I wish “job analysis” sounded a little more user-friendly. Many people shy away from doing this kind of analysis because it sounds complex and hard to do.
In reality, job analysis is a simple, straightforward process that can and should be done by anyone with an interest in really understanding a job and creating a meaningful and accurate job description.
By following just a few steps, you will get the data needed to accurately describe a job—not just someone’s perception of it—and have an opportunity to engage employees in defining their own jobs.
The first step is to actively involve the person doing the job. I’ve found that asking for an employee’s input and cooperation results in better-quality information, less stress for everyone involved and greater buy-in on the resulting job description. You can do an analysis by only observing an employee, but it won’t be as accurate or meaningful.
Next, I ask employees to keep an activity log for a couple of days to record the variety of tasks they do, whom they interact with and related information. This is an important part of the process because, after performing it for a time, any job becomes “automatic” and the employee either doesn’t remember or doesn’t value parts of it. Keeping a log will help bring all the things they do to the surface and ensure that they don’t miss important, if mundane, parts of their work activity.
After the log is complete, I ask employees to distill it into a list of tasks they do on a daily, weekly, monthly and periodic basis. I provide a form that I’ve put together to make it easier to do this in an organized and consistent manner.
To get yet another view of the job, I talk with internal and external customers of the position I am analyzing. Frequently, I find information that has been missed in the work completed to date. I discuss this additional input from customers with the employees and decide if, and how, to represent it in the job description.
Next, I review the work done so far and determine, working both with the employees and their supervisors, the optimal amount of education, experience and other qualifications that truly are required to perform the job successfully.
Finally, after all the data are gathered, I draft a job description. This description should be circulated to the employees, their supervisors and other select job customers to be sure that it accurately describes the position.
While the typical name of this process is job analysis, I refer to it as “value recognition and development.” Taking the time and effort to really analyze the job helps employees feel more fulfilled and valued, while allowing employers to boost workers’ productivity, pay appropriate salaries, and recruit, coach and train them better.
The information contained in this article is intended to provide useful information on the topic covered, but should not be construed as legal advice or a legal opinion. Also remember that state laws may differ from the federal law.
The information contained in this article is intended to provide useful information on the topic covered, but should not be construed as legal advice or a legal opinion. Also remember that state laws may differ from the federal law.
The Department of Labor and the Treasury Department have put out a request for information on the use of annuities in defined-contribution plans.
Both agencies are reviewing the Employment Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as well as the plan qualification rules in the Internal Revenue Code, on using annuities in retirement plans. The agencies filed a request for information through the Federal Register.
Specifically, the Labor Department and Treasury want to know the advantages and disadvantages of receiving retirement benefits in the form of incremental payments. They also seek an explanation for why most retirees, when faced with a choice of a lifetime income option or a lump-sum distribution, choose the lump-sum option.
The agencies also want to know what information 401(k) participants need in order to make informed choices on whether they should choose a lifetime income option, and how that information should be provided.
The request comes just as interest in the use of such investments in 401(k)s is rising in Washington.
A fact sheet released last week by President Barack Obama’s Middle Class Task Force said the administration would promote “the availability of annuities and other forms of guaranteed lifetime income, which transform savings into guaranteed future income, reducing the risks that retirees will outlive their savings.”
The American Council of Life Insurers, the trade association of life carriers, cheered the Labor Department and Treasury for considering the role annuities can play in retirement plans.
“The ACLI supports policies that both encourage employers to offer annuities in their retirement savings plans and encourage employees to recognize the importance of receiving a guaranteed lifetime income in retirement,” Frank Keating, the ACLI’s president and chief executive, said in a statement. “We look forward to responding to the departments’ request for information.”
The Insured Retirement Institute, the variable annuities trade association, said Monday, February 1, that it would form a working group to address the request for information.
Employees who opt for flexible work arrangements have traditionally coped with the stereotype that they are not as committed to their jobs as their counterparts who go to the office every day.
This became eminently clear once again in June when Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, told attendees at the annual Society for Human Resource Management conference that “there’s no such thing as work/life balance.” “There are work/life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences,” he told attendees.
While this kind of thinking has dominated many workplaces, that has changed during the recession, work/life experts say.
In an effort to reduce costs, a number of companies and public-sector employers have either mandated or allowed reduced workweeks, telecommuting and other flexible work schedules, experts say.
As a result, these experts predict that employers may realize the business case behind offering flexible work arrangements and keep these programs in place after the economic recovery.
In a recent survey by the Families and Work Institute, 81 percent of employers said they were maintaining their flexible work programs during the recession, while 12 percent had increased these programs and 6 percent were cutting back.
“This says to me that employers are increasingly seeing flexibility as something that can help the organization,” says Ellen Galinsky, president and co-founder of the Families and Work Institute.
In researching her recent book, Top Talent: Keeping Performance When Business Is Down, Sylvia Ann Hewlett, an economist and president of the Center for Work-Life Policy, found that at many organizations, flexible work programs are being repositioned as a cost saver rather than as an accommodation for their staffs.
“Companies are seeing these programs as something central to the business strategy and fully endorsed for both men and women,” she says.
In her book, she cites KPMG in the United Kingdom as a case study of a company that reaped the benefits of offering flexibility. In January 2009, the company needed to reduce costs and decided to use flexible work options as a way of doing it, launching Flexible Futures. Hewlett interviewed Rachel Campbell, head of people for KPMG Europe and the architect of Flexible Futures.
The program gave employees four options to choose from in principle: Elect to go to a four-day workweek and take a 20 percent salary reduction; take a two- to 12-week sabbatical, depending on their role and needs, at 30 percent of pay; sign up for both of those options; or continue with their regular schedule.
Eighty-five percent of the 11,500 U.K. employees agreed to the reduced-work plan. Half of that group signed up for both the sabbatical and the four-day workweek.
“Professional staff were time-starved, and the same percentage of both men and women opted for that choice,” Hewlett says.
Since so many people agreed in principle to the plans, KPMG was able to cap the salary cut at about 10 percent for the year in most cases, says Mark Hamilton, a spokesman in the London office of KPMG. So far, about 2,000 employees—20 percent of the firm—have gone onto the plan, Hamilton says. As a result of the plan, which gave the firm the capacity to cut staff costs by around 15 percent if fully implemented, KPMG didn’t have to conduct large-scale layoffs.
KPMG plans to offer the program until September 2010, but hasn’t decided whether it will be offered after that, Hamilton says.
“Companies have had success with reducing costs by offering flexibility, so this might be part of a reality going forward,” Hewlett says.
It will be interesting to see whether employers look back at the recession to develop the business case behind flexible work arrangements, says Laura Sabattini, director in the research department of New York-based Catalyst.
“Some companies may look at what they did during these tough economic times and realize there is no reason to go back from offering these programs,” she says.
Workforce Management, January 2010, p. 19 — Subscribe Now!
They all undoubtedly had the words âintegrity,â âteamworkâ and âcommunicationâ (or close synonyms) as part of their corporate core values or vision statement. Thereâs a message embedded in that reality. The message is about lip service versus whatâs real in your company, and how empty organizational values can be if thereâs no attempt made to make them operational.
Iâve been thinking a lot about performance management lately. Of special note is the fact that Iâm trying to think of ways (real ways, not mere lip service) that the performance management process can be used to reinforce or build cultural values at a company.
The main thought Iâve had is that to make the true cultural play when it comes to your performance management system, youâve invariably got to make some of your current team members uncomfortable with your view of values, and possibly even make them think that they donât belong at your company.
See if you can identify your own company in this morality tale. Letâs start with the following assumptions and realities about company values and performance management:
1. Most companies have some form of the following values in their values, vision or mission statements: integrity, teamwork, communication and community. Itâs Mom, apple pie and Chevrolet to put these components into your values or mission statement. (At least it was before Chevrolet became the backwater label in a lineup of 164 different brands at GM. Maybe itâs more like Mom, apple pie and Toyota in todayâs world.) Everybody includes these in their statements. Itâs easy to do, whether the leadership truly believes in the values or not.
2. The same companies usually make no meaningful effort to provide real feedback to team members on how they stack up against those values. Most companies write their values or mission statements, print the posters and then perhaps create an annual or quarterly recognition program around the values. Poof! Theyâre done. Back slaps all around as the senior leadership team congratulates itself for being so ethical and team-oriented. Nice work, gang.
3. Some companies have the right instincts and go further by attempting to tie core values to their performance management systems, but invariably fall short of the goal. Itâs good when companies see that the values theyâve identified arenât linked closely enough to behavior on the front lines, and attempt to incorporate those values into their performance management systems. Few of the companies that choose this path go far enough, however. To truly link the values with frontline behavior, youâve got to get into the ugly details of whatâs expected related to each value. And those requirements have got to have some teeth.
To summarize the problem, most company values and mission statements are so far removed from daily activity that they never become useful as gauges on how work is actually done in a company. They also arenât front and center enough to guide decision-making on a daily, weekly or even quarterly basis.
But thereâs a better way. If a company really wants to make a culture out of core values, you need to put what you truly value in the âCompany X Valuesâ section of your performance review document, in whatever form that takes.
You know where to find that, right? Itâs usually the second section of a mature performance review process. It comes right after the position-specific goals and objectives. While the goals and objectives section of the review is tailored to a position or an individual, the values section usually uses the same values for all employees within the company.
Hereâs an example of what most companies would use when incorporating âintegrityâ in the values section of their performance review process:
INTEGRITY â Demonstrates uncompromised integrity in all actions with customers, team members and all other stakeholders.
Yawn. That approach sounds great on the surface, but the problem with this methodology is that it places the manager in a classic trap. Youâve given your view of integrity and told employees, via this performance review process, that itâs important. Unfortunately, by simply citing it and giving your managers no other tools to work with, youâve pushed them into an uncomfortable corner.
If youâve ever tried to rate someone on integrity via a definition like this (and the same holds true for teamwork, communication and other âsofterâ values), you know itâs next to impossible to defend yourself for giving anything other than the highest score to an employee. How do you tell someone sheâs a â3â or a âmeetsâ on integrity? The next question out of the smart employeeâs mouth is one of the following: âHow do I improve my score on integrity?â or âWhy am I not an âexceedsâ on integrity?â The average managerâs response is 20 seconds of silence before he changes the subject.
Enter the opportunity: Arm the manager with tools that enable a real conversation on the value in question. This conversation might actually drive behavior related to the soft value the company claims it holds in high regard.
Instead of rating the employee on the super-broad integrity statement cited above, take it and then create three to four statements that illustrate how integrity plays out on a daily basis in your organization. Then have the manager rate employees on how they perform against the behavioral statements you created.
Hereâs an example:
INTEGRITYâDemonstrates uncompromised integrity in all actions with customers, team members and all other stakeholders.
As evidenced by:
1. Team member keeps all commitments (large and small) and effectively communicates changes as they occur.
2. Team member effectively balances needs of company with needs of customer, doing best to represent the interests of both parties.
3. Team member acts upon identified unethical conduct.
(Rate team member on each desired behavior using your existing rating scale; roll-up of all ratings leads to overall rating for value.)
By using this approach, you go from an impossible theoretical exercise to actually beginning to make your core values operational. Note that I used one behavior you would expect with integrity (acting upon unethical conduct), but I threw in two that dramatically expand the conversation and integrate the concept of integrity the employeeâs day-to-day work. My definition of integrity includes keeping all commitments, communicating changes in commitments in a timely fashion and keeping the profit mission of the company in mind when dealing with customers.
Having a meaningful conversation with an employee about how to improve an âintegrityâ score just got easierâif youâre willing to be candid. Insert your own evidence statements to meet your needs. Spice it up more than I did if you really want to drive conversation.
This approach is not without risks. To many, outlining the specific behaviors you expect for each core value is going to feel a bit nasty or a little mean. It may make many of your employees feel like they donât belong in your company (if your managers can deliver the feedback in an honest and authentic fashion, that is).
But itâs what it takes to make your core values mean something beyond the posters and balloons you ordered for the mission statement launch party.
It might also be the most meaningful step you can take to help your company avoid being the next Enron, HealthSouth or Madoff Investment Securities.
Responding to demand for access the latest national and international facts on aging and work, the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College has made its online fact database public.
The Aging & Work Facts resource has more than 1,700 statistics on workforce trends for employers, scholars, legislators, policy analysts and the press. Facts are selected from the center’s own research, journal articles and reports published by nonprofit and for-profit agencies and organizations. Each fact is coded with one or more topics for ease of searching in the database. Graphs are also included.
Recognition expert Bob Nelson was the keynote speaker for Workforce Managementâs inaugural online conference, âRoad to Recovery: HR Strategies for 2010,â which drew more than 4,000 registrants. Nelson agreed to answer all the questions that were asked during his keynote session. Here, arranged by topic, are his answers to more than 40 questions on topics ranging from how to honestly communicate about layoffs to how to gently reject employee ideas that arenât viable without demotivating the people suggesting them.
Dealing with the down economyâparticularly during layoffs
Workforce: How do you handle âopen and honest communicationâ with employees when managers are prepping for layoffs?
Bob Nelson: Iâd especially be open about potential layoffs with employees, sharing why that is being looked at and what needs to happen to avoid a layoff. The last place any employee wants to read about a layoff at their firm is in the newspaper. And if managers are suddenly in closed-door meetings all the time, employees will already expect that layoffs are being discussed.
Employees expect to get important information directly from their managers or leadership of the organization, even when itâs negative. This treats employees in an honest and respectful manner and gives them a chance to respond proactively with ways to help cut costs and impact services (such as customer service) in ways that can increase the firmâs revenues.
One caveat: The deal management should make with employees is that they will share information when they have it, provided that employees realize it is subject to change with circumstances. When Iâve seen management that was reluctant to share information with employees, there was often a fear on managementâs part that the information they shared might be wrong sometime later. Thatâs the risk in sharing real-time information in dynamic times: Things change.
Workforce: Many organizations downsize due to the economic situation and not because of performance. HR always tries to motivate staff, but sometimes, in spite of better performance of staff, the organization still cuts jobs. It is very challenging and sometimes employees lose trust in HR. How do we manage this aspect?
Nelson: Well, first, management shouldnât be hiding behind HR so that they are the âbad guys.â Management and HR need to work together to educate employees as to why the organization cuts or adds positions and how those decisions directly relate to the financials of the organization. In fact, I know some organizations in which HR is perceived as the âheroâ when layoffs occur.
By being diligent in working with management to offer employees other optionsâsuch as transferring to other positions, taking a temporary pay cut, or cutting back their hours rather than to lose their jobâoften the total number of layoffs can be greatly reduced. Providing employees options and choices in tough times helps give them some sense of control in the situation and lessens the negative impact of a negative situation.
Workforce: If we arenât going to see a real recovery until mid-decade, where are all these unhappy workers going to go? Wonât their unhappiness deepen and grow? How can both managers and workers cope with that?
Nelson: The reference I made was to a recent projection by UCLA economist David Shulman: âBy mid-decade, economic growth could return to the 3 to 4 percent range, with unemployment back into mid-single digits.â
Youch! Again, this is why I believe companies are going to need to become more proactive in dealing with the impact of a recessionary economy on their existing employees (that is, those who havenât been laid off). According to CareerBuilder.com, nearly 50 percent of workers surviving layoffs have indicated theyâve taken on more responsibility; 37 percent are handling the work of two employees; 34 percent are spending more time at the office; and 22 percent are working more weekends.
Tough times require strong leadership, and management in every company is going to have to suck it up and be better at boosting the morale of workers. This leads to asking: What are we going to do for our managers? Hopefully that will be on the radar for companies as well.
Workforce: You seem to concentrate on motivating employees. However, in a down economy, the first thing done by the employer is cutting the number of employees through restructuring and other means. As result, an insecure atmosphere among employees will be created. So how you are going to motivate them when they see their colleagues are laid off, expecting that they are next on the line?
Nelson: This is, in fact, the challenge. Given tough economic times and the likelihood of having to have done layoffs or salary and bonus freezes, etc., my view is that you have to work doubly hard to overcome those circumstances and the ongoing negativity of the stagnant economy. Granted, this starts with the decisions youâve already made and how the âpeople issuesâ were handled with those changes. Was communication open and honest, or guarded and secretive? Was management empathetic and helpful as best could be expected, or cold and calculating? After negative changes in the organization, if you are not aggressive in reaching out to employees, describing a possible future with a solid plan to achieve it and challenging employees in new ways, they will be apt to become increasingly scared, nervous and myopic. This makes it harder for them to focus in their jobs on those things you most need them to do, such as exceptional service, enhanced efficiency, increased suggestions regarding cost savings, client referrals, up-selling and so forth.
Workforce: Although [weâre] trying recognition methods and praise, employees feel insecure because of large-scale obligatory terminations. So what is the best way to keep solid relationships between employees and management?
Nelson: Thereâs no substitute for direct, honest and sincere communication, plus systematically showing employees through your actions that âWeâre in this together.â As Stephen Covey once said, âYou canât talk yourself out of a situation you acted yourself into.â So what is going to speak loudest are your behaviors over time, more so than the things you say. Youâve got to walk your talk and show that your employees are truly important through your actionsâhopefully as consistently as possible during these dynamic times.
Workforce:Â Our company has announced to our population that salaries have been frozen, due to the economy, yet departments considered revenue generators are receiving increases and bonuses. These discretionary increases have become public knowledge and many employees are disappointed by this news. Can you provide advice on how the company and top management should honestly address the fact that some departments are still receiving increases and why others are not?
Nelson: These types of perceived inconsistencies are difficult to defend if you are trying to build team spirit in challenging times. To avoid the situation from looking arbitrary or like a case of playing favorites, management would need to justify why itâs important for those positions to continue to receive salary increases and/or bonuses. For example, in hospitals today there is a national nursing shortage so there is a logic to continuing to pay nurses financial incentives, even as those financial incentives are being cut elsewhere throughout the hospital. Right now, nurses are too scarce and indispensable to the successful operation of the organization and its mission. This may be the case with the revenue generators in your organization.
But if those revenue generators are not making their financial goals (thus the organizational cuts), rewarding them with financial incentives would be rewarding poor performance. Beware! That will be a slippery slope that may very well lead to a much worse situation.
Workforce:Â When job markets reawaken, will management be able to hold on to people they now employâpeople who are waiting to escape to better jobs, leadership and work conditions? Do you believe many companies are in for turnover shock, and do any employers know where they are vulnerable?
Nelson: I believe many employers will be surprised at the number of employees who choose to leave their firms as the economy improvesâespecially those firms that openly treated employees differently (and poorly) under the notion that âItâs a tough market out there and you should be glad you even have a job.â Hate to break it to you employers who believe that, but being told what they should appreciate really doesnât make any employee feel special. It can, however, convince them that they are working for a jerk.
I remember working for a 7-Eleven when I was in college, during a previous recession, and one day the regional manager came in and gave us all a speech along the lines of âIf you donât like it here, thereâs a lot of other people that are willing to take your place.â âReally?â I thought. âThey can have it.â I quit the same day.
Workforce:Â What happens when you have cut all types of benefits that cost moneyâeven the little ones?
Nelson: Hopefully that helped your company be solvent during these tough economic times, but on the human side of enterprise such draconian financial cuts are apt to take a toll on employee morale and motivation. Try to take up some of that slack with creative low- or no-cost forms of recognition, simple celebrations, personal thanks, etc. When money does become more available, remember to take care of your people firstâespecially those who have best helped you weather the storm.
Workforce:Â What are some strategies for retaining employees when there isnât any money available for promotions, bonuses or training?
Nelson: Iâve mentioned several strategies in the answers here, but one I havenât discussed relates to career development.
You canât guarantee employees that they will be promoted, but you can work with them to guarantee they will learn new skills and let them know that developing their abilities will help put them in line for promotions when those are available. In this way, a recessionary time provides ample opportunities for employees to take on needed work, pursue ideas that can help the organization and generally increase the contribution they can make at work. These skills, abilities and visibility for achieving desired results all help to put them in line for future advancement opportunities within your organization.
Workforce:Â What is your recommendation: big bang or small changes as you edge forward through the uncertainty? Talent loss is very costly.
Nelson: Iâm more partial to the incremental approach to improving things over time. However, there is merit to doing some very visible items that send a message to everyone that you care as an organization, or that youâve turned the corner in your firmâs recovery.
Workforce:Â I would be interested to hear if Dr. Nelson has any thoughts on the role of leaders role-modeling desired behaviors. Granted, this is desirable under the best of times, but any thoughts on whether this takes on more significance during tough times?
Nelson: Yes, it does indeed take on more significance.
Leaders have to be much more visible during times of crisis. They also need to be more accessible, more collaborative and more supportive, openly thanking and acknowledging others as that recognition is deserved. As they demonstrate these behaviors in their daily routine, they send a behavioral message to all other leaders in the organization as to what is expected of them. Other leaders can conclude, âIf top management has time for this type of activity, I need to find time for it in my job as well.â
Workforce:Â You said that 75 percent of younger employees plan to look for a new job when economy improves. What age range does this apply to?
Nelson: Now that I look at it again, itâs actually 71 percent. This applies to those employees who are 18 to 29 years old, as reported by Adecco Groups North Americaâs Workplace Insights Survey (June, 2009).
Workforce:Â Bob, how does innovation link onto the six strategies to use during tough times?
Nelson: As a recap, the six strategies are:
1) Create a clear and compelling direction.
2) Direct, open and honest communication.
3) Involve employees and encourage initiative.
4) Increase employee autonomy, flexibility and support.
5) Career growth and development.
6) Recognize and reward performance.
And they link very well to innovation, thank you! As you involve and encourage others on a systematic basis, it leads to them trusting and developing their ideas and, voila: innovation. You canât legislate or force employees to be creative, although there are many things you can do to support and encourage innovation at work.
Workforce: Can you tell us more about the research that these best practices came from?
Nelson: The research for best practices for firms during recessionary times is my own research, combined with that of other studiesâmost notably by Quantum Workplace, an engagement research firm that did a national comparative survey of U.S. companies in 2007 and 2008. It found that 66 percent of the firms surveyed had decreases in their employee engagement, while 33 percent had increases in their employee engagement scores. âEmployee engagement is measured by the ability and willingness of individuals to exert extra effort for the benefit of the company, their tendency to speak highly of the organization and their intent to stay,â according to Greg Harris, the firmâs CEO.
Quantum Workplace surveys more than 1.5 million employees among 5,000 companies nationwide. The surveys are conducted at different times of the year, but at the same time of the year in each location. By an almost 2-to-1 margin (134 to 76), more employers surveyed had lower overall employee engagement scores in fall 2008 than in fall 2007. This result was out of the ordinary from trends over the previous five years, and strongly suggested that external circumstances regarding the economy may well be influencing employeesâ attitudes about their jobs and workplaces.
To explore the issue further, the firm conducted an analysis of the 210 companies, including those that had higher engagement scores and those whose scores had dropped off. The analysis uncovered key differentiators that reveal how some employers are increasing engagement while others may be losing their hold. The engagement winners were:
1. Setting a clear, compelling direction that empowers each employee.
2. Maintaining open and honest communication.
3. Continuing focus on career growth and development.
4. Recognizing and rewarding high performance.
5. Providing employee benefits that demonstrate a strong commitment to employee well-being.
These key differentiators served as a focus and discussion of Keeping Up in a Down Economy, with several added dimensions from my own research (involving employees and encouraging initiative, as well as increasing employee autonomy, flexibility and support).
Workforce: Where is the best place to give recognitionâin front of teammates, or privately?
Nelson: This depends upon the individual, which is why you should try to ask and involve employees in determining those things that are the greatest motivators for them. As a rule of thumb, you should praise publicly and reprimand privately, but some 20 to 30 percent of employees are more introverted and do not want public praise.
An example: An employee who was to receive a perfect-attendance award at his company from the president in front of the entire company was so nervous that he called in sick on the day of the presentation.
What definitely doesnât work is to force on employees a recognition that they donât value. One size doesnât fit all anymore, and just because you have an established recognition program (e.g., employee of the month) doesnât mean everybody wants what that program offers, such as a plaque, a luncheon with management or a gift out of a rewards catalog. The best recognition is tailored to what the recipient most wants. When in doubt, you can at least give employees a choice of things that are truly different from one another. That improves the chances that your employees will find something of value to them.
Workforce:Â Have you ever experienced overused praise or recognition that no longer seemed fresh or sincereâor no longer seemed special?
Nelson: Yes. Although I feel the value of praise is almost universal, if it is poorly doneâbecoming mechanical, for exampleâit can lose its specialness. Thatâs why it is important to keep praise timely, sincere and specific with each and every use. If you do it correctly, Iâve never found an employee who is tired of being told that they have done a good job! If it comes from the heart, praise will resonate in the soul.
Workforce:Â What are the challenges in employee recognition in an offshore environment or multilocation businesses? How can those challenges be overcome?
Nelson: The more distributed your employees are, the more difficulty you will have in connecting with them in meaningful ways. Everythingâcommunication, recognitionâin such circumstances takes more effort to do well.
You can rally around core values that are reinforced both centrally and locally. Thatâs one successful strategy many firms have adopted. You can allow for a greater local focus on recognitionâthat can also be successful. For example, set up a voluntary recognition task force at each facility or location to systematically focus on the topic in ways that employees at each location find meaningful.
Sometimes organizations get hung up on trying to do the exact same things for employees wherever they are located, but this is silly if the employeesâ needs and expectations vary greatly from location to location.
For example, an international company will have great difficulty in recognizing employees if they decide to reward them all across borders in exactly the same wayâwith, say, a $50 item. In one country, this item may end up costing $150 due to exchange rates, while in another it might represent a weekâs pay for an employee. Itâs better to make local adjustments that make sense in meeting the motivational needs of employees at each location.
Q: How do you get all employees on board with a recognition program?
Nelson: Involve them in developing all aspects of the program so that it is truly their program and not the companyâs, corporateâs or HRâs program. Build the program over time to affect an increasing number of employees in your organization. Look at who is served by your existing recognition tools and programs and seek to fill the gaps of those that arenât being reached over time.
Workforce:Â How do you ârejectâ ideas that are not viable without discouraging people?
Nelson: Thank them for their ideas and the time they took to submit them, while sharing why it isnât plausible for the firm right now. I know of one company where the president is the one who personally takes undoable suggestions back to the person who suggested them (within 24 hours of the idea being submitted, by the way) and thanks and discusses each idea with the individual. That positive, proactive approach sends a big message that underscores the importance of generating ideas over the merits of any one idea that has been suggested.
Workforce:Â Our company has done some brainstorming meetings, but nothing seems to happen with the ideas because we are short-staffed and management gets distracted from following through. Do you have ideas for keeping this momentum moving forward?
Nelson: Yes. We know from basic social psychology that when many people could do something about a problem, no one person tends to do anything. The key is to assign individual responsibility for items so that someone can be held accountable. At the end of your next brainstorming, ask everyone to volunteer to follow up on a single idea that was discussed, creating a set of âaction stepsâ for each item, each with a due date. Capture that list of items with names and use it to start the next brainstorming session, which will naturally take you further into the implementation of previous ideas and not just the generation of new ones.
Workforce:Â I work in a very diverse group. We all do different things and really donât know what others are doing. So I suggested we do a âkudosâ portion in staff meetings, where I can say one thing that I did or accomplished that I am proud of that others may not know about. People donât want to participate. I must have approached it wrong, but I think the concept is good. Any thoughts?
Nelson: If at first you donât succeed ⌠. I think you have a winning idea here as well. But some people may not want to brag about themselves and others may feel pressure to come up with something or risk looking like a slacker. Perhaps you could modify your approach to this: allowing anyone a chance to thank or recognize another person in the group. Let those who want to share do so. After doing this a few times, you will likely find more people wanting to contribute.
Another version of this is to start each meeting with the group listing five things that are going well. I know a manager at Disney who does this and it works well.
Workforce:Â Is there any different pattern in employee recognition between service-oriented organizations and research-oriented organizations?
Nelson: Yes, just in that these two types of organizations tend to have very different employee populations. Service-oriented organizations, which currently make up 80 percent of all jobs, are often lower-paying positions with higher amounts of customer contact (there are exceptions to this, of course). Having these employees be truly excited about wanting to deliver great service would suggest that a higher frequency and variety of forms of recognition be used.
A research-oriented organization suggests (to me) a more highly educated and technical workforce that would likely respond better to a different mix of recognition. For example, for most technical employees, the chance to work on the âhotâ project or to learn new skills that will increase their worth now and in the future is paramount. Giving such employees a chance to select the projects they can work on would thus be a big motivator to most. Technical employees also tend to be (another generalization!) more introverted, so they might better appreciate a thoughtful gift over a splashy public form of recognition in front of the whole staff. When in doubt, ask them what would be most motivating and youâll be surprised by the responses!
Workforce:Â How should you recognize tenure?
Nelson: Honestly, the best way would be to ask your employees how theyâd like to have it recognized! They did just that at Medtronic in Minneapolis, and employees reported that theyâd most like additional vacation time for their anniversary awards. The company complied and phased out its gift-selection program and moved to giving more time off instead. Of course, saying something, having a note or card orâfor more significant anniversariesâ creating a âmemory scrapbookâ that everyone can contribute to are items that are long on value and short on cost.
Workforce:Â We used to have what we called âon-the-spotâ rewards, which were gift certificates that could be given out immediately to an employee for doing something extra or doing something well. However, our new CFO told us we needed to then add the dollar amount of the reward to the employeesâ W-2s, and that itâs taxable. Have you run into that anywhere? Know any solutions to avoid that?â
Nelson: There are several ways to minimize this negative impact on employees. First, use reward items that donât have a financial cost!
Second, keep rewards that do have a financial cost to a minimal level of $25 per year, known as âde minimis fringeâ by the IRS. These are then not considered taxable.
Third, if financial items are required to be taxed, you can pay the employeeâs tax out of the award. For example, give them a $40 valued item that may cost the company $50. Or you can bulk the award up, so that the company pays the tax on the reward itemâperhaps $10 on a $50 item. There are other creative strategies that you can do that are still within the letter of the law. Please see my article âBeware Tax Implications of Recognition Programs,â or a short Q&A on the same subject, âTax Implications of Recognition Rewards.â
Workforce:Â How many of your strategies tie specifically to the varied generations in the workplace?
Nelson: I think most all of them can. By having the widest spectrum of recognition and reward possibilities, you can provide the greatest choice for employees of different generations to select those things, activities or privileges that they each find most motivating. An older employee might respond better to a traditional award while a younger employee might be more attracted to a fun, social activity.
Workforce:Â What do you think is the No. 1 incentive for employees?
Nelson: After money, itâs to be trusted and respected, as evidenced by how you are treated on a day-to-day basis. That means being asked your opinion, supported in your job, involved in decision making, thanked and recognized as appropriate when you have performed well.
Q: Reward and recognition are critical, agreed. Any statistics on the role of nonfinancial rewards versus financial in terms of how people rank these two types of rewardsâespecially in challenging times?
Nelson: I try not to pit financial against nonfinancial incentives, in that they are both important. Would you rather have air or water to live? Gee, donât we need both?
No one is every going to say no to getting paid more, either in their paycheck, as a merit raise or bonus or an âon the spotâ award. (Although my wife, Jennifer, did once decline a pay increase in a job she had. She told her manager that she thought she already was fairly paid. They still gave her the raise, by the way.)
Especially in tight times, as people have a higher need for money to meet their financial commitments, money is, and is going to remain, a top priority and motivator. But as financial rewards are harder to come by in recessionary economic times, it is important to realize that nonfinancial rewards can be highly valued by employees as well.
For example, consider time off of work, in its many forms (flextime, comp time, an extended lunch, an afternoon or day off, etc). Studies clearly indicate time, and the availability of time, has an expanding importance to todayâs employees, 86 percent of whom report that they âwish they had more time to spend with their family,â for example (this is from survey research Iâve conducted).
Likewise, a nonfinancial motivator such as telecommuting (which 42 percent of current employers allow some form of with their employees) speaks to time needs, such as saving commute time. It also helps an employee balance their work and personal priorities, and it carries a sense of autonomy, as well as the employerâs trust and respect. All of these are important needs to most employees today.
I would say that in challenging times, intangible rewards such as those Iâve referenced are still high in importance. But if companies are able to provide financial incentives as the economy and the companyâs financials improve, employees do expect to see those financial rewards in their pay as they continue to perform well.
Workforce: What do you do when you do not have the money for monetary rewards such as merit increases and bonuses? Eventually, people want their bonuses and increases for the work they have done.
Nelson: Yes, agreed, and there will be a pent-up demand for lost or postponed merit increases and bonuses that need to be addressed when the company is financially able to do so. In the meantime there are LOTS of other ways to show employees that you know and appreciate the hard work they are doing, some of which can be symbolic in just showing âWeâre all in it together.â
Thatâs why I love examples like the executives at Proforma Worldwide Support Center in Cleveland, who recently agreed they will scrape the snow off of all 100 employeesâ cars this winter. Silly? Perhaps. But itâs impactful in showing through their behaviors that they are rallying with their employees during these challenging times.
Workforce:Â Please share information regarding setting up a pay-for-performance plan.
Nelson: Pay for performance is a financial incentive plan, which is really outside my area of expertise and experience. I will say, however, that itâs important to be very clear about the priority of those things you want to incentivize. Employees will âgameâ incentives to maximize their financial gain.
Workforce:Â Beyond pay for performance, what type of recognition is relevant for todayâs employees?
Nelson: Iâd call pay for performance a compensation factor, not a recognition factor. But in terms of what type of recognition is especially important during recessionary times, Iâd say itâs looking harder for incremental improvements toward desired goals that you can acknowledge, recognize or celebrate. I also believe increased communication, involvement and autonomy on the part of your employees to be important recognition factors.
I donât know a more motivating thing to do with employees than asking them their opinion, or asking for an idea or suggestion as to how they believe things could be improved. Having done that, you encourage them to pursue that idea or suggestion and you support, thank and acknowledge any success they might have for their efforts. When they make a mistake, you handle it as a learning opportunity, not a chance to find fault.
Workforce: What about the large institutions (such as AIG) using this approach (as opposed to large bonuses that infuriate the public) for better PR during tough times?
Nelson: Itâs funny, but someone from AIG contacted me a few years ago and wanted help on exactly this! But itâs very difficult for nonmonetary recognition to compete with financial compensation, which trumps the discussion. I think there is no way to justify the insane executive bonuses that were given, other than saying that they did it because they could. The only fix to such excess is to stop it, and add some guarantees so that it doesnât happen again. Also, doing things just for their PR value is a pretty manipulative approach that most of the now-jaded public would see through.
Workforce: How do you deal with a supervisor who does not believe in recognition or believes that the employee is just doing their job? Are there some criteria that could be provided to outline possible acts that could be recognized?
Nelson: I wish I had a dollar for every time Iâve heard this concern! Clearly there is a significant percentage of the management population that doesnât âgetâ recognitionâwhy to do it, when to do it, how to do it, how to keep it fresh, when theyâve done it enough, etc. In fact, in my doctoral research I found that the No. 1 reason why managers donât recognize their employees is that they werenât sure how to do it well. You need a âhead, hands and heartâ approach to changing this situation with managers.
Youâve got to raise their awareness about the importance of this activityâthat is, their conceptual model for managing (the head). You need to show them explicitly how to do recognitionâthat is, the tools, practices and behaviors of what it looks like in practice (the hands). You do all this to the point where they try and succeed at the behavior, which then tends to affect their beliefs and passion in doing it (the heart).
As to specific criteria that could be provided to outline possible acts that could be recognized, many organizations tie recognition to core values of the organization, but more specific recognition needs to be a function of the desired performance in each employeeâs job. That is, it needs to be individualized for each employee. Managers need to set specific goals with each employee and then be on the lookout for successes each employee has in the implementation of his or her job.
Workforce:Â How do you persuade your employer/sole owner that he needs to involve other people in decision making besides his three favorite top managers? He is a micromanager and likes to hold information only for himself.
Nelson: What Iâve seen work best with this is getting the person to try involving othersâbecause they might just like it! If top managers open up discussion to other committed employees of the firm, each of whom has a valued perspective and contribution to make, they can be pleasantly surprised at the quality of contributions and what they themselves can learn from their employees.
A micromanager is someone who has trust problems with employeesâperhaps well learned from his or her own experience in having been burned by past employees. You can help this employer learn new behavior. It doesnât have to be all or nothing (i.e., âI do the work or you do the work, but thereâs no option in betweenâ), but instead a gradual evolution toward including others.
You can also start at the bottom and work up. Thereâs a level of decision making that can start with employees in those areas in which they feel they can have the greatest impact. As they make changes and have positive impact, you can use that success in leveraging their greater involvement with top management.
Workforce:Â What is the most critical skill that leaders need to help their organization and its employees handle the stress and concerns during these tough times?
Nelson: I tried to focus on a short list in my new book, Keeping Up in a Down Economy, but if there was one single critical skill Iâd advocate, it would be communicationâspecifically open, honest and direct communication. Earlier this year, Accountemps released a survey of executives that focused on employee morale. It found a lack of honest communication to be the behavior that has the most negative effect on employee morale. Thirty-three percent of those surveyed cited it. Meanwhile, 48 percent said communication was one of the best remedies for poor morale.
Workforce:Â What is the one biggest derailer that leaders are guilty of with respect to keeping employees up in a down economy?
Nelson: We all have fallback styles when weâre under stress or pressure. And for many leaders, their fallback style is to âtake chargeâ and be in control at all costs, which often serves to exacerbate the situation.
When a leader takes greater control, it sends the message to employees that they are trusted less, and the employeesâ behavior will follow suit. They will exert less effort, rather than more. Instead of becoming insecure micromanagers during challenging times, the best leaders reach out to their people and challenge them to be better and to rise to the situation required by external circumstances.
Q: Some of my managers associate power with projects; they donât want to delegate a thing (not even as a reward and recognition tool)! How do I get them to think differently about this and see how it could help us build morale?
Nelson: Effective delegation is a skill set that, unfortunately, many managers never have had a chance to learn. Many are promoted to management and interpret the job to mean that they now need to be a âsuper workerâ instead of being someone who gets work done through others. By holding on to all work and related projects themselves, they may have a feeling of power, but their effectiveness will diminish over time; they truly arenât doing the job they were hired to do. Being a super worker may stroke their ego and their importance, but it does little to develop the skills and abilities of their staff members, who will be inclined to leave, due to how little real responsibility they have been given.
Iâd recommend some coaching or training on the topic, which can start with a good book that addresses the problem. Iâve done two books on effective delegation, including Delegation: The Power of Letting Go.
Workforce:Â If your organization is widely dispersed geographically in many small locations (bank branches, chain retailers, service-management providers at client locations), how do you determine which of your unit heads are leading well, and which ones may be dictatorial, arbitrary, bullies, etc., when you do not have all employees in big locations with HR people handy?
Nelson: A good survey mechanism would help you capture this information. And part of that survey needs to have open-ended questions on what is going well and what could be improved. Open-ended questions are especially important around those items that employees rank either very high or very low. Focus groups or informal interviews are another way to get at the real story of how managers are leading. Then you need to develop a follow-up plan for addressing deficiencies within the organization.
Workforce:Â How do we get top management buy-in on HR strategies, especially those that border on welfare?
Nelson: If the strategies you are discussing border on welfare, youâre likely to never get top management to buy into them, and perhaps rightfully so. American business and capitalism are meritocracies in which there is an underlying value of earned rewards for valued results and performance.
You didnât explain what you meant by âwelfareâ in a business environment, but if you are advocating HR strategies that treat employees based on their needs over the needs of the organization and its ability to thrive and survive, this will never be a winning strategy for any company that wants to remain competitive in changing, dynamic times.
If, on the other hand, you can show that the HR strategies you are advocating are directly linked to the firmâs performance and productivity, and you can demonstrate that those HR investments give the firm the ability to hold on to your employees (especially those that are the most significant contributors) and that they help attract additional needed talent as the organizationâs demands require that talent, thatâs quite a different proposition. Thereâs quite a lot you can do to make the case for an HR strategy to be a hard-edged, strategic decision, not a warm and fuzzy people issue.
Translate what you want to do into terms your top management can understand and value. Talk top managementâs language in terms of costs and benefits and quantify any discussion on its impact on the organizationâs strategies and finances. For more discussion and effective strategies for âsellingâ HR initiatives to those above you in your organization, see Chapter 13 of The 1001 Rewards & Recognition Fieldbook: The Complete Guide.
What to do when employees donât seem to appreciate your recognition efforts
Workforce:Â Your example of allowing employees to work nine-hour days to get Fridays off is a nice benefit. However, how do you avoid employees from abusing this, such as an employee not working the full nine hours for four days but still expect to be off on Friday? If they donât get it, they think it is unfair or discriminatory in some way.
Nelson: This is a matter of being clear in your criteria and then holding to it. For example, I know a department manager who allowed employees to leave early on Fridays if the departmentâs work was done. Some of the employees took this as a given that they would always get Friday afternoons off. This department manager had to be diligent in catching employees on busy weeks to say, âOur work isnât all done this week.â
A good way to try a program like this is to make it a pilot. That lets you test the maturity of your workers in handling this type of freedom. Make it clear from the beginning that if there are any problems, the program will be suspended. Some workers might abuse the benefit, but others will be quick to catch them on it, since they want the pilot program to succeed. Donât expect it to work perfectly when you launch the programâitâs more important that you are flexible in making adjustments over time that will result in a better program that ultimately becomes a success.
Workforce:Â What do you do for employees who believe that even though they received a reward, itâs just not enough?
Nelson: Itâs not clear if you are referring to a financial reward or some other type. If itâs the former, you certainly should not provide them with more financial rewards, just based on their desire to have more (the squeaky-wheel syndrome). The financial rewards need to be in proportion to the value of the employeeâs contribution.
Iâd have a discussion with the employee about the reward. Discuss what is needed from the organizationâs perspective in order to grant more money. Maybe you want employees to increase their work contribution or share of responsibility, for example. Then help show the employees how they can learn new skills and take on more responsibility in their current positions, which will likely lead to greater financial returns over time.
If the reward was not financial, but it was perceived as not enough, Iâd also have a discussion with the employees to see what reward might have been more motivating. You could provide exactly thatâeither now or in the future, when performance merits it.
Workforce:Â Our company has done several [of the things] on your list of Recognition and Rewards for Tough Times, but our employees are still not grateful. Is there some underlying issue that we are missing?
Nelson: No. Many employees today are hurting and suspicious right now, even if you are doing your best to be fair with them. You just have to be patient in showing that you are with them and will continue to act in ways that are consistent with showing they really are a priority for you and your organization.
The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008, popularly known as GINA, prohibits discrimination on the basis of genetic information by employers and group health plans. The law, which applies to employers with 15 or more employees, employment agencies and unions, prohibits employers from discriminating against an employee or job applicant due to genetic information.
“Genetic information” includes information about the genetic testing of and manifestations of a disease or disorder affecting the employee, applicant or family members. Collection of an employee’s genetic information is permitted under limited circumstances, including when employees volunteer this information as a part of casual conversation, known as the water-cooler exception; during a wellness program; or in the process of completing certain medical-leave paperwork. Disclosure of such genetic information by an employer is also limited.
GINA prohibits retaliation against any individual who complains about violations of the act. The civil penalty for violating GINA ranges from $100 to $15,000. Individuals who believe their rights have been violated may also file a private lawsuit.
The employment provisions of GINA became effective November 21, 2009, and the EEOC’s regulations governing those provisions will be finalized and published in the near future. GINA was effective for group health plans beginning after May 21, 2009, or January 1, 2010, for calendar-year plans. Regulations applicable to health insurance plans were made public on October 1, 2009, and interim final regulations became effective on December 7, 2009. P.L. 110-233.
Impact: Employers and group health insurers should review personnel practices and information-gathering polices to ensure compliance with GINA. Post-offer, pre-employment health history policies and practices should be considered for review.
The information contained in this article is intended to provide useful information on the topic covered, but should not be construed as legal advice or a legal opinion. Also remember that state laws may differ from the federal law.
Companies that maintain health and productivity management programs despite the recession are experiencing lower health care and disability costs and less absenteeism than their counterparts that cut back, according to a joint survey by Watson Wyatt Worldwide and the National Business Group on Health.
But most employers are doing little or nothing to relieve the stress many employees experience because of long hours at work, a lack of work/life balance and fear they may lose their jobs, the 2009/2010 Staying@Work report found.
“Investments in health and productivity management paid off for employers that stayed the course despite the recession, while employers that cut back on these programs saw the return on that investment shrink,” according to Shelly Wolff, national leader of health and productivity consulting for Watson Wyatt.
In particular, companies with the most effective health and productivity management programs had medical cost trends averaging 1.2 percentage points lower than employers that dropped or cut back their programs.
In addition, companies with the most effective health and productivity management programs had average lost days due to unplanned absence of three days per employee, compared with 4.8 days for companies with less effective programs. Companies with effective health and productivity management programs also reported losing one day fewer per employee due to disabilities compared with firms with less effective programs.
Finally, organizations with the most effective health and productivity programs had average returns to shareholders during the past five years of 14.8 percent versus a decline in average shareholder return of 10.1 percent for companies with less effective programs.
The survey also found that although excessive work hours, lack of work/life balance and fears about job loss are beginning to take their toll on the American workforce in terms of higher utilization of health care and disability benefits and employee assistance programs, most employers are not directly addressing these stress factors, according to Wolff.
Forty percent of employers reported higher use of health care benefits because of increased employee stress, 35 percent cited a higher incidence of disability claims, and nearly half indicated a marked increase in the use of employee assistance programs.
Although 78 percent of employers responding to the survey cited excessive work hours as a leading cause of stress among their employees, just 21 percent of them said they are taking steps to address stress.
Moreover, although 68 percent of employers cited lack of work/life balance as a leading employee stress producer, only 38 percent said they are taking action to combat this stress factor.
Meanwhile, only 41 percent of employers said they are addressing employees’ fear of job loss, which was cited by 67 percent of employers as a leading cause of employee stress.
If employers do not address these stress factors, the productivity gains they’ve been experiencing could be lost, warns Helen Darling, president of the Washington-based National Business Group on Health, which co-sponsored the survey.
“It’s clear that stress has been growing for several years, but it’s hit a new high exacerbated by the financial meltdown,” Darling notes. “A little bit of stress is actually good, but we’re way beyond the level of it being motivating. It will be very hard to recover economically if we don’t find better ways to help employees address stress.”
Fortunately, many employers continue to invest in health-risk assessments, biometric testing and lifestyle behavior change programs, which may address some stressors, according to Wolff.
“The whole issue of how to manage stress is definitely a tough one,” she says.
The survey included 352 responses from employers with 1,000 or more employees who were polled during June, July and August. For more on the 2009/2010 Staying@Work report, visit www.watsonwyatt.com/StayingAtWork.
It’s no secret that employee morale, motivation and productivity have taken a nose dive of late following extensive layoffs and the ongoing stress and strain experienced by most employees in the economically tight times we’re in. Nearly 50 percent of workers surviving layoffs say they have taken on more responsibility, with 37 percent saying they are handling the work of two people; 34 percent of workers are spending more time at the office and 22 percent are working more weekends, according to a recent CareerBuilder.com survey. Indeed, 40 percent of the “undownsized” report being less motivated, and 41 percent now view their employer with less respect, according to Drake International, a global HR firm that conducted a large survey on the topic in April 2009.
Clearly, the recession has been a long, hard road for most employers, and the challenge of leading workers to the promised land of more favorable economic times is great.
But employers can significantly influence, if not control, how motivated and satisfied their employees are. Results of a recent national comparative study conducted by Quantum Workplace of U.S. companies during the latest recession found that 66 percent of the firms saw decreases in employee engagement. To explore the issue further, the company conducted an analysis of 210 companies in which they compared those companies with higher engagement scores with those companies whose scores had dropped off, identifying five key differentiators that reveal how some employers are improving during these challenging times while others are losing ground.
For example, the study noted, “While some companies may be cutting back on perks, others are continuing to find ways to reward those employees that are performing, taking care of customers and keep them coming back.” A key category for doing this was through employee perks and benefits “that demonstrate a strong commitment to employee well-being.” While some employers are scaling back such employee benefits, others are committed to helping maintain a positive working environment for those who work for them.
What kind of benefits and perks? These can be simple things such as a policy that allows for flexibility of working hours, enabling employees to better manage their lives in ways that balance the demands at home as well as work. Or being able to readily get help and answers to questions about health coverage, investments and retirement planning. Or even something as basic as a good cup of coffee.
Effective work environment incentives are impobecause they offer a simple way to remind employees that the company cares about them and their well-being at work. It’s true that twice a month employees receive a paycheck for the work they do, but the feeling they have while they are doing that work occurs minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day—and that’s where a lot of opportunity exists to let them know you care.
The link between valuing employees and employee engagement, satisfaction and loyalty is clearer than ever before. When employee appreciation becomes a fundamental part of the company’s culture, it also becomes a critical competitive differentiator for the company as well. In the current competitive environment, simple forms of employee appreciation can thus take on a whole new level of significance and relevance to the organization and its mission and success.
A recent report titled Linking Organizational Characteristics to Employee Attitudes and Behavior by the Forum for People, Performance and Management at Northwestern University sums up the benefit of showing employees they are valued: “Employee satisfaction is a key antecedent to employee engagement. Organizations with engaged employees have customers who use their products more, and increased customer usage leads to higher levels of customer satisfaction. It is an organization’s employees who influence the behavior and attitudes of customers, and it is customers who drive an organization’s profitability through the purchase and use of its products.”
It’s true: If you want to take care of your business, start with taking care of your employees.
When Dr. William Hapworth started offering psychiatric counseling and behavioral health services online, Google was a startup and MySpace, Facebook and Twitter didn’t exist.
That was in 2000, eons ago as far as online services go.
A lot has happened since then. Internet technologies got faster, smarter and easier to use, making people more comfortable doing all manner of things online: banking, shopping, dating—even sharing intimate details of their lives with total strangers. At the same time, companies started offering employees more inducements to stay healthy mentally and physically as a way to keep them working productively and curtail rising costs of health care and other benefits.
The confluence of these trends has given rise to Internet-based counseling and behavioral health services that are finding their way into company employee assistance programs alongside in-person and telephone-based therapies. The services use a variety of Internet-related platforms, including e-mail, instant messaging, live chat and, in some cases, Skype video calls or other Internet-based videoconferencing. Some providers even offer 24/7 service, so depending on who is running a company’s EAP, an employee could schedule a Skype counseling appointment at 3 a.m.
There’s no question Internet-based therapies are still a novelty. But vendors of the online services and the EAP benefit management companies they work with say they’re signing up more employers all the time and pitching others who are considering adding online therapies to their EAP benefits in the near future.
“Patients love the 24/7 access,” says Hapworth, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at New York University and founder of Treatment Online in New York City. “It’s treating patients where they are, not forcing them to comply with the idea that to get treatment they need to make an appointment to see me next month on a Tuesday.”
Treatment Online is currently rolling out an Internet-based therapy portal to 50,000 employees at the Cleveland Clinic, the nonprofit medical center. The online therapy provider already offers services to a portion of the approximately 1 million employees and dependents covered by Lubbock, Texas-based HealthSmart Preferred Care’s national PPO network.
Raleigh, North Carolina-based Workplace Options provides outsourced work/life counseling and other services for 150 EAPs covering 20 million employees and their families in 15,000 companies including Cisco, Pepsi and MetLife. Workplace Options has offered online therapy since 2002, “though it’s taken up to the last year or so for people to get comfortable” with it, says Alan King, the company’s president and COO.
Most of Workplace Options’ EAP providers offer their employer customers online therapy services for short-term problem-solving that would require up to six or eight sessions. Internet-based therapy doesn’t cost anything over and above what an employer would already pay. “For us, the e-platform is just one more mode of access,” King says.
One of Workplace Options’ clients is EAP Preferred, a private Phoenix company that provides work/life and other benefits to approximately 500,000 people who are mainly Arizona residents, including employees and dependents of public agencies, manufacturing and transportation companies. EAP Preferred president Paul Fleming started offering online therapy to 5 percent of his customers a year ago to see how it would take.
“I didn’t know how I felt about it,” Fleming says. “But after six months, use increased—to my pleasant surprise. Now customers are reporting great satisfaction from their employees. They like having the option of scheduling an Internet counseling session anytime it suits them.”
Over the next year, Fleming will begin offering online therapy to all existing and new customers. He now believes employers need to offer it to their workforces, especially if they want to hang on to Gen Y workers. “When you have a younger workforce that has been raised on Google, Twitter and e-mail, they work much better through Internet counseling,” he says.
As more employers consider online therapies, it’s causing vendors to jump into the business, including Internet startups such as MindSite.com, eTherapistsOnline.com and MyTherapyNet.com.
One new venture, MyTherapyJournal.com, withstood a grilling on the prime-time reality TV show Shark Tank in September to walk away with $80,000 in exchange for selling a controlling interest to two of the show’s celebrity investors. In a follow-up interview with AOL’s WalletPop finance blog, MyTherapyJournal.com co-founder Rodolfo Saccoman said the 2-year-old business accepted the deal because of the investors’ experience launching Internet companies. Because of the publicity, the company is now in “fourth-level” talks with Aetna to offer its service to the insurer’s corporate customers, and is in discussions with two other potential partners, Saccoman said in the interview.
Another startup, Breakthrough.com, gave the first public demonstration of its services at the TechCrunch50 technology showcase of Silicon Valley startups in September. The Palo Alto, California, company is currently talking to EAPs and other potential partners, according to founder and CEO Mark Goldenson, a former technology vice president at PayPal, the online payments company.
Providers say research done over the past few years in the U.S. and U.K. has shown online therapies to be as effective as counseling they would get in a therapist’s office or over the phone, if not more so. They also say because most providers offer it 24/7 via the Internet, it eliminates problems counselors encounter with patients dropping out of therapy because of embarrassment, lack of time or other issues.
But not everyone is convinced online therapy is ready for prime time. HIPAA regulations mean therapy companies must take steps to keep patients’ health care records private and secure. Many comply by channeling therapist-patient communications through an encrypted Web site, thereby preventing potentially sensitive messages from ending up in an employee’s work e-mail inbox.
State therapist licensing requirements are another potential stumbling block. Some states restrict therapists to treating only patients in the states in which they’re licensed. Other states bar therapists from treating patients online if they’re not also treating them in person.
About a year ago, Kellen Von Houser, a licensed professional counselor in Austin, Texas, bought the domain name MyOnlineTherapy.com and started an online therapy practice. She quickly discovered that therapists in Texas can treat people online only if they’re also treating them in person. Von Houser thinks the Texas law is unclear on exactly what’s allowed, and knows therapists who have chosen to ignore it. But she wasn’t willing to risk it and ended up shutting down her online practice. “We’re all waiting for a lawsuit to happen to settle those questions, but I’m not willing to be the guinea pig,” she says.
John Grohol was on the bleeding edge of online therapy when he started a company called HelpHorizons.com in 1999. The service was popular with therapists and patients, but Grohol and his partners didn’t have financial backing to go after EAPs, which at the time needed lots of coaxing to try the approach “We had a very uphill battle,” Grohol says. In 2006, he sold the business to Workplace Options, which incorporated it into its own online therapy offering.
Since then, Grohol has focused his energies on running PychCentral.com, a mental health information Web site. But he remains an online therapy fan and says the question isn’t getting companies on board—they’re all for anything that could potentially reduce costs while helping improve employees’ mental health. Rather, the sticking point is whether enough people will use it in lieu of face-to-face or even telephone counseling.
“Online dating or online banking are very different from having a therapeutic relationship” online, Grohol says. “The question is, have people gotten to the point where they’re comfortable enough in large enough numbers to understand the value of doing therapy online?”
