According to a recent survey on the effect of rising gas prices on commuting employees conducted by Wayne Hochwarter, a management professor at Florida State University’s College of Business, more pain at the pump means more employee stress on the job. Hochwarter recently surveyed more than 800 full-time commuting employees when gas prices were about $3.50 per gallon. The survey showed that workers are preoccupied, experience "the blues," are less attentive to job tasks, and feel less enthusiasm about going to work. At least one in three said they would consider quitting their current job to find a comparable one nearby. Among the other survey findings:

• 52 percent have reconsidered taking vacations or other recreational activities
• 45 percent have had to cut back on debt-reduction payments, such as credit card payments
• Nearly 30 percent considered the consequences of going without basics including food, clothing and medicine
• 45 percent report that the escalating gas prices have "caused them to fall behind financially"
• 39 percent agreed with the statement "Gas prices have decreased my standard of living"
• About 33 percent -- or one in three -- said they would quit their job for a comparable one nearer to home

Sharing the pain - what employers can do
As the survey shows, if your employees are hurting, you are hurting too. Find ways to help your employees lessen the pain at the pump. Be creative - your employees will appreciate your help. Even for small companies, there are may low- to no-cost options that you can pursue.

Encourage pedal-power - Offer bike-to-work incentives, such as subsidizing bike purchases for employees who bike to work; install expanded bike parking options; sponsor bike-to-work days with free breakfasts for participants.Biking will not only save your employees money, it will keep them healthy.

Walk the walk - Nothing becomes a leader more than leadership. Managers - including the CEO - could bike to work, take mass transit, or rideshare to set an example. Subsidize or sponsor bus, van, or other group transit options. Organize car pools - encourage your management team to participate.

Expand your telecommuting options - Even allowing employees to work from home one or two days a week would reduce employee fuel expenditures by 20-40%. If you have employees who need to be on premise, consider reorganizing schedules, such as four 10-hour days instead of five 8-hour days.

Meet wisely - Use more online meetings so that people don't have to drive to the office. Consolidate regular in-house meetings to one or two days of the week to allow for more telecommuting options.

Find resources - Investigate and publicize any regional or state sponsored rideshare resources. Websites like eRideShare.com are cropping up to provide bulletin boards so that commuters can find ridesharing partners.

Exchange tips - Publicize gas saving tips in your company newsletter or Intranet. David Bauerlein of the Florida Times Union has a great list of suggestions to lessen the sting of rising gas costs. There are also online resources, such as GasBuddy to help employees find the lowest local gas prices. Research gas conservation and buying tips and add them to your company's newsletter or website.

Consider "conservation contests" - Invite your employees to suggest the best gas and energy conservation tips and cost saving ideas. Offer "green" prizes and publicize the best ideas and tips both internally and in your local paper.

Offer debt counseling services - As gas prices go up, so too do food and other necessities. This is causing serious hardship for many who try to solve the problem with additional credit card debt. Some EAPs offer debt counseling services. It's a good time to publicize and remind your employees when such resources are available.

Posted by Julie Ferguson on May 14, 2008 at 10:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In 2006, the MetLife Mature Market Institute and the National Alliance for Caregiving coauthored a study entitled The MetLife Caregiving Cost Study: Productivity Losses to U.S. Business (PDF), which estimates that the average cost to an employer per 'employee caregiver' is $2,110 per year. The total estimated cost to employers for all full-time, employed caregivers is $33.6 billion. The study puts the number of full-time employed caregivers at close to 16 million, and growing.

The costs in terms of lost productivity are associated with:

• Absenteeism and partial absenteeism (Coming in late or leaving early)
• Workday interruptions
• Crisis in care
• Supervisory time
• Unpaid leave
• Reduction in hours from full-time to part-time

The term caregiving is a relatively recent one - it's not even in my spell checker - but the concept is certainly not new. Since the beginning of time, family members have been taking care of their sick or elderly relatives. What is new is the number of baby boomers in the workforce who have elderly parents, spouses, or children with significant health issues.

I speak from personal experience since I have dealt with elderly parents as well as with a child with a significant health issue health while working full-time. I know the amount of time and energy these problems can absorb. Even when you are at your desk, it's often difficult to focus on your job when people that you love are sick. At the time when these family health issues were on the table for me, I was unaware that my employer even had an EAP or that an EAP might be able to help me with support and services. At the time, I was under the misperception that EAPs are only for substance abuse or mental health issues. Many of your employees may be missing valuable support if they are also under this misperception.

Your EAP can help your employees with these caregiving issues. We have invested significant resources in training our counselors and staff to deal with the myriad issues that are part and parcel of caregiving. In fact, we added a specific Caregiver Resource benefit in response to the many member calls we noted around caregiving issues, from resource referrals to help dealing with all the associated emotions.

A benefit is only as beneficial as its utilization. Make sure any caregivers in your organization are aware of your EAP and publicize specifics about the type of support and services they can obtain from your EAP. Help and support services can be invaluable to your caregiving employees and can also help minimize the effects on your organization's productivity.

Posted by Bill Danylik on April 30, 2008 at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This week marks the 15 year anniversary of the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which was signed into law on February 5, 1993. FMLA requires employers of 50 or more employees to provide eligible employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave each year for the birth and care of a newborn child, for placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care, or for the serious illness of the employee or of the employee’s child, spouse, or parent. D.O.L.'s FMLA Compliance Assistance page offers more detail and resources.

On January 28, the FMLA had its first major expansion when President Bush signed the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act into law, which, among other provisions, extends FMLA to family members of military personnel who are recovering from illness or injury. While regulations are still pending, the Department of Labor (DOL) states that the amendment to the FMLA allows a "spouse, son, daughter, parent, or next of kin" to take up to 26 weeks of work leave to care for a "member of the Armed Forces, including a member of the National Guard or Reserves, who is undergoing medical treatment, recuperation, or therapy, is otherwise in outpatient status, or is otherwise on the temporary disability retired list, for a serious injury or illness."

More changes in the works
In addition, more regulatory changes to FMLA are forthcoming. DOL will be issuing recommendations for additional amendments on February 11. According to Human Resources Executive, it is expected that DOL recommendations might address the difficulties posed by intermittent leave and might strengthen the definition of "serious medical condition." It is also anticipated that employees will be required to request FMLA-related leave two days prior to taking time off, a change from the current system in which employees can be absent for two days before requesting the leave be designated as FMLA leave.

Once the new recommendations are issued, final regulations will need to be approved, a process that could take 90 days or longer. Once approved, Congress has up to 60-days to review the rules. As the HRE article points out, "That means a new Congress next year could reject what the Congress this year approved."

At least one of the authors of the original FMLA legislation would like to see even more changes. Senator Christopher Dodd wants to strengthen the law to give Americans 8 weeks paid leave after having a child or during a family illness. Dodd contends that millions of workers do not take advantage of FMLA because they can't afford time off without pay. He also notes that 128 countries provide paid and job-protected maternity leave, with an average paid leave of sixteen weeks. Dodd has made several prior attempts to expand FMLA to include paid leave but has met with little success. Time will tell whether a Congressional party shift and change in administration would create a more favorable climate for such a proposal.

Employer advice from legal experts
Meanwhile, legal experts are advising that employers act expeditiously to amend their FMLA policies and practices to reflect the changes. And the employment law firm Littler Mendelson also reminds employers that in addition to these changes, employers may face other obligations under state laws:

"Employers should be aware that time off under this new legislation may be in addition to family leave available under state law. Several states have now passed legislation providing their residents with unpaid family military leave. These states include California, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, and New York. Other states, including Hawaii and Wisconsin, have family military leave legislation currently pending before their respective state legislatures. Employers also should be aware of applicable state statutes and modify their leave policies as appropriate. The family military leave laws do not purport to affect an employee's right to any other legally-mandated leave or employee benefit, including the additional leave benefits now available to employees under the Amendment."

Posted by Julie Ferguson on February 7, 2008 at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Are you having trouble retaining employees? You may want to check the stress level at your organization. When asked about reasons for leaving a job, stress was cited as the top reason by 37 percent of the employee respondents in a recent 2007/2008 Global Strategic Rewards study conducted by Watson Wyatt Worldwide and WorldatWork. Yet employers seem relatively oblivious to the role that stress plays in their employees' decisions to stay or leave a job: stress does not even make the list of the top five reasons cited by employers.

The purpose of the study was to examine how employers are tackling attraction and retention issues and reward management. The study encompassed nearly 1,000 companies in 22 countries, in conjunction with a survey of more than 13,000 workers at mid-size to large employers.

Two of three companies worldwide report difficulty attracting top-performing workers, while a full 70 percent reported that they have difficulty attracting critical-skill employees. At 11 percent, the U.S. has the highest median voluntary turnover rate.

Employee view - top 5 reasons
Stress levels - 37 percent
Base pay - 33 percent
Promotion opportunity - 26 percent
Career development opportunities - 23 percent
Work/life balance - 22 percent

Employer view - top 5 reasons
Base pay - 52 percent
Career development opportunities - 47 percent
Promotion opportunity - 5 percent
Relationship with supervisor/manager - 35 percent
Work/life balance - 24 percent

But the stress climate of an organization was not just a strong reason cited for turnover, an acceptable stress level was also cited as a reason for staying with an organization and recommending it to others:

The study found that when employees are satisfied with stress levels and work/life balance, 86 percent are more inclined to stay with their company (versus 64 percent when dissatisfied) and 88 percent are more likely to recommend it as a place to work (versus 55 percent when dissatisfied).

"Worldwide, the frenetic pace of modern business is taking its toll on employees," said Adam Sorensen, global total rewards practice leader at WorldatWork. "There's no question that employees are more likely to leave or speak badly of their workplace if they feel overburdened. Companies that take steps to ensure that stress levels are not onerous will save money in the long run by reducing attrition."

The survey notes that with such a misunderstanding of the actual reasons for dissatisfaction, some of the actions that employers are taking to attract and retain employees may be counterproductive.

Other study findings
The full report - Playing to Win in a Global Economy (PDF) - offers other findings as well. Results are segmented into global and U.S - specific findings. In addition to a disconnect between employers and employees in the reasons for leaving, some other key U.S. findings include:

• Employers report difficulty in attracting and retaining employees—particularly, top-performing and critical-skill employees—for the fourth year in a row.
• As employers continue to manage their cost structures, they are putting more money into variable pay and raising the bar for performance.
• Merit-increase budgets for 2007 remained relatively stable, at an average 3.6 percent, and are expected to rise only slightly, to 3.7 percent, in 2008.
• Highly engaged employees are more than twice as likely to be top performers than are other employees.

Posted by Julie Ferguson on November 27, 2007 at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We recently came upon a great LA Times article by Melissa Healy on the topic of caregivers
and the high toll they pay for the role they play in supporting family members. This is a topic that interests us greatly—our EAP deals with an increasing number of workers who are dealing with the stress or strain of caring for an ill, elderly, or special needs family member. According to the article, about one in every six people is a caregiver and as the Baby Boomers advance in age, that number is expected to increase. Add to that the numbers who will be caring for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan wars, many profoundly injured either physically or mentally. The scope of the caregiving issue is significant enough that it prompted the EEOC to recently issue new caregiver guidelines for employers. Many caregivers are elderly themselves—about 30% fall in this category. Many others are sandwiched between caring for elderly relatives and providing child care, a double burden. Most caregivers are employed and the weight of their responsibilities takes a high toll on many aspects of their lives, including their work. Caregiving is an issue employers need to tackle head-on—according to a survey by The MetLife Mature Market Institute, which tracks aging, retirement and elder-care issues for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., the cost of caregivers in the workplace may be as high as $33.6 billion a year in missed days, early departures, and on-the-job distractions. The heavy responsibilities of caring for ill or elderly family members also increases the chances that the caregivers themselves will experience financial, physical, and emotional problems. Many are forced to put their own career goals on hold or work reduced hours, and the health risks associated with caregiving are high:

"A 2003 study found that family members caring for those with dementia suffered suppressed levels of immunity for three years following their stint of caregiving, raising their risk of developing a chronic disease themselves. Other surveys have found that compared with the general population, caregivers—especially those with intensive caregiving demands and those already in fair or poor health—are less likely than their noncaregiving peers to attend to their own healthcare needs, less likely to exercise or see their doctor regularly and more likely to eat poorly and drink alcohol excessively."

How employers can help
Many companies are experimenting with innovative approaches to supporting caregivers. Many large organizations, such as IBM and Raytheon, are offering caregiver wellness programs focused on teaching caregivers how to effectively cope with their responsibilities and maintain their own physical and mental health. Here are some of our suggestion for things that employers can do to support the caregivers in their workplace:

• Assess the issue in your work force. Take a survey to learn the extent of the caregiving responsibilities in your workplace so that you understand the pressure points and can plan the most appropriate response for your employees.
• Train managers and supervisors to be sensitive to and alert for workers with caregiving responsibilities and to direct these employees to appropriate support resources, such as an EAP.
• Learn about and publicize local caregiving resources that can provide practical assistance, such as meals on wheels, transportation services and and adult day care. Publicize these resources in your organization's newsletter or intranet.
• Examine your organization's policies on flexible work hours and work-at-home options. Consider offering your employees more options on when, where, and how they accomplish their work responsibilities.
• Consider expanding work/life benefits. If you don't have an EAP that offers work/life and caregiving resources, consider adding one. Research benefit options, such as access to temporary emergency dependent care or paid leave for caregivers that goes beyond FMLA standards, or voluntary time banks where other workers can donate unused sick or vacation time to to caregiving or ill co-workers.

Posted by Julie Ferguson on July 27, 2007 at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Lately, there's been a spate of grim headlines about domestic violence resulting in deaths: the professional wrestler who killed his wife and young son and then himself, and the pregnant Ohio mother who was murdered, allegedly by the father of her child. Domestic violence is certainly nothing new but, occasionally, high profile cases such as these bring the issue to the forefront.

Because we spend so much time at work, colleagues and supervisors are often in a unique position to spot signs of domestic violence and employer can often play a critical role in directing the employee to help through referrals to an EAP or other community resource. In the past, the "none of my business" type of thinking often prevailed, but today employers know that problems at home rarely stay at home. All too often, domestic abuse comes right to the workplace:

• Homicide is the leading cause of death for women in the workplace.
• Of the approximately 1.7 million incidents of workplace violence that occur in the US every year, 18,700 are committed by an intimate partner: a current or former spouse, lover, partner, or boyfriend/girlfriend.
• Lost productivity and earnings due to intimate partner violence accounts for almost $1.8 billion each year.
• Intimate partner violence victims lose nearly 8.0 million days of paid work each year - the equivalent of more than 32,000 full-time jobs and nearly 5.6 million days of household productivity.

The Family Violence Prevention Fund identifies an annotated list of seven reasons why employers should address domestic violence. Here's a quick summary:

1. Domestic violence affects many employees.
2. Domestic violence is a security and liability concern.
3. Domestic violence is a performance and productivity concern.
4. Domestic violence is a health care concern.
5. Domestic violence is a management issue.
6. Taking action in response to domestic violence works.
7. Employers can make a difference.

The site also offers an excellent list of case histories of what some progressive employers are doing to combat domestic violence and suggests actions that both large and small employers can take to combat domestic violence.

Some of the basic things that employers can do include:

• Instituting a workplace zero-tolerance policy for workplace violence
• Providing secure work environments
• Raising awareness of the problem by educating your employee
• Reminding employees that help is available for domestic violence
• Training managers and supervisors to be alert for potential signs of domestic abuse
• Having referral protocols and resources in place for employees who need help - preferably an EAP or a social service experienced in dealing with domestic abuse

New York's Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence offers a Domestic Violence Model Workplace Policy Initiative with specific Guidelines for Employers along with a model policy for private employers.

Some other good resources include:
American Institute on Domestic Violence
Safe@Work
Delaware Coalition Against Domestic Violence
The Corporate Alliance to End Domestic Violence

Posted by Julie Ferguson on June 28, 2007 at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Last week, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued new guidance for employers on Unlawful Disparate Treatment of Workers With Caregiving Responsibilities. Some employers and legal observers question whether this represents a step in the direction of increased regulation in the area of family responsibilities discrimination.

EEOC guidance notes that while laws prohibiting discrimination do not specifically extend to caregivers, there may be circumstances in which discrimination against caregivers could be considered unlawful disparate treatment under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, or the Family and Medical Leave Act. There may also be state or local laws that extend protection to caretakers under various provisions.

In issuing the guidance, the EEOC cites the demographic shift in the work force over the last four decades since the Civil Rights law was enacted, most notably the increase in working women who continue to shoulder the bulk of caregiving responsibilities. Caregiving responsibilities are defined as including care for school-age children, care for the disabled, and, increasingly with the aging of the Baby Boomers, care for aging parents and relatives.

EEOC guidance encompasses the following areas:

• Sex-based disparate treatment of female caregivers
• Pregnancy discrimination
• Discrimination against male caregivers
• Discrimination against women of color
• Unlawful caregiver stereotyping under the Americans with Disabilities Act
• Hostile work environments
• Retaliation

Tresa Baldas of Law.com discusses the EEOC guidance and the issue of family responsibility discrimination (FRD), which is "a legal and social science term that experts have coined for the growing phenomenon of employees suing employers for discriminating against them because of their caregiving responsibilities at home." She notes that because federal laws do not specifically prohibit such discrimination, employees with grievances file suit under a variety of existing federal and state laws:

"During the past decade, the courts have seen a significant increase in FRD claims, from 97 cases in 1996 to 481 in 2005, according to a University of California Hastings College of the Law study. And FRD cases—won by plaintiffs more than 50 percent of the time, according to the study —have yielded several multimillion-dollar verdicts and settlements."

The article, well worth reading, discusses the growing pressure on employers to accommodate employees with family obligations while balancing the demands of specific jobs. Baldas reports that EEOC officials deny that the guidance is an attempt to establish a new class of discrimination claims or to bolster plaintiffs' lawsuits: " 'We're not creating any new category under the EEOC laws ... . We're looking to the extent that the existing laws apply to work-life balance issues,' said EEOC vice chairwoman Leslie Silverman."

One resource in this area is the The Center for Work Life Law from Hastings College of the Law, University of CA. Their site offers resources for preventing family responsibilities discrimination, including court decisions and a model employer policy for discrimination prevention. The Center also has an affiliated WorkLife law Blog. (We thank Richard Bales of Workplace Prof Blog for the pointer - another site worth visiting for this and a multitude of other employment law-related topics. )

Posted by Julie Ferguson on June 1, 2007 at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)