HumanMarkets

Source; newscorp

Nobody loves the high falutin’ strategic HR stuff more than me. Economics, business strategy, competitive advantage, whatever.
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Today I have been thinking about bed bugs. No doubt you have seen the reports on the news that bed bug infestation is big around the world and have particularly increased in the United States. Hotels have obviously been dealing with these things. Now, retailers and other office locations are having to exterminate them. Even the Empire State Building has them.
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We should do everything we can to protect our employees from them. If we find them we, HR, should stand up on the table, not have a seat at it, as we demand that they be eradicated quickly and effectively. (Same for any other rodents or parasites in the work place.) All of the strategy goes out the window when people are completely skeeved out at work.
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It’s not a bad idea for HR to go to facilities management and ask if anything is being done to check or prevent bed bugs. Early detection makes it easier to deal with.
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Years ago when I was the low man on the totem pole of HR in a department store in Pennsylvania, we had fruit flies in our employee lunch room.  Employee Relations was my responsibility (I was the training manager for the store.) I made it my mission in life to get this taken care of.  No one in the cleaning service or the lower level building people cared.  I needed to go the executive in charge.   The Operations Manager was the #2 person in the building and responsible for the physical plant.  He correctly indicated that the room was cleaned twice a day and that the flies were impossible to eliminate 100% and that in fact if the employees were not such slobs, the flies would be dramatically less of a nuisance.  He had no interest in doing any more here or spending any more money on this. Yep.  Not good enough.

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HR did its point with recommunicating to employees what their families and grand mothers had already taught them.  Clean up after yourself.  Put garbage in a closed bag.  Wipe the table after you eat and when you spill something.  If you need help cleaning up, ask for it. 

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The key was HR demanding better pest control. We made a nusiance of ourselves bringing fly paper covered with flies into the executive offices.  Holding meetings in the infested room that was really irritating to managers.  We eventually got some sprayers on timers, an overnight complete clean and better trash cans.  It was not sexy; it was not strategic.  Employees loved it; they appreciated it more than anything else I remember HR doing while I was in that building.  Maybe Maslow right.  HR could walk the floor of that building and talk to people about anything we wanted, whenever we wanted to talk.  We were the folks who got stuff done that mattered – we killed the flies.

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One quick thought.  management did not eat in that room.  Management ate in the restaurants in the mall.  The clerks could not afford to do that.   They had little time and little money.  They brought their lunch and ate in the infested room.  My guess is that over time and over multiple situations, when management ignores problems like this one, if HR also ignores it as beneath us or too gross to deal with – someone from the outside may well be called upon to help employees solve their problems.

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The media is telling this bed bug story loud and clear - I have to think that it draws great ratings.  Employees are sensitive to it.  You are the super star when someone asks (downstream or upstream) and you already demonstrate you were on the job.

2 Comments | In: Employee Relations, Housekeeping/Caveats, Multiple Markets | tags: Bed Bugs. | #

  OMG!!!!  That guy is hilarious!!!  What a Quit Day.  This beats any emailed white board resignation – hoax or not.  He kept it real and then “left the building.”

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On August 4, 2010 Omar Thornton killed eight people, injured two others and then killed himself in a act of work place violence.

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One man is frustrated with customers, one is allegedly caught stealing on video tape but had also told family and friends that he was the victim of racial harassment.  One man is brokering the rights to his story for a big pay day; the other man and eight of his co-workers are beginning to rot away in in the ground.

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Omar Thornton had a gun in his lunch box – something unusual and unfortunate was already brewing there.  Steven Slater was in an environment that would have made it difficult to have a weapon.  Would the story have been different if the two men had been in switched work location?  Steven Slater is no joke – HR needs to remember that. 

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Slater acted recklessly.  Thornton was violent.  I don’t want to equate the two.  However, they are on the same continuum.  HR should be more on guard for work place violence when the economy and civil life is so unsettled.  Stress is cummlative.

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Maybe we have an opportunity to do some education in our own work place; ask the questions that could have prevents either or both of these incidents.  HR should see this as our job.

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It’s all fun and games until someone puts and eye out – or is shot to death.

No Comments | In: Employee Relations, Multiple Markets | | #

Source: WSJ Online

David Wessel’s column on 13 May made the point that in the country today there is a significant amount of distrust, frustration and anger. 

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“The distrust goes beyond government: People are angry at pretty much the entire establishment. More than 60% of Americans in Pew Research Center polls say banks, big corporations and Congress have a negative effect on the way things are going in the U.S.—and the national news media don’t do much better.”

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“… … … they see unemployment at nearly 10% and more than five jobless workers for every job opening. For those with jobs, they see wages are languishing despite an eye-popping increase in labor productivity, or output per hour of work. Private-sector hourly earnings in the U.S. have risen at a 0.4% annual rate over the past three months, while prices have climbed at about a 1% pace, the Labor Department says. Weekly earnings are growing at about a 1.5% rate, but that’s because workers are putting in more hours.”

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It strikes me as a time to continue to be extremely careful in HR communications.  A focus on doing and the telling about how an employer delivers simple fair play into the work place, transparently presented, is an important focus to have.

No Comments | In: Communications, Employee Relations, Multiple Markets | tags: internal market, Transparency, Wessel. | #

Source: NYTimes.com

   By now you know that a “crude car bomb” was safely disabled by NYC Police with support from the FBI, NYPD.  It happened last night but Times Square is open this morning.  Stunning.  Thank you to the men and women of NYPD/FD and all public safety.

Here is the take for HR I think.  Hourly paid people, people in menial jobs, are not stupid.  Inadequate education, sometimes poor decisions in adolescence, bad luck, health or even just lack of ambition and drive, can all contribute to people being in an unskilled occupation.  Confusing that with stupid makes you… … … well, you get the idea right?

 Program design and communication for exempt populations will generally do better assuming people are reasonably bright but also allowing that they are relatively unsophisticated about the rules of benefits, management buzz words and financial instruments.  (Note that I did not say economics – you can bet that straight forward economics comes intuitively to bright people.)

4 Comments | In: Communications, Employee Relations | | #

Source: healthdiaries.com

If you give every employee a shiny red juicy apple, for no reason other than it is a gift of a beautiful piece of fruit – here is what will happen.

Someone will be pissed off because they just bought an apple.  “Can I get reimbursed for the apple that I bought this morning?”

Someone will like oranges and not apples.

Someone is offened that the apple is from Chile and not a US grown apple.

Someone will break a tooth on the apple, or will ruin a silk blouse from apple.

Someone will come in and say thank you for the apple it was delicious and I really appreciated a surprise gift.

Most employees will say nothing.

Don’t focus on a few complaints – you will get them no matter what you do.  Listen to the group as a whole, even if they do not say anything.  Doing the good and smart thing should be even when you get a few complaints.  In a big enough population, anything is going to piss off at least someone.  When you play to satisfy the fringe, you are sure to undermine the confidence of the group as whole, in your decision-making.

There is a market for confidence – strong players have the courage to distinguish consensus value from quieting irrational complaints.  Like Dan Rather used to say, “Courage.”

10 Comments | In: Communications, Employee Relations | tags: Apples, Courage, Dan Rather. | #

A few Saturday mornings ago, my 14 year old son picked up the ringing kitchen phone.  He looked confused and handed the phone to Mom.  “Some thing is really wrong with Dad Dad.”  Things then started to happen.  I quizzed my son who was clearly upset and I could hear my wife telling my father to hang up so that she could call 911.  I gathered from my son that my Dad was sick – he sounded so bad on the phone.  It took my wife to correctly give me the news that my mom seemed to just have taken a stroke.

We pulled down my parents’ street no more than 10 minutes later.  The back door of the ambulance was already open and a police officer was walking out of the house to his patrol car.  When we went in the signs of stroke were evident.  An 83 year-old woman in her chair at the dining room table – slumped to one side.  No speech, no response, no movement – essentially vegetative.  My mom’s body was there but she wasn’t.

The EMTs did great work- in another 5 minutes we were all out the door, with IVs in, vital signs in hand and a plan to go to the local emergency room – luckily in a hospital, Delaware County Memorial, that is a certified stroke center.  I drove my wife and Dad.  We called my sisters on the way, passing memories and concerns along the way.

Doctor Riley was the ER physician.  Dr. Weinstein was the neurologist. Tara was the nurse.  Three people were now our guide to stroke care simultaneously working to save my mother’s mind and maybe her life.  They did cognitive and motor tests with her.  She got an MRI.  The quick diagnosis was that she did not have bleeding in her brain – luckily she had a blood clot.  The clot could be broken up by a “miracle drug” a TPA.  This drug is a super blood thinner.  It could break up the clot – but, in about 6% of people given the drug, it could induce internal bleeding that would be unstoppable and result in death.  We evaluated the risk and the explanation from Dr. Weinstein.  The TPA was administered.

Within about two more hours my mom was speaking to us, learning the names of the various nurses and doctors coming in and out and moving each of her limbs.  The immediate recovery was stunning and humbling.  My family and I thanked anything that moved.  We were grateful for the hours that these people spent studying from Junior High through Graduate or Medical School.

About a week later in the rehab wing of the hospital Dr. Reilly the ER physician walked by my Mom’s room saw my Dad, nodded, striding towards the end of the hall.  A moment later he came back into view and asked my Dad “how is your wife doing?”  After a great report Dr. Reilly said,

“I won’t forget that day – everything worked just the way it was supposed to – you don’t get many days like that – that was the best day we had in the ER in a long time – because of your wife.  Days like that remind you why you went into medicine.”

Well my family won’t forget that day for a long time either.  We in HR should look for every opportunity to help our employes have days that remind them why they came to work here.  If we can help our employees retouch their passion for this work we can spark the kind of customer interactions that delight customers – or maybe save their lives.

There is a market for the passions of our employees – what a victory for our customers when we compete well in that market. Something tells me that it is more important than the impact of whether the merit pool will be 2% or 3%.

6 Comments | In: Employee Relations, Multiple Markets, Professional Development, Talent Management | tags: Passions. | #

This past weekend, I heard a great sermon at Mass.  A large portion of the theme was on the quality of mercy.  Essentially mercy is an important character trait to possess and more of it is good. 

A subsidiary point drew out the difference between “justice”, which is “getting what we deserve, good or bad” and “mercy” which is getting a kindness that we do not deserve. 

It got me thinking in the days since.  Is there any room for mercy in HR or in management generally?  We focus on justice (“fair and equitable”) and such thinking is embedded in law.  What about mercy?  Would you be embarrassed to talk about being merciful toward an employee, or to counsel a manager to show mercy?  Would you think it dangerous?  “I can’t set a precedent.”

Mercy is an aspect of most long term human relationships.  It is an essential quality because we all make mistakes and we all  fall short of our responsibilities.  I am not sure that the tightening of the legal girdle around the employment relationship leaves much room for mercy.  It is not even clear to me that we should want mercy in what is fundamentally a commercial relationship.  At the same time, I have a nagging thought that many “employee engagemnt issues” would resolve more quickly if we showed a bit more true mercy.

Maybe, the answer lies with the type of employer.  Private companies and small businesses may be able to create a culture that includes more mercy from employees to management as well as from management to employees, more easily than large publicly held organizations.  Perhaps that is some of the magic of those organizations.

What do you think – should we think more mercifully as managers at the expense of thinking more justly?

No Comments | In: Employee Relations, How to do HR | tags: Justice, Mercy. | #

The classic economic analysis of unionization is that unions drive up wages for workers by limiting the supply of labor. They impact the labor market through a classic supply and demand impact on the cost of labor. This is really wrong and if you are in HR and you get caught by this error you will live to regret it. 

The error is essentially canonical doctrine.  Just about every scholar of labor law in the law and economics movement starts with this as the foundation for their work.  Law and Economics is the area of scholarship that gives the most thought to the question. Law and economics generally is the proposition that our law is economically efficient – over time the most efficient rules will prevail.  Efficiency is measured in terms of economics (the science of choice within the context of scarcity and risk).  There are several major law and economics thinker and a great overview for those interested is on Wikipedia.  For a more in depth look at law and economics on unionization, I recommend the blog of Richard Posner – start with the posting from which the following quote comes:

Unions, in other words, are worker cartels. Workers threaten to withhold their labor unless paid more than a competitive wage (including benefits and work rules), but unless their union is able to organize all the major competitors in a market, the cartel will be eroded by the entry of nonunionized firms, which by virtue of not being unionized will have lower labor costs. The parallel to producer cartels is exact–workers are producers.

This quote comes from a longer post Can the United Auto Workers Survive? Posner- read down into it to get the fundamental Posner premise.  Again though, while incredibly instructive, Posner is wrong.

The market that unions compete in is not about wages – the market is for employee representation.  Unions can’t magically produce greater wages.  At this point, unionized worker do in fact get more per hour than non-union workers – about $39/hour versus $30/hour (see the Bureau of Labor Statistics most recent data).  However, union membership continues to decline – less than 8% of private industry employees now belong to a labor union. (Source BLS.)  The argument that this shrinking group is increasing wages by reducing the amount of available workers with the rate of unemployment out pacing the rate of unionization by 2 points is foolish in the face of the facts.

The key is that unions don’t work to maximize wages for members – they work to maximize labor unions.  God bless’m, they are the same as any other business.  They maximize profit; they start with dues – revenue and go from there.   They sell representation services ala carte to employees the way HR departments “sell” representation to the same employees on a bundled basis as part of “working for this organization.”  The wages are driven by the economics of the organization and the broad market for talent.  The competition between unions and management is about the other stuff – personal representation.  Keep in mind, we are long past the idea of an ad hoc group of employees self-forming a union.  It just doesn’t happen.  When employees unionize it is with the engagement of professional union organizers and profession union management.  Organization of labor unions – and therefore EFCA issues and the like are not rights based issues – they are market issues.

What is the issue for the HR marketeer then?  If you really believe that a your workforce and the work place benefit from a direct relationship rather than one that runs through a union – understand that you are competing on the basis of the quality of your representation services.  Take that market dynamic seriously or go the way of all inferior competitiors in the market – lose.

Happy Labor Day from Human Markets.

No Comments | In: Employee Relations, HR Strategy, How to do HR, Labor, Multiple Markets | tags: Labor Day, Law and Economics, Unionization. | #

Tell me you have ever seen a company culture that is as powerful, or as powerfully communicated, as that of NetFlix.

2 Comments | In: Communications, Employee Relations | tags: Culture. | #

I missed this one when it first published.  For an excellent, succinct reveiw of the economic analysis of EFCA go see Becker and Posner. (Posner is Richard Posner who I have reference many times. I recommend him in my own posting: EFCA – You Bet It Would!)

No Comments | In: Employee Relations, Labor, Uncategorized | tags: Becker, EFCA, Labor Law, Law and Economics, Posner. | #