wolfe, when employees are assessed based on their individual competency profile and that profile is compared to corporate requirements, development needs become clear. Thus, trainers can begin to develop training based on clearly identified employee needs.


“In the past, training was delivered based on a shotgun approach,” he says. For example, every manager might be sent to training on how to interview applicants, regardless of whether or not all managers demonstrated a need for that kind of training. “Today, the training is tailored and targeted to an individual’s development plan.”


Consider an HR generalist approach. The fact that Transamerica no longer has a training “department” is proof of the company’s commitment to link training with other strategic HR objectives. “We reengineered HR three years ago, eliminating the training department,” Wolfe says. This allows the company’s HR professionals to serve as generalists who are more concerned with overall corporate strategy than individual administrative responsibilities. Today, these generalists provide the necessary training.


The HR generalist approach may be a good one for other companies to consider, especially those in which silos still exist between human resources functions. The best way to integrate training with hiring, performance management, compensation, benefits, job posting and other facets of HR is by eliminating the barriers between them. As Wolfe explains: “Today, we’ve broken down the walls and have a fully integrated approach to managing the employee asset. Selection, development, pay and training are all connected to a set of criteria that’s common to that individual. We no longer hire under one criteria set, pay under another and train under another. We’re fully integrated, and as a result, HR as a function has become more of a consultative, facilitative group rather than a back-room, paper-pushing function.”


Obviously, this kind of structure won’t be easy for organizations that have yet to start down the path toward integration. Turf battles are common throughout Corporate America and HR is no exception. What advice do experienced HR professionals have about getting started? “Focus on the business objectives,” Swanson says. “I don’t mean to be trite about it, but if you’re constantly looking at your internal customers’ needs, then out of that you have to align. Instead of focusing on internal responsibilities within HR, focus on external objectives. This way, you can’t help but connect with each other. At least, it works that way when we do it.”


Workforce, May 1998, Vol. 77, No. 5, pp. 88-93.


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Nantucket Nectars’ Recipe for Participation

In 1990, two Brown University buddies, Tom First and Tom Scott, launched Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Nantucket Nectars Inc. When the “juice guys” formed their free-spirited company, they wanted to create a work environment that was non-hierarchical, casual and without job titles. Below, HR director Kelley Merrill shares how Nantucket Nectars’ participatory management style yields team spirit and quality beverages.


How would you describe the core values of your organization?
Our core values are simple: to provide a quality product and quality service to our customers and to provide a quality work environment for our employees. Here at Nantucket Nectars, the value we place in our employees shows in our efforts to promote community participation, integrity, honesty and respect for the law. Value is one of six areas that make up our mission statement; Product, Service, Work Environment, Technology and Profitability are the others. It’s the mission statement that guides our team members and continues to make our business a success.


So whom does your company seem to attract?
Nantucket Nectars attracts many “entrepreneurial types,” if you will—people who are interested in and believe in the American Dream, in working hard and in being successful and prosperous. Most of the applicants are interested in working for a young growing company. Young and growing—to job seekers—means providing all of our employees with the opportunity to become the expert in their areas. Others hear about our unique style of management and look for an opportunity to do the same. Our unique style of participatory management, coupled with the value we place on our employees as well as on our community, attracts many candidates. In my five years in HR, I’ve yet to be at a loss for candidates.


How does participatory management work at your company?
Our founders, Tom First and Tom Scott, created this company out of a passion for creating a quality product that people enjoy and have made the company successful and fun along the way. We’re a team, and we share in this passion. That’s what makes participatory management work. You have to have people who are driven, and one way to drive people is to give them the opportunity to make decisions for themselves, use their judgment, and make mistakes and learn from them. Each of our employees has a vested interest in the success of our business, which stems from having free rein, creating their departments and seeing the difference they make. Tom and Tom have communicated along the way what their dreams are and the importance of setting individual goals as well as company goals and adhering to them. This constant communication has kept everyone involved and kept the same passion that started this business in 1990.


Is it difficult to ensure teamwork while pushing for growth?
Yes. One of the biggest challenges for HR is to keep this team atmosphere as our company grows. It gets more and more difficult to communicate our values and goals to those who work in the field. HR must find creative ways to keep all involved, keep people motivated and make sure we’re all enjoying ourselves along the way. We believe it’s important to have an even balance between work life and home life. We encourage people to try and get their work done in a normal eight-hour day, to stay physically active and to continue educating themselves in areas that are of interest to them. We encourage people to stay informed and to make suggestions. And we often seek out advice from a number of people when we’re thinking about making a significant change that we believe would affect everyone. The more information and advice we receive, the better. We also encourage employees to help improve the community by volunteering their time in a particular area of interest to them. We give all employees two paid volunteer days per year to help improve our communities. We try to keep families involved by sending out a monthly newsletter, and we always invite families and friends to company sponsored events. These are only a few examples of how HR reinforces the importance of working as a team, staying involved and living a well-balanced life.


How does participatory management benefit the company?
Participatory management motivates people to work hard because they’re required to be experts in their areas. If problems arise, they’re held accountable. When you give people that type of responsibility, it motivates them to try their best. Our success rides on the efforts of our team—the harder we work, the more successful we are.


And the employees?
The educational experience gained by our employees is immense. In my mind, there’s nothing more beneficial than hands-on learning. People learn from doing and from making mistakes. Participatory management allows that to happen. All employees are focused on their individual responsibilities while also being involved in other department and company happenings. Committees are created to complete various tasks that allow people to think “out of the box,” so to speak. It also gives them an opportunity to get out of their daily routines and do something different. This makes for happier employees. I’ve also found the more each individual knows about what others are doing and what other people’s responsibilities are, the more apt they are to lend a hand. It also gives them a more rounded understanding of the total operation.


How does this all translate to your customers?
Our customers make out because the combined effort of 100 people is much better than that of two people. We work as a team to ensure that our customers are receiving a quality product with quality service. It’s part of our mission statement. It’s our ultimate goal. When our customers call us, we have a team of customer-service people available to answer questions, comments and take care of any complaints. We get hundreds of people a week sending fan mail, and they’re all responded to within a three-week time frame. We let our customers know through our commercials, our fan-mail responses and through our daily customer-service calls that we care about them.


Have you seen a correlation between participatory management and profits?
I do see a correlation. Nantucket Nectars has doubled its sales for the last four years. We’re in Inc. 500’s Top Ten Fastest Growing Companies, and we’re expanding all over the world. This is a pretty good indication that what we’re doing works. We have great people who work well under this style of management.


How does it make HR’s work easier?
Well, for one thing we have a very low turnover rate here at Nantucket Nectars, which in my mind means we have satisfied employees. As we all know, hiring can be a very long, drawn-out process. So [low attrition] definitely makes HR’s work easier. Having satisfied employees also makes for a happy work environment with less stress, which is helpful as well. That’s not to say we don’t have stress, but satisfied employees are key to an organization’s success—again back to the philosophy that employees are the No. 1 asset.


Workforce, May 1998, Vol. 77, No. 5, pp. 25-26.


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Making Every Minute Count

Hotel human resources managers know it. And the companies that manage and own hotels know it. The cost of labor is the single largest expense faced in the lodging and hospitality industry. The cost of effectively managing a hotel’s labor pool also is significant. And when a hospitality company is undergoing significant growth, it takes even more effort for the human resources department to accurately calculate employee payroll hours, manage high turnover, develop complicated schedules and monitor attendance habits for full- and part-time service employees.


The Nashville Crown Plaza, along with 26 hotels owned by Memphis, Tennessee-based Davidson Hotel Co., recently improved control of labor costs and reduced costly payroll errors. HR now spends less time scheduling and calculating employee hours and can take on more meaningful tasks. Pay rules are enforced fairly and impartially, and employees and management are confident that paychecks reflect actual work being done. The key to these improvements is a Windows®-based time-and-attendance software package recently installed at the hotel.


No more clocks and calculators.
Carol Cooper is the director of human resources for the four-diamond, 28-story Nashville Crown Plaza, an organization that’s constantly adding new employees to staff its 473 rooms, two restaurants, and 20,000 square feet of meeting and convention space. “Until recently, we used manual punch cards and a calculator to total employee hours and gross pay, and I can tell you it was a real time-waster for supervisors and HR management,” she notes. “When a pay period was over, the timecards were bundled up and given to the supervisors. The supervisors then manually checked the timecards against schedules and tallied a total number of hours per employee with a calculator.” Cooper and her staff verified those totals and sent them to corporate headquarters where data input sheets were prepared for Roseland, New Jersey-based ADP (Automatic Data Processing). The payroll service printed out the checks and returned them to corporate offices. Supervisors also used manual methods to write out weekly schedules.


“The old system for tracking complicated compensation practices also took a lot of effort,” explains Cooper. “For example, housekeeping staff are given incentives for on-time punches, and reception pay rates vary throughout a 24-hour period. Plus, hotel employees often transfer to different departments or do several different jobs with varying compensation schemes. Tracking this all manually was a nightmare.”


The manual approach to tracking time and attendance leads to mistakes.
The accuracy of these past methods was a concern, says Cooper, “Not only for us—but for our parent company. Since it was nearly impossible to check employee timecards each day, supervisors relied on their memories when completing missing in/out punches at the end of a two-week pay period. This could lead to incorrect employee hours, so HR staff did a lot of verifying. Rounding had the potential of introducing more errors. Department heads had to round up or round down punch times when calculating pay-period totals.”


Duplicate data entry was another problem. The same information was typed at least twice when totals were compiled at the end of a pay period. A missed keystroke or an incorrect figure entered on a calculator could easily throw off totals. HR took great care in verifying employee compensation, but an occasional mistake was inevitable, resulting in costly payroll errors and corrections. It was also difficult for departments to forecast labor expenditures given the company’s complex pay rate practices.


But the key for Cooper and the HR department was the time they spent on these tedious tasks each pay period, especially with a growing employee base. “As we added new employees, HR had to manually prepare new timecards every single pay period. Plus, the time spent recalculating the figures was another drain.” Scheduling was a time-consuming task because supervisors created the same information over and over each pay period. Last-minute modifications to the schedule were often written in pencil or not recorded at all. HR was at a disadvantage when it came time to identify employee attendance habits. It was a big effort to wade through punch cards or reports to see who was arriving late, leaving early or taking long breaks. “Now that I look back, it took our HR department an entire day each pay period to assemble those totals,” Cooper notes.


Find an automated solution.
At about the same time HR at the Nashville Crown Plaza was experiencing these difficulties, management at Davidson Hotel Co. set up an executive committee to select a single software system to automate time-and-attendance calculations at all of the company’s hotels. Says Fletcher Towell, Davidson Hotel’s director of technology and a member of the initial development team: “Our goal was to eliminate those time-wasting methods the hotel’s HR and management staff endured every pay period. And we wanted to increase accuracy.” A key criterion was to find an automated system that would be flexible enough to accommodate the complex hotel compensation practices. The new system had to be easy for supervisors to use because many employees had no experience with computers.


The committee selected Attendance Professional(TM) for Windows, an employee time-and-attendance system from InfoTronics Inc., based in Farmington Hills, Michigan. The committee liked the fact that the system could be modified to handle Davidson Hotel’s unique pay rules, and that the Windows screen design and layout would be easy for managers to learn.


Based on results from a successful beta site at the Nashville Crown Plaza, the program was installed at all Davidson Hotel facilities in approximately four months. Attendance Professional is available through a Novell LAN environment. The software also is installed at corporate offices in Memphis. Each user has access to only the data and functions needed to handle his or her requirements, and proprietary employee information is safeguarded against unauthorized access.


Now, Nashville Crown Plaza managers create employee schedules with a simple point-and-click action. Explains Towell: “The system regularly collects employee punches from badge-based time recorders located throughout the hotel—no more manual effort or paper cards. Punches automatically are compared to the schedules stored in the system. The software tracks employee hours and calculates gross pay with our payroll practices, assigning base wage, transfer rates, shift differentials and premium pay.” Managers can edit the electronic timecard with a click of a button, instantly adding a forgotten punch. Changes are recalculated immediately, displaying accurate totals. Pay period totals are then automatically exported to corporate offices, where they’re checked and transferred electronically to ADP.


Getting it right in less time.
After only a few months, Cooper observed more accurate payroll figures. “What we found is that supervisors no longer guess when completing missed punches. We can view timecards online at any time during the day. Missing punches are caught as they happen and can be resolved immediately with the employee.” She also notes the rounding-off errors have been eliminated with a corporate rounding policy that’s automatically implemented by the system. Errors associated with duplicate data entry have been completely eliminated. Employee information is entered only once, when an employee is hired. Schedules are more accurate because they’re created quickly and changed easily for last-minute modifications.


According to Cooper, the key benefit is the time savings. “What a relief to no longer spend a whole day manually preparing and collecting timecards and re-entering totals into a calculator. We no longer chase down missed punches or recheck for errors.” Assigning premium pay also is done more quickly. Managers use employee tardy information gathered by the software to determine on-time incentives for housekeeping staff. HR also is better able to monitor employee attendance habits. The system tracks attendance automatically, summarizing exceptions such as tardiness, absenteeism or abuse of break or lunch periods. Department managers now have the information they need to correct attendance issues before they become chronic problems. In addition, data are automatically archived as part of the employee’s permanent attendance record, so department heads can quickly and confidently respond to wage-and-hour questions.


Says Cooper: “The information gathered from Attendance Professional also has helped in my analysis of turnover and new hires. For instance, at any time I can see the number of employees hired or terminated per department. If I see a high turnover trend in housekeeping, for example, I can focus on discovering underlying problems and designing motivating retention programs. There was absolutely no way to do this analysis in the past.”


Cooper concludes, “With everything else HR has to undertake—compensation and benefits, legal requirements, interviewing and hiring—I can’t imagine spending so much time on repetitive, manual tasks. We have far too many other responsibilities that require our attention. Automating this function frees me up to do more of the projects related to HR management.”


Workforce, May 1998, Vol. 77, No. 5, pp. 31-33.


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Lose Any Data

Here are some possible scenarios that could result in data loss from within your organization:


  • An employee leaves a PC unattended during lunch. Another worker moves in and saves a sensitive file onto a floppy disk. Without a timed lockout—usually in the form of a screen saver that requires a password for re-entry—the system is essentially public. What’s more, there’s no way to trace the crook—since the evidence points to the worker who’s out to lunch.
  • A trusted outside consultant usually uses a computer to check e-mail. Instead, she uses a stolen password to log onto the system and access key files. Requiring a change of password every 30 days could’ve prevented the situation.
  • An information technology (IT) manager peruses through private employee records and other confidential data simply because he has access to the system. The breach could likely have been prevented by using encryption and ensuring that all IT professionals require a digital key (which they have to request on a one-time basis) to open certain files.
  • An HR manager deletes a group of sensitive files, but they somehow turn up in the hands of a competitor. The seemingly impossible event can take place because a deleted file remains on a hard drive, without the filename, until it’s erased or overwritten. Without a “wipe” delete, another person can “unerase” files and steal the data several days, even weeks, later.
  • An employee loads a program onto her computer and the entire network crashes. A virus destroys data and erases the hard drives on several PCs. The entire debacle could have been prevented if antivirus software had been installed and the employee knew that loading software onto a PC wasn’t allowed.

Workforce, May 1998, Vol. 77, No. 5, p. 56.


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Top-10 Ways Employees Disguise Drug Abuse

Did you hear about the guy who tried to beat a drug test by drinking bleach? Beth Lindamood has, as well as dozens more stories like it. She has heard so many, in fact, that she has created her Top-10 list of the dumbest things employees have done to try to beat a drug test.


Lindamood, an expert in workplace drug abuse and a senior market analyst for Great American Insurance Companies, based Cincinnati, says the list shows that people will go to incredible lengths to hide their drug abuse. So, HR beware. Attempts to disguise drug abuse generally fall into three categories: 1) flushing the body with various fluids, 2) substituting someone else’s or a dog’s urine sample or 3) buying products designed to mask drug use. And although she admits some methods may occasionally succeed, the vast majority simply provide comic relief. “One guy drank liquid soap because he thought it would ‘clean out his system,’” she says.


Though often amusing, attempts to disguise drug abuse can cause real headaches for human resources staff and employers’ testing labs. As products and methods designed to thwart drug tests have proliferated, testing labs have had to devise new means to detect them. “The best way for an employer to prevent the use of adulterants is through random drug testing.” Workplace drug abuse costs American businesses between $75 to $100 billion every year, she says.


Here’s Lindamood’s Top-10 list:


10. Drinking “Mary Jane’s SuperClean 13,” a vial of liquid dishwashing fluid that sells for $29.95


9. Drinking liquid soap


8. Drinking vinegar


7. Adding ammonia, blood, Drain-O, lemon juice, table salt, Visine and WD-40 to urine specimens


6. Drinking bleach


5. Injecting “clean urine” into the bladder


4. Making your own powdered urine and substituting it “when you’re clean”


3. Submitting a “fresh” 40-degree urine sample


2. Substituting canine urine for human urine


1. Sending someone else to collection site for you.


Workforce, May 1998, Vol. 77, No. 5, p. 16.


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Who’s HR’s Customer

For HR to become more effective as a function and as individual players, the most critical question to be resolved is often: Who is HR’s customer? It’s a question which rarely is asked because everyone assumes the answer is obvious. But when you ask different people in HR, you get different answers. It’s no surprise that many of the actions that HR units initiate are confusing (or downright infuriating) to the organization.

The question of who the real customer is, isn’t a “no-brainer.” It’s often the most difficult and the most impactful decision you can make. In many situations, it’s the least-discussed problem and is a question which most people don’t even think to ask. It’s a classical double-blind problem. Most “don’t know what they don’t know.” Most don’t even realize they should be dealing with the question. What makes the question even more troublesome is that there’s no right answer. There are competing right answers. It’s a classical dilemma. You’re damned if you pick one and damned if you pick the other. Picking either has opposite advantages and disadvantages. But you also can’t avoid making the choice. To not choose consciously and to not communicate a choice clearly guarantees that an HR unit will get caught in paradoxical situations as illustrated throughout this story.

Stakeholders aren’t all created equal. The distinction between different types of stakeholders is also one which is often fuzzy and problematic for HR and other internal staff units, and contributes to this problem. I’ve found it helpful to divide stakeholders into four categories. Customers, influencers, end-users and partners.

  • Customers: A customer makes a buying decision (to use you or someone else) and negotiates a formal or informal “contract” with you, the service provider.
  • End-users: An end-user (sometimes called a consumer) receives the service.
  • Influencers: An influencer sets the parameters within which you can or must operate, but doesn’t buy the service.
  • Partners: A partner works with you to provide a service. With partners you have mutual need, common objectives and shared risk related to that service.

What makes it difficult is that sometimes different stakeholders in your marketplace switch roles for different projects or demands they’re making. So you have to be careful to know not only what your own business strategy is, but what role they’re in at the time and what your commitments to them are in that role. Remember, all of them make demands, but only the professional in place at the time can sort out the issues, plan an appropriate response and know what the appropriate limits, possibilities and flexibilities are.

It’s also likely that in different settings, one HR person is a cop (as in the case of working for the CEO, enforcing policy) and the other is a consultant (working for the client, developing unique programs with no policy enforcement responsibilities). It’s even more likely, however, that those roles are mixed between HR people and between stakeholders at different times. Is it any wonder that line customers are confused and skeptical when a corporate HR person (or even someone from unit/plant HR) shows up in his or her “sincere suit” with briefcase in hand and says, “I’m here to help you?”

The overarching concept of who the HR department really serves and how the others in HR’s marketplace fit in is critical to clarity for all. But such a concept doesn’t come easily. However, there are some frameworks that can help. Involving the entire HR staff (or as many as feasible) in wrestling with the question is critical. An answer can’t be decided just from one perspective or be handed down from above. Without the in-depth understanding that comes from wrestling with an issue as a human resources team and contributing to the hard choices between the good alternatives, much is lost. A “mission, vision and values” statement from one or two leaders doesn’t provide a guide when HR people encounter the common but predictable dilemmas built into their jobs.

Figure out your business strategy. The process of determining who the real customer is for the HR department solves only part of the solution to the problem of developing a successful future for HR. It’s equally important to determine what HR’s business strategy is as a function. Thinking about HR as a business changes everything about how people deal with the issues and dilemmas they face. There are always competing strategy concepts in any business. HR is no exception. If you just ask the “customers” what they want and try to aggregate it to satisfy all of them, you end up with the strategic mess that most internal staff departments are trying desperately to resolve. Usually the feasible strategy concepts are mutually exclusive in their implementation — that is, the investment of resources to do one takes away from being able to do the other. There’s never enough to be able to do them all well. What also complicates the situation is that different strategy concepts dictate different concepts of customer. Strategic clarity and customer concept are mutually dependent factors. One cannot be solved without the other. The answers for each affect the other. The problem must be addressed systemically, recognizing the interconnectedness of the concepts of strategy, customer and organization design.

HR is in good company. Many internal staff units suffer from this problem. Clear concepts of strategy not only focus efforts but also provide boundaries. The greatest difficulty HR and other internal service units usually have is the inability to say “no” to customers and end-users (or more correctly, to noncustomers or to customers asking for what has been decided is “out of bounds”). Many professionals in internal staff departments not only can’t say “no,” they aren’t even able to say “wait.” This common bind is a result of not having clear strategic boundaries that are agreed to by customers, influencers and sponsors in the firm. The end-users are subject to those boundaries because their influencers (their bosses, who are your real customers) negotiated them with your department. Without those boundaries, there’s no politically defensible way to say “no” or “wait.” The service unit begins to suffer from “customer-driven mediocrity” — trying so hard to do it all for everybody, they just can’t do it all well enough or fast enough. With a clear focus and boundaries, HR departments are well on the way to becoming a focused, service-providing unit (SPU), a viable business within a business.

The change process to move from an organization that’s struggling with its strategic identity and its boundaries (its ability to say “yes” to some and “no” to others), and turn it into a strategically integrated SPU, isn’t difficult to understand. The steps are simple, but it becomes a complex and difficult process in the context of the dilemmas faced in each unique marketplace. It requires a big time investment and the involvement of a firm’s members. It also requires some hard choices, by consensus, between good alternatives — the hardest choices to make. But it’s well worth the effort, both in creating focus in the organization and in preparing people to work independently and consistently with each other and with customers in a manner that stems from a clear, focused and bounded business strategy. Recognizing there’s a problem and agreeing upon what that problem is — that HR needs to figure out who it’s customers are — must come first. It’s often the biggest hurdle to overcome.

Workforce, May 1998, Vol. 77, No. 5, pp. 70-71.

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Study Confirms Women Are Still Undervalued

Catalyst, the New York-based national nonprofit research and advisory organization, last year published important research called “The 1997 Catalyst Census of Women Corporate Officers and Top Earners,” a report about the advancement of women in Corporate America. Catalyst’s first landmark study on this topic was published in 1996. The study researched corporate officers in Fortune 500 companies because they have responsibility for policy as well as legal power to compel an organization to follow certain guidelines. Information regarding corporate officers and top earners is public and can be compared.


The study was designed to establish a data-based benchmark to:


  • Provide an accurate measure of women’s progress as corporate officers and, specifically, top-earning officers


  • Begin tracking this information


  • Support or eliminate perceptions about women in large corporations.



Parity for women is lacking. The findings show that women made up 10.6 percent of Fortune 500 officers in 1997, an increase from 10 percent from the previous year. However, only 51 held the highest-ranking positions compared to 1,677 men (chairman, vice chairman, CEO, president, COO and executive vice president). In the top-10 companies with women corporate officers, the highest representation is in the services sector.


However, only 61 women (2.5 percent) of 2,458 were top earners. This is up from 47 women in the previous year. More than 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies have no women among their five most highly paid officers.


Only 20 percent of all women (compared to 41 percent of men corporate officers) have profit-and-loss or revenue-generating responsibility. These are the line jobs that offer valuable experience for upward mobility. In response to that finding, Catalyst President Sheila Wellington says: “There’s still a glass ceiling, but equally important, this census documents the existence of glass walls. These are the invisible barriers in the corporate culture itself that keep women from obtaining the jobs with line responsibility that lead to the executive suite.”



Workforce, May 1998, Vol. 77, No. 5, p. 82.


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A Salting Solution Checklist

What can you do to protect your company from union salting activities? The answers are simple, and they’re good HR practice:


  • Require job candidates to list job references and account for gaps in employment.
  • Conduct regular reference checks on all job candidate finalists.
  • Develop and adhere to a policy declining to hire applicants who haven’t been truthful on their job applications, and keep documentation of these occurrences.
  • Develop and equally enforce a no-solicitation policy.
  • Develop and enforce a no-moonlighting policy.
  • Apply discipline and dismissal policies equally to all employees who violate company policies.
  • Keep and maintain documentation that will show a past practice of equally disciplining and dismissing employees who’ve violated company policies. This can be used to prove that the employer’s behavior is consistent and nondiscriminatory.
  • Train hiring officials to not consider or mention union activity during the hiring process.
  • Require new employees to sign a statement stating that they’ve reviewed, understand and will comply with company policies during their employment.
  • Consider salting and employer liability insurance. With more than 33,000 unfair labor charges filed against employers each year, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Workforce, May 1998, Vol. 77, No. 5, p. 46.


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ADA Compliance Requires Careful Juggling

Human resources professionals today often find themselves on the horns of painful dilemmas—when meeting the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) means violating other workplace statutes. But two recent rulings signal the courts’ attitudes when the ADA crosses paths with issues such as workplace violence and union agreements. Gerald D. Skoning, a partner at employment law firm Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather and Geraldson in Chicago, explains the cases.


What’s the basic issue in Duda v. Board of Education of Franklin Park Public School District?
Duda is a classic case of the delicate juggling of the risk of workplace violence on one hand and on the other, psychiatric disability discrimination claims. [The plaintiff] was a janitor in a junior high school and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder by a psychiatrist; he was a recovering alcoholic on medication for the depressive condition. On work breaks, when he felt anxious or depressed, he’d write his thoughts in his diary. One night co-workers read the diary and reported to their supervisor that it contained a death threat against his supervisor. The school [officials] put him on leave and said when he got a clean bill of health from his doctor they’d reconsider his status. His psychiatrist said he was fine, and independent psychiatric evaluations required by the school district also said he was stable and not a danger to anyone.


What happened then?
The district [officials] said he could come back to work under these conditions: He must continue participating in Alcoholics Anonymous, and continue psychiatric counseling and taking his medication. And—here’s where the [grievance] came in—he’d be transferred to a school where he wouldn’t work with other people, and he could forget about applying for a bus-driver position, which he wanted to apply for. So he filed suit claiming that the school district had segregated him on the basis of his psychiatric disability and that the denial of an opportunity to apply for a promotion to bus driver was discriminatory.

The ruling means prudent response to workplace violence can still leave employers faced with a trial

How was the case ruled?
The district court threw out the case; it found no violation of the ADA. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals this January reversed the decision and said that he was entitled to a trial under the claims that he was segregated and disqualified from applying to be a bus driver. But the [wording] of the decision was telling: The court basically apologized for having to remand this for a trial and suggested the district may have another bite at proving the conditions [required for reinstatement] were appropriate.


What does the ruling mean for employers?
It means that prudent management responses to a very difficult workplace situation can still leave [employers] faced with a trial. The decision [the court of appeals made] was almost required by the broad language of the ADA. I’m not sure it’s going to be easy for employers to get rid of a case like this on an early motion to dismiss.


What’s the likely scenario for employers then?
It’s more likely they’ll have to develop a factual record, and then move for summary judgment—which means there will be a deposition and statements from psychiatrists to show [an employee] does present a direct threat and that steps taken by management to deal with potential threats were entirely proper and prudent.


Is there any other advice on the issue?
In spring of last year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued psychiatric disability guidelines—suggestions regarding what kinds of situations are covered by the ADA. The decision makes clear that the EEOC’s interpretive guidelines, while not controlling on the courts, are a body of expertise which courts will defer to. So it suggests that employers should be very familiar with them.


In general, is it better to guard against workplace violence, even if it means possible problems with the ADA?
If management knew [an employee] was under psychiatric care, knew the employee was potentially violent yet didn’t take steps to protect [other employees and customers], and if violence does occur, there’s an enormous liability. An employer is well advised to err on the side of making a workplace safe.


If an accommodation under the ADA conflicts with terms of a collective bargaining agreement, it can’t be required.


Can you explain the Kralik v. Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission case?
An employee who has a disability wants to be reasonably accommodated, and that accommodation would require the employer to violate terms of a collective bargaining agreement. In this case, a toll collector suffered a back injury unrelated to work. She said that a reasonable accommodation would be to be [relieved] from forced overtime—under the local Teamsters union contract, if a [senior] employee doesn’t want to do overtime, then less-senior employees can be forced to take the overtime assignment. She said she wanted to be relieved from forced overtime, because she couldn’t work more than eight hours at a time due to her injury, [according to] her doctor. The turnpike commission [officials] said that would directly impact the rights of other employees with greater seniority, and the commission would face a grievance by the union for violating the contract. So it would be an undue hardship—and accommodation isn’t required if it means undue hardship.


What happened then?
The district court [agreed with the commission], and ruled that accommodation couldn’t be required under the ADA. The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals agreed. The issue still sticks in the craw of the EEOC, which has taken the position that if an accommodation would impact conditions of a collective bargaining agreement, then the employer should go to the union and ask the union to change the contract—which is incredibly naive and unrealistic.


What is the trend, then, for resolving issues of overlapping jurisdiction between the ADA and unions?
Now we have this case, and there’s a building area of case law that has developed a sort of rule: If an accommodation under the ADA conflicts with terms of a collective bargaining agreement, it is per se an undue hardship and therefore can’t be required. But the EEOC persists in its position.


If an employee requests an accommodation, the employer should notify union leaders and tell them it’s up to them to resolve it.


What are the lessons for employers handling this issue?
Unionized employers [might want to] negotiate provisions in their collective bargaining agreements that say in the event a request for accommodation made by a union employee conflicts with provisions in the agreement, management and the union will make their best efforts to resolve the issue through mutual negotiation.


Is there anything else employers should keep in mind in order to respond appropriately?
The second lesson is if an employer gets hit with a situation like this, one tactical move is to immediately notify the union that a request has been made and tell the [leaders] it’s up to them to resolve this. Then when the EEOC asks the employer what has been done to make an accommodation, the employer can say it’s the union’s problem—and sic the government authorities on the union, because in most of these cases, the employer is willing to make the accommodation if the union goes along.

Workforce, April 1998, Vol. 77, No. 4, pp. 107-111.