What 9/11 Taught Me

During the height of the 9/11 attacks, my then supervisor/president contacted me from the other side of the world.  His three words to me, "find our people."  An international company, we had people that traveled 80%+ of the time and their safety was always of significant importance to us.  At that time, traveling on the domestic front, we had people in New York, North Carolina and Massachusetts. 

 

As an employer, we are responsible for the safety of a traveling employee.  Employees who travel for international business are exposed to risks above and beyond those experienced in domestic travel.   (In a USA April, 2012 report, in 2011 International SOS and its partner, Control Risks, evacuated more people - 3,052 - for security reasons than the U.S. State Department. The two firms evacuated 1,500 people from Libya, 1,250 from Egypt, 149 from Tunisia, 127 from Bahrain and 26 from Japan. The State Department says it assisted more than 2,800 who evacuated foreign countries in 2011 and 16,700 in 2010. The State Department, which charges for its evacuations, says it charters transportation when commercial transportation isn't available but "encourages people to prepare their own plans to depart unstable or dangerous situations.")

When your employees travel, do you know where they all are?  Do you have their schedules?  Do you have a way to locate them?  Do you have a way to contact them?  While we cannot eliminate all the risks, there are steps we can take to ensure the safety of our employees when they travel: 

1. Ensure you have a copy of the employees travel itinerary so that you can monitor his/her progress.  Have their meeting schedule and all appropriate contact information.
2. For international travel, have the employee contact the US Embassy at their location.
3. Arrange for periodic check-ins on a regular basis.  If the employee fails to call in, this is a prompt for you to follow up.
4. Maintain a travel roster outlining employee travel schedules and contact information.  Ensure that contact times/dates are tracked.
5. Alternatively, have a dedicated travel website where the employee can advise of their safe arrival at the destination as well as allow for daily self-report.  The same website can provide employees with updated alerts/safety information.   It can generate alerts to the employer of missing self-reports, or travel rosters for all company employees.

What did the events of 9/11 teach me?   My lesson was that it's all about communication.  At a time when I needed to quickly ascertain the location of traveling employees, processes I had put in place served their purpose. 

Communication: A Recipe for Success

Earlier this week I met with an employee who had reached a high level of frustration with his supervisor.  A very quiet and reserved individual, this employee is extremely career-driven and a perfectionist.   His frustration surrounded a recent project that the supervisor had returned with instructions that the paper looked bad and to change it. The supervisor offered no specifics as to what looked bad or what changes were desired, just to get the job done.  From the employees perspective, there was no understanding of what needed to occur or why.  From our conversation I gathered that this wasn't an isolated incident.

 

Communication is the act of passing on ideas and information. To increase productivity, the message must be clear and complete. It has to provide the receiver with everything they need to take action, it must provide the key points. The advantage of clear communication is that people will understand your message.   It will allow employees to collaborate effectively and complete a task efficiently.   The employee won't spent precious time figuring out what you're trying to tell them. Clear communication requires us to be direct.

 

For employees, when frustration rises in the workplace often there is no sanctioned place to discuss (or vent) those frustrations.   Employees may not disclose that they are frustrated or are concerned that their frustration may fall on unreceptive ears.    These employees may show a reduction in motivation, and in the worst case scenario, leave in search of greener pastures.   HR should encourage open communication and feedback.  We should acknowledge the employees concerns and take steps to diffuse the employee frustration.  Always listen to the employee and then categorize the problem - can it be remedied?  Ask the employee, what needs to be better?  Allow the employee to make recommendations.   In this situation my recommendation was to sit down with the supervisor, discuss not just this project, but the on-going communication difficulties and figure out a goal to overcome the problem.  If resolution can't be reached, HR is always ready to step in and assist.

Communication is an essential part of any successful business.  Remember, to get your message across, use clear communication.

Policies: Do the Employees Get It?

Earlier today I had a long-tenured employee ask “What are the procedures for documenting sick leave?”  “ .. . . I realize it is documented someplace but I’m not sure where and I thought you would know it off “the top of your head” saving me the trouble of finding it.”    I smiled.  This document in question is located in both the employee handbook as well as a standalone policy on the HR portal.

Companies devote substantial time and resources in developing policies.  Once policies are developed we roll them out in meetings, post them, put them on the company intranet, distribute them via email, and/or hard copy distribution.   We obtain the signed acknowledgement as proof that the employee received and is aware of the policy - thereby negating any future claims from the employee that s/he "didn't know."   But no matter how or how often policies are communicated, sometimes it seems the company falls short in the communication of the policy.  Are the policies then wasted?  No, but perhaps we need to better understand our audience.  How are our employees receiving the information we are communicating?  Words must always be carefully chosen; nuances must be considered. 

My recommendation, schedule assessments of your company policies at regular intervals. This will allow you to assess the employee understanding of the policies and to obtain feedback.

Yes, you will still have the rare employee who finds it easier to ask HR than look something up.  But, after all, that's why we're here!

Update: Affordable Care Act

Federal Government Releases Proposed Rule on 90-day Waiting Period

On March 18, the federal government issued a proposed rule on the 90-day waiting period that would implement the 90-day waiting period limitation and make technical amendments to the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) health care coverage requirements.

Under the proposed rule, for plan years beginning on or after Jan. 1, 2014, employers that provide a group health plan or health insurance issuer offering group health insurance coverage cannot require an otherwise eligible employee (or dependent) to wait more than 90 days before coverage becomes effective.

The proposed rule also clarifies that any period before a late or special enrollment by an employee is not a waiting period.  The proposed conforming amendments make changes to existing requirements and other portability provisions that are either no longer applicable or need to be changed because of new market reform protections under ACA.

The proposed rule will be published in the Federal Register today, March 21st.  Comments will be due 60 days after publication.

Workplace Violence

"Workplace violence is now recognized as a specific category of violent crime. . . "  FBI, Workplace Violence, Issues in Response.

 

It is believed that 2 million American workers are victims of workplace violence each year.  2012 statistics reflect that nearly 1 out of 5 occupational fatalities is attributed to workplace violence.  In 2011, 780 fatalities (attributed to violence) occured with men making up the majority of fatal workplace injuries.   Media coverage has a tendancy to create an impression that workplace violence is more widespread than it is.  While incidents of workplace violence are serious, the rates of workplace violence have dropped sharply since the mid-90s.

 

Whether harassment or intimidation, the threat of physical violence or other threatening behavior, the prevention of workplace violence is a major concern for employers and employees.  Employers should train managers and supervisors to recognize the warning signs of potential workplace violence. 

 

Here's a couple of basic steps you can take:

1. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate.  Ensure that the employee has an outlet for frustration.  Allow the employee to vent.  If your organization offers an Employee Assistance Program, ensure employees are aware of it and can use it as needed.
2. Assess your business climate.  Be aware of what's going on in your workplace. Pay attention to unusual changes in employee behavior. Has there been any recent events which could increase the sensitivity of an employee?   (Devil's Advocate here.  A couple of questions.  Do you know the spouse's names of your employees?  How many children they have, their names?  Are they going through a divorce or other life trauma?  If you can't answer these questions, you don't know your employees.  If you don't know your employees, how can you tell if there is something wrong?)
3. Prevention.  Employees spend the majority of their lives in the workplace.  Disagreements are always going to happen, how you handle those disagreements is key.  Potential aggressors can be identified - just look for the warning signs. Warning signs can include strange behavior such as the employee becoming reclusive, erratic behavior, deteriorating appearance.  Other observable warning signs can be emotional problems and/or performance problems.

The 2012 documentary, Murder by Proxy: How America Went Postal, is framed around the USPS shootings that took place in the 80s and 90s. I found the documentary interesting as a provided the perspective of a postal carrier who survived a shooting in 1991 (Royal Oak, Michigan) and his ongoing efforts to urge lawmakers to pass legislation designed to curb workplace employee "abuse."  Not just a film about mass murders, the documentary addresses some of the underlying issues within the workforce that drove individuals to begin killing at random.   

 

In the closing minutes of the documentary, possibilities other than mass workplace shootings are considered.   James Alan Fox, Ph.D., Lipman Professor of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University, states; "Sabotage could be even more deadly and a greater risk to safety than bringing a gun to work." "It could be poisoning products, creating environmental contaminants. . . "  (September 1982 seven people in the Chicago area were killed by Tylenol capsules laced with potassium cyanide.  I don't believe this case was ever solved, so I can proffer the scenario that this could have been the work of a disgruntled employee. )

 

The bottom line? Workplace violence needs to be proactively dealt with.   We can't completely eliminate it, but we can mitigate risk for violence by educating and training our managers, supervisors and employees.

Religious Accommodation

Good Friday is right around the corner.  That day will always serve as a reminder to me of the event forever referred to as The Employee Mutiny of 2011.  In 2011, I upset a few employees by converting the Good Friday Holiday to a floating holiday.  Yes, change is difficult, no matter how small the change.  But with proper communication the employees came to understand that they didn't lose the day, it was just handled a bit differently. 

 

Religious discrimination by employers is expressly prohibited by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Although employers don't have to satisfy an employee's every desire in accommodating his/her religious beliefs, employers are required to make "reasonable accommodations." The most common such accommodation is granting an employee time off to observe a religious holiday.

 

My goal in converting this to a floating holiday was to allow other employees, with different religious beliefs, to have a holiday for their use.  As any organization grows, you want to be able to recognize all religions.  (Another basic step is to modify the vacation/PTO policy to reflect the use of available vacation time for religious holidays not normally recognized by the company.)

 

We live in a beautiful and diverse world!  There's Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the feasts for Santeria.  We have Hindu holidays, Muslim holidays and even Pagan holidays.  Employers and HR professionals all struggle with how to celebrate them, how to recognize the diversity of these religious beliefs and practices.  With care, communication and understanding, the process is easy!