Archive – Page 564

May 1, 1996July 10, 2018

At PeopleSoft, Client_server Drives the HR Office of the Future

The idea of creating an automated, paperless office has always been alluring. The problem is, however, every time someone figures out a way to eliminate a piece of paper, everyone else manages to generate a dozen more. Every time an efficiency expert discovers a way to streamline a process, three or four other processes are thrown out of sync. Yesterday’s vision of office utopia has become today’s computerized quagmire.

But that’s changing. Thanks to client/server architecture, innovative new software and a convergence of peripheral technologies—including scanning, desktop video and online communication—office automation is fast becoming a reality. And nobody is leading the charge more than Pleasanton, California-based software producer PeopleSoft, which, with the help of San Ramon, California-based Ramos & Associates (workflow automation specialists), has established the noble, though some might say foolhardy, goal of establishing the world’s first paperless office within its own human resources department. The underlying idea, of course, is to showcase the company’s own products and boost sales.

PeopleSoft’s client/server system allows employees to use interactive voice response (IVR) for benefits enrollment and records updates. Later this year, employees will make all their changes online, using PCs in the office or at home. It has created online directories, handbooks and booklets—including a Lotus Notes database that offers an up-to-the-minute list of primary-care physicians, dentists and other professionals. Benefits statements, including an employee’s 401(k) balance, can be requested through another IVR system, and is sent automatically via e-mail.

The Lotus Notes network also offers links to sundry mutual-fund providers. Once inside the company’s web site, it’s simple to view a prospectus or Morningstar reports on various funds. Employees can even view a video clip of the fund manager discussing his or her investment philosophy. And employees who participate in the firm’s employee stock-purchase plan can enroll electronically using a Lotus Notes form that automatically links to brokerage firm Charles Schwab.

Managing benefits is only part of the picture, however. Sophisticated workflow technology routes promotions, salary increases, transfers and other forms through the organization to the proper managers for approval. As one person signs off, it’s routed to the next. If anyone forgets to process a document, a smart agent issues reminders until the task is completed. Training materials—including video—are almost entirely online, and all payroll checks are distributed electronically.

But the company’s hiring process may be the most futuristic aspect of all. Applications sent via the World Wide Web or fax are automatically deposited into a database; those submitted on paper are scanned into the computer and plugged into the same database. Once a hiring manager has selected an applicant for an interview, the system phones that person and asks him or her to select an interview time by punching buttons on a touch-tone phone. At the end of the call, the client/server database notifies the interviewers of the appointment, and even offers a reminder the day of the interview. It’s all handled without human interaction. And an orientation program for new hires works much the same way.

“This is a showcase, not so much for technology, but practical, pragmatic business solutions,” says Steve Zarate, PeopleSoft’s chief information officer. “We want to blow away underlying assumptions and show how far it’s possible to go in a well-managed client/server environment. By creating a paperless office, we’re forcing people to think outside the box.” So far, it seems to be working. The firm, with 1,500 employees in 14 countries, has realized clear-cut gains. While the average company has about one human resources staffer for every 50 employees, it’s supporting a ratio of 1:110. That already translates into millions of dollars a year in payroll savings. And by the year 2000, when it expects to be completely paperless, the company wants to boast an HR-to-employee ratio of 1:500. “Client/server is driving incredible change. It’s bringing tremendous power to the desktop,” says Zarate.

Personnel Journal, May 1996, Vol. 75, No. 5, p. 92.

May 1, 1996July 10, 2018

Consider These Cost Factors

A program like Borg-Warner’s is a sizeable investment, so before you jump right in, there are several factors you should consider.

The cost per employee, per hour is likely to be greater with a consultant than with a community college-but the overall cost may swing either way depending on how many contact hours you’ll need with each program to achieve the same results.

When comparing programs, be sure to consider the quality and the approach of the instruction, as well as the student-teacher ratio.

Your first group to go through a new training program is likely to be more costly than those following it because there’ll be some one-time setup fees. You also may be able to negotiate better rates for successive groups.

The most expensive element actually isn’t the cost of the program—but the lost productivity: the time your employees are away from their jobs and their overtime pay. These costs depend on how much your employees are paid and how much you expect them to produce in a given hour. If the pay rate is $10 per hour and employees are making $40 per hour in product, you’re losing an average of $50 per employee per hour of training.

You can expect consulting services to run approximately $15 to $20 per employee, per hour-on top of the $50 per employee, per hour above.

Ask for arrangements that tie performance to cost. For example, EdWel & Co.’s performance clauses guarantee that predetermined goals will be met before the client pays the full fee.

Personnel Journal, May 1996, Vol. 75, No. 5, p. 116.

May 1, 1996July 10, 2018

5 Ideas For Better Labor-management Negotiations

New methods to enhance workplace productivity must be sought out and tailored to an individual organization. Through joint labor and management teams, cooperation and employee participation can be achieved and successfully used to address and to solve issues that were previously major obstacles-such as wages, benefits and job security-for true win-win results. The following recommendations will facilitate the process:

Involve the HR organization from the beginning.

Evaluate the organization’s history and culture to better understand the people and the obstacles it will have to overcome. Is the culture cooperative or adversarial in nature? Cultural audits are now common and provide this type of information.

Look at the organization’s structure. Does it allow clear and open communication lines between upper management and the front-line workers? If not, those lines must be established through a flatter structure and joint problem-solving teams.

Create a labor-management relations committee (LMRC) to oversee these efforts. This LMRC should establish a clear vision, goals and objectives-a partnering agreement if you will-that can serve as the committee’s guide.

Finally, adopt a systematic approach to negotiations, and then follow it for optimum results.

Personnel Journal, May 1996, Vol. 75, No. 5, pp. 102-103.

May 1, 1996July 10, 2018

Nothing Personal

Not surprisingly, emotions and opinions run high when it comes to employer monitoring practices. Employers generally agree on the basic premises for such oversight activity. Here are the percentages of respondents concurring with the following statements:

EMPLOYEE FAIR MONITORING PRACTICE	GENERAL PUBLIC	EMPLOYEES	UNION MEMBERS
Procedures for listening-in and standards used to evaluate employee call handling should be fully explained to employees.	89%	93%	92%
Employees should be told when they are hired for these jobs that supervisors will sometimes listen-in on business calls, so that employees can agree or not agree to work under these procedures.	88%	92%	95%
Employees whose performance is criticized should have access to any notes or recordings maid of their calls, and given the opportunity to challenge the supervisor’s evaluation.	86%	90%	96%
Problems with employee performance found from listening-in should lead to additional employee training, and only when performance fails to improve should disciplinary action be taken.	82%	87%	90%
Listening-in should be done only on business calls, with separate and unmonitored telephone facilities for employees to make personal calls.	73%	78%	83%
Management should involve employees in setting up standards and procedures for listening-in on business calls.	73%	77%	84%

SOURCE: Privacy & American Business/ Harris Survey, 1994.

Personnel Journal, May 1996, Vol. 75, No. 5, p. 76.

May 1, 1996July 10, 2018

Steering Clear of Data Minefields

In recent years, the datamining gold rush has reached frenzied proportions. Hundreds of companies now collect data on individuals, and then pass that information on to other database companies and employers interested in finding out who they might be hiring. Problem is, it’s often fool’s gold, because a lot of data is old, inaccurate or just plain wrong. And that takes an onerous tone if you consider that a report might include information on everything from liens to criminal convictions.

It’s not difficult to understand why nearly half of all credit reports contain mistakes, and why the Federal Trade Commission reports more complaints about the accuracy of credit reports than any other consumer issue. Although information is distributed digitally, someone must manually type the information into the system. That is where the majority of the problems lie. A clerk who inverts two digits on a Social Security number or enters the wrong middle initial can unwittingly merge the records of two different people and generate a trail of misinformation. “A person’s life can easily be ruined. They may not be able to get a job,” says Evan Hendrix, publisher of Privacy Times newsletter.

How can an HR department ensure data is accurate and that it isn’t opening the door for a lawsuit? First of all, Hendrix suggests that a human resources department obtain as much information as possible directly from the applicant and then let that individual know the company conducts background checks. “Be open and upfront about what you need and what you’re going to check,” he suggests. “If someone chooses not to participate in the process, he or she can say so and not have to feel as though his or her privacy has been invaded.”

Another option, says Hendrix, is to let an applicant obtain a credit report on his or her own, and then forward it to the company. That way, if there’s an error, the applicant can attach a note of explanation and the matter can be investigated further. As an alternative, a growing number of companies are showing credit reports and background checks to applicants who are turned down. Again, if there’s an error that might sway the hiring manager to reconsider, the issue can be resolved without conflict. “The main thing,” says Shreveport, Louisiana-based privacy infringement attorney David Szwak, “is to be honest and upfront about what you’re checking and make sure the applicant has an opportunity to correct mistakes.”

Finally, it’s crucial to use only the information that’s relevant. That sounds simple enough, but many companies don’t follow the rule. That means turning to a motor vehicle check or credit report only if it applies to the position an applicant is seeking. That means avoiding other data—perhaps on a tax lien or a divorce settlement—that has no bearing on the position. Says Szwak: “It’s important to think about whether you’re solving a problem or creating a bigger one by gathering information about a potential hire.”

Personnel Journal, May 1996, Vol. 75, No. 5, p. 80.

May 1, 1996March 15, 2019

Why At-will Employment Is Dying

Employers these days can’t terminate an employee without feeling a little nervous—and for good reason. Wrongful termination suits abound. Anymore, we need a stack of documentation and a series of disciplinary actions before we can even consider firing an employee. We need to check and recheck our tracks to ensure everything has been covered. The whole process can take up to a year, forcing us to focus our time and energy on our poor employees instead of our promising ones.

Yet most states have some sort of at-will history, allowing the termination of employees at any time, for any reason. Why then all the fuss over justifying a termination? To be blunt, it’s because at-will employment is on its last leg. Ironically, it’s the very laws designed to give employees an even break that have left employers at a disadvantage. Christopher Bouvier, senior labor counsel for San Francisco-based ABM Industries, details at-will employment’s erosion and offers advice on terminating employees safely.

To start out, can you give a definition of at-will employment?
Employment at will is supposed to mean that either the employer or the employee can terminate the employment relationship at any time, for any reason. That was the traditional American definition.

What’s at-will employment’s history?
The American concept of at-will employment dates back to the mid-19th century, rising primarily out of English common law. In the old days, the view was that an employer had the absolute right to choose its employees. And employer attitudes around the turn of the century were that you can terminate an employee for any reason you want. That was the way it was. It was accepted without question at that time and well into the 20th century. So that’s [the notion] it comes from: The right of capital to discharge labor was absolute.

In the United States, how was it handled—was it covered by legislation?
It depends on the state. California, for instance, has a labor code. It has been codified at least since the 1870s that an employer has the right to terminate an employee at any time, for any reason, and likewise, an employee may leave at any time. Other states have similar statutes. It may not be written in law and not passed by the legislature, but it has been decided by case law—the decisions of the courts have recognized that right. I’d say most states recognize at-will employment.

How did the spirit of at-will employment begin to erode?
In my opinion, the first major assault on employment at will was the development of labor laws in the early 20th century—the 1930s—which culminated in the current National Labor Relations Act. That act was attempting to strike a balance between the rights of labor and capital. One of the things Congress did was to protect an employee’s right to organize or be part of a union. It became unlawful at that point for an employer to terminate an employee because he or she had pro-union sentiments or union support. I believe that’s where you saw the first limitations on an employer’s right to discharge at will.

Did this sentiment snowball?
Federal labor laws basically cultivated labor unionism to an extent and allowed it to grow. Labor unions then were able to negotiate contracts that included protections for the right of discharge too. In other words, employers and unions would negotiate collective-bargaining agreements, and it became fundamental practice over the years that those agreements actually would have a clause in them that prevented discharge without good cause. The opposite of employment at will is no right to discharge unless good cause is proven by the employer. These protections began to appear in collective-bargaining agreements.

And this loss of at will expanded throughout unionized companies?
Yes, it did. Having the strength to bargain with employers, unions were able to negotiate these contractual limitations that said you can’t fire any union member unless you have good cause—and, of course, whether you had good cause would be decided by an arbitrator. This was in the 1940s and 1950s, and at that time it only applied to union employees. There was a 40-year period in which unionized America was winning more and more job protection. The concept of at-will employment was almost completely absent from unionized America by the 1960s. You couldn’t fire a union member unless you could prove that he or she deserved to be fired.

What was happening within the nonunion workforce?
In nonunion America, the concept of at-will employment was going strong. You could be fired at any time for any reason. There was a rather large segment of the workforce that was non-union, and those employees virtually had no protection against discharge. So there was a dichotomy. But with all these lawsuits now, we’re seeing the demise of at-will employment in the nonunion setting. The concept germinated in nonunion America by the fact that [eradicating at-will employment] was not unheard of anymore. It had been present in the labor community for a long time.

So it was simply a case of the non-union workforce following the example set in union America?
Not entirely. I’d say, personally, that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act was the beginning of the end for at-will employment in nonunion America—that was in 1964. It didn’t specifically eliminate at-will employment. But what it did was say it’s unlawful for an employer to terminate employees or to affect negatively the terms of employment because of an employee’s race, sex, national origin or religious beliefs. Before Title VII became law, if an employer didn’t like the fact an employee was, for example, Jewish, it could terminate that employee and really not face any problems. Then all of a sudden, you had an entire federal law that made it [illegal] to fire an employee because of one of his or her immutable characteristics, such as skin color or heritage.

This obviously was a much-needed law with excellent intentions—how did it become a stepping stone for the elimination of at-will employment?
Although Title VII said nothing about at-will employment, it suddenly provided a certain level of protection for an entire class of workers. Previously an at-will employee could be fired for any reason or no reason at all. Title VII allowed you to terminate an employee for any reason that wasn’t unlawful. So basically it became wise for employers to start having policies and documenting actions to protect themselves from any claim under Title VII. In 1967, Congress amended it to protect people older than 40: the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). So that was another federal law that was in effect limiting the employer’s right to discharge an employee at will—union or no union. Then in the 1970s, states individually started passing their own fair employment laws that mirrored Title VII. The majority of states now have laws against discrimination in discharge.

Would you say the mindset toward employment was changing during this period?
The long-standing job protections for union employees combined with the protections of Title VII began to impact the thinking of employees, juries and judges. A mindset over time developed that employees couldn’t be fired without a good reason and without a lawful reason. So that’s the statutory erosion. At-will employment has eroded to the point of almost being extinct.

You say statutory erosion—was at-will employment under attack in other areas also?
Starting in the 1960s and 1970s, there were other concepts that came up that further limited an employer’s right to discharge at will. One of the first ones was a public-policy exception to employment at will. That’s where an employer’s right of discharge is limited by concerns of public policy. The classic example: An employee refuses to commit a crime at the employer’s instruction. The employer says, “Oh yeah? Well you’re fired.” That’s a public-policy violation. The courts over time have said you can’t have an employer having the right to fire an employee for reasons like that because it affects public policy.

You’ve mentioned damage awards and juries. Where do they fit in with the erosion of at-will employment?
Many legal theories allow terminated employees to seek a jury trial, and permit recovery of more than lost wages and reinstatement. A plaintiff in an employment case can often recover compensatory damages for his or her emotional harm, punitive damages in outrageous cases, and his or her attorney fees, which often exceed $100,000. After 60 years of increased employment rights, jury members tend to expect that an employee can’t be terminated without good reason, and they’ll award large damages if their sense of fairness is offended. The possibility of jury verdicts with large monetary awards makes employment cases attractive to plaintiff attorneys.

In the 1980s, wasn’t there an explosion in the area of employee contract rights?
The courts acknowledged an implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing between employers and labor, which was very popular among all of the states between 1980 and 1988. It said that an employer couldn’t discharge an employee in “bad faith.” In bad faith would mean to terminate the employee for arbitrary or unfair reasons without any real basis in fact or law. Many employees succeeded in obtaining large damage awards, which made these cases very desirable to plaintiffs’ attorneys. This particular claim is less widely used now because several courts eliminated the availability of punitive and compensatory damages.

What other developments were happening during this time period?
Another development that was going along side by side with the good faith and fair dealing covenant was the right of employees to prove the existence of implied contractual terms that limited the right of the employer to discharge at will.

How would they do that?
Let’s say I worked for a company for 20 years and during that time I’d been promoted from a stock boy in the mail room all the way up to the head of a division. I’d been given awards and raises, commendations and promises from my employer about my future with the company. Over time there’s going to be enough evidence accumulated for me to show that even though there’s not anything written down on paper, I have a contract, and they can’t terminate me unless they have good cause for doing so.

That’s another exception to the at-will doctrine?
Yes, it is. They can say that over this period of time, because of all the things that my employer has said to me and because of all the things said about my future, I had a reasonable expectation that I couldn’t be fired without good reason. So even though there are state laws that say you can fire any employee for any reason, employees can overcome that law. You can look anywhere you can possibly think of for statements by the employer: awards, commendations, longevity of employment, raises, verbal promises by your boss, or the most popular—employee handbooks.

Handbooks are a big trouble spot?
They were a fertile area of litigation in the 1980s, and they still are. In implied-contract litigation, the lawyers for the plaintiffs would subpoena employee handbook materials and cull through them to find whatever evidence they could to show an implied contract. At trial, they’d take the first page of the employee handbook where [a firm] talks about how it looks forward to a long, profitable relationship and wishes the employee a future with the company. The lawyers would blow this up 10 times and stick it in front of the jury. All those laws—Title VII, ADEA and other labor laws—have an impact on everyone’s mindset, on the jury as well as the judiciary, who are deciding these appellate cases. At this point they’ve had 40 years with the concept of employment rights, and it’s reasonable to both juries and judges that employees should have some kind of protection and shouldn’t be treated arbitrarily. All of a sudden, a lot more of the legal theories became a lot easier to swallow, when 50 years earlier they were completely foreign concepts.

Where will all this go?
The trend continues. We have the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the continued development of torts in contract claims and the public-policy claim. There’s still a tiny element of at-will employment still alive, but for the most part employers, just to be safe, have been forced to develop policies that are fair and equal and consistently applied; they have to document employees’ histories. From a lawyer’s point of view you still could argue that at-will employment exists under very limited circumstances. But, just to protect themselves, employers are required to be careful in how they treat employees. The result is that it’s really difficult to terminate any employee unless you can show you had a legitimate reason to terminate him or her. I wouldn’t want to declare at-will employment completely dead, but it’s lying on the ground gasping for breath.

Any suggestions for employers?
The safest thing for employers to do is to have uniform employment policies that also are uniformly applied and well publicized to employees. It is extremely important to maintain good documentation about specific treatment of specific employees, so that when the inevitable challenge to your termination decision comes, you’re able to show the employee was treated fairly, that he or she knew about the rules, and that he or she received due process and fair warning about what the consequences would be for failure to follow the rules. You need to show you gave employees a fair opportunity to perform well before you finally terminated them. Documentation has, of course, become critical because otherwise you won’t have anything to show when your judgment is questioned.

Is it getting hard to run a business these days?
Yes, it certainly is. Because of the constant enactment of laws and continual judicial activism, it requires a high level of sophistication for a businessperson just to maintain and manage employment relationships. And without that level of sophistication, you have huge areas of liability that really can hurt a fledgling business. It’s difficult to keep up with all the developments that come around.

Personnel Journal, May 1996, Vol. 75, No. 5, pp. 123-128.

May 1, 1996July 10, 2018

SSI Labor Adversaries Bury the Hatchet

The end of a strike doesn’t always mean the end of problems. Often, the end of a strike is just the beginning of workplace tension. For SSI Services Inc., the end of a nasty strike in 1990 was just the beginning of difficulties between the bargaining units and management.

By 1992, relations had eroded to the point at which workers didn’t trust management—and management was suspect of workers’ motives. Bitterness, anger, frustration and fear were commonplace. No matter what issue landed on the bargaining table, people couldn’t look at it objectively without the veil of resentment clouding their thoughts.

At best, it was a difficult situation. At worst, it was another strike waiting to happen. If worker-management relations—including the bargaining process—didn’t improve, both sides were headed for disaster. SSI needed a fresh approach to union relations—and fast.

A divisive strike leaves the workforce tense and bitter.
Winning the contract from PanAm World Services in 1985, SSI, based in Bridgeville, Pennsylvania, became the mission support contractor for the U.S. Air Force Materiel Command’s Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) located at Arnold Air Force Base near Tullahoma, Tennessee. The AEDC is responsible for developing, certifying and testing of aircraft, missile and space systems for the Air Force. After signing on as one of three government contractors supporting the base, SSI took over many responsibilities on the base, such as facilities maintenance, fire protection, security, logistics and running both a precision machine shop and a fabrication shop.

To complete all these responsibilities, SSI hired 1,350 workers who were represented by 13 different unions—headed by the Air Engineering Metal Trades Council (AEMTC). Most of the workers had been employed formerly by PanAm, and were hired by SSI when it took over the contract. The workers’ had a strong allegiance to the base itself, rather than to the employer of the moment (SSI)—because contractors come and go, but the base remains their “home.” In addition, management operated within a very bureaucratic organization which placed laborers at the bottom of the pyramid.

During labor negotiations in 1990, SSI sought to improve its work rules to boost productivity and cut costs. The AEMTC, however, wanted to ensure job security, increase benefits and improve the overall quality of life for its members. Negotiations ended in a disruptive 57-day strike right before the year-end holiday season.

Concessions by both parties eventually ended the strike. However, the fallout of mistrust and animosity lasted several years. By 1993, SSI and the AEMTC decided that enough was enough. It was time to radically change the way they dealt with each other.

They realized they had a problem they couldn’t ignore and set out to fix it.
Both sides (SSI and the AEMTC) realized there were extremely bad feelings throughout the workforce. They needed to improve relations and prevent future walkouts.

So, SSI’s general manager, John Stubbs, and six union leaders got together to talk about the 1990 strike and its long-term effects on morale, trust and teamwork. Key to the discussions was Anthony J. Taylor, SSI’s human resources manager and labor relations manager at the time. He’s now the HR management specialist for Tullahoma, Tennessee-based ACS, which took over the support contract in 1995. During the very first session, called the “Workforce Effectiveness Workshop,” work issues were discussed openly and honestly, without regard to individuals’ status or position.

These individuals, and others—including union representatives, managers and HR staff—continued to meet monthly, and sometimes even weekly, for approximately one year. In these subsequent meetings or workshops run by their consultant, Matt Taylor Associates, approximately 40 to 75 people would separate into “breakout teams” of approximately 10 people each to talk about specific options for solving work problems. They tackled problems identified in the sessions by exploring the facts, focusing on the causes and then providing recommendations.

These workshops, which Matt Taylor Associates calls DesignShops™, were assisted by their team of facilitators who were specialists in organizational culture transformation. The facilitators kept the interaction moving, focused and pleasant. Each session lasted 16 to 32 hours, spanning two to three days. Clear agendas were established and followed with separate modules that included team-building and problem-solving exercises.

Whenever a team needed more data, it would turn into a “problem-solving team” and went out to collect more information about the specific issue. Problem-solving teams worked on many issues such as identifying options to reduce health-insurance costs and figuring out possible ways to implement a four-day workweek. This all happened before the actual bargaining talks began so as to identify the issues and to come up with options to discuss during negotiations.

For example, one of the issues a breakout team handled was sick leave. “Many workers felt they were being treated like stepchildren and that management didn’t really trust them,” says SSI’s Taylor, who served on several of the breakout teams, along with various union representatives, company managers and HR staffers. “They felt that because they couldn’t take sick leave the very first day [they were sick], they were being treated differently [from nonrepresented employees].” The old policy stated that employees couldn’t begin using sick leave until two days after they became ill. The team came up with the idea to give employees a pool of 48 hours to use toward their first two days off (charged against their sick leave). The idea was later embraced by both sides as part of an agreement to keep sick leave usage down and to provide a similar benefit as the non-represented personnel.

Communication between labor and management during these sessions enabled each side to see the world from the other’s perspective. During one of the sessions, team members decided to go ahead and “bury the hatchet” (literally). A procession of several managers, union representatives and HR staff marched out to a grassy area on the base grounds to the tune of a funeral march. They buried a tiny coffin bearing an actual hatchet.

“It was very poetic,” says SSI’s Taylor. “We all agreed that we would never, ever again allow the relationship [between labor and management] to deteriorate to the point that we would have another strike.” He adds: “That was the first step in opening lines of communication and developing trust.” The symbolic gesture of performing a mock funeral and burying the past helped everyone focus on the tasks at hand.

Implementing a new collective-bargaining process for a new era.
After burying the hatchet, the HR manager and general manager traveled to Washington, D.C. to the National Labor Management Conference to seek out better ways of collective bargaining. There, they heard about a new team-based bargaining process that was helping organizations improve labor-management relations and negotiations. Target-specific bargaining, developed by Don Powers of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service based in Washington, D.C., seemed to be just what SSI and the AEMTC were looking for. Target-specific bargaining principles dictate that the negotiating parties focus on narrowing down work problems to only a few key issues, and work for their resolution by using joint data-gathering and problem-solving teams that bring recommendations back to the main negotiating committee—something SSI and the AEMTC had already been experimenting with. They were on the right track, but learned new techniques to help them on their way.

Under Powers’ model, work issues are identified before the actual contract talks begin. In this way, similar topics are merged together and options are identified long before negotiations start. The basic open and honest communications learned during SSI and the AEMTC’s DesignShops, became the basis for a unique and successful new approach to bargaining. So, when SSI and the AEMTC sat down for contract talks with this new process in 1993, they had only 13 issues to tackle—the bargaining unit had eight issues and SSI management had five. “That’s really different from the 40 to 50 that people usually have,” says Taylor.

“In this particular model, everybody’s empowered to talk and voice their opinion,” he adds. “And if there was an issue we couldn’t agree on, we’d assign a team to work on it.”

The negotiating committee consisted of top-level managers from SSI, led by Taylor and the chief stewards from the AEMTC. Facilitation was provided by an SSI manager who was selected by consensus of both sides for his objective nature and valuable experience in dealing with people—both labor and management, throughout his career in the military and in business. Information and training was provided to the committee from various sources—including in-house HR personnel—on benefits, target-specific bargaining, group problem solving and data gathering.

Going into negotiations, the joint data-gathering and problem-resolution teams were met with skepticism by both sides. However, things improved as several separate breakout teams formed to gather data and provide recommendations on such issues as sick-leave benefits, workers’-compensation allowances, and temporary promotions.

Communication between, and among, negotiating committee members was emphasized by the facilitator. The committee met during normal working hours two to three times each week. Meetings usually were conducted for a maximum of four hours to minimize fatigue, unlike former negotiating sessions that dragged on into the wee hours of the morning resulting in agreements rooted in desperation. The facilitator was invaluable in keeping meetings on track and objective.

Other than breakout teams specifically commissioned by the negotiating committee, small sidebar meetings of labor and management personnel were prohibited. Separate labor or management meetings were kept to a minimum to ensure maximum communication during joint negotiating sessions rather than outside of them.

Moving toward a team-based organization.
One of the issues identified during the new open communication process was that there wasn’t enough voice from labor about what was going on within the organization. Workers didn’t have enough say in things like project execution, the way the business was run and choice of tools to get their jobs done right. So, as part of the new worker-involvement philosophy, SSI initiated teams.

Approximately 20 employee-involvement teams formed with the support of the HR and Quality departments, bringing expertise and experience from labor and management together to accomplish common objectives. Several total quality (TQ) teams were initiated and followed established problem-solving processes such as those described in books like Joseph M. Juran’s “Roadmap to Quality Improvement” and Phillip Crosby’s “Natural Work Teams.” Some of the team’s goals were to cut down cycle time and save costs. Everybody (both labor and management) looked at the processes they were involved in and made changes for improved performance and greater customer satisfaction. Overall, this enabled day-to-day operations to be conducted without direct supervision in the printing plant, a small machine shop, an instrument lab and a graphics group.

For the first time, craft employees recommended solutions to technical problems, and helped in long-range planning, both implemented through various cross-functional teams. In effect, the entire internal environment of the organization evolved from adversarial to cooperative.

Implementing a skills update.
One of the concerns raised by the bargaining unit was that its members weren’t given the opportunity to improve their skills. The assumption was that craft personnel had received all the training they needed when they originally trained for their professions. “With the technological environment that we’re in today, [craft personnel] felt they should know some of the basics associated with personal computers, for example,” says Taylor. “So we set out to make sure that not only our nonrepresented employees received that type of basic training, but that our represented employees had that training as well.”

The HR training coordinator assessed training requirements for craft personnel, addressing those needs equally for management and technical professionals. Basic computer courses were developed for those with minimal PC backgrounds. Adds Taylor: “We trained 100% of all bargaining employees in computer skills.” Also added were courses in technical drawing interpretation, welding inspection, and major equipment operation and repair. The company also introduced advanced training requirements for craftspeople and organized classes for achieving those skills.

Any other training workers received would be job-based, because, as Taylor says: “The organization doesn’t have the resources to make it perpetual training—there has to be a need. Those who have to use computers in their jobs will continue to receive training to [maintain productivity] in their particular work environment.”

Eureka! They’ve got a contract.
With all this cooperation, negotiations with the AEMTC were completed in record time—three months prior to contract expiration with a five-year agreement (the longest in AEDC history) and an attitude that the best was yet to come. In one-third of the time of previous talks, the negotiating team agreed on topics such as overtime administration, temporary employment guidelines, job-posting procedures, implementation of a four-day workweek, sick leave, workers’ compensation and wages.

Influenced by this success, subsequent negotiations between SSI and the International Guards Union of America followed a similar methodology. At the time, there were 50 workers in the union. This time a member of the AEMTC was chosen as the facilitator. Negotiations concluded with a historic 10-year agreement, also months ahead of contract expiration.

An ongoing process of communication, training and joint problem resolution goes on today. A Labor and Management Relations Committee (LMRC) evolved from the 1993 negotiating committee. It’s co-chaired by the HR manager and a chief union steward. The LMRC meets monthly to address the most pertinent concerns of its members. In addition to their training in target-specific bargaining, teamwork and TQ basics, LMRC members have also traveled to labor-management conferences on the local, state and national levels. In-house seminars have been expanded to include alternate dispute resolution methods and procedures from Stephen R. Covey’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” Both have been facilitated by HR staff.

The LMRC is kept separate from formal administrative processes established by the contract, and therefore doesn’t infringe on matters defined within the contract. Instead, the LMRC heads off problems before they develop into violations.

The atmosphere of mistrust that existed after the strike of 1990 has disappeared. The culture has turned into one focused on continuous improvement—even as resources shrink. Problem-solving teams composed of labor and management are now the norm, whereas they were nonexistent before 1990. By working together, the mission support contract expected to yield approximately $5 million in cost savings and efficiencies for fiscal 1995.

The biggest key to success was achieving an atmosphere of trust and open communication prior to the negotiating process. If labor and management aren’t working together before negotiations, they certainly aren’t going to work well during the process. Also, bringing a minimum number of issues to the table did a great deal to enable the committee to focus, solve each problem and move on. Using joint data-gathering teams to collect facts and bring well thought-out recommendations to the bargaining table shortened negotiating time and ensured consensus.

Issues were solved on the basis of facts vs. feelings. Without the support of HR personnel bringing all the facts, training, and leadership for change to the table, the success realized would never have been achieved.

Personnel Journal, May 1996, Vol. 75, No. 5, pp. 100-107.

May 1, 1996July 10, 2018

Opening Pandora’s (Private) Box

Orwellian is an adjective perhaps unique to our times. It conjures images of Big Brother watching our every move, each of us stripped of privacy and, consequently, of dignity. By now, an image, a phrase or a disembodied voice may be all that’s necessary to stir a primal fear.

Our cover this month is certainly Orwellian, and deliberately so. It’s a frightening and even repugnant image, but we selected it because it succeeds in making us squirm. Given the potential that technology now gives us to obliterate personal privacy as it has been defined for millenniums, we should be uncomfortable.

Sam Greengard’s cover story is equally unsettling. Sam shares stories that include a criminal-record mix-up that led to the firing of one man who had done nothing wrong other than to share a similar name to a stranger with a drug conviction on his record, and an employer who saw fit to turn over copies of voicemail implicating an employee in an extra-marital affair to his spouse. Although it would be comforting to dismiss these examples as nothing more than extremism, there isn’t a lot of historical precedent to tell us that given the opportunity, society will take the high road.

Consider, for example, an article in the March 7, 1996, issue of People Management, a business magazine published inLondon. The article explores the future of genetic testing and its role in the workplace. Specifically, it wonders whether people genetically predisposed to certain health conditions might be denied employment. Lest we find that scenario too improbable to give us a sleepless night, it mentions that a woman in the U.S. already has been fired after her employer discovered she carried the gene for Huntington’s chorea. The disease results in mental degeneration. Although the woman fired is in her twenties, is healthy and has only a 50% chance of developing the disorder, her employer decided she was too great a risk.

There’s nothing in Sam’s article to suggest that this woman’s fate is likely to be common any time soon. Still, once we’ve opened the door to say that any and all information is fair game, where do we draw the line? Although we might all agree that employers need information about their employees (particularly in such a litigious society), how much information is enough? And who should have access to it?

These are questions that I suspect it may take a decade to answer. That doesn’t mean, however, that we can afford to put the issue out of our minds until “they” have determined it’s a crisis. Now is the time for all of us in HR to begin thinking about privacy and about how to balance our need to know with employee dignity. And it’s time to start asking the tough questions about the real value of an individual’s worth.

Let’s consider the woman fired because she might develop Huntington’s chorea. If the employer lost five years of good service, was it a wise decision? Thirty years? What if she might have had the idea that saved the company millions or led to the launch of a key product? What if she never develops the disease and works at the employer’s competitor? If an employer can’t answer these questions, does it have a right to know about the gene in the first place?

Reasonable precautions are one thing, but the search for the perfect employee is another. Working to help employees reach their full potential today is one thing, but gambling on the future is another. Can we afford to waste time watching these angels dance on the head of a pin? I think not.

There’s ample room in this growing debate for someone to assert a leadership role. HR has much to gain by doing so.

Personnel Journal, May 1996, Vol. 75, No. 5, p. 4.

May 1, 1996July 10, 2018

Planning Your Experiential Training Program

Before arranging experiential training for your company, it’s important to know what outcomes you’re looking for. Tim Dixon, director of the Corporate Adventure Training Institute (CATI), emphasizes that a program’s effectiveness can be short-lived without a needs assessment targeted at group growth. An action plan should include steps for integrating the new learning into the workplace for the experiential methodology to be effective.

“The days of the single ropes-course event are gone—people just showing up to climb ropes and then going home. It shouldn’t be done just because it’s fashionable but because it’ll facilitate developmental changes as part of an established structure,” says Dixon.

Kirk Hallowell, co-chair of Experience Based Training and Development (EBTD), suggests there’s a difference between an organization that provides educational programs and one involved in organizational development. “A facility, such as a YMCA or camp, may have a ropes course, but they aren’t necessarily able to provide a corporate program,” says Hallowell.

To ensure you’re partnering with a suitable training program and facility, Ellen Brownfain, program director of Experiential Designs in San Francisco and co-chair of EBTD, recommends you look at several important aspects:

Meet with the provider and not just their glossy catalog.
Look for flexibility: Is the provider listening to your needs and desires? Will it customize the program?
Look for a proven track record in program effectiveness and safety
If the training involves a rope course or other physical activities, does the provider have adequate insurance? Does it include medical screening? Is emergency help readily available if it’s needed?
Make sure a needs assessment is part of the pretraining work. Find out if the vendor provides follow-up if needed. This may be anything from a phone interview to written follow-ups.
Overall, do you feel comfortable with the provider? Can you trust its people and put your company in their hands?

Brownfain envisions the experiential component soon becoming an integral part of most training programs. “As we move toward more cross-functional work teams in the global market, experiential training will become essential. Taking workers out of their daily contacts and putting them in a new environment allows them to see they can work together with different people within the same company.”

The best resource for finding an experiential provider is the “Experience Based Training & Development Directory of Programs” published by the Association of Experiential Education. The cost is $15 plus $4 shipping and handling which must be prepaid. For more information contact: AEE, 2885 Aurora Avenue, Suite #28, Boulder, Colo. 80303-2252; phone: 303/440-8844; fax: 303/440-9581; or e-mail at AEEMIKAL@NILE.COM.

Personnel Journal, May 1996, Vol. 75, No. 5, p. 60.

May 1, 1996July 10, 2018

Comparing Traditional and Target-specific Bargaining

Here is a reference guide that compares and contrasts the two kinds of bargaining.

TRADITIONAL	TARGET-SPECIFIC BARGAINING
Adversarial	Non-adversarial
Individual sent out to solve problem	Group generates a list of meaningful issues using brainstorming process
High failure rate with unresolved issues	High success rate because the group solves problems together and no issue is left unresolved
Chief spokesperson on both sides does all the talking	Recognizes a chief spokesperson but all members are empowered to discuss issues
No neutral facilitator	Uses a facilitator Total disclosure of information-no witch hunts
Bargaining members are seen but not heard	Total participation of all bargaining team members is required
Secret side-agreements between parties	No sidebars are permitted based on the premise that what can’t be said across the table isn’t worth discussing
Bargaining members sit opposite each other at the table	Bargaining seating arrangement alternates labor and management representatives
Limited bargaining rights	Expanded bargaining rights

SOURCE: Anthony J. Taylor

Personnel Journal, May 1996, Vol. 75, No. 5, p. 104.