Worst Benefit Idea of 2008 - The Gas Price Guarantee....

Gas prices are high.  Jeff Spicoli high.

With that in mind, companies are doing what they should - thinking about the burden carried by employees  who have long commutes.  For many, that means thinking about what, if anything, can be done to help employees out with the cost of fuel for the commute.

But there's a right way, and a wrong way.

First the right ways -

1.  Encourage car pooling.

2.  Find opportunities for telecommuting where possible.

3.  If you're up for spending some money, perhaps encourage car pooling or public transit with some mild incentives. 

Now for the wrong way:

1.  Provide a guarantee on the price of gas, creating a program that states the company will reimburse employees for gas prices that exceed $2.85 per gallon for travel on their normal commute.

You're kidding me, right?  While it's great for the employees, the program effectively discourages any type of car pooling or alternative travel plans and creates a burden for the company, when gas prices keep going up, and the company looks back and says the following - "Whoops - we thought this thing was going to top off at $3/gallon, now that it's at $5, the program's going away.  Sorry.."

Not to mention, the lovely employee relations issues that go with providing a greater benefit to employees with longer commutes, or those that choose to drive an Accord instead of an Excursion...

Tribune Company Rescinds $100/month Penalty For Smokers, Keeps Spousal Carve Out...

I've talked a lot in the past about the future of wellness programs, medical costs and the potential for incentives/penalties related to living a healthy lifestyle.   While this area is rife with complexities, the cost trend of medical care seems to make it inevitable that companies will eventually reward those leading healthy lifestyles.

With that said, companies naturally migrate the lowest hanging fruit when approaching any issue.  In the area of wellness incentives/penalties, the low hanging fruit is smoking.  While family history and genetics are at play in areas like blood pressure and cholesterol, smoking is seen as a voluntary choice.  As a result, many companies are charging higher medical premiums for smokers, or refusing to employ them.

There hasn't been a highly visible company that had started penalties to smokers - until now.  LA Observed and John Hollon both recently highlighted that the Tribune Company, which started charging smokers an extra $100 per month in medical premiums on 1/1/08, reversed course in April and is refunding the charges to smokers.  Here's the Tribune memo to employees as reported from LA Observed (with a hat tip to John Hollon):

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Tribune Communications
Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2008 1:32 PM
Subject: Message from Gerry Spector/Tobacco Use Fee Rescinded

Since the closing of the going-private transaction last December, we’ve been reviewing policies and practices across the company, including Tribune’s healthcare benefits. While well-intentioned, we think the tobacco-use fee implemented by the previous management team is inconsistent with the new culture we’re developing---we’d rather you use your own judgment when it comes to tobacco use, not impose ours upon you.

This policy was a part of open enrollment last fall and took effect January 1, 2008. I’m pleased to tell you that we’re eliminating this fee effective April 28th.

If you successfully participated in the smoking cessation program, have quit and been reimbursed for all fees, then congratulations are in order. Quitting is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do.

If you’re still being charged the fee, it will stop and Tribune will reimburse you 100 percent for the fees you have paid. This reimbursement will occur in late May.

Tribune will continue to offer the smoking cessation program free of charge to all employees and their covered dependents age 18 and older.

The spousal medical fee, implemented at the same time, will remain in place. We believe that if an employee’s spouse has access to coverage through his/her employer, that employer has the primary responsibility to bear the cost of coverage. Our obligation is to take care of our own employees, first and foremost.

If you have questions about the tobacco use fee, contact the Tribune Benefits Service Center at XXX/XXX-XXXX (sic - phone number changed for publication)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interesting move.  Not sure it will be the norm with smoking...

DNA Discrimination Bill set to go into Law.... Good News and Bad News...

People learning, through genetic testing, that they might be susceptible to devastating diseases wouldn't also have to worry about losing their jobs or their health insurance, under anti-discrimination legislation the Senate passed Thursday.

The 95-0 Senate vote sends the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act back to the House, which could approve it early next week. President Bush supports the legislation.  The measure bars insurers from denying health coverage or charging higher premiums based on a person's genetic information. Also, it bars employers from using genetic information to make hiring, firing, and other job-related decisions. The measure applies only to people who have a genetic makeup that carries the risk of a disease. It does not cover people who already have the disease.

As with everything, there's good news and bad news

First, the good news.  The law provides protection, which should encourage more people to be tested for a variety of things earlier, which allows people to change behaviors and seek treatment earlier.  That's a good thing, as the prognosis for almost every condition improves if people have the information they need to make better choices.

Now the bad news.  The legislation offers no protection for those who already have a disease.  Seems a little unfair if you're already battling something.  Additionally, I think this will limit the potential effectiveness of wellness initiatives down the road.

Not following me on why this may hamper wellness initiatives?  When trying to motivate people to live healthier lifestyles, companies usually focus on the following measurements as a basis for how healthy a person is:

1.  Blood Pressure
2.  Body Mass Index (BMI)
3.  Blood Sugar/Glucose
4.  Cholesterol
5.  Resting Heart Rate

With that in mind, how many of these factors do you think might ultimately prove to have genetic predisposition based on your family history?  4 out of 5?

These are the measurements that any wellness incentive program would hold employees accountable by.  Whether you use the carrot (rebates on employee contributions for good scores) or the stick (charging employees with poor scores and no efforts to improve), the DNA bill will likely ultimately limit your ability to economically motivate your employees to live healthier lifestyles.

If I have high blood pressure and there's a test that shows I am genetically predisposed to that condition, you won't be able to use the carrot or the stick.  It would likely be discriminatory under the law.

Even if the employee is eating 4 Grand Slams at Denny's a day.   File it under the Law of Unintended Consequences...

HR Jobs From Hell - The LOA Administrator

By now, readers of the Capitalist know that I am a HR Generalist, meaning I do it all - recruit, employee relations, benefits, performance management, etc.   I'm also a firm believer that Generalist roles span the globe of HR titles - Generalists can be found at the Rep/individual contributor, manager, director and VP levels.

One of the things that is cool about being a HR Generalist is the variety - if you're sick of doing one thing, you just need to wait about 20 minutes, because you'll get a call shifting your priorities to another area as a routine course of business.

Some people call it chaos, I call it variety...

So, for me, a HR job from hell is one that includes no variety, and resides in an area of the HR practice where little joy is found.  Here's my first HR Job from Hell - the corporate Leave of Absence Administrator.

First up, let me say that me tagging the LOA Administrator as a job from hell has nothing to do with the people in the job, but instead has everything to do with what these folks have to put up with on a daily basis.  As luck would have it, HR Wench is currently in the job market, and recently phone screened for an LOA Administrator role:

"I had a phone screen yesterday that went ok. It was for the Leave of Absence Specialist. Get this: the organization has 15,000 employees. Guess how many NEW leave of absence cases were processed last year? 4,400. That is almost a 1/3 of their workforce, yo! Geez. Anyhow the in person interviews aren't until a few weeks from now due to vacations. So, we'll see".

UGH.  That pretty much sums up why I would consider the LOA Administer role as a HR role from Dante's 9th circle.  Here's what you have to deal with in that role:

-Primary focus is interacting with folks going through very rough times.  For the right person, this would be a plus, as they could use their empathy to make a difference.  But a steady diet of this over years surely leads to burnout.

-Being the tough gal/guy regarding compliance.  Folks are going through rough times, and you're the one that has to hassle them about the FMLA certification forms even though that's the last thing on their mind.

-Deciding when to play hardball on fraud.  You have 4,000 applications for LOA, you're going to have some folks gaming the system.  You have to decide when to play hardball and go after it.  You see the 5-10% that game the system - how can you not become jaded after a year or two of that?

Let me be clear - if you are in the LOA Administrator role in your company - thank you.   You are taking multiple hits daily for the HR function as a whole, and you're likely doing it very well.  If you get burned out, I hope your company has a rotational program in place, because you have skills that are a valuable resource.

That being said - HR Wench - Don't do it!!

Will You Eventually Have a Heath Care Score Similar to Your Credit Score?....

Imagine a Health Care system that functioned like the consumer credit industry.  Scott Kornhauser has.  The CEO of Healthation thinks the system will ultimately deliver a personal health care score (like a credit FICO score) that drives what consumers pay for healthcare, complete with the ability to improve rtheir rating over time with the right behaviors/performance. 

That tidbit was part of the vision Kornhauser delivered in "Processing the New Business of Health Care in a Retail Marketplace" at the World Heath Care Congress.  Kornhauser's bigger vision is that the retail transformation of the U.S. health care delivery system is going to demand real time claims adjudication.  To make real time claims adjudication a reality, Kornhauser sees a combination of indexes and other data points coming together to make the real time claims process work.

What the heck does that mean to a HR Pro?

In Kornhauser's vision, consumers will have the ability to opt in or out of sharing their data with various types of providers.  However, to get the best health care credit score possible, they would have to share a great deal of data and then have their overall health judged - via a numerical score that looks a lot like the FICO score that drives your personal access to credit.

Ready to tell Danny in Accounts Payable he has a health care credit score of 500 and will have to pay double what others do for healthcare?

Great!

Have a bad health care FICO score like Danny?  In Kornhauser's world, you'd probably pay more for medical premiums.  But like the credit FICO score, you could improve your health care credit score by demonstrating desired behaviors - like paying your bills on time (easy for Danny, right?) or losing weight to get your BMI score within an acceptable range (harder for Danny...).

This Just In - Eye Exams Stop Amputations (Seriously!)

If I asked you to list 5 things you could do in your benefit programs to identify disease and reduce avoidable costs, I'm guessing most of you would stay on the medical insurance front.

Would anyone think of Vision Care?  Not me.

Good thing I took in a session at the World Health Care Congress led by Rob Lynch, President and CEO of  VSP (Vision Service Plan).  As most of you know, VSP has the largest network of providers under contract in the vision field.  Their network and systems are so strong that even if you choose to contract with another provider (like Guardian, who's been in a dental and vision care market share push as of late), odds are those other providers are simply "reselling" the VSP network.

VSP is rapidly becoming the "Kleenex" of Vision Care.

But back to how VSP is linked with identifying disease and reducing cost.   In a strange benefit twist, only 14 percent of Americans with funded health insurance will get a physical in a given year.  But, as it turns out, almost 61% of those covered by a funded VSP plan will get an eye exam.  Nice stat.

Eye exams are key to catching one key disease early - diabetes.  Lynch quoted the cost savings associated with early detection of diabetes at $4,300 per year, per diabetic.  As horrific as it sounds, there are hundreds of serious procedures daily in the US related to diabetes, including unthinkable items like amputations...

If that's not a call for multiple insurance providers sharing information with each other toward the common good, I don't know what is. 

Obesity Surgery and Notre Dame Football - While Insurers Don't Automatically Approve...

Every time I think of obesity surgery, I think of the risks - see this article about Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weiss, who almost died on the table...

I took in a session at the World Health Care Congress led by James Roosevelt, the CEO of the Tufts Health Plan.  While the session focused on Tools for Consumer Engagement, Roosevelt focused on the Tufts strategy for Obesity/Bariatric Surgery.

Here's the definition of Obesity/Bariatric Surgery from Wikipedia:

"Although diet, exercise, behavior therapy and anti-obesity drugs are first-line treatment, these forms of medical therapy for severe obesity have limited short-term success and almost nonexistent long-term success.  Therefore, obesity surgery (or bariatric surgery for the professors reading this) has been a popular treatment in the war against obesity. Weight loss surgery generally results in greater weight loss than conventional treatment, and leads to improvements in quality of life and obesity related diseases such as hypertension and diabetes."

Several readers took exception to that definition, and I have to agree.  To say diet and exercise have non-existent long term success is clueless to say and the piece sound like it was written by a lobbying firm.

Roosevelt's rundown of the Tufts approach to Bariatric surgery was interesting in several ways.  First, Tufts gates access to the Bariatric program through BMI limits - including limits on the high side.  Have a BMI that goes over the acceptable threshold, and you can't get in the program due to the relative health of your body.  With the related stress that morbid obesity can cause, it's thought that those with super high BMI's were at the highest risk of not making it through the procedures.

Additionally, Tufts requires anyone entering the program to do a 6-month behavior modification program, where they get education and have to set and achieve two behavioral goals, such as to stop drinking soda.  So much for the Wikipedia definition from the Bariatric lobby... 

It's interesting stuff, as were the stats Roosevelt quoted regarding obesity surgery.  229 covered individuals have been accepted into the obesity surgery program, and at this point, 119 have graduated.

The education regarding alternatives to obesity surgery during the program must be working, as 17% of the graduates opt to forego or defer the obesity surgery they originally sought.

Estimated lifetime savings to the plan according to Roosevelt - 4 Million, or over 17K for each covered individual who's opted into the plan.

Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em - German Company Fires Non-Smokers....

Has there ever been a harder transformation in societal expectations than the one that has occurred in the last 30 years regarding smoking?  I was raised in a family of smokers, and in the 70's and 80's, as a kid, it really never occurred to me that the whole habit was dangerous.  In a weird twist, it also never occurred to me that I should smoke. 

I hear I beat the odds...

Then, society got cracking and made all who smoke a little uncomfortable.  Don't smoke here, here or here, and just so you got the message, here's a fishbowl to smoke in at the airport with your friends.

Of course, the whole thing has been good for our health care plans.  Fewer people smoking is good for what ails your PPO.  I'm channeling John Lennon when I say "imagine" if the U.S. made the same shift with Crisco.  Now that would really help the PPO trendline.

Of course, smoking is now seemingly uncool in the U.S.  Other countries however, like Germany, would like to thank you for smoking:

"The owner of a small company in Germany fired three workers because they were not smokers. It seems that their boss (evidently a smoker himself) felt that they were “disturbing the peace” in the workplace by being vocal about their smoking colleagues.

“I can’t be bothered with trouble-makers,” said the boss. “We’re on the phone all the time and it’s just easier to work while smoking. Everyone picks on smokers these days. It’s time for revenge. I’m only going to hire smokers from now on.”

Of course, being anti-smoking doesn't fall in a protected class.   Here's my ridiculous list of other things that are easier while smoking:

1.  Filling out a health history at your local doctor's office.
2.  Helping your son bat during a father/son baseball game.
3.  Engaging a fire extinguisher.
4.  Typing a Blackberry message while driving, and smoking...

Hat Tip to Andrew Scott-Holman, keeper of the best blog in Kiwi-land....

HR Capitalist Goes to D.C. - World Health Care Congress...

As a part of my ongoing role to figure out the whole health care cost thing for our company, I'll be taking a trip to the 5th Annual World Health Care Congress ,in Washington, D.C. 

While there, I'm serving as a featured blogger for the proceedings, a part of the cast that includes:

-Lola Butcher
-George Van Antwerp - PatientCentric Health Care BLog
-Jennifer McCabe Gorman - Health Management RX
-Joe Paduda - Managed Care Matters
-Vijay Goel - HealthShopper

Wish me luck!  I'll post my top couple of observations daily here, and you can check out all the think-tank observations at the live blog for the conference here...

Superbad Graph - "Total Odds of Dying, Any Cause: 1 in 1"...

Sometimes you run across a graphic that says it all - and this one (pictured below) from the WSJ journal does just that. 

We're all going to that "big records retention facility" in the sky at some point.

Want to make sure you have the longest period possible before your "records" go to deep storage?  Then take Bob Coffield's advice on the Health Care Law Blog and do the following:

"the graphic highlights advice from my dad, a retired physician in West Virginia, who always warns us of such risks. He says, "eat better, eat less, take small bites, drive defensively with two hands on the wheel, don't climb ladders and be careful with guns." Looking at the graph if we listened to this advice we would take care of most of the larger circles"

Good advice.  But what about death from hot weather? (odds of croaking from that - 1 in 13,000) 

I gotta get out of the South.  I don't see cold weather on the chart....

   

New Healthcare Issue - The Stressed Blogger...

We bloggers are a passionate bunch.  Most of us do it for professional development, to stay on top of our trade, etc.   A good cause and, once you get started, the writing cycle times go down and it's managable.

A note to my blogging friends on the blogroll to the right and at Fistful of Talent.  Don't go pro.

Why not?  Go pro, and the love for the game subsides.  You start eating too many twinkies, drinking too many cokes, maybe even taking No-Doz to stay alert during prime blogging hours. 

Don't believe me?  Check out the following story from the NYT:

"They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece — not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.

A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.

Of course, the bloggers can work elsewhere, and they profess a love of the nonstop action and perhaps the chance to create a global media outlet without a major up-front investment. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly.

Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet."

Stay in school kids!  Don't go pro...

Wal-Mart Asks Former Employee for $471M for Past Medical Claims...

One thing that most HR people aren't aware of is that medical plans can ask for documentation from any third party action (that's a lawsuit for all my plain English friends), related to settlements that might be used to pay medical expenses.

Why?  Let's say you are involved in a crash with a drunk driver, and as part of the insurance settlement, the drunk driver's insurance provides a settlement that includes $$ for your medical care. From the insurers point of view, if there are other funds available to pay your claims, it's in their best interest to force you to utilize those funds.

I see requests for documentation flowing through our plans at least once a month.  That type of process is alive and well in plans that are self insured, as well as fully insured. 

Of course, it's best to ask for clarification before the claim is paid.  If you try and go back after the claim is paid, it's like asking someone to dig into their own wallet to pay the claim, regardless of the terms of the settlement.  The Blue Cross networks I've worked with are pretty sensitive to the negative press that can go along with this.

Then there's Wal-Mart - for every step it takes forward to repair its image, it seems like it takes two steps back.  Like this one, where the big retailer is seeking 470K from a brain-damaged ex-employee's trust fund.  CNN.com has the details:

"Debbie Shank suffered severe brain damage after a traffic accident nearly eight years ago that robbed her of much of her short-term memory and left her in a wheelchair and living in a nursing home.

It was the beginning of a series of battles -- both personal and legal -- that loomed for Shank and her family. One of their biggest was with Wal-Mart's health plan.

Eight years ago, Shank was stocking shelves for the retail giant and signed up for Wal-Mart's health and benefits plan.

Two years after the accident, Shank and her husband, Jim, were awarded about $1 million in a lawsuit against the trucking company involved in the crash. After legal fees were paid, $417,000 was placed in a trust to pay for Debbie Shank's long-term care.

Wal-Mart had paid out about $470,000 for Shank's medical expenses and later sued for the same amount. However, the court ruled it can only recoup what is left in the family's trust.

The Shanks didn't notice in the fine print of Wal-Mart's health plan policy that the company has the right to recoup medical expenses if an employee collects damages in a lawsuit."

Good call on Wal-Mart's part?  I report, you decide.  Here's one stat I'll provide.  Wal-Mart earned about 348 billion in revenue in 2007.  So what's 470K come to as a percentage of revenue?  Maybe some of my economics friends can run the numbers in the comments. 

Now say you are running a HR shop at a company with 100M in revenue.   What would a proportional claim be to your plan? 

I'd say most of us would walk away from that because of the internal PR damage alone.... Especially if we had to go back to the employee after the fact, once the claim had already been paid...

AC/DC as HR Philosophers - When It Comes to Salary Ranges, Money Talks, BS Walks...

Sometimes the best wisdom is found in AC/DC songs.  For example - If you rock, I'm going to salute you.  That's just the way it is..

Of course, money talks and BS walks.  Especially when it comes to compensation philosophies..

Ann Bares has a nice rundown up focused on the pros and cons of compensation broadbanding.  For those of you who haven't heard of the term before, broadbanding is defined by World at Work as "a pay structure that consolidates a large number of pay grades and salary ranges into much fewer broad bands with relatively wide salary ranges, typically with 100% or more difference between minimum and maximum."

I know - your eyes are glazed over already, right?  Who cares?  Where's the AC/DC clip?

Here's why I wanted to post a reaction.  I've been in one organization where Broadbanding was attempted.  Like cavier and classical music, broadbanding sounds very progressive and high-end, until you try and use it as a HR professional.  Then it all falls apart and you end up "fixing the system" to get the very tools you disposed of.  From Ann's rundown:

"By collapsing a pay structure into fewer, wider salary bands, at least in the "pure" sense of broadbanding, an organization effectively gives up the control point (midpoint) of a traditional salary range.  That is because the broad band does not represent appropriate pay for a job, but rather for an entire class of work (such as "managerial" or "advanced professional").  This is a critical shift to bear in mind because the result is a pay system that is no longer job-based, but rather person-based.  No longer do we set and manage pay opportunity by the level and attributes of a job, but rather by the skill, competency and performance of an individual - within a broader "range" established to represent the value of a broader class of work."

That sounds sweet - until you start to attempt to make value calls on candidates or value individual jobs in an organization.  As Ann points out, you need midpoints and specific ranges for both activities.  If you have an external candidate who is pushing the envelope regarding salary needs, the tradtional range and midpoint (as long as they are based on accurate and current data) give you a feel for what's real, and what's overvalued. 

The same holds true when it comes to valuing jobs in an organization.  As an HR Pro, or a manager running a division, you have to know what the market bears for the specific positions in your organization.  Otherwise you are going to look up in 3 years and have an absolute mess on your hands, with limited mobility for all, because entry points to an organization weren't based on market data.  As a result, you hired a VP of Marketing as a Marketing Rep.  Then the new boss arrived, only to find a subordinate two levels down was making more than her boss, and was uncomfortably close to the VP's.

So give me the standard "rock and roll" over the classical music that is broadbanding.  After all, Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution.

How to Create Vacation Policies That Result in Jaded Employees...

John Hollon has a post up over at Workforce regarding the recent decision of Bob Nardelli to tell all Chrysler workers they would “be required to use two weeks of their vacation time in July, in a company-wide shutdown intended to improve the automaker’s efficiency and boost productivity".

That got me thinking.  Next vacation, I'm going to find a wood-paneled station wagon to rent, like the one pictured to the right...

It also got me thinking about time off.  Vacations, Personal Day, PTO banks - all good things for employees, right?  The answer is a strong "yes", unless companies over-define the way time-off can be used.

With that in mind, here's my top ways that companies can turn a positive (time-off with pay!) into a neutral to negative event:

--Use it OR Lose it with no cultural protection - Some companies like to have a policy mandating employees to use all of their vacation or PTO each year.  That's cool, but if the culture mandates face time or workloads dictate employees can't use their time off, it turns into a negative.

--Take your two weeks together - One of my favorites.  We want you to have some time off, but you have to take it all at one time.  You can't split it up or we'll crumble from the complexities...

--Take it when it's convenient for us - See the Nardelli example listed above...

--Over-defining when sick time can be used - As lame as it sounds, some companies still don't allow employees to use sick time for the care of children or other loved ones.  You're kidding me, right?

Notice that I didn't list scheduling your vacation vs. the needs of the business.  Lots of employees in structured environments get upset about having to schedule their vacation vs. how many other people are scheduled to be off, but that's business (and being a part of a team). 

I'm lucky to be working for a company believes that time off is important.  As a result, our leadership grants a lot of it, and also takes a real world approach to allow the banking of time within reason, thus managing the inherent conflicts between being busy and the use it or lose it camp.

Kermit the Frog Says - Forget the Prius and Start Kicking People Out of the Office...

Readers of my riff last week entitled "Are you working remotely or remotely working?" correctly identified the primary issue with managing teleworkers - if they are out of sight, they can't be out of mind.  Manage performance of the remote assets, and you shouldn't care where they are at any hour of the day.  Even if they are enjoying a long lunch in flip flops at Outback.

Of course, that's the main rub with telecommuting.  Managers should manage performance and not worry about the other stuff - but they're human.  They see someone out in public with shorts on, and the alarm bells go off.  Thus, my take that you play the game and not ruin telecommuting for everyone else.

Of course, the burden isn't simply on the employee.  Managers and companies will come under increasing pressure to get comfortable with telecommuting.

Not because they'll need it to attract talent, although that might end up being part of the deal.

Because like a great management guru once said, it's not easy being green.

If you buy into the fact that the US needs to become more independent and self-sufficient from an energy standpoint, then telecommuting is one of the silver bullets.  Here are the stats on the potential of you doing email in your bathrobe from a new blog called The Telework Journal:

"Telework ExchangeSM, a public-private partnership focused on telework in government, today announced the results of the “Telework Eligibility Profile: Feds Fit the Bill” study.

The study reveals that Feds are telework friendly, based on responses to the Telework Exchange Online Telework Eligibility Gizmo, a quiz-based calculator that helps employees determine telework eligibility. An overwhelming majority – 96 percent – of respondents should be teleworking, yet only 20 percent currently do.

Extrapolating from the Online Telework Eligibility Gizmo participants to the total Federal workforce, the study reveals that if all Federal employees who are eligible to telework full time were to do so, Feds could realize $13.9 billion savings in commuting costs annually and eliminate 21.5 billion pounds of pollutants out of the environment each year."

Now I haven't clicked through to see the study, so if you have a jones for detail, be my guest.  Regardless of the methodology of this study, it's hard to discount the fact that telecommuting holds some strong potential to reduce the corporate carbon footprint.  Think reduced gas usage and smaller real estate needs. 

Don't call me Al Gore - just call me Kermit.  It's not easy being green....

Update - The Likelihood of You Being Forced to Provide Sick Time (in addition to PTO) in 2009 Just Increased...

Back in December, I riffed about the proposed Healthy Families Act (HFA), which would require employers with more than 15 employees to offer full-time employees seven days of paid sick leave.  The HFA would also mandate the sick time could be used for the employee's illness or to care for a child/parent/spouse/individual related by blood/domestic partner.   Here's some commentary on the merits of the bill....

UPDATE - The District of Columbia just passed something called the Accrued Safe and Sick Leave Act.  That can't be a good precursor to what might happen with the HFA.  Details from the Washington Post:

"The D.C. Council voted unanimously yesterday to make Washington the second city in the country to require employers to grant their workers paid sick leave, but not before council members added several amendments that business leaders applauded and labor leaders said significantly weakened the legislation.

Under the Accrued Sick and Safe Leave Act, full-time employees at businesses with 100 or more workers will get seven days of paid leave, and employees at businesses with 24 or fewer workers will get three days.

Advocates say the legislation could affect 200,000 workers who don't have paid sick leave, but an amendment will require new workers to wait for the benefit. That measure will require an employee to be on the job for 12 months before becoming eligible for sick leave."

As far as the HFA, it's a broad bill that is likely to get a lot of traction in 2008/2009, if Congress continues to be controlled by the Democrats and the White House goes "blue state" as well. 

Here's the catch and why more government isn't always the best solution - the HFA as currently written, would also prohibit employers from eliminating existing leave coverage in order to comply with the Act.  That can get complicated.  Early readings suggest that if you are an employer trying to do the right thing, by offering a Paid Time Off (PTO) plan, you couldn't adjust the total number of PTO days, to reflect the legal requirement, for a stand-alone sick-time policy.   You would have to simply add the seven to what you currently offer to be in compliance.  For those of us offering a great benefit, that's crazy talk...

Here's hoping someone gets to the bill's sponsors and explains that if an employer is already offering 3 weeks of PTO to new employees, they're taking care of people.   Otherwise, expect companies to start breaking out their PTO policies into vacation/sick designations, if it looks like the bill will pass. 

If This Were a Division, You'd Shut It Down Tomorrow - The Cost of Health Care to Double By 2017...

Hey dude... The light at the end of the tunnel?  It's a freaking train, and it's coming to run you over....

Seriously, can there be a more desperate situation than the state of US Healthcare?  The population is aging, the mostly good capitalist society creates drug companies that create billion dollar markets out of vapor, and you are in the middle of the fray, trying to be the Daddy Warbucks of healthcare by providing medical and Rx to your workforce.  That's what you're supposed to do as an employer, right?

Sure, that's been part of the employer role.  But, it's getting ready to be very painful.  From the Associated Press:

"By 2017, total health care spending will double to more than $4 trillion a year, accounting for one of every $5 the nation spends, the federal government projects.

The 6.7 percent annual increase in spending — nearly three times the rate of inflation_ will be largely driven by higher prices and an increased demand for care, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Monday. Other factors in the mix include a growing and aging population. The first wave of baby boomers become eligible for Medicare beginning in 2011."

That means total health-care spending in the year 2017 will average out to $13,101 per person.  By contrast, that spending in 2006 worked out to an average of $7,026 per person. 

WOW... 6.7% actually sounded OK to me, until I realized that compounding, which is good for my 401k, really hurts when it impacts the expense side of the P&L.

If it were a division, you'd shut it down tomorrow.  But it's not...

The Problem with HR Pitching Voluntary Benefits.....

Did you hear?  Critics are lashing out at the state of California and Arnold for aggressively pitching Long-Term Care to its residents.

It seems as if many expect state governments to avoid being a marketing channel, even if the product is in the state's own interest.

Some would say the same burden should apply to employers.

Warning - HR Capitalist opinion ahead which many HR professionals will not agree with....

Topic - "Voluntary Benefits", defined as benefits in which the employee pays all of the cost, provide employees with options for benefits and insurance coverage they might not otherwise be able to afford.  The affordability of such benefits is usually enhanced by the face that employees can often pay for voluntary benefits with pre-tax dollars.

Sounds noble, right?  Here's are a few problems that are often overlooked:

-Voluntary benefits usually include benefit classes like supplemental life insurance, long-term care and auto/property insurance that can have wildly variable cost structures based on the provider and the demographics that are insured.

-HR shops don't do RFPs that closely canvas each class of voluntary benefits.  They usually are hit by a comprehensive provider like an ADP, which provides a package of voluntary benefits with some high margin products built in.  If an HR shop doesn't do a comprehensive provider of the benefits, then they are usually assaulted by the bank, or insurance agent with the most aggressive marketing strategy.  In that scenario, HR people are often bad at saying no.

-Everyone, including the employee and the voluntary benefits provider, loves the concept of voluntary benefit costs being automatically deducted from their paycheck.   Employees love it for the convenience and the fact they don't have to track it.  The providers love it because they don't have to collect money.  Once the automatic deduction is in, it's hard to get out.

Put all that together, and it's complicated.  Here's the biggest issue I have, and one of the reasons I haven't opened my shop up to voluntary benefits since I arrived at my current company - I feel responsible for the solicitation.  If I'm going to open up our employee base to a voluntary benefit, for which the employee is going to pay 100% of the cost, I feel like I am VOUCHING for its quality and value across the marketplace.

And there's no doubt that employees expect you to be looking out for their best interests.  So, they take the voluntary coverage, if available, often without shopping. 

If I am going to allow an auto insurance product to be marketed to my employees through our normal channels, I feel like I need to say the quality/price combination is the best in the marketplace.   And that, my friends, is hard to do.

And that's why I traditionally have said no to the concept of voluntary benefits. 

Does Your Company Sponsor Employee Clubs? Not Even a Wine Club?

Kristina Shevory has a cool article up at the New York Times about employee clubs.  From her article at the NYT:

"Fat paychecks, pensions and health insurance are not enough to recruit and keep employees these days. Companies are again finding that adding a bit of social context to work is crucial to keeping employees happy and productive. That is where employee clubs come in. Workplace specialists say clubs are a way to build camaraderie and help people get to know fellow employees away from work. Companies benefit, too. Clubs help create loyal employees, reduce turnover and improve morale while costing very little."

Interesting stuff.  I should know because she called me last year (found me from the HR Capitalist) and we talked about the challenges for employers who aren't Boeing or Google.  It was good conversation, and we talked about things that cash-challenged companies can do.

We talked for about 30 minutes.  What she quoted me on serves as a cautionary tale.  Here's my quote from the story.  Get ready to channel the Grinch:

"Still, perks can be impermanent. During the technology boom in the 1990s, companies piled on the benefits to attract talent and then promptly got rid of them when the economy soured. Many companies, whether they are battling bankruptcy or are flush with cash, have rolled back benefits, eliminated pensions and increased health care premiums to reduce expenses. Any nonessential perk, like an employee club, is also fair game.

“If they ever existed, the first thing that goes is the frilly, frilly stuff,” said Kris Dunn, vice president for human resources at SourceMedical, a Birmingham, Ala., software company, and author of the blog The HR Capitalist."

Bah Humbug... So my quote is true, but Mercer and the consultants get the fun quotes.  I get the fiscal hawk quote.... The HR person's trying to take all the fun out of the workplace...

Check out the article, it's a good read.  Finding out that Boeing funds over 100 employee clubs at seven locations nationwide is kind of like finding out that a Massage Therapist from Google is now a millionaire from her stock options.

It's hard to relate to from the trenches.... Boeing has a VP of Wine....

42% of Tampa Bus Drivers Have Signed Up for Intermittent Leave..(!)

WOW.  It's been a few years since I supported a big consumer call center as part of my practice, so I had really forgotten about the pain that Intermittent Leave under FMLA can cause employers. 

The desire for maximum flexibility and at times, the avoidance of accountability, can cause Intermittent Leave to spread like a virus through an operating unit of a company.

For me, I thought bad news in this area would be about 3-4% of all employees in a division or company being approved for Intermittent Leave (10-12 employees in a call center of 300 would cause a big impact to scheduling, etc.).

But 42% of all employees?  You're kidding me, right?  Apparently not - from the Tampa Tribune:

"...Case in point is HARTline, the county's(Tampa metro) public transit service. Forty-two percent of the bus drivers have signed up for a benefit the federal law calls "unscheduled intermittent leave." Many of them are using the law to extend weekends and go home "sick" to avoid unwanted assignments.

The law designed to cost nothing is costing HARTline and other employers many millions of dollars. The family leave act was intended to cost little or nothing while providing 12 weeks of job security to help workers through challenges (sic) times - such as bringing home a new baby, recovering from illness, or helping an incapacitated relative.

Some workers, including many HARTline drivers, have discovered that minor ailments also qualify, such as back pain and headaches. A one-time doctor's certification can give a worker a perpetual excuse for going home early, sleeping late, or not showing up at all.

Lawmakers were wrong in thinking that two features would minimize employee abuse and employer expense: One, the worker on leave under the act gets no pay and thus has no incentive to malinger, and two, the law applies only to organizations with 50 or more workers, which seems to be ample manpower to make up lost productivity."

But employers like the bus agency can't make up in the afternoon for a bus that doesn't run in the morning. In many businesses, schedules must be kept.

To keep its buses on time, HARTline is spending $2 million a year on overtime, an agency spokesman says, and 39 percent of that cost is attributed to FMLA absences."

42% of all employees.  Maybe it would be easier for that HR Team to certify the people who don't need intermittent leave....

Ralph Kramden would never approve...

Confused About Who's Engaged? Try This Handy Engagement Test to Sort It All Out...

My posts last week regarding the concept of engagement and subsequent research on the topic clarified a couple of things to me. 

-First, trying to get everyone to agree on a definition of engagment is harder than trying to get Britney Spears to settle down and work it all out with K-Fed.   

-Second, my take on the best way to have an engaged workforce is to a) ensure you hire talent that is already predisposed to be engaged, and b) figure out the best way to create an environment where "engagement fence straddlers" (those who might be engaged if placed in the right type of environment) elect to become engaged...

Of course, being the scientific, progressive manager you are, you want a way to baseline the current engagement level of your team before you start tinkering with the environment.   WOW - you are an achiever, and if I might add, an engaged one at that...

At the risk of being savagely attacked by the engagement community, here's my back of the napkin, "let's wing it" test to determine the engagment level of your current team:

1.  Tell your team that if they can find a way to get their current workload complete in less time, you would like to support the use of 4 hours per week at work to pursue any work-related, professional development project that interests them.  The only rules are that the project has to be work-related and potentially have a payoff to the business - but if the process leads to them developing new skills that adds value to them as professionals, so be it.

2.  Answer your team's questions about what is appropriate related to the project.  You might also get questions about how you will measure whether their current workload is being maintained.  Answer all questions to the best of your ability, without telling them how to do it.

3.  Once you've answered all the questions, don't do anything for 3 weeks.

4.  At the 3 week mark, check back in with everyone on your team in brief 1-on-1 sessions.  Have they started the project time?  What are they working on?

Here's how to score your findings:

-Associates who have taken advantage of your offer and are aggresively moving forward with a project - ENGAGED

-Associates who have developed some thoughts about what they might do, but have not taken action yet - NOT ENGAGED, BUT POSSIBLY COULD BECOME ENGAGED WITH THE RIGHT ENVIRONMENTAL TWEAKS FROM YOU

-Associates who have done nothing, or have excuses for why they didn't take advantage of the offer - NOT ENGAGED AND NOT PROBABLE TO BECOME ENGAGED, regardless of your efforts.

Remember, this is only a test, and an informal one at that.  You might actually have to start being engaged yourself to create the environment where your direct reports are engaged.  One of the things I learned from the engagement community is that according to Gallup, on average, 29% of employees are engaged and 71% are either unengaged (neutral) or disengaged (opposed).

PS - my take on this as a nice informal test of engagement is based on the engagement traits listed in this post...

How many members of your team would you expect to take the offer and run with it? 

Just as important - Would you? 

HR Press Releases Gone Bad - Wal-Mart Takes Credit for Universal Heathcare and the Internet...

I'm not a Wal-Mart basher.  I shop there, and I'm not bothered by the big box store.   

But I'm glad I don't have to recruit for associates at the store level, because that would stink.  Not because they don't have good candidates coming through, but they have NO TOOLS to close them.  Comp is middling at best, customers are irritable about 90% of the time, and when you walk out the doors after your shift, you have to do that crosswalk dance where you try not to get run over as the Camry with the tunes turned up decides whether to gun it or be a nice guy 5 feet from the door...

But I digress...

The biggest issues impacting Wal-Mart's ability to recruit are Comp and Benefits.  Since I don't have data on the Comp side, let's look at Benefits.  Ever since that nasty memo came out, Wal-Mart's been on a PR mission to say things are improving.  That's a good thing.  But how good are things really?

Here's some data from a recent press release from Wal-Mart touting the fact that 92.7% of their associates have health care coverage:

"Associates surveyed cited the following sources for their health care coverage:

• 50.2 percent – Wal-Mart plan;
• 22.3 percent – Spouse;
• 7.3 percent – Uninsured;
• 4.3 percent – Medicare;
• 4.2 percent – Parents, school or college;
• 3.2 percent – Other/previous employer;
• 2.4 percent – Individual policy;
• 2.3 percent – VA or military;
• 1.9 percent – Medicaid;
• 1.2 percent – State program other than Medicaid; and
• 0.7 percent – Another source than those listed above.

Total: 100 percent"

So they have health care coverage.  But about half don't get it from Wal-Mart.  Oh, NOW I get it...

Hat tip to John Hollon on this one.  I had the press release in my inbox, then he had something up two hours later.  That's fast coverage I can't match.  But I agree with his analysis - the title to the press release, which touts 92.7 coverage, is opportunistic at best. 

That kind of stuff gives spin a bad name.  I think Wal-Mart's better than this. 

Pharma Rep Playbook - 4 Minutes with Doctors = 52% Jump in Scripts Written...

I want all of our employees to have the medical care they need.  Let's start there before anyone brands me as a fiscal hawk looking at numbers rather than employee well-being...

If there's one area of Medical care that drives me crazy, it's got to be big Pharma vs. doctors, patients, and yes, your local company medical plan. 

Big Pharma gets paid off of blockbuster drugs that they hold exclusive rights to.  That part of the system I get, since there are development costs tied to the R&D effort.  It's the repackaging of brand name drugs, once generics are available, that drives me crazy.  Hey, why take that generic every day?  We've just revamped the brand name equivalent with enough potency to last 5 days.   Uh, yeah... It'll cost your medical plan $1,000 more per year, but who cares?  Your employee contribution is the same regardless.

In case you needed more examples of the power of the Pharmaceutical Rep over most doctors, consider this article in a recent BusinessWeek entitled "Just Say No to Drug Reps":

"Dr. Adriane Ugh-Beman wishes more doctors would greet marketing pitches from drug companies with skepticism. So she is taking her message to medical schools. An associate professor of physiology and biophysics at Georgetown University, she has spent the past six months lecturing med students at Georgetown and neighboring schools on how to resist sales reps' overtures, such as doling out free drug samples to physicians and bringing lunches for office staff.

Often, the audience starts out belligerent, Ugh-Beman says, protesting that they're "too smart to be bought by a slice of pizza." But that changes when "we correct them with the numbers," she says. A doctor who spends just one minute with a sales rep typically ends up prescribing 16% more of that rep's product than he or she was prescribing before. And a four-minute encounter is likely to prompt a 52% jump in prescriptions, says Ugh-Beman."

I didn't dig around on the net for the white-paper behind Ugh-Berman's claims, but I am assuming if it made BW, it's legit research.

Let's assume programs like this can prepare doctors for the drug rep pushing product.  No sweat to Big Pharma, because they've got an even more powerful marketing tool.   It's called the demands of their patients after watching 20 Pharma ads every night during American Idol... What's a busy M.D supposed to do when someone brings him an ad for Paxil during a routine visit?  Prescribe (gasp) exercise? 

Every seen a Viagra ad?   All they have to do is create a market with a couple of Billion dollars worth of ads, and all of a sudden the pressure is on to pick up the full tab for each new class of drugs that's introduced... 

Man, am I tired of scrambling for the remote during a basketball game on the weekend or during prime time when the Viagra ads come on (hello? kids are watching when these things run!).  But those guys throwing the football sure are accurate throwing it through that tire in the back yard... 

When Sticker Price in Medical Insurance Reminds You Of Buying a GM Car...

Bought a new car recently?  If so, you know sticker price is for suckers... Do two things - wait for the juicy rebates always offered by Detroit automakers, then head to the lot and try to dicker the sales people down even further.  That's right, the marketing machine of US automakers has conditioned us not to move until there's a $5K rebate involved off the top. 

Health care is similar in some ways, but different in some critical aspects.  First up, there's a sticker price that hospital facilities quote to the general public related to what different procedures cost. Think of that as their "sticker price".  Here's the big difference - rebates aren't available to everyone, just to the folks with quality health care plans.  The Blue Cross networks (as well as other big insurance providers) are able to extract HUGE discounts from doctors and facilities alike through the power of their network.  If doctors/hospitals want BCBS patients, they've got to be a part of the network, and to be part of the network they've got to agree to the fee schedule touted by BCBS. 

That's where the discounts/rebates come into play.  The rebates can be huge when compared to the sticker prices touted by hospitals.  Here's a new record in my world I just came across.  Employee goes in for a procedure, with the company billed 19K for the entire bill.  Sticker price from the hospital before BCBS got ahold of the claim and went all Tony Soprano on it?  $152K.  That's right - the sticker price was over 7 times the actual cost ultimately allowed by BCBS.

Which makes me think two things.  First, I'm glad we have a good provider that can extract deep discounts off of sticker price.  Second, the common guy out there who's not covered by a plan like ours and is trying to go without insurance is a car wreck away from a lifetime of bills he can't pay and a probable personal bankruptcy.

There's something wrong with health care when sticker price on medical procedures makes buying a car look like a "one price, no haggle" experience...

Lie on the Job Like Ferris - Is It OK to Use Sick Days for Job Interviews?

Everyone loved Ferris except for Ed Rooney.  How about you?   Do you look the other way when people use sick days to kick back?  Do your feelings depend on what the person is using the sick days for?

A BusinessWeek Interactive Case Study recently asked the following question - Is it OK for a solid, high-performing employee to use sick time, for non-illness related events, in order to save their vacation and personal days, for other uses?

Here's the crux of the case from BusinessWeek:

"In this case scenario, we visit a senior IT director at an insurance corporation. Although he has a  great relationship with superiors and subordinates alike, he wants a new job (BusinessWeek.com, 10/16/07). The top brass consistently skimps on the funds needed to upgrade the company's technology to the state of the art, and he fears he will get stale in his present position. Plus, he's moving out of the city and buying a house in the suburbs. The commute would be an hour-and-a-half each way. He owes it to himself to move on.

When his first interview comes up—with the human resources department, at a corporation 50 miles from his office—our executive can't stomach the thought of using his little remaining vacation or personal time. The morning of the interview, he calls his supervisor and says he's not feeling well, that he suspects it's bronchitis, and he'll need to use a sick day to see a doctor.

His boss is understanding, of course. The man rarely calls in sick, so there must be a good reason for it now. But did our executive do the right thing?"

This case hits you with an extreme from the start- not only is the guy telling a lie, but he's doing it to take time off from work to get another job.  That's an emotional powder-keg for the people charged with enforcing policies.  Bad style point #1 on his part.

Here's my take on bad style point #2.  He's a mid-to-upper level manager.  Since he's answering his blackberry in the shower (details from the case study when you click through), I'm assuming he's not a 9 to 5 guy, nor is he viewed as that.  With that, and the fact that he's a technology professional, I'd hope that he could wrangle the ability to work remotely for the half-day he needs for the interview (hour to and from, 2 hours for the initial process at the company).  I'd also hope that he could remain productive and do this occasionally without anyone getting anxious. 

If he can't figure that out, I probably don't want him as my Director of IT - with new technologies leading the charge for IT professionals and all...  As a HR person, I want to manage performance - not office hours here and there for a solid, well-regarded professional.

Of course, if he can't work remotely when he has to in his current culture, maybe that type of inflexibility is the real reason he's looking.

PS- From the HR perspective, I like to be liberal with the use of sick time.  Use it for anything related to illness - including the care of others.  Just do me the solid of not showing up at Outback that night.  Or me seeing you walk in a corporate office park across town where I have a meeting.   Also, to my PTO friends out there who never have to deal with this scenario, track the Healthy Families Act closely, because you may be tearing down your PTO policy if the HFA becomes law...

And you're correct - it's never OK to lie about that type of thing.  Unless you have the max cool factor like Ferris.  Then you'd make the HR people chasing you look like Ed Rooney  (PG-13 language warning on the clip below)...

San Francisco Universal Healthcare - They're Going To Need More Ca$H....

There's been a lot of coverage lately about San Francisco and Universal Heathcare, namely the city's Health Benefits Ordinance, which would provide coverage for 73,000 uninsured adults in the city.    Lately, there's been some volleys back and forth whether the plan is legal.

Not sure if the plan is going to make it or not, but I am assuming it eventually will.   If it does make it and the city implements the plan, my layperson math indicates their best case assumptions will result in a plan that is dramatically underfunded. 

Check out these notes From SF Gate:

"As written, San Francisco’s ordinance would require private employers with at least 20 employees, and nonprofits with at least 50 employees, to provide health coverage at certain minimum levels or to pay a fee to the city. The fee would pay part of the cost of a $200 million-a-year program of care for the 73,000 uninsured adult city residents.

Without the employer fee, city officials say they will limit enrollment to those making no more than three times the federal poverty level, or about $32,000 a year for an individual."

Here's what I don't get.  By math, the city is planning on spending about $2,800 per covered individual annually.  That's great, but there's no way that's going to cut it, right?

Why won't it cover it?  By the very nature of the risk pool, the cost per covered individual is going to skew higher than average.  The uninsured includes people who can't work or are otherwise deemed uninsurable due to heath concerns.

A similar program for universal coverage in Connecticut failed, in part because the legislators were shocked about what the cost was (from Managed Care Matters):

"An effort in Connecticut to implement a single payer, universal coverage program is just about dead, after the state's Office of Fiscal Analysis determined it would cost as much as the entire state budget.

Politicians were shocked by the estimated total cost, which ranged from $12 billion to $18 billion (cost range per covered individual - $4,000 to $6,000).

I'm shocked that they were shocked."

That's why I don't get the plan in San Francisco.  The State of Connecticut runs the entire risk pool for the state and comes up with 4k to 6k per covered individual, and SF handles a risk pool that skews more severe and they're only going to pay $2,800?

When people underestimate things, I also think of that great line in the original "Jaws" - "We're going to need a bigger boat..."  That seems to fit here.... 

"An effort in Connecticut to implement a single payer, universal coverage program is just about dead, after the state's Office of Fiscal Analysis determined it would cost as much as the entire state budget.

Politicians were shocked by the estimated total cost, which ranged from $12 billion to $18 billion (cost range per covered individual - $4,000 to $6,000).

I'm shocked that they were shocked."

Have You Tried to Relocate A Candidate Lately?

Cross one category of candidates off your prospect list - homeowners you have to relocate...

Relocating employees has always had a "haves" and "have-nots" type of feel.  Back in the 90's, most Fortune 500 companies had the "gold-plated" standard of employee relocation - covered physical moves, lump sums to handle all types of misc. costs and the ultimate in closing remote candidates - the home purchase program.   Throw that package at a candidate, and you were closing business regardless of their financial situation..

Flash forward to 2007.  Since the market crash of 2000, Fortune 500 companies have been steadily eliminating relocation packages including a home purchase program.  Eager to slash the expense associated with such programs, big companies first moved to reserve home purchase programs for director-level and above candidates only.  Over time, many Fortune 500s have restricted the availability of these programs even further, and many have eliminated the programs altogether.

That means most of us don't have a hom