EACH DISCUSSION SHOULD BE 300 WORDS EACH.. WITH 2 CITED REFERENCES WITH ONE BEING

Harvey, C. and Allard, J. (2014) Understanding and Managing Diversity (6th ed.) NJ: Pearson- Prentice Hall. ISBN: 9780133548198

 

DISCUSSION 6 Harvey and Allard Part III (chaps 46- 48)Objectives:

3,4,6,7,12

Discussion Topic: What are some different reasons that an organization might consider undertaking diversity measures?

 

 

DISCUSSION 7. Harvey and Allard Part III (chaps 49-51) Objectives: 3,8,16

Discuss how the Cracker Barrel case supports or challenges the notion that federal legislation is warranted to stop employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. Why is it difficult to trace workplace discrimination based on race and sexual orientation?

 

DISCUSSION 8 Van Wart article Objectives: 6,7,12,13

Discussion Topic: Read the Public-Sector Leadership Theory article. Write a 250- word summary of the key ideas. Critique it from your own experience.

 

 

Chapter 46-48 for discussion 6

Discussion Questions Why is corporate and Board involvement so crucial to the business case for diversity? Besides the legal considerations, why does locating the responsibility for diversity initiatives in Human Resources limit the effectiveness of diversity initiatives in an organization? How can corporate boards that want more diverse members recruit good candidates? How can an organization minimize backlash and conflict about ERG membership? How can an effective supplier diversity program support the business case for diversity? Thinking as a consumer, does an organization’s social responsibility and corporate philanthropy make a difference in your buying decisions? Why or why not? Diversity on the Web For examples of supplier diversity programs benefiting business owners, the local communities in terms of job creation, and the organizations for which they provide services, go to makingittv.com. Click on “streaming video and featured entrepreneurs.” Then, click on “entrepreneur success stories.” Select “The Power of Partnerships,” episode 512, which features Linda Stone, an Asian American female entrepreneur, and “Frontier Electronics Systems,” episode 511, which presents the story of Peggy Shreve, a female Native American business owner who is a supplier to Boeing Aircraft. Go to aetna.com and search for Embraced: Lights! Camera! Action! Gen Y Group Shows Aetna True Colors. Watch the short video Building Careers at Aetna for Generation Y, which features members of Aetna’s EnRGY (generation Y) employee resource group. Evaluate this video as though you were thinking about applying for a position at Aetna. Would this video be a positive or negative influence? Why? How effective would a web-based program be in developing a mentoring relationship? Go to mentoring.org and search for Tools to Design and Plan a Mentoring Program. Scroll down to “E-Mentoring” and click on the various links under this heading. After you have read about web-based mentoring, compare the pros and cons of E-Mentoring with a traditional face to face mentoring relationship. Work-Life Balance Issues: Changing When and How the Work Gets Done Carol P. Harvey Assumption College Because the 21st century labor force includes more working women, more fathers who want to be involved in their children’s lives, more single parents, and more people who are responsible for caring for an elderly relative or person with a handicap, and more older workers, there is an increasing interest in more flexible work schedules. Ninety percent of the companies interviewed in a 2009 Hewitt Associates survey cite work-life balance issues as the leading reason that their workers wanted more flexible work arrangements such as job-sharing, temporary leaves, compressed work weeks, telecommuting, phased retirement, on and off ramps and part-time employment. Many countries have more progressive work-life laws and organizational policies than the United States where the only federal legislation is the Family Medical Leave Act that grants unpaid leave. Globally, particularly in the European Union, longer vacations, paid maternity/paternity leaves, subsidized child care, etc., are more common. “While U.S. companies generally offer work-life programs as a competitive advantage the EU mandates them as a function of social responsibility” (Joshi et al., 2002, p. 16). The Business Case for Work-Life Balance Offering workplace flexibility relates directly to the business case for diversity because such policies attract a larger and better pool of potential applicants, decrease stress, burnout, absenteeism and turnover, salary expenses and increase employee satisfaction, customer service, organizational commitment, and motivation. For example, Deloitte & Touche, the global accounting firm, saved $41.5 million in employee turnover costs by retaining employees through their flexible work programs (Corporate Voices, 2005). A 2000 study by the Center for Work & Family “found that 70% of managers and 87% of employees reported that working a flexible work arrangement had a positive or very positive impact on productivity” (2000). When work-life balance issues are not addressed there can be organizational costs. A survey by Work-Life Benefits Consultants found that more than 25% of all employee absences were caused by family issues. “For every $1 an employer spends in helping employees balance their home and work lives, the company will get a return investment of $3 to $4 in work hours saved, insurance costs, sick leave, decreased absenteeism and fewer on-the-job injuries” (Ortiz, 2006). Although there has been an increase in the number of organizations that offer flexible working arrangements, actual implementation and usage are not always easy to achieve due to the “implementation gap” i.e., the resistance of organizational cultures to change. “When the culture is not supportive of these initiatives, they rarely succeed” (Van Deusen, James, Gill, & McKechnie, 2008, p. 5). The 2008 Workplace Flexibility study from the Boston College Center for Work & Family found that flexible work arrangements are highly dependent on management’s perceptions about the worker’s ability to continue to meet the needs of the job and are often available only after a worker has gained her manager’s trust and successfully negotiated the working arrangements. A Catalyst study revealed that 91% of women and 94% of men surveyed, said that flexible work options were available to them for family emergencies or personal matters. However, only 15% of the women and 20% of the men felt that they could use these options without jeopardizing their careers. Additional objections to flexible work arrangements include resentment from employees who may not be eligible for such schedules, supervision concerns, difficulties in scheduling meetings, and staffing-level issues during peak times (Carlson, 2004). The 2007 Work-life Evolution Study concluded that “Work-life and flexibility still face skepticism in terms of their impact on the bottom line” (p. 20). Additionally, even many of the organizations that do have flexible work policies indirectly discourage their use for male employees and/or fail to promote those who take advantage of such options (Frankel, 2007). Work-Life Balance: Parental Roles and Care Giving Work-life as a diversity issue results from changing gender roles, new family structures, differences between generational values that conflict with traditional work schedules and older employees financially unable or personally unwilling to retire. Women, who now receive 57% of the bachelor’s degrees and 60% of the master’s degrees awarded each year, comprise 50% of the U.S. workforce (Harrington, Deusen, & Ladge, 2010). Both parents work in over 70% of two-parent households and only 20% of U. S. families with children still have a working father and a stay at home mother (Boushey & O’Leary, 2009). “The traditional family structure has been replaced mainly by dual-career couples and single heads of household (20%) where the single parent is employed” (Boston College Center for Work & Family, 2008). However, because so many women with children are now working, “work-life integration is no longer just a women’s issue: it’s a workforce issue” (Sally Helgesen in Prokopeak, 2010). A study conducted by the Boston College Center for Work & Family revealed that today’s fathers want more involvement in raising their children but that there is less organizational support for men than women to take on childrearing responsibilities (Harrington, Van Deusen, & Ladge, 2010). U. S. organizations Have yet to come to terms with what it means to live in a nation where both men and women typically work outside of the home and what we need to do to make this new reality workable for families who have child care and eldercare responsibilities throughout most of their working lives (Boushey, 2009, p. 31). Even when the childbearing years are over, there may still be a need to balance work responsibilities with the care of elderly relatives or those with a handicap. Currently, forty-four million people or over 21% of all U.S. households provide care for an older family member or one with a handicap. A 2006 study conducted by MetLife and the National Alliance for Caregiving estimated that the annual lost productivity costs to U. S. employers is $17.1 billion due to turnover, absenteeism, workday interruptions and medical crises involved with care giving responsibilities. For an organization, the estimated total cost to replace a worker usually ranges from one to one and half times his annual salary. Even those without current family or caregiver responsibilities may value the option of a more flexible work schedule. A survey by the Center for Work-Life Policy found that “87% of baby boomers and 89% of Generation Y workers said that flextime was important to them and a key motivating factor” (Hewitt Associates LLC, 2010). According to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) 68% of the workers age fifty to seventy plan to either continue working past their traditional retirement age or to continue to work in some different capacity than their current job. However, only 17% wanted to work full time, the remainder wanted more flexible scheduling (2007). While it would seem advantageous in terms of the economy and the business case for diversity to develop more programs to keep older workers employed and contributing to Social Security longer, several factors account for the failure of many businesses to capitalize on the talents of this segment of the workforce. In a survey of middle to large sized employers, the Watson Wyatt consulting firm found that only 16% of the organizations surveyed had some type of flexible program for older workers and 70% had simply not seen the need for such programs (Watson Wyatt Worldwide, 2004). In addition, negative perceptions and stereotypes about older workers such as their being inflexible, less productive, hard to manage, more costly and lacking and/or unwilling to learn new technology still prevail. Other employers may try to avoid hiring older employees because of a fear of age discrimination lawsuits. In addition, current federal regulations regarding pension benefits and contributions under ERISA legislation (Employment Retirement Income Security Act) and the IRS are outdated and may complicate adopting these innovative programs. Work-Life Balance: Flexible Work Models Today, many mature workers are also interested in continued employment past their traditional retirement age but they seek a more flexible work schedule that allows more time for travel, grandchildren, hobbies and volunteer work. Due to the prevalence of Baby Boomers, in 2010 there were 26.6 million workers over age fifty-five in the U.S. While this age group is healthier and more active, than previous generations, most are not eligible for traditional pension plans and experienced declining retirement portfolios and home values in the recent recession. As a result, by 2012 nearly 20% of the U.S. workforce is expected to be 55 or older and 50% of those 65 and older will be working or are actively seeking employment. “By the year 2020, there will be 27.7 individuals aged 65 and older for every 100 working adults: this ratio will represent a 28% increase in just two decades” (Challenger, 2005). With more people living longer, 79–83 years for men and 83–86 years for women but fewer workers contributing to the Social Security and Medicaid programs, these demographics could place an enormous economic strain both on the federal budget and the growth of American business. Best Practices At Accenture, the outsourcing and consulting company, employees can take advantage of the “Future Leave” program. This is a self-funded sabbatical program that allows workers to defer their earnings and to draw on those funds while not working (Jewell, 2008). Continental Airlines reservation department has an annual turnover rate of 5% while the industry rate is 40%. Continental’s 600 agents can work from home and also take advantage of an Expanded Shift Program that allows 25% of the staff to have three or more days off on a rotating basis (Galinsky, Elby, & Peer, 2008). At the Raytheon Company, a defense, security and aerospace supplier, employees have the option of working 80 hours over nine days and taking every other Friday off from work (Raytheon, 2010). AstraZeneca Pharmaceutical offers its sales reps the options of job sharing and part-time schedules. Productivity metrics such as number of calls, presentations and sales yields indicated that these workers compared favorably with the full time sales force (Corporate Voices, 2005). 1-800CONTACTS has reduced employee turnover by implementing a phone system that allows its call center workers to take sales and customer service calls from home (Galinsky, Elby, & Peer, 2008). Work-Life Balance: Redefining “Retirement” Traditionally, retirement used to mean leaving one’s job completely and relying on defined benefit pension plans and Social Security for support. Soaring health costs, increased longevity, more reliance on self-managed defined contribution retirement plans instead of guaranteed income streams, low savings rates, and a desire to try a new occupation or self-employment has changed this concept for older workers. Today, retirement in stages, called “working retirement,” is gaining in popularity (Cahill, Giandrea, & Quinn, 2006). In a recent survey, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) found that 70% of workers over forty-five plan to seek part-time work or flexible schedules or to never retire at all (AARP, 2007). A survey commissioned by MetLife revealed that the primary reasons for older workers to continue employment are that they either need the money (60%), or want to stay active (45%). However, motivators and needs varied among older workers depending upon their life stages. While workers 60–65 year-old value job design and flexible work schedules, workers 66–70 are more interested in meeting their needs for social interaction and mental stimulation (DeLong & Associates, 2006). Some organizations offer Phased retirement programs which is a workplace plan that allows workers of a specified age to gradually reduce the hours that they work for their current employer. Such programs allow employers to maintain a trained workforce while employees can have more free time and a gradual transition to full retirement. Phased retirement works best when it ties to an organization’s mission and objectives. For example, meeting the specific labor force needs for increased staffing during seasonal peaks, or to complete project-based work, etc. is a win-win situation in terms of the business case for diversity and for older workers. The company gets knowledgeable trained workers who already know the culture and procedures of the organization and the older workers are able to work fewer hours. Work-Life Balance: Mature Workers The following box provides some win-win examples of organizations that offer flexible workplace options that also benefit the company while presenting support for the business case for employing older workers. Best Practices Mercy Health System—Since skilled employees in the healthcare industry, particularly nurses, are in short supply and 50% of all nurses in the U.S. will reach the traditional retirement age by 2015, Mercy Health System, located in Janesville, Wisconsin, provides an example of an organization that has linked its mission and needs to the flexible utilization of mature workers. They offer such innovative schedules as a Weekender Program—work only weekend shifts and a Traveler Option—work on a 6–13 week assignment (AARP, 2006). The Vita Needle Company is located in a former theater in Needham, MA where this 4th generation family business manufactures high quality reusable needles and fabricated stainless steel products. Most of Vita Needle’s employees are part-time senior citizens averaging 74 years of age. Employing seniors who already have Medicare coverage saves on health benefits. The workers’ hard work ethic and a commitment to quality production has allowed Vita Needle to compete successfully with global manufacturing competition by keeping quality high and manufacturing costs low. President Fred Hartman credits “the company’s success to “this dedicated low-tech workforce that is behind Vita Needle’s high-tech success” (Employees inject vitality, n.d.). What makes Vita Needle unique is that the management has structured the work around the employees’ needs and lifestyles, which Hartman describes as the “ultimate flex-time.” Each worker has a key to the building and can come and leave according to their needs as long as the work gets done. CVS/Caremark—the pharmacy giant employs over 107,000 people and 18% are older workers. This organization offers a unique “Snowbirds” program that allows workers to transfer from a cold northern climate to a store in the South and Southwest during the winter months and then transfer back to their original store in the spring. Not only does this help CVS to retain employees who want to winter in warmer climates but it also staffs these stores with the extra already trained employees needed to accommodate increased consumer demand from these yearly population shifts (Gardner, 2006). L.L. Bean—This Freeport, Maine based clothing and sports equipment retailer, encourages its 861 retirees to return to work when seasonal orders peak (AARP, 2006). Monsanto—Since 1991, Monsanto has maintained a database of retired workers who want to work part-time, full time or on special assignments. Currently, 66% (200) of them have work assignments (Fetterman, 2005). The Aerospace Corporation located in El Segundo CA conducts federally funded defense and aerospace research for the government. Because of the complexity of their projects, retention of scientists and engineers with security clearances is vital. “We don’t manufacture anything. Our greatest asset is the technical expertise of our people” (The Aerospace Corporation, 2007). Approximately one half of Aerospace’s 3500 workers are over fifty. Consequently, the organization offers four options for retaining their highly skilled workforce past traditional retirement ages: phased retirement, pre-retirement leaves of absence, part-time status in preparation for retirement, and post retirement employment on a “casual” basis, i.e. recalling employees with particular skills during times of peak demand for particular skills (aero.org). Innovative Ideas: 10 Til 2—Part-Time A Denver, Colorado, placement firm, 10 til 2, bases its business model on matching college-educated parents and older workers needing flexible work schedules, with organizations that will hire on a part-time long-term basis. Started by four stay-at-home mothers, 10 til 2 considers its business model “win, win, win, win.” Workers get flexibility and organizations get access to an experienced, college-educated talent pool. Job listings on the website include a range of positions such as a graphic artist, event planner, and customer service. Recently, 10 til 2 expanded by selling franchises on a national basis and now has offices in eleven states. Conclusion It is important to remember that the organizations mentioned in this article have made workplace flexibility succeed both for their employees and for their organizations but these companies tend to be the exceptions not the norm. Today’s workforce is different in terms of its lifestyle and values. One way to capitalize on these differences is to think creatively about the way work gets done. Innovations that meet the needs of the individuals as well as those of the organization can create win-win solutions. “Current trends seem to suggest that the desire for work-life balance will continue to be a driving force for labor in America regardless of generation” (Beckman, 2010). Points of Law The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 was an expansion of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The provisions apply to federal, state, and local governments and organizations with twenty or more employees. In addition, this law protects job applicants and employees over forty years from employment discrimination based on age in terms of hiring, firing, promotion, layoffs, benefits, compensation, job assignments, and/or training. The ADEA forbids retaliation against those who file charges, testify, or participate in investigations, proceedings, and litigation under the ADEA. Source: http://www.eeoc.gov/types/age.html Discussion Questions Analyze the need for work-life balance in terms of the forces promoting and the forces resisting these types of programs. It is mentioned in the reading that even when organizations offer work-life balance plans, some workers, especially men, often do not feel that they can use them. Why might men feel this way more than women? What might the presence or absence of flexible work programs suggest to you about the corporate culture and values of an organization? Apply the concept of the business case for diversity to offering more flexible work arrangements for caregivers. In spite of people living longer and healthier lives, stereotypes about older workers being hard to manage and slow to adapt to new technologies still persist. How do the media contribute to and reinforce these perceptions? The organizations profiled in this article are quite different and represent a range from small businesses to huge corporations. What might they all have in common that has enabled them to be innovative about their programs for older workers? Bibliography AARP. (2006). Winning strategies, 2006. Retrieved on June 24, from http://www.aarp.org/money/careers/employerresourcecenter/bestemployers/winners/mercy_health_system.html. AARP. (2006). Winning strategies 2006. Retrieved on June 21, 2007, from http://www.aarp.org/money/careers/employerresourcecenter/bestemployers/winners/ll_bean.html. AARP. (2007).Workforce trends. Retrieved from http://www.aarp.org/money/careers/employerresourcecenter/trends/a2004-04-20-olderworkers.html on June 20, 2007. Aero.org. (2007). The Aerospace Corporation named one of AARP’s best employers for workers over 50. Retrieved on November 15, 2010, from aero.org/news/newsitems/aarp8-12-05.html. Beckman, G. (2010). Private correspondence. 10 til 2. November 2, 2010. Boston College Center for Work & Family. (May 2008). Top 10 takeaways from the Kanter award finalists. Work and Occupations, 33(2), 2–3. Boushey, H., & O’Leary, A. (2009). The Shriver report: A woman’s nation changes everything. Center for American Progress. Retrieved on November 3, 2010, from americanprogress. org/issues/2009/10/womens_nation.html. Cahill, K., Quinn, J. & Giandrea, M. (2007). Down shifting: The role of bridge jobs after career employment. The Boston College Center for Aging & Work. Chestnut Hill, MA. Carlson, L. (September 2004). Flextime elevated to national issue. Employee Benefit News, 18(12), 1–2. Catalyst. (2004). Women and men in U.S. corporate leadership: Same workplace, different realities? Retrieved May 17, 2007, from http://www.catalyst.org/files/fact/2005%20COTE%20-20Fact%20sheet.pdf. Challenger, J. (March 2005). 24 trends reshaping the workplace (part I). Managing Diversity, 14(6), 1, 6 & 8. Corporate Voices. (November 2005). Business impact of flexibility: An imperative for expansion. Retrieved on November 10, 2010, from cvwf.org. Deloitte & Touche. (2010). Redesigning the workplace: Fitting life into work and work into life. Retrieved on November 8, 2010, from deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/About/Womens-Initiative/Redesigning-the-Workplace/index.htm. DeLong, D. & Associates. (2006). Findings from a national survey of aging workers who remain in—or return to—the workplace, how they fare and why. MetLife Mature Market Institute. Retrieved on June 20, 2007, from http://www.metlife.com/WPSAssets/11091110421147725122V1FLivingLonger.pdf. Employees inject vitality into needle production [Electronic version]. (n.d.). Thomas Register’s Trendletter, 108, 1–2. Fetterman, M. (June 8, 2005). Retirees back at work with flexibility. From USA Today, 6–8. Retrieved on May 16, 2011, from usatoday.com/money/perfi/retirement/2005-06—8-retiree-main_xhtm. Frankel, B. (2007). Who really benefits from work/life? DiversityInc. March 6, 2, 22. Galinsky E., Eby, S. & Peer, S. (2008). 2008 guide to bold new ideas for making work work. Families and Work Institute. Retrieved on November 8, 2010, from familiesandwork.org/3w/boldideas.pdf. Gardner, M. (February 8, 2006). Snowbirds work where it’s warm. The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved on November 15, 2010, from csmonitor.com/2006/0208/p13s02-lifp.html. Harrington, B. (2007). The work-life evolution study. Boston College Center for Work & Family. Harrington, B, Van Deusen, F., & Ladge, J. (2010). The new dad: Exploring fatherhood within a career context. Boston College Center for Work and Family. Retrieved on November 2, 2010, from http://www.bc.edu/centers/cwf/news.html. Hewitt Associates, LLC. (2008). Timely topics survey. Retrieved on November 8, 2010, from http://www.worklifebalance.com/assets/pdfs/casestudy.pdf. Jewell, R. E. (2008). Corporate Voices for Working Families. Retrieved on November 8, 2010, from http://corporatevoices.wordpress.com/2008/11/19/accentures-future-leave-program-in-wsj-column/. Joshi, S., Leichne, J., Melanson, K., Pruna, C. Sager, N. Slay, C., & Williams, K. (2002). Work-life balance . . . a case of social responsibility or competitive advantage? Georgia Institute of Technology. Retrieved on November 8, 2010, from http://www.worklifebalance.com/assets/pdfs/casestudy.pdf. MetLife Mature Market Institute and the National Alliance for Caregiving. (July 2006). The MetLife caregiving cost study: Productivity losses to U.S. businesses. MetLife Mature Market Institute. Retrieved October 13, 2010, from http://www.caregiving.org/data/Caregiver%20Cost%20Study.pdf. Ortiz, P. (2006) Employee resource groups: The hidden assets. DiversityInc, special issue, fall, 75–78. Prokopeak, M. (2010). Women, wages and work-life balance. Talent Management Perspectives. Retrieved on November 3, 2010, from talentmgt.com/includes/printcontent.php?aid=1370. Pruhno, R., Litchfield, L. & Fried, M. (2000). Measuring the Impact of workplace flexibility: Findings from the national life measurement project, Boston College Center for Work & Family. Retrieved on November 10, 2010, from http://www.bc.edu/centers/cwf/research/publications/meta-elements/pdf/BCCWF_Flex_Impact_Final_Report.pdf. Raytheon. (2010). Raytheon.com. Van Deusen, F. R., James. J. B., Gill, N., & McKechnie, S. P. (2008). Overcoming the implementation gap: How leading companies are making flexibility work. Boston College Center for Work & Family. Watson Wyatt Worldwide. (2004). Phased retirement: Aligning employer programs with worker preferences. Washington, D.C.: Watson Wyatt. Work-Life Benefits. Retrieved May 13, 2007, from http://www.wlb.com. Writing Assignment Go to the website below and read the “Measuring the Impact of Workplace Flexibility” study. Then, write a two-page memo to a past or present employer that presents a suggestion for implementing some flexible work arrangement for parents, caregivers, older workers, and others, currently not offered by that organization. Adapting ideas from this report, develop a “business case” that stresses the measurable benefits that this particular organization could derive from this new flexible work arrangement that you are proposing. Your answer should take into consideration the demographics of your local area and the size, mission, and resources of this organization. Source: http://bc.edu/cwf. Click on “publications.” Then, click on “Flexibility Work” 2008. Diversity on the Web Go to flexpaths.com and search for the report “Business Impacts of Flexibility: An Imperative for Expansion” (November, 2005). This report details many arguments for increasing flexibility in terms of the way that work is done. Select one company mentioned in this report as having a flexible way of scheduling work. Go to that company’s website and attempt to find additional information on this plan. You may have to be creative in trying to find this material but be persistent. What does what you found or didn’t find indicate about the implementation of this plan? The Six Sigma Case: Promotion at the Western Company Rana Haq Laurentian University Should an organization make an exception to its policies to accommodate the work-life balance needs of a working mother? Sarah Cunningham worked at Western Company, a global multi-sector organization as Marketing Manager. Because she proved her competence and had significant potential, her hard work was rewarded by being selected for the Six Sigma program, a prestigious high profile two-year training opportunity. She was assigned on the “Black Belt” level to one of its sponsoring strategic business units (SBU). After completing only one year however, she went on maternity leave taking advantage of Western Company’s Work-Life Balance policy (See below). Western Company’s Work-Life Balance Policy and Programs Western Company is a place where people can do their best work and achieve their potential as we strive to create an environment that respects and supports the needs and concerns of employees through our Work and Personal Life Resource Center. Work and Personal Life Resource Centre Western Company provides a broad array of educational and dependent care services such as sick child care, dependent care, elder care, on-site information fairs and back-up childcare, to assist our employees in addressing their family responsibilities while maintaining their productivity. Alternative Work Arrangements Our employees are able to explore with their management a variety of alternative work arrangements, including part-time, job share, compressed work week and telecommuting. These opportunities are global and are communicated to employees through Management. Dependent Care Resources Western Company provides a range of resources to assist employees with dependent care, including child care and elder care. Note: The company and employee names in this case have been changed to preserve confidentiality. As she planned her return to work, Sarah learned of a promotional opportunity in her Six Sigma sponsoring unit. She felt that this job would be a perfect fit for her with the new baby because it required much less travelling than similar positions at this level. The only glitch was that she had not yet completed her two year commitment to the Six Sigma program. Sarah sent a letter explaining her situation to her boss, Peter Toubin, requesting that he release her from her two-year commitment. While his approval is required before she can apply for the new job, she feels that this is a reasonable request. Peter’s Dilemma Peter Toubin, who was promoted only one month ago to the Senior Marketing Manager position at Western Company, was hesitant to grant Sarah’s request because she still had an entire year of training left to fulfill her obligation to the Six Sigma Program. The only existing precedent he knows of for an early release from this time requirement was a reduction of three months, much less than she is requesting. As a Master Six Sigma Black Belt, Peter is an avid supporter of the intensive Six Sigma program and its requirements. Given his experience, he believes that any reduction in the two year training term could potentially compromise its objectives and outcomes. Master Black Belt and Black Belt positions are 24-month leadership development opportunities for talented internal candidates who have a proven track record and high future potential. Promotions while in the Six Sigma assignment are not appropriate since the purpose of the program is to provide a structured career broadening opportunity that develops skills and competencies for future leadership positions within the company. Although re-entry is expected at 24 months, there is an exception process in place for early completion that requires Master Black Belt approval from the specific country and the International Director of Six Sigma. Peter knows that in the past, re-entry exceptions have been granted after 18 to 20 months of training, but very rarely and only when the business has a unique situation, and the re-entering Black Belt is the best fit. Peter is very new to his job and also concerned about what impact granting an exception might have on his career path in the company. Peter is aware that his decision will have major companywide implications. He fears that granting this exception could create backlash because it sets a precedent and it could be seen as special treatment by male employees and even by female employees who do not have young children. His initial reaction is that he needs more information. Have similar decisions been made in the past? Are there other precedents? Doesn’t Western provide enough support for childcare through its work-life balance programs? Peter’s initial response to Sarah, is “Give me some time. I need to look into this.” The Six Sigma Program Requirements Six Sigma is a business strategy used to increase profitability by improving the effectiveness and efficiency of all operations by eliminating defects in manufacturing products and developing service processes, by statistically representing how a process is performing in terms of meeting or exceeding customers’ needs and expectations. These programs require a clear focus on achieving measurable and quantifiable financial returns, a strong commitment to making decisions on the basis of verifiable data, and a progressive infrastructure of “Champions,” “Master Black Belts,” “Black Belts,” and “Green Belts” (similar to that of Karate) to lead and implement the approach. Training covers qualitative and quantitative measures and metrics, leadership, and project management practices and skills. To achieve Six Sigma, a process must not produce more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO). A Six Sigma opportunity, therefore, is the total number of chances for a defect. The basic objective of Six Sigma methodology is the implementation of a measurement-based strategy that focuses on process improvement and variation reduction is accomplished by using two Six Sigma sub-methodologies executed by Green Belts and Black Belts and overseen by Master Black Belts. Because of its complexity, the program requires candidates to commit to a two year contract working for a sponsoring division. After two years, participants can be promoted to a job in another division. It is expected that graduates will continue to promote, apply and sponsor the program’s practices within the company. According to the Six Sigma Academy, Black Belts save companies an average of approximately $230,000 in each of the four to six projects they complete each year. When General Electric began Six Sigma in 1995, their estimated savings were close to $10 billion U.S. during the first five years of implementation. Thousands of other companies around the world have discovered the benefits of this strategy and adapted the framework for implementing the methodology. Although Six Sigma is a registered trademark of Motorola Inc, many other high profile companies, such as Honeywell, General Electric, Boeing, DuPont, Toshiba, Seagate, Allied Signal, Kodak, Texas Instruments, Sony and about two-thirds of the Fortune 500 organizations, began using this strategy in the 1990s with the aim of reducing their costs and improving product quality. The Pros and Cons of Six Sigma Western Company has many prominent Six Sigma graduates in senior management positions including the current Chairman, President, and CEO. The selection of knowledgeable, highly motivated and well-respected employees for Black Belt assignments is critical for Six Sigma projects because less capable employees have led to problems and challenges on past projects. Once selected for Six Sigma training, their previous jobs are backfilled because participants are not expected to return to these positions. Typically Six Sigma trainees have a sponsor and are assigned to a business or group that needs a problem to be solved. They need to close at least two projects while they are on this assignment to become Six Sigma certified. The expectations of and for graduates are high because the selection process for the program is so competitive with nominations based [on] past performance and future potential. In the past, the career paths of program graduates were typically high profile promotions within the organization. There are on-going sponsorship and re-entry issues. Sometimes when it is time to re-enter at the end of the Six Sigma training, the program graduate may not want to go into the business that the sponsor is in because the business opportunities are less attractive than others. Recently too, program graduates have become increasingly dissatisfied with their career related outcomes. This is a serious concern for the credibility and momentum of the program because it is critical to keep it positioned as a highly rewarding career move. A major problem with the placements has been that the employees who go in with high expectations for their future careers don’t always get positions at the level they expect for the work they did during their two years of training. As a result, some nominees are now turning down the opportunity to participate in Six Sigma programs. Policy Implications Peter was concerned that, ideally, Sarah should have two full years of training in the program and that one year was far too little to meet the time requirement. Additionally, the business unit that is sponsoring her does not want her to leave them while as she is in the middle working of an important project. While Peter wants to do what’s right for the employee, this request is outside the parameters and rules of the Six Sigma. Acutely aware that any decision that he makes in this case will have personal, programmatic and company-wide implications, Peter feels that consultation with the key stakeholders is necessary before he meets face-to-face with Sarah to discuss her request. He ponders the options available to him. Moreover, he struggles with developing the best negotiating approach to use with Sarah and how to convey a possible negative decision to her without damaging her enthusiasm and commitment to the company. His decision needs to be made fairly quickly because a replacement is needed immediately for the open position. Although the ultimate decision-maker is Peter, in order to resolve the situation effectively, he wants to involve of all the stakeholders which include: The Human Resources manager The Six Sigma leader in the U.S., who oversees the worldwide program The manager from the business that is currently sponsoring Sarah The manager from the business unit that has the open position The manager from her old position where she may have to return if there is no re-entry position for her next year Some of the alternatives he considers are: Letting Sarah leave the Six Sigma program. However, by doing so he would be setting a precedent for other employees. But first, one of the things he wants to determine is how badly the other business unit needs her. Then, if she is absolutely the best person for that job, he could be inclined to let her go. Not allowing her to take the position, if she is not the only candidate or the best one for the position which would maintain the integrity of the Six Sigma program, but would upset Sarah. Developing a time-related compromise. Peter is open to discussing whether the business unit with the open position could wait for six months to fill that job. If so, then he could seriously consider Sarah’s request, although it would still be quite early. Suggest to Sarah that she further explore Western’s Work Life programs to find a way to balance her family and work obligations. Discussion Questions Discuss the pros and cons of each of Peter’s four alternatives. Can you think of additional creative alternatives? As Peter Toubin, what would be your decision and why? Provide a justification/rationale for this decision and outline a step by step process for implementing it. Would your decision be different if this were a male employee asking to get out of a similar child-care obligation? Why or why not? If Peter allows Sarah to take the new position and not complete the second year of the Six Sigma program, could this affect his future career at Western? Why or why not? Diversity on the Web Step Step 1: Learn more about the Six Sigma program by visiting the link below. Research the websites of five different companies and note their similarities and differences. Step Step 2: Based on your research write a one-page analysis, including the following three questions. Use your research findings in formulating your answers: What is the importance of leadership in Six Sigma programs? Why is the selection of potential candidates critical in implementing Six Sigma programs? What are the key success factors for implementing successful Six Sigma programs? Source: http://www.isixsigma.com/industries/ Points of Law Work-Life Balance Policies in Canada Women’s labor force participation in Canada has increased significantly, approaching that of men, with more single-parent women in the full-time workforce. In 2006, 80.9% of all Canadian women ages 25–54 were in the labor force (Statistics Canada, 2008). Yet, in 2010, Statistics Canada reported that employed Canadian mothers worked an additional 28.4 hours on unpaid domestic labor weekly as compared to 11.5 hours for employed Canadian fathers (Statistics Canada, 2010). Canada has a national Canada Child Tax Benefit program and most Canadian provinces offer subsidized childcare to low-income families. However, the province of Québec in Canada offers a series of family allowances (National Child Benefit Supplement, Child Assistance, the Universal Childcare Benefit) along with a series of tax credits, as well as a Parental Insurance Plan for added financial security during maternity or parental leave. Québec has enacted policies to provide low- and middle-income parents with childcare at $7 per day and employees also have the right to take up to 10 days of leave for family obligations (Tetzli and Gauthier, 2009). Québec is one of the most progressive jurisdictions in terms of equality rights in North America through its universal childcare and parental leave policies that are also extended to men and same-sex couples (Tremblay, 2009). But there is still evidence that Canadian organizations and workplace cultures are often unsupportive of working parents beyond the legally established rights thereby curtailing further policy development at the provincial and federal levels (Duxbury et al., 2003). Bibliography Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine. (June 10, 2007). “Six Sigma: So Yesterday?” Retrieved from http://www.businessweek.com. Coronado, R.B., & Antony, J. (2002). “Critical Success Factors for the Successful Implementation of Six Sigma Projects in Organisations.” The TQM Magazine, 14(2), Addison-Wesley Professional, pp. 92–99. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09544780210416702. Duxbury, Linda, & Higgins, Chris. (2001). “Work-Life Balance in the New Millennium: Where Are We? Where Do We Need to Go?” Ottawa: Canadian Policy Research Networks Paper No. 7314, October, 2001. Duxbury, Linda, & Higgins, Chris. (2003). “Where to Work in Canada? An Examination of Regional Differences in Work Life Practices.” Retrieved from: http://rcrpp.ca/documents/36382_en.pdf. Jenson, Jane and Thompson, Sherry. (1999). “Comparative Family Policy: Six Provincial Stories.” Ottawa: Canadian Policy Research Networks. Smithson, J., & Stokoe, E.H. (2005). “Discourses of Work–Life Balance: Negotiating ‘Genderblind’ Terms in Organizations.” Gender, Work and Organization, 12(2), March. Blackwell Publishing Ltd: Oxford, UK. Retrieved from doi/10.1111/j.1468-0432.2005.00267.x/pdf “What is Six Sigma?” Retrieved from http://www.isixsigma.com. Tezli, A., & Gauthier, A.H. (2009). “Balancing Work and Family in Canada: An Empirical Examination of Conceptualizations and Measurements.” Canadian Journal of Sociology. Cahiers Canadiens de Sociologie, 34(2): 433–462. Tremblay, D.-G. (2009). “Quebec’s Policies for Work-family Balance: A Model for Canada?” In Cohen, Marjorie et Jane Pulkingham (Eds.), Public Policy for Women. The State, Income Security and Labour Market Issues. University of Toronto Press, pp. 271–290. Statistics Canada. (2006). “Women in Canada: A Gender-based Statistical Report” (Catalogue No. 89–503–XIE). Ottawa: Statistics Canada. Statistics Canada. (2008). “Labour Highlight Tables, 2006 Census” (Catalogue No. 97–559–XWE2006002). Ottawa: Statistics Canada. Rana Haq is an assistant professor at Laurentian University, Ontario, Canada. Her research interests are in managing diversity, international comparative human resource management, and cross-cultural communications. Diversity and Inclusion Awards: A Critical Examination M. June Allard Assumption College Worcester State University, Professor Emerita Recognition of the diversity achievements in organizations comes in many forms: placement on high profile lists such as “Best companies for . . . .,” diversity ratings, awards, report cards, and profiles. Diversity awards are made within a broad spectrum of industries, organizations, functional units and special interest groups. There are international, national, regional, state, county and local awards; corporate, for profit, nonprofit, government and “unrestricted” awards; awards for small-, medium- and large-size workforces, media, marketing, supplier and recruitment and retention awards, and the list goes on. While some awards are restricted to specific types of organizations, others exclude specific types of organizations. Some recognitions acknowledge diversity practices and programs pertinent to specific minority groups, some honor innovative diversity practices and some consider diversity innovation as merely one of several requirements of corporate social responsibility. Finally, many awards are designed to recognize diversity practices per se, while others view diversity efforts as simply one component of good corporate management. Section I. Judging the Awards To understand what a diversity award means requires knowing who is eligible, how the winners are selected, the criteria for choosing the awardees, the principal type of data collected, the collection process, the judging methodology, and the sponsoring agency. Purpose Diversity awards are based on an organization’s performance during the previous year, so awards presented in 2014 celebrate the achievements of 2013. Procedures for selecting award recipients rest upon the sponsor’s purpose for creating the award. The stated purposes for making awards are usually very broad in scope such as advancing the working conditions of a particular group; recognizing original diversity practices; informing minority consumers of companies with positive programs for the minorities. These broad purposes are only hints; a closer look at the specific selection process far better defines what an award really signifies. Selecting the Winners . . . The Criteria and Their Weights Most awards publish their general criteria when applications are solicited. All criteria are not created equal, however. Some may be more important than others as the data relevant to them are weighted (counted more) than data for other criteria. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the CEI (Corporate Equality Index) ratings where some criteria are worth more points than others. Although some awards sponsors may indicate that certain criteria count more than others, it is rare that they reveal how much more. Selecting the Winners . . . Collecting Applicant Data Type of Information Generally, awards rest upon objective or numeric data such as how much money an organization spent on minority vendors and community outreach events, the number of their workforce members registered in employee affiliation or resource groups, whether or not the organization has a diversity council, etc. In an effort to provide objectivity, some awards state that only quantitative and objective data are considered in evaluating applicants and that subjective, ancillary and supplementary data are not. Other awards, most notably those for innovation and media, rest upon subjective or qualitative information as they require descriptions of innovative practices and media programs. These awards, though, are likely to also require “hard” (objective) data to document the effectiveness of their programs and policies. Finally, a few awards accept both types of data—objective data primarily plus additional subjective data to explain and elaborate the objective responses. Gathering the Information Nearly all major national awards gather data using online surveys frequently accessible only to registered applicants for the award. Notable exceptions are “The Div 50” award that uses on-line voting at one extreme and Catalyst at the other extreme, that engages heavily in telephone and onsite interviews and focus groups. Information Sources The majority of the awards to be discussed here require extensive applications usually completed by senior management because central offices have the best overview of company-wide diversity activities, particularly in large organizations with global offices. This leaves open the possibility however, that workforce members may have very different views about diversity activities—views not reflected in the application sent to the awards sponsor. For example, an effective diversity-recruiting program in one plant may not be so effective in another plant or location. Some awards therefore, conduct a “reality check” through site visits and interviews with members of the workforce or surveys of random samples of workforce employees to gain a broader perspective on the effectiveness of diversity efforts and the climate of inclusion. Selecting the Winners . . . The Applicant Pool Becoming a Contender How does an organization become a contender for a diversity award? Each award is different. Some send invitations to organizations; some require that organizations self-nominate; others do both. The national awards reviewed here that solicit applications tend to do so from the Fortune 500, 1,000 or similar lists. When organizations choose to become applicants, the decision is generally initiated at the corporate level. It is not feasible (or perhaps even possible) in most cases for members of an organization’s workforce to initiate a nomination or application for most awards. How Many Contenders? A basic question in evaluating any award is  . . . “How many applicants were in the pool?” This is especially important in awards naming “The Top 10 . . .” or “The Best 50 . . .” Placing in the top 10 is impressive when there are 200 organizations applying, much less so if are 20. Selecting the Winners . . . The Judging Process Blindfolds vs. Open-eyes Blind reviews are those in which the judges do not know the names of the organizations whose applications they review. Blind review goes a long way toward eliminating reviewer bias. It may not be totally effective however, when the applications are judged in an industry by judges who are drawn from that industry and well known within it. When interviews and focus groups are used, blind review, at least in the data collection phase, is not possible. One way to help remove reviewer bias in this case is for a separate independent panel to make the final award choices without knowledge of applicant identity and without contact with the panel that conducted the interviews. Few sponsors indicate they use this practice, however. Transparency The key to judging the credibility of an award lies in its transparency, i.e., the openness about how the entire selection process was conducted. Transparency ranges from a few awards that are nearly completely open (for example, the CEI Corporate Equality Index and the NAACP Opportunity and Diversity Report Card) to some that are “translucent” (either the survey or interview questions or the selection process is considered proprietary and therefore not public) to many that are almost completely shuttered with little public detail about any part of the award determination. Most awards consider the number of applicants to be proprietary, thereby clouding interpretation of what it means to be in the top X of the organizations. The trend recently has been toward greater openness. To date, few awards come close to matching CEI or NAACP in transparency. Final Determination The best selection processes are objective or systematic and use some sort of preset scoring or point system. Even the more subjective data such as that arising from interviews, can be converted into point systems to become more objective. It is generally accepted that the best (most objective) judgments are made by panels of judges rather than by a single individual. The names of the judges are not usually made public, presumably to prevent outside pressures on the judges. It is rarely clear from published information on most awards if a minimum or cut-off score is employed in choosing awardees. Cut-off scores (i.e., no organization scoring below a specified point is given an award), have the advantage of ensuring that the awards guarantee a minimum level of diversity program quality. Results and Outcomes Interpretation Even when point systems are used, it is not always easy to interpret the meaning of some awards. Titles such as “Top Companies . . . ,” “The Best . . . ” don’t really convey just how good the organizations are if no scores are disclosed or more importantly, no minimum performance/score is required. Without a minimum of some kind, being “one of the best” could mean anything, e.g., “the best of the mediocre.” Without point systems, there is no way to know how good or bad a diversity program is nor is there any way to know the range of quality among applicant programs. Note that a rating indicates how well a standard or criterion is met (also known as criterion-referenced evaluation). A ranking is a comparison with other applicants; it is competitive, but does not imply any standard or quality level is involved. The Prize The prize is publicity, positive publicity. Organizations get publicity both from their own marketing and outreach activities and publicity from those of the award sponsor. Beyond publicity, many awards provide feedback on their performance to applicants. These “report cards” can “grade” performance on each criterion and/or can compare an organization to all other applicants or compare them just to the winners. Usually this feedback is free, but in some cases, applicants must purchase any feedback on the quality of their performance. Best Practices Many sponsors compile a list of the best practices they find in the applications they process. Some publish these practices; others offer them for sale. Published lists of winners often indicate why the winners were selected. While the “reasons” may not be explained in much detail, they can give other organizations ideas for improving their own diversity initiatives. The Awards To bring some order to the confusing array of awards, they are grouped here into broad categories based upon their principal focus. Each category is illustrated with brief descriptions of a few national awards drawn from public information. Section II. Comprehensive Diversity Awards These awards first specify the type of organization(s) that are eligible and then focus on the characteristics and quality of the corporate culture and the diversity efforts of these organizations. Section III. Diversity Innovation Awards These awards focus on the innovative character of diversity programs and practices, with some ignoring the type of organization and others restricting competition to a particular type of organization. Sections IV & V. Special Interest Awards These awards first define the group(s) that the diversity programs serve and then focus on the characteristics and quality of the programs and practices. Section II. Comprehensive Diversity Awards Comprehensive awards consider diversity programs and practices in general and are inclusive of all racial, ethnic and minority groups. Comprehensive Diversity Award Award Sponsor Eligibility 1. Top 50 Companies for Diversity® DiversityInc Minimum 1,000 employees Top 50 Companies for Diversity® (DiversityInc) This major national general diversity award, now in its 14th year, is restricted to organizations with large workforces that provide domestic partner benefits. It is based on measurements of diversity-management practices and outcomes. Fromits applications for 2013 awards, DiversityInc also created 15 “special interest” award lists and a number of individual “Diversity Special Awards.” There is no application fee. Criteria  include multiple measures of demonstrated consistent strength in four equally weighted areas: (1) CEO commitment to diversity, (2) human capital in five levels of management, (3) internal and external organizational communications, and (4) supplier diversity. Greater criteria detail for each of the four areas appears on the web site. (Search: DiversityInc Top 50 Methodology. Click on 2013 sites.) Selection Method.  The 2013 awardees were selected from a pool of 893 surveys containing 300 empirical questions with predetermined (undisclosed) weightings. A point system was used. Results.  Every company that applies receives a free report card measuring its performance overall and within the four areas. Section III. Diversity Innovation Awards Innovation means different things in different awards. For some it means originality. For others it means the introduction of programs and practices that are new to the organization, but not necessarily original. The Innovation Awards exhibit includes one award specifically designed to acknowledge innovative programs and one special interest award for which innovation is one of several criteria. Diversity Innovation Awards Award Sponsor Eligibility 2. International Innovation in Diversity Awards (general) Profiles in Diversity® Journal Organizations and institutions, individuals and teams 3. Applause Awards (women)* Women’s Business Enterprise Council National and Intern’l; individuals, corporations, organizations *Note:innovation is one of several criteria for this award International Innovation in Diversity Awards (Profiles in Diversity® Journal) These awards aim to encourage organizations to implement innovative programs, projects, or practices that will help to improve diversity inclusion. Innovations can be new ideas, methods, services or processes. In 2012, Diversity Journal published its ninth annual list announcing 23 awards. (http://www.diversityjournal.com click: awards) Criteria.  Selection is based on evidence of program effectiveness and ease of implementation. The innovation (1) must have been launched within the previous five years, (2) delivered a positive outcome on diversity management, staff recruitment and/or toward inclusiveness and (3) improved equity in the workplace. The application requires an Executive Summary of not to exceed 500 words. Two high resolution photos may be added. PowerPoint presentations, charts, videos and other files are not acceptable. The application fee is $250. Presentation of the innovation must include: (a) the particularly novel or noteworthy aspect about the innovation, (b) the purpose or goal, (c) resources employed to implement it (e.g., management support, funding, staffing, communication tools), (d) benefits and positive changes achieved, and (e) evidence of effectiveness. Applause Awards (WBE: Women’s Business Enterprise Council) In 2013, the Women’s Business Enterprise Council presented its 14th annual awards for exceptional accomplishments that increase opportunities for women’s business enterprises (WBEs) (http://www.wbenc.org/?id=342). Criteria.  Initiatives include significant impact on the growth of WBEs, creation of policies, procedures or initiatives that increase opportunities for WBEs; and innovative and inspirational leadership on behalf of women business owners and their companies. The contribution must be national or international, not just regional, in scope. Selection Method.  No formal application process is used; recommendations by e-mail are accepted. Applications are judged by an internal panel from the WBE National Council plus selected corporate representatives. Section IV. Special Interest Awards: Race and Ethnicity Awards in this category tend to be sponsored either by organizations representing a specific minority constituency such as AARP awards given for diversity initiatives benefiting older workers or they are “segment” lists derived from larger data bases such as DiversityInc’s Top 10 Companies for People with Disabilities. The first set of special interest awards focuses on race and ethnicity. Special Interest Awards: Race and Ethnicity Award Sponsor Eligibility 4. Best Companies Awards (6) Asia Society Fortune 500 Employers 5. 40 Best Companies for Diversity Black Enterprise Magazine Top 1,000 publicly-traded companies and 100 leading global companies 6. The NAACP Opportunity and Diversity Report Card NAACP Selected top firms in five selected industries 7. 50 Best Companies of the Year Latina Style Magazine None specified Note: DiversityInc also publishes separate lists for Asian Americans, Blacks/African Americans and Latinos from its Top 50 Companies for Diversity® database. Best Companies Awards (Asia Society) A landmark survey in 2010 designed to strengthen Asian and American relations, resulted in the presentation of four Best Company Awards: Overall Best Company for Asian Pacific Americans to Work For; Best Company for Asian Pacific Americans to Develop Workforce Skills, Asian American Community Award, and Best Company in Promoting Asian Pacific Americans into Senior Leadership Positions. In 2013, two additional awards were made: Best Company for Minority Asian Pacific Americans and Best Company with the Most Innovative Practices. In addition, the “Honor for Distinguished Practice” is given to one company in these two categories. There is no cost to apply (http://sites.asiasociety.org/diversityforum/awards). Criteria. Specific criteria were not listed on the web site. Selection Method. An electronic survey, designed and administered by an independent company, was distributed to Asian Pacific American (APA) employees. Corporate chief diversity officers also described their programs, policies and activities supporting APA employees. Results from both sets of data were compared. Judging procedures were not published. Results. Companies get free report comparing them to other companies with overall, item and dimension analyses, plus listing of strengths and areas for improvement. 40 Best Companies for Diversity (Black Enterprise Magazine) Black Enterprise magazine awards focus on activities related to the participation of African Americans and to some extent, members of other ethnic minority groups in their companies. In July 2013, the ninth annual listing was published (http://www.blackenterprise.com/diversity/diversity-list-2009). Criteria.  The survey measures the percentage of African Americans and members of other ethnic minority groups in the company’s (a) total workforce, (b) board of directors and (c) senior management as well as (d) supplier diversity: the percentage of total procurement dollars spent with companies owned by African Americans and other ethnic minorities. Weights assigned to the four categories differ in different years. Marketing and outreach (e.g., advertising, promotions, community outreach and scholarships) were also surveyed. Selection Method.  The survey was sent to the 1,000 of the top publicly traded companies and to 100 leading global companies operating in the U.S. A total score for each company was derived from quantitatively measured performance in each survey category. Scores in the senior management and supplier diversity categories were weighted more heavily. The NAACP Opportunity and Diversity Report Card The NAACP does not give awards per se, but rather creates a report card focusing on the diversity and inclusion found in the leading companies of a single industry. Industries are selected for potential for creating jobs and wealth in the African American community and other communities of color. The 2012 report focuses on the hotel and resort industry, analyzing and reporting on the performance of the top five grossing U.S. companies (Search: NAACP Opportunity and Diversity Report Card). Criteria.  For each company, the Report Card analyzes the percentage of African Americans and people of color: (a) on its governing board, (b) at multiple employee levels, (c) hired or promoted, (d) among its suppliers and (e) among its property managers and owners. Hotel and resort data came from the companies themselves and industry data from reports of the U.S. OEO Commission, U.S. Census Bureau and the Alliance for Board Diversity. Rating Method.  The data from each company was compared to industry-wide data and each company was given a letter grade (A+ thru C, & F) on each of the five criteria. Grades for the five criteria were weighted as follows: (a) governing board, 10%, (b) employee diversity, 40%, (c) hires and promotions, 10%, (d) suppliers, 20% and (e) managers and owners, 20%. Results.  A summary letter grade was computed for African Americans and one for People of Color. All grades are published on the Internet. The report includes an extensive lodging industry profile. 50 Best Companies of the Year (Latina Style Magazine) In 2012, Latina Style announced its 11th evaluation of corporations offering the best career opportunities for Latinas in the U.S. (http://latina50.latinastyle.com/press.php). Criteria.  Principal areas of evaluation include: number of Latina executives, Latina retention, mentoring programs, alternative work policies, employee benefits, women’s issues, job retraining, affinity groups and Hispanic relations. Criteria are weighted, but the weights are not published (http://latina50latinastyle.com click: Chat with Criteria). Selection Method.  A multi-step selection process begins with a survey sent to the Fortune 1000 companies. “Each survey category (employee statistics, employee benefits, recruitment and procurement, career advancement opportunities, diversity initiatives/strategies, and additional programs and policies) is evaluated separately, and then in its entirety. Each company is compared to its own previous performance and also to similar companies. Hispanic community involvement and philanthropic efforts are considered as are data pertaining to Hispanic women. Each company is ranked on a point scale ranging from 0 to 15 for each criterion. The final list is reviewed and approved by an external committee comprised of senior officials from the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (http://latina50.latinastyle.com click: Survey). Results.  Large charts reporting on multiple criteria for each company are published on the web (http://www.latinastyle.com Click on “LS 50 special report). Section V. Special Interest Awards: Age, Disability, Sexual Orientation and Gender A second set of Special Interest awards crosses all racial and ethnic lines. These awards recognize organizations with programs or practices that benefit minority groups based on characteristics such as age or sexual orientation. Special Interest Awards: Age, Disability, Sexual Orientation & Gender Seniors Awards Sponsor Eligibility  8. Best Employers for Workers Over 50 AARP (American Ass’n of Retired Persons) & SHRM (Soc. for Human Resources Management) Any U.S.-based employer: minimum 50 employees Disabilities Awards  9. Top 10 Companies for People with Disabilities* DiversityInc Minimum 1,000 employees* Sexual Orientation Awards** 10. Corporate Equality Index for Workplace Equality Innovation Human Rights Campaign Found. Large private-sector U.S. businesses Women’s Awards** 11. Working Mother 100 Best Companies Working MotherMagazine (NAFE) Public/private non-gov’t with minimum 500 employees, pd maternity leave, flex benefits. No work/life or child care firms 12. Catalyst Award (women) Catalyst No restrictions Note: *Selected from DiversityInc’s Top 50 Companies for Diversity® database. **DiversityInc also publishes separate lists for Sexual Orientation (LGBT) and Executive Women from its Top 50 Companies for Diversity® database. Best Employers for Workers Over 50 (AARP & SHRM) AARP recognizes companies and organizations that lead in initiating practices beneficial to a multigenerational workforce. This list first appeared in 2001 and is now published every two years (http://www.aarp.org/work/employee-benefits Search keyword: Best Employers Awards). Criteria.  Award considerations include: (1) recruiting patterns, (2) opportunities for training, education, and career development, (3) workplace accommodations, (4) alternative work options, such as flexible scheduling, job-sharing, and phased retirement, (5)  employee health and pension benefits and (6) benefits for retirees. Selection Method.  Applications initially rated by an independent survey firm and submitted to an independent panel of judges of private sector, nonprofit, and government labor expert and then vetted to a second independent firm. The survey form can be downloaded by registered organizations. Results.  All applicants receive feedback comparing their organizations to other applicants. Global Notes……….…………………………..…..…….….…AARP International AARP Best Employers for Workers Over 50 Award—International This award parallels the AARP American Award, but recognizes non-U.S.—based employers with innovative workforce and/or human resource practices beneficial to age 50+ workers and that provide models for the aging workforce of tomorrow. It also honors employers that recognize long-term employees for their commitments. Top 10 Companies for People with Disabilities ® (DiversityInc) This is one of the annual specialty lists drawn from the pool of applicants for DiversityInc’s Top 50 Companies for Diversity® (http://www.diversityinc.com). Criteria.  DiversityInc examines recruiting programs, workplace accommodations, work/life benefits, supplier-diversity initiatives and employee-resource groups for people with disabilities and/or caregivers. Philanthropic and outreach efforts are also considered. DiversityInc holds discussions with disability organizations for supplemental information. Selection Method.  The survey and procedures are the same as those of the DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity®. Details of the methodology are not published. Corporate Equality Index (CEI) for Workplace Equality Innovation (CEI Index) (Human Rights Campaign Foundation) The Human Rights Campaign Foundation does not give awards as such, but rather measures how fairly large, private sector businesses in the United States treat their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees, consumers and investors. The CEI began in 2002 (www.hrc.org/cei). Criteria.  Main criteria: (1) equal employment opportunity policy that includes sexual orientation and gender identity or expression; (2) employment benefits that include equivalent spousal and partner medical benefits, parity between employees with different-sex and same-sex spouses and partners and equal health coverage for transgender individuals without exclusion for medically necessary care; (3) organizational LGBT competency that includes training, resources or accountability measures and employee group or Diversity Council; (4) public engagement that includes LGBT recruitment efforts and philanthropic efforts; and (5) responsible citizenship. Greater detail available on website. Selection Method.  Invitations are sent to large and successful U.S. employers drawn from Fortune magazine’s 1,000 and the American Lawyer’s Top 200 Revenue-grossing Law Firms. Additionally, private-sector employers with 500 or more full-time U.S. employees can self-nominate. The survey is published on-line and available to the public. Researchers examine the policies and practices of the participating businesses. Criteria subcategories are weighted with the points awarded for each subcategory published. Ratings are criterion-based rather than competition-based. Businesses are rated on a scale from 1-100 with a specified number of points for meeting each criteria; partial credit awarded for partial achievement. Results.  Each company receives a free scorecard comparing its overall performance globally and within its industry in terms of (a) nondiscrimination policies and diversity, (b) benefits, (c) employee groups and diversity councils and (d) external engagement. Working Mother 100 Best Companies (National Association for Female Executives, Working Mother Magazine) 2012 marked the 27th year that the magazine identified the “100 Best”—companies that encouraged development of new programs to help working moms to balance work and family. Working Mother also publishes other specialty lists (http://www.workingmother.com Click on: Best Companies Categories). Criteria.  (1) workforce profile, (2) benefits, (3) women’s issues and advancement, (4) child care, (5) flexible work, (6) paid time off and leave, (7) company culture and (8) work-life programs. Criteria are weighted, but weights are not disclosed. Particular weight was given to child care, flexible scheduling options and advancement programs. Selection Method.  Organizations self-nominate and complete a 500 item online survey (available only to registered applicants) concerning workforce representation, child care, flexibility programs, leave policies. The usage, availability and tracking of programs and the accountability of managers overseeing the programs are also questioned. An essay on best practices to support working mothers is included as well as the organization’s involvement in, and handling of sex discrimination cases. Results.  All applicants receive a free scorecard comparing them to other applicants in terms of usage, availability and tracking of programs and accountability of managers who oversee them. Catalyst (Catalyst) Catalyst annually honors organizations with innovative approaches evidenced by demonstrated results that address the recruitment, development and advancement of all managerial women. First awarded in 1987, some 79 initiatives in 72 organizations from around the world have been recognized (http://www.catalyst.org/ Click on: Catalyst Award). Criteria.  Business rationale, senior management support, accountability, communication, replicability, originality and measurable results are examined. Details about each criterion are on the web site. There is an application fee of $3,500 and the requirement that the CEO or Managing Partners/Directors attend the award ceremony (http://www.catalyst.org/ Click: Catalyst Award; click: Apply for the Catalyst Award). Selection Method.  The application contains primarily qualitative questions with change outcomes requiring numeric data. Selection processes include telephone interviews and on-site interviews and focus groups with executive management, high-level women, human resources professional and other employees. The application questions are public and appear on the web site. (ibid.) Judges are aware of the identity of the organizations they review. A committee review is made from three perspectives: (a) numeric data (minimum of three years of documented evidence of impact (change outcomes) required with data showing improvement), (b) the pool of current nominations and (c) against previous award winners. Finalists receive over 500 hours of assessment. Results.  Finalist organizations that do not win have the opportunity to receive a feedback session. Section VI. The Decision to Apply Costs and Risks Most national awards are given by magazines or by industry associations and most do not charge an application fee. Applying for a national award is costly even without an application fee because of the expense in compiling all the application information. There are also some risks in applying. An organization’s affairs are opened to scrutiny by outsiders, thereby risking disclosure of company secrets. Even for the winners there can be negative consequences. In 2005 for example, anti-gay groups targeted Kraft for its sponsorship of the 2006 Gay Games (DiversityInc, 2005) and for nine years, The American Family Association boycotted Disney for gay activities such as providing domestic partner benefits and hosting “Gay Day” at theme parks (HRC, 2005). Negative consequences for winners may also result from failing to win or from lower ratings in following years—an embarrassment for managers, shareholders and the board of directors. Winning creates internal and external pressures to stay on the list and organizations wishing to stay on a list must show constant improvement—a stated criterion for some awards. Winning gets harder each year as more companies compete and competitors improve their programs. Winning also raises employee expectations  . . . “If we’re so good, why don’t we have . . . ” Benefits to the Organization Given the costs and the risks, why do organizations apply? What might they gain and are the potential benefits really worth it? Business Case for Diversity Unfortunately, the financial impact of winning is both complex and costly to measure. Because it is difficult to separate diversity from overall good management, impact studies are few and they have focused on measuring differing outcomes: Shareholder Return.  DiversityInc analyzed the stock market performance of publicly traded companies and found an important and long-established correlation between diversity management and share-holder return” (Visconti & Peacock, 2005). Productivity.  In 2005, the National Urban League’s large investigation found that effective diversity programs had 18 percent greater productivity than the overall American economy (NUL, 2005). Revenue & Growth.  McKinsey et al. reported that companies effectively managing the diversity of their people saw increases in revenue, growth, stock prices, market valuation, and net-incomes (USEEOC, 2008, p. 15). Even though the findings of financial impact are only correlational rather than causal, i.e., diversity efforts are associated with financial gain, but there is no proof they cause this gain, organizations are increasingly convinced that diversity efforts do indeed affect the bottom line. Human Capital Benefits National awards are viewed as badges of quality. They bestow credibility and high visibility—powerful recruiting tools, an especially valuable asset in light of the McKinsey finding that the most important resource for companies over the next 20 years will be the diversity among its employees (Santocito, 2007, p. 1; USEEOC, 2008). National recognition may not only impact recruiting, but may also improve workforce retention and consumer loyalty (DiversityInc, 2007, July/August, p. 45). Thus, forward-thinking organizations now focus on the new demographics of the minority workforce and the global and minority consumer markets. The Pressures of Changing Demographics The Minority Workforce The minority workforce is increasing greatly in both size and in percentage of the total workforce and by mid-century will comprise more than half of the U.S. workforce. It is forecast that by 2050, immigrants will comprise nearly 19 percent of the U.S. populations compared with 12 percent in 2005, thus underscoring the arguments that diversity recruitment and retention efforts will become even more critical as the war to gain talent escalates (Pew Research Center 2008, February 11). The Minority Consumer Force The purchasing power of U.S. minority racial and ethnic groups is growing rapidly in dollar value and in market share. The composition of the workforce directly links to these consumer markets. It is important that employees look like and understand the culture and buying practices of the diverse niche marks that businesses want to serve (Greg Smith in Trebilcock, 2007). This becomes very important in light of the growing movement among minorities to buy from companies that support their groups, support that includes worker inclusion, supplier purchasing and community event support. What have sponsors learned about making awards? Examination of award criteria and selection practices suggests that a number of quality controls have been developed. Some examples are: Programs and practices must be in existence for a specified length of time. Initiatives created shortly before the application are too new to demonstrate sustained effectiveness and those created too far in the past no longer qualify as innovative. Programs and practices must have demonstrated (documented) consistent strength. Some programs start well, but falter with implementation problems. Companies are compared to others in their industries and employee skill sets e.g., an engineering company is likely to have a small pool of women compared to a retail company. Evaluation criteria have preset weightings and minimum achievement requirements to avoid after-the-fact bias and inadequate performance levels. The minimum required workforce numbers are only for full-time employees. Seasonal employees can temporarily swell diversity percentages. The minimum required workforce numbers are for U.S.-based employees; global employees distort diversity numbers. The percentages of minority members holding line rather than staff jobs asks organizations to figure out which managers at every level are responsible for their units’ bottom lines and what percentage of those managers are women. Companies must report the usage and availability of programs because a great program serves no purpose if no one is using it. Companies must report the number of minorities in each workforce level. Supplier diversity companies are audited and must have third party certification. Diversity improvements must be documented with objective data. Distribution of diverse workforce groups must ensure they are not isolated at specific work sites or departments of the organization. Class action lawsuits and the organization’s response to them are considered. Exhibit 6-2 Quality Controls . . . Noteworthy Award Selection Practices Section VII. The Awards In Perspective Considerations Because they are “Awards,” there is a tendency to assume they are credible. Given the lack of information readily available about how many awardees are chosen, caution is urged in attaching too much credence to them. Bear in mind too, that awards made to large national organizations are not necessarily reflective of their offices in all locations. Questions to consider . . .  . . . as a potential employee . . . as a potential consumer . . . as a potential applicant Is the award criterion-based or competitive, that is, are organizations judged against pre-set standards or only judged against other companies? What are the specific criteria for the award? What is the selection process? Does the sponsor divulge the details of how the selections are actually made? Who does the judging? Are the data subjective? Objective? Both? How large is the applicant pool? Does the process use blind review? Who within the organization actually completed the application? Who had a voice in it? Is the organizational workforce comprised only of full time employees or are part-timers also included (potentially adding to diversity ranks)? Are contenders judged by industry? What are the performance indicators, i.e., how is the “success” of the organization’s diversity program actually measured? Exhibit 6-3 Evaluating a Diversity Award Discussion Questions DiversityInc’s list of Top 10 Companies for LGBT Employees requires that any company named to this list must have a CEI (Corporate Equality Index) rating of 100 percent, thus linking this list to the Human Rights Campaign Foundation corporate ratings. Do you think this is a good practice? Explain. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects people from discrimination based on race, color, sex, national origin, and religion. Employee affinity and resource groups are common for all of these (except for religion) in organizations winning diversity awards. For example, only 10 percent of the 401 companies in the 2009 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies® competition have religious resource groups. Why do you think this is the case? The garment industries target a diverse consumer market. If you were to create a diversity award for this industry, What would be your mission? What criteria might you consider in making this award and why might you select these criteria? In some companies, the human resources director selects the minority workers who respond to the employee survey from the award sponsor. Evaluate this practice. If you were a potential employee such as a working mother or Asian man and saw an award for your group on a company’s website, Prior to a job interview at that company, what would you ask a friend of yours who works at the company and why? What questions could you then ask in a job interview concerning whether this company actually implements the policies? Why should these questions differ from each other? Writing Assignment Select a diversity category not covered in the text and design an original diversity award for organizations in your category. Specify: Name of the award and type (list, profile, award, etc.) Purpose of the award Eligible organizations Criteria (clearly relate to the purpose of the award) Selection process Starting Sources: Section I. Judging the Awards (from the text article) CEI methods/sources for checking the self-reports of the organizations it rates . . . Considerations and Quality Controls (from the text article) Bibliography Cleaver, J. (2003, May). Lust for lists. Workforce Magazine, pp. 44–48. Diversity Business.com ®. (2010). 10th annual national business awards. http://www.diversitybusiness.com/businessawards. DiversityInc. (2007, July/August). Partner with GLBT-advocacy organizations, p. 45. DiversityInc. (2005, May 25). Anti-gay AFA targets top 50 company. downloaded 4/17/2006 from http://www.diversityinc.com/pblic/14574.cfm. HRC. (2005, May 25). American family association backs off Disney boycott. http://www.hrc/issues/parenting/2246.htm. Humphreys, J. (2009). Georgia business and economic conditions. The Multicultural Economy, 64(3). National Multi-Cultural Institute. (http://www.nmci.org; click: Leading Lights Diversity Award) NUL. (2005). Diversity practices that work: The American worker speaks. http://www.NUL.org; search: Diversity practices that work. Pew Research center. (2008, February 11). U.S. population projections: 2005–2050. http://www.pewhispanic.org/files/reports/85.pdf. Stevenson, J. As business owners and consumers, the LGBT community gains strength. http://www.businesswest.com; search: As business owners and consumers. Trebilcock, B. (2007, July–August). DiversityInc. Diversity in the travel & hospitality Industry. USEEOC. (2008, December 21). Asian American and Pacific Islander work group report to the chair of the equal employment opportunity commission. p. 14. http://www.eeoc.gov/federal/reports/aapi.html. Visconti, L., & Peacock, F. (2005, June). Publishers’ Letter. DiversityInc. p. 12. Diversity on the Web There are multiple diversity awards for some of the special interest groups. Below are some of them. Choose two categories listed below. How similar are the awards and their winners within each category? How might you explain any differences? Executive Women Top 10 Companies for Executive Women® (DiversityInc) http://www.diversityinc.com/article (click “The 2010 DiversityInc Lists” [L column]; then click link to “The DiversityInc Top 10 Companies for Executive Women”) Top 50 Companies for Executive Women (Nat’l Ass’n for Female Executives (Working Mother Magazine) http://www..wmmsurveys.com Catalyst (Catalyst) http://www.catalyst.org (click “Catalyst Award”; then click “Apply for the Catalyst Award”) Blacks Top 10 Companies for Blacks® (DiversityInc) http://www.diversityinc.com/ 40 Best Companies for Diversity (Black Enterprise Magazine) http://www.naacp.org Asians 100 Best Employers for Asian Americans (Goldsea Asian American Poll) http://goldsea.com/Poll/employers.html Best Companies Awards (Asia society) http://asiasociety.org (Click “Press Release”)

 

 

Chapter 49-51 for Discussion 7

 

One Workplace Bully Is One Too Many: The Four Faces of Bullying Andra Gumbus Sacred Heart University We are bombarded by the topic of bullying in the media, television, film, blogs, and newspaper articles, with books describing this toxic behavior and how to overcome it. A Workplace Bullying Institute report on the three leading North American workplace bullying organizations was cited in over 250 outlets between 2006 and 2008. A New York Times blog garnered over 480 comments describing personal situations of workplace aggression, incivility, rudeness, interpersonal conflicts, persistent criticism, insults, gossip or the exclusion of coworkers (well.blogsnytimes.com/2008/03/11). Why has bullying become such a hot topic in today’s workplace? Is it increased demands, over worked and stressed managers and employees, a lack of competent human resource departments in a flattened organization or just plain lack of respect and manners in a culture that tolerates abuse? Or, is it that all of these factors contribute to a proliferation of bullying at work? Studying the phenomena and being aware of its human and financial costs is important. Compared to sexual harassment victims, bullied workers quit their jobs more often, are more unhappy and stressed at work, and are less committed to their workplace. Little however is done about it because there is no legal protection from bullying and seldom recourse for the victims other than quitting their jobs. A U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey conducted in 2007 with 7740 interviews yielded the following findings: Bullying is an epidemic with over 37% of U.S. workers (54 million) bullied. When witnesses are included the number goes up to 49% or 71.5 million workers. Bullying is ignored by the law and is four times more prevalent than illegal harassment. Employers ignore bullying and in 62% of cases do nothing or worsen the situation despite losing 21–28 million workers due to bullying. 72% of bullies are bosses and 55% of the bullied are rank and file workers. Bullying affects women more than men (57 %) and women are targeted by women in 71% of cases. Bullying is a health hazard and stress affects the lives of 45% of targets with 33% suffering for more than a year. 40% of the victims do not complain and only 3% file lawsuits. Perpetrators suffer little, while victims (77%) often leave jobs to get away from the situation (WBI Survey, 2007). Bullying and Diversity Research to date on the gender effects of harassment has been inconclusive. In various studies, men and women were targets of workplace bullying and generalized workplace harassment in roughly equal proportion while other studies show women are more frequently subjected to bullying. Although findings in sexual harassment research continue to show that the vast majority of targets are women, in non-sexual harassment, females do not appear to be subjected to a substantially greater proportion of abuse than men. The weight of existing evidence indicates that female and male targets experience similar levels of workplace mistreatment. Perpetrators of harassment tend to be male, but not exclusively so. While male perpetrators harass both male and female targets, female perpetrators tend to harass only female targets. Because male perpetrators appear to attack targets of both genders, males have more targets available for abuse and hence are likely to commit more harassment behaviors. The effect of gender may be more complex than simply which gender is more likely to experience or commit harassing behaviors. The choice of specific harmful actions taken against the target seems to be related to the perpetrator’s gender. Female perpetrators tend to use strategies that affect communications, social relationships, and attacks on the target’s reputation, while male perpetrators tend to use strategies that affect the target’s work. Female targets in research done by Meglich (2008) experienced more people focused bullying behaviors than did male targets. Her study further showed that females experience and commit a specific set of harassment behaviors: those focused on the target’s person or social context. Females appear to be subjected to a greater number of supervisor-instigated negative acts than are their male colleagues. Gumbus and Lyons (2011) researched a sample of 67 victims of bullying on in a very wide range of industries such as manufacturing, financial services, food service, marketing, retailing, construction, sports, and real estate. This study found that the victim average and median ages more often were lower than the bullies’ age and bullies are more likely to be male than female. Almost 60% of victims in this sample were female but the bullies were 60% male. However, complaints to human resources were more frequently lodged by females and gender did not seem to affect the victim’s decision to leave the firm. We can debate whether gender, age and other diversity issues are related to bullying or whether the organizational hierarchy contributes to these behaviors. Bullying is an abuse of power and organizational position. In this regard it would appear to be unrelated to diversity. However, organizational power is gendered because older males have most of the positions of power. Lee (2002) hypothesized that men bully men more often because men tend to work more with men and women bully women more frequently than men because most women still work mainly with other women. Face One: Bullying Most writers agree that bullying includes emotional abuse that causes humiliation and distress and interferes with work by harassing the victim. Keashly and Jagatic (2003) identified seven aspects of behaviors that can be considered as bullying: verbal or nonverbal; repetitive or patterned; unwelcome and unsolicited; violations of appropriate conduct; harmful or causing psychological injury; intended to harm; and exploiting power over the victim. Researchers categorize bullying into eight broad groups of behaviors: stigmatizing or placing the victim in an out group; using targets as scapegoats that can jeopardize the professional status of the victim; harassment by someone with more power; increasing work pressure and work load beyond what others are expected to produce; isolating victims by withholding information, career advances, or separating the victim physically or emotionally from the group; demoralizing the victim in front of peers by not supporting or ridiculing; repeated reminders of failures or setting the victim up to fail or not giving victims credit for success; and finally physical harm or abuse that results in mental or physical health problems and chronic conditions (Newman, 2009). Bullies use deliberate methods to insult or humiliate, such as stereotyping, excluding, omitting identity details, being rude, ignoring or keeping waiting, breaking promises, and showing ingratitude (Gabriel, 1998). Tehrani (2004) found the most prevalent bullying behaviors (in order of frequency of incident) to be: unfair criticism, intimidation, unpleasant personal remarks, public humiliation, malicious gossip, being ignored, threats, ganging up, physical attacks, and hiding or taking personal property. Neuman defines bullying as deliberate, hurtful and repeated mistreatment most commonly by a superior to a subordinate and aggression as an act intended to harm an individual either physically or psychologically. Although aggression may be a single act, bullying is repeated thereby making all bullying aggressive but not all aggressive acts bullying (Newman, 2009). Face Two: The Bully Vickers (2006) found the stereotypes depicting bullies as loud and assertive to be inaccurate; bullies often operate quietly and can be jealous and lack confidence. Porteous (2002) advanced the theory that bullies cannot tolerate anyone who is better at something than they are because it reminds them of what they are not. Namie (2007) suggests that bullies are not psychopaths but are ambitious Machiavellian types who will harm others to advance themselves. Staff may be more commonly bullied by managers with authority and power but the reverse also occurs where superiors can be bullied by subordinates and are left powerless when the bullying alters the power relationship (Salin, 2003). In studying the factors contributing to workplace bullying of managers by staff, Branch et al. (2007) found that upwards bullying is related to issues of power, dependency and change; power can stem from many aspects of the person and situation besides positional title. Face Three: The Human Victims Some researchers confirm the stereotype that victims are usually individuals with low self-esteem, due to cognitive ability, emotional stability, accomplishments, level of respect from others, and physical characteristics (Aquino and Byron, 2002). Victims are depicted as passive, with low status, and not being part of the “in” group of connected co-workers, and, therefore, vulnerable to a bullying attack. Others have studied common characteristics of victims and found a predisposition to negativity, submissiveness, and a defeatist attitude (Harvey et al., 2006). A different profile emerges, however, if the victim is the alpha male or female and a rival of a bully trying to gain control (Harvey et al., 2006). Moreover, some researchers have attacked the stereotype of bullying victims, showing some victims to be more accomplished than the bully (Vickers, 2006). Namie (2007) notes that those who tend to ignore office politics, and are more focused on their social or technical roles are easier prey. As a result, there is no “standard” portrait of a bullying victim. Vickers (2006) attacks the stereotype of victims as sensitive, thin skinned, paranoid, and lacking assertiveness or a sense of humor. She found that victims often can be more “attractive, confident, successful, qualified, or popular” than the bully. Moreover, she found that victims may also have high standards and be recognized as high achievers that are competent and stand up for themselves and others. The WBI Survey (2007) contains some important findings about workplace bullying. First, the victims of bullying can experience anxiety that undermines self-confidence and these can cause stress-related symptoms, such as depression, confusion, lack of sleep, panic attacks, irritability, insecurity, and anxiety-related disorders. Second, some victims show signs of post-traumatic stress disorder and cope by forming unhealthy habits that can lead to alcoholism, weight gain, social withdrawal, migraines, fatigue, ulcers, and cardiovascular disease. Third, victims face retaliation from the organization and from co-workers that can result in firing, demotion, poor evaluations, or transfers out of the group. Coping With Bullying In order to ameliorate workplace bullying, the victim must be empowered to seek satisfaction either within the organization or outside of it. Unfortunately, this may mean leaving the organization or transferring to another division to get away from the bully. Targets spoke of wanting to leave the bullying behind and get over it by closing the door and moving on; however the mental and physical problems resulting from the trauma do not always dissipate after leaving the workplace because it is a short term remedy (Namie and Namie, 2004). Meglich-Sespico et al. (2007) suggest applying the four coping strategies named by Hirschman (i.e., exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect) to the bullying situation. Utilizing the exit strategy, employees cope with bullying by voluntarily separating from the company or transferring away from the bully. Utilizing a voice strategy, peers, friends or supervisors are used as a sounding board in the attempt to improve the situation. Utilizing a loyalty strategy, the victim does nothing, hoping the situation will improve by waiting it out. Finally, utilizing a neglect strategy requires emotionally disengaging from work and allowing productivity and motivation to deteriorate. Research varies in terms of the reported use of these strategies. Lutgen-Sandvik (2006) finds that many bullying victims discuss the situation with colleagues, but the majority does not file a complaint. Moreover, most victims feel the situation gets worse after taking action and that most strategies are ineffective, leading to a high number of resignations by victims of bullying because they see the exit response as the only guarantee of relief. Fear of retaliation is a factor for not using an internal reporting process, such as Human Resources or an EAP Program (Vickers, 2006). A workplace traumatic event such as bullying or termination also can have devastating emotional and physical ramifications for family members. Researchers have found that targets of bullying often vent through family members which can have negative ramifications to family life. Living the trauma at work as well as at home can magnify the process and cause the target to “relive” the situation in and out of the workplace (Tracy et al., 2006). Face Four: The Organization as a “Victim” Workplace bullying also has bottom line implications including lawsuits, turnover, health care costs and lack of productivity that costs the company money. Most HR departments know the offenders from employee relations complaints and do nothing because the law does not require correction. The organization’s reputation can be damaged by bullying which can have a negative impact on recruiting the best and brightest, and retaining talent. Porteous (2002) noted that certain organizational factors can support workplace bullying, such as highly competitive cultures, fear of replacement or layoffs, or an authoritarian management style that abuses power by behaviors such as setting impossible deadlines and assigning unachievable tasks or targets. Organizations without codes of conduct or policies of behavior may encourage bullying by omission. Even though bullying is a complicated issue and it is difficult to define all of the forms of intimidation that could be labeled as bullying, organizations need to develop and enforce a corporate policy that will help outline what types of behavior are acceptable and unacceptable. Other factors in a work environment that can promote bullying are lack of effective leadership and training, improper supervision based on poor work design, social and power inequities that reward bullying behaviors, and low morale in a culture that learns to tolerate bad treatment (Sparks et al., 2001). Cultures that focus on “making the numbers” and recruit aggressive individuals who use fear to dominate are more prone to tolerate a bullying corporate culture. Bullying: Current and Proposed Legislation In the U.S. legal system, little attention currently is paid to bullying in the workplace. Current U.S. federal and state case and statutory law do not provide a viable cause for action for most bullying victims. In this regard, our legal system lags behind those of Scandinavia, Canada, Australia, and many European countries (Von Bergen et al., 2006). The law does not protect victims because it is difficult to prove the victim has been bullied when bullying takes place privately, when it is ignored in the culture, or when witnesses are fearful of being targeted. The bully often has more power and can gain support from others to reinforce the situation. Passive bullies may help the bully, and mobbing can occur either willingly or unwillingly (Yamada, 2000). Namie (2003) outlined broad societal trends that reinforce the U.S. stance on this topic and may account for the U.S. unwillingness to protect workers against bullying. First, he notes that the U.S. has historically valued aggression and viewed it as a success factor in the workplace to encourage productivity and efficiency. Second, the tendency to blame the victim is also a factor where an attribution error faults the victim for allowing or deserving the behavior. Third, it is rare for top management to suffer negative consequences regardless of the accusation. The immunity at the top of organizations serves to protect bullies for serving a needed role sanctioned by top management who may not want to do the job themselves or the bully may have a personal connection to top management who ignores complaints and sponsors the bully. Finally, the decline of unions and the trend to deregulate serve to erode worker protection in general and tend to minimize the employer’s responsibility for workplace health and safety. Although the U. S. Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHA) was primarily designed to address physical hazards in the workplace, OSHA’s protections do not generally extend to psychological or stress-related hazards in the workplace (Yamada, 2000). Tort law does not provide much protection for victims of workplace bullying either. Victims have tried to sue on a theory of intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) but have not been successful because they were unable to meet the threshold requirement that the bully’s behavior be sufficiently “extreme and outrageous.” Under current employment law, the general rule is that an “equal opportunity harasser” is not legally liable for the abuse he or she inflicts on others. As long as an individual engages in status-blind harassment, and does not target only individuals who are members of a protected class under U.S. employment law—based on their race, color, gender, national origin, religion, age, or disability—there will generally be no legal liability for his or her bad behavior (Morris, 2008). In fact, the statistics show that three quarters of all bullying is directed at a target that is not in a protected class (Namie, 2007). There does appear to be some movement in the direction of providing relief for victims of workplace bullying in the form of specific anti-bullying state legislation. Healthy Workplace Bill Most of the proposed legislation currently pending in the various state legislatures is based on the “Healthy Workplace Bill” developed by Professor David C. Yamada of Suffolk University Law School in cooperation with the Workplace Bullying Institute. As this article goes to press, proposed legislation based on this bill is pending in approximately a dozen state legislatures, but nothing has passed. This proposed law would make it unlawful for an employer to subject an employee to an “abusive work environment,” i.e., repeated verbal abuse, verbal or physical threats, sabotaging an employee’s work, and exploiting an employee’s psychological or physical vulnerabilities. If the bullied employee’s working conditions become so intolerable that he or she is forced to resign, the employee may consider bringing a constructive discharge claim against the employer (Von Bergen et al., 2006). Most courts use a reasonable person standard in evaluating an employee’s constructive discharge claim. So, the plaintiff would have to show that he or she suffered physical or mental harm and that a reasonable person would find the defendant’s conduct abusive and intolerable to a “reasonable person,” leaving the employee with no recourse but to resign (Von Bergen et al., 2006). Opposition to Anti-Bullying Legislation Some do not believe that the law can define all of the forms of intimidation that can be labeled as bullying and they recommend an organizational policy concerned with inappropriate conduct. The difficulty with this solution is that many companies only create policies that are legally required and may not directly address conduct, like bullying, that is not illegal, per se. However, a corporate policy will help outline what types of behavior are acceptable or unacceptable. Employers opposed to anti-bullying legislation need to implement strong anti-bullying policies (Swanton, 2008). A strong policy enforced by Human Resources can positively impact productivity, absenteeism, motivation, turnover, injuries, and overall loyalty and satisfaction at work. Even those in favor of strong anti-bullying protections agree that employer policies and enforcement are necessary regardless of whether legislation is passed (Pappas and Szydlowski, 2008). Traditional Responses are not Enough Vickers (2006) argues that the focus of organizations should be more on the needs of individual employees and less on the well-being of the organization. She notes that organizations often respond only when they have to in order to satisfy shareholders, react to the media, protect against litigation, or change a damaged reputation. Often, the measures taken by organizations are ineffectual in combating workplace bullying and wind up protecting the bully, the company, and the status quo instead of ameliorating the effects of bullying. Additionally mediation and other alternative dispute resolution strategies can put the victim in a position of being partially blamed for the problem, especially when power is not equal between the victim and the bully. Moreover, counseling and Employee Assistance Programs can be misused for surveillance, protect the company against litigation, and mask the problem under the guise of a caring organization that is helping to retain a troubled employee. Unfortunately, many EAP professionals are not trained or experienced enough to deal effectively with workplace bullying issues. Vickers found that training for the victim and the bully in communication skills, diversity management, and conflict management did not address the problem, as bullies are unlikely to change their behavior when they lack empathy or care about the victim. RX for the Future In the absence of a legal mandate, the first step that employers can take is to draft policies that forbid bullying and adopt a zero-tolerance stance by declaring bullying to be unacceptable behavior. Employers may have anti-violence or anti-harassment policies that can be extended or combined to include bullying. Steps to separate the victim should be included, as well as a provision that does not penalize or adversely affect the victim and guarantees his/her health and safety. A procedure for raising and handling complaints under the policy should be included, and complaints should be tracked for trends so that abusers can be identified and dealt with appropriately. Unfortunately, most organizations do not know how to respond, and, by doing nothing, they make the problem worse. Harvey et al. (2006) recommends strategies at all three fronts to address the situation from the organizational perspective, the bully perspective and the victim perspective. The recommended strategies are: (1) the organization can assess the climate and satisfaction levels and thoroughly investigate past actions based on a formal reporting mechanism that feeds continuous monitoring of policies to prevent bullying; (2) selection processes can try to prevent the hiring of bullies, and jobs can be restructured to reduce management responsibilities for the bully. Professional counseling or termination can alleviate the problem. (3) mentoring victims and developing support mechanisms that guarantee non-retaliation and education for victims can empower targets to know their rights and what to do in a bullying situation. Moreover, victims can be relocated to reduce contact with the bully. Gary and Ruth Namie (2004) suggest three steps for victims to take to deal with the bully. First, name the problem and legitimize it by giving it a name. Second, take time off in order to take care of health issues and to check the laws that might apply. Also, use time off to collect data and make a business case as to the expense of allowing the bullying to continue. Third, expose the bully as someone too expensive to keep. If this does not work, leave the company if necessary. Conclusion Employees expect treatment from others in the workplace to be just and fair based on social exchange theory. Employees are also more committed and work positively toward organizational goals if they perceive good treatment from employers (Cohen-Charash et al., 2001). The exposure to stress, burnout and job dissatisfaction with the political climate of the workplace can produce anger, depression and aggression at work (Ladebo et al., 2008). Vigoda (2002) notes that this intensifies if employees perceive that management tolerates or does nothing to change the toxic culture with a policy against incivility or by punishing bullies. In essence, the organization is supporting the abusive actions by doing nothing to prevent or stop them, and this can encourage aggressive behavior by employees if management does not intervene to suppress harassment (Vigoda, 2002). There are many reasons to be concerned about workplace bullying from an organizational behavior perspective and from a moral imperative point of view. Even though, unlike harassment, bullying is not illegal, it should be a concern for human resource professionals. Raising the awareness of bullying workplace behavior can only serve to foster better workplace practices which promote more productive workplaces and lead to healthier employees. It is the ethical thing to do to denounce workplace bullying as demeaning to self-esteem, as well as an assault to the dignity and self-respect of employees as individuals. From an economic point of view, a zero-tolerance policy will help to reduce the costs of litigation. Discussion Questions In the twenty-first century, both diversity and bullying have increased in the workplace. Do you see any connections between these two trends? Please explain your answer. What does the presence or absence of anti-bullying policies suggest to you about the corporate culture and values of an organization? What does the lack of effective bullying legislation in the United States suggest about American culture? Have you ever been bullied or witnessed an incident of bullying either at school or in the workplace? Describe the incident. How did you react and why? What might you do differently after reading this article? Is it possible for an employee to bully his or her boss? Why or why not? Bibliography Aquino, K., and Byron, K. (2002) Dominating Interpersonal Behavior and Perceived Victimization in Groups: Evidence for a Curvilinear Relationship. Journal of Management 28, 69–87. Bond, M. (2004) Culture and Aggression: From Context to Coercion. Personality and Social Psychology Review 8, 62–78. Brutocao, S. (2007) Bullying in the Workplace: The Newest Litigation Threat? (http://www.workplacebullying.org). Cohen-Charash, Y., and Spector, P. (2001) The Role of Justice in Organizations: A Meta Analysis. Organization Behavior and Human Decision Processes 86(2), 278–321. Cortina, L., and Magley, V. (2003) Raising Voice, Risking Retaliation. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 8(4), 247–265. Deschenaux, J. (2007) Experts: Anti-Bullying Policies Increase Productivity, Add to Bottom Line. SHRM: Society for Human Resource Management (http://www.workplacebullying.org). Einarsen, S., Raknes, B., and Matthiesen, S.B. (1994) Bullying and Harassment at Work and their Relationships to Work Environment Quality: An Exploratory Study. European Work and Organizational Psychologist 4(4), 381–401. Gabriel, Y. (1998) An Introduction to the Social Psychology of Insults in Organizations. Human Relations 51(11), 1329–1354. Gumbus, A., and Lyons, B. (2011) Workplace Harassment: The Social Costs of Bullying. Journal of Leadership, Accountability and Ethic 8(5), 72–90. Harvey, M., Heames, J., Richey, R., and Leonard, N. (2006) Bullying: From the Playground to the Boardroom. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 12(4), 1–12. Keashly, L., and Jagatic, K. (2003) By Any Other Name: American Perspectives on Workplace Bullying, in S. Einarsen et al. (eds.), Bullying and Emotional Abuse in the Workplace: International Perspectives in Research and Practice (Taylor Francis, London), 31–61. Ladebo, O., Awotunde, J., and AbdulSalaam-Saghir, P. (2008) Co-workers, and Supervisor Interactional Justice: Correlates of Extension Personnel’s Job Satisfaction, Distress, and Aggressive Behavior. Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management 9(2), 206–226. Lee, Deborah. (2002) Gendered Workplace Bullying in the Restructured UK Civil Service. Personnel Review, 319(½). Loaders, A. (2008) You’ll Need More Than a Voltage Converter: Plugging European Workplace Bullying Laws into the American Jurisprudential Outlet. Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law 25(1), 197–262. Lutgen-Sandvik, P. (2006) Take This Job and  . . . Quitting and Other Forms of Resistance to Workplace Bullying. Communication Monographs 73(4), 406–433. Mayhew, C., McCarthy, P., Chappell, D., Quinlan, M., Barker, M., and Sheehan, M. (2004) Measuring the Extent of Impact from Occupational Violence and Bullying on Traumatized Workers. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal 16(3), 117–134. Meglich-Sespico, P., Faley, R.H., and Knapp, D.E. (2007) Relief and Redress for Targets of Workplace Bullying. Employee Responsibility and Rights Journal 19, 31–43. Meglich, Patti. (2008) Gender Effects of Interpersonal Workplace Harassment. Journal of Applied Business and Economics, 8(4). Morris, S. (2008) The Anti-Bullying Legislative Movement: Too Quick to Quash Common Law Remedies? Bench and Bar of Minnesota 65(10), 22. Namie, G., and Namie, R. (2004) Workplace Bullying: How to Address America’s Silent Epidemic. Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal 8(2), 315–333. Namie, G. (2007) The Challenge of Workplace Bullying. Employment Relations Today 34(2), 43–51. Namie, G. (2003) Workplace Bullying: Escalating Incivility. Ivey Business Journal 62(2), 1–6. Pappas, V., and Szydlowski, G. (2008) Workplace Bullying Legislation—A Primer for Colorado Employers and Employees. Trial Talk, June/July, 39–43. Porteous, J. (2002) Bullying at Work—The Legal Position. Managerial Law 44(4), 77–90. Sandberg, Jared. (2006, July 11) Office Tormentors Appear Normal But Pack a Wallop. Wall Street Journal. Swanton, M. (2008, July) Banning Bullies. Inside Counsel (http://www.insidecounsel.com) Sparks, K., Faragher, B., and Cooper, C. (2001) Well Being and Occupational Health in the 21st Century Workplace. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 74, 489–509. Tehrani, N. (2004) Bullying: A Source of Chronic Post Traumatic Stress? British Journal of Guidance and Counselling 32(3), 357–366. Vickers, M.H. (2006) Towards Employee Wellness: Rethinking Bullying Paradoxes and Masks. Employee Responsibility and Rights Journal, 18(4), 267–281. Vigoda, E. (2002) Stress-Related Aftermaths to Workplace Politics: The Relationship Among Politics, Job Distress, and Aggressive Behavior in Organizations. Journal of Organizational Behavior 23(4), 571–591. Von Bergen, C.W., Zavaletta, J., and Soper, B. (2006) Legal Remedies for Workplace Bullying: Grabbing the Bully by the Horns. Employee Relations Law Journal 32(3), 14–41. Workplace Bullying Institute. (2007) U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey (http://workplacebullying.org/research/WBI-Zogby2007Survey.html). Yamada, D. (2007) Potential Legal Protections and Liabilities for Workplace Bullying (http://www.newworkplaceinstitute.org). Yamada, D. (2000) Multidisciplinary Responses to Workplace Bullying: Systems, Synergy and Sweat (http://www.workplacebullying.org). Andra Gumbus, EdD, is an associate professor of management at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in human resource management, supervisory skills, business ethics, and legal and social responsibilities in business. Writing Assignment Visit the Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI) website below and prepare a report on what you learn about workplace bullying from this site. Include the frequency of bullying, whether bullying is gender neutral, the relationship of bully to the victim, remedies for victims, and tactics used by bullies. Why do you think that the United States is so far behind Europe in developing legislation against bullying? What can organizations do to prevent bullying? What do you think would help to reduce workplace bullying? Source: www.workplacebullyinginstitute.org Diversity on the Web Search for a video on YouTube that is about Bullying in the workplace and write a review of the video that critically examines the positive and negative aspects of the video as a critic would a movie review. Join a bullying blog and write a comment on the blog from either a victim perspective (if you have been a victim of bullying) or a witness to bullying. A Case of Harassment, Discrimination, or Bullying? You Decide . . . Andra Gumbus Sacred Heart University Can a job literally make you sick? Can a culture of harassment and bullying destroy your dignity and sense of self? Can a high achiever go from competent to incompetent, from confident to doubting, from successful to failure? This is my story. Joy Patterson’s Story I was offered a $100,000 plus salary, support staff and freedom to run and plan my own development campaign in a university that had no track record of successful fundraising. It was a chance to start from the ground up. With solid credentials to succeed—30 years of experience and a proven track record of success in prior positions at large law schools—I relished the challenge. One year later, I was both physically and emotionally damaged by a toxic work environment that destroyed my confidence and self esteem. I was terminated for “failure to get along with alumni” and suffered from newly diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis. Although I was not ready to make a career move, my husband encouraged me to explore a job offer from Middleton State University, a mid-sized institution with 16,000 students located in a Mid-Western city. At my first interview, I asked many questions about the position and about the organization. Several of my colleagues had experience with this university and advised me to “be very careful” because it had a reputation of not fulfilling verbal agreements and promises. The head hunter confirmed this when telling me that the raises and staff increases promised to a prior placement never materialized. My friends, though supportive, really questioned if this university and the city, itself, were an appropriate “fit” for me. When offered the job, I turned it down because my mother was seriously ill and the salary was not high enough to overcome the commuting costs and paying additional rent in a new city. Several months later, the university called and asked me to return for another visit and suggested that I bring my husband. Because I was flattered, we took the trip. The university offered me a salary that I felt I could not turn down. My intuition was sending me messages of caution but I asked myself, “How bad could it be?” Even though I was concerned about the reputation of the school and trusted my colleagues who warned me about the complex culture, I accepted the offer. The plan was that my husband and I would commute between the two cities, a six hour drive, until he retired and our house was sold. In January 2010, I began my new job and discovered that I would be working with a special assistant, Joe Bradley, who was assigned by the president’s office. Joe had no experience with fund-raising and saw me in the role of doing what he wanted done and following his directions. I saw this as a reversal of roles. After all, wasn’t I the one with the successful fund raising track record? Surprisingly, the dean did not object to this arrangement, perhaps because Joe was from the president’s office. Clearly, the dean did not feel that he could disrupt the organizational “politics.” A further problem emerged when Joe contacted prospects and donors without my knowledge or agreement. Since the dean knew little about fund-raising and development, I felt that there could be an “old boys’ network” operating here. Despite my age of 60 and with more than 30 years of experience, I was the new female “kid” on the block. The university said they wanted a development director, but it seemed to me that they did not want to do what would be required to begin a serious fund-raising program. There was no formal plan for a significant campaign, but the president regularly told the dean and me that we would have to raise five million dollars by June 1st of the following year. The vice-president seemed distracted and did not provide me with any support or guidance to accomplish this goal. I learned that the annual fund staff consisted of one ¼ time person and an administrative assistant who would only be available when she was free from her other full-time responsibilities in the dean’s office. What a joke—some “support” this turned out to be. The Assistant Vice-President, Susan Cartright, was on maternity leave when I interviewed so we had not met. When she returned in February, she was appointed as my new boss. She was young, bright and talented but this was her first supervisory position. I soon had the feeling that she was uncomfortable with my experience and age. I faced enormous conflicted and demanding circumstances. Joe wanted me to follow his directions, and perform staff work for the alumni group but Susan told me that I did not work for the alumni group. Susan required new reports every week from me but the university had no standard reporting or operating procedures to generate these documents, so these had to be created each time. I felt like I was in an impossible situation. While Susan encouraged and complimented me during private meetings, she yelled or reprimanded me in public. I felt bullied and outraged. Susan edited documents that I prepared, and distributed them without copying me in, so I did not realize that the reports had been changed. She brought these reports to strategy meetings, marked with yellow highlights and penciled in changes for all to see. Worst of all, she then proceeded to review these with me in front of other colleagues. To further humiliate me, Susan reassigned activities that I had been working on to Joe in front of others during these meetings. I was even ostracized during an alumni fund-raising event where Susan and Joe did not speak to me. Susan’s behavior was noticed by colleagues who asked me if she was intimidated by me. This harassment continued throughout the summer. As a professional for over three decades who had once had the responsibility for a 75 person organization whose six managers reported directly to me, I had never experienced a supervisor or boss who treated people this way. Being new, I felt like I had no one to confide in or turn to. I had always been a positive, healthy and highly energized employee who devoted long hours to my job because I loved the work of fundraising. During this year however, I felt demoralized, lost my energy, had trouble sleeping and was losing weight. I was depressed and had no appetite. I saw numerous specialists and was diagnosed with late onset of rheumatoid arthritis, a crippling disease requiring strong medications that did not agree with me. My dilemma was, should I try to stick it out and risk further health problems by staying in a job I hated with no support from my boss? Or, should I take the job and shove it—resign and move back with my husband and search for another new job? This was a real possibility as the housing market was weak back home and our house had not sold. We were juggling rent plus the mortgage. I felt trapped in a nightmare that I could not escape. Management’s Perspective—Assistant Vice-President—Susan Cartright As Joy’s manager, I have a vested interest in her success. If Joy is successful, it makes me look good to my boss. She had the appropriate job experience and I thought she would be a good fit for our university. I did a thorough reference check on her background, so I don’t know where things went wrong. Her success was very important to me as her manager because my judgment would be questioned if she could not do her job. Did I have the right people interview her? Did they ask the right questions? Did we misjudge whether Joy could work well with me? Should I have asked for sample reports and portfolio materials from Joy? I specifically asked Joy to do a detailed weekly report, so that I could track exactly who she contacted and what progress she was making on the $5 million target. However, she appeared to resent having to do this and she would act like a typical emotional middle-aged female. Surprisingly, these reports were incomplete and not edited properly. I had to continually ask her to change and update very basic information. I think that sometimes, women don’t work well if they are managed by other women, particularly by a younger female boss. I felt that I had to publicly embarrass and reprimand Joy in order to get the work done right. Although it seemed to be the only way to get through to her, I don’t like operating in a public forum where I have to reprimand my staff. Besides at her age and her 30 years of experience, this should not have been necessary. This paperwork was taking all of my time and kept me from completing other more important work. As a young female Assistant Vice-President, I am very visible and have to be cautious about situations that make me look incompetent in the eyes of my boss. A simple thing like appropriately listing gifts so that the President knows who the major donors are wasn’t even done properly. This caused confusion with the mailings for the capital and annual giving campaigns. Joy just seemed to have a lack of respect for authority, particularly mine, and wanted to do things her way. In fact, I would call her disobedient when she disregarded my directives. Because I am younger and less experienced, I sought help from Nancy Fitzgerald in Human Resources about handling Joy. Nancy told me that I had the right to monitor my staff, to alter work schedules and to modify reports. Nancy suggested that maybe a more flexible report format or alternative work arrangement might better suit Joy. I wasn’t willing to do that because the VP required the weekly reports in a specific format. I did not offer Joy resources such as training or support from the Employee Assistance Program because frankly I think I was at the point of admitting to myself that I made a bad hiring decision. At Joy’s age, she seemed set in her ways and unwilling to take direction. The Organizational Perspective—Human Resources—Nancy Fitzgerald In Human Resources we have an impartial role to play in employee relations issues. In my opinion, there was no one vested in Joy’s success at our university. I don’t know where to place the blame but this is a very political environment and the law school has a very distinctive culture. For the past several years, the development office has not been able to keep talented people and this is well known in the field. Although we pay well to attract strong candidates, maybe in hindsight this wasn’t the best solution. Although Joy attended our employee orientation, she never seemed to understand our politics and culture. Joy never came to me as the Employee Relations Specialist or sought my counsel early on when she started experiencing problems with Susan Cartright. Rather than become a victim of what she considered bullying, I wish she had filed a complaint with me. As far as I can tell, she did not speak with anyone in HR nor go to others in the organization to try to fix the situation. Joy just let the situation escalate until it was out of control and management wanted her out. She should have documented her episodes of bullying and taken control over work that was genuinely hers, but maybe she was in denial or avoids conflict. On the other hand, Susan is young and lacks experience in managing someone with as much experience as Joy. Had I done an investigation and found a hostile environment, we might have reassigned Susan. I would have tried to intervene as an ombudsman to resolve the problem but it got out of hand and was too late to reverse or rectify—the damage was done. Perhaps, a clearer job description that outlined the reporting relationships and clearly defined the responsibilities for the job would have helped to delineate the separation of duties between Joy and the special assistant and reduce the confusion. Documenting Joy’s performance problems with warnings, and progressive discipline might have kept the situation more professional. This was not done and clearly the personalities took over and all objectivity was lost. In my opinion, it is tricky to use “Not getting along with others” as a cause for termination when I did not see for myself if Joy really did alienate alumni. When all was said and done, no complaint was filed by Joy, therefore no policies on complaint resolution and no investigations were conducted. Although we have a written grievance procedure in place to handle these kinds of situations, Joy failed to utilize it. On the other hand, Susan did not follow a progressive discipline approach nor was the university’s performance appraisal process followed. Had we been aware of Joy’s performance problems we’d have advised her manager to put her on a performance plan for 90 days with clearly articulated goals and timeframes for improvement. We are a resource for employees and were not brought into the situation until the end when Susan said she wanted to terminate Joy for not making the $5 million goal and for her inability to get along with others. Maybe Joy’s gender and age complicated the situation too. Although I immediately got legal counsel involved to try to determine how we might salvage this mess, I am afraid that soon we’ll have either a harassment law suit or an age and gender discrimination case on our hands. Epilog from Joy I did not have time to make a decision and take the situation into my own hands. I was called into the vice president’s office one Friday afternoon and with the AVP and HR manager present, was terminated from my position and given the option to resign. The VP told me that this was not based at all upon my performance, but rather my inability to get along with others and that I had alienated alumni. The good news is that my diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis was not correct but was caused by stress from my situation. I have secured a better job in my home town with a university with a good reputation and a well established development program. It’s true what they say about when one door closes—another opens. It did for me. The author wishes to thank Sue Ogle, Organizational Development Consultant, for her insights. Discussion Questions Analyze the case from the various perspectives of the stakeholders such as Joy, her manager Susan, and the university as represented by Nancy in HR. What are the perspectives of each stakeholder? What could have happened to resolve this situation before Joy claimed a “hostile work environment”? If you were Joy and realized after six months that you were in trouble at your new job what would you do? What characteristics and observable behaviors enabled Joy to be a target? What characteristics and observable behaviors empowered her? Describe Susan Cartright’s behavior in terms of the characteristics and observable behaviors of a bully that she exhibits? What options might the HR manager, Nancy, have had if this situation was brought to her attention earlier before it got out of hand? In a court of law, do you think that a jury would find the university guilty? In your opinion did Joy have a claim? Andra Gumbus, EdD, is an associate professor of management at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in human resource management, supervisory skills, business ethics, and legal and social responsibilities in business. The Path to Inclusion: The Business Case for Diversity at Ocean Spray Carol P. Harvey Suffolk University Assumption College, Professor Emerita “Diversity and inclusion efforts can be done inexpensively and with real results. And inclusion’s place in the strategy makes a lot more sense with an effective model like the one Ocean Spray is using” (Kradenpoth & Deane, Part I, 2010). How can an organization capitalize on the benefits of diversity and make it a corporate asset that increases profitability? Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc., the world’s largest supplier of cranberry-based products and market leader in the sale of shelf-stable juice for over thirty years shifted its diversity programs away from a focus on numbers to creating a culture of inclusivity that supports and encourages innovation and creativity. Because of these efforts, Ocean Spray’s employees are helping the organization to become more profitable. With distribution in fifty countries, culturally diverse employees are helping Ocean Spray to understand how to do business in international markets and providing input into product development that meets the needs of a more diverse customer base. In addition, younger employees are involved in the utilization of social media as a marketing tool for the 21st century. Company Structure Founded in 1930 by three cranberry growers as an agricultural cooperative, Ocean Spray is headquartered in rural Lakeville-Middleboro, MA, in a huge white colonial building that is reminiscent of a large colonial-styled resort hotel totally surrounded by cranberry bogs. Currently, Ocean Spray has over 2,000 employees. In 2011, annual gross sales were of $2.1 billion and net proceeds of $321 million. The company is structured as an agricultural cooperative owned by 650 cranberry and 50 citrus producers from Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Oregon, Washington, New Jersey, Florida, and Canada. In a co-op, the members are both stockholders and suppliers and bound by contract to sell their crops to Ocean Spray. In turn, Ocean Spray has to purchase the output at the highest possible. Cranberries are a perennial crop and agricultural advances are enabling farmers to produce larger crops but the price per barrel fluctuates according to the yield. For example, when the per barrel price paid to the growers dropped from $60.45 (1996) to $12.98 (1999), it still cost the growers approximately $18 to produce each barrel (Amy Zipkin, 2009). Since the coop members receive a proportional share of profits minus sales and administrative expenses from Ocean Spray, this financial structure added to supply and demand fluctuations, makes it imperative that Ocean Spray is both constantly developing new uses for cranberries and expanding into new consumers markets for their products (oceanspray.com). The Business Case for Diversity at Ocean Spray CEO, Randy C. Papadellis believes and supports the concept that the solution to Ocean Spray’s future viability depends on the organization’s ability to introduce “the cranberry to a whole new generation of consumers” (Pressman, 2006). To achieve this goal, the organization is focusing on two objectives that relate to the business case for diversity and the need for greater employee creativity and input: Market Penetration—Continuing to find new uses for cranberries such as the sparkling juice line and Craisin® which requires innovative thinking. Market Expansion—Increase sales in growing international markets, which requires knowledge of the values, preferences and marketing practices of other cultures (Jesse & Rogers, 2006). To complicate matters, in its highly competitive marketplace, Ocean Spray primarily hires and strives to retain people who already have extensive experience in the food and beverage industries, and therefore their employees tend to be older. A 2012 analysis of employee data revealed that the average age of an employee was 47 years old; 10 percent of the corporate workforce was eligible for retirement within 18 months; and 18% by 2014 (Mitchell, 2013). So, the organization was also anticipating significant employee turnover at a time when it needed to aggressively compete in a global marketplace. Because of these issues, it would be to Ocean Spray’s benefit to be able to fully utilize the talents and experiences of all of their employees. Creating an Inclusive Organizational Culture through Leadership Fortunately, Ocean Spray had already begun its journey towards inclusivity by creating a diversity leadership team, reporting to the CEO, that was comprised of an internal and an external expert: One member was the vice-president of Human Resources who brought years of knowledge about the company and an understanding of its culture; the other was an external consultant who was the CEO of a major diversity consulting firm, who added objectivity and a breadth of diversity management experience to the process. Their work led to the creation of a fifteen member employee group initially called the Diversity Advisory Committee (DAC), whose mission was to be a catalyst for creating awareness of differences and building a culture that values, and respects diversity. All employees received diversity training and the organization solicited feedback on its effectiveness. Unlike many organizations that stop at this point, in 2009, DAC realized that to be more effective, the next step was to focus on achieving employee inclusion. If all employees could feel that they were accepted, regardless of their age, race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc., they would be more apt to contribute ideas. This could help to break down communication barriers and unleash greater creativity in product development, in designing multi-cultural marketing initiatives, and also improve the organization’s ability to attract and retain experienced talent—all of which would contribute to Ocean Spray’s business case for diversity. So, DAC changed its title and mission by inserting the term “inclusion” into its name and became the Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee (DIAC). Instead of emphasizing the number of employees in social identity categories s that may leave others, such as white men feeling left out, Ocean Spray tried to define diversity more inclusively as “all the ways that we are similar and different from each other—including the way that we think” (Mitchell, 2011). One of the issues that surfaced from DIAC’s programming was that there were generational tensions among the different age cohorts at Ocean Spray. The organization tended to hire mostly more experienced workers from the food and beverage industry and at that time, 93 percent of their workers were over age thirty. Baby Boomers said that, they did not feel valued and there seemed to be disengagement between Baby Boomers and younger workers (Kradenpoth & Deane Part II, 2010). Just about the same time as this problem surfaced a group of graduate students from The School for International Training in Brattleboro, VT, contacted Ocean Spray looking for a research project for a course. Ocean Spray utilized this opportunity and let the students research this issue. The students conducted phone interviews with the younger employees. The results, combined with Ocean Spray’s follow up research, indicated that Generation Y and Generation X employees felt considerably less engaged and included than older workers. Younger employees said that their ideas were often easily dismissed by older managers. This resulted in the formation of an “Idea Resource Team” comprised of younger employees, who were charged with gathering new ideas from the younger workers. Some of the outcomes from this process were identifying technology needs, creating a “buddy program in which new employees are mentored by more senior people from a different work unit, and finding social media marketing opportunities for Ocean Spray. This is an example of how Ocean Spray is serious about being more inclusive of all of its employees, while still capitalizing on the benefits that diversity can bring to as a business case for better ways to manage. Diversity and Inclusion at Ocean Spray Today Ocean Spray is never afraid to be innovative with its diversity and inclusion initiatives. DIAC which was more management driven, has evolved into four employee driven “Culture Clubs.” These are somewhat similar to employee resource groups (ERGs), but what is most distinctive about them is that their missions and activities are quite different, member driven, and that these variations are accepted by Ocean Spray’s management. While some groups tend to meet the needs of employees and are directed towards self-improvement, career progression and work-life balance issues, i.e., employee needs, others are more focused on business initiatives such as research & development and global business. The Culture Clubs at Ocean Spray Asian Club—Helping Ocean Spray by providing translation services, and an understanding of Asian cultural values in Ocean Spray’s efforts to market in Asia. Many members of this group recently spent two days in an off-site meeting with the R&D team to develop new packaging/product concepts for China. Latin Club—Identifying products that could be successful in Latin American markets where sweeter flavored fruit products are more popular, contributing knowledge of the cultural variations among different Latin American countries; In 2013, Ocean Spray entered into a partnership with a coop member in Chile that will enable the organization to distribute cranberries in bulk in Latin America to be used as ingredients in the production of food products such as ice cream. This group could be quite helpful in the success of this new partnership. Parents Support Club—Focusing on work-life balance issues like getting children to eat healthier, saving for college, obtaining good daycare, etc. WAVE (Women Add Value Everyday)—Developing the talents and potential of female employees; exploring issues important to female employees, such as the wage gap; conducting professional development particular to females; participating in webinars for executive women, etc. Ocean Spray has not neglected meeting the specific generational needs of its workers, as well as those needs that crossover age groups. Last year, eighty-two new employees were added at corporate headquarters and 50 percent of these were from Generations X and Y. At the urging of the younger workers, Ocean Spray is installing an on-site gym. The Young Professional is concerned with community relations and sustainability. They will soon be teaching gardening to high school students on twenty garden plots at the Ocean Spray corporate headquarters. For older workers, Ocean Spray provides seminars on planning for retirement and maximizing 401K retirement plans. To create intergenerational gatherings, Ocean Spray sponsors “tailgate” parties in the cafeteria, family ski weekends, field trips to zoos, seminars on buying homes and condos, etc. Best Practices at Ocean Spray—The Sparking Change Challenge This event was created to encourage all employees to share their best ideas with a wider audience than their direct managers, through a “Sparking Change Challenge.” Employees form teams of 2–4 members. The teams present their innovative idea for cost savings, marketing, or product innovations to a panel of senior leaders, via a 5–10 minute video or slide show. The best idea receives a $5,000 prize, the second best $3,000, and the third $2,000. The money is split among team members. This past year there were 58 submissions. Conclusion At the end of Ocean Spray’s 2012 fiscal year, despite a slow national and international economy, Ocean Spray posted its highest net sales in history—upto 3.2 percent from 2011. For the second straight year, the cranberry and grapefruit cooperative members received premium per barrel prices for their products, and operating profits grew 9 percent. Going forward, Ocean Spray has formed a partnership with Pepsi to distribute products in South America, introducing cherry juice blends to its product line, and expanding manufacturing in MA and PA (Cornelius, 2012). While it would be difficult to attribute all of these positive results just to diversity, clearly engaged employees play a key role in these achievements. Far too many companies say that they “value” diversity and strive for inclusion, but far too few are willing to change to actually leverage diversity as a competitive advantage both for their employees and for their organizations. Ocean Spray has been willing to embrace change, listen to diverse voices and adapt its culture to make diversity and inclusion work both for its employees and the organization. Discussion Questions How does an inclusion strategy for diversity differ from a valuing differences strategy? Why is this case a good example of the business case for diversity? Having read this case, if you were applying for a job at Ocean Spray’s corporate headquarters, what questions might you ask in the interview? What does this case teach you about leadership and diversity? Bibliography Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee. (n.d.). Power Point Presentation slides from Expanding from Diversity to Inclusion, Ocean Spray, p. 4. Jesse, E.V., & Rogers, R.T. (2006). The cranberry industry and ocean spray cooperative: Lessons in cooperative governance, FSRG Monograph. #19, Food Systems Research Group, Department of Agriculture and Applied Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Retrieved from www.aae.wisc.edu/fsrg. Kradenpoth, J., & Deane, B. (2010). Ocean Spray juices up its inclusion strategy, Part I, Diversity Central, The GilDeane Group, Inc., Retrieved from www.diversitycentral.com/diversity_practitioners/tips_techniques_Oceanspray. Kradenpoth, J., & Deane, B. (2010). Ocean Spray juices up its inclusion strategy, Part II, Diversity Central, The GilDeane Group, Inc., Retrieved from www.diversitycentral.com/diversity_practitioners/tips_techniques_Oceanspray. Mitchell, M. (2011). Ocean Spray. In person interview at Ocean Spray. (November 30). Mitchell, M. (2013). Ocean Spray. Telephone interview. (June 18). Oceanspray.com. Company fact sheet. (2011). Retrieved from oceanspray.com Oceanspray.com. Diversity vision. (2011). Retrieved from oceanspray.com/Who-We-Are/Our-Responsibility/Diversity.aspx Pressman, A. (2006). Ocean Spray’s Creative Juices: How it is feeding growth with new cranberry products, BusinessWeek, May 15. Retrieved from businessweek.com/stories/2006-05-14/ocean-sprays-creative-juices Zopkin, A. (2009). From Fritos to cranberries, The New York Times, November, 28. Retrieved from www.nytimes.com/23009/11/29jobs/29boss.html?_r=0. Diversity on the Web Go to oceanspray.com/Who-Are/Careers/Our-Philosophy.aspx. Here you will find a list and definitions of Ocean Spray’s three core values that drive its culture: respect, ownership, and innovation. From reading this case, how are these values operationalized at Ocean Spray?

 

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Two questions.

• Unit VI Study Guide
• Chapter 9: Resolving Conflicts with Others
• Chapter 14: Customer Satisfaction Skills

Unit VI Journal Open

• Instructions

As a human resource manager, how would you deal constructively with complaints and anger from fellow employees, management, and customers within an organization? Are these methods effective to resolve the issues? Explain and discuss.

Your journal entry must be at least 200 words. No references or citations are necessary.

Unit VI Reflection Paper Open

• Instructions

As discussed in the unit lesson, resolving conflict in the workplace requires using interpersonal skills, management skills, and techniques. Interpersonal skills can consist of understanding individual differences, self-esteem, self-confidence, communication, teamwork skills, problem-solving skills, cultural relations skills, motivation skills, customer service skills, ethical behavior skills, and stress management skills. Management skills focus on the type of management skill applied such as collaborating, accommodating, forcing, avoiding, and compromising. As a member of the workforce, you must be able to effectively resolve conflict, either with the use of interpersonal skills, management skills, or by applying the recommended ways of responding to tension in the workplace (e.g., overcoming defensiveness, accepting of the tension, and resolving the tension).

For your Unit VI Assignment, please reflect on your knowledge of resolving conflict that you have experienced or observed in the workplace. Please analyze what you have learned. Describe how your learned knowledge can be used. Also, identify how this information can be used to resolve conflict in the workplace in your current job or from a past incident you have experienced. What steps/methods were used in resolving the conflict?

Your reflection paper should be at least three pages in length, including an introduction, a body that supports your reflection, and a conclusion. Be sure to include a title page. The title page does not count toward the total page requirement.

 

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Assignment 1

50 Marks (10 per question)

 

1. Using any source possible (magazines, journals, personal conversation with a trainer), find a description of a training program. Consider the learning process and the implications of the learning process of the chosen training program for instruction discussed in the chapter. Evaluate the degree we to which the program facilitates learning. Provide suggestions for improving the program.

 

2. Identify what is wrong with each of the following training objectives. Then rewrite each one.

 

1. To be aware of the safety rules for operating the ribbon-cutting machine in three minutes.

1. Given a personal computer, a table and a chair ether the data into a Microsoft excel spreadsheet.

1. Use the internet to learn about training practices

1. Given a street address in the city of Vancouver, BC, be able to drive the ambulance from the station to the address in less than 10 minutes.

 

3. For the upcoming academic term or longer and following SMART format, write two learning objectives for your self.

 

4. Select an organization that you believe supports the transfer of training. Research the company and list five key things that support the fact that transfer of training is likely to occur. List any recommendations for improvement.

 

5. Cablevision developed an e-learning course that trained salespeople how to increase the number of cable television subscribers, thereby increasing revenue. The company wants to know if salespeople will increase up-selling of cable television services (e.g. Premium channels) and will try to sell other products (e.g. E-mail and web access). The company also wants to know their ROI of this training program.

1. What training outcomes should the company collect? From whom should the outcomes be collected?

1. What evaluation design would you recommend? Defend your recommendations.

1. Show how Cablevision can conduct an ROI analysis. Describe the information the company should collect and how it should be collected.

 

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4 Analyzing Work and Designing Jobs

What Do I Need to Know?

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

LO 4-1	Summarize the elements of work flow analysis.
LO 4-2	Describe how work flow is related to an organization’s structure.
LO 4-3	Define the elements of a job analysis, and discuss their significance for human resource management.
LO 4-4	Tell how to obtain information for a job analysis.
LO 4-5	Summarize recent trends in job analysis.
LO 4-6	Describe methods for designing a job so that it can be done efficiently.
LO 4-7	Identify approaches to designing a job to make it motivating.
LO 4-8	Explain how organizations apply ergonomics to design safe jobs.
LO 4-9	Discuss how organizations can plan for the mental demands of a job.

Introduction

Selling shoes online was not exactly an obvious route to business success when Tony Hsieh started Zappos.com . Most of us can’t tell whether that stylish pair of shoes in a photo will look good on us, much less whether the shoes will pinch our feet. But Hsieh set out to leap that hurdle by making Zappos excel at customer service. To take away the risks of online shoe selection, the company offers free shipping and free returns. And to make sure customers receive their orders as quickly as possible, Zappos maintains a huge inventory. Shoes offered for sale are already in the company’s warehouse, waiting to be shipped. This strategy propelled Zappos to the top spot in online shoe retailing, at which point Amazon acquired Zappos for $1.2 billion.

The jobs at Zappos are designed to support the company’s service-first strategy. Instead of looking for the cheapest location for customer service, Zappos hires representatives to work at the company’s Nevada headquarters. Their job includes helping customers with their requests, however unreasonable. Employees once located a pizzeria for a hungry caller from California. Employees at all levels in every department also are encouraged to promote the Zappos brand on social media. If employees see a shoe they love, for example, Twitter users could send out a tweet about it to their followers. Other companies are more concerned about limiting online messages about their brand, but Zappos focuses on hiring people who embrace its culture and values, and then it trusts them to spread the word.1

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Commitment to extraordinary customer service, wide latitude in delivering customer satisfaction, and tasks such as answering phone calls and packing shoe orders—all these are elements of employees’ jobs with Zappos. These elements give rise to the types of skills and personalities required for success, and they in turn help to narrow the field of people who will succeed at the company. Consideration of such elements is at the heart of analyzing work, whether in a start-up enterprise, a multinational corporation, or a government agency.

This chapter discusses the analysis and design of work and, in doing so, lays out some considerations that go into making informed decisions about how to create and link jobs. The chapter begins with a look at the big-picture issues related to analyzing work flow and organizational structure. The discussion then turns to the more specific issues of analyzing and designing jobs. Traditionally, job analysis has emphasized the study of existing jobs in order to make decisions such as employee selection, training, and compensation. In contrast, job design has emphasized making jobs more efficient or more motivating. However, as this chapter shows, the two activities are interrelated.

Work Flow in Organizations

LO 4-1 Summarize the elements of work flow analysis.

Informed decisions about jobs take place in the context of the organization’s overall work flow. Through the process of work flow design , managers analyze the tasks needed to produce a product or service. With this information, they assign these tasks to specific jobs and positions. (A job is a set of related duties. A position is the set of duties performed by one person. A school has many teaching positions; the person filling each of those positions is performing the job of teacher.) Basing these decisions on work flow design can lead to better results than the more traditional practice of looking at jobs individually.

Work Flow Design

The process of analyzing the tasks necessary for the production of a product or service.

Job

A set of related duties.

Position

The set of duties (job) performed by a particular person.

Work Flow Analysis

Before designing its work flow, the organization’s planners need to analyze what work needs to be done. Figure 4.1 shows the elements of a work flow analysis. For each type of work, such as producing a product line or providing a support service (accounting, legal support, and so on), the analysis identifies the output of the process, the activities involved, and the three categories of inputs (materials and information, equipment, and human resources).

Outputs are the products of any work unit, say, a department or team. Outputs may be tangible, as in the case of a restaurant meal or finished part. They may be intangible, such as building security or an answered question about employee benefits. In identifying the outputs of particular work units, work flow analysis considers both quantity and quality. Thinking in terms of these outputs gives HRM professionals a clearer view of how to increase each work unit’s effectiveness.

Work flow analysis next considers the work processes used to generate the outputs identified. Work processes are the activities that a work unit’s members engage in to produce a given output. They are described in terms of operating procedures for every task performed by each employee at each stage of the process. Specifying the processes helps HRM professionals design efficient work systems by clarifying which tasks are necessary. Knowledge of work processes also can guide staffing changes when work is automated, outsourced, or restructured.

Finally, work flow analysis identifies the inputs required to carry out the work processes. As shown in Figure 4.1, inputs fall into three categories: raw inputs (materials

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and information), equipment, and human resources (knowledge, skills, and abilities). At manufacturing companies in the United States, there has been a shift in the kinds of inputs needed for success. Most low-wage, low-skill manufacturing processes have been moved to parts of the world where the cost of labor is low. In the United States, successful manufacturers now emphasize innovation and short runs of specialized products. This kind of work calls for greater use of computerized equipment, which is run by lean workforces of highly skilled technicians.2

Figure 4.1

Developing a Work Flow Analysis

Work Flow Design and an Organization’s Structure

LO 4-2 Describe how work flow is related to an organization’s structure.

Firefighters work as a team. They and their equipment are the “inputs” (they do the work), and the “output” is an extinguished fire and the rescue of people and pets. In any organization or team, workers need to be cross-trained in several skills to create an effective team. If all of these firefighters are trained to do any part of the job, the chief can deploy them rapidly as needed.

Work flow takes place in the context of an organization’s structure. It requires the cooperation of individuals and groups. Ideally, the organization’s structure brings together the people who must collaborate to create the desired outputs efficiently. The structure may do this in a way that is highly centralized (that is, with authority concentrated in a few people at the top of the organization) or decentralized (with authority spread among many people). The organization may group jobs according to functions (for example, welding, painting, packaging), or it may set up divisions to focus on products or customer groups.

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Best Practices   

SeaMicro Designs Work to Stay Onshore

As we saw in Chapter 2, many U.S. manufacturers have been doing a majority of their hiring overseas in recent years. Although California’s famous Silicon Valley is named after a primary ingredient used for making microchips, the fact is that when it comes to computer hardware, very little manufacturing has taken place in California since the 1980s. One notable exception is SeaMicro, which builds servers (computers that do the data processing for a network) in Santa Clara, California. SeaMicro’s specialty is the use of small, energy-efficient computer chips, such as those that might operate a smartphone or notebook computer. These processors are combined with custom-made hardware and software that enable them to deliver plenty of computing power for today’s web-based applications while using far less energy. Customers are willing to pay a little extra for these servers in exchange for the savings on energy to power them.

With a strategy based on innovation, SeaMicro needs an organizational structure and work design that support creative thinking and rapid response to customers’ needs. SeaMicro set up teams that bring together employees from different functions. The cross-functional teams work on the combination of hardware, software, and manufacturing processes needed for each new product. The teams are constantly engaged in experimentation, so team members need the chance for faceto-face interaction that would be impossible if the company off-shored manufacturing to Asia. And when a customer calls for a change or an engineer thinks of a way to improve efficiency, all the needed expertise at headquarters is just two miles from the manufacturing floor.

This combination of innovation and environmental sustainability has attracted favorable attention, with The Wall Street Journal identifying SeaMicro as one of the “green” companies with the greatest potential to succeed. To achieve that potential, human resource managers at SeaMicro link strategy to work design and work design to a variety of HR practices: They must identify and hire creative thinkers who also have good skills at collaborating as part of a team. They need to establish performance measures and a compensation structure that reward innovation and teamwork. And these requirements all need to be accounted for in SeaMicro’s job descriptions.

SOURCES: Cade Metz, “As Apple Toils in China, Others Make It in America,” Wired, February 13, 2012, http://www.wired.com; Colleen DeBaise, “The Top 10 Clean-Tech Companies,” The Wall Street Journal, March 4, 2011, http://online.wsj.com; Ashlee Vance, “SeaMicro’s Silicon Valley Computers,” Bloomberg Businessweek, February 24, 2011, http://www.businessweek.com.

Although there are an infinite number of ways to combine the elements of an organization’s structure, we can make some general observations about structure and work design. If the structure is strongly based on function, workers tend to have low authority and to work alone at highly specialized jobs. Jobs that involve teamwork or broad responsibility tend to require a structure based on divisions other than functions. When the goal is to empower employees, companies then need to set up structures and jobs that enable broad responsibility, such as jobs that involve employees in serving a particular group of customers or producing a particular product, rather than performing a narrowly defined function. The organization’s structure also affects managers’ jobs. Managing a division responsible for a product or customer group tends to require more experience and cognitive (thinking) ability than managing a department that handles a particular function.3

Work design often emphasizes the analysis and design of jobs, as described in the remainder of this chapter. Although all of these approaches can succeed, each focuses on one isolated job at a time. These approaches do not necessarily consider how that single job fits into the overall work flow or structure of the organization. To use these techniques effectively, human resource personnel should also understand their organization as a whole. The “Best Practices” box offers an example of how a high-tech company matched its job design to its structure and strategy for manufacturing in the United States.

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Job Analysis

LO 4-3 Define the elements of a job analysis, and discuss their significance for human resource management.

To achieve high-quality performance, organizations have to understand and match job requirements and people. This understanding requires job analysis , the process of getting detailed information about jobs. Analyzing jobs and understanding what is required to carry out a job provide essential knowledge for staffing, training, performance appraisal, and many other HR activities. For instance, a supervisor’s evaluation of an employee’s work should be based on performance relative to job requirements. In very small organizations, line managers may perform a job analysis, but usually the work is done by a human resource professional. A large company may have a compensation management department that includes job analysts (also called personnel analysts). Organizations may also contract with firms that provide this service.

Job Analysis

The process of getting detailed information about jobs.

Job Descriptions

An essential part of job analysis is the creation of job descriptions. A job description is a list of the tasks, duties, and responsibilities (TDRs) that a job entails. TDRs are observable actions. For example, a news photographer’s job requires the jobholder to use a camera to take photographs. If you were to observe someone in that position for a day, you would almost certainly see some pictures being taken. When a manager attempts to evaluate job performance, it is most important to have detailed information about the work performed in the job (that is, the TDRs). This information makes it possible to determine how well an individual is meeting each job requirement.

Job Description

A list of the tasks, duties, and responsibilities (TDRs) that a particular job entails.

A job description typically has the format shown in Figure 4.2. It includes the job title, a brief description of the TDRs, and a list of the essential duties with detailed specifications of the tasks involved in carrying out each duty. Although organizations may modify this format according to their particular needs, all job descriptions within an organization should follow the same format. This helps the organization make consistent decisions about such matters as pay and promotions. It also helps the organization show that it makes human resource decisions fairly.

Whenever the organization creates a new job, it needs a new job description. Preparation of a job description begins with gathering information about the job from people already performing the task, the position’s supervisor, or the managers creating the position. Based on that information, the writer of the job description identifies the essential duties of the job, including mental and physical tasks and any methods and resources required. Job descriptions should then be reviewed periodically (say, once a year) and updated if necessary. Performance appraisals can provide a good opportunity for updating job descriptions, as the employee and supervisor compare what the employee has been doing against the details of the job description.

Organizations should give each newly hired employee a copy of his or her job description. This helps the employee to understand what is expected, but it shouldn’t be presented as limiting the employee’s commitment to quality and customer satisfaction. Ideally, employees will want to go above and beyond the listed duties when the situation and their abilities call for that. Many job descriptions include the phrase and other duties as requested as a way to remind employees not to tell their supervisor, “But that’s not part of my job.”

Job Specifications

Whereas the job description focuses on the activities involved in carrying out a job, a job specification looks at the qualities or requirements the person performing the job must possess. It is a list of the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics

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(KSAOs) that an individual must have to perform the job. Knowledge refers to factual or procedural information that is necessary for successfully performing a task. For example, this course is providing you with knowledge in how to manage human resources. A skill is an individual’s level of proficiency at performing a particular task—that is, the capability to perform it well. With knowledge and experience, you could acquire skill in the task of preparing job specifications. Ability, in contrast to skill, refers to a more general enduring capability that an individual possesses. A person might have the ability to cooperate with others or to write clearly and precisely. Finally, other characteristics might be personality traits such as someone’s persistence or motivation to achieve. Some jobs also have legal requirements, such as licensing or certification. Figure 4.3 is a set of sample job specifications for the job description in Figure 4.2.

Job Specification

A list of the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) that an individual must have to perform a particular job.

Figure 4.2

Sample Job Description

SOURCE: Union Pacific website, www.unionpacific.jobs/careers/explore/train/train_service.shtml, accessed February 28, 2012. Reprinted with permission of Union Pacific Railroad.

In developing job specifications, it is important to consider all of the elements of KSAOs. As with writing a job description, the information can come from a combination of people performing the job, people supervising or planning for the job, and trained job analysts. A study by ACT’s Workforce Development Division interviewed manufacturing supervisors to learn what they do each day and what skills they rely on. The researchers learned that the supervisors spend much of their day monitoring their employees to make sure the workplace is safe, product quality is maintained, and

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work processes are optimal. Also, they rely heavily on their technical knowledge of the work processes they supervise.4 Based on this information, job specifications for a manufacturing supervisor would include skill in observing how people work, as well as in-depth knowledge of manufacturing processes and tools.

Figure 4.3

Sample Job Specifications

SOURCE: Union Pacific website, www.unionpacific.jobs/careers/explore/train/train_service.shtml, accessed February 28, 2012. Reprinted with permission of Union Pacific Railroad.

In contrast to tasks, duties, and responsibilities, KSAOs are characteristics of people and are not directly observable. They are observable only when individuals are carrying out the TDRs of the job—and afterward, if they can show the product of their labor. Thus, if someone applied for a job as a news photographer, you could not simply look at the individual to determine whether he or she can spot and take effective photographs. However, you could draw conclusions later about the person’s skills by looking at examples of his or her photographs. Similarly, as illustrated in the “Did You Know?” box, many employers specify educational requirements. Meeting these requirements is treated as an indication that a person has some desired level of knowledge and skills.

Accurate information about KSAOs is especially important for making decisions about who will fill a job. A manager attempting to fill a position needs information about the characteristics required and about the characteristics of each applicant. Interviews and selection decisions should therefore focus on KSAOs.

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Did You Know?   

About One in Three High School Grads Hold Middle-Class Jobs

Companies filling jobs that place earners in the middle class tend to require at least an associate’s degree, according to research by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. (The center defined middle-class earnings as starting at $35,000 per year, which would place a family of four at 150% above the poverty level.) However, 36% of high school graduates with no college education land jobs paying at least $35,000 per year. These jobs are most often in the fields of manufacturing, construction, and transportation and distribution.

Question

Positions such as supervisors, office administrators, and office machine repair technicians tend to require some college education. What KSAOs do you think employers are trying to obtain with this requirement? Can you think of a better way to identify people with those KSAOs?

SOURCES: Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, “Career Clusters: Forecasting Demand for High School through College Jobs, 2008–2018,” executive summary, November 2011, http://cew.georgetown.edu/Clusters/; Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, “New Report Finds the Best Education Pathways out of Jobless Recovery,” news release, November 14, 2011, http://www9.georgetown.edu; Jennifer Gonzalez, “Bachelor’s Degree Is Still Best Path to Middle-Class Jobs and Earnings, Report Says,” Chronicle of Higher Education, November 14, 2011, http://chronicle.com.

Sources of Job Information

LO 4-4 Tell how to obtain information for a job analysis.

Information for analyzing an existing job often comes from incumbents, that is, people who currently hold that position in the organization. They are a logical source of information because they are most acquainted with the details of the job. Incumbents should be able to provide very accurate information.

A drawback of relying solely on incumbents’ information is that they may have an incentive to exaggerate what they do in order to appear more valuable to the organization. Information from incumbents should therefore be supplemented with information from observers, such as supervisors, who look for a match between what incumbents are doing and what they are supposed to do. Research suggests that supervisors may provide the most accurate estimates of the importance of job duties, while incumbents may be more accurate in reporting information about the actual time spent performing job tasks and safety-related risk factors.5 For analyzing skill levels,

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the best source may be external job analysts who have more experience rating a wide range of jobs.6

The government also provides background information for analyzing jobs. In the 1930s, the U.S. Department of Labor created the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) as a vehicle for helping the new public employment system link the demand for skills and the supply of skills in the U.S. workforce. The DOT described over 12,000 jobs, as well as some of the requirements of successful job holders. This system served the United States well for over 60 years, but it became clear to Labor Department officials that jobs in the new economy were so different that the DOT no longer served its purpose. The Labor Department therefore introduced a new system, called the Occupational Information Network (O*NET).

Instead of relying on fixed job titles and narrow task descriptions, the O*NET uses a common language that generalizes across jobs to describe the abilities, work styles, work activities, and work context required for 1,000 broadly defined occupations. Users can visit O*NET OnLine ( http://www.onetonline.org ) to review jobs’ tasks, work styles and context, and requirements including skills, training, and experience. ManpowerGroup, a staffing services agency, uses O*NET’s information on skills to match individuals more precisely to jobs it has been hired to fill. Piedmont Natural Gas uses O*NET to conduct job analyses and match job applicants’ skills and preferences to the requirements of available positions. The effort has helped reduce turnover among Piedmont’s entry-level workers.7 Furthermore, although the O*NET was developed to analyze jobs in the U.S. economy, research suggests that its ratings tend to be the same for jobs located in other countries.8

Manpower—A member of Manpower Group, the world leader in innovative workforce solutions—uses the O*Net to classify its jobs and track demand nationwide.

Position Analysis Questionnaire

After gathering information, the job analyst uses the information to analyze the job. One of the broadest and best-researched instruments for analyzing jobs is the Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ) . This is a standardized job analysis questionnaire containing 194 items that represent work behaviors, work conditions, and job characteristics that apply to a wide variety of jobs. The questionnaire organizes these items into six sections concerning different aspects of the job:

Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ)

A standardized job analysis questionnaire containing 194 questions about work behaviors, work conditions, and job characteristics that apply to a wide variety of jobs.

1. Information input—Where and how a worker gets information needed to perform the job.

2. Mental processes—The reasoning, decision making, planning, and information-processing activities involved in performing the job.

3. Work output—The physical activities, tools, and devices used by the worker to perform the job.

4. Relationships with other persons—The relationships with other people required in performing the job.

5. Job context—The physical and social contexts where the work is performed.

6. Other characteristics—The activities, conditions, and characteristics other than those previously described that are relevant to the job.

The person analyzing a job determines whether each item on the questionnaire applies to the job being analyzed. The analyst rates each item on six scales: extent of

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use, amount of time, importance to the job, possibility of occurrence, applicability, and special code (special rating scales used with a particular item). The PAQ headquarters uses a computer to score the questionnaire and generate a report that describes the scores on the job dimensions.

Using the PAQ provides an organization with information that helps in comparing jobs, even when they are dissimilar. The PAQ also has the advantage that it considers the whole work process, from inputs through outputs. However, the person who fills out the questionnaire must have college-level reading skills, and the PAQ is meant to be completed only by job analysts trained in this method. In fact, the ratings of job incumbents tend to be less reliable than ratings by supervisors and trained analysts.9 Also, the descriptions in the PAQ reports are rather abstract, so the reports may not be useful for writing job descriptions or redesigning jobs.

Fleishman Job Analysis System

To gather information about worker requirements, the Fleishman Job Analysis System asks subject-matter experts (typically job incumbents) to evaluate a job in terms of the abilities required to perform the job.10 The survey is based on 52 categories of abilities, ranging from written comprehension to deductive reasoning, manual dexterity, stamina, and originality. As in the example in Figure 4.4, the survey items are arranged into a scale for each ability. Each begins with a description of the ability and a comparison to related abilities. Below this is a seven-point scale with phrases describing extemely high and low levels of the ability. The person completing the survey indicates which point on the scale represents the level of the ability required for performing the job being analyzed.

Fleishman Job Analysis System

Job analysis technique that asks subject-matter experts to evaluate a job in terms of the abilities required to perform the job.

When the survey has been completed in all 52 categories, the results provide a picture of the ability requirements of a job. Such information is especially useful for employee selection, training, and career development.

Importance of Job Analysis

Job analysis is so important to HR managers that it has been called the building block of everything that personnel does.11 The fact is that almost every human resource management program requires some type of information that is gleaned from job analysis:12

• Work redesign—Often an organization seeks to redesign work to make it more efficient or to improve quality. The redesign requires detailed information about the existing job(s). In addition, preparing the redesign is similar to analyzing a job that does not yet exist.

• Human resource planning—As planners analyze human resource needs and how to meet those needs, they must have accurate information about the levels of skill required in various jobs, so that they can tell what kinds of human resources will be needed.

• Selection—To identify the most qualified applicants for various positions, decision makers need to know what tasks the individuals must perform, as well as the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities.

• Training—Almost every employee hired by an organization will require training. Any training program requires knowledge of the tasks performed in a job so that the training is related to the necessary knowledge and skills.

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• Performance appraisal—An accurate performance appraisal requires information about how well each employee is performing in order to reward employees who perform well and to improve their performance if it is below standard. Job analysis helps in identifying the behaviors and the results associated with effective performance.

• Career planning—Matching an individual’s skills and aspirations with career opportunities requires that those in charge of career planning know the skill requirements of the various jobs. This allows them to guide individuals into jobs in which they will succeed and be satisfied.

• Job evaluation—The process of job evaluation involves assessing the relative dollar value of each job to the organization in order to set up fair pay structures. If employees do not believe pay structures are fair, they will become dissatisfied and may quit, or they will not see much benefit in striving for promotions. To put dollar values on jobs, it is necessary to get information about different jobs and compare them.

Figure 4.4

Example of an Ability from the Fleishman Job Analysis System

SOURCE: From E. A. Fleishman and M. D. Mumford, “Evaluating Classifications of Job Behavior: A Construct Validation of the Ability Requirements Scales,” Personnel Psychology 44 (1991), pp. 523–575. Copyright © 1991. Reproduced with permission of Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Job analysis is also important from a legal standpoint. As we saw in Chapter 3, the government imposes requirements related to equal employment opportunity. Detailed, accurate, objective job specifications help decision makers comply with these regulations by keeping the focus on tasks and abilities. These documents also provide evidence of efforts made to engage in fair employment practices. For example, to enforce the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission may look at job descriptions to identify the essential functions of a job and determine whether a disabled person could have performed those functions with reasonable accommodations. Likewise, lists of duties in different jobs could be compared to evaluate claims under the Equal Pay Act. However, job descriptions and job specifications are not a substitute for fair employment practices.

Besides helping human resource professionals, job analysis helps supervisors and other managers carry out their duties. Data from job analysis can help managers identify the types of work in their units, as well as provide information about the work flow process, so that managers can evaluate whether work is done in the most efficient way. Job analysis information also supports managers as they make hiring decisions, review performance, and recommend rewards.

Competency Models

LO 4-5 Summarize recent trends in job analysis.

These traditional approaches to job analysis are too limited for some HRM needs, however. When human resource management is actively engaged in talent management as a way to support strategy, organizations need to think beyond skills for particular jobs. They must identify the capabilities they need to acquire and develop in order to promote the organization’s success. For this purpose, organizations develop competency models.

A competency is an area of personal capability that enables employees to perform their work successfully.13 For example, success in a job or career path might require leadership strength, skill in coaching others, and the ability to bring out the best in each member of a diverse team of employees. A competency model identifies and describes all the competencies required for success in a particular occupation or set of jobs. Organizations may create competency models for occupational groups, levels of the organization, or even the entire organization. A competency model might require that all middle managers or all members of the organization be able to act with integrity, value diversity, and commit themselves to delighting customers. Table 4.1 shows an example of a competency model for a project manager. The left side of the table lists competencies required for a project manager (organizational & planning skills; communications; and financial & quantitative skills). The right side of the table shows behaviors that might be used to determine a project manager’s level of proficiency for each competency. As in these examples, competency models focus more on how people work, whereas job analysis focuses more on work tasks and outcomes.

Competency

An area of personal capability that enables employees to perform their work successfully.

Competency models help HR professionals ensure that all aspects of talent management are aligned with the organization’s strategy. Looking at the competencies needed for a particular occupational group, department, or the organization as a whole shows which candidates will be the best to fill open positions. Not only can the organization select those who can carry out a particular job today, but it can spot those with competencies they can develop further to assume greater responsibility in the future. Competency models for a career path or for success

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in management show the organization which competencies to emphasize in plans for development of high-potential employees. And competency models identify the important capabilities to measure in performance evaluations and to reward with pay and promotions.

Table 4.1

Example of Competencies and a Competency Model

PROJECT MANAGER COMPETENCIES	PROFICIENCY RATINGS
Organizational & Planning Skills Ability to establish priorities on projects and schedule activities to achieve results.	1—Below Expectations: Unable to perform basic tasks.
	2—Meets Expectations: Understands basic principles and performs routine tasks with reliable results; works with minimal supervision or assistance.
	3—Exceeds Expectations: Performs complex and multiple tasks; can coach, teach, or lead others.
Communications Ability to build credibility and trust through open and direct communications with internal and external customers.	1—Below Expectations: Unable to perform basic tasks.
	2—Meets Expectations: Understands basic principles and performs routine tasks with reliable results; works with minimal supervision or assistance.
	3—Exceeds Expectations: Performs complex and multiple tasks; can coach, teach, or lead others.
Financial & Quantitative Skills Ability to analyze financial information accurately and set financial goals that have a positive impact on company’s bottom line and fiscal objectives.	1—Below Expectations: Unable to perform basic tasks.
	2—Meets Expectations: Understands basic principles and performs routine tasks with reliable results; works with minimal supervision or assistance.
	3—Exceeds Expectations: Performs complex and multiple tasks; can coach, teach, or lead others.

SOURCE: Based on R. J. Mirabile, “Everything You Wanted to Know about Competency Modeling,” Training and Development (August 1997): pp. 73–77.

Trends in Job Analysis

As we noted in the earlier discussion of work flow analysis, organizations have been appreciating the need to analyze jobs in the context of the organization’s structure and strategy. In addition, organizations are recognizing that today’s workplace must be adaptable and is constantly subject to change. Thus, although we tend to think of “jobs” as something stable, they actually tend to change and evolve over time. Those who occupy or manage jobs often make minor adjustments to match personal preferences or changing conditions.14 Indeed, although errors in job analysis can have many sources, most inaccuracy is likely to result from job descriptions being outdated. For this reason, job analysis must not only define jobs when they are created, but also detect changes in jobs as time passes.

With global competitive pressure and economic downturns, one corporate change that has affected many organizations is downsizing. Research suggests that successful downsizing efforts almost always entail changes in the nature of jobs, not just their number. Jobs that have survived the downsizing of the most recent recession tend to have a broader scope of responsibilities coupled with less supervision.15

These changes in the nature of work and the expanded use of “project-based” organizational structures require the type of broader understanding that comes from an analysis of work flows. Because the work can change rapidly and it is impossible to rewrite job descriptions every week, job descriptions and specifications need to be flexible. At the same time, legal requirements (as discussed in Chapter 3) may discourage organizations from writing flexible job descriptions. This means organizations must

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balance the need for flexibility with the need for legal documentation. This presents one of the major challenges to be faced by HRM departments in the next decade. Many professionals are meeting this challenge with a greater emphasis on careful job design.

Job Design

LO 4-6 Describe methods for designing a job so that it can be done efficiently.

Although job analysis, as just described, is important for an understanding of existing jobs, organizations also must plan for new jobs and periodically consider whether they should revise existing jobs. When an organization is expanding, supervisors and human resource professionals must help plan for new or growing work units. When an organization is trying to improve quality or efficiency, a review of work units and processes may require a fresh look at how jobs are designed.

These situations call for job design , the process of defining how work will be performed and what tasks will be required in a given job, or job redesign, a similar process that involves changing an existing job design. To design jobs effectively, a person must thoroughly understand the job itself (through job analysis) and its place in the larger work unit’s work flow process (through work flow analysis). Having a detailed knowledge of the tasks performed in the work unit and in the job, a manager then has many alternative ways to design a job. As shown in Figure 4.5, the available approaches emphasize different aspects of the job: the mechanics of doing a job efficiently, the job’s impact on motivation, the use of safe work practices, and the mental demands of the job.

Job Design

The process of defining how work will be performed and what tasks will be required in a given job.

Designing Efficient Jobs

If workers perform tasks as efficiently as possible, not only does the organization benefit from lower costs and greater output per worker, but workers should be less fatigued. This point of view has for years formed the basis of classical industrial engineering , which looks for the simplest way to structure work in order to maximize efficiency. Typically, applying industrial engineering to a job reduces the complexity of the work, making it so simple that almost anyone can be trained quickly and easily to perform the job. Such jobs tend to be highly specialized and repetitive.

Industrial Engineering

The study of jobs to find the simplest way to structure work in order to maximize efficiency.

Figure 4.5

Approaches to Job Design

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In practice, the scientific method traditionally seeks the “one best way” to perform a job by performing time-and-motion studies to identify the most efficient movements for workers to make. Once the engineers have identified the most efficient sequence of motions, the organization should select workers based on their ability to do the job, then train them in the details of the “one best way” to perform that job. The company also should offer pay structured to motivate workers to do their best. (Chapters 11 and 12 discuss pay and pay structures.)

Industrial engineering provides measurable and practical benefits. However, a focus on efficiency alone can create jobs that are so simple and repetitive that workers get bored. Workers performing these jobs may feel their work is meaningless. Hence, most organizations combine industrial engineering with other approaches to job design.

Designing Jobs That Motivate

LO 4-7 Identify approaches to designing a job to make it motivating.

Especially when organizations must compete for employees, depend on skilled knowledge workers, or need a workforce that cares about customer satisfaction, a pure focus on efficiency will not achieve human resource objectives. Employers also need to ensure that workers have a positive attitude toward their jobs so that they show up at work with enthusiasm, commitment, and creativity. To improve job satisfaction, organizations need to design jobs that take into account factors that make jobs motivating and satisfying for employees.

A model that shows how to make jobs more motivating is the Job Characteristics Model, developed by Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham. This model describes jobs in terms of five characteristics:16

1. Skill variety—The extent to which a job requires a variety of skills to carry out the tasks involved.

2. Task identity—The degree to which a job requires completing a “whole” piece of work from beginning to end (for example, building an entire component or resolving a customer’s complaint).

3. Task significance—The extent to which the job has an important impact on the lives of other people.

4. Autonomy—The degree to which the job allows an individual to make decisions about the way the work will be carried out.

5. Feedback—The extent to which a person receives clear information about performance effectiveness from the work itself.

As shown in Figure 4.6, the more of each of these characteristics a job has, the more motivating the job will be, according to the Job Characteristics Model. The model predicts that a person with such a job will be more satisfied and will produce more and better work. Some of these factors are behind the satisfaction of workers at Continuum Practical Nursing, which assigns nurses to provide at-home care to children who have been discharged from the hospital. Offering nursing care to children who are disabled or suffer from severe illnesses enables them to stay at home instead of in an institution. Although the nurses tend to earn less than they could in a hospital job, they enjoy flexible schedules and, even more, appreciate the privilege to improve children’s quality of life. Continuum’s operations director told a reporter, “I have a purpose every day.” Jane Bocek, assistant director of nursing, echoed that sentiment: “I’ve helped change lives.”17 In contrast to their experience, employees in a job that rates low on these characteristics would not find it very motivating. At the extreme are jobs like those described in the “HR Oops!” box.

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Figure 4.6

Characteristics of a Motivating Job

Applications of the job characteristics approach to job design include job enlargement, job enrichment, self-managing work teams, flexible work schedules, and telework.

Job Enlargement In a job design, job enlargement refers to broadening the types of tasks performed. The objective of job enlargement is to make jobs less repetitive and more interesting. Jobs also become enlarged when organizations add new goals or ask fewer workers to accomplish work that had been spread among more people. In those situations, the challenge is to avoid crossing the line from interesting jobs into jobs that burn out employees. In Minnesota, school principals have been asked to stretch beyond their administrative tasks such as staffing, budgeting, and ensuring building security to take responsibility for student success and teacher development. These goals emphasize the basic purpose that likely drew many principals to careers in education. However, the new goals require many additional hours to observe and evaluate teachers. Schools that can afford it are adding behavior specialists and administration managers to help principals keep schools running as they focus on their new priorities.18

Job Enlargement

Broadening the types of tasks performed in a job.

Organizations that use job enlargement to make jobs more motivational employ techniques such as job extension and job rotation. Job extension is enlarging jobs by combining several relatively simple jobs to form a job with a wider range of tasks. An example might be combining the jobs of receptionist, typist, and file clerk into jobs containing all three kinds of work. This approach to job enlargement is relatively simple, but if all the tasks are dull, workers will not necessarily be more motivated by the redesigned job.

Job Extension

Enlarging jobs by combining several relatively simple jobs to form a job with a wider range of tasks.

Job rotation does not actually redesign the jobs themselves, but moves employees among several different jobs. This approach to job enlargement is common among production teams. During the course of a week, a team member may carry out each of the jobs handled by the team. Team members might assemble components one day and pack products into cases another day. As with job extension, the enlarged jobs may still consist of repetitious activities, but with greater variation among those activities.

Job Rotation

Enlarging jobs by moving employees among several different jobs.

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HR Oops!   

Jobs That Literally Make People Sick

While effective human resource manage ment aims to create motivating jobs, poor leadership coupled with difficult circumstances can result in jobs that are so unpleasant that workers’ mental health begins to suffer. Researchers at the Australian National University analyzed data about working conditions and mental health in more than 7,000 adults over a seven-year period. They found that the mental health of workers in the worst of these jobs was no better than—and sometimes worse than—the mental health of unemployed adults.

The job characteristics that were mostly strongly associated with mental health were the job’s complexity and demands, job security, the perceived fairness of pay, and control over the job (for example, ability to decide how to perform tasks). In highly demanding jobs with low security, unfair pay, and little control, workers experienced declining mental health. Unemployment also had an impact on mental health, but it was not as severe.

People differ in what kinds of work they consider unbearable, but many would have that attitude toward working in an Alabama fish-processing plant. The rooms have to be kept cold, and they are wet as well. Some people would likely object to smelling fish all day long. Workers stand for at least 10 hours a day, making repetitive cuts. For all this, they earn minimum wage and limited benefits. In spite of these conditions, employers were able until recently to fill these positions with immigrant workers. But after Alabama passed a law requiring police to question individuals who they believe could be in the United States illegally, many of those workers left the state. Employers report difficulty filling jobs such as these with U.S. workers.

Questions

1.   What would be the consequences to an employer of having highly demanding jobs with low security, unfair pay, and little control?

2.   How could fish-processing plants like the one described here improve jobs so they can fill vacant positions profitably?

SOURCES: Elizabeth Dwoskin, “Do You Want This Job?” Bloomberg Businessweek, November 14, 2011, pp. 70–78; Stephen Long, “Bad Job Worse for Your Mental State than No Job at All,” PM, June 9, 2011, http://www.abc.net.au/pm/; “When a Job Is So Bad It Hurts,” The Wall Street Journal, March 29, 2011, http://blogs.wsj.com; Matt McMillen, “For Mental Health, Bad Job Worse than No Job,” Health, March 14, 2011, http://www.cnn.com.

Job Enrichment The idea of job enrichment , or empowering workers by adding more decision-making authority to their jobs, comes from the work of Frederick Herzberg. According to Herzberg’s two-factor theory, individuals are motivated more by the intrinsic aspects of work (for example, the meaningfulness of a job) than by extrinsic rewards, such as pay. Herzberg identified five factors he associated with motivating jobs: achievement, recognition, growth, responsibility, and performance of the entire job. Thus, ways to enrich a manufacturing job might include giving employees authority to stop production when quality standards are not being met and having each employee perform several tasks to complete a particular stage of the process, rather than dividing up the tasks among the employees. For a salesperson in a store, job enrichment might involve the authority to resolve customer problems, including the authority to decide whether to issue refunds or replace merchandise.

Job Enrichment

Empowering workers by adding more decision-making authority to jobs.

In practice, however, it is important to note that not every worker responds positively to enriched jobs. These jobs are best suited to workers who are flexible and responsive to others; for these workers, enriched jobs can dramatically improve motivation.19

Nordstrom empowers its employees to resolve customer problems, which can enhance their job experience.

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Self-Managing Work Teams Instead of merely enriching individual jobs, some organizations empower employees by designing work to be done by self-managing work teams. As described in Chapter 2, these teams have authority for an entire work process or segment. Team members typically have authority to schedule work, hire team members, resolve problems related to the team’s performance, and perform other duties traditionally handled by management. Teamwork can give a job such motivating characteristics as autonomy, skill variety, and task identity.

Because team members’ responsibilities are great, their jobs usually are defined broadly and include sharing of work assignments. Team members may, at one time or another, perform every duty of the team. The challenge for the organization is to provide enough training so that the team members can learn the necessary skills. Another approach, when teams are responsible for particular work processes or customers, is to assign the team responsibility for the process or customer, then let the team decide which members will carry out which tasks.

A study of work teams at a large financial services company found that the right job design was associated with effective teamwork.20 In particular, when teams are self-managed and team members are highly involved in decision making, teams are more productive, employees more satisfied, and managers are more pleased with performance. Teams also tend to do better when each team member performs a variety of tasks and when team members view their effort as significant.

Flexible Work Schedules One way in which an organization can give employees some say in how their work is structured is to offer flexible work schedules. Depending on the requirements of the organization and the individual jobs, organizations may be able to be flexible about when employees work. As introduced in Chapter 2, types of flexibility include flextime and job sharing. Figure 4.7 illustrates alternatives to the traditional 40-hour workweek.

Flextime is a scheduling policy in which full-time employees may choose starting and ending times within guidelines specified by the organization. The flextime policy may require that employees be at work between certain hours, say, 10:00 am and 3:00 pm. Employees work additional hours before or after this period in order to work the full day. One employee might arrive early in the morning in order to leave at 3:00 pm to pick up children after school. Another employee might be a night owl who prefers to arrive at 10:00 am and work until 6:00, 7:00, or even later in the evening. A flextime policy also may enable workers to adjust a particular day’s hours in order to make time for doctor’s appointments, children’s activities, hobbies, or volunteer work. A work schedule that allows time for community and family interests can be extremely motivating for some employees.

Flextime

A scheduling policy in which full-time employees may choose starting and ending times within guidelines specified by the organization.

Job sharing is a work option in which two part-time employees carry out the tasks associated with a single job. Such arrangements can enable an organization to attract or retain valued employees who want more time to attend school or to care for family members. The job requirements in such an arrangement include the ability to work cooperatively and coordinate the details of one’s job with another person. The “HR How To” box offers ideas for using job sharing and other flexible work arrangements and career paths to make work more motivational.

Job Sharing

A work option in which two part-time employees carry out the tasks associated with a single job.

Although not strictly a form of flexibility for all individual employees, another scheduling alternative is the compressed workweek. A compressed workweek is a schedule in which full-time workers complete their weekly hours in fewer than five days. For example, instead of working eight hours a day for five days, the employees could complete 40 hours of work in four 10-hour days. This alternative is most common,

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but some companies use other alternatives, such as scheduling 80 hours over nine days (with a three-day weekend every other week) or reducing the workweek from 40 to 38 or 36 hours. Employees may appreciate the extra days available for leisure, family, or volunteer activities. An organization might even use this schedule to offer a kind of flexibility—for example, letting workers vote whether they want a compressed workweek during the summer months. This type of schedule has a couple of drawbacks, however. One is that employees may become exhausted on the longer workdays. Another is that if the arrangement involves working more than 40 hours during a week, the Fair Labor Standards Act requires the payment of overtime wages to non-supervisory employees.

Figure 4.7

Alternatives to the 8-to-5 Job

Telework Flexibility can extend to work locations as well as work schedules. Before the Industrial Revolution, most people worked either close to or inside their own homes. Mass production technologies changed all this, separating work life from home life, as people began to travel to centrally located factories and offices. Today, however, skyrocketing prices for office space, combined with drastically reduced prices for portable communication and computing devices, seem ready to reverse this trend. The broad term for doing one’s work away from a centrally located office is telework, or telecommuting.

For employers, advantages of telework include less need for office space and the ability to offer greater flexibility to employees who are disabled or need to be available for children or elderly relatives. The employees using telework arrangements may have less absences from work than employees with similar demands who must

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commute to work. Telecommuting can also support a strategy of corporate social responsibility because these employees do not produce the greenhouse gas emissions that result from commuting by car. Telework is easiest to implement for people in managerial, professional, or sales jobs, especially those that involve working and communicating on a computer. A telework arrangement is generally difficult to set up for manufacturing workers. A recent survey by WorldatWork found that more than half of teleworkers were men, their median age was 40, and three-quarters had at least some college education. WorldatWork sees in the demographic data evidence that teleworkers tend to be knowledge workers taking advantage of the ability to work wherever they have Internet and computer access.21

HR How To   

Job Flexibility Makes Work Motivational

The old-fashioned static approach to defining rigid jobs and career paths misses an important reality: people aren’t static. Needs change, interests changes, and skills change. Workers reach points in their lives when they need more time to care for elderly parents or young children. Workers pursue their educations and discover new passions. Workers gain maturity and long to take on new responsibilities. Because of these and other changes, some employees leave organizations to job-hop or to stay home and meet family obligations. In contrast, workers are motivated by jobs that give them flexibility to learn, to adjust their work hours, and to try out new interests. Here are some ideas for making work more motivational:

•   Offer job sharing in situations where pairs of employees are committed to making this arrangement work. Job sharing is not simply a matter of dividing one full-time job into two part-time jobs. The job sharers must work together seamlessly to meet the requirements of a single job, so they must have a strong work ethic and excellent communication skills.

•   Offer “job swaps” in situations where employees highly value learning and career advancement. Such employees may be inclined to engage in job hopping as a way to earn promotions and make work more interesting. Organizations can keep these talented and ambitious people onboard by allowing qualified employees to trade places with an employee in a different department or different location (even another country). Intel Corporation enables job swaps by setting up a database of temporary assignments, such as special projects or openings created when an employee takes a leave, and employees can apply to fill those temporary positions if their supervisor approves.

•   Consider making flexibility a policy, rather than a menu of programs. To be truly flexible, an organization is open to ideas coming from employees themselves. BDO USA, which offers tax, financial, and consulting services to businesses, makes work flexibility a matter of corporate strategy. Employees may set up any arrangement for when and where they work, as long as that arrangement meets the goals of the employee, his or her team, the firm, and its clients.

•   Train managers in managing a flexible workplace. Older managers especially may not be used to the idea that employers can adapt to employees’ needs and interests without sacrificing results. Managers therefore need to learn how to set up various arrangements and how to communicate and keep track of results when employees are not necessarily at the workplace during a specified set of hours.

SOURCES: Lauren Weber and Leslie Kwoh, “Co-Workers Change Places,” The Wall Street Journal, February 21, 2012, http://online.wsj.com; Ellen Weinreb, “How Job Sharing May Be the Secret to Work-Life Balance,” Forbes, October 24, 2011, http://www.forbes.com; “Employers Embracing Programs as Morale Booster, Business Strategy,” HR Focus, September 2011, pp. 1–4.

Given the possible benefits, it is not surprising that telework has been a growing trend. WorldatWork has found growth in the number of teleworkers every year between 2001 and 2008. The number dipped in 2010, but this partly reflected a decline

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in the total number of employed workers. In a 2011 survey by Telework Exchange, 60% of employees said their employers are more positive toward telework than they were the year before. Survey respondents also offered a practical reason for that support: three-quarters of those who teleworked said they accomplished more than when they were at the workplace.22

Designing Ergonomic Jobs

LO 4-8 Explain how organizations apply ergonomics to design safe jobs.

The way people use their bodies when they work—whether toting heavy furniture onto a moving van or sitting quietly before a computer screen—affects their physical well-being and may affect how well and how long they can work. The study of the interface between individuals’ physiology and the characteristics of the physical work environment is called ergonomics . The goal of ergonomics is to minimize physical strain on the worker by structuring the physical work environment around the way the human body works. Ergonomics therefore focuses on outcomes such as reducing physical fatigue, aches and pains, and health complaints. Ergonomic research includes the context in which work takes place, such as the lighting, space, and hours worked.23

Ergonomics

The study of the interface between individuals’ physiology and the characteristics of the physical work environment.

Ergonomic job design has been applied in redesigning equipment used in jobs that are physically demanding. Such redesign is often aimed at reducing the physical demands of certain jobs so that anyone can perform them. In addition, many interventions focus on redesigning machines and technology—for instance, adjusting the height of a computer keyboard to minimize occupational illnesses, such as carpal tunnel syndrome. The design of chairs and desks to fit posture requirements is very important in many office jobs. One study found that having employees participate in an ergonomic redesign effort significantly reduced the number and severity of cumulative trauma disorders (injuries that result from performing the same movement over and over), lost production time, and restricted-duty days.24

Although employers in all industries are supposed to protect workers under the “general duty” clause, shipyards, nursing homes, grocery stores, and poultry-processing plants are the only four industries for which OSHA has published ergonomic standards.

A recent ergonomic challenge comes from the popularity of mobile devices. As workers find more and more uses for these devices, they are at risk from repetitive-stress injuries (RSIs). Typing with one’s thumbs to send frequent text messages on a smartphone can result in inflammation of the tendons that move the thumbs. Laptop and notebook computers are handy to carry, but because the screen and keyboard are attached in a single device, the computer can’t be positioned to the ergonomically correct standards of screen at eye level and keyboard low enough to type with arms bent at a 90-degree angle. Heavy users of these devices must therefore trade off eyestrain against physical strain to wrists, unless they can hook up their device to an extra, properly positioned keyboard or monitor. Touchscreens pose their own risks. They are typically part of a flat device such as a smartphone or tablet computer, and these are difficult to position for optimal viewing and typing. Using vertically oriented touchscreens causes even more muscle strain than tapping on a screen lying flat. In addition, because touchscreens usually lack the tactile feedback of pressing keys on a keyboard, users tend to strike them with more force than they use on real keys. Attaching a supplemental keyboard addresses this potential source of

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strain. When using mobile devices or any computer, workers can protect themselves by taking frequent breaks and paying attention to their posture while they work.25

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has a “four-pronged” strategy for encouraging ergonomic job design. The first prong is to issue guidelines (rather than regulations) for specific industries. As of 2012, these guidelines have been issued for the nursing home, grocery store, poultry-processing industries, and shipyards. Second, OSHA enforces violations of its requirement that employers have a general duty to protect workers from hazards, including ergonomic hazards. Third, OSHA works with industry groups to advise employers in those industries. And finally, OSHA established a National Advisory Committee on Ergonomics to define needs for further research. You can learn more about OSHA’s guidelines at the agency’s website, www.osha.gov .

Designing Jobs That Meet Mental Capabilities and Limitations

LO 4-9 Discuss how organizations can plan for the mental demands of a job.

Just as the human body has capabilities and limitations, addressed by ergonomics, the mind, too, has capabilities and limitations. Besides hiring people with certain mental skills, organizations can design jobs so that they can be accurately and safely performed given the way the brain processes information. Generally, this means reducing the information-processing requirements of a job. In these simpler jobs, workers may be less likely to make mistakes or have accidents. Of course, the simpler jobs also may be less motivating. Research has found that challenging jobs tend to fatigue and dissatisfy workers when they feel little control over their situation, lack social support, and feel motivated mainly to avoid errors. In contrast, they may enjoy the challenges of a difficult job where they have some control and social support, especially if they enjoy learning and are unafraid of making mistakes.26 Because of this drawback to simplifying jobs, it can be most beneficial to simplify jobs where employees will most appreciate having the mental demands reduced (as in a job that is extremely challenging) or where the costs of errors are severe (as in the job of a surgeon or air-traffic controller).

There are several ways to simplify a job’s mental demands. One is to limit the amount of information and memorization that the job requires. Organizations can also provide adequate lighting, easy-to-understand gauges and displays, simple-to-operate equipment, and clear instructions. For project management, teamwork, and work done by employees in different locations, organizations may provide social-media tools to simplify information sharing, as described in the “HRM Social” box. Often, employees try to simplify some of the mental demands of their own jobs by creating checklists, charts, or other aids. Finally, every job requires some degree of thinking, remembering, and paying attention, so for every job, organizations need to evaluate whether their employees can handle the job’s mental demands.

Changes in technology sometimes reduce job demands and errors, but in some cases, technology has made the problem worse. Some employees try to juggle information from several sources at once—say, talking on a cell phone while typing, surfing the web for information during a team member’s business presentation, or repeatedly stopping work on a project to check e-mail or Twitter feeds. In these cases, the cell phone, handheld computer, and e-mail or tweets are distracting the employees from their primary task. They may convey important information, but they also break the employee’s train of thought, reducing performance and increasing the likelihood of errors. Research by a firm called Basex, which specializes in the knowledge economy, found that a big part of the information overload problem is recovery time, that is,

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the time it takes a person’s thinking to switch back from an interruption to the task at hand. The Basex researchers found that recovery time is from 10 to 20 times the length of the interruption. For example, after a 30-second pause to check a Twitter feed, the recovery time could be five minutes or longer.27

HRM Social   

Status Updates Help West Wing Writers Stay on the Same Page

West Wing Writers is a speechwriting firm founded by partners who had worked together writing speeches for Bill Clinton. Today they and the associates they hired write speeches for leaders in business, entertainment, politics, and private charities. They research topics, help generate and refine ideas, and prepare polished speeches for their clients to deliver.

To complete these projects, the members of the firm work together closely, contributing ideas to one another’s projects and editing one another’s work. Yet the work of writing also requires focused thinking without constant interruptions.

That makes it tricky for each writer and project leader to know when is a good time to bring in others to discuss a project, when someone might be available to assist with a new job, and how well current projects are progressing.

The tools of social media have given West Wing Writers an easy way to address all those challenges. The organization bought a time-tracking system called Harvest from a company of the same name. Harvest is basically an online time-sheet with social-media features. Users keep track of their hours by clicking on Start and Stop buttons that time their work on each project. They post status updates to indicate when they are starting and finishing projects. The system is online, so writers can use it from any computer or mobile device with Internet access. Project leaders can quickly check the system to see who is in the middle of a project, who is finishing up, and how long each project is taking.

SOURCES: Harvest, “Time Tracking Made Easy,” http://www.getharvest.com, accessed February 23, 2012; West Wing Writers, “About Us,” http://www.westwingwriters.com, accessed February 23, 2012; Alina Dizik, “It’s 10 A.M. Here’s How to Find Your Workers,” The Wall Street Journal, November 14, 2011, http://online.wsj.com.

Organizations probably can’t design interruption-free jobs, and few employees would want to isolate themselves entirely from the information and relationships available online. But employers can design jobs that empower workers to manage their time—for example, allowing them to schedule blocks of time when they concentrate on work and do not answer phone calls, e-mails, or text messages. Some employees set aside one or two periods during the day when they will open their e-mail programs, read messages, and respond to the messages immediately. Employers also may provide training in communicating efficiently online—for example, writing informative subject lines and avoiding the “Reply All” option in e-mail.28

Information-processing errors also are greater in situations in which one person hands off information to another. Such transmission problems have become a major concern in the field of medicine because critical information is routinely shared among nurses, doctors, and medical technicians, as well as between hospital employees changing shifts. Problems during shift changes are especially likely as a result of fatigue and burnout among employees with stressful jobs.29 A study of handoffs at Yale–New Haven Hospital found that the information conveyed was often informal, incomplete, and vague. One-fourth of the studied hand-offs led to errors in the care given to patients afterward. Pediatrician Ted Sectish has conducted a pilot program to improve information-sharing during hand-offs. After he trained young doctors in teamwork, set up computerized summaries of patients, and established a structure for what information to convey, medical errors fell by 40%.30

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THINKING ETHICALLY

SHOULD EMPLOYERS FRET ABOUT MAKING EMPLOYEES HAPPY?

One consideration in job design is to increase job satisfaction. The expectation is that employees with high job satisfaction will be motivated to do their best. Some managers are interested in taking this idea a step further. They are applying research into what conditions are associated with happiness. By using our knowledge about what makes people happy, the thinking goes, organizations can try to establish the conditions for a happy workforce.

During the past two decades, psychologists have become much more involved in the study of emotions, especially happiness. As one would expect, they have learned that happiness is greater under conditions such as good health and strong relationships. But the difference that comes from any single condition is not large or long lasting. People do, however, sustain happiness when they experience frequent positive events, even minor ones. Therefore, people can add to their happiness with positive activities such as meditation, exercise, good deeds for others, and social interaction. This logic suggests that organizations could add to employees’ happiness by building positive experiences into each day—praise from supervisors, for example, or a time for employees to describe where they have seen acts of kindness at work.

But should employers even take on employee happiness as another project? Time for feel-good activities could take away time from productive activities. And managers might worry that if employees are too comfortable, they won’t be motivated to try hard. Psychology professor Daniel Gilbert has one response to those concerns: “people are happiest when they’re appropriately challenged.” People who aren’t challenge get bored, and boredom reduces happiness. Former Verizon CEO Denny Strigl would agree. He notes, “Good results make happy employees—and not the other way around.”

Questions

1.   What ethical responsibilities do organizations have with regard to employees’ health? To their happiness?

2.   If designing work so that employees will be happier will also make employees more engaged in challenging assignments, should employers address happiness in job design? Should they address happiness if it will instead distract employees from their work? Why or why not?

SOURCES: Gardiner Morse, “The Science behind the Smile,” Harvard Business Review, January–February 2012, pp. 85–90 (interview with Daniel Gilbert); Denny Strigl, “Results Drive Happiness,” HR Magazine, October 2011, p. 113.

SUMMARY

LO 4-1   Summarize the elements of work flow analysis.

The analysis identifies the amount and quality of a work unit’s outputs (products, parts of products, or services). Next, the analyst determines the work processes required to produce the outputs, breaking down tasks into those performed by each person. Finally, the work flow analysis identifies the inputs used to carry out the processes.

LO 4-2   Describe how work flow is related to an organization’s structure.

Within an organization, units and individuals must cooperate to create outputs, and the organization’s structure brings people together for this purpose. The structure may be centralized or decentralized, and people may be grouped according to function or into divisions focusing on particular products or customer groups. A functional structure is most appropriate for people who perform highly specialized jobs and hold relatively little authority. Employee empowerment and teamwork succeed best in a divisional structure.

LO 4-3   Define the elements of a job analysis, and discuss their significance for human resource management.

Job analysis is the process of getting detailed information about jobs. It includes preparation of job descriptions and job specifications. A job description lists the tasks, duties, and responsibilities of a job. Job specifications look at the qualities needed in a person performing the job. They list the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics that are required for successful performance of a job. Job analysis provides a foundation for carrying out many HRM responsibilities, including work redesign, human resource planning, employee selection and training, performance appraisal, career planning, and job evaluation to determine pay scales.

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LO 4-4   Tell how to obtain information for a job analysis.

Information for analyzing an existing job often comes from incumbents and their supervisors. The Labor Department publishes general background information about jobs in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles and Occupational Information Network (O*NET). Job analysts, employees, and managers may complete a Position Analysis Questionnaire or fill out a survey for the Fleishman Job Analysis System.

LO 4-5   Summarize recent trends in job analysis.

To broaden traditional approaches to job analysis in support of talent management, organizations develop competency models. A competency model identifies and describes all the competencies, or personal capabilities, required for success in a particular occupation or set of jobs. Because today’s workplace requires a high degree of adaptability, job tasks and requirements are subject to constant change. For example, as some organizations downsize, they are defining jobs more broadly, with less supervision of people in those positions. Organizations are also adopting project-based structures and teamwork, which also require flexibility and the ability to handle broad responsibilities.

LO 4-6   Describe methods for designing a job so that it can be done efficiently.

The basic technique for designing efficient jobs is industrial engineering, which looks for the simplest way to structure work to maximize efficiency. Through methods such as time-and-motion studies, the industrial engineer creates jobs that are relatively simple and typically repetitive. These jobs may bore workers because they are so simple.

LO 4-7   Identify approaches to designing a job to make it motivating.

According to the Job Characteristics Model, jobs are more motivating if they have greater skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback about performance effectiveness. Ways to create such jobs include job enlargement (through job extension or job rotation) and job enrichment. In addition, self-managing work teams offer greater skill variety and task identity. Flexible work schedules and telework offer greater autonomy.

LO 4-8   Explain how organizations apply ergonomics to design safe jobs.

The goal of ergonomics is to minimize physical strain on the worker by structuring the physical work environment around the way the human body works. Ergonomic design may involve modifying equipment to reduce the physical demands of performing certain jobs or redesigning the jobs themselves to reduce strain. Ergonomic design may target work practices associated with injuries.

LO 4-9   Discuss how organizations can plan for the mental demands of a job.

Employers may seek to reduce mental as well as physical strain. The job design may limit the amount of information and memorization involved. Adequate lighting, easy-to-read gauges and displays, simple-to-operate equipment, and clear instructions also can minimize mental strain. Computer software can simplify jobs—for example, by performing calculations or filtering out spam from important e-mail. Finally, organizations can select employees with the necessary abilities to handle a job’s mental demands.

KEY TERMS

competency, 110

ergonomics, 119

Fleishman Job Analysis System, 108

flextime, 116

industrial engineering, 112

job, 100

job analysis, 103

job description, 103

job design, 112

job enlargement, 114

job enrichment, 115

job extension, 114

job rotation, 114

job sharing, 116

job specification, 103

position, 100

Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ), 107

work flow design, 100

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REVIEW AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Assume you are the manager of a fast-food restaurant. What are the outputs of your work unit? What are the activities required to produce those outputs? What are the inputs?

2. Based on Question 1, consider the cashier’s job in the restaurant. What are the outputs, activities, and inputs for that job?

3. Consider the “job” of college student. Perform a job analysis on this job. What tasks are required in the job? What knowledge, skills, and abilities are necessary to perform those tasks? Prepare a job description based on your analysis.

4. Discuss how the following trends are changing the skill requirements for managerial jobs in the United States:

a.   Increasing use of social media.

b.   Increasing international competition.

c.   Increasing work-family conflicts.

5. Suppose you have taken a job as a trainer in a large bank that has created competency models for all its positions. How could the competency models help you succeed in your career at the bank? How could the competency models help you develop the bank’s employees?

6. Consider the job of a customer service representative who fields telephone calls from customers of a retailer that sells online and through catalogs. What measures can an employer take to design this job to make it efficient? What might be some drawbacks or challenges of designing this job for efficiency?

7. How might the job in Question 6 be designed to make it more motivating? How well would these considerations apply to the cashier’s job in Question 2?

8. What ergonomic considerations might apply to each of the following jobs? For each job, what kinds of costs would result from addressing ergonomics? What costs might result from failing to address ergonomics?

a.   A computer programmer.

b.   A UPS delivery person.

c.   A child care worker.

9. Modern electronics have eliminated the need for a store’s cashiers to calculate change due on a purchase. How does this development modify the job description for a cashier? If you were a store manager, how would it affect the skills and qualities of job candidates you would want to hire? Does this change in mental processing requirements affect what you would expect from a cashier? How?

10. Consider a job you hold now or have held recently. Would you want this job to be redesigned to place more emphasis on efficiency, motivation, ergonomics, or mental processing? What changes would you want, and why? (Or why do you not want the job to be redesigned?)

EXPERIENCING HR

Divide into groups of four. In your group, develop a job description for your professor’s job. Use your knowledge and assumptions about the tasks, duties, and responsibilities you think are involved. If you have been given time for research, review the chapter for additional ideas on where to gather information for your job description, and use it to improve your job description. Then use your completed job description as a basis for listing job specifications for your professor’s job.

With the whole class, share which tasks, duties, and responsibilities you included in your job description and which knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics you included in your job specifications. Discuss what requirements you define as important and what your professor defines as important. Ask your professor how closely your job description and job specifications match the school’s actual expectations. Was your professor given a job description? Would professors at your school be more effective if the school used the job descriptions and specifications written by you and your classmates? Why or why not? How would you adjust your team’s job description and specifications, based on what you learned from this discussion? Turn in your job description and job specifications for credit on the assignment.

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TAKING RESPONSIBILITY: Job Design for Drivers Keeps UPS on the Road to Energy Efficiency

United Parcel Service is famous for its brown-uniformed drivers behind the wheel of brown delivery trucks. But when it comes to energy consumption, UPS is all green. The company is constantly looking for better fuel-efficient vehicles. Its fleet includes electric, hybrid, and natural-gas vehicles, as well as its standard gasoline-powered trucks. Recently, for example, UPS ordered all-electric vans to deliver packages in Southern California and the Central Valley. Because each van travels the same limited route each day, drivers don’t have to worry about running out of electricity between charges. Between 2000 and 2009, UPS recorded a 10% improvement in the miles per gallon it gets from its delivery vehicles.

UPS drivers are expected to follow very specific guidelines for how to deliver packages. These aim to complete each route in the fastest, most efficient way possible. The company details the route that each vehicle is to follow; the routes avoid left turns, which require time and gas to idle while the driver waits for oncoming traffic to clear. At each stop, drivers are supposed to walk at a “brisk pace” of 2.5 paces per second as they move to and from their truck. They keep this up as they make an average of up to 20 stops an hour to deliver about 500 packages a day.

Until recently, drivers were supposed to carry their key ring on their ring finger, so they would never need to spend time fumbling around in pockets. Now the company has improved on that method: Drivers no longer need to waste time pulling keys out of the ignition and using them to unlock the door to the packages. Instead, UPS is giving drivers a digital-remote fob to wear on their belts. With the new keyless system, drivers stop the truck and press a button to turn off the engine and unlock the bulkhead door. The changes will save 1.75 seconds at each stop. That’s equivalent to an average of 6.5 minutes per driver per day. Besides saving time, the changes save motions by the driver, thus reducing fatigue.

Specific requirements such as these are the result of relentless efforts to improve efficiency. Throughout each day, computers installed in each truck gather data about the truck’s activities: how long it idled, how often it backed up, how far it traveled when it was time for the driver’s break. The computers also record whether drivers wore their seat belts. At the end of each delivery day, industrial engineers analyze the day’s data and look for ways they can save more time, fuel, and money.

The demand to maintain a “brisk pace” is only one reason why jobs for drivers and other workers at UPS can be physically taxing. Besides being able to move quickly, workers are expected to be able to lift packages weighing up to 70 pounds without assistance. Joe Korziuk told a reporter that in more than two decades with UPS, he has enjoyed his jobs driving and washing trucks, but it has taken a toll. He says the surgeries he has had on both knees and a shoulder and the bulging disks in his back are all results of working conditions: “They’re always harping on you and pushing you to go faster and faster.” As a result, he said, he also was injured when boxes fell on his head, causing a concussion. Responding to complaints such as these, the union representing UPS workers in the Chicago area demanded that UPS reduce workloads and take more responsibility for workers’ safety. According to workers, UPS promoted safety and higher efficiency at the same time. Workers trying to keep up with the pace were unable to meet the safety goals. UPS’s response has been that safety is a top priority and injury rates are low for the messenger and courier industry. Officials note that when employees experience even minor on-the-job injuries, they receive training in how to prevent similar injuries in the future.

Despite the safety complaints, UPS is a good employer in the opinion of many workers. Drivers appreciate what they consider to be good wages and benefits.

Questions

1. How do UPS’s goals for environmental sustainability affect its job design?

2. How well does UPS take worker safety into account in its job design? How could the company better incorporate safety into job design in a way that is consistent with the company’s business strategy?

3. Based on the information given, what role would you say motivation plays in the design of drivers’ jobs at UPS? How could the company make its jobs more motivational?

SOURCES: Jennifer Levitz, “Deliver Drivers to Pick Up Pace by Surrendering Keys,” The Wall Street Journal, September 16, 2011, http://online.wsj.com; Kari Lydersen, “UPS Workers Demand New Approach to Safety,” The New York Times, May 6, 2011, Business & Company Resource Center, http://galenet.galegroup.com; Seth Skydel, “Makes Good Sense,” Fleet Equipment, July 2011, Business & Company Resource Center, http://galenet.galegroup.com; David R. Baker, “100 Brown UPS Trucks Going Greener on Inside,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 25, 2011, Business & Company Resource Center, http://galenet.galegroup.com.

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MANAGING TALENT: Why Employees Are Loyal to Bon Secours Health System

Unemployment may persist in other industries, but even through the recent recession, hospitals have struggled to find and keep enough qualified medical professionals on their staffs. The need to provide care 24 hours a day, seven days a week intensifies the problem. Shortages of nurses and other health care workers have been a constant challenge. Therefore, any hospital’s approach to talent management has to include ways to reduce employee turnover.

In Virginia, the Bon Secours Health System meets the challenge with flexible scheduling. The organization runs four hospitals, a separate emergency department, a health center, and a college of nursing. To staff all these facilities, Bon Secours is open to a variety of schedules. Employees may choose to work compressed workweeks of four 10-hour shifts or three 12-hour shifts. They have other choices as well: weekends only (at higher pay), four- or eight-hour shifts, and seven-day workweeks followed by seven-day breaks. Employees who want to work part-time may do so and receive full benefits if they work at least 16 hours a week. These part-time workers are especially important when managers are looking for extra help on busy days.

The scheduling options are popular. In a recent analysis, most Bon Secours employees chose one of these flexible work schedules, with one-fourth opting for temporary or part-time work. In addition, 10% of Bon Secours employees are in job-sharing arrangements, and 3% are engaged in telework.

The variety of schedules reflects management’s recognition that employees have a variety of needs. Newly hired employees fresh out of college may welcome a full-time schedule and be willing to rotate shifts. Employees with children want a schedule that is the same each week and corresponds to times when child care is available. The option of part-time status lets employees adjust their total work hours as family or other needs require. Without that option, some employees would likely quit when full-time work becomes too demanding.

Bon Secours tracks measures that show real benefits from flexible work arrangements. Surveys of employee engagement show that it has risen from 3.6 points out of 5 in 2005 to 4.55 in 2010. During the same period, employee turnover fell dramatically. At 10% per year, turnover among first-year employees is far below the median for hospitals (28.3%). The cost of hiring and training a nurse is estimated to be three times the nurse’s annual salary. At that rate, reducing turnover has a real impact on a hospital’s financial performance.

Another way Bon Secours retains employees is by offering a comprehensive set of benefits. After financial meltdown of 2008, many workers were devastated by the plummeting value of their homes, followed by tight lending standards that shrank the options of people looking for a way out of the mess. Bon Secours responded by offering financial assistance. It set up financial education programs, seminars to help out unemployed family members, an option to receive cash in exchange for working instead of taking time off, and a crisis fund to help out employees experiencing financial difficulties. Other benefits that help Bon Secours employees make ends meet during lean times include college tuition assistance (for employees and family members) and discounts arranged with local businesses.

Employee turnover is not the only area in which job design is linked to the organization’s performance. Bon Secours participates in the Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration Project, run by the federal government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as part of a drive to slow rising costs of health care and improve health care outcomes. The project has identified best practices associated with superior results, and it pays a financial award to participating institutions that can demonstrate they have followed these best practices.

Participating in the program means that designated employees monitor the care given to groups of patients, to make sure practices follow established guidelines. For example, when patients undergo knee or hip replacement surgery, a program coordinator visits them to verify that each has received a set of treatments to prevent blood clots. The hospital also set up measures to ensure that these patients stop receiving antibiotics within 24 hours after the surgery to prevent resistance to the drugs. Such measures are a change from days when hospitals left it up to doctors to ensure that the proper care was delivered to each patient. The more structured approach is associated with lower rates of complications, readmissions, and deaths.

Questions

1. How does Bon Secours make work more motivating?

2. How does Bon Secours address the mental demands of providing quality patient care?

3. How might Bon Secours use competency modeling to improve employee engagement and retention?

SOURCES: Dori Meinert, “The Gift of Time,” HR Magazine, November 2011, pp. 37–41; Amy Jeter, “Bon Secours Health System Earns Bragging Rights,” HamptonRoads.com , February 27, 2011, http://hamptonroads.com; Ellen Galinsky, Tyler Wigton, and Lois Backon, “Creative Management Practices for Making Work Work,” Bloomberg Businessweek, August 28, 2009, http://www.businessweek.com.

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    TWITTER FOCUS: Inclusivity Defines BraunAbility’s Products and Its Jobs

Using Twitter, continue the conversation about job analysis and design by reading the BraunAbility case at www.mhhe.com/noefund5e . Engage with your classmates and instructor via Twitter to chat about Ralph Braun and his company using the case questions posed on the Noe website. Don’t have a Twitter account yet? See the instructions for getting started on the Online Learning Center.

NOTES

1.   Karen J. Bannan, “Fancy Footwork,” Adweek, September 13, 2010, EBSCOhost, http://web.ebscohost.com.

2.   Bill Gregar, “Midwest Firms: Jobs Exist, Skills Scarce,” Plastics News, October 17, 2011, Business & Company Resource Center, http://galenet.galegroup.com; Timothy Aeppel, “Man vs. Machine, a Jobless Recovery,” The Wall Street Journal, January 17, 2012, http://online.wsj.com.

3.   J. R. Hollenbeck, H. Moon, A. Ellis, et al., “Structural Contingency Theory and Individual Differences: Examination of External and Internal Person-Team Fit,” Journal of Applied Psychology 87 (2002), pp. 599–606.

4.   Oliver W. Cummings, “What Do Manufacturing Supervisors Really Do on the Job?” Industry Week, February 2010, p. 53.

5.   A. O’Reilly, “Skill Requirements: Supervisor-Subordinate Conflict,” Personnel Psychology 26 (1973), pp. 75–80; J. Hazel, J. Madden, and R. Christal, “Agreement between Worker-Supervisor Descriptions of the Worker’s Job,” Journal of Industrial Psychology 2 (1964), pp. 71–79; and A. K. Weyman, “Investigating the Influence of Organizational Role on Perceptions of Risk in Deep Coal Mines,” Journal of Applied Psychology 88 (2003), pp. 404–12.

6.   L. E. Baranowski and L. E. Anderson, “Examining Rater Source Variation in Work Behavior to KSA Linkages,” Personnel Psychology 58 (2005), pp. 1041–54.

7.   National Center for O*NET Development, “O*NET Products at Work,” Spring 2011, http://www.onetcenter.org.

8.   P. J. Taylor, W. D. Li, K. Shi, and W. C. Borman, “The Transportability of Job Information across Countries,” Personnel Psychology 61 (2008), pp. 69–111.

9.   PAQ Newsletter, August 1989; and E. C. Dierdorff and M. A. Wilson, “A Meta-analysis of Job Analysis Reliability,” Journal of Applied Psychology 88 (2003), pp. 635–46.

10.   E. Fleishman and M. Reilly, Handbook of Human Abilities (Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press, 1992); E. Fleishman and M. Mumford, “Ability Requirements Scales,” in The Job Analysis Handbook for Business, Industry, and Government, ed. S. Gael (New York: Wiley, 1988), pp. 917–35.

11.   W. Cascio, Applied Psychology in Personnel Management, 4th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1991).

12.   P. Wright and K. Wexley, “How to Choose the Kind of Job Analysis You Really Need,” Personnel, May 1985, pp. 51–55.

13.   M. Campion, A. Fink, B. Ruggeberg, L. Carr, G. Phillips, and R. Odman, “Doing Competencies Well: Best Practices in Competency Modeling,” Personnel Psychology 64 (2011): 225–262; R. A. Noe, Employee Training and Development, 5e (New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2010); J. Shippmann, R. Ash, M. Battista, L. Carr, L. Eyde, B. Hesketh, J. Kehow, K. Pearlman, and J. Sanchez, “The Practice of Competency Modeling,” Personnel Psychology 53 (2000): 703–740; A. Lucia and R. Lepsinger, The Art and Science of Competency Models (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999).

14.   M. K. Lindell, C. S. Clause, C. J. Brandt, and R. S. Landis, “Relationship between Organizational Context and Job Analysis Ratings,” Journal of Applied Psychology 83 (1998), pp. 769–76.

15.   D. S. DeRue, J. R. Hollenbeck, M. D. Johnson, D. R. Ilgen, and D. K. Jundt, “How Different Team Downsizing Approaches Influence Team-Level Adaptation and Performance,” Academy of Management Journal 51 (2008), pp. 182–96; Anne Kadet, “‘Superjobs’: Why You Work More, Enjoy It Less,” The Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2011, http://online.wsj.com.

16.   R. Hackman and G. Oldham, Work Redesign (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1980).

17.   Janet Kidd Stewart, “Support for Nurses, Chance to Change Lives Put Continuum Pediatric Nursing in Good Company,” Chicago Tribune, November 15, 2011, http://www.chicagotribune.com.

18.   Alleen Brown, “Twin Cities Principals See Expanding Job Descriptions and Longer Work Hours,” Twin Cities (MN) Daily Planet, October 30, 2011, http://www.tcdailyplanet.net.

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19.   F. W. Bond, P. E. Flaxman, and D. Bunce, “The Influence of Psychological Flexibility on Work Redesign: Mediated Moderation of a Work Reorganization Intervention,” Journal of Applied Psychology 93 (2008), pp. 645–54.

20.   M. A. Campion, G. J. Medsker, and A. C. Higgs, “Relations between Work Group Characteristics and Effectiveness: Implications for Designing Effective Work Groups,” Personnel Psychology 46 (1993), pp. 823–50.

21.   Andrea Ozias, ed., “Telework 2011: A WorldatWork Special Report,” WorldatWork, July 2011, http://www.worldatwork.org.

22.   Ozias, “Telework 2011”; “What Are Some of the Current Best Practices in Telecommuting?” HR Focus, July 2011, Business & Company Resource Center, http://galenet.galegroup.com.

23.   See, for example, S. Sonnentag and F. R. H. Zijistra, “Job Characteristics and Off-the-Job Activities as Predictors of Need for Recovery, Well-Being, and Fatigue,” Journal of Applied Psychology 91 (2006), pp. 330–50.

24.   D. May and C. Schwoerer, “Employee Health by Design: Using Employee Involvement Teams in Ergonomic Job Redesign,” Personnel Psychology 47 (1994), pp. 861–86.

25.   Franklin Tessler, “The Hidden Danger of Touchscreens,” InfoWorld.com , January 11, 2012, Business & Company Resource Center, http://galenet.galegroup.com.

26.   N. W. Van Yperen and M. Hagerdoorn, “Do High Job Demands Increase Intrinsic Motivation or Fatigue or Both? The Role of Job Support and Social Control,” Academy of Management Journal 46 (2003), pp. 339–48; and N. W. Van Yperen and O. Janssen, “Fatigued and Dissatisfied or Fatigued but Satisfied? Goal Orientations and Responses to High Job Demands,” Academy of Management Journal 45 (2002), pp. 1161–71.

27.   Jonathan Spira, “Information Overload: None Are Immune,” Information Management, September/October 2011, p. 32.

28.   Ibid.; Sharon Ann Holgate, “Conquering Information Overload,” Science Careers, November 4, 2011, http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org.

29.   L. E. LaBlanc, J. J. Hox, W. B. Schaufell, T. W. Taris, and M. C. W. Peters, “Take Care! The Evaluation of a Team-Based Burnout Intervention Program for Oncology Health Care Providers,” Journal of Applied Psychology 92 (2007), pp. 213–27.

30.   Darshak Sanghavi, “The Last of the All-Nighters,” The New York Times Magazine, August 7, 2011, Business & Company Resource Center, http://galenet.galegroup.com.

t4

 

    TWITTER FOCUS: Inclusivity Defines BraunAbility’s Products and Its Jobs

Ralph Braun built his company out of his creativity in meeting his own personal needs. Growing up in rural Indiana, Braun had difficulty climbing stairs, and doctors diagnosed him with spinal muscular atrophy. At age 14, Braun needed a wheelchair to get around. He was disappointed but developed his mechanical aptitude, honed by years of helping his uncles fix motorcycles and race cars, and used it to build himself a battery-powered scooter. With the scooter, Braun was able to navigate his way around a job at an automotive supply factory, where co-workers would ask him to build something similar for their family members and acquaintances. Later, for better transportation to and from the job, Braun figured out how to convert a Dodge van with a lift so he could enter the van on his scooter and drive it from there. Again, people saw the van and asked for something similar. Eventually, Braun took all his earnings from scooters and van conversions and started Save-A-Step Manufacturing, later named BraunAbility, which has become the world’s largest maker of wheelchair-accessible vans and wheelchair lifts.

The passion and purposefulness of the company’s founder are reflected in the structure of BraunAbility’s jobs and work. Recruiting is inclusive, with an especially great appreciation for the potential of disabled workers. Cindy Garnett, the company’s director of human resources, notes that a person with a disability has to go through life solving accessibility problems creatively, so that person is likely to have become a great innovator. Wherever possible, work schedules are tailored to employees’ needs. Many employees have flexible schedules, working their choice of eight hours between 7:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Some employees telecommute full-time or part-time. Even production workers, who must coordinate their tasks as vans move from one work station to the next, have flexibility to negotiate arrangements that work for them as a group. They told the company that they wanted just a couple of short breaks during the day instead of a long lunch break, so they could leave earlier. BraunAbility went along with the idea.

As you might expect from a company founded by a creative man, innovation is valued over hierarchy at BraunAbility. On a typical day, Ralph Braun tours the facility in his wheelchair, observing the work and talking to production workers and staff. Garnett says, “If anyone has an idea, that person is listened to.” For example, an employee suggested that, rather than going through the process of safely disposing of leftover paint, workers use it to paint the vehicle floors under the carpet, for a little additional protection of the vehicle. The company readily adopted the suggestion.

Along with feeling respected, workers at BraunAbility feel their work matters to society. In Garnett’s words, because the company’s vans make it possible to travel independently, employees “know that they’re changing the lives of people with disabilities with every product that goes out the door.”

Questions

1. In what ways is work at BraunAbility motivating? What other features of motivating work might BraunAbility be able to offer its employees?

2. What place would efficient job design have in a company like BraunAbility? How could BraunAbility improve job efficiency in a way that is consistent with the company’s emphasis on inclusiveness and flexibility?

3. Imagine that you work with the HR director at BraunAbility, and she has asked you to suggest some ways to reinforce employees’ sense that their jobs have an important positive impact on others. What would you suggest?

SOURCES: “Collaboration, Inclusion Help Create That ‘Small-Town’ Feeling,” white paper, HR.BLR.com, January 18, 2010, http://hr.blr.com; “How I Did It: Ralph Braun of BraunAbility,” Inc., December 1, 2009, http://www.inc.com; and “BraunAbility Launches EntervanXT to Accommodate Needs of Taller Wheelchair and Scooter Users,” Marketing Weekly News, October 10, 2009, Business & Company Resource Center, http://galenet.galegroup.com.

 

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The objective of the paper is for you to gain an understanding of your strengths and weaknesses as a manager and employee, so that you may understand your own behavior.

Write and submit a 3 – 5 page paper, which should be in APA format (Times New Roman, size 12, double-spaced and all necessary citations with reference page) of what you learned about yourself from the result of the tests and the course. No need to submit the original tests and results.

Please note, any self-reflection papers that do not meet the assignment instructions will receive an automatic 10% deduction.

You should write based on the file that I attached and your outline should focus on the following questions:

o What are my strengths? How will these strengths help me manage and work with others more successfully?

o What are my weaknesses? How will these weaknesses, if not improved upon, get in my way of success?

o What was I most surprised about in taking these assessments and why? What did I learn about myself that I did not know before taking the assessments?

o How can I use this information going forward?

The deadline is within 24 hours.

Thank you for reading and have a good one!

 

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