Benefits Buzz

Flu Prevention--Mostly Common Sense, but Do Your Benefits Policies Support It?

The Chicago Tribune's cover of the Sunday business section has a story, like dozens we're seeing now, about Firms bracing for a rash of flu absences. While I hope the H1N1 flu season doesn't prove to be much worse than a typical flu season, most companies (and certainly the major media) are already assuming the worse.

What struck me from this Tribune article was the prevention advice: 

Tips for H1N1 flu prevention and treatment

-- Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze.

-- Wash your hands often with soap and water, or use alcohol-based sanitizers, especially after you cough or sneeze.

-- Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth to limit the spread of germs.

-- Avoid close contact with sick people.

-- If sick, stay home for seven days after your symptoms begin or until you have been symptom-free for 24 hours, whichever is longer.

-- Follow public health advice regarding school closings, avoiding crowds and other social-distancing measures.

-- Get both the seasonal and H1N1 flu vaccinations, when available. This is especially important for pregnant women, caregivers to infants and health care personnel.

-- If you contract swine flu, talk to your doctor about antiviral medications Tamiflu and Relenza, which can lessen the duration and severity of the illness.

-- For more information visit flu.gov.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Pretty much all common sense, right? The first 5 tips especially are behaviors that make sense ALL the time--not just when there's a pandemic. But, no matter how much the CDC says it, and no matter how much we all know it makes sense, how many people actually stay home when they are sick? (Let alone for seven days!?!!?)

This isn't all about company policy (it is also a lot about individual choices) but, there are a ton of benefit programs and policy factors at play here--time off programs, sick leave, coverage for preventive care, short-term disability policies, family leave, access to child care, the list goes on and on. A company can't be successful with the message "please stay home when you're sick" if they don't have the policies, business process and culture that allow for that.

While many companies have moved from separate sick, holiday and vacation banks to one single "Paid time off" for flexibility, those policies may unintentionally encourage people to work when they are sick. Would you rather come into the office with the sniffles or take a day off of your upcoming vacation to Maui?

What if furloughs have drained people's vacation and PTO banks this year? How will you encourage workers to stay home when they're sick if they are going to have to take a pay cut to do it? Do your policies support parents who may need to stay home with sick kids?

And, what about hourly and low-wage workers? How do you encourage them to take time off if being sick for a week may mean not being able to make rent that month?

Think about the business culture too. Do the work requirements of a specific line of business set the expectation that no one can ever miss a day? How many knowledge workers still come into the office when they're sick even though they have laptops and cell phones, because they don't have a good relationship with their manager? How many managers don't really understand the time off and benefit policies in the first place?

Lots of questions and no easy answers. And, much at stake as we know the cost of lost productivity and absenteeism. As you plan for the flu season, look deeper--beyond common sense communication and business planning--are your benefits programs, policies and business culture truly supporting the health of your workforce this flu season? Or, are they discrediting your message and encouraging exactly the opposite behaviors you need?

Editor's Note - Jennifer Benz is founder and chief strategist at Benz Communications, a boutique consulting firm that focuses on employee benefits communication. You can reach her at jen@benzcommunications.com or via Twitter @jenbenz. 

Do It Pro Bono: Getting the Most Benefit From Time Off to Volunteer

Volunteering is definitely hot right now. President Obama has made it part of his national agenda and laid-off workers are flooding nonprofits with applications to volunteer. Many many companies have time off to volunteer as part of their benefits program and vocal companies like Salesforce.com tout their volunteering + donations so much that they even teach other organizations how to follow their model.

But, what's really exciting (and, just in time for National Volunteer Week), is the growing appreciation that giving employees time off to volunteer is not only good for the community, but good for your employees--and good for business.

Talent Management's April cover story Volunteerism’s Impact on Talent Management says it all:

"Organizations should encourage, value and support extracurricular volunteer efforts, not just because it is the right thing to do but because these volunteer activities will increase employee engagement, underscore the employer brand, support recruitment and retention initiatives, and develop valuable workplace skills that ultimately will help the employer succeed."

Now, that sounds like a business case any CFO can appreciate.

Limeade, a wellness company, is taking that one step further and linking volunteer efforts to productivity in their health risk assessment. Instead of just asking employees for their BMIs and cholesterol levels, Limeade asks the employee what he or she wants to achieve--from health to social to career goals--and lets the employee pick up to three. "Giving back" is one of these. Others are things like "get more sleep" and "have more energy."

Henry Albrecht, the CEO of Limeade, says that Giving Back option is there because it is linked to higher productivity. "Giving Back is a goal on the Limeade assessment because altruism predicts better business and personal performance. Including factors like these allows Limeade to predict more than 10 times the variability in productivity than just looking at health factors alone. It's about being a high-performance company--not just flagging health risks and 'singling out the costly.' Our own rigorous statistical analysis shows that 'Concern for Others' predicts both productivity and well-being (both of which are connected to other positive business outcomes like profits and customer satisfaction)." 

So, volunteering can increase engagement, develop talent, improve recruiting efforts and even bump up profits and customer satisfaction. Wow. But, how do you get the most bang for your volunteering buck? Two ways:

--Promote your volunteering benefits. (And, promote your donation and gift-matching programs, too--they're all benefits!) This seems like a no-brainer, but plenty of companies give their employees 2 or 3 days a year off to volunteer and then forget to remind their employees to take the time off. Or, worse, their demanding work environment doesn't allow for it. Promote this benefit--and encourage managers to do the same. (If your company doesn't have this benefit, now is a great time to add it!)

--Encourage pro bono work as the most valuable way to volunteer and link those volunteer opportunities to learning and development. Pro bono projects use employees' professional skills. I would never discourage volunteer work like cleaning up parks or building homes for Habitat for Humanity, but pro bono work has so much more potential to engage and develop employees--and pro bono work also delivers the most value to the nonprofit sector, which is desperately in need of the skills your employees have. Most people find donating their unique skills more rewarding than "stuffing envelopes" and other fewer-skills-required jobs. And, pro bono projects and pro bono consulting can often be integrated into employees' day-to-day work rather than having to take everyone off-site for a day or two for a concentrated volunteer project. Need some inspiration? Check out how Umpqua Bank quantifies the impact of all of their associates volunteering (they have nearly 70% participation!).

Not linking time off to volunteer to learning and development is a huge missed opportunity. From the 2008 Deloitte Volunteer IMPACT Survey, a nationwide survey for Fortune 500 HR pros: "Fully 91 percent of respondents agree that skills-based volunteering (which involves the contribution of business knowledge and experience to help nonprofits increase their capacity) would add value to training and development programs, particularly as it relates to fostering business and leadership skills.  However, only 16 percent make it a regular practice to intentionally offer these opportunities for employee development, suggesting a missed opportunity to boost learning in a way that offers substantial benefits."

More on that from the Talent Management article: As Peter F. Drucker wrote in the article "Managing Knowledge Means Managing Oneself," "The real development I've seen of people in organizations, especially in big ones, comes from their being volunteers in a nonprofit organization. I hope we will soon begin to talk about the nonprofit organization as the great social opportunity for business. It is the opportunity for business to develop managers far more effectively than any company or university can. It is one of the unique benefits that the social sector can offer."

Did you hear that? Pro bono work provides opportunities to develop managers far more effectively than any company or university can! (And, hey, it is way cheaper than an MBA.)

Pro bono work also has the ability to elevate everyday professionals to hero status, especially when you're helping organizations that are solving some of society's most challenging problems. That is the theme of a new childrens' book Mommy and Daddy Do It Pro Bono. Written by Aaron Hurst, the founder of The Taproot Foundation, an organization that engages professionals in pro bono work across the country, and his wife, Kara Hurst, a global corporate social responsibility leader, the book shows what typical professionals look like through the eyes of children--and how significant pro bono work can be. It is a fun look at the impact of volunteer work not just on the organizations and individuals involved, but as a way to be a role model in every profession.

It is also the first children's book to feature an HR Manager--perhaps the best roll model in a company for the value of pro bono work (especially since nonprofits need HR help now more than ever). And, it is on sale, just in time for National Volunteer Week, and just in time for you to add a promo about your volunteer time off program to your next benefits update.

Author's note - A big thank you to Liz Guthridge, Charlotte Graeber and Chip Abernathy who provided me with some of the examples above via Twitter.

Editor's Note - Jennifer Benz is founder and chief strategist at Benz Communications, a boutique consulting firm that focuses on employee benefits communication. She admits to not being even slightly impartial on the topic of pro bono work, having been involved with the Taproot Foundation since 2002.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's the crux of the case from BusinessWeek:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's the crux of the case from BusinessWeek:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ralph Kramden would never approve...

I'm Off Today - If You Are Working, See How Your Holiday Policy Stacks Up....

I'm off today, so if you are reading this on Christmas Eve, welcome to the world of automation. 

If you're working today, I suspect it's going to be a light productivity day for you.  So, you may as well dig into the details about what workers across the country receive in the way of official paid holidays.  From AL.com, examining the 13 official holidays in the state of Alabama:

"The Bureau of Labor Statistics survey, released in August, said the average number of paid holidays per year, for private-sector workers who get paid holidays, was seven in businesses with 99 or fewer workers and nine in larger businesses. The survey said 12 percent of full-time workers in the private sector don't get paid holidays."

Not really sure what to make of the numbers, since comparing one staple of Paid Time Off (with the other components being vacation, personal day and sick time as well as official holidays) is basically useless.

For example, I thought for a split second about getting on my high horse regarding Alabama actually granting some workers Fat Tuesday (that's Mardi Gras parade day for you teetotalers), but then I reconsidered.  After all, the State of Alabama has 13 paid holidays, which sounds like a lot, but I don't know if they grant any personal days.  If I add up my company's official holidays (7) and personal days (7), I have 14 days, half of which I can take when I need them.

If the state workers in Alabama have 13 paid holidays but no personal days and vacation and sick time schedules are comparable, I have a better benefit.  I can use half of the holiday/personal days when I want to.   So I got that going for me, which is nice (hat tip to Bill Murray in Caddyshack).

If you're working, here's hoping you're out of there by at least 2pm.  Merry Christmas.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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