Posts belonging to Category HR profession

I heard yesterday morning the sad news of the passing of Dr. R. Roosevelt Thomas Jr., who is often (appropriately, I might add) referred to as the “father of diversity.”

I first remember hearing Roosevelt speak at a Society for Human Resource Management conference I attended years ago.  At the time, I thought to myself, “Here’s someone I better add to my Rolodex.” (That should give you a sense of how long ago it was.)  Since then, Roosevelt has become a fixture on my must-call list whenever I need a fresh, independent perspective on topics related to diversity and inclusion.

From a journalist’s perspective, Roosevelt was a first-rate source. He was passionate about the work he did. What’s more, he never held back in telling you what he really thought.

In our June 2 edition of HRE, which is on the way to the printer, we’re publishing just the latest example of this. In response to a disturbing study on the lack of progress that’s been made on the workplace desegregation front since the passage of the Civil Rights Act study (Documenting Desegregation: Racial and Gender Segregation in Private-Sector Employment Since the Civil Rights Act), he authored an opinion piece for us on the “shamming of diversity.” In it, he lays out, in blunt fashion, how this “sham” came to be and what businesses ought to be doing about it.  (The piece will be posted on our website and featured in print in early June.)

Truth be told, Roosevelt’s wheels were always turning. (We exchanged emails as recently as last week on the latest project he was working on.)  When it came to sharing his perspective, he was as generous as they come.

To be sure, Roosevelt’s impact on the business world is very well documented. He was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources, has been recognized by the Wall Street Journal as one of the top 10 consultants in the country, was awarded the “Distinguished Contribution to Human Resources Development” Award by the American Society of Training and Development, and was named to HRE’s list of “HR’s Most Influential People.”

But at the risk of this brief tribute sounding a bit like a eulogy, I think his most lasting legacy will probably be best reflected in those he’s been able to touch and influence over the years. I feel privileged to be among them.

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OK, first off, this is not a political post. Not in the least. I had simply heard about these rules for government, business and life that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had scripted and decided to take a look.

Which prompted me to share.

Not to mention the fact that HRE also just received a complimentary copy of his book, Rumsfeld’s Rules: Leadership Lessons in Business, Politics, War, and Life … more fodder for sharing (though I’ll let you go find it on Amazon.com if you’re prone to purchase).

Not sure I agree with absolutely every one of his rules, but there are enough in there under his “business” banner that seem to resonate with what we’ve been reading and writing about over the years to make it worth a scroll. Here are his top six for business leaders:

When you initiate new activities, find things you are currently doing that you can discontinue — whether reports, activities, etc. It works, but you must force yourself to do it. Always keep in mind your “teeth-to-tail ratio.”

Watch the growth of middle-level management. Don’t automatically fill vacant jobs. Leave some positions unfilled for six to eight months to see what happens. You will find you won’t need to fill some of them.

Reduce the layers of management. They put distance between the top of an organization and the customers.

Find ways to decentralize. Move decision-making authority down and out. Encourage a more entrepreneurial approach.

Prune — prune businesses, products, activities, people. Do it annually.

Know your customers!

In fact, if you go through all his tips, a.k.a. “rules,” for success, you can come away with some real gems to lead your HR organization simply by replacing the words “White House,” “government” and “secretary of defense” for “HR leadership” and “business leadership” in general.

Take his first five under “Serving in the White House” and tell me these aren’t great rules to operate by in a corporate setting (you’ll need to replace “president” with “CEO” and “administrations” with “CHRO positions”):

Don’t accept the post or stay unless you have an understanding with the president that you’re free to tell him what you think “with the bark off” and you have the courage to do it.

Visit with your predecessors from previous administrations. They know the ropes and can help you see around some corners. Try to make original mistakes, rather than needlessly repeating theirs.

Don’t begin to think you’re the president. You’re not. The Constitution [or, in your case, company bylaws] provides for only one.

In the execution of presidential decisions work to be true to his views, in fact and tone.

Know that the immediate staff and others in the administration [i.e., workforce] will assume that your manner, tone and tempo reflect the president’s.

I’m leaving a ton of good ones out.

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What better way to start a new work week with than with words of praise about the human resource function from, of all places, Forbes?

Contributor Victor Lipman positively glows about HR, calling it the “by far the most valuable” organizational division he ever worked with during his career:

I never worked in HR but often worked with HR.   I never hesitated to call on them.  When faced with a challenging  job, which management invariably is, my philosophy was: Get all the help you reasonably can.   Bottom line, my Human Resources colleagues were a great help.

Lipman goes on to list four main reasons why he is so full of the HR love (and it’s not just because Hollywood’s current HR stereotype, Toby Flenderson from NBC’s “The Office,” will be looking for work after the show’s finale  May 16). From adroitly dealing with difficult employee issues to being “a sounding board” for all kinds of management issues, Lipman doles out the credit where it’s certainly due.

Read this, then get to work proving Lipman correct!

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The afternoon session of the LINK 2013 conference at the Fairmont Hotel in Washington was all about prognostication, with HR leaders from a cross-section of industries — including retail, healthcare and financial services — discussing their views on how to, as moderator and CEB Executive Director Jean Martin put it, move HR “from [being simply] inputs to drivers of strategy” within an organization.

The most startling — and obviously ominous — prediction came from Kevin Donavan, VP of finance, HR and administration at Japan-based Otsuka Pharmaceuticals, who said bluntly that “it may not be popular, but outsourcing is the future of HR.”

Donavan said outside consultants can bring a much-needed business perspective to HR problems, and “I need HR to bring business solutions to my business.”

“There’s simply no way I can build a scalable model to deal with all our data,” he said in defense of his use of outside consultants. “That’s why IBM bought Kenexa.”

But Rich Hughes, SVP of human capital at UnitedHealth Group, pushed back on that idea, saying that outsourcing isn’t always the right decision for every situation. He then recalled his organization’s decision a few years back to go that route to meet some talent needs.

“It was a mistake to outsource our talent acquisition,” he said, adding that the company eventually brought the function back in-house.

Meanwhile, Anthony Ponsiglione, SVP of HR Operations for Genworth Financial, said the core principles of HR are “timeless”  and therefore will not change much in the future.

“People will always be part of the equation,” he said. But he added that expense management is currently the most important driver of change in HR these days, and the function needs to become better business people if they hope to thrive and advance in an organization.

“HR needs to have a business perspective,” he said.

Hughes said that while big data and data analytics may be helping to push  HR onto the cusp of becoming a real “decision science,” there is still much more to be done.

“We’re not there yet,” Hughes said, “but we’re headed in the right direction.”

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For all the talk about encouraging workers to take more control of their healthcare decisions, it seems many employees are neither prepared or all that eager to grab the reins.   

For that matter, nearly three-quarters of the workforce (72 percent) have not even heard the phrase “consumer-driven healthcare,” according to the 2013 Aflac WorkForces Report, which recently surveyed 1,884 benefits decision makers and 5,299 employees.

More signs that HR and benefits leaders may have a tough road ahead in helping employees better understand healthcare reform and their increasingly complex healthcare coverage options:

• More than half (54 percent) of workers would prefer not to have greater control over their insurance options, because they don’t have the time or knowledge to effectively manage it.

• Thirty-two percent of employees indicated they are “not very” or “not at all” knowledgeable about health-savings accounts. More than three-quarters (76 percent) of workers said the same about federal and state healthcare exchanges, with 49 percent describing themselves as “not very” or “not at all” knowledgeable about health-reimbursement accounts.

Educating workers on the changes coming with the Affordable Care Act doesn’t seem to be a top priority for some employers, either:

• Despite 75 percent of employees saying they think their employer would educate them about changes to their coverage as a result of healthcare reform, just 13 percent of employers said educating employees about healthcare reform was important to their organizations.

“It’s time for consumers to face reality,” said Audrey Boone Tillman, executive vice president of corporate services at Aflac, in a statement.

Tillman advises employees and HR to sit down together to address questions and explain policies, key terms, deductible limits and co-pay and co-insurance requirements, as a first step toward helping workers make sensible decisions going forward.

“The bottom line,” she says, “is if consumers aren’t educated about the full scope of their options, they risk making costly mistakes without a financial back-up plan.”

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While mornings may never be easy for new parents, at least the ones working at Yahoo have something to smile about this morning, courtesy of CNNMoney:

Both new mothers and fathers at Yahoo can now take eight weeks of paid parental leave, and the mothers can take an additional eight weeks. What’s more, new parents will also receive $500 to buy items like groceries and baby clothes.

It’s part of a slate of new benefits “to support the happiness and well-being of Yahoos and their families,” the company confirmed via email. NBC Bay Area first reported these changes. Other new perks include gifts for new pets, and eight weeks of unpaid leave each time an employee hits a five-year milestone.

Just like CEO Marissa Mayer’s controversial decision to eliminate the telecommuting option for Yahoo’s workers a few months back, it’s unlikely the generous new policy will ripple out to organizations nationwide.

But, the article notes, it does bring the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based tech firm’s leave policies more in line with its more-progressive counterparts including Google and Facebook.

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If there’s one thing you must know about Google, it’s that the Mountain View, Calif.-based tech firm is obsessed with data — gathering it, analyzing it and using it as the basis for every decision it makes. It even has a function within its HR department — or People Operations, as it’s called there — called People Analytics, which applies that data-intensive methodology to workforce-related matters. People Analytics recently took the lead in a project at Google to make its incentives-and-rewards program more “meaningful” to its 36,000 Googlers, as explained in a session on Monday at the WorldatWork conference in Philadelphia.

“Focusing on the user is a big tenet for Google,” said Kathryn Dekas, people analytics manager. “Within HR, our users are Googlers — and we want to provide them with the most unique user experience.”

Google avoids benchmarking and best practices, preferring to do its own data-gathering and research instead, said Dekas. First, the People Analytics team did a “deep dive” into the available research on employee recognition–a hallmark of Google’s approach, she said.

“First, you want to ensure you’re not overlooking good external research, that you’re starting on a solid foundation and that you’re not duplicating work that’s already been done,” said Dekas.

Next, the team turned to internal data-gathering. It added some questions to “Googlegeist,” Google’s employee engagement survey, to find out how employees perceived the company’s existing recognition programs. It followed that up with employee focus groups and in-depth interviews of selected Googlers.

Through its external research, the team came across the book “Nudge,” by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, which examines the concept of using data and behavioral science to “nudge” people into making better decisions, said Dekas. The team ultimately incorporated some of what it learned from the book into the design of Google’s new recognition and reward system by adding “nudges” that encourage managers to put some thought into selecting a reward for an employee that will resonate the most with him or her.

“We want to nudge managers into remembering to take every opportunity to explain to the employee why he or she is valuable, and to select rewards that are thoughtful, that demonstrate that you understand what’s important to them,” said Dekas. “On the flip side, the system also nudges managers to ‘be real’ – to consider whether they really know the employee that well, and if they don’t, encourage them to offer a selection of rewards instead.”

The system also “nudges” recognition recipients to select rewards wisely, said Dekas. For example, the team’s external research found that experiential rewards — such as trips employees can take with loved ones — are much more satisfying than material items and that people are much more likely to regret selecting or spending cash rewards on “practical” items than on “indulgences,” she said. Meanwhile, spending money on others “is a win/win,” she added.

Prior to rolling out the system, the team engaged in a “user experience study” to ensure that Googlers liked the system, that it was easily usable and it fit the company’s culture, said Stephanie Tietbohl, Google’s compensation manager. “We got some really great insights from the user experience study,” she said. “They really liked the one-stop nature of the system. The concept of point delivery through a catalog system did not resonate, however — they said it felt more like a shopping experience than a recognition experience.”

After making some tweaks to the new system (which the company decided to build in-house), Google plans to roll it out very shortly, said Tietbohl. “We’re very excited,” she said.

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That’s one of the prescriptive steps for HR leaders in Deloitte’s recently released Human Capital Trends 2013 report.

Today, many HR leaders are dealing with more complex, challenging questions than the ones their predecessors faced. Instead of focusing on traditional “personnel” issues, these new questions address core business issues: Where should we build a plant? Which M&A target will add the skills we need? Where should we locate a new R&D center? Why is our turnover rate in China so high?

Answering questions like these require new data and new thinking. Today’s HR leader has to think like an economist – someone who studies and directs the allocation of finite resources. In the global economy, talent is one of those scarce resources.

While embracing a different mindset is half the challenge, the report says, the other half is harnessing the applicable information, which requires an outward-looking perspective on issues including globalization, competition, a connected workforce and more complex business issues.

But:

Ultimately, HR decisions are like many other business decisions: They involve both cause and effect – and supply and demand. As HR leaders focus on solving more complex business issues, they increase their alignment with the other business leaders in their organization.

Download the full report here.

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The healthcare landscape is clearly in the process of shift—and it didn’t take David Lansky long to remind me of this point.

In his thought-provoking keynote Tuesday morning at the Health and Benefits Leadership Conference^™, Lansky, president and CEO of the Pacific Business Group on Health, shared on one of his first few PPT slides PBGH’s members, which now includes Covered California, the state’s health exchange, as an affiliate member. Smack between Clorox and The Walt Disney Co.

“The Exchange came to us and said, ‘We want to be a value purchaser too,’ even though it’s a marketplace,” recalled Lansky in a talk titled “The Cost and Quality Imperative: Employers’ Role in Transforming Our Healthcare System.”  Despite some initial reservations by the group’s members, he said, the Exchange joined PBGH in the “spirit of aligned interest.”

Lansky detailed a long list of issues and concerns that are very much on the minds of his member companies today.

Near the top of that list is quality transparency, he said, adding that people simply don’t know what they’re buying.

Lansky also pointed out that the group’s members are extremely frustrated with their health plans, noting that they feel they’re not getting what they need from them.

Most health plans, Lansky told those in the room, aren’t showing a lot of motivation for driving efficiency. Business leaders “wake up every morning trying to improve what they do and innovate,” he said. Yet they “don’t see that same level of fervor with those they contract with for healthcare services.”

PBGH’s members have also given up on managed care, he said. Despite all the talk about care coordination and care integration, he said, “they’re very skeptical of the value proposition.”

Lansky also referenced in his talk a trend HRE and others have written about before: Employers beginning to take matters into their own hands when it comes to working with providers.

“Even though they’re huge national companies with very dispersed workforces,” Lansky said, “they’re finding locations and forming relationships where they can step in and drive change in the provider system and the way healthcare is delivered.”

To be sure, U.S. employers and employees face no shortage of challenges as far as healthcare is concerned—something that hasn’t gone unnoticed by providers outside this country. Lansky mentioned that providers from countries like Thailand, where procedures can be performed at a fraction of the cost of what those in the states might charge, are now in the early stages of taking medical tourism to the next level by setting up shop just outside the borders of the U.S. in places like the Caymans.

At the end of the day, Lansky reminded attendees, employers need to do a much better job getting their voices heard inside the beltway. The healthcare industry and drug companies are showing up with their lobbyists in Washington and telling their story, he said. Businesses need to do the same.

It would be shame, he said, if employers let Congress act without hearing their side.

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I love it when worlds collide and smash together two things I know and enjoy in an unexpected way. That happened this week at the Human Resource Executive Health & Benefits Leadership Conference^™ when one of the keynote presenters — Andy Rosa, Senior Director of Health & Welfare Benefits at Comcast — served up an unwitting mashup of health care and “Grey’s Anatomy.”

Discussing the emerging field of health care advocacy services, Rosa said: “Imagine you won $500,000 dollars and wanted to invest it; who would you call?” A financial advisor, most attendees replied.

“Now imagine you were going to spend $500,000 in the health care system,” Rosa continued. “Who would you call to make sure you spent it well?”

Crickets.

“There needs to be someone,” Rosa said into the silence. “Your employees need a ‘person.’”

A “person.” The term resonated with me because, as an avid “Grey’s” watcher, I knew precisely what it meant.

If you’re not a fan, here’s the short version: Two of the main characters on the show have an inextricable bond; they share in one another’s lives on such a meaningful level that when any significant event occurs for one, it isn’t truly “real” until she tells the other. They describe this bond as, “She’s my person.”

In my everyday life, my “person” is my husband. Medically, it’s my doctor. I paused to think: Do I have a health care/health benefits person? No, I don’t. And chances are your employees don’t either.

It’s not just Rosa and I that are thinking about this issue. In an HBLC breakout session this afternoon, Brant Suddath, director of benefits at Home Depot, said, “One of our biggest concerns about health care reform is: Who is going to help our associates make decisions? As their employer, I don’t know what their household income is and can’t help them choose the best value for their family.”

So, here’s something else to add to your ever-expanding to-do list in preparation for health care reform (I know; as if you didn’t already have enough to do):

Your employees need a “person” for health care/health benefits. Who do you want it to be? You? An advocate? Another vendor? Someone else? How will you steer them toward that relationship and help cultivate it so that it works most effectively for you, your employees and their families, your health plan and your organization’s strategic objectives/bottom line?

The answers to those questions may be just as important in how successful you are in the post-reform environment as the answer to “Pay or play?”

Kelley M. Butler is the Editorial Director at Benz Communications, a consulting firm specializing in employee benefits. A former Editor-in-Chief at Employee Benefit News, she’s covered news and trends in HR and benefits for more than 12 years. Follow her updates on twitter at @kelleytheeditor. 

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