Just in case you missed this, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia struck down yesterday a federal rule that would have required employers to nail posters to their bulletin boards or common-area walls informing employees of their rights to unionize.

This Associated Press account on the Newsday site calls the decision against the National Labor Relations Board in National Association of Manufacturers v. NLRB “another blow to the nation’s dwindling labor unions.”

It also specifies details of the ruling, stating that the NLRB violated employers’ free-speech rights in trying to force them to display the posters or face charges of committing an unfair labor practice.

“The court’s ruling is the latest success for business groups that have worked to prevent the NLRB from shifting the legal landscape in favor of labor unions, despite President Barack Obama’s appointment of several labor-friendly board members,” the AP account says.

Here is my latest blog post on this poster controversy, containing links to my previous posts, which should give you a good chronological journey through this tussle.

Meanwhile, this legal alert on the Arent Fox site reminds us that Tuesday’s appeals-court decision on the poster rule comes less than four months after the same court invalidated Obama’s recess appointments of three NLRB members.

Here are three separate blog posts by me on this recess-appointments controversy — from April 2, March 20, and Feb. 19 — for your reading pleasure.

Lastly, this link from Practical Law Co. spells out the reasons behind the DC Circuit decision regarding posters. The court, it says, “held that the NLRB’s poster rule is invalid because each of the three ways in which the NLRB would enforce its poster rule was invalid. In particular, the court found that the NLRB could not lawfully:

• Make a failure to post the notice an unfair labor practice (ULP).
• Interpret a failure to post the notice as evidence of anti-union animus in NLRB proceedings.
• Toll the six-month statute of limitations indefinitely for employees to file ULP charges against an employer that fails to post the notice.”

As always, I will try to keep you posted on developments.

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Momentum continues to build in the European Union to give shareholders greater powers of oversight on executive-pay practices.

A release from New York-based Mercer announcing its latest perspective on the topic details some of what’s going on “across the pond”: In the United Kingdom, binding say-on-pay votes will be implemented starting in October; in Switzerland, a March referendum to introduce binding say-on-pay votes was just supported; and, with similar measures being discussed in France, German and Spain, the EU is planning to introduce legislation later this year to require all 27 EU countries to implement mandatory, binding say-on-pay votes. (The link takes you to Mercer’s “Perspectives” landing page; the April special issue, Executive Pay Regulation: The Potential Impacts of Proposed European Reforms, is at the top right.)

As the perspective notes, there’s a certain European “hardening of attitudes” going on:

The political impetus to regulate executive pay has accelerated in Europe. Recent regulatory developments that would give shareholders greater oversight of executive pay and cap bonuses in the financial services sector, reflect a hardening of attitudes among European politicians and the public. In an era of low or nonexistent economic growth, consumer price inflation, and falling average real wages, executive remuneration will continue to be a sensitive issue.

This is particularly true in the banking sector, where the continued payment of bonuses, in the face of taxpayer-funded bailouts and revelations such as the Libor fixing scandal in London, has sparked outrage. But with other countries and regions taking a less prescriptive approach, an unlevel playing field is emerging and may result in executives leaving the EU for less regulated markets.

These proposed regulations, which have, for the most part, been supported by shareholders, will nevertheless require them to be more active in their oversight of executive pay. One consequence of this greater investor workload may be to extend the influence of proxy advisory firms.

The piece goes on to note exactly what’s going on globally, including in the United States, where say-on-pay votes are still non-binding but have, nonetheless, “influenced executive pay practices [by eliminating] many problematic practices and [increasing] shareholder-engagement efforts.”

Indeed, in this blog post written by Senior Editor Andrew R. McIlvaine about a session at the recent WorldatWork Total Rewards 2013 conference, he goes into much more detail about some of the ways say-on-pay is impacting — pro and con — the business community.

One of the most notable quotes in his post comes from John England, managing partner of Philadelphia-based Pay Governance, who fears what the European binding-vote wave landing on U.S. shores might mean. (He is clearly not a fan.)

“When CEO pay escalates sharply against average worker pay, it will inflame things,” England says in the post. “I do believe we are just one or two scandals away from the prospect of a binding say-on-pay law … in this country.”

What are employers to do with this information? I ran that by two Mercer thought leaders. Here’s what they both had to say. First from Vicki Elliott, Mercer’s senior partner and global financial-services consulting leader:

Companies should not let tighter regulation in financial services and other sectors define their objectives for compensation and talent-management effectiveness. Be creative and don’t succumb to a one-size-fits-all. Companies will [also] need to rethink their employee value propositions and the power of non-pay methods — it can no longer be all about pay.

And from Gregg Passin, senior partner and executive rewards leader for North America:

As say-on-pay develops, it is very important to simplify and clearly communicate remuneration strategies and programs to shareholders. It is [also] likely that there will be more focus on building talent from within so processes for managing talent pipelines such as succession planning and career development will be critical.

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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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It’s a global trend that’s sweeping financial capitals all over the world, and it’s going to keep things quite interesting for HR leaders at public companies.

The “it” in question is say-on-pay, or the practice of letting shareholders vote on the renumeration awarded to executives of publicly traded companies in order to discourage or prevent corporate boards from granting excessive pay packages not linked to actual performance. Here in the U.S., a provision included as part of the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 gives shareholders a non-binding vote on executive pay. Earlier this week at WorldatWork’s Total Rewards 2013 conference in Philadelphia, three executive-comp experts discussed its potential long-term effects.

“It’s going to lead to greater homogenization of pay,” said John England, managing partner of Pay Governance LLC. Say-on-pay “is causing some boards of directors to operate in a mode of ‘Let’s keep our heads down and stay under the radar screen.’ I’m not so sure that’s best for shareholders or companies in general.”

Companies in highly competitive sectors — such as technology and bioscience, for example — should be able to adapt their pay practices as they see fit in order to lure and retain the sought-after executive talent in those fields, he said.

Nevertheless, say-on-pay has also “been helpful in providing focus and strength to boards to clean up compensation practices that were not working,” said Steve Harris, managing director of Frederic W. Cook & Co. “I think boards are now at a point where they understand the implications of compensation decisions that may risk a backlash.”

Say-on-pay has also affected executive bonuses, said England. “I do believe it’s much more common now, thanks to say-on-pay, for bonuses to to be much more linked to performance,” he said. “In the past, executives received bonuses even when targets were missed, with the explanation that ‘Yeah, but the targets would’ve been hit had the market conditions not changed.’ Now, there’s no more ‘Yeah, but’ — when targets are missed, no bonus.”

The rise of say-on-pay has made communicating with shareholders a bigger imperative than ever, said England. “If you can influence your shareholders and tell them a story before they read the Institutional Shareholders Services report, that’s good. And it should not just be the HR and legal folks talking to shareholders — if you can get the board members talking with shareholders, that’s great.”

It can be very effective when a CEO meets with shareholders to “tell the company’s story,” said Harris. “Shareholder engagement needs to be done on an ongoing basis, not just when there’s a crisis,” he added. “Develop the relationship now and maintain it regularly; otherwise, you may not have these shareholders to turn to when you do have a crisis.”

Shareholders “love context,” said Blair Jones, managing partner of Semler Brossy Consulting Group. “They eat it right up. Develop a dialogue with your shareholders.”

The specter of a say-on-pay law that is actually binding — a number of European countries have taken, or are considering taking, this step — should keep boards and HR on their toes, said Harris. “I’m concerned about what is happening in Europe coming across the pond and infecting the U.S.,” he said. “Right now, I think Washington’s attention has shifted to jobs and growth, not executive pay. But we have to be careful. When CEO pay escalates sharply against average worker pay, it will inflame things.”

“I do believe we are just one or two scandals away from the prospect of a binding say-on-pay law … in this country,” said England.

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A Davenport, Iowa, jury awarded the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity just yesterday the largest-ever verdict in the agency’s history — more than $240 million — in a case involving the long-term abuse of workers with intellectual disabilities.

The class-action case against Hill Country Farms Inc., doing business as Henry’s Turkey Services, was actually covered by me back in April 2011 in this news analysis. Here, too, is the ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, Davenport Division, in September 2012, granting the EEOC partial summary judgment to move forward and also ordering the Goldthwaite, Texas, company to pay the workers $1.3 million for unlawful disability-based wage discrimination.

Coupled with yesterday’s awards of $2 million and $5.5 million for each of the 32 mentally disabled turkey processing-plant workers, for punitive and compensatory damages, respectively, the total judgment — to be exact — comes to $241.3.

The links above, along with this release by the EEOC, spell out all the sad, sordid details of this now-historic case. But just to recap here, the EEOC lawsuit says that, for many years, the owners and staffers of Henry’s Turkey subjected the workers to abusive verbal and physical harassment; restricted their freedom of movement; and imposed other harsh terms and conditions of employment, such as requiring them to live in deplorable and substandard living conditions, and failing to provide adequate medical care when needed.

The EEOC also claims verbal abuses, including frequently referring to the workers as “retarded,” “dumb ass” and “stupid.” Members of the class reported acts of physical abuse as well, including hitting, kicking, at least one case of handcuffing, forcing the men to carry heavy weights as punishment and being dismissive of complaints of injuries or pain.

“The verdict sends an important message that the conduct that occurred here is intolerable in this nation, and hopefully will help to restore dignity and acknowledge the humanity of workers who were mistreated for so many years,” says EEOC Chair Jacqueline A. Berrien.

According to this Fox News account, an attorney for Henry’s didn’t respond to a message seeking comment. But the company’s president, Kenneth Henry, told the Quad-City Times after the trial  that he planned to appeal, calling some of the evidence “terribly exaggerated.”

The news account also says it’s highly unlikely the now-defunct Henry’s Turkey Service has anywhere near enough remaining assets to cover the $7.5 million in damages each man was just awarded.

“Do you think I can write a check for that?” Kenneth Henry, 72, the company’s president, told the newspaper.

But federal officials are vowing to recover every last cent they can for the men, who had been “virtually enslaved” for many years, according to developmental psychologist Sue Gant, who  interviewed them at length for the EEOC, the account states.

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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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I witnessed two distinct ties to my City of Philadelphia just now while covering WorldatWork’s Total Rewards 2013 conference. Both occurred back-to-back, but it was the latter that convinced me it just might be worth sharing.

On leaving a session titled Tales from the Trenches: Managing Executive Performance Share Programs, I couldn’t help but notice the conference snack of choice — in fact, the sole snack for this session break — was an assortment of Tastycakes: krimpets, cupcakes, juniors, pies, etc.

For those conference-goers who appeared caught somewhere between bemused, confused and impressed, I proudly shared that the Tasty Baking Co., makers of the treats before them, hailed from this fine city (birthplace of both my sons, though I chose not to share that part with them). Anyway, nice touch, WorldatWork!!

Moments before, at the session mentioned above, moderator James C. Heim, managing director at Pearl Meyer & Partners, was serving as the go-between for Walter Cox, senior manager of executive compensation at Raytheon, and Carley Finkenthal, executive compensation leader at United Technologies Corp. The stories from both panelists on the decisions made and the lessons learned surrounding their performance-share and compensation programs was compelling and seeds for a story down the road — perhaps on our website, perhaps in HRE.

But it was Heim’s wrap-up witticisms that caught my ear and reminded me (and everyone else) what city we happened to be in. Using actual quotes from Philadelphia’s greatest claim to fame, Benjamin Franklin, Heim interpreted each one as if Franklin were alive and well and … well, moderating the panel himself. Here’s “Benjamin Franklin’s Roadmap for Success” as delivered by Heim and designed to make you a better executive-comp guru:

“When in doubt, don’t.” Do not implement a performance-share program if it is not administratively possible to do so.

“Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.” Beware how far down you want to drive performance and be very careful in considering eligibility.

“Well done is better than well said.” Select performance metrics that are demonstrably correlated with long-term shareholder value creation. It’s better to have measures that drive value than measures that are easily explained.

“We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” Compare your proposal to industry prevalence data — is it different because it’s better or is it just different? And if it’s better, then don’t be afraid to follow your own lead.

“Being ignorant is not so much a shame as being unwilling to learn.” Model your proposed executive-compensation plan under a variety of scenarios — both proactive and reactive — to better understand the impact of your proposal across a variety of performance scenarios.

“How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend.” Revisit your plan periodically, and fix it when it needs fixing.

Remember, Heim said, “changing plans sends a powerful message” to the company and to the outside world that you’re on to something bigger and better, and carefully laying out new plans.

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Mercer’s Tracy Watts, partner, and Stefan Gaertner, principal, want HR and benefits leaders to look at the Affordable Care Act and all its many implementations looming on the horizon as opportunities, not dangers or threats.

In their joint session Tuesday at the WorldatWork Total Rewards 2013 conference, Hourly Workforces and Healthcare Reform: Angst or Opportunity? each one emphasized the need for HR and benefits professionals to take everything into consideration before making any moves, or even worrying about them — costs of providing healthcare, costs of getting out of the healthcare business altogether, costs of keeping all full-time employees so classified, savings of switching some to part-time (under 30 hours a week) to avoid some of the ACA’s costs, even the impact of potential legislative penalties and liabilities that have emerged recently should employers be planning a blanket reassignment in workers’ hours to avoid the mandate that FTEs be offered healthcare insurance under the new law.

In essence, with healthcare exchanges set to be implemented in October and many other ACA regulations coming in January, now’s the time to look at the whole ball of wax and decide what combination of options — yes, some admittedly scary — will work best for your organization.

Watts and Gaertner both provided research findings that added some real meat to the discussion, and to the notion that no decision will be an easy one. One study, for instance, showed a direct relationship at several client companies between full-time employees and profitability. That data showed converting FTEs to PTEs could yield as much as about $30 million in savings, yet cost about the same amount in lost productivity and profitability.

“There is clear suboptimal performance and increased absenteeism among part-time employees,” said Gaertner. He also cautioned that increased costs in doctors’ visits, absenteeism, even worker energy, needs to be factored in to a company’s decision on what to offer, what not to offer and whose classification to change.

“One company showed $10 million in [annual] added cost [projections] based on employee errors” alone when switching from full-time to part-time, Gaertner said.

Following the session, both Watts and Gaertner stressed that few large companies seem poised to make dramatic changes to their offerings and/or classifications at this time.

Most, said Gaertner, are using the oncoming ACA implementation as “a good opportunity to really start taking the healthcare question seriously, reviewing the strategic and financial value of healthcare coverage for your employees.”

No two companies, he added, are the same.

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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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Interesting — some might say disturbing — juxtapositions came out of two different sessions this morning at the first full day of the WorldatWork Total Rewards 2013 conference in Philadelphia.

One, an inspiring keynote address by author and networking expert Mark Scharenbroich, challenged all rewards and HR professionals in the room to get better at making authentic connections with the people they want performing for them.

Author of Nice Bike: Making Meaningful Connections on the Road of Life, Scharenbroich punctuated his points with personal stories from both his life and his work, as well as anecdotes from organizations he has worked with. Throughout his compelling presentation, the message was clear: “Embrace your journey [as HR and rewards professionals] with a passion to serve others — when you do that, people will follow.”

He also noted that “every problem is an opportunity to engage and connect with customers” inside and outside of your organizations.”

Scharenbroich accentuated employees’ needs — everyone’s needs, for that matter — to belong to a group or a cause; that “people will stay where they feel appreciated, recognized and part of the game.”

But in their session directly following the opening keynote, Jay Schuster and Patricia Zingheim, of Schuster-Zingheim & Associates Inc., cited their yet-to-be released research on What CEOs Want from Total Rewards as proof positive that, if you ask the bosses of HR and rewards professionals, as they did, you’ll find they want their rewards programs to be centered on nothing of the kind.

What CEOs want, they said, are proof of individuals’ value in terms of business goals. As Schuster put it early into the session, “If you’re here to hear about pet insurance, you came to the wrong session.”

According to their research, he said, an impressive majority of the CEOs they interviewed (I plan to write about this later and supply all the numbers from their report) “aren’t even interested in best practices and benchmarks” — they don’t want all the paperwork HR comes in with “frequently changing definitions and the wording of performance management and what it needs to consist of.”

They simply want HR to focus on results that make good business sense and compensation plans that reward the individuals and the behaviors and the results that will take them in the direction they want to go.

And more alarmingly, the CEOs they interviewed don’t feel HR executives are delivering on that, not really in the least.

“They think we’re becoming shoe-shiners, not adding real value to the business,” Schuster said.

One good pointer the two did share was that giving company stock to high-performers was very attractive to the CEOs they interviewed. They considered it, in Schuster’s words, “a piece of the pie and a fraction of the action [as opposed to] giving teddy bears.”

So what’s the joint message here for HR and rewards professionals? Obviously, your approach will be your own; just know this indication from CEOs suggests it should be customized in terms of adding value to the business you’re in, not the businesses you’ve studied or benchmarked. One tech company Schuster-Zingheim studied, for instance, adopted a multiple-tier workforce, with three-to-five-year work agreements for core professional talent, keeping pay and benefits in transition as performance is proven. It worked, and continues to work, for them.

Zingheim’s checklist for drafting your own rewards program includes:  How does a program change reflect real business success? Does it add value to the business? Is it cost-effective compared to other organizations? Does your reward structure help to upgrade the performance of your organization? (The list goes on; to be continued when I take this up again.)

Also, the two stressed, take chances. “If you’re going to err,” said Schuster, “err in favor of best performers.”

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