Executive Yak

I recently had roundtable meetings with senior Marketing and HR executives to discuss what is happening with employee communications in their respective organizations. Though I came away with some interesting tidbits and best practices (shared below), the one thing that stood out the most for me was a general lack of strategic direction. The Marketing group in particular discussed at the end of the meeting how the energy level around this topic stood in marked contrast to the meetings we had in prior months on “marketing ROI and lead generation,” topics which sparked lively debate. Our conclusion: perhaps the continued down economy, having to make do with fewer resources and lower headcounts, makes us focus elsewhere? Regardless, weak leadership in this arena certainly runs counter to much of the research that has been done on the importance of fousing on employee communications and internal branding as an important strategy to give your company a “competitive edge.”

I did leave these meetings with some interesting takeaways and reflections:

1) Start with strategy. Figure out what you are trying to accomplish, who your target audience is and then decide on platforms. Make sure you select the VITAL FEW messages you want to disseminate and that messaging in your company has a clear drumbeat and cadence.
2. While it is not clear where functional responsibility for employee communications should reside – opinons varied from marketing, to HR to totally distributive models – everybody seemed to pretty much agree that in order for employee communications to be effective, the executive team has to take ownership for CONTENT. As one marketing executive said, leadership is the CONDUCTOR, and marketing or HR or perhaps a partnership is the orchestra responsible for disseminating key messages.
3. Communicate, communicate, communicate! We need to continue to drive fronline managers to understand the importance of taking the VITAL few messages selected by executive leadership and then REPEATING using many different platforms.
4. Don’t forget old and proven techniques: face-to-face conversations and two-way dialogue continue to be one of the most effective ways to communicate. Tell your managers to go have lunch in the employee lunchroom. Emphasize the importance of doing one-on-ones. Engage in roundtable discussions.
5. Employees yearn for interaction in whatever way it can be offered. Leverage technology and social media such as interactive blogs, collaborative software…anything that invites dialogue is what employees want the most.Some of the fear around social media is unfounded. Companies that have introduced interactive blogs, discussion forums and more are finding that employees tend to self-police pretty effectively. If you want to start doing a company blog, make sure you pick the right person. Someone that is really boring won’t do the trick. Neither will a CEO that is using the blog to share all his vacations to exotic places, dinners at gourmet restaurants, and golf tournaments…..true example shared by one of the executives in attendance. Some of the companies, on hte other hand are using Twitter or Yammer effectively to share across their company what different executives are up to – employees already sufffering from information overload like the “small size” of messages.
6. Be appropriate for you company and industry when you use new technology. What works for a high tech company where everybody has access to a computer is not likely to succeed in a factory setting.
7. Make sure you use your managers in the dissemination of the messages you want to drive. That may mean that you have to give them a tool set, discussion points etc before you ask them to share important news.
8. Have your leadership team establish a standing agenda item at the end of meetings to answer the following question: What are the key messages we are taking out of this meeting that we want to communicate across the organization?
9. Make sure that communications are authentic and not too polished. For example, some of the companies have effectively been using flip videos to share what employees are up to in different locations. Very popular with employees.

What else would you want to add? What are some of the best practices you know of that have not been mentioned?

For more information on Executive Coaching please visit http://www.hrnow.net/coach.htm. Suzanne has two blogs: http://executiveyak.com and http://hrundercover.com/ (we want your workplace stories).

The other day one of my long-term members of the HR Executive Forum brought The College Success Foundation to my attention, and I asked her to put together a guest blog post to share what she knows about this great organization.

Suzanne Elshult, HRNow

The College Success Foundation is a great resource for finding talented,
diverse employees to fill openings at your organization. CSF is seeking to
partner with organizations to place their graduates. This is not a
recruiting firm. Their primary mission is to provide support to low income
students to attend college and to reach their full potential in life. For
more information about this program, call Sarah Graham, Senior Program
Officer, Alumni at (425)416-2002 or email her at
sgraham@collegesuccessfoundation.org. For more information read the CSF Overview below.

Pamela Taylor, Vice President Human Resources, HomeStreet Bank

The College Success Foundation has 10 years of proven experience inspiring and supporting under-served, low-income students to finish high school, and providing the financial support and mentoring they need to succeed in college. Many low-income students are unable to reach their full potential in life because they are constrained by economic and other barriers that prevent them from succeeding in high school and college. At the College Success Foundation, we’ve spent the past ten years developing a successful, results-backed model for how to remove these barriers and unlock students’ potential. Our approach is to intervene early, providing students and parents with the inspiration, incentives, mentoring, and financial supports they need to make a college degree possible. We are passionate about what we do, and we promise to stop at nothing to help America’s children succeed in college, the workplace, and life. When we help our children succeed, we help our communities and America succeed.

Our Success to Date

We are proud of the success of our students in Washington State. The following metrics show the progress of the College Success Foundation from its inception through the year 2009.
• Total number of Washington State scholarship dollars disbursed – $107 million
• Total number of Washington State scholarships awarded – 5964
• Total number of Washington State college graduates – 1600

College Success Foundation Graduates are a Great, Diverse Workforce Talent Pool

Currently, there are nearly 1,600 graduates from our five scholarship programs. Of those, 71% are graduates of color (breakdown below). In addition, we will graduate approximately 350 scholars each year in the future.

Ethnicity of College Success Foundation Graduates %
• Asian, Asian American, or Pacific Islander 17.0%
• Black or African American 17.8%
• Hispanic 25.9%
• Multi-racial 7.3%
• Native American 3.1%
• White or Caucasian American 28.8%

Many of these students are first generation college graduates – the first in their family to even attend college. While attending school, they have worked many hours to help support their families. Because of this, they have a very strong work ethic, are eager to improve their lives, and are ready to serve. They attend and graduate from colleges and universities, primarily in Washington State, but all over the country. Over 18% of College Success Foundation alumni are completing or have completed post-baccalaureate programs. Not only are they eager for employment, they have a commitment to give back. Over 10% of our scholars are contributing through College Success Foundation initiatives, including mentoring future scholars, volunteering at summer programs, and speaking about their experiences at high schools.

Next Steps…
The College Success Foundation is looking to build relationships with employers in the Northwest to help place these talented, hard-working young people in the workforce. With your help we can continue to build a brighter future for our communities, one student at a time.

Suzanne Elshult, http://executiveyak.com Executive Yak, sponsors live round tables for senior marketing and human resources executives in the Seattle area and offers executive / professional coaching and virtual learning opportunities for leaders, business owners, consultants and coaches committed to growth and high performance.

I had a provocative discussion on healthcare reform with some 25 top HR executives in the Seattle area last week. Any doubts I had silently harbored  about how meaningful this roundtable would be, evaporated almost instantly  as the group started interacting in a meaningful way almost immediately. Some of the comments from long-standing members have ranged from : “fantastic session” to “the best HR Executive Forum we ever had.”

So, what did I walk away with? A sense that healthcare reform will happen. There is an expectation that something will land on Obama’s desk before the end of the year. We can save a LOT of money by addressing systemic problems such as overutilization and administrative waste (some say as much as 50%). A single payer plan is not possible in the US at this time – it’s too great of a clash with our culture of differentiation, choice and competition – one size fits all simply will not work here.  Realistically a public/private option is most likely to fly.  One of our member executives pointed out that in the 13 countries her company is doing business, the US is the only one with no government option, but in most other countries with a public option it is not comprehensive and employers still offer supplemental plans. What else? The expectation that we can cover everybody for everything is unrealistic. We have to decide what it is we can afford and what our priorities are. That is hard to do without it becoming deeply personal.  Regardless of what happens employers will continue to play a big role.

Questions I Have

1. Can we really save 50% of healthcare costs without doing a single thing ( some say we can achieve that level of savings by addressing things like overutilization, defensive medicine and administrative waste)?  There are huge barriers to overcome including the fact that trial lawyers have 2/3rds of congress in their pocket (in part our litigious society is at fault and the expectation we have that any outcome that is less than perfect is unacceptable and reason to file suit). Doctors are being increasingly squeezed – paid less, expected to be more productive and thus see patients less – and trying to make up by finding new ways to make money (in-sourcing services, more tests etc…). Some say the individual practice model is dying and morphing into something different. As an industry, healthcare has lagged sorely behind in terms of investing in technology to reduce administrative waste. 
2. Will the US economy collapse if we fail to do something now. The weight of our current debt is staggering and healthcare reform may  be an issue of national security. What happens if China stops buying our treasuries?
3. Does it make sense that employers continue to play as big of a role in providing healthcare as they have in the past? The current model grew out of the depression. Are things different enough now to warrant a totally new and different model?
4. How can we be successful long-term with healthcare reform if it does not decisively address the underlying issue of becoming less healthy as a society? In fact some reform seems to go against some of the inroads we have been making with wellness strategies in recent years.
5. How can we better educate our citizens/employees to become more savvy consumers? We have not done a very good job in the past.
6. Is it realistic to expect the average citizen to track healthcare reform and understand the implications for themselves and others when one single bill is more than 1000 pages (are you wonky enough to go on the internet and read it all?), and there is a lot of secrecy and machinations under the table in Washington DC? Newt Gingrich calls the legislative process “perverted “ (at least one thing he and I can agree on).
7. Is fee for service medicine all over and going away? How do consortiums differ from managed care? Is our specialty-oriented way of providing care viable? Our specialty orientation is very unique to the United States.
8. Why is dealing with healthcare so different from how we deal with education in this country? We all pay for public schools and then as a private citizen you have the choice to pay more for a private school?
9. Can we afford to pay for everything? Probably not. The problem with the Washington State Basic Plan is that it is trying to cover too much. So, how do we decide what we can afford and what is important to us as a society? Does it ultimately boil down to what Keith Olberman  said recently….it all becomes very personal when we start talking about death. It is really all an academic discussion until you or someone in your family gets sick.
10. Some healthcare reform options provide employers with an opportunity to pay a penalty (for example 8%) if they stop providing healthcare? Is this a built-in incentive for employers to say “Great, I will write you  a check?” Is this a way to give the public option a jump start? Is this good or bad?

Do you have answers to any of these questions or other questions you want to add? Reply to this post!!!

Do you have  personal stories related to healtcare reform to share (anonoymously? Go to http://hrundercover.com

For more information on Executive Coaching please visit http://www.hrnow.net/coach.htm

Suzanne Elshult sponsors live round tables for senior marketing and human resources executives and offers executive / professional coaching and virtual learning opportunities for leaders, business owners, consultants and coaches committed to growth and high performance.

In my last post we explored how HR can help Marketing. In this post, the  third of four in a series on Internal Branding, the focus is on how Marketing can help HR. Here are some ideas brainstormed in my joint Marketing/HR Executive Roundtable  a few weeks ago:

• Bring creative expertise to internal branding
• Provide writing and messaging support
• Foster enthusiasm for internal initiatives
• Help HR stay informed about external strategies
• Share  expertise for soliciting feedback to get internal/employee input
• Capturing and publicizing brand heroes during a relaunch
• Connect to Purpose campaign to use testimonials from customers as an external branding campaign
• Hold events for employees centered on your products and/or mission
• Encourage employees to hold parties celebrating a new product launch, and introduce the product to your friends/families; providing marketing materials and small incentives  (grassroots marketing)

 In my final post in my internal branding series we will discuss how social media is impacting internal branding. Stay tuned!

Question: What are some other ideas on how Marketing can support HR in internal branding? What is your marketing department doing?  What are the barries and opportunities?

For more information on Executive Coaching please visit http://www.hrnow.net/coach.htm. Suzanne has two blogs:  http://executiveyak.com and http://hrundercover.com/ (we want your workplace stories).

Suzanne Elshult sponsors live round tables for senior marketing and human resources executives and offers executive / professional coaching and virtual learning opportunities for leaders, business owners, consultants and coaches committed to growth and high performance.

It  is not always easy to know where marketing ends and where HR starts and vice versa. For HR and marketing executives to not run into each other takes a commitment to coordinate, communicate and collaborate. The bottomline question is: what is good for the company, not what is good for HR or Marketing. The main focus for executives should be on representing the company, not their own  functional goals and interests. Here are some ideas for how HR can help Marketing brainstormed in my joint Marketing/HR Executive Roundtable  a few weeks ago:

• Help recruit employees that reflect the community that Marketing is trying to target  (for example Spanish customer service reps needed before marketing to the Latino community)
• Partner to help communicate marketing initiatives to employees in advance of launch
• Connect and work together regularly; reporting to the same executive helps
• Work together to collect survey data from employees
• Find ways to make sure the customer story and brand is reflected in human resources training/communication/orientation
• Make sure  new recruits are a cultural fit to the brand
• Help with the details of the big picture; fill in the blanks
• Combat turfism together; sit at the same table on strategic initiatives
• Have employees help with tradeshow booth, to learn about the event/tradeshow and the products featured
• Bring customers to employee meetings to help convey brand positioning and customer perspective
• Help with consistency in communications – inconsistency is the enemy of authenticity
• Use employees to evangelize the brand in whatever ways you can think of

In my next post, we will explore how Marketing can help HR.

Question: What kind of leader are you? As a member of the executive team, do you represent your own functional interests or those of the overall organization? Or both? 

For more information on Executive Coaching please visit http://www.hrnow.net/coach.htm. Suzanne has two blogs:  http://executiveyak.com and http://hrundercover.com/ (we want your workplace stories).

Suzanne Elshult, http://executiveyak.com Executive Yak, sponsors live round tables for senior marketing and human resources executives in the Seattle area and offers executive / professional coaching and virtual learning opportunities for leaders, business owners, consultants and coaches committed to growth and high performance.

As the healthcare reform debate rages on in Washington, HR executives are having to manage the fallout from an increasingly antagonistic environment. Some businesses are openly taking a position and engaging their employees as advocates. Others are staying neutral and taking a wait and see approach and closely monitoring what will come out of Washington and what it will mean for their employee benefit plans. Without a doubt many plan sponsors  are also actively thinking about the impact of some of the proposals on their plans and their Employer Brands.

In a few weeks I will be meeting with a group of senior HR executives here in the Pacific Northwest to discuss a variety of critical issues related to healthcare reform. Here are some of the questions this group has decided to address:

• What should we – HR executives – be asking of ourselves and our executive leadership? How can we take a strong leadership role relative to healthcare reform? Should we?
• Is your company taking a public position wt re: to reform? Is your company approaching this issue from a “business” or “moral” perspective or both?
• How are you communicating about healthcare reform wt your employees? Are you trying to engage them with a particular point of view (asking them to send letters to senators etc)? What about unions?
• What are the real life impacts on your organization of various healthcare reform scenarios, how will they affect your organization and how should you position yourself for the decisions that need to be made in your role as steward of your organizations’ benefit and total compensation dollars?
• Is it possible that many of you in fact have plans that do not measure up to what the government states is sufficient levels of coverage?
• What would be  acceptable minimum coverage to avoid an employer getting fined – or needing to pay a tax?
• How is the sufficiency of the plan assessed  (i.e. by design elements such as coinsurance and size of deductible; by premium costs, by percentage of employer contribution to premiums?   What are the early indicators on what is acceptable to be considered a player in the “pay or play” world we will likely be seeing?
• What are implications of this on recent trends that encourage more employee skin in the game – (HSA, HRA, qualified HDHP plans, etc,)?
• Does the endorsement of wellness as central to the strategy of containing costs open the door to more aggressive “carrot and stick” motivators to encourage participation in wellness programs?
• What tax implications will most likely be included – and what are the likely effective dates – and how do we educate /communicate same to our employees?

What other questions and issues do you think HR Executives need to concern themselves with relative to healthcare reform? Do you have  stories related to healtcare reform to tell? Go to http://hrundercover.com

For more information on Executive Coaching please visit http://www.hrnow.net/coach.htm

Suzanne Elshult sponsors live round tables for senior marketing and human resources executives and offers executive / professional coaching and virtual learning opportunities for leaders, business owners, consultants and coaches committed to growth and high performance.

What happens when you put 50 high-powered HR and Marketing Executives in one room for three hours to explore:

1. How can Marketing help HR?
2. How can HR help Marketing?
3. What are the Implications of social media for internal branding?

These are the questions we posed to the Seattle HR Executive Forum and Marketing Executive Roundtable in a recent joint meeting? Sounding kind of dull? You’d better rethink that. Just check these terrific graphic notes to get a sense of the energy and creativity in the room:

http://www.hrnow.net/internalbrandinggraphicnotes.htm

In fact so much rich content came out of this roundtable, I plan to do a series of blog posts over the next several weeks. Today I’ll give you the general flavor of the discussion and also share one success story of a company where HR and Marketing have done an outstanding job of partnering in a re-branding initiative: PEMCO, here in the Pacific Northwest.

Pretty much everybody in the room agreed that Marketing and HR need to partner and where they come together the most is in the brand, and how the internal brand interacts with and reflects the external brand. Easy say, hard do! It takes time, it means working through turf issues and conflicting views on the right approach. And, the process must be authentic! The employee value proposition needs to align with the true situation (anywhere from the physical environment, to the kind of artwork and furniture chosen, to the dress code – or lack thereof – adopted, and more).

It is not uncommon to see a huge disconnect between a company’s internal and external brand. One of the examples shared was a company with a strong internal brand and culture which was smart, unique and fun, but by no means represented in the external brand which was created by scientists favoring informative but very dense materials.

PEMCO is a great example of a company that dramatically changed it’s brand over a period of years from a meat and potatoe type company to one that has clearly set itself apart by emphasizing it’s unique focus and presence in and identification with the Pacific Northwest. Living here and not being aware of the PEMCO NW Profiles campaign is hard to impossible. The Chief Marketing and Chief People Officers understood from the very beginning that they needed to look at both internal and external branding to make the shift the company needed. In fact, HR and Marketing formed a “Brand Council” and aggressively went to work to take the external brand values and develop employee competencies reflecting the new and desired culture. Many new initiatives were launched to facilitate the change internally to better reflect the external brand. Here are some examples:

• New benefit programs including domestic partners and a wellness initiatives
• Initiatives supporting employee community participation
• Branded clothing for employees
• Introduction of authentic brand value and collaboration techniques such as the World Café, Open Space and Appreciative Inquiry
• A thought leadership and author series initiative (for example bringing local poets to events)
• A new Leadership Initiative emphasizing authenticity and interaction
• Employee events supporting the Northwest Profiles campaign
• A new, more informal dress code (even allowing blue jeans for special events….historically a BIG NONO!)
• New artwork and furniture reflect the new NW brand
• Focus on sustainability. The PEMCO carbon footprint is tracked and posted for all employees and customers to see.

PEMCO is without a doubt a great example of what can happen when HR and Marketing work together.

In my next blog post, I plan to share some specific tools, ideas, resources and reflections that came out in response to the three questions I started out with in this post. You don’t want to miss this! Stay tuned….

For more information on Executive Coaching please visit http://www.hrnow.net/coach.htm. Suzanne has two blogs:  http://executiveyak.com and http://hrundercover.com/ (we want your workplace stories).

My blog post about the personal journey I have been on with my siblings and parents as they are aging struck a chord with many friends and colleagues, both here and in Sweden (as evidenced both in many personal and moving e-mails and comments to the blog post http://executiveyak.com/?p=224&cpage=1#comment-154). Thank you all for sharing your touching stories and perspectives. In a strange way it is comforting to know that we are not facing this challenge alone?

I had some twenty HR executives from a very eclectic group of companies here in the Pacific Northwest respond to an informal poll about eldercare workplace practices. In broad terms, companies responded as follows:

·         Almost all companies provide some flexibility in hours to support employees dealing with eldercare issues and also offer flexible spending account for dependent care.

·         A majority of companies  offer eldercare counseling services, mostly as part of an EAP program.
Almost without exception, none of the companies polled pay for in-home care for an employee’s family members. One company provides long-term care insurance for free to all full-time employees.

HR Executives varied in their perception of how critical the issue of providing support for employees that care for aging parents is or is likely to become. About half of the respondents felt it is an issue that will become more critical. Only one company reported being engaged in an initiative to roll out an aggressive program in the near future, including the possibility of a “benefits account” with an a-la-carte menu (for example, if an employee received medical benefits through a spouse’s plan, they would have the option of using account funds to purchase long-term care for a family member). One executive felt aging parents of employees is a BIG issue, but an issue that’s underground – while HR execs may hear about day care issues for sick kids on a daily basis….they rarely or never hear about eldercare…..there may be  a “pride thing” going on. Is there a stigma attached to admitting you are caring for an aging parent?

Interestingly, when asked to give an example of a local company that has good best practices in the arena of eldercare support, not a single one of the respondents could come up with a specific suggestion, though many were very interested in learning more about options/possibilities and best practices. Do you know of a company that is progressive int eh eldercare arena?

Do you think this poll reflects reality in the US? How do you think healthcare reform will impact eldercare?

My father had a serious stroke this Spring and I was suddenly thrown into the midst of having to make important long-distance decisions with my siblings about my parents, who live in a little fishing village in Sweden. At the time of the stroke I was living in the US, my younger brother in Mexico and my older brother in Sweden, though a good 7-hour drive away from my parents. It could have been worse. A few years ago we all lived outside of Scandinavia.  I think caring for your parents must have been a lot easier 30 years ago before we became so darn’d global and mobile!!!

Shortly after the stroke, us siblings had almost daily phone conferences. I started having nightmares, waking up facing guilt and deciding and re-deciding every day when to go home and for how long.  As it turned out, my older brother is the one that has shouldered the burden for the last several months and really the last several years after my parents health started going downhill pretty rapidly. What a journey it has been!!! An emotional roller coaster for sure, but also such an education about eldercare in Sweden and the sharp contrast to our experience with my husband Scott’s parents a few years back. And, though I love the US and obviously have chosen to live here (so please don’t go “defensive” on me), the prospect of growing old and frail here scares me to “death!”  And, yes, I understand that the level of healthcare and eldercare you get in Sweden comes from their progressive tax structure and their single payer healthcare system, but as I grow older myself that is beginning to sound better and better.

My husband’s parents were hard-working professionals their whole life and raised a family of five kids. Scott’s dad at one time had a successful career as an aerospace engineer for a top company in southern California. Later on the whole family moved up into the mountains outside of Yosemite national park and built a beautiful house. They did all the normal things a typical family would do with respect to disability, insurance etc. Shortly after Scott’s mom turned 65 she contracted an unusual and serious disease which led to her death within a few years. It was with horror I watched my father-in-law decimate his savings, his beautiful house and literally everything he owned to provide quality care for his wife. He ultimately passed away destitute in a shabby mobile home.

Compare this experience to that of my parents. Both have in the course of the last couple of years suffered strokes and are not able to take care of themselves, both because of memory issues and physical challenges (my father is partially paralyzed). Both are still able to stay in their home of many years – together –  and have caretakers and healthcare professionals coming in a minimum of six times per day and often in the middle of the night as well. All it takes for an out-of-schedule visit is for one of my  parents to push the alarm button.  They have staff help them with their most basic needs, they are brought hot food, groceries and everything else they need to live out their final days in harmony and with self-respect intact. Cost: a combined total of $700 per month. And, the cost and care is the same regardless of who you are and where you have come from!!! Imagine what the same level of care would cost here? I am simply awed by the Swedish eldercare system and how responsive the municipality has been to the needs and desires of my parents and their children.

In less than seven days I will be traveling to see my parents, a trip that could have been such a nightmare and burden, but something I can truly look forward to now. My mom and dad are happy and well cared for. They are in a familiar environment wt the views of Denmark across the sound that they have lived with their whole lives. Their kids are visiting on and off all Summer long. Yes, there will be many things to take care, but I can only imagine what it is like for all of those daughters and sons that are facing similar issues with parents here in the US, parents that are often not financially able to provide for their own care.

I realize how very fortunate I and my siblings are. We can focus on spending quality time with my parents, instead of spending the hundreds of hours my husband and his siblings had to spend fighting with the insurance company to try and help their parents get the healthcare they thought they had.  Plus  they actually had to shoulder the burden of much of the caretaking, while dealing with employers that do not understand and/or have inflexible workplace practices and skimpy leave policies, while feeling guilt about neglecting husbands and kids and so forth. Burnout!!!!!

This is a time for contemplation. I wonder what will happen to me and my husband in another 20 or 30 years if we end up with the same ailments as my parents. Hmmmmm….should we have had more kids…..not fair to become a burden on our one and only daughter. Hmmmmmm…….how could I possibly afford the level of care my folks are receiving here in the US? Will I end up in a second rate nursing home somewhere, or worse…..? Should I just throw myself off a mountain when the time comes? Sweden’s progressive taxation and healthcare system is beginning to sound pretty good….at least some aspects of it.

In sharing the events of the last few months with friends and colleagues, I have become aware of how many of us babyboomers are facing the issue of caring for elderly and ailing parents. As a business owner myself, I don’t have many of the workplace challenges so many of my friends have to deal with. My boss – “me” – is very flexible. I am giving myself three weeks this Summer and several weeks later this year to go share some quality time with my mom and dad. I can make emergency trips with relative ease and as many personal phone calls as I want during working hours. I am plain lucky!!!

I wonder how supportive companies here in the US are of employees having to deal with eldercare issues? Is it an an issue that has faded in importance???? Or not? It doesn’t seem I hear much about it nowadays compared to a few years ago. I decided to ask some of my clients that run human resources operations for companies small, medium and large here in the northwest what the lay of the land is. Find out in my next blog post what I found out.

In the meantime, I’d like to hear from you:

·         What is your perception of eldercare trends in the US?

·         Do you think eldercare is a critical issue for US employers to deal with?

·         Do you think we need to provide better support for employees dealing with eldercare?

·         Share your own eldercare experiences and stories, good and bad

·         How much do you think it would cost here to care equivalent to what my parents are receiving? I am really curious.

·         What do you think about how Sweden is handling eldercare?

Just last week I met with about twenty senior HR executives to discuss the state of the economy and how companies are responding to ”the great recession.” In this post I have highlighted some of the key themes I gleaned from our discussion as well as examples of initiatives/actions companies are taking  in lieu of layoffs. But first, here are some of the questions/issues that surfaced for me and that I continue to ponder:

1.       Dull Knife, Sharp Knife. It seems that companies are continuing to use a fairly dull knife……how do we know when we need to stop tinkering and take out a sharp knife?  Is there a danger in piece-mealing too much……take the water bottles away this week, the mini bar next and the club membership the week after that?

2.       Retention of Talent. Will talent stay if they have confidence in leadership,  are learning and feel challenged?  Will they loose faith in management if they feel it is not taking decisive action to control costs and maintain a viable company?   

3.       Forecasting – an act of futility in this environment?  Are we throwing up our hands in exasperation and simply ignoring our budgets?

4.       Unique opportunity for collaboration. Is this an exceptional time for companies to involve their employees in collaborative efforts to streamline processes, adjust business models and recalibrate perks and benefits without backlashs?

5.       What will happen when the economy comes back? Have you started re-prioritizing what will be re-instated. If anything? Is this a blip or a permanent shift?

So, how are companies responding to the continued downturn? Here are some of the themes and tidbits from our discussion:

All over the map. In terms of layoffs,  it is truly cyclical and industry specific. While some have had to lay off employees in large numbers, some are just now getting to the point that they are needing to downsize or expect to do so in the near term.  Some industries however profess to be unaffected.  We shall see.  Most HR execs reported that their companies seem to have stabilized, at least for now,  and they expect to continue to respond to the downturn using all tools available simultaneously. A few are selectively hiring though most indicate they are operating under a “soft” hiring freeze.  Those that are facing layoffs expect this round to hurt a lot more as they shift their focus from D and C  players and go deeper to B players. Most companies do not expect a significant turnaround in the next 18 months.

Using all tools available. Most HR executives reported that they have utilized and will continue to focus on “alternatives to layoff.”

·         While companies to date have been inclined to look at either pay or hours reductions, they are more likely now to look at both.

o   Initiatives to reduce work hours and use up leave accruals are becoming increasingly  common (as a way to reduce huge accrued liabilities)

o   Leave buy-back programs are considered more frequently  (perhaps step-level programs wt higher cash value for initial leave balances)

o   Furloughs are used by some (often wt exceptions for essential jobs)

·         Companies are looking at this time as a rare opportunity to eliminate perks (that have evolved over time) without backlash. Employees are grateful to have jobs. Specific examples mentioned:

o   Free bottled water and pop

o   Free towels in the locker room

o   Club memberships for executives

o   Travel unless essential (sales reps are expected to drive not fly)

o   Mini bars

o   Gadget allowances. The cost of data is outrageous and companies are putting limits on the use of blackberries and i-phones. Some are moving to using OCS for all global calling

o   Friday pizza

·         Modification of benefit packages is being looked at more seriously

o   Suspending 401K company matches

o   Shifting to employee healthcare premiums as a percentage of salary (instead of having everybody pay the same)

o   Higher employee level contributions for using out-of-network providers

·         Efficiency programs and re-engineering/restructuring initiatives.

o   Cost savings suggestions on company intranets

o   Grassroots approaches are received positively by employees

o   Employees are stepping up on their own  and are grateful to have jobs

Weigh in!!!!! I’d like to know what your thoughts are on some of the issues/questions I identified in this e-mail.