Posts belonging to Category training

It’s been roughly three years since we reported that East Hanover, N.J.-based Novartis Pharmaceutical Corp., the U.S. arm of the Swiss drug maker, had been fined $250 million in punitive damages. It ultimately agreed to pay $152 million.

We mentioned at the time that the jury verdict served as a reminder of the very steep price companies can pay if they’re on the losing end of one of these class-actions.

Of course, that was prior to the Supreme Court’s Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Dukes decision, which made it a lot more difficult to certify class actions.

Well, the attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the Novartis case, Sanford Heisler LLP, are back, this time announcing a class-action case against Tokyo-based Daiichi Sankyo, in which six current and former female representatives are alleging discrimination.

In the complaint, the plantiffs’ attorneys allege that …

Daiichi Sankyo pays female sales employees less than male employees for doing the same work; promotes or advances female sales employees at a slower rate than male sales employees; treats pregnant employees and working mothers of young children adversely compared to non-pregnant employees, male employees, or non-caregivers; and subjects women to other discriminatory terms and conditions of employment.

And that …

 … a discrete group of predominantly male Daiichi executives and senior sales managers keep a tight rein on employment decisions, including decisions regarding sales employees’ compensation, advancement, and other terms and conditions of employment. Through this male-dominated leadership structure, the company has approved and implemented policies, practices and decisions that have systemically discriminated against female employees.

Several reporters were told by the company via email that it does not comment on pending litigation and “complies with all laws regarding equal opportunity and non-discrimination.”

I spoke to Tom Lewis, shareholder and chair of the Employment Litigation Group at Stark & Stark in Lawrenceville, N.J., to get his thoughts on the action.

Lewis predicts that the plaintiff’s attorneys will likely put “front and center” the fact that the firm is Japanese … that “a Japanese company wouldn’t treat its female employees as well as an American company would.”

“But let’s remember,” he adds, “that a class-action lawsuit like this has to be proven”—and that may not be easy.

Lewis notes that he’s represented many foreign-owned companies and his experience is that they “often go above and beyond the call of duty to make sure that, culturally, they’re complying with the laws of this country.”

He also suggests it makes perfect sense that the plantiff’s attorneys would select San Francisco to file the suit in, since the employment laws in California are much more employee-friendly.

We’ll have to watch and see how this case eventually plays out. But this much is certain: The plaintiffs in this case will have a tougher hill to climb in gaining class-action status.

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When we regularly ask HR executives to list what keeps them up at night, keeping talent engaged is almost always at (or near) the top of the list.  So you’d think it would be in employers’ self-interests to do more about those behaviors that prevent that from happening, right?

Well, at least in the area of civility (or lack of it), it appears many employers aren’t doing nearly enough.

Of course, it’s no surprise incivility exists in today’s workplace. I’m sure you’ve personally crossed paths with it on more than a few occasions. But a just released study by Professors Christine Porath of Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and Christine Pearson of Thunderbird School of Global Management suggests such behaviors may be a lot more  prevalent than you might think.

Indeed, Porath and Pearson, who authored an article on their findings in the Jan.-Feb. edition of the Harvard Business Review, found that nearly half of the 800 managers and employees polled report they were treated rudely at least once per week, up from a quarter of those polled in 1998.

“We heard of one boss who was so routinely abusive that employees and suppliers had a code for alerting one another to his impending arrival (‘The eagle has landed’),” they write.

But what’s even more disturbing than the rise in rude behavior is the price employers appear to be paying.

Of those surveyed, 48 percent intentionally decreased their work effort as a result of uncivil behavior, 47 percent intentionally decreased the time spent at work, 38 percent intentionally decreased the quality of their work and 12 percent left their jobs.

So what should leaders be doing about it?

Here are a few of the suggestions Porath and Pearson put to paper in their HBR
piece:

• Manage yourself.  “If employees see that those who have climbed the corporate ladder tolerate or embrace uncivil behavior, they’re likely to follow suit,” they write, noting that 25 percent of managers who admitted to having behaved badly said they were uncivil because their leaders—their own role models—were rude.

• Manage the organization, including the way you hire. “Avoid bringing incivility into the workplace to begin with,” they write, pointing out that companies like Southwest Airlines and Four Seasons put civility at the fore of their interview processes.

• Teach civility. “One quarter of the offenders we surveyed said that they didn’t recognize their behavior as uncivil,” they say.

• Reward good behavior and penalize bad behavior.

I have no idea whether these steps—and others offered by Porath and Pearson—are enough to reverse the trend. But the data suggests leaders better try something.

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More bad news on the skills-shortage front since my last post on the subject. This time, the shocker comes in the form of a number, part of the McKinsey Global Institute’s recent World at Work report: By 2020, according to the report, the world could have 40 million too few college-educated workers.

Youch. That’s a huge shortage — as the late George Carlin might have said in his infamous oxymoron routine.

As Tracy McCarthy, senior vice president of human resources at Chicago-based SilkRoad technology, told the Society for Human Resource Management in it’s report (subscription required) on this matter,

This skills shortage, particularly for high-tech skills, has existed in the United States for some time now. If you look at the number of H-1B visa holders, you’ll find the majority are for high-tech skilled workers such as engineers.”

Yes, I’ve been aware of the skills shortage for some time now; I know about the scarcity of math-and-science-proficient engineers (something I keep telling my engineer son to bear in mind and use to his advantage as he plots his future); I just hadn’t seen a 40-million-shortage headcount by 2020 until now.

Ravin Jesuthasan, Chicago-based global-talent-management-practice leader for Towers Watson, says the future gap will come with some friction points too. As he puts it,

While there will be an overall shortage of college-educated talent, there will be dramatic differences across countries. Developed markets like the United States, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom will experience huge shortages, while countries like India and Indonesia will generate significant surpluses as the key drivers of education, demographics and immigration play out differentially. The challenge for employers will be how they tap into these surpluses; making the mobility of work essential.”

What the McKinsey report does not cover, Jesuthasan adds, are the specific skills that businesses will demand and the gaps relative to those within the current workforce. As noted in Towers Watson’s Global Talent 2021 report, he points out, employers expect to place increasing emphasis on four skill areas: digital skills, agile thinking, interpersonal and communication skills, and global operating skills.

I guess you can look at all this as more fodder for the battle cry to bring the best thinkers of the world together now – from employment, academic, even governmental sectors – to try and solve this thing before the global marketplace closes up shop.

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Not good news emanating from a recent report by Cornerstone OnDemand. The study, Cornerstone OnDemand 2013 U.S. Employee Report, shows more than 19 million Americans planning to change jobs in the next year, leaving U.S. employers looking at a price tag of $2 trillion in potential employee turnover.

Compounding that are three concerns that surfaced in the survey, according to the company’s release:

Increasing absence of ongoing training and development. In the past six months, only about a third (32 percent) of employed American adults has received training and development to better perform their job.

Misaligned goals and expectations between managers and employees. Only one in four respondents (25 percent) has established career goals with their manager/employer.

Lack of individual recognition and performance feedback. Two-thirds (66 percent) said they haven’t received useful feedback from their manager/employer.

Certainly doesn’t sound like companies are doing everything they can to shore up skills in-house. Nor does it sound like they’re gearing up to train the next wave of workers who’ll be happy to take those 19 million job-hoppers’ places.

“The worldwide skills shortage is quickly becoming a crisis across companies of all sizes and industries,” says Jason Corsello, Cornerstone OnDemand’s vice president of corporate strategy and marketing. ”Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet to address the global skills shortage, but companies can take action to build programs today and invest more in ongoing training and       continuous feedback for their employees.”

Yet another disturbing layer in this mounting skills crisis is something I focused on in my HREOnline^™ news analysis that went live today — an increasing shortage of soft skills (i.e., behavioral competencies, such as communicating, telling the truth, making ethical decisions, working well in a team and getting to work on time) in job applicants and new hires; not just the hard (job-specific) skills applicants seem to be lacking in droves today as well.

Luckily, Corsello and the sources in my analysis have suggestions for getting through this extremely troubling time. Good luck.

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Came across an interesting just-launched website devoted solely to providing employers and their HR teams with, as the site says, “expert, creative, and cost-effective solutions for managing the burgeoning risk of workplace EEO disputes.”

A bit too focused, you might ask? Au contraire, says Merrily Archer, an employment attorney and founder of Denver-based EEO Legal Solutions and it’s brand new site. Here’ how she describes “the gathering EEO storm” on her home page:

The number of EEOC charges will hit 100,000 in 2012, with increasing prevalence of age, disability, retaliation and systemic (‘disparate impact’) charges. In-house counsel now report that employment matters, both administrative activity and litigation, rank first in amount and frequency. No doubt, the ‘face’ and frequency of discrimination has changed markedly since the Civil Rights Act of 1991, ranging from pro se individual charges to full-blown EEOC systemic investigations and class-action litigation. Given the variable risk inherent in EEOC charges and EEO litigation, employers must master claim avoidance, evaluation, and resource allocation to avoid defraying expensive external ‘solutions’ to comparatively minor EEO problems.

Archer, a former attorney with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, know’s from whence she speaks. She’s been a key and outspoken source for HRE on the EEOC’s aggressive systemic push of late, in this piece, this one, and this, to share just three. She also contributed this byline for us on how to fight back against the push.

Her new site, she says, offers employers’ existing HR and legal teams coaching and training ”to reduce reliance on outside counsel and by extension, expensive ‘solutions’ to more minor EEO problems. Through lean litigation, EEO Legal Solutions proves that employers can still afford to fight when they’re right.”

For your frame of reference, and an understanding of what the EEOC is after, here is the agency’s selected list of systemic hiring resolutions and filings as of April and a full rundown of the systemic focus when it was initially proposed years ago.

I especially like Archer’s blog post on her site itemizing the reasons “Our Workplaces Don’t Work”:

Since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, our workplaces have become ‘overlawyered’ regulatory quagmires in which employers balance competing laws and risks on a daily basis: the risk of a negligent hiring/entrustment/supervision claim versus the risk of an EEOC systemic investigation over use of pertinent criminal background information; the risk of retaining an underperforming employee versus the risk of an EEOC charge; the risk of workers’ compensation claims against the risks of claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act, as amended, and the absurdly complicated Family and Medical Leave Act; the risk of financial collapse versus the risk of individual and systemic EEO claims arising from a necessary reduction-in-force; the risk of going out of business versus the risk that the EEOC will impose its judgment regarding what constitutes ‘successful’ job performance … and on it goes … employers have become stuck in this ‘damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t’ EEO regulatory maelstrom, sacrificing basic management considerations of employee accountability, reliability and even competency.

William Tate, president of Chicago-based HR Plus screening solutions, talked about that first risk when he and I met at the Society for Human Resource Management conference this past June. He likened the EEOC’s background-screening mandate to a kind of “Sophie’s Choice” for his clients between following the new rules and keeping their workplaces safe.

The cost alone of retraining recruiters to conduct and document individual reviews for each former convict, he told me, threatens many (especially smaller and mid-sized) employers’ survivals.

And he didn’t even mention the legal costs Archer says she aims to spare employers.

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In what appears to be a continuation of its revved up enforcement of – and attention to – workers’ rights, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has taken another employee group under its wing: teenagers.

The agency announced recently its release of a new set of free informational aides, developed as part of its Youth@Work initiative to educate America’s young people about their employment rights and responsibilities, and to help employers create positive environments for them.

This Society for Human Resource Management release about the effort (subscription required) says the new tools include a video, student manual and teacher’s manual, and can be downloaded by youth organizations, businesses and any other group wishing to educate young people about what to expect in the working world.

As EEOC Chair Jacqueline A. Berrien said in a statement about the program: “As young people enter the workforce, it is important that they understand their rights and know how to respond if they experience or witness unlawful discrimination or harassment.”

Whether this move adds to the already enhanced force of EEOC’s employer investigations and litigation, the real issue, says Michael J. Lotito, a shareholder with San Francisco-based employment law firm Littler, is whether the government gets first crack at molding teenagers’ impressions of work or the employer does.

“Everyone should be aware of their rights in the workplace,” he says. “Young people need to be educated, perhaps more than most, as they may be intimidated more easily by their boss, not have enough ‘real life’ experience to know how to handle [harassment or discrimination] and may even be so embarrassed by the event that they quit instead of complain.

“The message to employers is, ‘Do you want that education to come in the first instance from the government or from the organization?’ Is the message, ‘If something like this happens to you, go to the government’ or is it, ‘Come to us under our policies for resolution’?” Lotito says. “For the supervisors, using the government information as part of proactive, [employer-provided] training is a realistic approach to be considered. ”

He continues:

In the end, the culture of compliance and respect for all employees will take place either because the employer takes the time to invest in its workforce or because the government forces the company to do so.

One final note: I would love for the government to tell young people what they need to learn in school to help them get a job, why the skills gap in this country should be seen as an opportunity [and] how a job applicant with little or no experience can be a valuable resource nonetheless. Sure, we need to ensure people are treated right on the job, but they first need a job before those rights attach.”

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Regardless of your political affiliation (or lack thereof), I think most of us who watched it can agree that former President Bill Clinton’s speech at the recent Democratic national convention was effective and memorable. In his speech, Clinton noted that despite the nation’s persistently high unemployment rate, about 3 million jobs remain unfilled due to a scarcity of qualified technical talent.

It’s an astounding number. Even more astounding is the fact that community colleges–of which a huge number of employers have come to rely on to train the next generation of technical talent–are being left to scrape and scramble for funding to try and fill those jobs.

Workforce Training in a Recovering Economy, a new report released by the Education Policy Center at the University of Alabama, includes a survey of 49 state community college directors. Forty-five of them said business leaders in their communities see the schools as primary workforce training providers–up from 34 respondents in a similar survey conducted last year.

And yet, the report notes, funding sources intended to support training programs at these colleges–such as the Workforce Investment Act–have been exhausted, while state funding remains under threat because of the poor economy. As a result, many of these colleges are struggling to provide the sort of technology-rich training courses that most closely correlate with employers’ needs.

Lack of funding isn’t the only problem. The report finds that 31 of the college directors say a significant shortage of faculty in high-cost technical areas exists in their states. So, combine these challenges with the fact that community colleges are experiencing record enrollment rates–in some cases, having to turn students away–as unemployed workers try to upgrade their skills by going back to school, and it’s easy to see why the report concludes on this somber note:

With exhausted training funds and continuing state budget cuts, the ability of community colleges to serve workers in need of retraining, and to build the workforce of the future, is, without doubt, constrained.”

I can’t help but think there’s a role for HR leaders here. What about lobbying state and federal sources for greater support for these institutions? Perhaps arranging for talented technical staff at your organizations to get involved with teaching a course or two at the local community college to compensate for the shortage of qualified faculty? And, what about biting the bullet and convincing your organization’s leadership to pony up a bit of cash to support these schools’ mission? After all, that mission most likely includes helping to train your future workers.

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“Remember when they used to actually make things in this country?” How many of you have heard that from older relatives, or your parents? How many of you have actually said it yourselves? So now it’s time to talk about a nascent trend: The rebirth of manufacturing in the United States.

The auto industry, aided by its controversial bailout from the federal government, continues to add workers as sales stay strong despite the uncertain economy. Then there’s the (also controversial) “fracking” industry in states like Texas, Colorado and Pennsylvania: As oil-and-gas companies drill through shale rock to reach rich deposits of oil and gas, they’ve generated a big demand for steel piping and other equipment that’s helping to revitalize the steel industry in places like Ohio. And then there’s “re-insourcing,” touted by President Obama earlier this year, with companies like Master Lock and General Electric moving jobs that they outsourced to places like China back to the U.S. to save on shipping costs–and to take advantage of the fact that with rising labor costs overseas, it can make more sense to have goods made here instead of over there.

But there’s a risk that this trend may stall if one crucial problem isn’t solved: Finding the skilled talent necessary to actually do the work. This ain’t your grandfather’s assembly line: Today’s manufacturing jobs often require advanced skills in math and robotics that can be hard to find, especially given the fact that in our society, high-achieving students are pushed to enroll in four-year colleges and jobs that require working with your hands are not held in the highest esteem, shall we say, in many of today’s households. A SHRM poll from last year found that more than half the participating companies were having trouble finding skilled talent, with the manufacturing industry having a particularly tough time. Highly skilled technicians, engineers and tradespeople (electricians, carpenters) were among the most difficult-to-fill positions, according to SHRM.

The organization plans to address this topic during an upcoming half-day summit at its annual conference, to be held this year in Atlanta. Representatives from SHRM, the U.S. Dept of Labor and manufacturers will discuss potential solutions for filling the skills gap. The event will be held on Sunday, June 24, at the Georgia World Conference Center.

In the meantime, you can read about how some manufacturers are trying to grow their own talent through apprenticeship programs–in which students actually get paid to learn, rather than going into debt.

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At this week’s Total Rewards 2012 conference in Orlando, speakers from Boeing reminded attendees that there often is more than one way to read a piece of data.

During a session titled “Compensation, Fix Employee Pay! When Compensation Professionals are Asked to Address Low Scores on Employee Surveys,” two Boeing comp professionals—Senior Compensation Specialist Cindy Jorgensen and Compensation Specialist Ron Steele Jr.—talked about their efforts to get to bottom of why employees at Boeing’s South Carolina facility had a low opinion of the company’s pay practices.

Steele told those in the room that Boeing’s pay is extremely competitive in South Carolina—where the company employs about 6,000 workers who are dedicated to the building of its 787 (pictured here). But apparently that wasn’t the consensus among Boeing employees there.

Asked to rate the fairness of pay during a 2011 employee survey, workers at the South Carolina operation gave Boeing low marks. (The survey was conducted with the help of Kenexa.)

At first glance, Steele said, the data pointed to a pay system that needed fixing.  But a closer look suggested there might be other factors at work here.

To figure out what those factors might be,  the comp folks began to drill deeper into the data, looking at (among other things) how the South Carolina findings compared to those found at other Boeing operations and in other industries; and by reading through page after page of verbatim comments from the employee surveys. (Boeing employees “aren’t shy,” Steele said.)

This was followed by a series of employee focus groups, which eventually shed some much-needed light on the issue.

In the end, the group’s persistence paid off.

Jorgensen and Steele concluded that the low scores had less to do with what employees were being paid and more to do with employees who didn’t really understand the pay system at Boeing.

That, in turn, led to a much more meaningful response (my words) focusing on initiatives that could have a positive impact, such as managerial training and employee education.

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We’ve all heard plenty about the skills-gap problem, that not nearly enough incoming workers — or would-be incoming workers — have the skills and knowledge needed to help the United States climb out of its quagmire of sluggish recovery and more long-term non-competetiveness in the global market.

There’s been plenty of blame to go around – from failing public schools and mediocre colleges that don’t teach the right skills, to parents who don’t enforce homework and discipline, to employers that don’t work hard enough with local businesses to ensure the right skills are being taught.

And the beat still goes on. Job candidates keep coming to interviews unprepared for what’s needed. Worse still, many of the best entry-level workers businesses can find are being hired to fail, basically.

I guess against such a backdrop, this recent study by Corporate Voices for Working Families carries a lot of promise. The report, Why Companies Invest in ‘Grow Your Own’ Talent, shows employers that embrace workforce-readiness training for their current and incoming entry-level employees are finding promising results and an imprressive — and measurable — return on their investment. (Take a look at the paper; it includes an online Return-on-Investment tool designed to help you calculate the costs and benefits associated with workforce-readiness programs.)

Researchers in the Washington-based nonprofit business-membership organization looked at several companies — including CVS/Caremark, the Johns Hopkins Hospital, and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. — and found that, despite different approaches to implementing training programs, their investments saved money through improved retention, reduced turnover and rehiring costs … and intangible plusses, such as greater workplace diversity, enhanced customer and client loyalty, and an improved reputation in the communities these companies serve.

“These forward-looking companies have shown that investing in the workforce of tomorrow is a smart decision for today,” says Stephen M. Wing, managing director of Corporate Voices Consulting, a division of CVWF. “By leveraging partnerships with the public Workforce Investment system [part of the U.S. Department of Labor] and other experts in their communities, these employers are improving the odds of success for their valued employees and strengthening their own bottom line.”

I think, if I were a business owner, I would put it a little more succinctly: “If no one else is going to give this next generation of workers the skills and knowledge they need to grow my business and shore up my country’s competitiveness, well, I guess I have to do it myself.”

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