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Adversaries Find Common Ground

Several years ago, Salt River Project (SRP), a public electric and water utility based in Phoenix, faced a growing stalemate with the union. Tensions between SRP management and the leadership of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 266 had been intensifying.


Employees increasingly were filing grievances, and those left on the books weren’t being resolved. Needless to say, labor-management relations were close to an impasse because of the adversarial nature of communications. Both sides festered with distrust. (Local 266 represents approximately 2,200 hourly employees of SRP’s 4,300-person workforce.)


However, in the fall of 1993, SRP management and IBEW Local 266 agreed to try a new approach. The approach, interest-based bargaining, is designed to find the common ground between negotiating parties, to build relationships and to eliminate the adversarial elements of traditional collective bargaining.


The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service focused the discussions on issues, rather than personalities.


Both sides agreed the process was a wise decision. The new bargaining approach led to productive contract negotiations in the fall of 1994 and a dramatic decrease in the number of grievances. HR managers elsewhere also are beginning to appreciate the merit of different forms of preventive mediation services. Why? Because it’s less adversarial and more geared toward mutually beneficial solutions.


Today, there’s a new era of labor-management relations at SRP—one characterized by continuous consensus and relationship-building. Operational as well as labor-management issues are being addressed and solved early on. Some also believe the new approach contributes to SRP’s safety performance. For example, employees have set low accident-frequency rate standards in major safety categories the past two fiscal years.


Labor-management relations undergo change. Two major reorganizations at SRP during the late 1980s and early 1990s eroded labor-management relations and led to the need for new processes. SRP, the nation’s third largest public power utility and Arizona’s largest water supplier, underwent a restructuring to better meet the needs of its customers and to position itself for electric utility industry competition.


Relationships suffered along the way, however. Both sides replaced dialogue and teamwork with cynicism. Labor-relations and employee-relations professionals also kept busy with challenges arising from employee morale problems.


However, the Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service (FMCS) commissioners in the Phoenix area were familiar with the situation. The FMCS helped facilitate contract settlements several times during that period. During the summer of 1993, the FMCS commissioners suggested SRP management and Local 266 leadership undergo relationship-building training. About a half-dozen representatives from each side participated in a seminar titled Partners in Change.


“SRP and union participants were encouraged to frankly assess the present state of labor-management relations,” says Lavonne Ritter, an FMCS commissioner who worked with SRP and Local 266. “Participants also were asked what those relations should be like in the future, and what was needed in order to improve.”


Ritter says the seminar focused on brainstorming and consensus-building skills. Her organization, established as an independent agency by the Labor-Management Relations Acts of 1947, resolves collective bargaining disputes and promotes the development of stable labor-management relations, she explains. With SRP, “We emphasized a nonadversarial approach to resolving issues,” she says. In late 1993, many of the first participants attended a workshop facilitated by the FMCS. It was designed to sharpen their effectiveness in working in committees and small groups. The goal was to overcome individual differences and to work toward a mutually beneficial settlement. “After the second workshop, the participants had learned a better way to do things, that they could work together more effectively, and that there was some hope for [improved] labor-management relations,” Ritter says.


In February 1994, an additional 20 SRP and Local 266 representatives (10 on each side) attended a two-day seminar about interest-based bargaining (IBB), again facilitated by the FMCS. IBB is a process that requires training of the bargaining teams as well as those who won’t be a part of the team, but whose support is necessary for the teams to succeed. It’s not a panacea for unhealthy labor-management relationships, and it shouldn’t be viewed as a replacement to adversarial bargaining, which all parties must embrace, says Ritter. Just as “one size doesn’t fit all,” the IBB process isn’t appropriate for all labor-management relationships. Even after a training, the parties may decide the process isn’t appropriate for them, may decide to use the process on language items only or may decide to pilot the process in the arena of labor-management problem solving on the shop floor, prior to attempting an application in their contract negotiations. When FMCS conducted the training for SRP, the participants were encouraged to focus on the mutual interests of each side, rather than on their differences of opinion. To be productive, the FMCS focused the discussions on issues, rather than personalities, positions and posturing.


Even the seating arrangement of the two sides was designed to alleviate tension. Negotiators sat intermingled, rather than in segregated groups on opposite sides of a table or room. Everyone became involved because the process would fail if only a few strong personalities dominated.


The most important aspect of interest-based bargaining is that both sides share information about their interests and concerns. They create a menu of possible solutions to their concerns and work to achieve a solution that best meets everybody’s needs. Brainstorming is an important tool in creating an environment of free-flowing exchange. Participants were encouraged to consider each other’s ideas and to build on each other’s thoughts. “The initial reaction to the training was very positive,” Ritter says. “The first real test was later in 1994, when SRP and Local 266 began contract negotiations.”


Win-win bargaining helps reach settlement. Contract talks began in August. Eight representatives from each side participated in the opening sessions. As the talks continued, more people were called in as committees were formed to address the various issues. The FMCS commissioners monitored the progress of the talks, but insisted on remaining in the background. The other FMCS commissioner, Ron Collatta, also was available, but Ritter really wanted SRP and Local 266 to take ownership of the process and work through the negotiations without the FMCS’s help, Ritter says.


Both sides used the new IBB approach during negotiations to identify interests and potential resolutions for the initial 16 issues that had been identified. The issues included management accountability, compensation, contracting, flexible work schedules, preference hiring and performance reviews.


Employees received updates through communiqués jointly released by a communication representative from each side. During previous negotiations, each side had maintained a telephone hot line, but these hot lines weren’t activated during the 1994 contract talks.


Initially, the progress seemed slow and laborious. As issues were identified and discussed, and committees formed to examine possible solutions, the contract talks gathered momentum. At the beginning of the contract talks, there were 175 outstanding grievances on the books. During negotiations, approximately 90 were resolved. Some were resolved because the negotiating parties made changes to various sections of the agreement. Others were resolved because both sides committed to addressing various situations during the life of the contract.


Eventually, the negotiating parties agreed to a tentative settlement nine days before the old contract’s expiration date. Quite a feat considering how past negotiations continued beyond the expiration dates.


One anecdote is telling: “In the past, once we reached a settlement, both sides were eager to get away from each other,” one participant observed. “This time, after we reached a settlement, a majority of the participants went out for a happy hour.”


IBEW Local 266 membership subsequently approved the new agreement by more than a 95 percent margin. SRP’s governing boards approved the new agreement unanimously. Typically, labor negotiations result in an agreement among the bargaining parties that’s reduced to writing and fixed for the duration of the contract term. Although the SRP-IBEW accord is similar to this type of an agreement, there are two key differences.


“First, management and the union committed to handling issues when they arise, and [vowed] not to wait until the next contract negotiations,” says J.R. Iannacone, business manager for IBEW Local 266. “If something isn’t working for both parties, we’ll fix it sooner rather than later.”


The contract states: “To continue the win-win [interest-based] process during the life of the Collective Bargaining Agreement… Nothing contained in this labor agreement shall prohibit the Salt River Project and IBEW Local 266 from addressing and resolving issues of common interest … Said discussions and/or resolutions shall not operate to open the Collective Bargaining Agreement for negotiations.”


The second difference between the SRP-IBEW accord and a typical labor agreement is that both parties formed a number of committees to examine a wide range of labor-management issues, including those unsolved during contract talks. Union leadership selected hourly members, and SRP management selected nonrepresented (generally salaried) members to each committee. “The committees were responsible for obtaining consensus-based recommendations on outstanding labor-management issues,” said Joe Gelinas, manager of employee and labor relations services, adds Iannacone. “Both sides are committed to using the committee process to solve outstanding issues and to implement recommended solutions during the life of the current contract,” Iannacone says.


While joint labor-management committees aren’t revolutionary in labor-management practices, what sets SRP’s committees apart from most is that they’re self-directed, Gelinas explains. Each committee designates its own leaders—usually salaried and hourly co-captains. Committee members may explore and gather almost any form of data they may need to complete their tasks.


“So far, this method of addressing issues of mutual interest is working,” Iannacone says. “What you have is both union and nonunion salaried employees advocating to their respective hierarchy or management the course of action that’s in the best interest of all.”


To sustain the momentum, Local 266 and SRP agreed during the contract talks to form training teams to communicate the principles of the new interest-based approach to all employees and their supervisors. Seven training teams were composed of representatives from SRP and Local 266. Each team worked with groups of 20 to 25 employees at a time. The teams encouraged employees to help identify ways the interest-based bargaining principles could be used to improve working relationships and the decision-making process.


SRP labor relations and employee relations professionals were instrumental in working with Local 266 leadership in scheduling and facilitating the training, which concluded in early spring of 1996. Each session lasted approximately three hours and included subject material used successfully by the New York City-based American Arbitration Association.


Standing the test of time. Clearly, the real tests of interest-based bargaining are contract implementation and the subsequent use of win-win to work through labor-management issues.


So far, most agree the new approach is working. “The real evidence of ongoing change comes from looking at the current grievance log,” Iannacone says. As of December 31, 1996, all Salt River Project grievances filed prior to 1995 had been settled without going to arbitration. Seventy-five grievances were filed during the past two years. Only four grievances, all filed during calendar year 1995, went to arbitration; two were settled before the arbitrator’s ruling. There were no arbitrations in calendar year 1996. Just 12 of the 75 grievances from 1995 and 1996 remain active. Some of the grievances filed late in 1996 were being settled by the involved parties as this article went to press. “Win-win, interest-based principles are extremely effective in the areas of dispute resolution and building consensus,” Gelinas says. “We’re counting on this approach to help improve relationships and increase productivity throughout SRP.


“Of particular significance is that supervisors, employees and stewards have settled numerous workplace issues before a formal grievance has been filed,” Gelinas says. “There have been settlements of formally filed grievances in the new first step of the official grievance procedure in the labor agreement. It calls for a prompt meeting [held within 10 days] between the supervisor, steward and employee to solve the problem on a nonprecedent-setting basis. This is dramatic evidence of effective problem solving using the new bargaining principles.”


Success gains national recognition. SRP and Local 266’s success with IBB has been the topic of numerous public presentations and has brought a measure of national recognition to both parties. The public recognition has had a positive influence on the parties’ continuing efforts at win-win.


For example, SRP and/or Local 266 have participated in nearly a dozen presentations nationwide and have published articles about the process in several major industry publications. “What they’ve accomplished is remarkable. They’ve really turned things around,” Ritter says. “SRP and Local 266 show other electric utilities that you can address competitive industry issues and maintain and improve labor-management relations at the same time.”


Improved labor-management relations also have contributed to a number of other successes. During the past year, SRP earned top awards and/or honors from the Washington, D.C.-based American Public Power Association and the Itasca, Illinois-based National Safety Council for employees’ safety performance. SRP’s work/family initiatives have received accolades from several corners, including Working Woman magazine, U.S. Department of Labor’s Working Women Count Honor Roll and the International Women’s Forum.


While the leadership of SRP and that of Local 266 continue their strong support for the process, both sides acknowledge some challenges along the way. “If we had to do it all over again, more attention would have been given to the intermediate and lower levels of leadership in the philosophy and practice of the interest-based methods,” Gelinas says.


Nevertheless, both sides express confidence that these and other challenges will be resolved because the new approach is an active process that feeds on problem-solving situations. Addressing issues of mutual interest when they need to be addressed is at the heart of the win-win philosophy. “Using the interest-based bargaining approach helps us find new ways of doing business, and, in turn, creates value for the organization and our customers,” says Iannacone.


Workforce, March 1997, Vol. 76, No. 3, pp. 97-102.

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Four Seasons When Training Doesn’t Translate

It’s November 1992, the hottest, most humid time of the year in Bali, Indonesia. And the Four Seasons Resort Bali is about to open for business. The incomparable island beauty serves as stark contrast to the hotel’s makeshift training center—an old, dreary elementary school building with bare, low-wattage light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. Mediocre ventilation has made the room hot and still. The Peace Corps-like setting seems a world away from what will soon be one of the globe’s top-rated resorts.


When Michael Burchett, general manager for the hotel’s opening, and the other Four Seasons hotel managers embarked on creating this first-class resort at Jambaran Bay, Bali, they hardly suspected what awaited them. The area’s luxurious white-sand beaches and lush tropical rain forests couldn’t hide the challenges they’d soon encounter. They knew that creating paradise wouldn’t be easy, but they didn’t know just how daunting it would be. It took all of their HR know-how, cultural skill and interpersonal sensitivity to make it work—first at the Bali Resort, then a few years later at The Regent Jakarta hotel on the island of Java. Indeed, they did make it work—and on a world-class level.


Meeting high service expectations. When opening a hotel that’s known worldwide for having the highest quality of customer service, there’s no room for error. Hotel staff must be outstanding and respond correctly every time. Clerks at the front desk must coordinate rooms to exact customer specifications; staff who deliver room service must not only cook excellent food to order, but also must deliver it quickly and present it superbly; concierge, bell-station attendants, waiters, fitness center and pool attendants must respond to a wide range of customer requests—and everyone must be friendly and engaging. And to top it off, they must achieve these standards in an environment that may be as strange to the employees as a Jakartan pushcart is to a traveling American.


The HR issues encountered in creating this atmosphere were numerous. To begin with, the hotel (both then and now) has two types of staff—expatriates and local hires. That in itself created its own obstacles. In addition, there were myriad challenges of bringing local hires’ skills up to world-class level. From recruiting to training, from recognition to performance appraisals, Burchett and his HR staff had to operate in a workplace in which the view of the situation was often as obstructed as the view of the ocean through giant vines and elephant-ear plants. They couldn’t take for granted that what had worked in Chicago or Sydney would work in Indonesia; they had to discern the distinctness in this environment—the individual and cultural issues—to determine how they’d construct and implement HR policies and how they’d treat people so they’d feel motivated and feel like they were dealt with fairly.


Four Seasons Resort Bali: Transforming a remote island village into a Garden of Eden. The Four Seasons’ staff hadn’t expected to start from scratch. They anticipated being able to import standard HR training procedures-practices that had always worked so well elsewhere. Not so, here. “Training here was different from anywhere else,” says Royal L. Rowe, executive assistant manager. “It was fraught with opportunities to excel.”


Although there were more than 10,000 applicants eager to fill the 580 jobs, virtually none were able to speak English, and many didn’t have any concept about world cuisine and western customs. In fact, many of the Balinese applicants had never even left their island, meaning training had to begin at a more basic level than usual.


Traditional corporate training methods were fairly useless in educating the indigenous population to Four Seasons’ standards, says Rowe, because most of the training was geared to young Americans with some college education. More than their education, eager, young Americans also have an idea about the Four Seasons’ corporate philosophy. In fact, the only thing the Four Seasons training staff could count on from the beginning with the Indonesian employees, and the Balinesian people especially, was their cultural predisposition to be gracious and hospitable. In other words, the concept of service didn’t have to be taught —just refined.


It was the specifics of western culture, however, that the native workers needed to learn: cereal is a breakfast food, hamburgers are what guests eat for lunch; milk goes with cereal, butter goes on toast, ketchup goes with fries. Then, there are the finer points of serving Westerners: the fork goes on the left, never reach across one person to serve another. In fact, Rowe recalls one trainee who had never seen a hamburger or fries before. That was January of 1993.


From book learning to communication. As problematic as cultural-based differences might have seemed, fully 90 percent of the HR staff’s training difficulties revolved around communication. Because the official language of the hotel chain is English, there’s an English-speaking policy-all employees must demonstrate a minimum level of proficiency. “It didn’t take us long to figure out that language was going to be the real problem here,” says Rowe. “It was the key to success, because if you couldn’t communicate, you could drill people all day long that hamburgers get ketchup, but if they couldn’t understand that the guests were saying, ‘Ketchup, please,’ you just couldn’t make it.”


So, developing communication skills began at the hiring phase. All 10,000 applicants were given a simple English test with 10 questions-true and false. (One question, for example was ‘I am a fire truck. True or false.’) Says Rowe, “We had all these great ideas. We were going to have minimum standards for speaking English. But that got pitched five days into the mass hiring because we wouldn’t have had any employees.”


Instead of trying to hire local people with English skills and knowledge of western idioms, the HR staff had to go a different route with heavy, intensive English training from the beginning. That’s when Burchett, Rowe, and the rest of the personnel staff started the Self Access Learning Centres. The idea was to create a learning center that would allow the employees to teach themselves an unfamiliar language.


The idea was to create a learning center that would allow the employees to teach themselves an unfamiliar language.


At the outset, everyone reported for training on November 8, 1992, to learn enough English so they could staff for the hotel’s opening on December 12. Training took nine hours a day, including classroom and practical training time. The company hired a training firm specializing in the hospitality industry that did intensive work in teaching restaurant- and hotel-related words, such as salt and pepper, and bath towels.


“We knew we were setting a whole new standard,” says Rowe. “But we didn’t know how difficult it was going to be.” Although the training center started out as crude and makeshift, it has now developed into a library-like study center, located adjacent to the HR offices, that features computers, tapes, VCRs, training modules, books and magazines. Today, potential employees are given a test prior to hiring to gauge their English skill level. Once hired and trained, they begin the course, which takes them from the first to the fifth level. When employees move to each new level, they receive a certificate and monetary incentive.


The Self Access Learning Centre has grown considerably. Now, along with English for the Balinesians, foreign managers at the resort develop their Bahasa Indonesia (the native language of Indonesia) skills. And, Japanese language classes are also taught because Japanese visitors comprise approximately 20 percent of the hotel’s visitors.


Three years later, the Balinesian staff is dedicated not only to serving its patrons, but also to being capable of speaking and communicating to meet just about any traveler’s needs. Moreover, as the hotel industry in Asia continues to expand, these trained and talented individuals have skills that are needed throughout the region. Although this concept may not seem surprising to many global HR professionals, the idea of moving to Jakarta or to Singapore or to the United States and working there is an almost unbelievable concept to some of the Balinese who’ve never flown or even traveled around their own country.


While Rowe didn’t know how difficult it would be to get the staff trained and operating at top efficiency, he says he also didn’t know how successful the hotel’s opening would turn out. To illustrate its success, Condé Nast Traveler magazine’s annual Readers’ Choice Gold List poll (January 1996 and 1997) scored the Four Seasons Resort Bali as one of the highest-rated hotels in the world. Clearly, by even the most objective standards, the hotel management has achieved its objectives—and more. Business to the hotel has increased steadily since the hotel opened. Guests from all over the world are taking advantage of the manmade paradise, particularly visitors from North America, Europe, Asia, Australia and South America. Other Polynesians even are feasting on the hotel’s opulent surroundings and service.


HR moves on to Jakarta to open another hotel. Burchett traveled to The Regent Jakarta hotel in early 1995. Having had such success in Bali, he brought along the idea of the Self Access Learning Centre. Successful as that aspect of training was, Jakarta, which is on the island of Java in Indonesia, challenged Burchett and his HR staff with different problems. “I’ve opened four hotels,” says Burchett (who is Australian), “and they don’t get any more challenging than this.”


Just like in Bali, thousands of applicants lined up for jobs at The Regent Jakarta—22,000 for 650 positions. Jakarta is a city of 10 million, with access to McDonald’s burgers and Citibank ATMs. Many citizens know English and have traveled extensively. However, the most critical issues impacting the hotel’s success in this location have been vast cultural differences revolving around the expatriate and the Indonesian staff. As of mid-1996, there was a staff of 809 which included 57 managers and 18 expatriates—making up 48 percent of the total payroll.


More than dollars, though, there have been misunderstandings between middle management and expatriate staff about compensation and allowances packages, and generally how employees perceive the organization’s treatment of them overall. Jealousy has been a frequent byproduct. Reny Ratman, director of HR who’s Indonesian but comes from a diplomatic family, is highly regarded because of her ability to span both cultures. Ratman and her eight-person HR staff have had to call upon their diplomatic skills often. They’re responsible for resolving many of the misunderstandings around quality issues and have had to help ease the pressure the senior staff exerted on the local national staff.


Says Burchett, who’s now the general manager of The Regent Jakarta: “Our standards are so high, it puts a lot of pressure on people.” For example, if a chair isn’t straight or there’s a smudge on something, the managers will point that out. Indonesians read that as criticism. Not that it’s meant to be negative, but Indonesian culture tends to avoid criticism and conflict. Direct—even blunt—Australians (or Americans, Swiss or whoever) trying to manage and empower indirect, subtle, exceptionally polite Indonesians, has created obvious challenges from the beginning. The middle management staff has been the area in which most misunderstandings started. For instance, the expatriate managers said they were frustrated because they didn’t feel the managers were managing. At the same time, the managers were frustrated with senior management because they said they wouldn’t let them manage. In turn, the expatriates said that to help the managers manage, they believed they’d have to instruct them in detail. On the other hand, the managers believed they were being coddled—talked down to.


“So, in trying to knock down barriers (by explaining thoroughly), we were actually building barriers,” he says. Frustrations continued to build because Indonesians avoided conflict. Burchett believes that he, and a few other senior managers, are still having to change their focus and proceed slowly so there’s time to learn and to overcome differences.


Yet, Javan attention to detail and affinity for service has made the hotel a traveler’s nirvana. For example, April Kayadu who works in the hotel’s concierge department was praised for one particular act of “going beyond the call of duty” service. She went out of her way (while off duty) to help a guest resolve an airline ticket problem. Lesson for the hotel management: World-class service can come from anywhere. Just like the hotel’s landscaping (for which the hotel received top honors by the Jakartan government), quality service must be cultivated and nurtured.


Lessons learned. If he had it to do over again, Burchett would do some things differently. “I’d educate all of our expatriates before they arrived and ensure that all of them speak the language fluently. Speaking the language not only assists you with communications, but it also gains you a certain respect and understanding from the staff, and people in general.”


He remembers when the Regent opened in Sydney in 1982, the general manager created Australian cultural classes so that the Swiss, French and German staff knew how to deal with Australians. “Here the cultural issues are different, but we should have done the same thing. We’re not producing a product. It’s all interaction,” Burchett says.


However, he believes that having the language center is a big advantage, and would do that the same. The $120,000 (U.S. dollars) center emphasizes communication, not simply learning to speak English. Its purpose is to improve confidence and create an atmosphere in which employees develop and can move throughout the region and globe from one Four Seasons hotel to another.


Whether it’s culture or language, training is critical across cultures. The tropical lure of Bali, the exotic enticement of Jakarta are but portions of the experience. In any business, it’s the people who propel it; in the hospitality industry, it’s people who are key. Cultural and language issues can separate or unify people, but they’re as much a part of global business as compensation and benefits. Beyond the obvious differences in culture, it’s HR’s job to resist the temptation to model training based on past experience. Instead, HR must learn to combine the training needs of the local culture with the high standards of the company’s corporate culture—and do that in the best way for the employees. The result can be exactly what these two hotels have achieved: a paradise for world travelers and a case study in global staffing and training.


Workforce, March 1997, vol. 76, No. 3, pp. 40-44.

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Employing the Best People—From Afar

You’ve been looking for someone to fill a key marketing position within your organization for several months, but have been unsuccessful. You can’t pay enough to attract candidates from larger geographic areas, and your area simply doesn’t seem to have the caliber of employee you’re looking for.


Or, you’re the human resources manager of a company in America’s farm belt and continually have trouble filling some of the high-tech slots in your firm.


Or, you’ve been trying to recruit a top-notch candidate from the West Coast to relocate to your East Coast office, but the person won’t budge.


No matter-because where a worker lives makes virtually no difference anymore. In a tensely competitive business world, the important success factor is brain power. And if the people behind that brain power aren’t located near your company’s business offices and can’t-or don’t want to-come into the office every day, that’s OK. What’s important is finding the best people to work for your company.


What’s happening is that the idea of telecommuting, which many companies have successfully been experimenting with over the past several years, has by and large been working. It has allowed firms’ existing workforces the option of not coming into the office every day. Most often, telecommuting has been more on the level of offering workers more flexibility in their work schedules.


But more recently, the idea of distant staffing has expanded telecommuting further by giving employers the option of recruiting and hiring new employees who may rarely or never set foot in a company’s headquarters. What was once just an employee benefit, telecommuting-or employing people who live in distant locations-is also a big company benefit and employment tool. It’s a radical change from the staffing norm, but one that’s allowing companies to hire the best people for jobs-even if they’re working from afar.


There are benefits and drivers behind distant staffing. Distant staffing benefits to employees are clear. They get the convenience of working from home-or virtually anywhere-which allows them to prevent relocating, a costly proposition both for new workers and for organizations that pay for relocation expenses. And it provides new employees with more flexibility in handling personal commitments, such as not having to transfer children to new schools, relocate aging parents or leave education commitments mid-stream.


But there are strong drivers for employers as well. Originally, the impetus behind many companies’ moves to implement telecommuting programs was the Clean Air Act (which generally applies to companies with 100 employees or more) and the need to comply with its restrictions. Coupled with this has been the growing number of employees who’ve demanded more flexible work options. For example, sales people can live near their territories rather than having to live near company headquarters and having to travel more than they otherwise would, just to put in face time.


And, communication technology has made it increasingly immaterial whether an employee is located down the hall, across town or across the country. New communication options make it possible for employers to avail themselves of a talented pool of qualified workers that isn’t restricted by geographic boundaries.


Communication technology has made it immaterial whether an employee is located down the hall or across the country.


Perhaps the most stinging reason for organizations to consider distant staffing is that many companies have caused the erosion of corporate loyalty through massive layoffs and downsizings. Employees have become distrustful of moving cross-country for a new job, which they might be fired from, laid off from or downsized out of a few months later.


In addition, having offsite workers can save organizations money on office equipment and office space, because many telecommuters already have much of their own office equipment. And the hiring company doesn’t have to pay for relocation costs.


Jack Nilles, who coined the terms telecommuting and teleworking in 1973, says the net benefit to employers of having people work offsite can be calculated in terms of reduced turnover rates and reduced demand for expensive office space -ranging from $6,000 to $12,000 per year, per telecommuter. Nilles founded the management consulting firm, JALA International Inc. in 1980 and has developed or evaluated telecommuting projects for a variety of Fortune 100 companies and government agencies in the United States, Europe and South America.


Nilles defines telecommuting as “moving the work to the worker” and points out that, generally, telecommuters are employees of a given organization, but not always. The term telecommuter can apply to workers who are independent contractors or those who do free-lance work, so you must be careful in setting up distant-staffing relationships. (Please see the end of this article to get more information on the differences between telecommuters and independent contractors.)


Given all of these drivers and company benefits, then, why aren’t we seeing more ads in local papers recruiting employees as virtual staff members for companies throughout the nation-or even the world?


The biggest problem for employers is trust. The greatest obstacle to telecommuting in the past, and now to the greater challenge of distant staffing, isn’t technology. It isn’t cost. It isn’t lack of demand. What it boils down to, simply, is trust.


Even though many employers see telecommuting today as old hat, there are still a large number of organizations that are hesitant to try it. “The biggest concern that many managers have, although they don’t often express it, is the matter of trust and control,” says Gil Gordon, of Gil Gordon Associates, a firm that specializes in helping private- and public-sector firms establish successful telecommuting or distant-staffing programs-“[It’s] the belief that people won’t work unless they’re watched.” But, he points out, “[Although] that may have been true on farms and in factories, I’m not sure it’s still true in the office today.”


Nilles also says he believes the issue of trust is a primary barrier to the widespread use of telecommuting. “Managers’ first question, invariably, is: ‘How do I know they’re working if I can’t see them?’ The answer is: You have to develop bonds of trust between you and your employees. It seems to me that the fundamental task for personnel managers is to realize that this is the primary issue. It’s not technology. It’s getting over these psychological barriers,” he says.


Nilles points out that, “For some 60 percent of the workforce, location isn’t critical to performing their jobs.” In fact, according to IDC/Link Resources in New York City, there are approximately eight million Americans telecommuting now, and that number is growing by nearly 20 percent a year.


Linda Brubaker is one of them. She lives in Illinois, but she works with companies as far away as California doing personnel work that ranges from reference checking and interviewing to policy development. She admits that trust is an issue. “There’s a lot of hesitancy for [companies] to do this because it’s [relatively] new and it’s scary. You don’t know what you’re getting. But, when you’re hiring a skill and a personality-because that’s really what you’re doing-those people exist everywhere. So you find the people who can do the job.”


The bottom line, according to Brubaker, is: “You don’t have to be in face-to-face contact to assure the job is getting done. You can allow people to use the resources they have available in their worldwide communities to provide you with resources you couldn’t get in your own home town.”


People like Brubaker-consultants, writers, programmers-have been practicing telecommuting for a number of years and they don’t view it as anything particularly unusual. Although Brubaker and scores of virtual employees like her consider telecommuting a viable work option, and an increasing number of businesses are making arrangements with existing employees to allow them to work from home, it’s still relatively rare to find companies that are hiring and employing people “from afar” to work on a virtual-office basis.


Nilles outlines two situations in which companies will hire new employees for specific jobs as telecommuters:


  1. When a company has already established a fairly objective means of judging employee performance.
  2. When a company is looking for specific expertise that simply isn’t available at the company or locally.

“Changing the basic paradigm for work isn’t something that takes place overnight,” Nilles cautions. But he points out that the workplace is now experiencing “greater independence on the part of employees and greater demand for minimizing cost on the part of employers. Telework just fits in beautifully in both those situations.”


Considerations you should think about. The desire to hire a particular individual is one impetus behind telecommuting or distant-staffing arrangements. Practicality is often another.


Infiltrator Systems Inc. of Old Saybrook, Connecticut, although not heavily involved with communication technology, is still well ahead of the curve when it comes to the virtual employment relationship. The company manufactures a line of high-density polyethylene chambers that are used in wastewater and storm water applications. Because Infiltrator Systems uses plastics in the manufacturing of its product, and because the market for plastics is geographically diverse, Peter Firla, director of human resources says, “We like to have plastics buyers located locally to where the action is.” That means in cities like Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Houston and Los Angeles.


Budgetary restraints are another practical concern that can push companies toward considering distant staffing as a staffing option. As Rich points out: “Our company, like many others, has a lot of cost issues. Managers would much rather spend their money on people than on brick and mortar. They see the relationship that one less facility equals a certain number of additional people that could be hired.”


Rich suggests asking a number of questions to help determine whether a virtual office arrangement could work for your firm. Can employees work as effectively from home as they could in the office next to you? Can you communicate with them easily? Do they know where to go with questions? Can they be kept up-to-date? Once you’ve answered these questions, you should help your company develop a new work paradigm that allows distant staffing to work and blossom.


Making distant staffing work. Because communication is a key to making a distant employment relationship work, it may come as no surprise that firms that are heavily reliant on communication technology are leading this trend-companies like Arden Hills, Minnesota-based Control Data and Northern Telecom.


Control Data, which specializes in designing and building network-based messaging solutions, has been involved in a work from home program for two years. And the terminology is important: “work from” home rather than “work at” home. “We don’t have the same lack of socialization issues that you have when people are working five days a week at home. Employees still work with peer groups and project teams and still have interaction with our customers,” says Control Data’s Ruth Rich, vice president of HR and administration.


Northern Telecom is another example of a company that has embraced the concept of distant staffing. In 1994 the company, which designs, builds and integrates digital networks for many applications, wanted to hire William Holtz as vice president for global enterprise services, but he refused to leave Philadelphia to go to the Nashville, Tennessee-based service operation. Instead, Holtz and Northern Telecom reached an agreement that allows him to work from home, an arrangement he still maintains today and one that involves managing a staff of approximately 2,000 people.


According to Glenn Lovelace, director of telecommuting for Northern Telecom, Holtz tops the list of high-profile telecommuters as identified in the book “Telecommuting,” by June Langhoff (© 1995, Aegis Publishing). Lovelace says Holtz is able to interact with his staff through “some very high-speed data links into his house for videoconferencing. He has a tremendous amount of technology at his fingertips.”


Since being hired, Holtz has hired several other telecommuters to work in his group.The arrangement is working well for all concerned.


Finding virtual employees with the right characteristics is key. Once you’ve decided that it’s good to open up the search to candidates in faraway places, the next step is finding exactly the right person for the job. Surprisingly enough, recruiting isn’t considered to be a major hurdle.


In fact, Katie Adams, director of human resources for Control Data asserts that: “It’s almost easier to recruit if you don’t have any geographic boundaries. If we don’t need an employee to be [at our headquarters] it gives us the capability to really look for outstanding talent. It gives us a higher degree of flexibility.” Rich adds that, when considering the elements that are critical to a successful virtual-employment relationship, “Communication, tools, management, the flexibility and self-initiative of people are the things I would put higher on the list than recruiting.” By this, Rich means that how she finds someone isn’t as important as whom she finds. Although recruiting the right people is always a difficult and important task, the best long-term strategy is focusing on employing people with the right skills and the right characteristics to make the distant-employment relationship work, regardless of how you find them to begin with.


Firla agrees. He makes the point that the hiring process for remote workers isn’t unlike the process used to fill any vacant position. The difference lies in the qualities these remote workers must have. “You need people who are intensely independent and inherently self-motivated,” Firla says. “They don’t get any supervision, so I’m looking for people who are looking for a ball to pick up that they can run with, rather than people who need to be shown where the gold mine is and how to get there.”


So how does he find the people with these characteristics? He places ads in local newspapers across the country, then does initial screening by phone. Afterward, a hiring manager does a follow-up phone interview. Lastly, the company brings the candidate in for a personal visit. Firla points out that he has never seen a candidate get to this stage and not receive an offer of employment. In addition, Infiltrator Systems does extensive reference checking and uses a personality profile, “not as a substitute for a good interview or selection process, but as a reaffirmation,” says Firla.


Gordon also suggests that traits like self-motivation, self-discipline, good job knowledge and a demonstrated ability to meet deadlines are critical. “Telecommuters are entrepreneurs. It’s as close as you come to being your own boss without going into your own business.”


Rich mentions another critical trait: being “electronically capable.” At Control Data, virtually all communications are handled electronically, including time cards and expense reports.


“I’ve never thought of what we do as being exceptional or unique,” Firla says. “We more or less have a ‘get it done’ mentality here. We’re more interested in how to do something than why we can’t. I simply have to come up with the people. Period.” In fact, when Firla points out that, “It comes down to enlightened hiring decisions, getting a close match between what is needed for a position and the attributes of the person”; it turns out that these are the criteria most employers use when determining traditional employer/ employee relationships, too.


The distant staffing horizon looks bright. The difficulty in hiring from afar, Gordon points out, is that work habits that are critical to whatever position you’re filling don’t always come through on the resume or even during the interview. “The manager who hires from a distance is perhaps taking a bigger risk than he or she might be comfortable with.”


But, is that risk really that much greater than in the traditional hiring process, or is it more a matter of perception? For telecommuting and distant staffing to become more the norm and less of an anomaly will require that team leaders, project managers or supervisors “really understand that they’re hiring people for their brains and not for their ability to bring their bodies to the office every day,” says Gordon.


The future, according to Gordon, is anybody’s guess. “I’ve always felt that telecommuting is a staffing option that belongs in the tool kit of any smart organization and that it will be used depending on the need, the vision, the nature of the work and the workforce [culture].” He says the key points to remember are:


  • Telecommuting is an option-not a revolution. “We’re not talking about emptying out every office building on the face of the earth.”
  • Telecommuting isn’t just an employee perk. It should be looked on as a solution to a business problem.

We’re beyond the experimental stage. “This is no longer new,” Gordon says. “It’s no longer risky. We know how to make it work. The companies that are waiting on the sidelines for everybody else to try it may just get passed by on this one. There is virtually nothing about telecommuting that can be raised as a question or objection that hasn’t already been answered.”


Adds Nilles: “As personnel managers become viewed in more innovative companies as profitability centers rather than cost centers, telecommuting will become more accepted. If my job as a personnel manager is to have the best possible employees, and I can demonstrate that telecommuting makes this happen, then the [corporate] attitude [must] shift.”


Distant staffers themselves may also become a driving force behind any future mainstreaming of this concept. Brubaker asserts that: “We’re the pioneers; we have to sell it to the companies. One way we sell it is by demonstrating that we’re accessible. But, more importantly, [we sell it] by demonstrating we can provide them with resources they might not be able to get any other way.


“We bring resources that are available in a much broader community and we bring dedicated expertise that we’ve gained through years of experience. They can take advantage of the training and experience we’re gaining at other companies and make it their own,” she says.


Although distant staffers will be one force driving the use of telecommuting, the biggest will be the HR community. Once HR professionals understand the benefits of employing people who don’t necessarily live next door, they’ll be able to bring that vision to their organizations.


The benefits of distant staffing as an employment option are obvious. Just as obvious is the fact that today’s employees are beginning to demand more flexibility in their work arrangements. Companies, in turn, are faced with fewer qualified workers and growing costs of doing business. The needs of both employees and employers can be met through distant staffing. What’s required is a shift in thinking, a less time-driven view of employee performance and the understanding that out of sight is no longer out of mind.


Workforce, March 1997, Vol. 76, No. 3, pp. 30-38.

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What Do You Do When Your Top Performer Loafs

The Dilemma:
Monique has come to you with yet another complaint about a fellow employee. Now she’s up in arms about Rick, a long-time top performer who works with her in the desktop publishing department. Apparently he has a habit of playing computer games between projects. You’re aware that Rick is the most productive employee in the group, so how do you address Monique’s concern?


Readers Respond:
The dilemma states that Monique “works with” Rick, therefore she isn’t his supervisor. Also, it has been determined that Monique has complained to the supervisor before—apparently about other matters. Monique may be trying to create a concern when none exists. Rick’s behavior may be consistent with the others’, including Monique’s. I recommend that the supervisor assess Monique’s workload and make the appropriate changes. It’s evident she doesn’t have enough work to do.
Christopher L. Walter, Human
Resources Administrator
Office of the Ohio Public Defender
Columbus, Ohio


I would simply ask Monique: “How is Rick affecting your work performance? What is he doing that’s causing you to be less than fully effective?” If her answer is that it’s not affecting her work performance, then we can discuss what it is affecting. If it is affecting her job, we’ll discuss it in more detail. Monique needs to understand that the focus is on results and achievement of responsibilities. If Rick is one of our most productive people, playing some video games (or reading, walking, daydreaming, and so on) is perfectly acceptable so long as it isn’t having a negative affect on other people’s jobs.
Ross S. Gibson, Chief Administrative Officer
Cambridge NeuroScience
Cambridge, Massachusetts


There are two issues here. First, since you pose the suggestion that Monique files “yet another complaint,” I assume this is somewhat of a problem. If she is correct in her complaints, then although she may cause problems, it appears the problems should be caused. All too often we don’t support employees who are conscientious and who can’t stand seeing others’ performance needlessly suboptimizing company results. We need, however, to help her learn how to address some of the less serious issues as a concerned co-employee. Many times such input is better accepted when it’s given directly, adult-to-adult, rather than by a surrogate parent.


It sounds like the group is a bit dysfunctional and could use some development training. Concerning the high-performing employee who plays computer games, the supervisor should discuss the behavior with him. Whether the employee is paid hourly or weekly (or monthly) as a salaried person, the employee needs to understand that he isn’t being paid to play games. If he is a consistently high performer, I would make the assumption that compensation recognizes this and reinforces the no play rule.
Joe Lakes, HR Director
RR Donnelley and Sons Co.
Willard Ohio


Monique appears to fit the role of the “chronic complainer,” and thus the first action should be investigating whether she has enough work to do. Her work deficiencies may be the real problem, and continued complaints may be her way of redirecting management’s attention.


If Rick is a proven top performer, I wouldn’t even apprise him of Monique’s allegation. I would, however, recommend that the department manager heighten his or her awareness of the interaction between Rick and Monique in the event that a problem of more substance should arise.
Phil Brunone, President
HR Solutions Inc.
Harleysville, Pennsylvania


Workforce, February 1997, Vol. 76, No. 2, pp. 75-76.

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Are Expats Getting Lost in the Translation

We all know the image of the ugly American expatriate. It’s the business professional who bulldozes his or her way through another country—speaking only English and making everyone around him or her pull out their English phrase books just to keep up.


Although the ugly American image is yet another stereotype that’s shattered each and every time a U.S. businessperson goes abroad with a good knowledge of the customer’s native language, it’s still an image that’s perpetuated in the expatriate community and in other business circles. But it shouldn’t be. Not knowing the language of the land is a persistent business problem that’s holding many professionals back from reaching optimum performance during their trips abroad.


Although English is widely spoken in the global business world, the language of business, as the adage goes, is the language of the customer. Increasingly, that language may not be English. And as U.S. companies—both big and small—look for new markets outside the major foreign financial centers such as Hong Kong, Paris and Geneva, they’re beginning to realize they can’t get by with just speaking English anymore. International human resources managers, already facing many challenges associated with relocating employees out of the United States, have the added responsibility of providing some form of language training for outbound expats, a task that may not be high on everyone’s priority list.


But it should be—because companies are sending more expats to other countries than ever before, and because a better understanding of a customer’s language can translate directly into profit.


Language training for expats is critical to global business success.
The globalization process has been responsible for large numbers of Americans sent out of the country to expatriate assignments all over the world. An estimate by the New York City-based National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) puts the figure at more than 250,000 on overseas assignments currently. According to the survey “Global Relocation Trends, 1995,” conducted by the global relocation consulting firm Windham International based in New York City and the NFTC, the number of U.S. expats is expected to grow in the future.


Although these U.S.-based expatriates may bring expertise of their particular business or industry with them on assignment, they often only can communicate it in the English language. And as American companies start turning their attention to China, Mexico, Russia, Malaysia and markets outside the big foreign financial centers, something’s surely going to get lost in the translation.


“If Americans spoke other languages the way Norwegians, for example, speak English, we’d take over the world.” So says Jack Keogh, the director of client services for Mayflower International Inc.’s relocation division in Carmel, Indiana. In the global business world, U.S. business professionals—monolingual by and large—are at a disadvantage, relying on bilingual secretaries and interpreters to translate for them.


For example, using interpreters may help U.S. expats understand basic conversations with clients, but it won’t necessarily help them with the nuances of what their customers are trying to discuss. While interpreters are an important business tool, they also can be another barrier to client relationships. “Your interpreter can have a 20-minute conversation with [your client] and you’ll get a four-word answer,” says Carrie Shearer, manager of compensation for Caltex Petroleum, a Dallas-based oil company that recently tutored 300 employees in the Thai language before sending them to Thailand.


More than just words are lost, says Robin Elkins, senior manager of Bennett and Associates Inc., a relocation and cross-cultural consultation firm in Chicago that works with Fortune 500 clients and others. “English may be spoken in the office, in the workplace and in the expatriate community, but it’s not always spoken outside those environments,” says Elkins.


Employees who are about to go on an expatriate assignment must realize when they accept that assignment in another country where English isn’t the norm, that learning the basics of the country’s language should be viewed as a direct part of the assignment—not as a nice add-on skill.


And there’s often more than just business at stake. There’s also the not-so-small matter of the person simply getting around in the location they’re visiting. “If expats can’t interact with the locals in the markets and in the streets, they’re missing a lot about the thinking and character of the local people,” says Elkins. These experiences also influence expats’ ability to assess situations back at work, and they’ll often make wrong assumptions about people they’re managing.


Kevin Murphy, director of international HR for Community Energy Alternatives, Inc., a small Ridgewood, New Jersey-based power producer with 18 expat employees on assignment, says, “Language training is incredibly important. It just makes everything easier.


“In China or Latin America, English isn’t the major language, and you’re at a tremendous disadvantage if you don’t speak the language. So it makes sense to get whoever is going [there] up to speed with the language as soon as possible.” Easier said—in any language—than done. But it’s vitally important to the success of expatriate assignments.


Language training helps global business relationships thrive.
The NFTC estimates that the average one-time cost of an expatriate relocation is $60,000. Corporate language training programs need to contribute to the success of international assignments.


Says Beth Gegner, regional manager in Europe for Blanchard Training & Development Inc., which is based in San Diego, California: “If someone in a foreign country has two vendors, and one speaks the language and the other doesn’t, it’s almost guaranteed that the one who has the language skill has more of a chance to get the account than the one who doesn’t.”


Language skills, says Murphy of Community Energy Alternatives, help build the kind of teamwork needed to succeed overseas. “Once you get into a country, and you don’t have your act together as a team, you’ll find out very quickly that the people in that country will not only steal your lunch, they’ll eat it too. So you’ve got to glue [yourselves] together as a team. Part of that is picking up the language skills.”


Cementing business-related communication may be the primary objective, but it’s not necessarily the only objective. Knowing the language of the land can also help an expat feel less isolated. Shearer felt that language training was especially important when Caltex sent approximately 300 employees to a rural location in Thailand during the initial stages of building a refinery there. Because of the refinery’s remote location, not as many people would speak English as in the capital city, Bangkok.


“You could get by at work without speaking Thai,” says Shearer, “but how are you going to converse with the maid or [with a vendor] when you go to the open-air market? There’s no way to even look at a coin and know what it is, because Thai is based on Sanskrit and doesn’t look [anything] like English.”


The good news for Shearer was that she knew about the project in 1994, 18 months in advance. Caltex, which employs approximately 10,000 people worldwide, only has 250 employees in the United States. Many employees who worked on the Thailand project were Caltex workers from South Africa, Australia and other countries.


“A lot of front-end work was being done in Dallas, so we had eight or nine [people of different] nationalities working in Dallas on this project, which made it easier to organize language training for everybody,” Shearer explains.


In 1994, she contracted Berlitz to give Thai-language classes to the English-speaking employees and their spouses. A refinery can be a dangerous place, so Caltex employees also were taught to understand Thai vocabulary like “danger,” “fire,” “watch out,” words that might be shouted out in an emergency. “When people are under stress, they’re going to speak in their native language [unless trained otherwise],” says Shearer.


Learning a language in the in-between moments can be better for many soon-to-be expats then scheduled classes.


Caltex also brought 75 Thai workers to Dallas for technical training before the project commenced. They first were given a six-week, live-in immersion course in English. All together, Caltex ran 30 weeks of training.


Caltex has since decided to set up English-language training in Thailand for workers before they’re brought to Dallas for technical training. Knowing what the need is ahead of time helps employees, their managers and HR to plan on which language training program method is best for a given situation.


Typically, before any language training takes place, the expat’s personal and professional readiness for the assignment is assessed. But expats aren’t the only ones who can benefit from language training. Gegner thinks there’s also value in a company training all its employees “on a minimal level” in the language of the foreign companies it does business with. “If delegates visit the United States, they’re going to feel much more at home if [workers] here could just say, ‘Hello, how are you?’ to them.”


Helping inbound foreign national employees improve their English skills is another objective of companies like St. Paul, Minnesota-based 3M Co. and Caltex. Most of 3M’s tutors are assigned to work with inbound workers already familiar with English but who want “to improve their English skills so they can be more productive on the job in St. Paul,” says Margaret Beaubien, 3M’s language services administrator.


Tutors are usually employees’ spouses, an advantage for inbound workers, says Beaubien, because “our tutors have a knowledge of how 3M works and can field questions from the foreign-service workers… and we’re providing a lot more than language instruction.”


The immersion approach usually works best.
Although tutors, classes and other methods are available sources of language training, perhaps the best place to learn a language is in it’s homeland, called “total immersion.” Because this may not always be a practical option, the next best thing is a simulated immersion program—an environment in which only the target language is spoken and the student is exposed to different accents, three-way conversations, telephone role-playing, and other clearly defined social and business situations. An intensive program like this, which can cost several thousand dollars, might comprise a predeparture three-day crash course emphasizing business and courtesy communication. For the expat who has time, the immersion approach could be the way to go.


Berlitz, based in Princeton, New Jersey, is well-known for its immersion programs. International relocation and cross-cultural consulting firms like Bennett and Associates also offer highly personalized immersion preparation that’s tailored to the expat’s international assignment.


Ideally, training can continue once the expat is at his or her destination. Bennett and Associates uses its worldwide network of resources to locate qualified tutors. Berlitz operates more than 320 language centers worldwide. According to Michael Palm, Berlitz’s North American marketing manager, curriculum, texts and instructional methods are universal (the centers aren’t franchised), offering what might be called a seamless advantage: An expat can begin studying Japanese, for example, at a Berlitz center in America and then once the expat is in the assigned country, he or she can pick it up again on the same page.


Intensive predeparture training, like immersion instruction, however, may not meet a company’s needs. Kathy Hoffman, director of international human resources of the Norwalk, Connecticut-based ABB, recalls, “About five years ago, we tried some intensive courses, but reports back from the individuals said they found it better to get trained when they were actually overseas.” She agrees that it may be more motivating when you’re in the environment and can practice daily, than if you’re sitting in a classroom trying to pick up a language. ABB, the U.S. arm of a global engineering group, sends approximately 200 people all over the world each year, most of whom are project workers who don’t generally receive language training. Approximately 70 ABB employees, mostly management-level employees, receive foreign-language training once they’re in the country, says Hoffman.


But who has time?
Many expatriates who are preparing for an international assignment, however, have little or no time for lengthy, intensive language training. That’s when HR managers have to intervene with other tactics.


John Freivalds, managing director of JFA, an international public relations firm in Minneapolis, thinks he has a solution: guerrilla linguistics—learning several carefully chosen words and phrases, targeted to a country’s business culture, that an expat can speak at the appropriate moment to impress locals that he or she knows more about a language and culture than he or she really does.


Although guerrilla linguistics may bring momentary success, the tactic is only temporary and probably works best for someone who has much global experience and speaks several languages.


Self-instructional materials such as audio tapes provide a practical alternative to tutors, classroom study and guerrilla linguistics, according to Jeffrey Norton, president of Guilford, Connecticut-based Jeffrey Norton Publishers Inc., one of the country’s largest producers of self-instructional language courses. Learning a language in the in-between moments (between meetings or at lunch) or during off-hours, can be better for many busy soon-to-be expatriates than scheduled classes.


Typically, an HR person is the primary impetus behind employees using self-instructional tapes, Norton notes, and adds that inquiries about such tapes have increased in the last three years. It figures that even if soon-to-be expats can’t schedule large blocks of time to learn a new language, they probably can find snippets of time here and there to learn a language.


But beyond these language training methods, there’s another longer-term approach and philosophy that companies can adopt for language acquisition.


Make language acquisition a company goal.
International human resources professionals might consider making language acquisition more of a global company objective, rather than just a situational tactic.


At 3M’s headquarters, what began 30 years ago as informal, lunch-time get-togethers to practice German, has become a well-loved employee tradition and a unique company asset. It’s called the “Language Society.” In the beginning stages of the society, volunteer teachers were recruited from employee ranks by other employees and classes were formed. Today, at the company’s St. Paul location, the Language Society has about 1,000 members who are current or retired 3M employees or immediate family members. Classes in 17 languages, which are taught by a cadre of 70 volunteer teachers, meet once a week for 45 minutes during lunch. There’s a nominal fee ($5) to join the society, and 3M supplies texts at cost to members.


Participation in Language Society classes has no official connection with employees’ jobs, says Beaubien. Participation is voluntary, and employees are motivated by a variety of personal and professional reasons to study a foreign language.


“We have people who may be working in customer service and who are studying Spanish and they may receive calls from Latin America. They’re better able to field those calls,” says Beaubien. “3M has also opened a homepage on the Internet, and we’re receiving inquiries from all over the world, and, of course, they’re coming in different languages. The society is being contacted to translate those messages.”


Language training at 3M isn’t limited, however, to Language Society classes. Beaubien also manages a tutoring program for outbound and inbound employees, using more than 20 tutors who are either former teachers or hold ESL certification. The decision to receive language tutoring is left up to the individual employee and his or her department manager, says Beaubien.


But not all employees are eager to learn a new language—even if it will benefit them in their jobs.


Motivate expats to know their customers’ languages.
“It’s difficult,” says Brian Connelly about the Spanish classes he’s currently taking twice weekly after work. Connelly is manager of Pan-American operations for Blanchard Training & Development, a position that will require him to travel several times a year to Latin America. “I work 10 to 12 hours a day, and then go to class two times a week, and try to study in between.”


Learning a new language requires time, effort and motivation. With all the responsibilities of an international assignment, it’s difficult to take the extra time necessary to learn a new language. It’s especially hard if language learning must be reserved for unpaid, after-work hours, even if companies reimburse instructional costs (and generally, they do). More than 60 percent of the companies surveyed by Windham International and the NFTC for the “Global Relocation Trends” survey offer cross-cultural orientation to expats (which generally includes a language training component).


And, according to Elkins, about 80 percent of Bennett and Associates’ Fortune 500 clients offer language training. “But,” she says, “not many corporations encourage language fluency. They think they only need enough language to get by, because they’ll have a [bilingual] assistant or secretary or have an interpreter.”


Shearer of Caltex says that motivation is an “individual thing. You can force people to do something, but you can’t force them to learn something.” Caltex didn’t require its outbound employees to learn Thai before going to the remote refinery project, and classes were offered after work. Still, about 85 percent of the employees took the training, with 75 percent completing it. A few people did so well, Shearer arranged private tutoring lessons for them, and Caltex paid for it.


Financial incentive is a tried-and-true motivator, and one that Murphy of Community Energy Alternatives employs. “If you hire a secretary [who knows] stenography, you’ll pay that person a little more for [that] skill. So when a person picks up language skills, I want to be able to give [him or her a reward].” Murphy uses a performance appraisal submitted by the expat’s manager that includes a language-skills evaluation. No matter what language a person speaks, everyone speaks the language of money.


Murphy tries to make it as easy as possible for expats at his firm to pick up language skills. He negotiates to purchase a block of time for the year with an outside vendor to provide onsite language training at his company’s Ridgewood, New Jersey, headquarters. He schedules classes for employees during work hours. Murphy believes in continuing language training in-country, and negotiates that into his contract as well.


This is the type of long-term approach to language training that companies must adopt for future success in global business.


When all is said and done…
As cel phones and the Internet link the Earth’s remotest locations, the world grows a little bit smaller. Ironically, American businesses are realizing just how vast and culturally diverse this planet is—and that most of its inhabitants don’t speak English.


Says 3M’s Beaubien: “It’s becoming critical that companies have employees who not only have studied other languages, but also who have received some cultural training and who understand how we can do business with people who are different, how we can work together as productively as possible. That only happens when you understand another culture and the best way to do that, of course, is through language.”


As for HR professionals’ part: Language training must be an integral part of a company’s expatriate program. It can no longer be viewed as just another accent or add on. Because when your client in Mexico says, “Quiero comprar un contrato de un million,” (I want to buy a million dollar contract), the last thing you want your expat employee to say is, “Huh?”

Workforce, February 1997, Vol. 76, No. 2, pp. 32-39.

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Language Training Improves Global Business at ARCO

Johnna Capitano isn’t planning to go to China, but this spring she took a 12-week class in Mandarin Chinese. Now she can exchange greetings in the dialect, and she knows enough to be careful when she uses the Chinese word ma, which, depending on the intonation, has different meanings, including horse, mummy and mother.


“It was very challenging, because the tones are difficult to master,” says Capitano, a Los Angeles (LA)-based human resources development consultant for ARCO Products Co., the downstream refinery and marketing arm of ARCO. “At times it was very frustrating, not being able to pronounce a word the way the instructor kept repeating it.”


But Capitano stuck with it and was one of 10 employees who completed a pilot class in conversational Mandarin Chinese that the company conducted this spring. Twice-weekly classes, which met for 1 1/2 hours at a time, were held at ARCO Products Co.’s two sites in Los Angeles and in Anaheim, California. The company is exploring potential business opportunities in China and has already hosted Chinese delegations on tours of its LA refinery. Capitano will probably be involved in hosting future delegations.


Paula Johnston, ARCO Products’ human resources consultant for international projects, set up the pilot language training in response to employees’ requests. “Members of our technical team who had been to China to analyze business opportunities found it was difficult to communicate because everything was done through interpreters. We’ve also had several Chinese delegations visit ARCO, and did everything via interpreters. We thought since we’re just looking at opportunities now, why not use the time appropriately and offer Mandarin classes before things heat up?”


Johnston requested bids from three vendors: a university, a consulting firm on the East Coast and Berlitz. Berlitz was selected, Johnston says, “not only on the basis of economics, but [also because] it offers a great deal of flexibility. It’s a firm we could utilize not only at the beginning level, but also later for a total immersion program if somebody was actually selected for an assignment, and even in China for follow-up training. [The company offered] continuity and consistency.”


Johnston set up classes during work hours at the company’s LA refinery site, where Capitano took the class. She also set up a class at the firm’s engineering and technology facility in Anaheim so employees wouldn’t have to travel. About 28 employees began the classes, but enrollment ultimately dwindled to about 10.


“It was very tough, because some people’s schedules were just too busy or they were placed on special projects,” explains Johnston. “Some people probably couldn’t keep up or just lost interest.”


Capitano agrees. “People would get tied up in other projects, and it was difficult to pull away and say, ‘Oh, I’ve got to go to my Mandarin class now.’ Employees—and the company—all have to make language acquisition a priority.


“A language isn’t easy to learn, especially when it’s so different, like Mandarin. It really has to become a work priority that everyone understands,” says Capitano.


Johnston is in the process of seeking feedback. Although her impressions, so far, are good, she doesn’t want to overplay it. Why? “Because we did lose people for a variety of reasons,” she says. Of the people who completed the program, the response, she reports, is “pretty enthusiastic.” Although the reports are mixed, learning their customers’ language can never be a futile endeavor. Because language training at ARCO hasn’t been an afterthought, the wheels of global business are spinning with greater efficiency.


Workforce, February 1997, Vol. 76, No. 2, p. 38.

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Cherokee Nation When Native Values Drive Survival

The Cherokees begin every meeting with a prayer. First, they bless the elders. Then they pray for their youth. And finally, they pray that everyone will work in harmony and for the benefit of the nation.


“It’s just natural for us to do that,” says Joe Byrd, principal chief of the Tahlequah, Oklahoma-based Cherokee Nation.


Byrd was elected to the sovereign nation’s highest position in 1995. Unlike the CEO in a private-sector company, he’s accountable not only to the nation’s 1,650 employees, but also to 182,000 registered tribal members—65,000 of whom reside in the 14-county jurisdictional service area, not a reservation. A former educator, Byrd believes the future and legacy of his nation depends on its tribal youth. Last year, for example, Byrd refused a salary increase. Instead, he requested the money be given to a scholarship fund for outstanding Cherokee students. “I want to leave a foundation for our youth,” he says. “If we put our investment in our children, in return, they’ll be more apt to come back and work for the tribe.” For the Cherokees, scholarships mean survival of their nation—not just philanthropy. And survival is something they know a lot about.


Nearly 159 years ago, approximately 17,000 Cherokee men, women and children were displaced from their Georgia homelands by European immigrants seeking gold. In what’s today referred to as the Trail of Tears, the Cherokees were rounded up and marched 1,200 miles to Indian Territory, now the state of Oklahoma. More than 4,000 died from exposure and disease along the way. But it was a spirit of resilience and perseverance that led the Cherokees to what they now describe as a new trail—the Trail of Opportunity.


Today, the Cherokees—first spotted by Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto in 1540—belong to a thriving government and organizational enterprise. Their constitution was established on September 6, 1839. Over recent years, the nation’s growth has been overwhelming, according to Ervin Rock, director of HR. As more Americans claim Cherokee heritage—because of cultural pride and to seek benefits—the nation barely keeps pace. Adds Lela Ummerteskee, the nation’s registrar: “Last year (1995), we processed more than 27,000 applications. These are coming from everywhere—across the United States and overseas. I’ve been here 19 years, and we’ve never slowed down.”


Since 1987, the nation’s employee base has nearly doubled, says Rock. Under Chief Byrd’s leadership, HR has been given the green light to hire and fire, and to set up a more comprehensive human resources system. But developing HR for a tribal nation involves more than your standard corporate template. While most American companies are hard pressed to achieve more racial and ethnic diversity, the Cherokees are struggling to retain their own history, language, native traditions and values. Therein lies the unique mission of a growing sovereign nation: “to promote and sustain the self-reliance of its members.” At the same time, the nation as an organization must also embrace American business practices, ethics and standards of accountability—issues that Byrd emphasized during his electoral campaign. By giving Rock more authority, HR is better positioned to meet the critical needs of recruiting, training and empowering a growing Cherokee workforce to realize its long-term vision of tribal self-governance. It’s not without risks. “The balance is tilted toward the growing side. One of the things we’re going to lose is part of our identity,” says Rock, who is half Cherokee, part Scottish and Irish. “The people we need to interact with to grow aren’t Cherokee. We have to fit into their structure, not the other way around.”


For example, Cherokee Nation Industries (CNI)—a business subsidiary—obtains contracts to manufacture cables and fiber-optic accessories from major Fortune 500 corporations. The possibilities for strategic alliances abound. Nevertheless, Rock is committed to proving that HR is fluid and mature enough to bridge organizational necessity with the sacred prayers of his nation. As American companies increasingly search for spirituality and meaning in their jobs, HR will be called on to help reconcile human values and the bottom line. The Cherokee Nation’s journey is one thriving example.


What does sovereignty mean?
As a federally recognized Indian tribe, the Cherokee Nation has both the opportunity and the sovereign right to exercise and develop its tribal assets—66,000 acres of land, which includes 96 miles of the Arkansas Riverbed. During the past 20 years, the nation has posted dramatic and steady growth while increasing its asset base.The annual operating budget for the previous fiscal year was $130 million, most of which came from self-determination contracts for federal programs. Other sources of revenue include monies from its legally separated business enterprises and leases.


Charles Head, self-governance coordinator, explains three concepts that define the nation’s unique relationship to the U.S. government: “Direct services is when the U.S. government funds and runs various programs, such as a health clinic or hospital, with federal employees. Self-determination refers to federal contracting with agencies, such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Indian Health Services, the Department of Labor. Under a contract basis, the agency maintains the responsibility of oversight and tribal members carry out the actual workload. Self-governance, on the other hand, refers to the government-to-government relationship between the tribes and the Secretary of the Interior, for example, or Indian Health Services. The difference is in the level of responsibility assumed by tribal governments for its services. Self-determination, based on contracts, is step one. Self-governance, based on compacts, is step two.”


Although the nation isn’t bound by the same U.S. regulations as other business organizations (the ADA, FMLA, affirmative action, etc.) the nation still adopts such standard corporate and legal policies, according to Rock, a member of the nation’s executive committee—equivalent to a company’s board of directors. In fact, sovereignty doesn’t set the nation apart from mainstream America—as some might think. “It actually makes us more like everyone else,” says Head. By assuming more control over its human services, the nation will be freer to interface with Corporate America and apply the most appropriate HR practices to its own business environment. Interestingly, the HR learning curve began 20 years ago—more than a century after Cherokee statehood. Modern human resources practices, such as registration and recruitment, have enabled the nation to track its demographics more accurately.


HR evolves from payroll to registration and recruitment.
Alana Casteel is half Cherokee and half Chickasaw. She is one of 70 HR employees who can remember the department’s beginnings. A former participant in the Summer Youth program in 1977, she handled payroll for the 300 employees. When a fellow worker went on maternity leave, she remained as a temp. About the same time, another Cherokee was hired to set up a personnel department. Casteel was at the right place at the right time. Again, she stayed on—as a regular employee. “I saw our growth from the ground up,” she says. The first year, she and a federal consultant administered extensive job analysis questionnaires and conducted salary surveys. “We established a system of placing various jobs in a particular salary range. Before that, we didn’t have any system set up.”


The next step was to create a hiring process. Again, being a sovereign nation impacts how HR approaches recruitment and hiring. The nation continues to need employees with a variety of skills. It needs teachers, health practitioners, clerical staff, computer operators, doctors and lawyers. Non-Indians are welcome, but HR primarily practices Indian preference. (Executive-level positions are appointed by the Chief). For most positions, however, HR will conduct its searches within a 50-mile vicinity or search for higher-level professionals in the Tulsa area—perhaps even further to Dallas and Denver. About 90 percent of today’s employee base is of Cherokee background, says Ummerteskee. The proof of Indian blood, however, is a registration process supervised under the human resources department.


“We established our registration department in 1978 for membership purposes, which allows individuals to vote for Principal Chief, Deputy and Tribal Council members, as well as amendments to the constitution,” she says. But before an individual may become a member and vote, he or she must prove Indian blood. “We don’t have a blood quantum limit, though,” she explains. “A lot of other tribes have a quarter-degree requirement.” The Cherokees, she notes, also allow dual membership—a privilege most other tribes deny.


In order for an individual to receive a Certificate Degree of Indian Blood (CDIB), one must verify an ancestor’s name on the Dawes Commission Roll. The roll is a census recorded between the years of 1899 and 1906 of Natives who lived on Indian Territory for at least 10 years, among other requirements, she explains.


Mission Statement


The mission of the government of the Cherokee Nation is to promote and sustain the self-reliance of its members. All programs will strive to develop and individual’s independence by enhancing his or her knowledge, skills and self-responsibility. Inherent in this objective is the recognition that needs are best defined and met by individuals and the communities in which they live.


—Cherokee Nation


In 1984, the nation’s leadership reasserted its drive toward self-determination. It finally succeeded in contracting the CDIB function from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Now, HR can process registration and membership applications simultaneously and more efficiently. “We are the only office issuing CDIBs for the Western Cherokees. We wanted the responsibility because the BIA wasn’t a good record keeper. A lot of people who shouldn’t be getting cards were [getting them]. And the BIA didn’t have the staff and resources to research everything back [to original documents],” says Ummerteskee.


Today, her staff visits 12 field sites once a month to help those who can’t come to the nation’s headquarters. But keeping up with the numbers increasingly is difficult.


HR, she says, faces the big challenge of refining the process of issuing CDIBs over the counter. But there are too many applicants and not enough staff. As an indication of her frustration, she mentions that Windows® 95 has been available for two years, yet her department is still operating with DOS. Ummerteskee would like more money allocated for staff and better computer equipment.


In addition, the software industry hasn’t created a program tailored to the needs of the nation’s registration functions. Existing programs, she says, don’t provide the necessary fields. “We’ve looked into that. It’s touch-and-go all the time. We’ve had to build our own computer database. We’re getting so big, the database is getting unstable.”


Her frustrations haven’t been ignored. “We’re pushing everything we can to upgrade our technology. What we need is upgrading and connectivity,” says Rock. The nation’s current database, he says, is incomplete. Much of the registration information still resides on file cards and in books, and searches are processed manually. Rock would like to purchase something off the shelf. But until a useful program is created, the nation must rely on its own staff to build its own database. “But that makes us too dependent on the person who develops it to stay here. It holds us hostage,” he says. Once the technology capabilities are stabilized, however, HR will be able to access more detailed demographic information. And with the addition of a newly hired CFO, Rock is more optimistic about identifying additional sources of funding. Meanwhile, human resources is addressing other issues as well: For example, why the nation must develop competent business managers and establish strict business and legal codes of ethics. Otherwise, tribal members won’t be able to exercise their cultural sovereignty in today’s business world.


Growth drives training and ethics guidelines.
The Cherokee Nation began its formal employee-training programs in 1992, according to Ben McCollum, a native of Tahlequah and former Army captain. In the early ’90s, the nation’s employee population had more than doubled from 400 to 900. Also, home health-care agencies in Oklahoma were deregulated. This change created the potential for additional job opportunities and services. HR needed to hire those who could provide the services and administrative support—all of which required training in such areas as customer service, bilingual proficiency and team-building. Also, mid-level managers and employees needed to be trained to make decisions—a necessary skill that often feels uncomfortable for some Cherokees. “Most Native Americans have a tendency to not [face] issues head on. They prefer to talk about something, leave it for a while and come back to it later—until it’s solved or goes away,” says Rock. “That won’t work well today. I want to pitch decision making as a virtue, not an option.”


Managers, he says, have attended special seminars equivalent to “Basic Management 101.” The curriculum emphasizes various employee behaviors and how to measure productivity and team-building. “We’re trying to get away from a top-down style of management and [move] more toward employee involvement.” One example of team-building is the administrative policy-planning committee. Its mandate is to establish a set of policies and work procedures for each major department of the government. Members of the team include representatives from accounting, health, law and justice, the inspector general’s office, HR, education and human services, the chief of staff’s office and community development. The committee meets once a week. “HR’s policies, articulated for each task, have been disseminated as a model for other divisions,” says Rock. In the health division, for example, there are five clinics. Employees need to follow the same procedures in order to provide consistent health services. Some training is conducted onsite. And very often, HR will hire outside vendors for specialized training in such areas as CPR and other emergency medical support procedures. “Some employees may have to pick up and take an individual to the grocery store or doctor. They need to know basic first aid because many of our customer population are elders.”


Many of the elders, he says, don’t speak English. By speaking their own language—a syllabary codified by a Cherokee named Sequoyah in 1821—tribal members can obtain faster customer service. “A lot of positions are bilingual, so we have a large number of staff who speak Cherokee,” says Rock. HR also has helped to enforce clearer business ethics and guidelines so the tribal nation can prevent conflicts of interest and nepotism. For example, last June, Bob Powell was sworn in as inspector general for the Cherokee Nation. As a certified criminal investigations inspector in the state of Oklahoma, his primary duties will be to ensure the nation and its citizens have access to fair and objective reviews of their problems. In addition, the nation established a nepotism policy. According to Rock, no spouse, parent or child of an elected official may be employed by the nation. Nor can second-degree relatives (nephews, nieces) be supervised by a family member. Given the fact that the nation’s external customers are the same as its internal customers, the risk of nepotism could be higher than what most other organizations face. Chief Byrd, especially, is mindful of the need for such ethics policies. “As an elected official, he must respond to the wants and needs of an electorate. Some people might come to him and want a job because [they] voted for him,” explains Rock. “To the chief’s credit, one of the things he campaigned on was integrity.”


Under Byrd’s leadership, the nation recently instituted its first employee- appeals process. The Tribal Council passed the legislation which entitles employees to present their grievances before an impartial committee composed of three outside attorneys. “That way, we take controversy out before it gets to the top,” says Byrd. “We may even add some who aren’t attorneys to give balance.” Clearly, the nation is learning from its corporate counterparts to promote fairness and accountability. Rock praises the mandate. In fact, HR will oversee the appeals process for grievances and terminations, he says. But there also are long-term issues: the benefits of those who will eventually retire. Until recently, tribal employees weren’t allowed to save for their retirement. Then Congress signed pension simplification into law, and Native Americans rejoiced. HR at the Cherokee Nation could now recruit and retain tribal employees with financial incentives as well as cultural ones.


Tribes allowed to provide retirement benefits.
Last year, when Congress passed the Small Business Protection Act, most HR professionals celebrated because it meant pension regulations would, at last, be simplified. One item that didn’t receive much press attention was a provision that finally allowed tax-exempt organizations and Indian tribes to establish 401(k)s. “The minute legislation was passed, we jumped on it,” says Edna Shade, manager of compensation and benefits. HR staff members researched the law, called for bids, screened the main players and promoted the option to its employees.


“This is great news here,” says Chief Byrd. In less than two months, the nation’s human resources department enrolled more than 90 percent of those qualified to apply. “Our goal was to get 50 percent.” The nation will match—dollar for dollar—up to 5 percent, he says.


According to Shade, the Cherokees and other tribes have been trying to put such provisions in place for years. She also credits Sen. Ben Knight Horse Campbell (D-Colo.), a Northern Cheyenne, as a major advocate of the provision. Before the legislation passed, her employees were very demoralized because they didn’t have enough money for retirement. “With the option of employee contributions, now they can build a nest egg faster than what we could put in for them.” Because of the nation’s age and large pool of long-term employees, many of them will be retiring within the next few years. Therefore, ongoing education will include quarterly meetings and dispatching staff to the clinics and outlying areas—simply getting the word out. If it seems like a little too late, it isn’t. In the long run, younger employees will gain more incentive to stay. And that’s something Chief Byrd and Rock think about every day.


Growth and sovereignty walk hand in hand.
Most American companies expect turnover, attrition, layoffs and terminations. But somehow, there’s always a pool of employees to choose from. You might even say it’s an employer’s market. Less so with the Cherokee Nation and presumably, other tribes as well (there are more than 500 North American Indian tribes). Faced with growth-rather than extinction-the Cherokees’ HR recruitment and retention function is critical. Indeed, the nation is more than an employer. It’s a tribe whose history is recorded as far back as the 16th century. It’s also a government that struggles to represent those connected by the same tribal blood. Says Byrd: “We don’t want to become just another corporation that just brings in revenue. [As a sovereign nation], we have the best of both worlds. I look at it as having both the medicinal and spiritual arms of the Cherokee Nation. And we have these other entities that also play a vital role in the operations of the Cherokee Nation.”


For HR, the role is to amplify that uniqueness to ensure survival and growth —even if it means some short-term sacrifices. “We have to work on economic growth first—to provide jobs for our talented youth to come back,” says Rock. Today, this earnest desire is best expressed in the word Tahlequah, which means “where we meet.”

Workforce, February 1997, Vol. 76, No. 2, pp. 59-66.

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Summer Olympics An HR Disaster

The trembling hands of boxer Mohammed Ali as he lit the torch. The wavering smile of gymnast Kerri Strug when her painful vault ensured a team gold medal. Terrorism in the Olympic park. Heroism nearly everywhere else. The 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta were a mosaic of emotions—joy, anguish, fear, pride.


Yet we also heard a lot about late buses, misdirected athletes and overheated fans. And heard very little about what the average athlete—not the Janet Evanses, Carl Lewises or Jackie Joyner-Kerseys—were going to do after the Olympics. Workforce (formerly Personnel Journal), which covered the HR for the Olympics pre-Games, takes a look at the situation post-Games.


Olympic firefighting reaches its peak.
Ask Doris Isaacs-Stallworth of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG), and she’ll tell you the Olympics handling was “outstanding.” Isaacs-Stallworth, managing director of administration, HR, says the 4,000 ACOG employees did everything in their power to make the Games run like clockwork, and in general succeeded. For instance, beginning in July, the ACOG management team met every single day to sweat over a new to-do list. Each day throughout the Games, the CEO would start the meeting with “hot items,” things that needed immediate attention. Then each of the division representatives would add his or her issues. People would offer help or suggestions. This constant communication ensured a tightly knit management team that would remain cohesive throughout the Olympics. “In our daily meetings I was so impressed with the management team because if there was an issue, say with transportation, people from finance or communications would pitch in to find the right solution and make it happen,” says Isaacs-Stallworth.


With the Games under way, Isaacs-Stallworth shifted into peak firefighting mode. “My main job was to be right here at headquarters making sure people were in place and everything was going smoothly,” she says. The mishaps she encountered included anything from hot meals not being delivered on time to somebody parking a car in the wrong place to five volunteers gone AWOL. HR dealt with it all—everyone on the HR team worked a minimum of 12 hours a day in round-the-clock shifts, so there was always someone at headquarters. If an athlete in the Olympic village needed an HR service at 3 a.m., an HR person was there to provide it.


Meanwhile, the folks over at Atlanta-based Randstad Staffing Services were also in high gear-make that very high gear, since Randstad was responsible for 20,000 workers who served as ticket takers, bus drivers, booth staffers and other lower-level jobs. Similar to the ACOG, every morning the group, led by Debra Drew, vice president and director of Olympic programs, would start with an operations meeting of the “cluster managers,” people in charge of one or two venues, to decide what needed to be addressed.


A communications “central” was staffed 24 hours a day to identify any trends, problems and needs. These were only the big issues, however. Says Drew, “The [venue project managers] were empowered to do what they needed to do. But we were all wired with every communication device known to modern man. So if they weren’t sure of a decision, they had immediate access to someone who could get them through it. For the most part though, whatever someone had to do, they had to do.”


The staff works through media attacks, low morale—and a bombing.
Despite these efforts by the HR staffs, during the Olympics it seemed you couldn’t turn on the news without hearing about some Games glitch. Disoriented drivers caused athletes to be late for events. Excessive crowds were misdirected into the wrong venues. Folks fainted in the wilting heat.


Was this unbiased media reporting? The 1996 Olympics featured more than 15,000 athletes and team officials, 2.5 million spectators, 20,000-plus workers and another 75,000 volunteers. It was the biggest peacetime event in history. And all we hear is harping about the occasional fumbles? It hardly seems fair.


Still, the ubiquitous transportation foul-ups did happen. But the accuracy of the reporting varied depending on whom you talked to. Isaacs-Stallworth blames the skewed perception of reporters. In most of the previous Olympics, media were all housed together in a village environment. Due to Atlanta’s makeup, media professionals covering this Olympics were scattered throughout the city. “The buses had to swing by and get them where they were going. Sometimes there’d be traffic jams, and they wouldn’t get there on time. [These were] normal things that happen, but the reporters weren’t used to it and it upset them,” she says.


Drew—whose company was in charge of hiring the bus drivers—has a different viewpoint. She blames the ACOG for poor planning and handling of the bus drivers. “[The] ACOG did a very bad job in anticipating the number of drivers it was going to need and when the [drivers] would start. Even up until the last minute, [ACOG staff] couldn’t be specific enough with us,” she says. Drew says because of the poor planning, Randstad had to go out around the country to recruit the needed bus drivers.


The fact that Randstad had to recruit drivers from as far away as California became a crisis when, according to Drew, the mayor of Atlanta began changing the bus drivers’ routes on a daily basis. Finally, about a week into the Games, a top Olympics person drew the line. “He said, ‘You’re single-handedly ruining the Games, here buddy,'” says Drew. “No [drivers] started the Games not knowing their routes. But you can’t go changing people’s routes and not give them alternative directions when they’re [not from Atlanta]. That was 90 percent of it.” Once the routes stopped switching, and the ACOG assigned people to ride with the drivers to assist with routing if directions were changed, the situation calmed down.


As for the excessive negative media coverage, Drew also has a theory on that. “The very worst terminal manager that the ACOG had was the one who handled all the media. He didn’t know what he was doing.” It was a very frustrating situation for Drew, since it was her recruits being attacked, yet Randstad had limited control over the drivers’ on-the-job management.


The first week of the Games, morale, understandably, was low among both the Randstad and ACOG staffs. Ironically, both groups say it was the bombing in the park that put everything into perspective. The ACOG immediately whipped into action, creating a team of security, medical, HR and community relations professionals to handle the aftermath of the bombing, and to assist the injured and the family of the slain woman however possible. The finance people worked with the state and city to handle donations also. (The security guard who was under FBI suspicion was not hired by the ACOG; he was hired from a security firm along with other such personnel by one of the Olympic sponsors.) “Everybody just kind of stopped and took inventory on what we were doing. We said, ‘We’re not going to let this hurt us, we’re going to get through this, and these are still going to be the best games ever.’ And they were,” says Issacs-Stallworth.


Drew agrees that employees really rallied. The day after the bombing, every single staffer showed up for work despite the shock. When Drew’s staff turned on the news later, she saw one of her own employees being interviewed. The reporter asked her why she was there; wasn’t she scared? She replied that she wanted to be there because she knew people might need her. “It was really an astounding experience from a personnel [stand]point,” says Drew. “They went so beyond the call of duty.”


The Olympic staffing experience was a good one in general, Drew says. Randstad anticipated a 30 percent staff no-show—people just deciding to quit or not show up. Less than 4 percent did so. “The opportunity to work at the Games just changed peoples’ lives,” she says. “In the end it wasn’t just about giving people a job, it was giving them an experience of a lifetime.”


Outplacement for those who worked the Games.
So what happens when that experience of a lifetime, which you’ve quit a high-level job to do, ends? What do you do when the arena shuts down? If you’re an ACOG employee, you avail yourself of outplacement services through consulting firm Drake Beam Morin Inc. (DBM). Starting in June, DBM opened a career center right in ACOG headquarters, staffed with six counselors who worked with more than 1,000 ACOG employees on resumes, interviewing skills and job-search techniques. The jewel of the career center was the DBM job-lead database, which contained more than 30,000 job leads at any given time. ACOG staffers needed only pull up a chair and input the parameters of their search: the vocational area, desired region and salary level. The database shot out matching job descriptions.


Countries from around the world listed openings in the database, with 100 percent response from all of the Olympics’ sponsoring companies. Many employers called up to say they’d just like to hire someone who had been associated with the Games.


In August, after the Olympics wound down, DBM sponsored a job fair at the ACOG welcome center at the Atlanta airport—the same center used to greet all the dignitaries to the Games. More than 1,000 candidates attended, visiting any of the 175 booths of interested employers, where they could be interviewed on the spot.


Of the 4,034 employees eligible to receive DBM services, 1,964 people used the career center, which closed down at the end of October. The services needed varied widely—from simple access to the database to complete overhaul of resumes for employees who’d left 20-year jobs to work the Games. Carole Seffrin, manager of the career center, was amazed at the sheer range of professionals who walked through her doors. “I worked with a guy one morning; he looked like an ordinary guy. Turns out he not only has an MBA, but a Ph.D., and he’s fluent in English, Portuguese, French, Spanish and Hungarian. The thing is, that [wasn’t] uncommon here.”


All in all, the outplacement was an easy and gratifying experience for the DBM professionals. “The Games have become so prestigious, and these people distinguished themselves in such a way that companies really wanted to hire them,” says Seffrin. “It was electrifying working with these people. It was contagious.”


Outplacement for those who were the Games.
And what about the athletes who were now retiring from Olympic competition? Those whose grins wouldn’t be seen hawking Wheaties or their own lines of sportswear? They had to find jobs. Luckily, DBM also handled athlete outplacement. From mid-August to December, DBM offices hosted one-day Winning Ways workshops in 16 locations nationwide.


Limited to 30 people, the workshops “focused on the athletes’ experiences, characteristics and skills as they moved from the world of sport to the world of work,” explains Barbara Carlson, managing director of the DBM Denver office, with primary responsibilities for the athlete outplacement. Basically, it was about transferring their characteristics as athletes—dedication, commitment, perseverance and focus—into a successful corporate life.


Athletes all the way back to the 1976 Games attended the workshop, which featured several components. Participants received resume assistance and one-on-one counseling, as well as pencil-and-paper assessments to decide how to make the move into the mainstream work world. DBM also invited corporate guests and clients to drop by to help the athletes jump-start their career networking.


Perhaps the most popular attractions were the Olympic presenters, former athletes who volunteered their day, offering testimonials on how they made successful transitions from sports to careers. “They talked about coming ‘off the wall’ and the sense of depression about not having their daily routines of going to the gym or the pool or the track, and [not knowing] where to go next,” says Mary Klever, program consultant for the U.S. Olympic Committee’s athlete support department. “They went through a transition. I don’t want to associate it with death, but they went through a similar new focus and direction. They talked about the steps that needed to be taken next.”


Carlson says these athletes have a lot going for them despite the fact that they may be competing for jobs with candidates who have more years of actual work experience under their belts. DBM encouraged every athlete—most of whom have college degrees—to mention their Olympian experience somewhere on their resumes. The very word Olympian brings to mind positive characteristics.


Still, it’s never an easy day for these athletes. “[They] weren’t going to get the huge contracts representing a product I’m sure many of them dreamed about. In this one day, it’s real hard for anyone to come out and know exactly what he or she is going to do, but I think they got a much stronger sense of [what direction] they can go with the experience they’ve had,” says Carlson.


About 100 athletes attended the seminars, and Klever keeps her fingers crossed for them. “Their lives outside of sport, for many of them, have been nonexistent. Some have only had the opportunity to wait tables or work temp jobs, in which there’s not a lot of [opportunity] to build a career. They have given a tremendous sacrifice for their country to compete at an Olympic level. If they get a chance to just get in the door, I think most CEOs would be very impressed with the caliber of the individual, the quality, commitment and enthusiasm.”

Workforce, February 1997, Vol. 76, No. 2, pp. 25-31.

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Debating Tuition-reimbursement Programs

Kelley Bacon, recruitment and training manager, Mesa County Government, Grand Junction, Colorado, says:
“Two years ago, the Mesa County Board of County Commissioners adopted a training and development policy that included tuition assistance. The county wants its employees to continue striving for the highest degree of expertise and professionalism.


“The tuition-assistance program has been utilized by employees at all levels. HR provided assistance for associate, bachelor’s and master’s degree programs. Most of our department directors now have master’s level degrees, and our professionals have bachelor’s degrees. The majority of degrees have been in business administration and accounting or human resources management—with a few in psychology. Seven individuals have received their master’s degree in public administration.


“Our tuition-reimbursement policy provides an 80 percent reimbursement for full-time employees with a $3,000 annual cap and a 60 percent reimbursement for part-time employees with a $2,500 annual cap. The individual must be enrolled in an accredited institution. Employees must have a minimum of one full year of employment with Mesa County and have acceptable ratings on current performance appraisals. Each course must be approved and substantiated by the department/division director or elected official with a statement explaining job relatedness and the benefit to Mesa County. The employee can apply by completing a tuition- assistance form and forwarding it to the training technician in personnel. The technician reviews the form to ensure that all documentation is attached and then turns the forms in on a monthly or as-needed basis to the training and development team for approval. This team is represented by employees in various areas and levels of the organization. Once tuition assessment has met all criteria, reimbursement is made. We don’t provide financial support for fees or books. Moreover, tuition is available on a first-come, first-served basis, subject to budget appropriations. I currently have budgeted $32,000 for requests.


“[Human resources] didn’t want this policy to be any kind of entitlement that would guarantee reimbursement for degrees. So we’ve really emphasized that this program will reimburse on a course-by-course basis for education that will be of benefit to Mesa County and its citizens. The program criteria are working very well. We still have some employees who believe that their non-work-related electives should be covered, but for the most part, everyone submits what he or she knows will comply.


We believe any type of training or employee development will help our workforce improve performance and productivity. Our commitment also shows the value we place on our employees. This goes a long way in improving employee morale. Expectations for employee performance are very high in local government. I believe that Mesa County meets those challenges because of our commitment [in HR] to training and education.”


Janice M. Stauffer, personnel administrator, MagiKitch’n Inc., Quakertown, Pennsylvania, says:
“The educational assistance program at MagiKitch’n covers expenses for tuition registration and the cost of books required for the course. However, the employee is required to pay for the course. If proof of the grade ‘C’ or better is presented to the personnel department upon completion of the course, reimbursement is made to the employee. Books are purchased with company funds and then are donated to the company library after the course is completed.


“All courses must be taken outside regular working hours, unless the employee is requested to take the course by the company and there is no convenient course available after normal working hours.”


Martin Bell, director, University of California, Irvine, Graduate School of Management, says:
“In recent years, I have noticed fewer students receiving tuition assistance. Traditionally, tuition reimbursement was a mainstay of many corporate benefits programs. However, since budgets have tightened, tuition reimbursement is now viewed with a more discerning eye. The relevance of the curriculum, spiraling cost of education and long-term commitment of the employee are real issues to consider. One result has been a downward trend in both the number of employees reimbursed and the amount of reimbursement. These issues are tangential to the larger question of whether tuition reimbursement is an appropriate benefit at all. The answer is an unequivocal yes.


“For a relatively small investment, the rewards cycled back to the organization in the form of a more motivated and better educated employee are incalculable. The employee who has exposure to innovations in his or her field should yield a savings to the bottom line. Moreover, a strategically educated employee is a value added to the organization. Many educational institutions have retooled their programs to meet the changing demands of the business culture and have kept cost increases in check. At our Graduate School of Management, the program has woven two strategic foci into the MBA curriculum—international business and information technology. This positions our students to be at the cutting edge of the business environment and relevant in the workplace, which will benefit the return on investment.


“The issue is not whether tuition-reimbursement programs should continue, but how. Specifics such as the tuition amount [to be reimbursed], the school’s billing cycle, invoice handling, when grade reports are produced and turnaround time for reimbursement all need to be clearly understood up front. This provides for minimal frustration for all parties at the time the funds are needed.”


Workforce, February 1997, Vol. 76, No. 2, pp. 85-86.

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Expats Need Valid Documents To Drive Overseas

Globally relocated employees should be aware that different countries require different documentation and tests before they’ll be allowed to drive a motor vehicle in the host country. Fortunately, many countries accept the International Drivers Permit (IDP), which can be obtained in the States through the American Automobile Association (AAA). The following information, provided by New York City-based ECA Windham, outlines the specific requirements of eight common expat-destination countries.


United States: IDP and home-country national license needed; valid for one year; vision exam, written test and practical test required; apply at any motor vehicle office.


France: IDP or national license accepted; valid for one year; written exam, 20 hours of driving lessons and a practical test required; application available at nearest Préfecture.


United Kingdom: IDP or national license accepted; valid for one year; practical driving test required; application available at post offices.


Hong Kong: Neither IDP nor national license accepted; application available at the Transport Department.


Italy: IDP (with Italian translation) accepted; valid for one year; penal certificate of noncriminality and health certificate from family doctor required; free translations are available at any national motoring organization.


Japan: IDP accepted; valid national license, passport and photograph required to obtain a Japanese license.


Malaysia: IDP or national license accepted; valid for three months; no test required, but certificate is required by the expat’s embassy in Malaysia.


Mexico: IDP accepted until Mexican license is received; visa, signed statement of fitness and driving ability as well as local address required; applications for license are processed at Mexico City’s International Airport.


Workforce, February 1997, Vol. 76, No. 2, p. 19.